Retail

  Bloomberg Swatch Group AG, the maker of Omega and Tissot timepieces, reported its lowest first-half profit in seven years as demand cratered in Hong Kong, France and Switzerland. First-half operating profit declined 54 percent to 353 million francs ($359 million), the Biel, Switzerland-based company said in a statement on Thursday. The company said last week that earnings at that …

  Bloomberg UK retail sales had their biggest drop in six months in June, adding to signs that the vote to leave the European Union is starting to bite. The volume of goods sold in stores and online dropped 0.9 percent, more than the 0.6 percent decline seen in a Bloomberg survey of economists, figures from the Office for National …

  New York / AP Macy’s is testing a mobile tool using artificial intelligence that lets shoppers get answers about the store they’re in — like where a particular brand is located or what’s in stock — that they would normally ask a sales associate face-to-face. The tool, which the nation’s largest department store chain calls a “mobile companion,” can be …

  Bloomberg India isn’t an easy place to build an e-commerce company. The vast, multilingual nation suffers from creaky infrastructure, a sometimes myopic bureaucracy and an ingrained distrust of the merchant class. Yet homegrown Flipkart Ltd. has managed the impossible with a blend of Silicon Valley smarts — its founders worked for Amazon.com Inc.; key hires were lured from the …

  Bloomberg With stores from near the Arctic to the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, Magnit PJSC would be the first to know when the Russian consumer is back. Instead, the nation’s largest supermarket chain has just come across something it’s never seen. Billionaire Sergey Galitskiy’s retailer, which operates almost 13,000 outlets in Russia, said the average purchase has fallen …

  Bloomberg Spotify, a digital music service provider, is tailoring its service for local tastes, from topical playlists to tiered pricing, as it prepares to expand its music streaming in Asia market. That strategy includes beefing up content such as Korean pop music popular in Southeast Asia and offering different payment methods in markets where credit cards are rare, said …

  RIO DE JANEIRO / AP New, stricter security checks were implemented in Brazilian airports this week, stalling travellers and delaying flights less than three weeks before Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympics. Starting early morning, long, chaotic lines formed at Congonhas regional airport in Brazil’s biggest city, Sao Paulo. Within a half-hour, more than 700 people were waiting on the …

  Washington / AP US consumer prices rose modestly in June as the costs of gasoline and rent kept climbing, while sales at American retailers registered a healthy gain. The Labour Department said that consumer prices increased 0.2 percent last month, matching the gain in May. Prices are up 1 percent from a year ago, well below the Federal Reserve’s 2 …

  Bloomberg After the strengthening yen forced Fast Retailing Co. to slash its full-year net income forecast by a quarter, the currency’s reversal along with signs of recovery in the company’s Uniqlo clothing business drove the shares up by their daily limit. The stock rose 18 percent to 32,660 yen at the close in Tokyo trading, the most since 1998, …

  Redmond / AP If you have fond memories of battling King Koopa or tossing barrels as Donkey Kong, you can relive them this fall. Nintendo is leaping into the nostalgia market by bringing back the classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The NES Classic edition comes complete with 30 built-in games, including all three “Super Mario Bros.,” ”Donkey Kong,” ”The Legend …