Consumer electronics distributor Widget has acquired the majority stake in Dutch distributor Now Mobile for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition gives Widget a platform to expand into the Benelux market.
Amazon.co.uk is predicting that “Cyber Monday”, the UK’s busiest online shopping day, will be Monday, 3rd December. The highest volume of customer orders is expected to be placed at 9.20 pm. Last year on Cyber Monday, 5th December 2011, Amazon.co.uk received orders for more than 3 million items, a rate of around 35 items ordered per second over the 24-hour period. On average, at its peak, a delivery truck was leaving an Amazon UK fulfilment centre once every 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
Marks & Spencer has completed the new team structure in its general merchandise unit with the appointments of Frances Russell as director of womenswear and Janie Schaffer as director of lingerie and beauty. Russell’s appointment is an internal promotion, while Schaffer joins from Victoria’s
Secret where she was chief executive officer responsible for all clothing, lingerie and beauty products. The news comes as M&S delivered its half-yearly report, announcing a pretax profit decline of 10 per cent, from £321 million to £290 million. Trading during the half year was “volatile”, affected by the wet weather during the summer. Further, while the jubilee and the Olympics improved the nation’s mood, they did not translate into higher sales, the retailer noted.
The British Retail Consortium has revealed the worst sales growth for 11 months, sparking fears that Britain could, once again, plunge into recession. UK retail sales values were down 0.1 per cent on a like-for-like basis from October 2011, when they were down 0.6 per cent on the preceding year. Commenting on the results, the BRC’s director general Stephen Robertson said, “Unfortunately it looks like the modest sales revival we saw in September was something of a false dawn. Excluding April, hit by this year’s earlier Easter, October saw the worst sales growth since last November.” Worryingly, he added, “October’s poor performance wasn’t a one-off” and that the last three months now include “the two weakest growth rates we’ve recorded in four years.”
Rakuten, which owns Play.com in the UK, is to buy France-based eCommerce logistics business Alpha Direct Services. The acquisition marks
Rakuten’s first logistics investment outside of Japan and is set to strengthen its European business.
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