Retail

Bloomberg As brick-and-mortar retailers struggle to remain relevant in the new world of e-commerce, they’re hiring fewer seasonal workers. That’s according to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., which shows October employment gains fell 8 percent from last year—a result of fewer hiring announcements from companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The report shows that seasonal retail hiring has ...

Bloomberg Burberry Group Plc’s long-awaited strategy update from its new boss failed to convince investors, who sent the shares tumbling the most in five years on concern the trench-coat maker is sacrificing future earnings to sharpen the brand’s image. The shares fell as much as 14 percent after Chief Executive Officer Marco Gobbetti said the London-based company will add accessories ...

Bloomberg About a half-hour south of Paris, a uniquely American import has opened for business. The store’s aisles brim with beauty and bulk, side by side. One-kilogram (2.2 pound) wheels of Mont D’Or cheese sit near $5,509 Breitling watches. The Yanks demand that the locals fork over an annual fee of $42 just to walk in the door. France, meet ...

Bloomberg Tiffany & Co. is hoping its customers will pay $1,000 for a tin can. Well, it’s not a real tin can—it just looks like one. The container is actually made of sterling silver and vermeil, with a touch of Tiffany’s signature robin’s-egg blue in an enamel accent. This is Tiffany, after all. The can is one item in a ...

Bloomberg UK retail sales fell the most in seven months in October, indicating continued caution among consumers just before the crucial Christmas shopping season. The British Retail Consortium said sales fell 1 percent on a like-for-like basis and were up just 0.2 percent in total terms. In a separate report, Barclaycard said annual growth in household spending slowed to 2.4 ...

Bloomberg Etsy Inc. kept its word to investors and eked out a small boost in its growth rate by luring more shoppers and getting them to spend more on its site for unique, small-batch goods. Gross merchandise sales, the total value of goods that pass through Etsy’s platforms, grew 13 percent to $766.4 million in the third quarter—bigger than the ...

Bloomberg Ralph Lauren Corp., the 50-year-old fashion brand known for its preppy style, is making good on its effort to rely less on markdowns—even if it means selling fewer clothes. The company posted earnings of $1.99 a share last quarter, topping analysts’ average projection by a dime. Ralph Lauren credited its pursuit of higher-quality sales channels and fewer discounts. Still, ...

Bloomberg Kroger Co. wants to help out with your wardrobe. The largest US supermarket chain is launching an apparel line that it pledges will be “playful, simple and uplifting.” It will be sold in 300 stores, including Fred Meyer and Kroger Marketplace locations. Robert Clark, the company’s senior vice president of merchandising, said the brand “gives Kroger a chance to ...

Bloomberg The chiffon dress with the pasta print should have been the tipoff. In September, the iconoclastic Italian designer house Dolce & Gabbana sent a parade of food-oriented outfits down the runway at the Paris show for its Spring 2018 collection, including high-waisted, carrot-and-radish-printed pants, a ruffled dress emblazoned with cannoli, and a skirt printed with cans of tomatoes. Turns ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. is scaling back its grocery delivery service Amazon Fresh in parts of at least seven states, tweaking its strategy after buying Whole Foods Market in June. The states affected are New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut and California. Amazon launched the Fresh delivery service a decade ago in Seattle, which was its first foray into ...