UK: Spar Scotland unveils new truck livery
Spar Scotland has introduced a new livery on 20 lorries to mark the symbol group’s continued sponsorship of athletics. The livery features the European Athletics Indoor Championship branding and promotes the event which takes place in Glasgow from 1-3 March. The branding is part of a large scale campaign Spar Scotland is rolling out as part of its sponsorship and commitment to encouraging an active, healthy lifestyle. CJ Lang and Son marketing manager, Paula Middleton, said: “The roll-out of this new livery across the Spar Scotland fleet reflects our commitment to European indoor athletics and Spar as principal sponsor. These 20 lorries will travel thousands of miles delivering to Spar stores all over Scotland. We are thrilled to be able to show our support and promoting the event taking place in Glasgow.”
Source: talkingretail.com
Spain: Araven helps boost hygiene credentials of shopping carts
Araven, a leading manufacturer of shopping carts and baskets, offers a proven means of reducing microbial contamination from shopping carts with its pioneering antibacterial handle. A recent research paper by the University of Zaragoza: "Evaluation of microbial contamination in shopping carts" found that innovative treatments, such as the one implemented by Araven, can lead to the total elimination of up to 99.99% of bacteria, yeasts, and mould, preventing the transfer of micro-organisms that are harmful to health. The research study on the effectiveness of these handles focused specifically on the Loop 160-litre model, the first cart to be fitted as standard with an antimicrobial handle. The study determined that microbial populations on Araven carts remain at undetectable levels after five months of use, meaning Araven can guarantee virtually zero risk of bacterial transmission from a shopping cart, and offer peace of mind to shoppers.
Source: esmmagazine.com
Northern Ireland: Iceland chooses Belfast for first in-store reverse vending machine trial
Retailer Iceland launched the first in-store reverse vending machine in Northern Ireland as it looks to continue its efforts to reduce the impact of single use plastics on the environment. The frozen food specialist will be trialling the machine for six months at its Belfast's Park Centre store to further understand consumer appetite for the scheme. The installation follows the supermarket's announcement of its UK-first trial of in-store reverse vending machines, which saw more than 310,000 plastic bottles recycled over a six-month period.
Source: irishnews.com
Bol.com to open office in Belgium
Ahold Delhaize reported: Bol.com, our online retailer based in the Netherlands, announced that it plans to open a branch office in Antwerp this spring to better serve the 2,000 Belgian retailers who sell products on the bol.com platform and create more opportunities to collaborate with local partners. Almost half the items sold on bol.com now come from Dutch or Belgian partners and this share is expected to increase. These entrepreneurs - including physical retailers who partially outsource their eCommerce activities and fully online players who sell via bol.com to extend their market - can grow substantially through the platform, which is available to millions of consumers in in the Netherlands and Belgium. Further, with logistics from bol.com, they can stock products in the brand’s fulfilment center and offer a range of delivery options. "At bol.com, 2mln Belgian consumers are now shopping with us, and we want to serve them as well as possible”, said Sacha Buyck, Manager Belgium. “We like to do that together with local players, because we believe that cooperation is the key to satisfied customers.
Source: aholddelhaize.com
Germany: Kaufhof plans 2,600 job cuts after weak Christmas sales
German department store chain Kaufhof is to cut 2,600 full-time jobs in the wake of its merger with Karstadt, Signa Holding, one of the company’s owners, said in a statement. Kaufhof is owned by Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Co and Austria’s Signa Holding. The statement said the cuts were needed as part of a restructuring to cut costs following weak Christmas sales.
Source: reuters.com
Holland: Sligro profits tripled
The Dutch Sligro Food Group has tripled its profits in the past year, thanks to the sale of its supermarket branch to Jumbo and Coop. On a comparable basis, the company's results are at the same level as last year. The wholesaler has made a net profit of 276mln euros in 2018: well over three times the 81mln of the previous year. On the other hand, profit from continuous business activities went down from 76mln to 46mln. The company's EBIT was 53mln euros: down 42 % as there were one-time costs such as the sale of the Emté supermarkets. Discounting those, it comes down to 82mln euros: slightly lower than 2017's 91mln, but that amount included a non-recurring income of 9mln euros.
Source: retaildetail.eu
China: Sam’s Club plans 40 more stores
Sam’s Club China plans 40 more stores across China by the end of the year - with online sales anticipated to account for 13–15% of its income throughout the territory by that time. The company says it will shortly launch a Sam’s Club store in Shanghai’s Qingpu, the second in Shanghai for the brand, which first opened in the city eight years ago in Pudong. Sam’s Club operates as a members-only retail chain with a 2mln strong membership. “As we expand our business across China we also want to control quality and to make sure shoppers enjoy the shopping experience”, said president of Sam’s Club China Andrew Miles.
Source: insideretail.asia
Retailer Carrefour testing in France model to eliminate disposable packaging
Carrefour is testing in France a model which completely eliminates disposable packaging with the LOOP solution. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Terracycle (www.terracycle.fr), in partnership with Carrefour and some of the world’s biggest consumer goods brands, announced the launch of the Loop concept - the first e-commerce distribution model based on a deposit system. The Loop concept involves offering consumers an alternative to single-use packaging in a bid to get ever closer to zero waste and thus reduce the amount of pollution caused by plastics.
Source: uk.reuters.com
US: Big Y makes executive changes to support ambitious growth plans
Massachusetts-based Big Y Foods announced a series of leadership changes, including a new CEO, better positioning the family-owned company to support its strategic growth plans. Charles L. D’Amour has been appointed CEO and will continue his role as company president. His cousin and current chairman and CEO Donald H. D’Amour will transition out of his day-to-say responsibilities and become an advisor to the board. Donald and Charles are cousins and sons of the company’s two original founders, Paul and Gerald D’Amour. Other changes in the C-suite include: Michael P. D’Amour, Donald D'Amour's son, has added the COO title to his current responsibilities, which includes serving as executive vice president; Guy W. McFarlane, the chain's vice president of fresh foods since 2011, has been promoted to senior vice president of sales and marketing; Richard D. Bossie, formerly director of store operations and a 30-year employee with Big Y, has been promoted to senior vice president of operations and customer service; and Nicole D’Amour Schneider has been named vice president of supermarket operations with a focus on the supermarket division.
Source: grocerydive.com
US: New Asian grocery seeks taste of ‘Hema’
Asian grocer iFresh Inc. has opened a new location in Carle Place, New York, that the company says takes inspiration from Alibaba Group’s much-buzzed-about “New Retail” concepts - including foods prepared on-site and integrated online shopping as demonstrated in the Chinese retailer’s Hema/Freshippo stores. The 23,000-square-foot iFresh location, the site of a former Golfsmith store, is located amid a hub of Asian restaurants near Long Island’s Roosevelt Field Mall. Long Island City, New York-based iFresh operates 12 supermarkets on the East Coast along with wholesale and importing businesses focused mainly on Chinese shoppers.
Source: winsightgrocerybusiness.com
US: Instacart CEO reaffirms IPO is 'definitely' on the horizon
Once part of the team at Amazon, Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta is now up against the e-commerce giant. Instacart, the popular on-demand grocery delivery startup, is pushing forward despite the December announcement its partnership with Whole Foods Market is ending. The company is valued at nearly $8bln after raising $271mln in new funding in November and is expected to file for an IPO sometime soon. "An IPO is definitely on the horizon for us", Mehta recently told CNN Business. "As we think about building a long-term company, we think being a public company allows us to do that in the best possible way."
Source: edition.cnn.com
US: Shipt and Target expand same-day delivery in Hawaii
Shipt, a leading same-day delivery marketplace, and Target Corporation announced they will begin same-day delivery of more than 55,000 groceries, electronics, toys and other household essentials in Hilo, Honolulu, Kahului and Kailua, Hawaii metro areas beginning on February 7, 2019. Shipt’s growth to the area gives more than 300,000 households in Hawaii access to products delivered by Shipt’s network of personal shoppers in as soon as one hour. “Whether you’re a local doing your weekly shopping, or you’re traveling and forgot a vacation essential, Shipt will make shopping more convenient for residents and visitors alike.” said Bill Smith, founder and chief executive officer, Shipt. “Through our app, our members have access to everything they need, when they need it, right at their fingertips.”
Source: globenewswire.com
US: Walmart tests new payments approach to up online conversions
Walmart is testing out a new solution designed to automatically address soft declines on its eCommerce site. Walmart Labs, the technology arm of Walmart, discovered that most declined purchases on the retail giant’s site were soft declines, which are credit card rejections due to generic issuer errors such as server timeout or issuer unavailability. While the site usually sends a customer back to the payment page to re-enter their credit card information after a soft decline, many customers ultimately decide to abandon their rejected purchases. “To save the orders dropped off from Soft Declines, we implemented a feature that automatically resends the same card/name/address information the customer had previously entered after the payment receives a Soft Decline”, wrote Ling Jing, product analytics manager, payments, in a blog post. “The response of the automatic attempt overwrites the initial Soft Decline status. This version retries once, and the response on the auto retry is the final status of the attempt and was tested against the original version using Expo.” The final results of the test showed that the solution resulted in an incremental lift in gross merchandise volume (GMV) per visitor for credit card payments on Walmart.com. In addition, historical data showed that orders with high basket size were more likely to be soft declined, so the automatic retry has helped to authorize these orders.
Source: pymnts.com