FROM THE DESK OF DEBORAH WEINSWIG

• Among those who are purchasing any categories more online, we have seen a steady decrease in the proportion that said they are buying food more online, since April 1. In early April, 42.2% of this group were purchasing food online more than they used to. This metric hit 31.8% on June 17, the lowest since we began asking the question—and representing around a 10-percentage-point decline.
• Also in our June 17 survey, we saw a week-over-week decline in the proportion of respondents who had bought groceries online in the past two weeks, from 31.4% to 29.4%.

US RETAIL AND TECH HEADLINES

• Instagram has expanded access to Instagram Shopping for more types of businesses, enabling creators to connect with shoppers and sell their merchandise on the platform. The company has introduced a new set of eligibility requirements for interested businesses to qualify for Instagram sales.
• With this new initiative, enterprises must tag products on Instagram from a single website that they own and sell from, to provide transparency for shoppers and deliver a more trusted shopping experience. These prerequisites will come into effect on July 9 in all the markets where Instagram Shopping is supported.

• Facebook has acquired virtual reality (VR) video-game developer Ready At Dawn Studios for an undisclosed sum to enhance its Oculus VR gaming division. The acquisition is the second for Facebook in the VR gaming market this year after it acquired Sanzaru, the developer of the Asgard’s Wrath VR game, in February.
• Ready At Dawn Studios entered into a partnership with Facebook’s Oculus Studios in 2017 to build a game studio. As part of Oculus Studios, Ready At Dawn Studios will continue creating VR content for gamers as an independently operated studio.

• Home-improvement retailer Lowe’s has appointed Janice Dupre Little as EVP, Human Resources, effective June 22. Little joined Lowe’s in 2017 and most recently served as SVP, Diversity and Talent Management.
• Prior to joining Lowe’s, Little served as VP, Diversity and Inclusion, and Chief Diversity Officer for pharmaceutical company McKesson Corp. Before transitioning into human resoures, she served in finance and accounting roles.

• Footwear retailer Shoe Carnival reported a 28.1% year-over-year increase in comparable store sales for the second quarter to date after the retailer reopened all but one of its 390 stores across the US and Puerto Rico. Brick-and-mortar comparable sales were up 4.0% and e-commerce comparable sales increased nearly 470% for the period.
• The company forecasts downside risks including its gross margin for the fiscal second quarter as a result of the increasing delivery costs associated with higher e-commerce activity. Shoe Carnival will provide further financial details in August on its second-quarter conference call.

• Home-furnishing retailer Bed Bath & Beyond has announced that it has secured a $850 million secured asset-based revolving credit (ABL) facility with a syndicate of banks. The retailer stated that the coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted the operations during its first quarter of fiscal year 2020.
• The ABL facility will help the retailer to further strengthen its liquidity position and improve cash flow generation. The new facility, due in 2023, replaces the company’s existing unsecured revolving credit facility, allowing for borrowings of up to $250 million.

EUROPE RETAIL AND TECH HEADLINES

• The UK grocery market saw sales rise by 13.7% year over year, with online grocery sales up 91%, in the 12 weeks ended June 14, 2020, which covered the full lockdown period, according to Kantar Worldpanel. The Co-operative Group showed the strongest growth in sales among the major brick-and-mortar grocery retailers—at 34.5% year over year—while online operator Ocado saw a 42.2% increase in sales.
• Lidl saw a 14.3% year-over-year increase in sales. In a turnaround from recent multiyear trends, Tesco outperformed Aldi, with the retailers posting 12.1% and 8.0% sales growth, respectively, in the 12-week period. Morrisons’ sales increased 10.5% year over year, while Sainsbury’s and Asda saw sales rise by 10.2% and 6.3%, respectively.

• JD Sports has bought back its subsidiary Go Outdoors for £56.5 million ($70.7 million) in a pre-pack deal after the outdoor equipment retailer was put into administration. JD Sports purchased the business, and all of its assets, via a newly established subsidiary.
• The company has appointed Michael Magnay and Daniel Butters of Deloitte as joint administrators to facilitate the deal. It revealed that the current workforce will be moved to the newly formed company and it will continue to occupy all 67 Go Outdoors stores for at least 12 months.

• Italian supermarket chain Pam Panorama has introduced an online portal The Portale Fornitori Merci, which facilitates its suppliers to directly sell their products to customers. The portal enables businesses to sign up in just a few simple steps directly on the company’s website.
• Pam Panorama intends to associate with small and medium-sized businesses via the portal as part of the retailer’s efforts to support local suppliers in the HoReCa (hotel, retail and café) segment.

• British e-commerce company The Hut Group (THG) developed partnerships worth over £100 million ($125 million) earlier this week with a number of major beauty brands as part of its strategy to expand its direct-to-consumer (DTC) operations. The beauty brands include Burt’s Bees, By Terry, Elemis, PZ Cussons Beauty, Nuxe and Revolution Beauty.
• Under the partnership, each brand will have access to THG Ingenuity’s technological and e-commerce infrastructure, ranging from digital payment capabilities to data analytics.

• Supermarket chain Morrisons has introduced a hot-food takeaway service at all of its 402 supermarket cafés. Customers can place orders by phone.
• Morrisons stated that all items will be prepared in Morrisons Cafés and packed ready for collection within 30 minutes. The retailer has also teamed up with delivery service provider Deliveroo for home delivery in a selected number of locations for an additional cost.

ASIA RETAIL AND TECH HEADLINES

• Facebook launched its online e-commerce platform, Facebook Shops, in South Korea on June 22. This service allows sellers to offer products via a customizable online storefront.
• The Facebook Shops service enables shoppers to browse products through Instagram or Facebook accounts. The company said that it plans to offer an additional feature through which shoppers can purchase via instant messaging.

• The Singaporean arm of Japanese dollar-store chain Daiso is offering an online service that allows customers to view the crowd levels at any Daiso or ThreePpy banner stores.
• The crowd updates are posted in two-hour blocks and are graded with colored squares—from green (no crowd) to red (maximum capacity)—allowing customers to assess how busy stores are before visiting. Daiso operates 22 stores in Singapore.

• Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com and Sony are collaborating to develop an augmented reality (AR) technology to measure the foot size of online shoppers. Through this tool, customers can use their smartphones equipped with a distance-detecting camera to measure the foot size by scanning their feet.
• JD.com is also planning to further expand its AR offerings to skin evaluation and livestreaming.

• GrabMart, the delivery service platform of ride-hailing company Grab, has expanded into the “Instant Retail” concept due to the increase in on-demand shoppers. This service aims to help Malaysian retailers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to serve customers at home, with safe and instant delivery within 30 minutes.
• This move intends to support the government’s Shop Malaysia Online initiative and is providing 20% discounts as an introductory offer. 

• Alibaba Group has expanded its Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) partnership with the municipal government of Yiwu, a city in Zhejiang Province in China, to develop a Digitized Comprehensive Bonded Zone, which is a commercial area with favorable taxation and other policies.
• As part of this new initiative, Alibaba Group has partnered with Yiwu-based China Commodities City Group to develop the eWTP cross-border trade service platform to make cross-border e-commerce more accessible to SMEs. This platform will provide SMEs with digitized trade services, including customs clearance, foreign exchange settlements and tax procedures.