An article in the Financial Times describes the effects of the strike in France over pension reforms. Following on from the "gilets jaunes" protests earlier in the year, the current strike constitutes a second blow to retailers, hospitality industry, restaurants etc. where traffic is severely down at a crucial time of the year for business. The strike affecting transport, makes it difficult for shoppers to come into Paris or to spend longer than necessary in the city, as well as making it a real headache for employees to reach their places of business, which often start the day later and close earlier as a result.

Read full article below:

article from FT: Paris bears brunt of strikes as customers skip shops and theatres

Hudson's Bay announced its first foray into beauty and skincare with the launch of Les Essentiels. The new collection includes serums, primer, mascara, colour stick and under eye mask; all paraben-, sulphate-, Phthalate- and cruelty-free. Prices range from $35 to $60, putting Hudson's Bay private label slightly above drugstore brands but below some of the luxury brands it already carries in its beauty section.

The collection was exclusively developed for Hudson's Bay by Brittny Robins through her new Beauty Architecture company, By Britt. "The collection is specially-designed to bring together dynamic natural ingredients and functionality through an inclusive selection that will help Canadians feel their best and most confident selves." Said Robins.

Catherine Kelly, VP Cosmetics at Hudson's Bay, said "This first signature beauty line for Hudson's Bay is an opportunity to not only offer our own point of view on simple yet sophisticated beauty essentials, but to also partner with and champion a Canadian talent like Brittny who has proven herself through her deep expertise and passion for the industry."

The line will launch this month at select Hudson's Bay stores and online at thebay.com.

press release: Hudson's Bay launches private label beauty products

Catalyst Capital Group Inc has offered to buy Hudson's Bay Company in a deal that values it at C$2.03 billion (US$1.53 billion), challenging the Canadian retailer's agreed deal with a consortium led by its executive chairman, Richard Baker.

Shares of the Saks Fifth Avenue owner rose about 11% to C$9.80 in early trading.

Private equity firm Catalyst, which owns 17.5 % of Hudson's Bay, has offered C$11 per share, topping Baker's raised C$10.30 per share proposal.

Baker's consortium already owns 57 % of Hudson's Bay and has previously informed the company it would block a sale to another party.

Thanks to their exclusive partnership, Instagram helps some online-only brands to emerge in real life. This the very first time the social media app has partnered with a UK retailer.

In the Oxford Street store, visitors can discover eight digital-first brands, covering fashion, beauty, jewellery and homeware, including for example The Frankie Shop, Ammé London, Atelier Stella and others. Exclusive items have been created by all brands for the occasion. The pop-up store will be open on from 5 to 15 December.

Selfridges maintains its position as one of Britain's top retailers by absorbing every trend. In addition to hosting pop-ups with resale brands such as Vestiaire Collective, the store has built a cinema and a skate-bowl. The department store had already extended its Body Studio last year, to expand supply and meet growing demand for activewear products.

Glossier, the beauty brand, has opened temporary pop-up shops in seven Nordstrom stores around the US.  They will run from early December 2019 to 16 February 2020, in Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Washington DC, Santa Anita California, and New York City. Although a primarily online business, Glossier has flagship stores in New York and Los Angeles, as well as several other pop-ups around the world. It has been sold at other locations throughout the world in Miami, Boston and London. For Nordstrom, the collaboration is a way of attracting a new type of customer. The store company has also worked with Reformation, Everlane, and Away.

Harris Scarfe of Australia has been placed into voluntary liquidation. The $380m group operates its 66 stores mainly in South Australia but also has stores in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and Tasmania. Harris Scarfe is widely regarded as a mid-market retailer squeezed between the lower end BigW of Kmart, and David Jones and Myer (which are also struggling. Both of those have either been closing stores or downsizing existing stores.

Breuninger of Stuttgart is starting a collaboration with Lafayette Plug and Play. The start-up accelerator of the French department store group and the Plug and Play tech centre from Silicon Valley, will develop and implement instruments for Breuninger. Lafayette Plug and Play is an accelerator specialising in retail and fashion within the global innovation platform Plug and Play and connects start-ups in Europe with established business partners. Every year, young companies are selected and promoted in a multi-month programme. "The aim of our cooperation is to promote the culture of innovation with new ideas and impulses through the increased exchange with start-ups, corporate partners and Lafayette Plug and Play. At the same time, we want to identify trends and developments in the industry at an early stage and implement them for our customers," said Breuninger CEO, Holger Blecker.

Jenners department store of Edinburgh will leave its historic site on Princes Street after 181 years. The store, part of House of Fraser group now owned by Sports Direct, may apparently move to another site. The building's owner, Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, has plans for what he calls an "exciting renovation" which will involve a hotel, shops, and a rooftop restaurant. The building was sold in 2005 to private investors when House of Fraser bought the Jenners brand and property. In 2017, Povlsen acquired the building reportedly for £53m. Mr Povlsen is the owner of Bestseller as well as an important shareholder in Asos and Zalando. He is also a major landowner in Scotland as well as having properties in Denmark and Romania.

Galeries Lafayette opens its first Luxembourg store, selling fashion, accessory and beauty brands over six floors at Royal Hamilius. As part of Galeries Lafayette group's development strategy to open shops outside of France, Luxembourg's is its third international store to open in 2019, after Doha and Shanghai. "Luxembourg for us is very important because it's a country, a city, very close to France that is very attractive with an elevated level of buying power," said Nicolas Houzé, chief executive officer of Galeries Lafayette.

Stacked six floors high with a total of 6500sqm of space, an escalator bank runs through the center of the store. The selling space is set up on unfinished wood parquet, with French touches like Drucker bistrot chairs and tables and patches of tiled floor, kept airy with low display furniture. It's conceived as an urban, city center store, human-sized and with a premium to luxury positioning for a Luxembourg clientele.

press release: galeries lafayette opens in luxembourg

press kit: galeries lafayette luxembourg

Frasers Group (the former Sports Direct) has opened its biggest Flannels store to date with the new location occupying the top floor of the former House of Fraser branch in Belfast. the 2790sqm shop is the first step in the transformation of the ex-HoF store with the new upscale Frasers department store concept set to join it next year. The store carries menswear and womenswear brands from runway collections to streetwear drops. The new location also includes an all-day café and bar for the first time, run by the local Writers Café Group. The Belfast store was designed by Argent, which specialises in luxury, and who has been working on the group's other Flannels stores as they've been upgraded to fit the new vision for the brand.

In a trial move, John Lewis is giving third-party retailers access to its click & collect network. The first one is pure player Boden, a fashion site founded as a mail order company in 1991. Online shoppers who order by 7pm can now pick up their Boden orders at 30 branches of Waitrose on the next working day. Nine of those branches are in the Greater London area. John Lewis' click and collect service launched in 2008, and enables shoppers to pick up their online orders at branches of John Lewis and Waitrose. Currently, 57% of all John Lewis online orders are delivered through in-store pick-up: 25% are picked up at a John Lewis shop and 75% at a branch of Waitrose. By opening up its services to other retailers' customers, John Lewis expects to attract new customers into its stores.

M&S has launched flexible payments for online orders as more and more retailers introduce 'buy now, pay later' options in a bid to capture cautious consumers' pounds. The British retailer has chosen Clearpay as payments partner to offer customers the option to pay for their orders in four instalments, interest-free.

Marks & Spencer said the Clearpay option will be available to all UK M&S.com customers from mid-November and can be applied to purchases from £30 across M&S clothing & home products. Kirsty Ward, Director of M&S Bank and Services said: "We're committed to providing our customers with seamless, easy and convenient ways to pay, and that's why we've introduced this fully integrated and interest-free option to help spread the cost of shopping on M&S.com. The Clearpay solution complements our existing M&S Credit and Debit Cards offered through M&S Bank."

Marks & Spencer will be hoping the new payments service will boost sales as it enters the busy Christmas shopping and trading season after a tough year. In the year to 30 March 2019, revenues dropped 3% across the group and 3.6% in the clothing and home business.

Macy's confirmed it had suffered a "highly sophisticated and targeted data security incident related to macys.com that affected a small number of customers during a one-week period in October". The leaked information potentially includes customer first and last names, addresses, phone numbers, and payment card numbers, security codes and expiration dates, and didn't affect mobile transactions. "Our security teams quickly engaged a leading forensic firm to remove the threat," said Macy's in a statement. "Details of this incident were reported to federal law enforcement for investigation and to assist other websites in managing this threat. Affected customers have been notified and will receive additional information, including instructions on how to enroll in consumer protection services at no cost. Security and privacy remain our priority."

Macy's and Macy's-owned Bloomingdale's last year suffered a similar breach.

American department store chain Kohl's launched a concept beauty department in 12 of its stores. Within this offering, the retailer doubled the size of the department from 70sqm to 140sqm, introduced augmented reality try-on mirrors through Modiface, created updated in-store fixtures and lighting, dedicated store associates to the space and folded in new brands and programs like Beauty Checkout (a quarterly rotation, started last month with 13 beauty and wellness brands). All the new brands are meant to fall into "highly relevant and emerging" categories, including trends like CBD and clean beauty.

"Beauty is a space we're heavily invested in, and we're going to get pretty assertive with how aggressive we roll that out," said Doug Howe, Kohl's chief merchandising officer.

Read more below

full article by glossy: Kohl's pilots new beauty department concept

Online shoppers in China have again blown the record for the most amount of sales made on Singles' Day, the world's largest 24-hour shopping event.

Alibaba' sales reached $38.4bn.

Singles Day has become the biggest 24-hour online shopping event in the calendar, and has been replicated at home and abroad, with Singles' Day promotions found at rivals such as China's JD.com and Pinduoduo as well as South Korea's 11thStreet and Singapore's Qoo10.

Known in China as "bare sticks holiday" because of how it looks numerically, Singles' Day began as an anti-Valentine's Day when students at Nanjing University started celebrating their singledom.

It was then adopted by e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2009 and it has now become a day when everyone, regardless of their single status, buys themselves gifts.

The Hangzhou-based firm, founded by eccentric businessman and China's richest man Jack Ma,  now refers to Singles' Day as the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. By comparison, Black Friday pulled in $6.2bn in online sales in the US last year, according to Adobe Analytics which analysed 80 of the top 100 US online retailers.

A 2015 survey of 1,000 Chinese internet users, conducted by Nielsen, found that the average consumer planned to spend 1,761 yuan (£181) during Singles' Day.

Following the inauguration of Galeries Lafayette Champs-Elysées earlier this year, the opening of the first Eataly in France, and a new opening in Shanghai last month, the French department store is opening a new store in the French capital. The new Galeries Lafayette, located in shopping center Beaugrenelle, is spread over 8000sqm across four floors. It features more than 400 brands, ranging from access to high range, that cover fashion and accessories for men, women and children, and beauty. It replaces a recently shuttered Marks & Spencer.

Aimed at the local clientele, the store is smaller than usual and distinguishes itself by bringing new products and emerging brands, not available elsewhere in the shopping centre. Ten multibrand spaces have been set up, where curated brands and emerging labels will change on a regular basis.

This opening follows the closure of Galeries Lafayette outpost located in Montparnasse, southern Paris, a few weeks ago.

New Bond Street is the most expensive street in Europe for retail rents and also the third most expensive globally, a new report by property consultancy Cushman and Wakefield. shows. The rents are around $1,714/£1,335 per square foot and have increased by 2.3% in the last 12 months.  The street, which hosts flagship boutiques for the biggest global luxury brands, is only beaten in terms of higher rents by Causeway Bay in Hong Kong and Upper 5th Avenue in New York. Globally, after New Bond Street, Avenue des Champs Elysées in Paris is fourth, ahead of Milan's Via Montenapoleone in fifth place.

view full ranking on Cushman and Wakefield website

An article in the Nikkei Asian review reports that Takashimaya of Japan is looking to double its profit from overseas stores within 4 years. The company recently changed its mind on closing its Shanghai store. Its goal now is turning that store around as well as those in Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City. The aim is for annual operating profit to reach 11 billion yen (($1.55 bn) in the fiscal year ending February 2024, compared to 3.9 bn yen last year.

The article gives department store share of market in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam:

Article: Takashimaya's mission: turn around Asian stores in 4 years

In order to improve customer experience, John Lewis has launched a concierge-style beauty service at its Cardiff store in St David's shopping centre. The 'Beauty Society' invites customers to enjoy a luxe dwell space, get personal and independent advice from beauty experts and book up to three different services. Beauty Guides are on hand to help customers find the right products from the vast range of brands and offer drop-in appointments. Shoppers can also book three bespoke experiences, including a beauty class for £35, a beauty makeover at £60 and an in-depth makeup bag refresh for £45.

Last year, John Lewis changed its name to John Lewis & Partners to put a stronger emphasis on the role of its staff, and started training store employees to provide more personalised advice and assistance.

Do you know you can easily access the IADS Website from your mobile phone, with just a little help from your thumb?

Put a shortcut on your home screen for convenience! Follow the 4 steps below and access valuable and exciting content:

> Go in your MOBILE WEB NAVIGATOR and then on the IADS WEBSITE (www.iads.org)

1. Click the MENU at the bottom of the page

Illustration '2019 NEWS NOV Website shortcut on mobile HOMEPAGE' (png - 0.26Mo)

2. Choose ADD TO HOME SCREEN

Illustration '2019 NEWS NOV Website shortcut on mobile MENU' (png - 0.16Mo)

3. RENAME your shortcut and ADD it

Illustration '2019 NEWS NOV Website shortcut on mobile TITLE' (png - 0.08Mo)

4. Find it on your mobile HOME SCREEN

Illustration '2019 NEWS NOV Website shortcut on mobile DESK' (png - 0.43Mo)

Security

Unfortunatelly, it is impossible to save your password on the website for security reasons BUT you can save it in your mobile passwords menu.

Selfridges has teamed up with workspace company Fora to redesign a property across the road from its Oxford Street flagship to house a workspace as well as up to four new shops. The redesign, 4200sqm of commercial space, is set to open in autumn 2021. Fora will occupy six storeys of the building on the corner of Oxford Street and Duke Street, over the 2nd-7th floors, hosting both shared and private workspace. The retail space would be configured as up to four individual units fronting Oxford Street and Duke Street, directly opposite Selfridges' experimental retail space. There will also be an event space which will cover two floors, and feature an expansive terrace as well as a barista bar.

"Creating a flexible workspace in our redesigned building will allow us to continue to cultivate a young, creative community in the Duke Street neighbourhood surrounding Selfridges & Co," Selfridges Group head of asset management Tim Reade said.

Italian department stores company Rinascente prepares the launch of its ecommerce platform, that should be live in February 2020. The web will gather all the categories of the Rinascente retail offer: from apparel to accessories and home supplies. Today, the company has eight stores spread across different Italian cities and wants to reach an online network that supplies the entire country. For now, Rinascente's ecommerce will be available only in Italy, but it's estimated that it will be present online throughout Europe starting in 2021.

Thailand's top retailer Central Group said it plans to invest over 20 billion baht ($663.13 million) in Vienna, Osaka and Turin, capitalising on a strong local currency. Central Group's investments include a joint venture with Austria's Signa Group in a 58,000-sqare-metre luxury mixed-used project in Vienna, which will comprise a hotel, restaurants and retail shops.

The company, owned by the billionaire Chirathivat family, said other parts of the investment include a 9 billion baht joint investment with Japanese firms, Taisei Corp and Kanden Realty & Development in a 515-room hotel in Osaka, Japan and the re-launch of its Rinascente department store in Italy.

r5089_9_hm_enters_the_rental_market-2.png

The latest player to enter the rapidly developing fashion rental market is Swedish fast fashion giant H&M, with a deft high street collection of archival evening wear. The high street fashion king unveiled this new rental concept at its latest concept store, H&M Sergels Torg in Stockholm. H&M Rental Service features a selection of some 50 frocks, wedding dresses and exotic evening tops that can be rented for one week by H&M members for 350 Swedish kroner (€35) each, as part of a customer loyalty program. The sizes range from EU 34 to 48, for clothes whose original price point was between 599 kroner (€60) and 3,000 kroner (€300). Members can book times for fittings with in-house personal stylists, allowing them to rent up to three pieces per week. All are made of sustainable materials, and come from H&M's Conscious Exclusive collections from 2012 to 2019. The plan is to test out the concept for three months; after which it may roll out in scores of stores, eventually adding menswear and accessories.