IKEA, the Swedish furniture store, is going to try out new shop formats on the high street.
The cafes with the famous meatballs will apparently still be a feature of the new shops, but the two-hour trudge round the North Circular Road’s answer to the labyrinth of Knossos will presumably not.
The flat-pack furniture specialist has traditionally opened megastores on edge-of-town retail estates, and the opening of a new outlet has been known to cause mayhem among shoppers (anxious to get in, rather than desperate to get out), but customer feedback has indicated that a few stores situated in Britain’s decaying high streets would not go amiss, IKEA said.
Meanwhile, in the US, where IKEA is equally famous/infamous, the company has announced a 10% increase in its minimum hourly wage.
From January next year, IKEA’s minimum hourly wage will go up from US10.76 an hour to US$11.87 (about £7.57), which may seem pitifully low but it is US$4.62 above the current federal minimum wage.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, department store Debenhams (LON:DEB) has been talking about “further space trials”, which certainly shows a lot of ambition; IKEA may be moving to the high street but Debenhams is looking beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, apparently.
On further examination, it appears that the “space optimisation programme” does not, after all, refer to expansion beyond the stars, but to offering space in its stores to other retailers, such as BHS and Patisserie Valerie.
Like-for-like sales in the 15 weeks to 13 June were flat year-on-year, while the gross transaction value edged up 0.4%, as the company tries to wean itself off excessive promotions and special offers.
The retailer passed up the opportunity to blame a lacklustre trading performance on the weather, which will probably get the company expelled from the Retailers’ Trade Alliance – if such a thing exists. Rather than blaming the weather – “it’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too wet, it’s too autumnal” and so on – the company’s boss, Michael Sharp, said customers are still reluctant to loosen their wallets, having taken on board the government’s message about the need for austerity.
Meanwhile, as one or two banks eye moving their headquarters from London to somewhere a bit more tax-friendly, life assurance firm Standard Life (LON:SL.) has announced it is to close down its insurance business in Singapore.
Among the small caps, investors are dialling into Netcall (LON:NET) as the telephone queue-busting software firm revealed Eckoh (LON:ECK), the speech recognition and interactive voice response specialist, is considering an offer worth around 64p a share.
The two telephone software specialists are in discussions about joining forces, and though they did offer the usual caveat about there being no certainty that a bid will take place, they did promise to get back to shareholders – and they don’t even have to leave a name and number.