The Pier falls into administration

Amid the continuing Woolworths saga, another high-street retailer’s fall into administration has gone relatively unnoticed. Home furnishings merchant The Pier called in administrator Mazars last week. Mazars in turn called in turnaround specialist Hilco to operate the chain while it seeks a buyer. Twenty-six of The Pier’s 57 head-office employees have been made redundant.

Healthy Living Direct parent sold

Kingstown Associates, the parent company of Healthy Living Direct, Inspired Choices and five other catalogues, has been acquired by its finance and operations director, Carl Edwards, and former Damart UK board members Nigel Mellor and Dave Whittle. The company, which targets primarily older consumers, has estimated annual sales of £14 million.

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Other Breaking Stories...

Ideal Shopping warns of £4 million loss

TV-shopping and ecommerce firm Ideal Shopping Direct is projecting a £4 million loss for the fiscal year. For the six weeks ended 7th December, year-on-year sales plunged 17 percent. The company is making 15 percent of its workforce, or approximately 70 employees, redundant, and new CEO Mike Hancox has ordered a review of every department.

Interflora sues M&S and Flowers Direct over Google bids

Flower delivery firm Interflora is suing Marks & Spencer and Flowers Direct in a case that strikes at a change Google made earlier this year regarding AdWords bidding. Interflora argues that by bidding on Google’s paid-search AdWords programme for the term “Interflora”, as well as for misspellings of the word, M&S and Flowers Direct are infringing on its trademark. Until May, Google did not allow companies in the UK and Ireland to bid for other business’s trademarks, but it then lifted the ban.

Mega Monday not the most manic

As expected, Mega Monday – aka the second Monday in December, 8th December – resulted in a mega £320 million in online sales. According to IMRG, that’s a 14-percent increase from a year ago and the greatest day in terms of sales volume this year. In terms of web traffic, though, it was only the third busiest day of the year, which indicates that consumers spent a fair amount of time researching online before actually making their purchases.

New chairman for Arcandor

German retail giant Arcandor, which includes the Primondo catalogue division, will have a new chairman as of 1st March. Dr Karl-Gerhard Eick will replace Dr Thomas Middelhoff, who is leaving the company “by mutual agreement in the wake of successful initiatives,” according to a statement. The company’s UK catalogues include fashion brands Elégance and Peter Hahn.

Mark your Diary for the ECMOD Awards

The ECMOD Awards, in association with Royal Mail, takes place on Thursday 2nd April 2009 in the Nine Kings Suite of the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.

Winning an ECMOD Award is one of the most meaningful accolades there is in the business. But there is only one way to be in with a chance of winning and that is to enter. For full information about entering your company, please download the Awards Entry Form from www.ecmod360.co.uk/awards

This prestigious event is also sponsored by Webmart UK, JPS Limited and GI Direct. For details on sponsorship opportunities please download the Awards Sponsorship Form from our website. Or if you would like to discuss entering or getting involved, please feel free to contact the ECMOD Awards team on 01271 866112.