Dwell to bid for Habitat?
Furniture retailer/cataloguer Dwell has emerged as a possible bidder for troubled retailer Habitat. The 38-store home furnishings chain was put up for sale by its Swedish owner Ikea this month.

Profits fall at Dabs.com
Profits at BT-owned IT products etailer Dabs.com fell by 39 percent from £7.7 million to £4.7 million in the year ending March 2009. Sales took a hit also, dropping 2.7 percent from £199 million to £193.6 million.

Strong growth and board addition at My-wardrobe.com
My-wardrobe.com, the luxury fashion etailer, posted an 84-percent rise in sales from £665,000 to £1.22 million for the three months to September. It appointed Charles Tyrwhitt founder Nick Wheeler to the board as a nonexecutive director to further drive the growth of the company. 

A new name for Pyjama Room
Clare Hornby and Emma Howarth have renamed their loungewear business as ME&EM, it was formerly known as Pyjama Room. The rebrand, said the company, was as a result of an expanded product range beyond nightwear into “comfortable clothing for every day.”

Marshalls Garden Catalogues names new head of marketing
Paul Pates has joined Marshalls Garden Catalogues as head of marketing. Pates previously worked at Flying Brands where he oversaw the integration of Garden Bird Supplies into the company’s gardening division. 

Fashion sales rocket at John Lewis
John Lewis says that following the revamp of its apparel website last month sales are almost five times higher than this time last year. Robin Terrell, managing director of John Lewis Direct, told the Financial Times that the group’s target of £8.5 million in additional sales from the site will now be reached in December, beating the original forecast for the end of January. 

Yudu partners with Quad/Graphics ahead of expansion
Quad/Graphics, a US-based printer, has taken a minority shareholding in digital publications specialist Yudu. The deal will enable Yudu to expand into the US market. 

Britain’s Aquatic Superstore finds new home
KPMG has secured the sale of the retail arm of Britain’s Aquatic Superstore, a retailer and wholesale distributor of fish and reptile supplies, as a going concern to Bradford-based Aquarline. The business fell into administration in September. 

The skinny on audio mining
When call centre agents are required to record only very specific data it can often result in much of the conversation being lost information. Visit catalog-biz.com to find out how speech analytics and audio data mining can help fill in the blanks.

Coming up in Catalogue e-business magazine

As a result of the continuing postal strikes and resulting uncertainty about timely delivery, the November issue will be a bumper 44-page edition delivered to your email inbox as a fully interactive digital publication. The digital edition will be emailed on Tuesday, 10th November and will be also available as a download from our soon-to-be-relaunched Catalogue e-business website.

• November/December issue: special focus on postal and carrier options, plus predictive analytics, scalable logistics, and more
• January issue: business health check—what you need to know and do to ensure your company is ready to make the most of 2010