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Despite the coronavirus crisis, which caused cosmetics sales to fall by 80% in February 2020, international retailers are betting on the Chinese online beauty market. On Alibaba‘s...

15 June 2020

Wall Street is tightening its access to Chinese companies

After the Luckin Coffee scandal (removed from the Nasdaq after reporting more than US$310 million in false sales) and in a climate of tension between Washington and Beijing, the Senate voted...

15 June 2020

Commercial real estate. Arm wrestling over the notion of force majeure

In the U.S.A., the time is not suitable for major acquisitions. The No. 1 shopping centre operator Simon Property cancelled an acquisition of Taubman Centers (26 centres in the U.S. and Asia) for...

15 June 2020

Department stores. Rinascente goes into e-commerce

As part of the Thai Central Group, the Italian Rinascente ‘store’ is a 10th unit, but actually a website exclusively devoted to e-commerce. At the launch scheduled for mid-June in...

15 June 2020

Ikea innovates in Japan

The Swedish kit furniture giant is opening its first city centre format dedicated to urban spaces in Tokyo, Japan, where it operates a total of 11 points of sale. Located near a Uniqlo store, Ikea...

15 June 2020

Primark in discussion with landlords

Closed since March 23rd, the fast fashion retailer Primark will reopen all 189 stores in the U.K. on June 15th. The giant retailer pays around €147 million in rent per year and has lost...

15 June 2020

Harrods temporarily expands into outlet

British department store Harrods (turnover of €987.6 million for the financial year ending February 2019, up by 1%), a subsidiary of Qatar Holding LLC, announces a new temporary outlet store...

15 June 2020

Furniture. What post-crisis model?

From Europe to the U.S.A., exciting lessons are being learned for home-decoration retailers. According to Neela Montgomery, C.E.O. of Crate & Barrel, “We are starting to see the...

15 June 2020

E-commerce, China, 3D designs. Which business levers work for fashion?

Faced with the Covid-19 crisis, e-commerce has proved to be a real lifeline for some fashion retailers. However, digital services are not comprehensive across the sector. According to Bain &...

15 June 2020

Carrefour advances pawns into Taiwan

2020 is a year of international expansion for the giant Carrefour (turnover of €80.7 billion in 2019). After the acquisition of 30 Makro Atacadista cash & carry stores in Brazil in...

15 June 2020

Luckin Coffee. Dismissal at the top at the “Chinese Starbucks”

It’s a lesson in terms of rushed investment. Oversupply of cash in the U.S. seeking a home pushed investors to rush into Chinese mobile applications, convinced at all costs that a population...

20 May 2020

Why is Kretinsky investing in Macy’s?

According to Forbes, the activist investor Daniel Kretinsky (aged 44) is the fifth richest Czech citizen. He has taken a 5% stake in the American department store chain Macy’s (US$24 billion...

20 May 2020

Boom in local demand in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, local products are booming. While 50 years ago 50% of the fruit and vegetables consumed in Hong Kong were produced locally, 98% are now imported, especially from China. In Singapore...

20 May 2020

South Korea and China move to revive reciprocal business travel

On May 1st, 2020, China launched a new bilateral “Green Lane” immigration program, aimed at facilitating business travel with South Korea. Koreans can now travel to 7 provinces and the...

20 May 2020

China. Retail support by state intervention

Will Chinese state interventionism be sufficient to put retail back on track, at a time when G.D.P. fell by 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020, following a 6% rise in Q4 2019? This was the first...

20 May 2020

The Chinese Dada soon to be listed in the U.S.?

While China and the U.S.A. clash over the origin of the pandemic, the American market remains receptive to Chinese companies. As financial markets have survived the crisis rather well, a major...

20 May 2020

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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

Refurbished smartphones: why Largo relies on Speeral automation

The start-up founded by the duo behind Teester and Skeepers is accelerating automation of second-hand product flows. The strategy is to use AI to direct products to high-traffic marketplaces such...

9 December 2025

Leroy Merlin and Aroma‑Zone launch in‑store analytics pilots with XXII

French retail tech XXII, which aims to become the Google Analytics and Contentsquare of physical stores, has already signed with 15 retailers and shopping centres, mind Retail learned. A year...

5 December 2025

Already in POC, Dialog’s conversational agent shows up in the search bar

Buoyed by a €3.8 million seed round closed in mid‑November 2025, French start‑up Dialog, specialised in AI‑based conversational e‑commerce, is accelerating. Initially placed on product pages, this...

4 December 2025

Most viewed articles of the month on mind Retail

What readers clicked on the most last month.

In the category

What readers clicked on the most last month.

Laurent Hugou (Les Mousquetaires): “With Diebold’s camera system, shrinkage at self-check-out is reduced by a third”

Shift towards an omnichannel payment service provider, roll-out of mobile payment and Diebold’s computer vision solution for self-checkout, impact of one-click payment on online sales, adoption of...

11 December 2025

How Maison 123 generated €420,000 on WhatsApp in 5 months

Riding on a reduction in Meta’s commercial policy, Wax start‑up specialised in WhatsApp engagement, is gaining ground, capitalising on messaging as a customer acquisition and retention channel in...

3 December 2025

Retail media: Marionnaud bets on print with Figaro to boost drive-to-store

According to our sources, Marionnaud’s beauty retailer will expand an advertising unit into 3 new countries in 2026 and is launching another retail media lever in the French key market. The goal...

26 November 2025

Carmila join forces with Unlimitail and JCDecaux to equip 252 malls

On December 9, Carrefour and Carmila signed a partnership with Unlimitail and JCDecaux to create a retail media network combining indoor DOOH and outdoor OOH across their sites in France and...

12 December 2025

Deborah Van Dessel (Lagardère Travel Retail): “We are testing AI tools and prompts for store layout”

Between global governance, local ambassador clubs and deployments at scale, Lagardère Travel Retail identified major operational gains thanks to AI, while other use cases reveal the current limits...

25 November 2025

Facing Temu and Shein’s offensive, Amazon cuts merchant fees

Asian marketplaces Shein, Temu and AliExpress, weakened in the U.S.A., are accelerating in Europe with very low, even zero, initial commissions. Amazon, as the global largest e-commerce player...

9 December 2025