News brief

E-commerce: Asos, the object of desire for Alibaba
According to the Sunday Times, Turkish pure-player Trendyol, controlled by Alibaba, made an offer to buy Asos for US$1.24 billion in December 2022. Established by Morgan Stanley...
6 June 2023
Hong Kong: Chanel to open a 19,000 sq.m beauty flagship
After opening 39 beauty stores in 2022, Chanel signed a commercial lease for a 19,000 sq.m space in Hong Kong (at a monthly rent of US$383,000). Covering two floors in the Capitol Centre at...
6 June 2023
DIY: Home Depot and Lowe’s reduce annual forecasts
Affected by a fall in discretionary spending, The Home Depot (2022 sales of US$160 billion, net margin of 10.9% of sales) is not optimistic for the current financial year. Instead of stagnating as...
5 June 2023
E-commerce: Walmart reduces plastic and packaging
On June, 2023 Walmart (Q1 2023 sales of US$152.3 billion, up by 7.6%, net margin down to 1% of revenue) announced a program to save 2,000 tons of plastic in the USA this year. For the e-commerce...
2 June 2023
Vietnam: Diptyque opens a first physical store with Tam Son
Last month, Vietnamese group Tam Son International added Diptyque and Tory Burch to a portfolio of franchised brands, which includes Hermès, Rimowa, Sandro, Patek Philippe and others. The...
1 June 2023
GDPR : Meta fined €1.2 billion
The Irish Data Protection Agency (DPC) announced on May 22nd a record fine of €1.2 billion against the Meta company for transferring European users’ data to servers in the United...
26 May 2023
U.A.E. retailers will be subject to Corporation Tax from June 1st 2023
While G.D.P. growth reached 7.6% in 2022, the United Arab Emirates will introduce a first Corporate Tax from June 1st, 2023. Set at 9%, this applies to companies whose annual income from...
26 May 2023
India: Shein joins forces with Reliance to fight U.S. regulator
The WSJ revealed that Shein signed a partnership with India’s Reliance Industries as it faces scrutiny from the U.S.A. Stock Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) over enforced labour of Uighur...
26 May 2023
USA. Amazon enters the fissure of paid returns
Since 13th April, Amazon has been testing a new approach to returns. In the U.S., a symbolic charge of US$1 is made for returns made via UPS on condition that an Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market...
23 May 2023
Primark accelerates U.S. expansion to compete with Shein
In the U.S.A., Primark (2022 turnover of €8.9 billion via 408 stores) opened a 17th American store on 20th April in the Walden Galleria mall in Buffalo (New York State). Covering 3,200 sq.m...
17 May 2023
CSR. Albert Heijn tests a price premium based on environmental impact 
In the Netherlands, the Albert Heijn chain (part of Ahold Delhaize, 2022 turnover: €87 billion, up 6.9% at constant exchange rates) has been offering a dual price for hot drinks (coffee, oat...
17 May 2023
European sales of FMCG products in sharp drop since January
According to Circana/IRI data supplied to mind Retail, unit sales of FMCG products accelerated a fall in January and February 2023, after a black year in Western...
15 May 2023
Chinese retail recovered growth in Q1 2023
In the first quarter, the Chinese economy grew by 4.5%. While the growth rate was 3.9% in Q3 and 2.9% in Q4 2022, this is the largest increase in a year. This rebound in G.D.P. shows that the...
11 May 2023
Leroy Merlin arrives in Senegal with Jumia
On March 22, Leroy Merlin signed an agreement with the pure player Jumia to launch into Senegal with 700 products. Since 2019, 1,500 products of the D.I.Y. chain are already distributed by Jumia...
9 May 2023
D.S.A.: Zalando added to platforms subject to stronger regulations
On Monday 25th April, the European Commission published a list of 19 online services, including 17 “very large online platforms (V.L.O.P.s)”, subject to legal obligations under the...
5 May 2023
China : Alibaba and JD.com spin-offs delight investors
On 30th March 2023, JD.com announced a spin-off of property and industrial units from the core business in order to list these on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In the listing documents filed on...
4 May 2023
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Most viewed articles of the month on mind Retail
What readers clicked on the most last month.
What readers clicked on the most last month.
1
Electronic shelf labels: why the US regulator threatens rollout
In the USA, the Federal Trade Commission has just required full transparency on the use of pricing algorithms based on personal data, under threat of penalties. In this regulatory framework...
2
From ChatGPT Ads to Amazon Alexa for Shopping: advertising in LLMs scales up in Europe
This summer, OpenAI successively rolled out its ChatGPT Ads platform in the UK and in 30 European countries. From formats used, CPM levels notably for FMCG products and the new role of GEO...
27 August 2026
3
With Claudeforce, Salesforce opens data to Anthropic and shifts into the conversational AI era
With the announcement of deep integration of the Claude LLM within the Salesforce ecosystem via MCP servers, SaaS software interfaces are fading in favour of AI agents. According to...
9 September 2026
4
Retail media & LLMs: navigating intent-driven and custom experiences
From store aisles to ChatGPT Ads placements, retail media is shifting away from traditional slots, formats and keywords toward intent-based targeting. Driven by lower access costs to LLMs, full...
31 August 2026
5
Facing SharkNinja’s hegemony, Carrefour and Darty gain ground on TikTok Shop
While Sephora follows in Ulta's footsteps on TikTok Shop in the US, mind Retail analyzed sellers performance in Q2 2026. Based on exclusive data from Lengow and Kalodata, this European market...
7 September 2026
6
Fnac Darty to launch Wero on its e-commerce sites
According to our information, Fnac Darty is about to deploy European payment solution Wero, based on account-to-account instant transfers, on its e-commerce sites. Already active in Germany at...
4 September 2026