News brief

Payment. Will Floa Bank be taken over by BNP Paribas?
According to Les Echos, BNP Paribas is in a good position to buy Floa Bank (ex-Casino Bank) and integrate expertise for fractional payments, a major trend in e-commerce. Floa is also a specialist...
15 April 2021
Kingfisher. “Old jeans are more useful on your roof than in your wardrobe”
With ‘Bring Back Your Jeans’, created in 2013, the D.I.Y. retailer Castorama continues to integrate into the circular economy. The aim of the initiative is to recycle old clothes and...
15 April 2021
In China, Pinduoduo overtakes Alibaba
The Nasdaq-listed online platform Pinduoduo (Tencent) is growing a competitive audience in China’s e-commerce market. The company reported 788.4 million annual active users in 2020, ahead of...
15 April 2021
Deliveroo, Uber Eats… What value is shared between retailers and platforms?
With the Covid-19 crisis, delivery platforms such as Uber Eats, Deliveroo or Just East are experiencing extraordinary business growth. In France, these accounted for 30% of the out-of-home...
2 April 2021
USA. A boost for autonomous delivery
In the U.S.A., the restaurant chain Chipotle that specialises in Mexican food has invested in the start-up Nuro, which supplies autonomous delivery vehicles. This undisclosed investment is part of...
2 April 2021
DIY. Britain’s Kingfisher soon in the Middle East
The B&Q retailer, dedicated to DIY professional customers and based in the U.K., has signed a franchise agreement with the Al Futtaim Group to sell in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
22 March 2021
Italy. E-commerce is progressing, except in the food sector
According to Mr. Fabrizio Valente, C.E.O. of the Milan-based retail consultancy Kikilab, the pace of adopting online retail in Italy has been different, depending on the category. In the non-food...
22 March 2021
Russia adopts facial recognition payment
In March 2021, Russia’s largest grocery retailer X5 launched a facial recognition payment system in partnership with Visa and the state-owned bank Sberbank.
22 March 2021
In the U.K., justification of sales area is under review
In the United Kingdom, the rise of e-commerce raises a painful question for the department store sector. Are very large flagships still relevant in the post-Covid era? John Lewis (42 department...
22 March 2021
How can Ikea reach the young generation ?
In the retail industry, are podcasts a relevant marketing tool? Can we really rely on this format to sell furniture without consumers seeing anything? The Swedish company Ikea is taking a gamble.
22 March 2021
Rental income rises for China’s luxury malls
The annual results of the major retail landlords show how much the closure of external borders benefited the luxury brands and retailers selling in China. It is the case for the Hong Kong-based...
22 March 2021
Beauty. Faced with higher Asian competition, A.S. Watson is eyeing the Middle East
The Asian drugstore retailer A.S. Watson aims to open 100 stores in the Middle East by 2025 via a franchising agreement with the Al Futtaim conglomerate. In China, the beauty market has reached a...
22 March 2021
The Korean e-commerce giant is eyeing the New York Stock Exchange
At the beginning of March 2021, the Korean e-commerce company Coupang went public in the U.S.A. with a valuation of US$109 billion. This is the largest stock market listing in the U.S. since...
22 March 2021
The Covis-19 crisis increases logistics costs
Retailers in Europe, Asia and the U.S.A. are being hit by a global shortage of sea containers. Although 180 million containers are available worldwide, the increase in exports from China to...
22 March 2021
Lego. What retail crisis?
For the Danish toy retailer Lego (678 stores in the end of December), 2020 was the year for breaking records. Boosted by successive lock downs worldwide and by Asia’s extreme dynamics...
22 March 2021
Saks Fifth Avenue sets up a dedicated online entity
In the United States, the Saks Fifth Avenue department stores (40 physical stores for an annual turnover of around US$1 billion) has just made a radical choice. They are splitting business into...
22 March 2021
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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
Italy seizes €27.4 million from CEVA Logistics for fraud and undeclared labour
On March 3, 2026, Italian tax authorities announced the seizure of €27.4 million from two Italian subsidiaries of French supply chain specialist CEVA Logistics, itself a subsidiary of the...
2
Conflicts in the Middle East: what impact on the supply chain and European retail?
With US and Israeli strikes on Iran triggering a major crisis on February 28, 2026, retailers already have to face the closure of strategic trade routes, rising freight costs and import...
3
Following a complaint from the FTC, Walmart agrees to pay US$100 million to Spark delivery drivers
On February 26, 2026, Walmart (2025 revenue: US$713.2 billion, up by 5.1% at constant rates) agreed to pay US$100 million in response to allegations of misleading compensation to delivery drivers...
4
Social media & age verification: Tech breaks the glass ceiling of precision
As an array of international governments restrict social networks access for teenagers under 15 or 16, new facial recognition technologies from Yoti, Persona and k-ID are making progress in...
13 March 2026
5
Faced with sluggish demand, The Home Depot and Lowe’s cut 1,400 jobs and reaffirm a B2B focus
In the United States, with the home improvement and D.I.Y. market under pressure, retail leaders are reorganising. Home Depot and Lowe's, respectively No. 1 and No. 2 in the market, announced...
25 February 2026
6
Search AI : in the retail sector, 25% of AI queries are transactional
For mind Retail, online SEO specialist Ahrefs analysed retail queries on AI search engines. The goal was to measure the proportion of transactional prompts compared to informational ones. The...