General
A Belgian shopping centre is introducing a navigation tool based on Augmented Reality (AR), which shows shoppers the quickest way to the shops. The app will be tested extensively in the coming weeks.
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Food
Starbucks plans to increase the number of branches from 33,000 to 55,000 over the next ten years. Only in 55 per cent of those new branches will you be able to drink your coffee onsite.
Furniture
After seventy years, Ikea will stop publishing its paper catalogue. "Times change", the company says, speaking of an "emotional but rational decision".
Fashion
Due to the coronavirus crisis profits evaporate almost completely in the global fashion industry: McKinsey expects a decrease of 93 per cent this year. Those who were able to grow did so either online or thanks to Asia-Pacific. Also in 2021, digital will still be the superstar.
Albert Heijn is no longer just a supermarket chain, but a "food technology company". As far as chief executive Marit van Egmond is concerned, digitisation can go even faster: goodbye tills and hello far-reaching personalisation.
Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize is replacing its loyalty card with an app that gives customers personalised discounts. In this way, the chain strengthens its healthy image and sharpens price perception, without getting bogged down in a price war.
Ralph Lauren cuts deeply in its costs and workforce: the American fashion label wants to save up to 200 million dollars by laying off 15% of its employees. That would cost some 3,700 people their jobs.
Despite the major impact of the corona pandemic, Inditex returned to profitability in the second quarter. Online growth is particularly strong and the retailer is taking further steps in its digital transformation.
Belgian luxury handbag producer Delvaux is opening its own webshop today. The company long resisted e-commerce, but its hand was forced by the corona crisis and the mandatory closing of its physical shops.
The Belgian launch of Lidl's Plus app has been a major success, but organisations representing the elderly now claim it discriminates against them.
The Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo will soon be launching its web shop in Belgium, commercial director Colette Cloosterman-Van Eerd said. The company is also expanding its online offering in the Netherlands, with amongst others a new app.
Inditex, parent company of Zara, Bershka and others, intends to be using purely sustainable fabric for its clothing by 2025. The move is part of a wider strategy focusing on sustainability and digital transformation.
Cosmetics
How do you combine digitisation, hyper-personalisation and wellness? Shiseido puts them together, blending them into a new, luxurious subscription formula.
Carrefour is rolling out two new online services. Within the domestic market of France, the supermarket group will start to offer home deliveries everywhere from 2020 onward. And this year, customers will already be able to pick up their orders within two hours.
Costs keep accumulating at Belgian lingerie group Van de Velde, but the company will just have to see it through, says to CEO Marleen Vaesen. She is adamant digitisation is necessary and will prove fruitful.
Carrefour is showing its ambition in the digital world by opening a Digital Hub in Paris. In a partnership with Google, the retailer wants to develop new solutions based on artificial intelligence.
