Maternity business Mothercare reported that its
multichannel business “performed well” in the first
half of the year. Its online and telephone sales, which it calls
“direct in home”, were up 15.8 percent to £36.8
million, while “direct in store” sales rose 6.4
percent to £27.9 million.
The retailer described its UK performance as
“resilient”, despite a dip in UK sales from
£296.3 million to £295.1 million and a 3.8 percent
like-for-like decline.
Overall, group sales were up 2.5 percent to £397.1 million
in the six months to 9th October 2010, boosted by international
franchisee retail sales, which were up 17.3 percent in the
period, to £293 million. What’s more, international profit
from operations was £15.8 million, 33.9 percent higher than
last year.
The first half also saw Mothercare back in the black, reporting a
group pretax profit of £300,000 compared with a £7.1
million loss in the same period 2009.
Catalogue group Redcats has acquired
Castaluna.com, a French online retailer of
plus-size apparel. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, sees the
one-year-old company join Redcats’ expanding €1 billion
plus-size apparel business. Earlier this year Redcats opened its
US website OneStopPlus in Europe, selling into
Belgium, France, and the UK. A launch in Sweden is planned for
later this month.
Best Buy has launched a UK store on Facebook,
meaning consumers need not leave the social networking website in
order to browse the latest consumer electronics. Best Buy says it
is the “first technology retailer in the UK to run a
navigable shop on Facebook” that allows customers to share
products and wishlists with friends before clicking through to
the main Best Buy site to complete the purchase.
Congrats to Prince William and Kate Middleton, who announced
their engagement yesterday. We expected to see lots of coverage
on Kate’s background and her involvement in the family business,
mail order company Party Pieces. True to form,
the Daily Mail went with a salacious “Meet
the Middletons” piece called “The rather racy in-laws
who’ll spice up royal life”.
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