Ikea Success in India

India's $40bn (£29bn) "home and living" market - of which furniture and furnishings is a big component - is mainly powered by the country's middle class. Ikea believes it is slowly making inroads - many of the 8,500-odd products on sale at its two 430,000 sq ft stores in Hyderabad and Mumbai, and online, are tailored and tweaked to suit Indian consumers. "Ikea is not in a hurry. They are all about creating and expanding an organised, price-sensitive, modern retail furniture market for India," said Ankur Bisen, senior vice-president at Technopak, a consultancy. A third of Ikea's range in India changes every year and a quarter of its products on sale are locally sourced, according to Kavitha Rao, Ikea India's chief commercial officer. "As a market, India always holds surprises for any global retailer. It is price-sensitive and you have to work across consumers in each category." So, Ikea here sells its cheapest sofa at 10,000 rupees ($134; £98) and its most expensive one at 125,000 rupees. A 19-rupee set of colourful spoons for children and a 99-rupee whiskey glass are among the lowest-priced items. To better understand Indian consumers, Ikea visited more than 2,000 households with varying incomes in different cities. It placed furniture, home furnishing accessories and kitchens in many homes and tested them to see how they fared in the country's hot, humid and dusty cities.

Ikea India 

M&S Mistake

Marks & Spencer has apologised after some customers were sent other shoppers' parcel tracking details. One customer said he got more than 100 text messages with links to GPS locations and photographs of parcels on other people's doorsteps. The spokesperson added: "The issue was quickly identified and resolved. We're apologising to [the customer] for the inconvenience caused." They said only 1% of orders had been affected by the glitch. The customer, who asked us only to use his first name, Tom, said a flurry of text messages started straight after he placed an order for some bedding. While no names or numbers or card details were included, he could see the location and GPS coordinates of where parcels were delivered as well as images of some people's parcels that had been left outside.

M&S Parcel Mystery

Royal Recycle Mint

 

Gold and precious metals are to be extracted from old phones and laptops by Britain's coin-maker. The Royal Mint plans to introduce a world-first technology to the UK to recycle gold from electronic waste. Less than one fifth of electronic waste ends up being recycled, estimates show. The mint's chief executive Anne Jessopp said the technology would help to "make a genuine impact on one of the world's greatest environmental challenges". The Royal Mint has signed an agreement with Canadian start-up Excir to recover 99% and more of gold from devices' circuit boards.Researchers have estimated electronic and electrical equipment discarded in 2021 will weigh more than 57 million tonnes. If nothing is done to counter the problem, electronic waste is set to reach 74 million tonnes by 2030 - almost a doubling of tonnage in a decade, the mint said. The mint's Ms Jessopp described the potential of the technology as "huge" in its ability to reduce electronic waste, preserve precious metals, and develop new skills.

E-Waste

P&O Sack 800 Staff

 

A backlash against P&O Ferries is growing after the firm sacked 800 staff without giving them any notice. The government said it would review its contracts with P&O Ferries after it fired its employees, planning to replace them with cheaper agency staff. P&O said it was a "tough" decision but it would "not be a viable business" without the changes. Nearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' staff were told via a video message on Thursday that it was their "final day of employment". Sacked staff said the video message had referred to a "generous severance package" being offered, but no details were given. P&O Ferries claimed almost £15m in government grants in 2020, which included furlough payments for its employees. P&O Ferries said on Thursday that the decision to lay-off 800 workers was "tough" but said the business would not be viable without "making swift and significant changes now". It said: "We have made a £100m loss year-on-year, which has been covered by our parent DP World. This is not sustainable. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries." P&O Ferries is one of the UK's leading ferry companies, carrying more than 10 million passengers a year before the pandemic and about 15% of all freight cargo in and out of the UK. P&O was bought by DP World, the multi-national ports and logistics company based in Dubai in 2019. At the time of purchase, its chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem described it as a "strong, recognisable brand". It paid a £270m dividend to shareholders in 2020.

P&O Sack Staff

From Waitress to Owner

 

Chloe Campbell was 15 when she started waitressing in a cafe in Moray, and now four years later she owns it. Chloe said she had always been good at saving her money, so when the opportunity arose to go from employee to employer at The Coffee Pot in Dufftown she jumped at the chance. She had held onto most of her wages, aside from spending on basics, and the 19-year-old got the keys last month. She said she hoped to one day expand the business. "I was working somewhere else and saw this job, it was just weekends I started off doing, and progressed from there," Chloe recalled of starting at The Coffee Pot. She had saved enough to take it over, and the lease is paid monthly. Chloe said the hardest part was proving to be getting her head around all the paperwork. She said she has six very good employees of various ages. The café sells breakfasts and lunches as well as coffee and sweet treats. "We have a lot of regulars," she said. "Everything is made here. Our cakes are very popular - especially the strawberry tarts." As for expansion, she said: "If the opportunity occurs then I definitely would."

Coffee Pot

Walkers Lighter

 

Walkers is launching a new non-HFSS crisps range with “nearly half the salt” of its standard offering. Simply called ‘45% Less Salt’, the range will debut with three flavours: Mild Cheese & Onion, Lightly Salted and A Dash of Salt & Vinegar. It is the crisps giant’s first fully non-HFSS range. Containing “nearly half the salt” of its hero lines, the snacks maintained “the great flavour that Walkers is known for”, it said. Walkers claimed the snacks had “performed strongly in consumer taste-testing”, with eight out of 10 consumers stating Mild Cheese and Onion “exceeded expectations”. Consumers were “increasingly looking for great-tasting lower salt snacks”, said the brand, adding that eating less salt was important to 79% of people surveyed. “Our latest launch answers the demands of shoppers, whilst helping retailers to capitalise on a growing consumer trend,” she added. The launch will be supported with a multimillion-pound campaign across in-store activations, TV and digital advertising. It comes as other crisps and snacks brands are scrabbling to reformulate products in the run-up to the government’s HFSS clampdown.

Walkers Lighter

Pastie Price Hike

Bakery chain Greggs has warned that its prices could go up for a second time this year as it faces surging costs. Higher prices for food, energy and staff, plus tax changes mean the company's own costs will rise by between 6% and 7% it said. The chain, known for its sausage rolls and steak bakes, put prices up at the start of the year and it expects "further changes" to be necessary. The UK cost of living is rising at the fastest pace for 30 years. Greggs said the cost of raw materials had gone up while energy prices are also soaring. While it has locked in prices for some commodities ahead of time, the company said future costs remain "uncertain". Greggs said that overall wages at the company increased by 3% last year, and it had brought forward a planned 2022 pay rise by five months, adding £4.5m to its costs. While average pay in the UK has been going up, it has been lagging behind increases in the cost of living - adding to the squeeze on households' finances. The chain said rising costs "necessitated some price increases, which were made at the start of this year, and further changes are expected to be necessary". "As ever, we will work to mitigate the impact of this on customers," it said, adding that it did not expect a "material" rise in profits for the year ahead. The comments triggered a near 9% fall in Greggs' share price to a one-year low of £20.96. The business swung back to a profit last year after taking a hit in 2020 when many of its shops were closed for much of the year due to the pandemic. Profit before tax rose to £145.6m for the year to 1 January, compared to a £13.7m loss in the previous 12 months.

Greggs Price Rise