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India among top suppliers of paper to UAE

Other markets account for approximately 27.9 per cent of Dubai's imports, a statement released here by organisers of Paper Arabia 2013.




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Reliance acquires British toy-maker Hamleys for undisclosed sum

Reliance Retail’s marquee label operator Reliance Brands is the India master franchisee for Hamleys, which reputedly has its origins in the world’s oldest toy store in London that was opened in 1881.




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Reliance Brands completes acquisition of Hamleys

Reliance Brands has completed acquisition of 100 per cent stake of Hamleys Global Holdings (HGHL) through a special purpose vehicle company set up in United Kingdom for cash consideration of GBP 67.96 million, Reliance Industries said in a BSE filing Thursday.




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Reliance opens 100th Hamleys store in India

Hamleys entered Indian in 2010 with its first store at High Street Phoenix Mumbai and is currently the largest toy retailer in India with 100 stores in 36 cities.




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Reliance Brands to take Hamleys to US, Canada

Reliance Brands will take Hamleys toy stores to the US and Canada to capitalise on the vacuum created by liquidation of one the world’s largest toy store chain Toys R Us.




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Reliance Brands picks Sumeet Yadav to head Hamleys global

It has hired Sumeet Yadav, former CEO of South African restaurant chain Nando’s in India, to head Hamleys, according to two people aware of the development.




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Small towns go online to quench thirst for luxury

Most consumers tend to go bargain hunting online. For a large part of 2019, luxury mall managers reported that sales were lacklustre. Luxury goods websites, however, managed to buck the trend because of 20-50% lower costs on their sites. But at the moment, watch companies do not seem to be finding too many takers in tier-2 and 3 towns.




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JLo handbags will now be available online in India

Ace Turtle’s ecommerce platform, which facilitates crossborder payments, supply chain, returns and customer support will help Jennifer Lopez reach out to millions of internet shoppers in these markets.




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Orders sink for Italy's luxury suppliers as virus spreads - sources

The 280 billion euros ($320 billion) per year global luxury goods sector, already reeling from months of protests in the shopping hub of Hong Kong, was dealt a hammer blow earlier this year by the coronavirus outbreak in mainland China.




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Safilo sees negligible impact from coronavirus outbreak for now

China accounts for just around 1% of the group's total revenue and Italy for 5%, the CEO said. Safilo's factory in China reopened on Feb. 10 and it is now running at 85% of its capacity, and no big problems occurred at plants in Italy.




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Armani to make single use medical overalls at all its Italian factories

Giorgio Armani has donated 2 million euros in recent weeks to hospitals around Italy.




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Global luxury goods sales to slide up to 35% - study

The coronavirus crisis is expected to lead to a spate of mergers and acquisitions of weakened brands, the closure of single-brand stores and reshaping of already suffering U.S. department stores, D'Arpizio said. Customers are also likely to emerge from global lockdowns with a new set of priorities.




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Akshaya Tritiya: Kalyan Jewellers takes online route

Customers can purchase the precious metal from two grams upwards following which a gold ownership certificate would be sent to them on the day of Akshaya Tritiya based on the customer recommended platforms.




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Jewellers offer online sweeteners for Akshay Tritiya

Senco Gold & Diamonds is offering a discount on the gold rate. Sankar Sen, CMD of the Kolkata-based company, said the special Akshay Tritiya offer entails giving a discount of Rs 400 per gram on the gold rate during the offer period that runs from April 22-27.




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Diamond polishing industry staring at a decade low revenue : Crisil

Assuming the pandemic starts subsiding by June and trade channels normalise over the next quarter, CRISIL expects a revival in demand to be pushed into the second half of the fiscal.




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Episode 58: OliSUn

Datassette presents a series of mixes intended for listening while programming to aid concentration and increase productivity (also compatible with other activities).




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Welspun India resumes partial ops at manufacturing facilities in Gujarat

On March 24, the company had decided to temporarily close its manufacturing operations at the two units with immediate effect till further notice following announcement of nationwide lockdown to curb spread of coronavirus pandemic.




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Garment exporters' body expresses inability to pay workers' pay for April, May

The body has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief ministers to facilitate payement of wages to workers for these two months. GEMA president Vijay Jindal also sought intervention of Textile Minister Smriti Irani and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the matter.




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Pepe Jeans, Tom Ford & Max Mara are least transparent fashion brands, likely to have poor working conditions in factories

The annual index by advocacy group Fashion Revolution - now in its fifth year - ranked 250 of the world's biggest brands according to how much information they disclose about their social and environmental policies, practices and outcomes.




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When no one wants the ‘summer collection’, fashion retailers design masks, WFH lines to survive Covid crisis

It is a tough time for apparel retailers who are looking at zero offline revenues and a steep drop in online sales. The latest dress or the pair of khakis may not be able to save them.




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Textile players to witness substantial fall in topline, operating profits: India Ratings

The continued lockdown in April 2020 (from late March) has impacted the entire textile industry and disrupted exports, Ind-Ra said in a report.




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Fashion shift online picks up even as stores reopen

H&M, the world's second-biggest fashion retailer, said local currency sales had tumbled 57% in the March 1-May 6 period, while online sales grew almost a third.




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Covid-19 Impact: Stylish face mask is the new focal accessory of India’s top fashion brands

Several apparel makers and fast-moving consumer goods companies had earlier stepped up to produce medical-grade masks as a philanthropic act when Covid-19 struck but now it is apparent that the pandemic is set to alter lifestyles for at least some time to come.




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YesNo, aural and clickable enjoyment

YesNo by Timo Kahlen feels like “traditional” net art, a well crafted stuck webpage for the user’s aural and clickable enjoyment.

 




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ASCII-graffiti, referential public art

Isn’t ASCII Art a perfect form of “graffiti” in 2010s? The 8-bit aesthetics is among the strongest visual references connecting the analogue recent past with the omni-digital present, so why not adopt it to finally have some public art embedded




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Mechanical Techno, machine music declinations

The value of craft after software sounds rampant sometimes, expressing the freedom of escaping repetitive taps and clicks to accomplish some assumed tasks. Mixing media, electricity, electronics, mechanics and inert objects Graham Dunning has realised a structured track/performance/open script in




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EY may pay Bain $35m to settle Lilliput's inflated fin data claim

The 2014 lawsuit alleged that EY's auditing facilitated an accounting fraud and sought damages from the consulting giant.




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Firstcry to use analytics to boost offline sales

The company has designed a new system in collaboration with Microsoft to understand customer shopping behaviour, likening it to using Google-like analytics offline.




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No child’s play: Secrets to creating a successful kids’ clothing line in India

The shift in preferences from gender-specific colours and home-grown labels to branded outfits has led to a phenomenal growth in kids’ clothing in India.




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SoftBank commits $400 million for babycare co FirstCry

The company, one of the largest in its space, sells just about everything a child and a new mother needs - apparel, footwear, toys, books, feeding & nursing products, soaps, oils, powders, baby monitors, strollers and baby bedding.




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Amazon, Flipkart to increase warehouses

Amazon’s India unit has contracted 2 million sq ft while Walmart-backed Flipkart has contracted 1 million sq ft across Bengaluru, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Coimbatore, said multiple persons aware of the development.




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Grofers is in talks to raise $60-70 million

The funding comes at a time when the company’s sales and margins have doubled, compared to the same period last year.




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E-commerce firms seek clarity on equalisation levy

They also suggested that the levy should not be imposed on services or goods that are executed online but delivered offline – for instance, online hotel bookings, air ticketing and even heavily regulated financial services – besides seeking a clear definition of what comprises online sale of goods, services and the digital or electronic platform.




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Lockdown 3.0: People place orders online for non-essential items; staff crunch may delay deliveries

E-commerce companies have been permitted to sell all items in Orange and Green Zones starting from Monday, the first day of the third phase of the nationwide lockdown that began on March 25.




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Flipkart group CFO Emily McNeal quits

Sources in the company said, McNeal’s role will now be divided between Sriram Venkataraman, who is expected to take over as the CFO of Flipkart as well as the fashion etailer Myntra, and Adarsh Nahata who is currently PhonePe’s CFO.




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Flipkart appoints Sriram Venkataraman as CFO

In his new role, Venkataraman will be responsible for key finance operations and functions at Flipkart and Myntra, including Tax, Risk Management, and Treasury.




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Lockdown 3.0: Mobile phones, gas stoves, trimmers see spike in searches on Flipkart

The Walmart-owned company said it had seen an increase in searches for consumer electronic products, including personal grooming equipment such as trimmers.




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Covid-19 crisis has highlighted e-commerce importance,cooperation in cross-border goods, services movement: WTO

Highlighting that network capacity and higher bandwidth services have proved to be crucial, not only during the pandemic itself, but also for e-commerce and economic inclusion in general, it said in an information note: “What can WTO members do to improve communications networks and services?”




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COVID-19: Amazon to deliver essential items in containment zones in Mumbai

Under the initiative, Amazon will deliver orders to a designated delivery point in the vicinity of the containment zone, from where volunteers will further deliver the packages to customers' doorstep, the company said in a statement.




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Ecommerce: Covid-19 highlights the urgent need to digitise the supply chain

Companies need to come up with strategies to keep the lights on, both by keeping control on the cash burn as well as generating revenue in these difficult times.




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VLCC buys Vanity Cube for home delivery

Beauty & wellness co expected to spend Rs 100 crore on acquisition, integration and category development of on-demand beauty services startup.




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VLCC to enter Saudi market, forges alliance with Cigalah

The plan is to launch six such centres in Saudi Arabia in the next 3 years with an estimated investment of over AED (Arab Emirates Dirham) 30 million (around Rs 52 crore).




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Believe in the business to stay ahead of the curve: Falguni Nayar, Nykaa

"The journey actually began in June when we did well due to marketing, though we were actually not ready operationally."




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Molton Brown plans to enter India's hospitality sector next fiscal

The company, which plans to open 15 stores across India over the next five years, at present has one store in India. It entered India in June this year.




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L'Oreal donates 60,000 litres of hand sanitizers to aid coronavirus fight

L'Oreal India's operations team will donate hand sanitisers to public health institutions, police forces and NGOs, who are at the forefront of the fight against the virus, said a statement.




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Govt asks liquor makers to manufacture hand sanitisers

“Now we want distilleries that have their own bottling plants to add a new product line - sanitisers - to their line up of alcoholic beverages. This will put off pressure from hand sanitiser industry which is facing huge challenge to meet the demand,” said a senior food ministry official.




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Covid-19 outbreak: Liquor firms to seek licence for sanitisers

The industry will also meet drug controllers to seek and fast-track issuance of required licences and nods. Ethyl alcohol, a key raw material used in a distillery, is also a key ingredient for hand sanitisers. This move comes as the centre has requested state governments to rope in distilleries to make hand sanitisers for the shutdown period till March 31 due to the pandemic.




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UP govt issues licences to 48 companies to make 50,000 litres of sanitisers per day

"The total sanitiser licenses issued in the state is 48 and production ramped up to 50,000 litres per day," Additional Chief Secretary, Information, Awanish Awasthi, told reporters.




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Covid-19: After donating $1 million, Kylie Jenner teams up with cosmetics company to produce hand sanitisers

Kylie and Kris Jenner have teamed up with cosmetics company Coty to mass produce the hand sanitisers.




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Reliance plans to buy e-pharmacy Netmeds

The conversations between Reliance and Netmeds, which had also held talks with Walmart-owned Flipkart, had been going on before the coronavirus lockdown, sources said.