Retail

Bloomberg Kroger Co., battered for months by intense grocery competition as Amazon.com Inc. muscles into the industry, has finally given investors cause for optimism. The supermarket giant kicked off its biggest rally in more than two years after saying it might sell its convenience-store business, an attempt to capitalise on a merger wave in that field. The operation, which spans …

Bloomberg The five heirs to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fortune became $5 billion richer after the world’s largest retailer said it expects US e-commerce sales to surge 40 percent in the next fiscal year. The forecast added 4.5 percent to Wal-Mart shares and pushed the combined net worth of Alice, Jim, Rob, Lukas and Christy Walton to $140 billion, according to …

Bloomberg Shopify Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tobi Lutke called a short seller that targeted his company a “troll,” in his first public response since being targeted by Andrew Left’s Citron Research recently. Left, who said he had taken a short position in the stock, published a report questioning the sustainability of the Canadian e-commerce company’s growth rate and calling its …

Bloomberg Ikea is planning to enter South America and expand in Southeast Asia in its quest to dominate the world’s home furnishings market. Those regions are on the Swedish company’s radar after entries into India and Latvia this year, Inter Ikea Holding said. Retail sales including all franchisees and customer services amounted to 38.3 billion euros ($45 billion) in the …

Bloomberg UK retailers are losing the battle against higher prices, potentially strengthening the case for the Bank of England to increase interest rates next month. A report on Tuesday from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG showed like-for-like sales increased 1.9 percent from a year earlier—a fourth straight month of gains. Still, the fastest growth since April was driven by …

Bloomberg As Amazon.com Inc. pushes into Southeast Asia with a new venture into Singapore, the online retailer is facing some tough hurdles. Shopping in air-conditioned malls is practically a national sport, and e-commerce rivals moved in long ago. Delivery delays also marred Amazon’s debut in July, when on-the-ground operations began with Prime Now two-hour deliveries. Even when including orders placed …

Bloomberg Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is simplifying the return process through its smartphone app, aiming to ease a major hassle of shopping in time for the holiday season. Beginning in early November, shoppers will be able to initiate the return of items bought online via the retailer’s app before going to the store. Once there, they’ll move through a dedicated express …

Bloomberg The company once known as the Netflix of snacks looks a bit more like Blockbuster video these days—but not in a bad way. Graze, which started selling snack boxes via online subscriptions in the UK a few years back, is for the first time generating a majority of its sales through physical stores—a reminder that food is still almost …

Bloomberg Sycamore Partners is betting on the ailing retail sector at a time when other investors are shying away. The buyout firm, which bought Staples Inc. last month, is trying to raise $4 billion for its biggest fund yet, two people with knowledge of the matter said. It’s planning to finish raising the money in January, one of the people …

Bloomberg US online retailers like Amazon.com Inc. stand to gain from the Trump administration’s push to throw open the doors for Canadians and Mexicans to buy American goods duty-free. The US is demanding Canada and Mexico raise the threshold at which duties are applied to purchases crossing the border, according to two people with knowledge of a proposal put forward …