DFS has appointed Tim Stacey as its online and business development director – a newly created role that will see the soft furnishings retailer boost its multichannel activities. Stacey was formerly at Boots as UK director of healthcare services and solutions. During his 12 years at Boots, Stacey also had the role of director of multichannel.

BrightHouse says it will make its website transactional within 18 months. The electricals and furniture retailer offers in-store credit to help customers spread payment for goods. It’s not yet clear whether its online model will accommodate credit to match the store offer, or not. Products can also be paid for upfront with cash in stores, and customers have increasingly been spending on the latest mobiles and BlackBerries, so the company is keen to tap into this growing demand for high tech gadgets.

Affordable luxury fashion etailer My-Wardrobe is pushing ahead with its international growth strategy, aiming to at least double sales in the Middle East in the next year. Both ex-pats and local customers in are flocking to the site, according to marketing director Rob Moss, attracted by high profile brands such as Burberry, D&G, Acne and Vivienne Westwood

Amazon.com has announced that it will acquire Gloucester-based online bookseller, The Book Depository International. The move will greatly reduce Amazon’s competition in the market, boost its international reach, and add over six million titles to its already large stock of books.
However the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is investigating the acquisition, and the Booksellers’ Association has announced it will formally oppose the deal.

Leading global businesses, including our own parcel delivery company Yodel, have joined forces to launch the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA) this week. The group has been formed to help tackle the growing threat posed by cybercriminals.
ICSPA will be run as a global not-for-profit organisation that will channel funding, expertise and assistance directly into law enforcement cybercrime units in both domestic and international markets.

Multichannel is recognised by Dunelm chief executive Nick Wharton as being vital to future growth. He said: “Our focus on constantly improving our customer offer has allowed us to gain market share while expanding gross margins. At the same time our future growth prospects have been enhanced through strengthening the pipeline of new stores and the continuing development of our multichannel footprint.”

N Brown has reported improved sales, boosted by recent acquisitions such as Figleaves.com and High & Mighty. The retailer, which owns catalogue and web brands such as Simply Be and Jacomo, posted turnover up 5.1% in the 18 weeks to July 2. Like-for-likes advanced 1.6% over the period, which N Brown nbrown.co.uk said was “slightly ahead” of that reported at the time of its preliminary results in May.
But the home shopping group says it has sacrificed some margin through discounting – needed in the current climate to prompt spending. “As we anticipated, and in line with the sector, we are having to be more aggressive with targeted promotional discounts to help drive revenue and this has led to a 0.2% decline in the rate of gross margin,” said N Brown chairman Lord Alliance.

Eleven years after launch, Moonpig.com founder Nick Jenkins is reportedly selling his online greetings card company to private equity-owned online photo business Photobox.co.uk. If the sale goes through, Jenkins could enjoy a windfall of up to £100m. Photobox is owned by private equity firm Index Ventures, which also invests in Skype and Betfair. The business has been expanding aggressively and currently operates in 15 countries.

The ecommerce industry is confident about the prospects for the rest of the year, according to the IMRG’s Online Confidence Survey for Q2. A healthy 78% of respondents thought that the strong performance of the market would either stay the same or improve, compared with 71% thinking so in the Q1 survey. Half of respondents are confident that they will record strong sales going into the second half of the year, which is almost exactly the same as the figure in the Q1 survey (51%).

Mohamed al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods is in the process of acquiring online retailer Cocosa.com. The site is an invitation-only fashion store, offering exclusive sale events to its signed-up members.
Magazine and radio group Bauer Media is believed to be selling the business to Cocosa Lifestyle, a company set up by the Al Fayed Family Trusts.

Laura Wade-Gery starts work at Marks & Spencer today, as executive director for multichannel e-commerce, expected to focus on powering up sales of M&S’ online non-food business.
Cheltenham Ladies College and Oxford-educated Wade-Gery was poached from Tesco in February. News of the appointment was well-received in the City, and boosted the M&S share price 13% on the day, such is her reputation as a hot property in the world of ecommerce. At Tesco Wade-Grey was CEO of Tesco.com and Tesco Direct and had just been promoted to head up Tesco’s non-food empire when M&S came calling.

Hydra, a provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) marketing technology, has launched the One platform which aims to leverage the combined data derived from Natural Search, Paid Search and Social Media. The platform aims to cut out the cost and complexity of collating and using all three types of data.

With Hydra’s One platform digital marketers should be able to strategically monitor, report and participate in the conversation that customers are having about their brand online – be that in social networks or on search engines.

A new study conducted by Havas Media Social and Lightspeed Research, suggests that despite the retail industry hailing social commerce as the next big thing, 89% of people have not bought anything through Facebook and 44% are not interested in doing so. However the majority of consumers (70%) feel that targeted advertising based on interests or shopping behaviour, similar to Amazon’s recommendation model, would make them more likely to buy products on social networks.

The Edinburgh Woollen Mill – famed for knits and casual wear for the over 45s – has acquired the business and assets of Jane Norman, the high street women’s fashion retailer. In a surprise pre-pack administration deal with administrator Zolfo Cooper, EWM has acquired the Jane Norman name, 33 standalone stores and the stock from all of its 94 stores, UK concessions and some overseas outlets. The online business is also secured by the deal. It’s thought that 396 jobs out of 1,600 at Jane Norman have been safeguarded.