Meetings between union leaders and Redcats UK failed to
save the jobs of the workers at Empire Stores. But
according to the
Yorkshire Evening Post, the number of redundancies is less
than 700, down from the original estimate of 850. Redcats had
planned to close Empire by early 2009 if it didn’t find a buyer
for the business; Littlewoods agreed to buy the assets but
discontinue the business.
Multi title cataloguer
Flying Brands suffered a 31 per cent decline in annual pretax
profit, to £3.6 million. Sales rose 9 per cent, to £46.3
million, due to its 2006 acquisition of Greetings Direct,
but like-for-like sales tumbled 13 per cent. The company also
announced that it would be launching Greetings Direct in the US
in June, following the brand’s success in Australia.
Amazon “has launched applications aimed at pulling
millions of Facebook users into its merchandising efforts, in a
further extension of a move by retailers towards online ‘social
shopping,’” reports the
Financial Times, which details the new Amazon Giver and
Amazon Grapevine apps.
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