Financing and expansion

On March 11, the world’s largest toy retailer Lego reported sales of US$10.79 billion, up 12.8% (after a rise of 2% in 2023 and 16.9% in 2022). Net margin stood at US$2 billion. This is a...

13 March 2025

South Korea : CJ Olive Young tests multilingual personal shoppers in-store

To appeal to an increasingly international clientele, Korean cosmetics giant CJ Olive Young (turnover 2024: US$3.5 billion, up 24%, net margin ratio at 10% of sales) is trialling multilingual...

13 March 2025

Printemps sets up in the U.S. against a backdrop of department store crisis

After beginning international expansion in 2022 in Doha (Qatar) with 40,000 sq.m, the Printemps group (21 department stores, confidential turnover) selected New York as the entry into the U.S.A...

13 March 2025

Lowe’s and Home Depot are banking on AI to assist customers

In the U.S.A., n°1 and n°2 D.I.Y. retailers, Home Depot and Lowe’s, unveiled their AI assistant a day apart. Home Depot (2024 turnover a US$159.5 billion, up by 4.5% year-on-year via...

10 March 2025

Walmart leaves Japan by selling Seiyu for US$2.5 billion

On March 5, 2025, the American fund KKR and Walmart (turnover 2024 of US$681 billion, up by 5.6% at constant rates) announced the sale of the Japanese grocery retailer Seiyu, in which they hold...

6 March 2025

In Germany, C&A closes the only European manufacturing site

The Dutch fashion brand C&A (13,000 stores in 17 countries) closed the 4,200 sq.m production plant in Mönchengladbach, Germany at the end of February 2025. Opened in 2021 for producing...

4 March 2025

For the first time since 2020, the number of French franchised stores fell in 2024

Closures in the fashion sector, lower performance for supermarkets and household equipment farnchised stores, which underperformed the market... In France, the number of franchises fell by 1.4% in...

4 March 2025

Profit and market valuation slashed in half: will Shein postpone I.P.O.?

Shein may delay a London Stock Exchange I.P.O., initially planned for April 2025, to the second half of the year. According to the Financial Times on February 23, growth in 2024 fell short of...

25 February 2025

Google embarks on international expansion with 2 stores in India

Google (Alphabet Inc: 2024 revenue of US$350 billion, up 15% at constant exchange rates, net margin ratio of 28.6%) plans to open first stores in India, according to Reuters on February, 20. The...

25 February 2025

Driven by new profit streams in 2024, Walmart puts the spotlight on e-commerce

Walmart maintained growth while generating higher profits from the core business. With online sales accounting for 18% of total revenue -a level equivalent to Target - e-commerce triggered...

25 February 2025

Following a strong 2024, Carrefour wants to spend €800 million for the Brazilian unit

On February 19, 2025, Carrefour published annual results: in 2024, total sales grew by 5.3% at constant rates to €87.27 billion excluding V.A.T., half as fast as in 2023. In France, revenue...

21 February 2025

Alibaba opens a first furniture showroom in Hong Kong

On February 22, 2025, Taobao (Alibaba Group) teamed up with Chinese home furnishings platform Papabo to open a first physical furniture store. Named PapaHome and located within the Tsim Sha Tsui...

21 February 2025

Driven by property development, Emaar boosted revenue by a third in 2024

On February 14, 2025, Dubai-based property developer Emaar Properties (owner of office assets such as the Burj Khalifa, shopping malls, luxury hotels, etc.) announced a 33% increase in turnover in...

21 February 2025

USA: Quiksilver, Roxy and Volcom operator shuts down 122 Stores

On February 7, Liberated Brands (2022 revenue : US$422 million, up by 21%, with no new figures since) began closing 122 stores across the U.S.A. following a bankruptcy filing on February, 2. The...

17 February 2025

Klepierre expands through acquisitions, while Unibail safeguards margins with retail media

Just a day apart, URW and Klepierre, Europe’s two leading shopping centre operators, released robust annual results. For URW, the advertising business accounted for more than 50% of net margin in...

17 February 2025

Driven by record I.P.O., Lulu Retail ends 2024 up 5%

On February 10, the food retailer Lulu Retail posted a turnover of US$7.62 billion in the fiscal year to late December 2024. Sales grew by 4.7% at constant rates and 2.3% like-for-like. The...

13 February 2025

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Marketplaces: Stockly enters Switzerland with MediaMarkt, Decathlon, Galaxus and Manor

After a loss-making but high-growth year in 2025, the stock-pooling start-up for marketplaces signed agreements with 4 Swiss players, mind Retail learned. By taking on one of Europe’s most...

30 January 2026

Save launches an e-commerce site to support a shift towards sales

Having just reached break-even, the French subsidiary of refurbished specialist Save intends to go beyond an historical model of repair to develop sales of accessories and refurbished products...

23 January 2026

Shoptimus AI scales up in grocery smart shopping lists and prepares for a new funding round

After securing a strategic partnership with Spanish grocer Bon Preu, retail tech firm Shoptimus AI—first spotted by Carrefour—is accelerating a rollout. By leveraging AI agents to automate grocery...

11 January 2026

Agentic AI: Hymalaia attracts retailers and announces imminent fundraising

According to our sources, the young start-up Hymalaia is continuing development in retail with 4 new retailers currently in POC and an imminent fundraising. We examine the details.

16 December 2025

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Shoptimus AI scales up in grocery smart shopping lists and prepares for a new funding round

11 January 2026

With Walmart, Ulta Beauty, Zalando and Carrefour, Google launches an agentic commerce protocol

Following the launch of payments in Copilot, Google is preparing to join OpenAI and Microsoft, but with a more integrated version focused on its own payment method, Google Pay. These moves...

13 January 2026

Circana: French e-commerce ended 2025 with strong growth, hypermarkets continue to decline

After four years of decline, volumes of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) rose again in 2025 in France and Europe, although they did not compensate for four years of losses. The rebound was...

15 January 2026

2026 Trends – Chatbots, WhatsApp, social networks: don’t miss out on conversation

(Trends 2/6) After a cautious observation phase by retailers and some high-profile hallucination issues, 2025 was a turning point operationally for chatbots and conversational tools. Positioned...

13 January 2026

Black Friday: Amazon’s AI assistant Rufus featured in 38% of sessions in the US

While peak season sales, revealed at the NRF Big Show, rose by 4.1% in the US from November 1 to December 31, 2025, Rufus, Amazon’s conversational chatbot, confirmed its traction. During the...

15 January 2026

2026 Trends – How far should retailers open the door to AI Search engines ?

(Trends 1/6) With data visibility, recommendations, transactions on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, LLMs are establishing themselves as new entry points for e-commerce. As search, comparison and...

8 January 2026