LoveHoney, the online retailer of sex toys, is
entering the home-party market with a “6-figure
investment” in lingerie and sex toy party-plan company,
BlueBella.
TV-shopping business Colourful Company Group has
agreed to buy rival station Gems TV UK for
£3 million, reports the Birmingham Post. Colourful Company Group was
founded by Steve Bennett, one of the original founders of Gems
TV, who went on to set up a competing online auction site called
rocks.tv and the jewellery website
ColouredRocks.com.
Mikes Davies is to leave Thorntons following a
profit warning. Davies was chief executive at the confectionery
company that today announced that sales in-store have continued
to experience like-for-like declines. Thorntons is also seeing
higher than expected discount costs on clearing excess stocks.
Davies told the board the business needed a “chief
executive with specific retail expertise”.
Delivering his final set of results as chief executive of
Marks & Spencer, Sir Stuart Rose called on the
government to give plenty of warning ahead of the VAT rise.
Quoted in the Times, Sir Stuart said ““It’s all
unpalatable. As a retailer, I wouldn’t invite a VAT
rise.”
Ford Farm, a producer of West Country farmhouse
cheeses, has unveiled its first-ever online store in order to
expand the brand into regions where it currently does not have a
presence.
In another jewellery story, Aurum, the parent
company of Goldsmiths, Mappin &
Webb and Watches of Switzerland, posted
a 12 percent increase in like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks
ending 25th April. Full-year operating profits more than doubled
(up 117 percent) to £6.5 million in the year 31st January
and net debt fell by 42 percent to £54.3 million as Aurum
reduced the level of stock it held to £78 million. The
Telegraph reports that Aurum is confident of
growth this year and optimistic that “the coalition between
the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would help retailers beat
the aftermath of recession”.
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