Amazon’s lockers arrive in London Tube station car parks June 25, 2014 Amazon has introduced new lockers at Finchley Central and Newbury Park tube station car parks in a partnership between the online retail giant and Transport for London that will let customers collect their purchases at the lockers – like they can do in some Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s car parks. Amazon has lockers in over [...]
Sainsbury’s Bank doubles its workforce June 24, 2014 SAINSBURY’S hired 500 more workers yesterday as it expands its foreign currency operations through its banking arm. The expansion of its deal with forex provider Travelex will more than double its workforce, which currently stands at 400. Those staff had previously worked in the supermarket’s bureaux, and are being transferred over under the five-year agreement. [...]
Accelerating competition: How to level the playing field for challenger banks June 24, 2014 THERE is something that politicians and bankers both agree upon – we believe that greater competition improves the service and the products that customers get. We’ve heard ideas about increasing competition in banking from across the political spectrum. Today, the BBA is adding to that debate with some new ideas on promoting competition by levelling [...]
Fitch slashes Tesco credit rating June 23, 2014 Tesco came under renewed pressure yesterday after Fitch downgraded the troubled supermarket’s credit rating amid growing competition in its home market. Fitch said it has cut its rating from BBB+ to BBB, citing increasing competition from the hard discounters Aldi and Lidl and the mounting price war among the big four grocers. The downgrades comes [...]
The City’s office choir kicks off LSE with “Let’s go fly a kite” from Mary Poppins June 23, 2014 Stock market ceremonies vary from place to place, there are bells, buzzers and countdown orbs, but we’d wager none have ever kicked off a day’s trading with a song – until yesterday. Stocks began Monday morning trading on the LSE following a rendition of “Let’s go fly a kite” from Mary Poppins – sung by [...]
Morrisons ramps up assault on rival supermarkets after slashing more prices June 23, 2014 Morrisons has launched a fresh round of price cuts today as the troubled supermarket group steps up its efforts to win back shoppers defecting to cheaper rivals. Britain’s fourth-largest grocer will cut the price of a further 135 grocery and household products today by an average 14 per cent. “These are permanent price cuts, not [...]
Beyond billboards: Kinetic’s UK CEO Stuart Taylor on the new out-of-home advertising June 23, 2014 Liam Ward-Proud talks to Kinetic’s UK chief executive Stuart Taylor Once a relative backwater of the marketing landscape (compared to high-budget TV ads at least) the digital revolution is giving out-of-home (OOH) advertising a new lease of life. Static billboards and posters are being replaced with digital screens and moving images, increasingly able to interact [...]
Lidl owner Schwarz Group to be biggest grocery retailer in western Europe by 2018 | City A.M. June 18, 2014 Schwarz Group, the owner of cut-price supermarket Lidl, is set to become the top grocery retailer in western Europe, with the German company likely to overtake current market leader French rival Carrefour by 2018 and perhaps as soon as the end of next year,a report released by Planet Retail yesterday claimed. With Schwarz Group only [...]
Marx was wrong (cont): Corporate giants are inherently fragile June 17, 2014 ONE of Karl Marx’s big theories was that capitalism had an inherent tendency towards monopoly and would thus self-destroy. The idea remains widely held, and is one reason countries operate stringent anti-trust regulations. But it’s a little more complicated than that. First, many monopolies or quasi-monopolies are actually created by the state, rather than resulting [...]
Lidl owner to be biggest grocery retailer in western Europe by 2018 June 17, 2014 Schwarz Group, the owner of cut-price supermarket Lidl, is set to become the top grocery retailer in western Europe, with the German company likely to overtake current market leader French rival Carrefour by 2018 and perhaps as soon as the end of next year,a report released by Planet Retail yesterday claimed. With Schwarz Group only [...]