1785 – Caroline Herschel becomes 1st woman discoverer of a comet 1832 – The Black Hawk War ends. 1942 – German occupier demands listing of all Dutch telephone subscribers 1963 – Germany FR annexes Elten village 1982 – Petra Schneider swims world record 400m medley (4:36.10) 1990 – Indians’ Alex Cole sets club record with 5 stolen bases in one game
1922 – Vaclav Juda Novotny, composer, dies at 72 1957 – Harvey Glatmin, 1st bondage-photo victim, executed [or 8/18/59] 1973 – Walter Ulbricht, pres German DR, dies at 80 1987 – Benson Fong, actress (Charlie Chan, Purple Heart), dies at 70 1987 – Pola Negri, actress (Forbidden Paradise), dies at 92 2006 – Iris Marion Young, American feminist and political scientist (b. 1949)
The Bank of England has kept its monetary policy unchanged amid signs that the recovery in Europe’s third largest economy is gaining momentum. …read more
Critics are slamming Thailand’s state-owned oil and gas company for its allegedly inefficient response to an oil spill that polluted a tourist island. …read more
Now in its seventh year, the Scion xD has stayed the same while newer subcompacts have improved by leaps and bounds. In 2007, there was no Ford Fiesta, the Honda Fit was in its previous generation, and the unloved Chevrolet Aveo did little to thrill buyers of the smallest cars. Against that competition, Scion’s five-door hatchback… …read more
The initiative is highly anticipated and follows successive delays. But retail experts say H&M may struggle to make the kind of profits from U.S. e-commerce enjoyed by pricier rivals.
H&M has prospered in the United States without a big online presence and is mindful of the likely impact on profit margins of the high shipping and return costs associated with such a vast country.
However, with more and more shoppers buying clothes from home, the Swedish firm is speeding up its online roll-out to capture a slice of the growing market.
H&M has grown fast in recent years in the U.S., its second-biggest market, but has twice pulled back from announced dates for the online launch, blaming unexpected complexities in setting up an operation well-integrated with its stores.
Meanwhile, its main rival Inditex and others such as online e-store ASOS have expanded in the market, while Amazon (AMZN) is pushing further into apparel after eBay (EBAY) prospered with its fashion offering.
“You don’t want to lose out on being the port of call for younger shoppers. So H&M should really get in there,” Planet Retail consultant Isabel Cavill said.
Apparel has become one of the fastest-growing online retail segments. H&M has e-stores in eight European countries and says they are now as profitable as its bricks-and-mortar shops.
In North America, a quarter of clothing sales will take place on the Internet in 2030, up from 7 percent in 2011, Goldman Sachs (GS) predicts. Researcher Euromonitor International sees the U.S. online apparel market more than doubling in a decade to $41 billion in 2017.
“Generations of shoppers are growing up for whom the multi-channel is a basic expectation,” said Kantar Retail consultant Bryan Roberts.
Mind the Returns
H&M has been struggling to work out a viable logistics model in the country, where many shoppers expect free deliveries.
“H&M is low-price, quite low-margin and makes it work by selling very high volumes. An issue with that is very high costs for shipping and, most significantly, returns. It’s a particular problem in the U.S.,” Conlumino consultant Neil Saunders said.
Up to half of fashion items sold online are returned. At H&M, a shopper may well buy up to three times as many items than at Zara or ASOS. Analysts place average prices at Zara at least 40 percent above H&M’s, with ASOS in between.
H&M’s U.S. online store offers free shipping but charges for returns. Items bought online cannot be returned in stores.
“I’m particularly surprised by the lack of multichannel. …read more
Facebook turned on a key security feature by default on Wednesday that scrambles data sent by users to the company's servers, following similar moves in recent years by Web services such as Google and Twitter. …read more
Refreshingly, my on-screen avatar is not a soldier or a space-marine or a person with a gun this time. It is a badger. Not an anthropomorphic cartoon badger, just a simple four-legged snuffling creature with five cubs nestled around her (him? For me, it’s a her). The cubs yip and mewl, frolicking around a turnip in the ground that I dig up and feed to the weakest of them, a greyed-out little form sprawled pitiably on the floor of this underground burrow. The cub eats, and stands, and joins the others as they follow me out of the sett and into the world, where I keep nervously looking behind me to check that they’re still there as I hunt around for things to feed them. I am responsible, and they are hungry and helpless. I did not know that being a badger was so incredibly stressful.
Israel’s parliament has taken the first tentative steps towards reining in the country’s extreme form of proportional representation in a bid to make governments more stable. …read more
Tottenham Hotspur have reached an agreement with Valencia for the transfer of Spain striker Roberto Soldado, the north London club said Thursday. …read more
The European Commission cleared on Thursday the 3.3-billion-euros takeover of German scientific, medical and technical publisher Springer Science by British investment fund BC Partners. …read more
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he was “sure of victory” over rebels fighting to topple him, in an Army Day message carried by state media on Thursday. …read more
Australia captain Michael Clarke won the toss and elected to bat against England in the third Ashes Test at Manchester’s Old Trafford ground on Thursday. …read more
The FBI says it arrested a man who appeared at a Flint-area movie theater wearing body armor, possessing a gun and carrying 34 rounds of ammunition. …read more
By NFL.com The Kansas City Chiefs traded two draft picks for Alex Smith. Chiefs offensive coordinator Doug Pederson believes they got the best quarterback in the NFL in that trade. …read more
Batsman Cheteshwar Pujara and seamer Mohit Sharma were handed their one-day debuts as India won the toss and elected to bowl in the fourth one-day international against Zimbabwe on Thursday. …read more
The leader of Greece’s National Union of Teachers has been suspended from his job as an Athens high school teacher as part of mass public sector staff cuts. …read more
If Twitter is the chirping chatterbox of the Internet, trolls are its dark underground denizens. The collision of the two is driving a debate in Britain about the scale of online hatred and the limits of Internet free speech. …read more
Amelia Rose Earhart, a namesake and distant relative of the famed aviator plans to re-create Earhart’s attempted flight around the world next summer. …read more
A lawyer says a Kenyan court has awarded compensation to 11 victims of the largest illegal deportation of terrorism suspects in Africa to countries with appalling human rights records. …read more
