Retail

New York / AFP Amazon has been making moves over the past few months to position itself as a force in the ready-to-wear fashion world. The Seattle-based online retail titan has already revolutionised how consumers shop and has been selling clothes for more than a decade. In 2006, it bought the site Shopbop and snapped up online footwear go-to Zappos …

Bloomberg Not every milestone is worth celebrating. For the first time ever — or at least since the company went public some 45 years ago — Walmart’s revenues shrank from the year before, according to its recently released annual financial filing. Walmart is clearly having trouble adapting its gigantic stores to the internet age. To be sure, it is a …

FRANKFURT / Reuters Amazon is in talks with a consortium of German carmakers about taking a stake in high-definition digital mapping company HERE, two auto industry sources familiar with the matter said. Last August, BMW, Audi and Mercedes agreed to pay 2.5 billion euros ($2.8 billion) to buy Nokia’s mapping business as part of plans to develop self-driving cars. Since …

Bloomberg Home Retail Group Plc said its board will unanimously recommend J Sainsbury Plc’s 1.4 billion-pound ($2 billion) bid after South African retailer Steinhoff International Holdings NV withdrew from the battle to acquire the Argos owner. The announcement effectively ends a protracted takeover saga that began on January 5 when Sainsbury first disclosed its interest. After weeks of wrangling over …

Bloomberg Kenya Airways, the east African country’s struggling national airline, is to cut up to 600 jobs as part of a bid to achieve $200 million in savings, the airline. The reductions at the airline, partly owned by the government as well as Air France KLM, could see around 15 percent of the 4,000-strong workforce cut. As part of efforts …

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc.’s relaunch of its online payments business in 2013 was greeted with scepticism. PayPal Holdings Inc. had a huge head start and credit card companies like Visa Inc. already had products that made buying something on the Web as easy as swiping a card. It seemed doubtful digital shop owners would want to team up with Amazon and …

Frankfurt / AFP German retail sales, a closely watched measure of household confidence, declined in February, as consumer morale in Europe’s top economy feels the heat from global economic risks, official data showed on Thursday. Retailers’ sales fell by 0.4 percent in February compared with January, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. The previous month, retail sales …

TOKYO / Reuters Japan plans a wave of new gas-fired power stations as the country’s electricity retail market opens up from April 1, allowing new entrants to compete for a market of 85 million customers with annual sales of about $70 billion. In the biggest shakeup in the industry’s history in Japan, regional utilities are losing their monopoly rights for …

Frankfurt / AFP German retail giant Metro announced it will spin off its businesses into two separately listed units, sending its shares sharply higher. “The management board of Metro is preparing the creation of two independent and sector-focused companies through a demerger of the group,” Metro said in a statement. Metro shares were the strongest performer on the mid-cap MDAX …

Bloomberg Seven & i Holdings Co. will meet this week to discuss leadership succession, days after billionaire activist investor Dan Loeb warned Japan’s largest retailer against creating a family dynasty, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The company’s nomination and compensation committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified …