Hobbycraft has bolstered its management team with the hires of James Heese, formerly Argos’ trading director for toys, jewellery and leisure, as trading director and Katherine Paterson, formerly marketing director at B&Q, as customer development director. In the art and craft retailers latest annual financial results for the 52 weeks ending 19th February 2012, sales increased by 12 percent to £106.5 million, EBITDA increased by 9 per cent to
£15.6 million as well as a growth in its store estate to 61 shops with the opening of 10 new stores during the year.
The Sun reports that Comet is going to axe around 500 jobs early next week as administrators are set to close the chain’s entire home delivery operation. As a result, customers will now have to go to stores to pick up goods. Earlier this week some 330 Comet staff were made redundant, primarily from its head office and central functions such as finance and marketing roles.
John Lewis Partnership has been joined by Dixons Retail in opposing a UK tax system revealed to be unfit for purpose. The Telegraph reports the two retailers are complaining about how foreign-owned online retailers such as Amazon are legally allowed to avoid paying corporation tax.
According to the Scotsman, Asda, which is owned by US retail giant Walmart, has reported a slowdown in sales growth during the third quarter. The piece notes Asda’s like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to 29th September were 0.3 per cent higher than the same period last year, compared with year-on-year growth of 0.7 per cent in the second quarter.
In related news, a piece in the Guardian says a week of strikes and protests have been planned to disrupt Walmart during next week’s Black Friday, traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. Protests began this week with walk-outs at a number of stores and comes in the middle of controversy about plans by Walmart and other large chains to open on Thanksgiving evening.
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