Financing and expansion

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

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

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

H&M saved margin in 2024 but remains in decline in America and Asia

On January 30, the Swedish company H&M reported sales of US$22.32 billion in 2024 (fiscal year to the end of November 2024), down 0.7%. After a rise of 5.6% in 2023 and 12.4% in 2022, this is...

13 February 2025

[Amazon results] Amazon maintained growth and doubled margin in 2024

Driven by e-commerce, the marketplace, the cloud and advertising - four entities that have each generated more than US$10 billion in incremental revenue - Amazon ended 2024 with solid fundamentals...

11 February 2025

Shein returns to India with Reliance Retail

Blocked since 2020 in India, Shein is back to compete with Myntra (Flipkart) and Zudio (Tata). The group signed a licensing agreement with Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL), a subsidiary of the...

11 February 2025

Franchise : Ulta Beauty enters the Middle East with Alshaya

After announcing a first international expansion into Mexico in March 2024, the U.S. retailer Ulta Beauty (2023 turnover of US$11.2 billion, up 5.7%, after 15.6% in 2022 and 37.9% in 2021)...

11 February 2025

After Macy’s, Kohl’s closes 27 stores and cuts 10% of its workforce

In the USA, while Macy’s is closing 66 stores and laying off 3.5% of staff (2,350 jobs), department store chain Kohl’s (1,100 stores in Q3) has announced the closure of 27 stores by...

7 February 2025

Cash & carry: Metro AG to delist from the Stock Exchange

After posting sales of €8.6 billion in the quarter to December 2024 (-1.5% in total), German Metro AG (623 stores in 35 countries) announced its withdrawal from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange...

7 February 2025

Maisons du Monde sales plummet for 3rd year running

In a French furniture market down by 5.1% to €13.8 billion in 2024 (IPEA), Maisons du Monde (338 stores at the end of 2024) reported annual sales of €1.002 billion on February 4, down...

6 February 2025

1 2 345

Our other services

Research

Conducting customized studies: benchmarks, overviews, personalized newsletters, white label content.

Training courses

Our training courses & masterclasses: short formats for management, executive coaching, and skills development for junior profiles.

Events

Our networking activities: half-day conferences dedicated to industry issues and open to the entire ecosystem.

Our mind news

See all

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

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

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.

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

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

Saks Global negotiating new loan to overcome post-Neiman Marcus fallout

On reprieve until the end of January 2026 after missing a US$100 million bond payment on December 30, the U.S. department store retailer Saks Global (2024 revenue: US$7.3 billion dollars, down by...

8 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