What: Fast-food chains are closing more in-store restaurants as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates the demise of a once mutually beneficial relationship.

Why is it important: The closures is a challenge for Walmart, which has long counted on revenue from restaurants leasing space inside its stores.

For years Walmart Inc. and large restaurant chains like McDonald’s enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. Those bonds have frayed as more shopping goes online and fast-food restaurants depend more on drive-through windows for sales, a feature Walmart locations don’t have.

McDonald’s is closing hundreds of restaurants located in the largest U.S. retailer’s stores, the last vestiges of a roughly 30-year-old experiment between the companies. Franchisees of Subway, one of the largest fast-food chains in the world, also say they are closing locations this year, citing diminished foot traffic and lower profits.

The closures also could pose a challenge for Walmart, which has long counted on revenue from restaurants leasing space inside its stores. By contrast, rivals like Costco Wholesale Corp. runs its own restaurant space selling inexpensive pizza and hot dogs; Target Corp. operates its own food-service space under licensing agreements with partners such as Starbucks Corp.

Walmart is working to find new models for its store restaurants, focusing more on meals to-go, delivery and joining with small regional chains that appeal to local shoppers. Walmart is also testing smoothie vending machines in stores.

McDonald’s is closing hundreds of its Walmart restaurants

What: The retailer wants to increase its presence in the retail market by creating noise with Lotte.

Why is it important: Three months after Shinsegae acquired a professional baseball team, the retail giant is making good use of it in marketing campaigns to improve the performance of its retail business.

Shinsegae targeted Lotte Shopping on Clubhouse platform saying "they will have to bite the bullet to catch us." Lotte reacted by putting an online banner on its shopping platform Lotte ON with a written message: "We will quietly meet SSG.com and defeat them”, referring to its baseball team Lotte Giants' game against Shinsegae’s Landers on 4 April.

Celebrating the Landers' first match in the Korean Baseball Organization league, Shinsegae's SSG.com platform launched discount events called "Landers Day" and "Landers Week." Lotte Shopping also started a month-long big sale promotion. This is the first time that Lotte Shopping has offered a discount promotion in collaboration with Lotte Giants.

This marketing strategy proved right. During Landers Day between 1 April and 4 April, E-mart's meat sales skyrocketed by 133.3%, year-on-year. Lotte Shopping's supermarket brand Lotte Mart also saw its sales soar in the wine and egg sectors by 104.8% and 101.4%, respectively.

Shinsegae, Lotte capitalise on baseball to enhance market presence

What: The service is enjoying a surge in popularity as the number of subscribers jumped threefold in 10 months.

Why is it important: The subscription service is part of the “VIP Gold” loyalty program.

Those subscribing to the service for a monthly fee of KRW 220,000 (USD194) can have a selection of seasonal fruits delivered to their doorstep on a weekly basis.

In January last year, Shinsegae Department Store’s also launched a bread subscription service, allowing shoppers to take one baked good from one of its bakeries every day.

Shinsegae Department Store’s fruit subscription service proves popular

What: Online shopping vs. in-store shopping were discussed at the 2021 Altagamma Retail Insight webinar.

Why is it important: Despite the increasing importance of online shopping, retailers still bet on physical retail thanks to a renewed customer experience, which might be difficult to sustain.

Luca Solca, senior research analyst, Global Luxury Goods at Bernstein identified potential elements of weakness for Italian luxury companies producing at reduced scale compared to international competitors, including the “enormously increasing fixed costs,” a higher dependency on the multibrand wholesale channel, which is “today in a terminal crisis,” and lagging behind in the digital transformation. Social media, influencers and multibrand digital e-commerce are further exacerbating traffic and productivity challenges.

Solca said the need to create capsules, exhibitions, pop-ups and other methods of differentiating flagships with high-touch service are expensive, resulting in a higher incidence of fixed costs, which are difficult to sustain.

While admitting the increasing importance of online shopping, Michele Norsa, executive vice chairman of Salvatore Ferragamo, was “less optimistic” about the online quota in the future, underscoring the quality of physical experience. “The retail experience is a founding value of the luxury system in addition to being a vital impulse for traveling. Would you rather eat at a starred restaurant or [the same menu] delivered at home?”

On the contrary, Chris Morton, founder and CEO of shopping search platform Lyst thinks “it’s more of a luxury experience to be able to buy remotely from your sofa with a glass of wine rather than having to run across town to a store”.

Nicola Pianon, managing director and senior partner of Boston Consulting Group, said luxury companies will have to respond to an environment in which consumers, at least for a few years, will be traveling closer to home. While paying close attention to the online channel, “brick-and-mortar stores will continue to have a key role”.

The Luxury Retail Evolution in Wake of COVID-19 Pandemic 

What: The apparel market in France expects a rebound in the second half of the year.

Why is it important: In the first three months of the year, activity increased slightly by 1.9% compared to 2020, but actually a 15% drop compared to the same period in 2019.

2021 could be +5% compared to 2020 and -11% compared to 2019. "This favourable scenario is based on an improvement in the health situation, thanks to the ramp-up of the vaccination campaign," the observatory said.

‎March 2021 was + 67.7% compared to March 2020 (first lockdown enforced), but decreasing by 21% compared to 2019. March online sales jumped 92.2%.‎

Textile-habillement: l’IFM énonce ses projections d’activité pour 2021

What:  The former CEO of Selfridges and current vice-chairman of La Rinascente gives his views on how department stores remain relevant

Why it is important: All eyes will be on adaptation and answers to specific and local needs: all stores will be different, answering to different communities.

Vittorio Radice emphasizes the local specificity of any department store: La Rinascente Milan is different from La Rinascente Firenze, for instance, and this translates not only in different location and building, but also a different offer (customers are not expecting the same products and services in all cities), especially when it comes to local brands, a different perspective brought by carefully trained sales associates, and attention to details (windows).

Focus is clearly on local customers: according to Radice, “you want the city’s inhabitants to have an association with your retail address”.

Interview Vittorio Radice

Related item:

• The rebirth of local retail

What: Shinsegae Group’s e-commerce firm SSG.com has acquired Korea’s leading online fashion platform W Concept.

Why is it important: It’s a new move designed to beef up its online fashion business.

The retail giant, one of Korea’s largest department store operators, already has a membership program five million strong and sells a number of fashion brands exclusively while also operating its own Frontrow brand.

W Concept, meanwhile, has a 30% share of Korea’s online womenswear market, according to estimates cited by The Korea Times, and has been upgrading its products and price point to a higher-end positioning recently.

The deal is still contingent on approval from the Korea Fair Trade Commission.

Shinsegae’s E-Commerce Arm Acquires W Concept 

What: The retailer is designing a delivery fulfilment system based on customer loyalty.

Why is it important: Prioritizing most valuable customers could be a way to manage fulfilment costs.

Under the system, delivery speeds will be tiered as gold, silver and bronze, to "manage fulfilment costs effectively while pleasing our most valuable lifetime value customers," said CEO Sonia Syngal.

As the pandemic shifted shopping from in store to online, retailers have had to figure out how to meet demand and implement processes to best fulfil online orders. With Gap's online sales reaching over USD 6 billion last year — a 54% YoY growth — company leaders said that leaning on its "powerful omni-channel platform" is the reason they've done so well with e-commerce.

The retailer listed elevated airfreight expenses as a factor, with total distribution fulfilment costs at roughly USD 40 million for 2020. The company expects roughly USD 800 million in capital expenditures for 2021, including investments in digital, its customer loyalty program and increasing distribution centre capacity for online.

Gap designs fulfillment system to prioritize 'most valuable' customers 

What: Tightening job market is forcing Walmart to create ‘careers’ for its employees.

Why is it important: The retailer’s making more of its workers full time as well as investing in a self-driving car company show ambition to seek dominance in e-commerce

The retailer’s exercise to build its e-commerce business follows its projection in February that its e-commerce revenue will surpass USD 100 billion in the next two years. Walmart said it plans to make more of its U.S. employees full time, resulting in roughly two-thirds of its U.S. hourly workforce becoming full time over the next year.

Drew Holler, senior vice president of Walmart U.S. People Operations, said: “our growing pickup and delivery business calls for us to create more full-time job opportunities as our stores increasingly operate as both fulfilment centres and retail spaces.” The move follows its investor meeting in February where the retailer said it was increasing pay for some 425 000 additional workers.

Walmart U.S. president John Furner also addressed the company’s investment in Cruise, the self-driving car company, describing it as an asset at a time when the company is fine-tuning its delivery mechanisms and striving to cut emissions by 2040. “As delivery has become a staple in our customers’ lives, we’re focused on growing our last mile ecosystem in a way that’s beneficial for everyone — customers, business and the planet.”

In E-commerce Race, Walmart Eyes Its Workforce and Delivery Tech 

What: Amazon claims it is making it easier for customers to buy sustainable products through labelling them on its site, but critics are not convinced it is enough.

Why it is important: Amazon is hoping the programme will encourage brands to follow the actions of those already participating.

Amazon is expanding a programme that was launched in September that marks products as “Climate Pledge Friendly” if they have at least one certification from a number of organisations working on environmental and social issues.

Though consumers are showing increased interests in buying sustainable products, critics believe that the solution of lumping products into a broad category is not scalable or measurable. Overconsumption is fashion’s biggest issue and Amazon is an at-scale retailer that is trying to find ways to use its business model for good, while meeting its customers’ demands.

Amazon promises more “Climate Friendly” products.

What:  An essay from a Forbes’ contributor on the value system leading brands to stop working with specific retailers and customers

Why it is important: This seemingly counter-intuitive move might reflect a shift in retail and the way brands (and retailers) might address their own audiences.

Patagonia is mentioned as an example of a company putting forward its value on top of its economic interest, as it announced it would not sell its products to certain companies (including B to B co-branded products with banks, for instance). The reason given at the time was that they would prioritize mission-driven companies instead of partnerships at any costs.

What was a bold move two years ago is now becoming more and more the norm for companies: the author mentions a competitor to Patagonia or a smaller backpack brand as companies that want to lead by example and be attractive by displaying the values they stand for.

Why is this important now? For years, brands defined themselves by their sales channels, with retailers answering to a clear segmentation. Things have changed: first, online sales disrupted the system and forced brands to reflect more on their self-definition, their “why”, second, segmentation between retailers became somehow blurry. Therefore, brands became aware that it was crucial for them to onboard their representative customers, wherever these were, instead of trying to sell a bit of everything to the maximum number of people. As a mirror effect, selling to the wrong partner, or to partners who do not explicitly share the same values as the brand, might prove counter-effective by damaging customers’ beliefs in the brand.

The author goes further by predicting that retailers might very well end up doing the same and only sell brands that meet their values and criteria. Is that farfetched? Tomorrow’s key for department stores is to create and nurture an audience, which might very well be achieved through clear and bold choices in terms of product offering.

Why Brands Like Patagonia (Sometimes) Kick Out Their Customers

What: Macy's executives show great optimism during J.P. Morgan presentation.

Why is it important: Jeff Gennette, chairman and CEO of Macy’s said the department store “fundamentals” continue to improve, including margins through improved pricing analytics. There’s greater full-price selling, faster turnover, a healthy stock-to-sales ratio, a lower SG&A rate, and expense discipline. Genette cited an influx of new customers — 7 million in the fourth quarter — and an opportunity to capture market share, particularly in digital, to get to USD 10 billion by 2023.

Currently, compared to 2019, Macy’s sees the rate of increase in new customers at about 14% ahead, and that the company is spending 8% more. Digital remains very strong: it was up 24% in 2020 and accelerating in the first quarter of 2021. The company has been working on search relevancy, improving personalisation, simplifying pricing, promotions, the checkout experience, and providing new payments options, including Klarna.

Gennette stressed that Macy’s is selling more with less inventory, that regular price sell-through is up and average unit retail price is up about 7% this quarter versus the same period in 2019.

Macy’s store fleet transformation activities are focused on rightsizing the number of stores, making omnichannel investments in remaining stores, testing the potential productivity and profitability of smaller off-mall formats (Market by Macy’s, Backstage and Bloomingdale’s the Outlet) and monetising real estate assets wherever possible. Last year, Macy’s said it would close 125 “neighborhood” doors, and now has about 60 locations left to close.

With Backstage, Macy’s also growing off-price business, 45 in-store departments are planned this year, and there’s a resumption of opening freestanding Backstage stores. A handful opened for the first time in 2015.

To improve margins on digital sales, Macy’s has been developing ways to encourage store pickups to save on delivery costs, reducing the number of packages per order, and linking the best shipping offers more directly to the loyalty program and Macy’s proprietary credit card to reward bigger spenders.

Macy’s Inc. Sees a Brighter Light in a World of Uncertainty 

What it is: Shopify shows significant growth

Why it is important: The company is thriving as a platform for brands and retailers offering frictionless services

The Shopify platform, which provides retailers and brands with the tools they need to sell online has benefited from the rush to e-commerce with quarterly revenues up 110% to $988.6 m from processing orders with a gross merchandise value of $ 37.3 bn. According to Shopify’s president, “the centre of gravity is now online”. He added that the company is emphasising reducing friction for customers so they can build strong customer relationships and more easily manage the increasing complexity of their back-office operations as they scale.

Discovering new buyers is a pain point for Shopify as the cost of customer acquisition increases. In this respect, it has found it useful to make unexpected connections such as with recently bankrupted Lord and Taylor which has now launched on Shopify. For some observers, Shopify is a sign that there exists e-commerce beyond Amazon. The company has expanded its ecosystem and noted that roughly 45 800 partners referred a merchant to Shopify over the past 12 months, an increase of 73%. It has also been building its fulfilment network to help retailers handle their inventory with more flexibility.

The managing director, EMEA, of Shopify is presenting at the IADS CEO meeting on 29 April 2021.

Shopify Sales Double as E-commerce Gains 

What: The Italian department store opted for other terms to communicate its values in its latest advertising campaign which will continue for the upcoming two years.

Why is it important: The company’s latest advertising campaign rather resulted in an illustrated manifesto mirroring the shift the retailer made from defining itself as a “house of brands” to a “house of values.”

“We had all our vision and history very clear in our minds but we never narrated it,” said Rinascente’s CEO Pierluigi Cocchini. “We started from the word ‘sustainability’ knowing that we didn’t want to use it because it has been an abused term and I personally consider it a word belonging to the last decade. Today, the concept has been enriched with so many new values that this term alone isn’t enough to express them all.”

For this reason, the company picked five words representing its pillars and grouped them under the common payoff “Keep It Beautiful,” illustrating the retailer’s commitment to preserving and perpetuating beauty. The terms appearing in the ads are: respect, creativity, research, emotion and diversity.

Respect is referenced it to the Italian territory. In fact, what sets Rinascente apart from its competitors is the location of its units, which are all integrated in the city centres, therefore playing a key role for these urban areas not only commercially but also culturally and socially. Cocchini particularly highlighted how the stores are not housed in new constructions but in historic buildings the retailer has revamped.

“We like to define ourselves as a collection of department stores rather than a chain, because each unit is unique in its design and offering,” said Cocchini. “And that’s why our second word is creativity.

As for the term “emotion,” the executive underscored the importance of offering constant entertainment to consumers, becoming “a stage for unique experiences,” while he highlighted how research permeates every aspect of the retailer’s activity, from scouting new brands to studying new ways to approach customers.

Finally, for “diversity,” Cocchini stressed that the department store is an inclusive, democratic spot by definition, where everybody is welcome to partake in the experience of shopping, having a coffee or just visiting the spaces.

Without disclosing exact figures, Cocchini confirmed that Rinascente closed 2020 with sales down between 30 and 40% compared to the previous year, when it registered revenues of EUR 800 million and reported double-digit growth compared to 2018. Launched last year after a 20-million-euro investment, the e-commerce site is helping to partly offset the losses, but it’s the on-demand service’s performance that has surprised Cocchini the most. Introduced four years ago, the service enables sales assistants to support customers’ shopping experience remotely via WhatsApp messages and accounted for over 10 million sales in 2020.

Rinascente releases ad campaign, which doubles as illustrated manifesto 

What: A total of 63 artworks by 26 artists are on display at the store.

Why is it important: The store is part of the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture and Lotte Department Store Gangnam’s project to jointly create a structure that can benefit both the retail giant and local artists hit by the pandemic.

Works of art are among the items that can now be bought at a department store.

Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture said it has opened an “S-store” on the fourth floor of the Lotte Department Store in Gangnam, Seoul.

A total of 63 artworks by 26 artists are on display at the store. The price of the art pieces is reasonable and ranges from KRW 10 000 to KRW 1 million (up to USD 755).

The retail giant said it keeps the distribution fee to a minimum to ensure maximum profit for the artists.

Local artists sell artwork at Lotte Department Store in Gangnam

What it is: A new perspective on customer relations issuing from the covid experience

Why it is important: It represents a way of attaching value to customer data as well as offering a bridge between online and offline shopping.

Clientela, the omnichannel customer relationship management solutions provider, has been defending the concept of “relational shopping” as opposed to “transactional shopping”. The idea is to prioritise customer relationships and converting a shopper who would not have otherwise completed a purchase; build on interaction to convert an undecided shopper later; and upsell an existing new shopper using a more personalised service.

It is not intended to replace existing services and relations with customers, but rather to complement them through a chat or video experience in which data is captured. This takes place through the Clientela system which, according to the company, is highly adaptable, scalable and customisable for retailers, allowing it to be launched and integrated quickly.

According to CEO and co-founder Lorenzo Benazzo, the relational shopping concept emerged from the pandemic when many retailers created or added a direct contact between customers and sales associates, especially if they were not sufficiently omnichannel-ready to compensate for store closures.

In addition, Clientela argues that relationships with prospective customers has been a neglected avenue for the creation of additional revenue. The value of a company is now becoming more closely connected to the richness and quantity of its customer data.

The CEO Lorenzo Benazzo gave a presentation to the IADS Academy 2021 participants on 28 April 2021. Among other points, he argued that relational shopping involves an important human element which means that time should become part of the new set of KPIs.

Relational Shopping — Clientela

What: Cartier and Prada joined Aura, a blockchain platform launched by LVMH

Why it is important: The luxury giants aim to fight counterfeiting and improve visibility through the supply chain.

LVMH’s blockchain platform, Aura, is a product verification and tracing system. Cartier and Prada joined the platform, which is a rare instance of the rival luxury brands working in concert.

The platform is now open for all luxury brands to join to help fight against counterfeit by keeping tamper-proof ledgers containing all the information about the item. The platform also establishes an industry-wide blockchain system, providing the transparency needed to give fashion items a second life as resale popularity continues to rise.

Cartier, Prada Link Up with LVMH in Blockchain Alliance

What: The First Insight survey revealed generational and gender differences about getting vaccinated.

Why is it important: More men than women across every generation are planning to head in-store after being vaccinated, it should be a wake-up call for retailers.

Male shoppers are “more inclined” to head to physical stores after getting vaccinated. The survey also revealed that “significantly more women than men are not planning to get vaccinated across every generation.”

Researchers at First Insight said while 64% of Millennial men “planned to shop for apparel in-store more or the same amount after being vaccinated, only 45% of Millennial women said the same.” The company said this trend was consistent across “every other generation as well, with 61% of Baby Boomer men and 47% of Baby Boomer women planning to shop for apparel in-store more or the same amount post-vaccination.”

With Generation Z, 56% of men polled expected to head to a store after getting vaccinated, which compares to 36% of Gen Z women.

“The survey found that apparel was not the only category where men are more comfortable heading in-store,” authors of the report said, adding that a higher percentage “of men are planning to shop more or the same in-store for footwear and beauty after being vaccinated compared to women across generations.”

First Insight said the single exception was Baby Boomers “shopping for beauty products, where 50% of women in this generation plan to shop more or the same in-store compared to 43% of men.”

Will Vaccines Drive Shoppers to StoreS

What: sportswear maker vows to double shareholder payouts as it seeks to boost profits through direct sales

Why is it important: by 2025, Adidas aims to sell every other product directly to consumers, compared with 33% before the pandemic

Adidas has vowed to double payouts to shareholders to up to EUR 9 billion over the next five years, as it seeks to lift profits by increasingly selling direct to consumers.

Chief executive Kasper Rorsted unveiled a plan to lift revenues by roughly a third to more than EUR 30 billion a year by 2025, promising that 80% of that growth would be generated by Adidas’s own online and physical stores.

Ecommerce is expected to be the biggest driver of growth as the world’s second-largest sports brand seeks to double online sales by 2025 to up to EUR 9 billion. EUR 2 billion will be invested in marketing and digital operations. “Building direct relationships with its target audience plays an increasingly important role,” Adidas said.

The company’s new “Own the Game” strategy targets annual revenue growth of 8 to 10% a year compared to average industry 6-7%. For 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic led to a 78% decline in net profit to EUR 432 million, but expects a strong top-line recovery in 2021, with a revenue rise of 15 to 19%.

Alongside its strategy for growth, Rorsted also pledged to bolster Adidas’s green credentials, saying the group planned to increase the share of products made from “sustainable materials” from 60% today to 90% over the next five years.

Adidas aims to cut out retailers in renewed push for growth 

What: The arrival of springtime and progress made in nationwide vaccination is giving a much-needed boost to the country’s top brick-and-mortar retailers.

Why it is important: During the weekend of 5 March, Hyundai Department Store witnessed a 109.8% surge in sales compared to 2020 and sales were up by 26.5% compared to 2019.

Sales at Lotte Department Store were up 94% year-on-year and 9% compared to 2019.

Shinsegae Department Store saw sales increase by 94.7% and 14% compared to 2020 and 2019 respectively.

Luxury goods performed especially well, with Lotte and Shinsegae reporting 143% and 109.9% sales boosts year-on-year and Hyundai reporting a 138.6% uptick.

Seoul’s newest and biggest department store, the Hyundai Seoul is estimated to have recorded sales of KRW 37.2 billion (USD 32.6 million) in its first week of business. Some 1.5 million people are estimated to have visited it during the first week.

South korea's department stores strong sign of recovery

New Hyundai Seoul record sales

What: eBay is the third-largest e-commerce company in South Korea.

Why is it important: This acquisition would be key for Lotte Group, as an opportunity to boost its e-commerce and compete with Coupang as well as Shinsegae/Naver partnership.

Lotte Shopping CEO Kang Hee-tae said at the company’s March 23 shareholder meeting that he is interested in eBay Korea. This has to do with the fact that Coupang successfully went public on the New York Stock Exchange and Shinsegae and Naver formed a partnership for a higher market share.

For Lotte Group, eBay Korea is an opportunity to boost Lotte ON, its sluggish e-commerce arm. Lotte ON launched about a year ago, has failed to make any meaningful achievement. A change is inevitable and eBay Korea can serve as a breakthrough.

Shinsegae Group is interested in eBay Korea, too. The group is currently beefing up its e-commerce business based mainly on SSG.com. The e-commerce arm boosted its sales by 53% last year.

eBay Korea’s value is estimated to KRW 5.000 billion (USD 4.420 billion).

Lotte and Shinsegae Interested in Acquiring eBay Korea 

Related items:

• Shinsegae and Naver partnering to compete with Coupang
• Shinsegae and Naver to launch luxury e-commerce platform this summer

What: USD 1.1 billion in senior secured notes were sold to repay other borrowings

Why is it important: The owners of the Dallas-based luxury retailer have reduced their exposure way down as lenders, while Neiman’s slightly increases its debt level from what it had been since emerging from bankruptcy

The deal enables NMG’s three owners — also the retailer’s largest creditors — to greatly reduce their risk, but doesn’t de-leverage the luxury retailer. NMG emerged from bankruptcy on 25 September 2020 with its senior lenders — Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (Pimco), Davidson Kempner Capital Management and Sixth Street Partners — swapping debt for equity and becoming the new owners. To get Neiman’s out of Chapter 11, the three owners funded a USD 750 million exit financing package.

The reorganization plan eliminated USD 4.4 billion of the USD 5 billion or so in debt Neiman’s had on its books back then, and about USD 200 million in annual interest payments. Yet Neiman’s still pays significant interest (estimated at USD 114 million annually as of January 2021) on the USD 1.6 billion in debt it now has.

The memorandum states that Neiman’s believes its reorganized operating structure “provides ample liquidity and flexibility to respond quickly to evolving trends.” But there are other concerns related to the absence of international tourists and to some top designer brand partners that have or are considering converting from wholesale to concession arrangements.

On the revenue side, online sales were down 6% for the six months ended 30 January 2021, and down 4.1% for the 12 months through 30 January 2021. Sales at stores were down 33.6% for the six months ended 30 January 2021, and 47.3% for the 12 months through 30 January 2021.

NMG currently has 37 Neiman Marcus stores, two Bergdorf Goodman stores, and five Last Call units. The memo reiterates that the remaining fleet is “particularly well positioned and smart investments are being made to continue optimizing the in-store experience.” In addition, Neiman’s executives have been working hard to gain ground in e-commerce and investing USD 85 million in supply chain innovation.

The memo also indicates:

•    About 78% of NMG’s customers are female, about 64% of the customers have an annual household income over USD 250 000, and about 30% of customers have a household net worth greater than USD 5 million.

•    About 46% of Neiman’s customers are Generation X or Millennials, and they are active on social media.

•    About 30% of total U.S. revenues in the last 12 months were generated by Neiman’s InCircle loyalty program members who achieved reward status. These customers spend about nine times more than other customers.

•    About 40% of net sales are from customers who spend USD 10,000 or more annually.

NMG has refinanced again

What: LDF Magazine is now available in five non-Korean languages

Why is it important: Lotte aims to enhance interactive communication with global customers and will continue to play a role in spreading ‘K Culture’.

Lotte Duty Free is expanding its global customer communications after revamping the content of its online LDF Magazine and launching editions in five additional languages. As a result, the country’s leading travel retailer and world number two said it aims to more than double the publication’s current 800 000 subscriber base to 2.1 million by year-end.

To complement the Korean edition, the travel retailer now publishes versions in English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) and Vietnamese.

The foreign language editions include an additional section, named ‘K-CLASS’, which features educational content designed to spread the Korean language to non-speakers.

Lotte Duty Free extends global reach with customer publication in five new language

What: Stockmann of Finland has announced results for the year 2020. Consolidated revenue  was EUR 790.7 m, down 16.9% on the previous year. The result for the period was EUR – 291.6 m compared to EUR – 45.6 m a year earlier. According to management, the fourth quarter was profitable. Personnel numbers have shrunk from 7002 to 5991 over the year.

Why it is important: The group’s restructuring programme was recently approved by the Helsinki District Court. The restructuring programme is based on the continuation of Stockmann’s department store operations, the sale and lease-back of the department store properties located in Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga and the continuation of Lindex’s business operations as a fixed part of the Stockmann Group. the company will sell the real estate assets it owns in Helsinki city centre, Tallinn and Riga. The received realisation result of the company’s real estate assets will primarily be used to pay secured debts.

The company has negotiated new market-based lease agreements containing smaller premises than in the previous lease agreements for all its department stores and the office space in Pitäjänmäki, Helsinki.

Stockmann Group’s Financial Statements Bulletin 2020