Retail Economics’ Post

What’s been happening in retail this week? · Card Factory partnered with Just Eat Takeaway.com to offer on-demand delivery of cards, gifts, and celebration essentials. The service is available at 19 stores across the UK, with plans to expand to 21 more later this year. · Morrisons extended its Deliveroo partnership to include 500 Morrisons Daily convenience stores, offering over 2,500 products for rapid home delivery. · Aldi UK is ending its click-and-collect service after four years. The discounter said the move will help it operate more efficiently and maintain its price advantage. This follows Aldi's previous decisions to scrap home delivery of alcohol, Specialbuys, and its grocery delivery partnership with Deliveroo. · Tesco is trialling digital product passports for its F&F Clothing collection with global technology provider Fabacus providing customers with sourcing and sustainability information. The passports are part of Tesco’s response to upcoming regulations targeting greenwashing and unsustainable stock management. · Amazon opened a £500m robotics fulfilment centre in Leeds, creating 2,000 jobs. The centre, featuring advanced technology and energy-efficient solar panels is Amazon's 31st in the UK. · Amazon is set to trial Prime Air drone delivery services in the UK by the end of the year. · SHEIN is exploring the opening of a warehouse in the UK, potentially within the Midlands’ logistics hub, ahead of its anticipated London Stock Exchange listing. The fast-fashion giant is considering sites between 300,000 and 600,000 sq ft, with plans to finalise a location by the end of the year. · John Lewis & Partners is restructuring its store teams and ramping up tech adoption to enhance customer service. The changes, involving a multimillion-pound investment, include new digital headsets, mobile payments, and simplified processes. These initiatives aim to increase staff efficiency. · Asda co-owner Mohsin Issa attributed the grocer's 2.2% revenue drop and 5.3% decline in like-for-like sales in Q2 2024 to a "challenging retail environment”. · Mountain Warehouse returned to profit with a pre-tax gain of £26.2m for the year ending February 2024. · WHSmith has opened its first ever own-brand café format comprising more than 30 of the travel retailer’s food-to-go products, from sandwiches and baguettes to salads and wraps as it looks to expand into the quick-service space. · The sustainability-focused fashion brand, Nobody's Child, has opened its newest London-based flagship store (2,044 sq ft) on 3 Neal Street, Covent Garden, the brand’s largest store to date. I'll definitely be checking this one out soon. · Don't forget, you can download our latest thought leadership report focused on 'Retail Risk and Resilience' in partnership with Barclays Corporate Banking here 💥 https://upl.inc/vra9rf 💥 This is just a selection of news this week. Sign up below for more insight ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/d-z25aM

Our monthly analysis comparing the prices of popular groceries at eight major supermarkets, now includes loyalty scheme prices. Ele Clark, Which? Retail Editor, said: 'As member-only pricing continues to grow, Which? believes the sector needs to be properly scrutinised and held to account so that all shoppers - including society’s most vulnerable - can benefit, and no one is misled into believing they’re getting a better deal than they really are. With food prices continuing to squeeze household budgets, it comes as no surprise that many people are choosing to shop with the discounters. Our analysis shows that Aldi and Lidl are still cheaper than the traditional supermarkets, even when you include loyalty pricing.' #CostOfLiving #ConsumerRights

 What’s been happening in retail this week? ·      Waitrose & Partners teamed up with Just Eat Takeaway.com to expand its on-demand delivery service, rolling out to 229 branches in cities like Birmingham, Glasgow, London, and Manchester. This adds to existing partnerships with Deliveroo and Uber Eats. ·      Marks and Spencer is piloting an autonomous farming scheme with supplier Huntapac Produce Limited, using robots and drones to reduce carbon emissions. The first product, parsnips, will be available in November. ·      AllSaints debuted an unlimited subscription rental service in the UK, offering womenswear and menswear for £79 per month. ·      Dunelm is deploying Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform to improve its ecommerce search capabilities. ·      Amazon introduced AI shopping guides to simplify product research, offering recommendations on over 100 product types. ·      Myprotein partnered with Holland & Barrett, launching 30 new product lines, including five retail exclusives. This move supports Myprotein’s strategy to expand into offline retail, following similar partnerships with WHSmith and Muller. ·      Dr. Martens plc announced plans to cut 150 jobs at its UK and US head offices as part of a £20m to £25m cost-saving initiative. The redundancies will affect various departments, including marketing and ecommerce, following a nearly 43% drop in pre-tax profits to £97.2m. ·      Inditex’s UK and Ireland managing director Max Nutz stepped down after 25 years, with Pilar Losada succeeding him. Losada, who previously held senior roles in Australia, New Zealand, and China, joins amid strong sales growth across Inditex brands such as Zara and Stradivarius. ·      THG announced plans to demerge THG Ingenuity into a private entity. CEO Matthew Moulding emphasised operational improvements and a positive outlook for the busy trading period ahead. ·      N Brown Group, owner of JD Williams, Simply Be, and Jacamo, reported a £0.2m statutory profit for six months to August 2024, compared to a £2.8m loss last year. Group sales fell 6.7% to £272.2m. Product revenue declined by 7.9%, and financial services by 4.6%. ·      SHEIN reported a 40% rise in UK turnover to £1.55bn for the year to December 2023, with pre-tax profits reaching £24.4m. The fast-fashion giant credited pop-up store success and UK customer loyalty. Shein's UK sales rose 38% to £1.55bn, surpassing Boohoo Group's £1.09bn. Pre-tax profit doubled to £24.4m. This is just a selection of news this week. Sign up below for more insight ⬇️ https//lnkd.in/d-z25aM

The Aldi Revolution! Less is More In a world where we’re bombarded by choice, sometimes all we want is simplicity. It’s hard to imagine, but at one time, the grocery industry was all about excess. Bigger stores, endless aisles, shelves packed with dozens of options for the same product. Grocery shopping became a marathon of decision making, a place where customers felt overwhelmed, not empowered. Then came Aldi. Aldi looked at this chaotic industry & asked a simple question: What if less is more? They stripped away the noise, the clutter, the endless choices, and focused on what mattered: quality, simplicity, and affordability. They understood that life is complicated enough so shopping shouldn’t be. Aldi gave people back their time, energy, and a sense of ease by making the process easy for their customers. So, they reduced their inventory to just one or two high quality options for each product. Their stores were smaller, simpler. Instead of fancy packaging or marketing gimmicks, Aldi focused on what really mattered good products at great prices. They even asked customers to bring their own bags & required a small deposit to unlock shopping carts. These are moves that seemed unconventional but ultimately saved millions. While competitors continued to pile on more complexity, Aldi thrived. Their philosophy? Simplicity doesn’t mean less but rather doing more with less. And it worked. Aldi expanded rapidly, building loyalty among customers who no longer felt overwhelmed by the excesses of traditional supermarkets. In today’s world, we often get caught up in over-engineering, adding layers of complexity to problems that can be solved with clear, straightforward answers. Whether it’s in technology, customer service, or even our daily lives, we need to ask ourselves: are we building something better, or are we just making it more complicated? As for Aldi, the best choice isn’t always more. It’s better, It’s smarter, It’s simpler. At Go Lime Inc. we asked ourselves a similar question. The HVAC industry is known for complexity, confusing pricing, endless steps, lots of back and forth and long waits. We looked at that and wondered, What if we did more with less? That’s how we built our model & we are continuously making it better to make it more easier & affordable to everyone. Customers deserve to get upfront pricing, no hidden fees, no waiting, no bloated overhead, no middleman, and no pushy sales tactics. We’re driven by technology to make things fast, simple, and efficient. In less than two minutes, you get exactly what you need. No confusion, just quality products, expert installation, & guaranteed satisfaction. We’re all about transparency, ease, and unbeatable value. Because at the end of the day, you deserve more for your money, and we’re here to make sure you get it. Because, like Aldi, we believe simplicity isn’t about cutting corners, it’s about focusing on what matters most to our customers.

Southern California retailer Vallarta Supermarkets has partnered with Sezzle, a buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform. The Pay-in-4 collaboration provides grocery shoppers with convenient and responsible ways to manage their everyday purchases. As consumers seek alternatives to high-interest credit cards, solutions like Sezzle can offer an interest-free option for spreading out payments. Recent data from Adobe shows that grocery purchases via BNPL have surged by 40% since last year, outpacing all other product categories. According to Sezzle, its shoppers in particular see the benefit of interest-free financing for essential goods – with 61% using BNPL to buy groceries in the past three months.  | Progressive Grocer https://lnkd.in/gz3Zb3ET #retail #supermarkets #grocery #retailer #shoppers #food

Aldi’s goes checkout free in Chicago with ALDIgo. To use the solution, customers shop the Aldi store as they normally do, including for fresh meat and seafood and organic produce as well as pantry staples. There are no special shelves, carts, or gates at the entrance. When done, shoppers can pay with either their credit or debit card, or with the Grabango app at the Grabango pay station near the exit. Aldi is piloting checkout-free shopping as its store traffic grows. According to recent data from the foot traffic analytics provider Placer.ai, this past December, January, and February, Aldi saw increased year-over-year monthly visits of 20.3%, 19.2%, and 28.5%, respectively. With more than 2,200 stores in 38 states, Batavia, Ill.-based Aldi U.S. employs 45,000-plus associates. #nynjfoodguru Larry Finis Ryan Gomes Eric Dudley Holly Newberry Gregory Esslinger https://lnkd.in/eKxY5fxH

There aren’t many aspects of life in England that I actively miss here in Germany, but online grocery shopping is definitely at the top of my list. Visiting retail shops every week is such a waste of time. C’mon Ocado Group this is a market ripe for #digitaldisruption - and Kaufland e-commerce - it’s 2024 not 1984 - you need to deliver fresh groceries to homes across Germany and as a first step start to offer “click & collect”.

'📢 Aldi scraps click-and-collect service after four years 🛒 Aldi is scrapping its click and collect service, after launching the scheme back in 2020. 😱🔄 #Aldi #RetailNews #ClickandCollect. For deeper insights 👉databoutique.com📊' by Retail Gazette about ALDI Italia

According to Tim Steiner 'There were some ludicrous statements being made....' He is talking about the claims made by the rapid delivery players who said that they were the future. Maybe he needs to remind himself of what he said back in 2020, 'The world as we know it has changed. We are confident that accelerated growth in the online channel will continue, leading to a permanent redrawing of the landscape of the grocery industry worldwide'. Four years later where are Ocado? Still with 1.8% market share and having burned through £1.3bn! If you lost an average of £100m for 15 years what would you be saying? You'd probably be saying 'We told you back then that their model wasn’t sustainable'. This is what Tim Steiner said about the rapid delivery players, he still believes that the jam tomorrow he has promised is still on it's way! Over the past 4 years Ocado's pre-tax losses have been £1.1bn, their first half results were an improvement to only £154m of pre-tax losses. For some strange reason this has been received positively by the City! Imagine if Tesco or Sainsburys had a single half year where they made a loss, what would the City say then? Their combined share is 43%, Ocado is 1.8%, where it has been for quite some time! At the latest City update, Steiner said “the global channel shift to online has now resumed” and yet this is what is happening with their overseas 'partners'. In Canada plans to open a fourth robotic warehouse for supermarket chain Sobeys had been put on hold, and their tie-up was no longer exclusive. In the US, Kroger is to shutter three sites powered by Ocado. In Australia last year Coles Group is on the hook for a further $120 million in costs and a 12-month wait following another major delay in the commissioning of its Ocado pick-and-pack fulfilment centre being built in Victoria. Is this really a shift to online? The future of retail is bright, but it's not Ocado. I'm just waiting for someone to shout that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes..... #theretailmind #groceryretail #bricksandmortar