Business

Vicinity Centres recently started trialling whether robots could be used to clean shop room floors.

Vicinity Centres to use robots as cleaners

Vicinty Centres is considering replacing some of its cleaning contractors with robots in a bid to automate and save costs, according to one of the company's non-executive directors, Wai Tang.

Mitre 10, Home Timber & Hardware retailers and suppliers have put their support behind a new buying group.

New buying group to challenge Metcash model

A group of hardware retailers and suppliers have thrown their support behind a fledgling, independent buying group that will challenge Metcash's wholesale distribution business.

 Ian Robinson, executive chairman of Beacon Lighting, which is expected to open a record number of stores this half.

Beacon shines in post-Masters market

Beacon Lighting is expected to open a record number of stores in the next few months after battling through the liquidation of Masters Home Improvement stock late last year.

David Jones, which had been performing well over the past couple of years, has hit a speed bump.

Department stores face uncertain future as sales shrink

Australia's department store industry is facing the prospect of shrinking revenue in real terms over the next five years as it battles turbo-charged competition from online and offshore retailers combined with continued weak consumer sentiment.

Shareholder Jan Cameron at the Bellamy's extraordinary general meeting in Melbourne

Black Princess gets her board

Jan Cameron was there in the front row. The Black Princess herself, who for some time denied she was linked to the mysterious Black Prince entity that was trying to roll the Bellamy's board before it was revealed, in fact, she was.

Inside a Shoprite Holdings Ltd. store in Cape Town, South Africa. The brand is eyeing off Australia.

South African retailers marching to our shores

Australian retailers are se to face a new entrant with many South African-based brands now discovering that there is a new market near their door step, with a similar climate, time zone and consumer outlook.

Woolworths' comparable sales surged by 3.1 per cent in the second quarter.

Woolworths goes after the family spend

Woolworths is closing-in on Coles' family shoppers after transforming its billion-dollar investment in price into a record-breaking second quarter sales surge.

Big W  is now barely profitable with earnings falling around 89 per cent in the first half of the 2017 financial year.

Big W's ugly result spoils Woolies' big day

As Woolworths celebrated the early signs of improvement in supermarket sales attention turned to the real elephant in the aisle - the ugly loss notched up by Big W and the continued bleeding of its sales.

Psychological win even as profit is down: Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci.

Woolworths breaks 7.5-year losing streak

Woolworths broke its 30-quarter losing stream by winning the second quarter sales race with Coles, posting a 3.1 per cent increase in same store sales for the second quarter compared to must 0.9 per cent growth at Coles.

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