Retail

  Bloomberg Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc is poised to take control of insolvent UK convenience-store chain McColl’s Retail Group Plc after a bidding war with gas station and convenience empire EG Group, according to people familiar with the matter. Morrison is purchasing McColl’s through a prepackaged administration, a form of UK insolvency proceeding. The plan is yet to be confirmed …

  Bloomberg The owners of Asda Group are considering piling debt onto the supermarket chain to raise the money to buy Boots, another fixture on UK high streets. Brothers Zuber and Mohsin Issa, alongside TDR Capital LLP, have discussed saddling the supermarket with as much as 4.5 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) of additional debt, on top of the multi-billion pound …

Bloomberg Adidas SE cut its profitability targets for this year and forecast a plunge in sales of sporting goods in China as the Covid Zero policy keeps stores shut. The company also said supply bottlenecks in Vietnam have reduced the availability of products, eroding sales. The shares fell as much as 6.8%, approaching a two-year low. A fifth of the …

  Bloomberg If you’re planning to send flowers for Mother’s Day, expect to pay more. Marie Noe, owner of A Bella Mia flower shop in Norwood, Massachusetts, has raised her prices by 24% across the board in the past three years to cover costs. Some items Noe has raised even more, citing an arrangement that used to sell for $59.99 …

  Bloomberg Shares of e-commerce companies from Etsy Inc to Shopify Inc tumbled after weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and forecasts deepened concern that the pace of online shopping has slowed. Etsy sank 17% after providing a second-quarter gross merchandise sales forecast that fell short of analyst expectations, while Canada’s Shopify dropped 15% in New York trading after merchandise volume and revenue …

Bloomberg New Jersey is the first state to ban both plastic and paper bags, leaving companies and shoppers to find creative workarounds to get their groceries home. ShopRite, with more than 100 New Jersey stores, will charge a flat $1.50 per order for reusable bags. Instacart Inc, which fulfills shoppers’ lists for Aldi Inc, Lidl Ltd, CVS Health Corp and …

  Bloomberg Amazon Inc makes it too hard and unnecessarily confusing to cancel subscriptions for services, some customers claimed in a lawsuit alleging the internet retailer is violating California’s rules on automatic renewal programs. The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco federal court by three California residents who say they signed up for free trials of Amazon services only to …

  Bloomberg Hong Kong’s retail sales plummeted 13.8% in March, the first back-to-back contraction in more than a year as stringent virus restrictions weighed heavily on the economy and crushed consumer spending. The fall in sales value from a year earlier was worse than the median estimate of a 12.6% decline expected by economists in a survey, though it was …

  Bloomberg Next Plc said store sales soared in the first quarter as they stayed open following the end of pandemic restrictions, even as inflation squeezes shoppers’ disposable income. The British clothing and housewares chain said sales jumped by 285% in a strong start as it reiterated that it expects annual pretax profit of $1.07 billion in the year through …

  Bloomberg Australian retail sales jumped for a third consecutive month to hit a record, driven by a spending revival on the nation’s flood-ravaged east coast and highlighting the economy’s strong underlying momentum. Sales surged 1.6% in March to A$33.6 billion ($23.9 billion), more than triple economists’ forecast for a 0.5% increase, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data showed. The …