Including Amazon’s Prime Now one-hour delivery extension and Asda’s Q3.
The Source rounds up some of the key retail stories of the week.
Amazon has extended its one-hour delivery service Prime Now to Newcastle (including Gateshead, Durham and Sunderland). The service launch for Prime members in London and Birmingham earlier this year, and offers one-hour delivery on 15,000 items including toys, Christmas gifts and food products.
Ikea is apparently mulling over the idea of launching its first high street store on Oxford Street. According to Retail Week, it is in discussions about trialling one of its ‘order and collection point’ formats in the current BHS building.
John Lewis has seen its weekly sales pass the £100 million mark. Boosted by the homewares category, weekly sales (for the period to November 14) reached £110.4 million, up 1.5% year on year. Week on week, sales increased 15.8%.
Asda posted a 4.5% fall in like for like sales for the 13 weeks to September 30. Describing it as a “challenging quarter”, president and ceo Andy Clarke said: “Sales volumes remain under pressure from price deflation and the intensely competitive background remains throughout the food sector”.
Mothercare boss, Mark Newton-Jones told Retail Week that the store would only participate in Black Friday in a ‘light fashion’. He commented: “My view on Black Friday is it will be the biggest footfall day online. So why on earth you want to discount all your products in the time when you’re going to get your biggest footfall is beyond me.”
