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Royal Mail letters business loses £120 million
As widely predicted, Royal Mail’s letters and parcels and international business lost £120 million in 2010/11—compared with a £20 million profit in fiscal 2009/10. The company said the revenue decline, approximately £2 million a week, was mainly driven by a fall in volumes. This year, Royal Mail delivered 62 million items of mail a day, a decline of some 20 percent. Chief executive Moya Greene says she expects further declines “of around 5 percent a year”. In related news, the Postal Services Bill has been agreed by parliament, paving the way for Royal Mail to be privatised and relieved of its £1.7 billion debt. 

VF Corp buys Timberland
VF Corporation, the US-based apparel retailer and owner of The North Face, Vans and Eastpak brands, has acquired apparel brand Timberland. The deal is worth $2 billion (£1.22 billion). In the UK, Timberland owns apparel cataloguer Howies. 

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Other News...

Zara confirms US ecommerce launch date
Fashion retailer Zara, which currently has an ecommerce presence in 16 European countries, will launch in the US on 7th September.

eBay boosts fashion team
Online marketplace eBay has appointed Amanda Metcalfe as director of fashion inventory and assortment. She joins from designer discount-fashion e-tailer Cocosa, where she was marketing director. The move sees Metcalfe reunited with former Koodos boss Miriam Lahage.

Sainsbury’s and Tesco release first-quarter results
Total sales at supermarket Sainsbury’s for the first quarter rose 4.3 percent excluding fuel. Like-for-like sales in the 12 weeks to 11th June were broadly flat, up a scant 1.9 percent excluding fuel. Rival Tesco has also unveiled its first-quarter results; group sales for the 13 weeks ending 28th May increased by 6.7 percent, excluding fuel.  

Exclusive CatEx Training Seminar - Optimising Product Performance
Following its hugely successful Annual Summit last week, trade association CatEx is preparing for its next event, Optimising Product Performance. This exclusive training seminar will take place at the Brighton Dome on Tuesday 12th July.  During the day an expert panel of speakers will give valuable tips and help delegates learn the techniques which will enable them to turn their products into sales engines.  They’ll cover a range of subjects including analytics and conversion, product choice and merchandising, IT systems and warehouse management systems, SEO, copywriting and operations and returns. Tickets are just £77+vat for CatEx members and £177+vat for non-members. For further details please click here.

Game to relaunch site
Game Group will move its website to a new platform this summer as it seeks to further integrate web and store operations. For the 19 weeks to 11th June, total group sales at the PC and video games retailer were down by 11.3 percent.

Ann Summers gets personal
Ann Summers is using software from RichRelevance to personalise customer recommendations on its website. Using the recommendation engine, Ann Summers will be able to use the data gathered on web visitors to present them with products or categories that match their online behaviour patterns. 

Sir Terry Leahy invests in MetaPack
Sir Terry Leahy, the former chief executive of Tesco, has made a £2 million investment into delivery management specialist MetaPack. His involvement forms part of a new investment alongside the William Currie Group and Artemis.  

New site launch for The Gluttonous Gardener
The Gluttonous Gardener, a cataloguer and online seller of gardening and plant gifts, has launched a new website to cater for its expanded range. Plantsdelivered.co.uk sells collections of plants consumers can buy for themselves rather than as gift items. The plants are presented as collections—such as potted trios—rather than as individual plants.

Parks grows sales and profit
Park Group, the savings-club catalogue and high-street voucher business, reported a pretax operating profit of £5.6 million in the year ended 31st March—up 30 percent on last year. Revenue was up 6 percent to £279.9 million, compared with £263.2 million in 2010.

Spicers for sale?
According to published reports, DS Smith has appointed Lazard to advise on the sale of its stationery arm Spicers. The sale is said to have attracted the attention of trade buyers and private equity firms.

Pumpkin Patch issues profit warning, exits US stores
New Zealand-based childrenswear retailer/cataloguer Pumpkin Patch has said it will shut its 20 US stores to focus on its wholesale and online business in that market. In the UK, Pumpkin Patch is looking to renegotiate rent rates with its landlords to combat EBIT losses. If an agreement cannot be reached, up to 12 underperforming stores could close. As result of this restructuring, Pumpkin Patch expects net profit after tax but before reorganisation costs to be between NZ$12 million and NZ$14 million (£6 million to £7 million), compared with a top-end estimation of NZ$18 million (£9 million), forecast in January.



Nine ways you can avoid creating a customer service black hole on your site
We’d like to think that online customer service is getting better. Certainly, anyone who has been served by a retailer’s surly shop assistant on the high-street will appreciate the convenience of the online shopping experience.  And still, online customer service can leave much to be desired. With that in mind, here are nine ways you can hone your online customer service performance.

Coming up in Direct Commerce

     • July/August issue: getting ready for Christmas—advice on creating a 
       seamless Christmas campaign and the infrastructure to support it.
     • Special bonus supplement—comparing post and parcel carriers with our
       handy services chart, advice on managing returns, how to switch to a new
       third-party fulfilment provider, and more…

To advertise, contact the Direct Commerce sales team on 01271 866112 or at sales@catalog-biz.com. To subscribe, contact Jill Sweet on 01271 866221 or at subs@catalog-biz.com.

Please apply in writing with your CV to:  Brigid Headland, Teaching Art Ltd, Millennium House, Brunel Drive, Newark, Notts, NG24 2DE.

Previous applicants need not apply.

New senior openings with successful direct commerce businesses coming soon.

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To jane@expertregister.net or look out for our ad next week.

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