Skechers is debuting its first-ever Skechers Performance store in Canada at West Edmonton Mall.
The new retail concept is designed to be an immersive destination where consumers can try out the latest innovative products from Skechers.
Notably, the over 7,500 square-foot location features half-size pickleball and basketball courts, allowing customers to test Skechers’ latest innovations in real time, as well as ways to experience the brand’s extensive offering for golf, soccer, running, training, walking, trail and hiking.
The flagship also houses the brand’s most comprehensive collection of performance footwear, apparel, and accessories to date, across the largest sales floor among Skechers concept stores worldwide. Completing the space are state-of-the-art digital LED screens.
“With the world’s elite pros wearing our shoes from the court to the pitch, mound and green, our retail stores’ innovative performance products have become a magnet for athletes who want game-changing product with essential comfort—and the time has come to launch a new play,” said Michael Greenberg, president of Skechers.
“Our new performance store offers competitors at every level the complete experience: from our largest-ever offering of performance footwear, apparel and accessories, to Skechers specialists and educators for our diverse sport technologies, and courts where consumers can discover how our product performs without ever leaving the store.”
Skechers continues to expand its presence globally with more than 5,300 retail locations, an extensive online store at skechers.com, and partnerships with department stores and footwear retailers worldwide.
“Edmonton’s vibrant sports culture and passion for hosting year-round athletic events make it the perfect home for Skechers’ first performance destination—and as the second largest mall in North America, West Edmonton Mall is a massive draw that will attract all walks of life to this exciting new concept,” said David Beecroft, country manager of Skechers Canada, who teamed up with NHL legend and media personality Paul Bissonnette to open the new store.
“Paul’s an avid sports fan—and his presence at our opening event has attracted his fans and fellow enthusiasts, who are excited to see how much we’re investing in the performance space and how much our product can elevate their game.”
Italy’s Give Back Beauty, which makes perfumes for luxury brands such as Chopard and Zegna, on Friday said it had agreed to buy domestic rival AB Parfums to grow its distribution operations and add licensing deals.
Fragrances have been outperforming the broader beauty sector and Give Back Beauty founder and Chairman Corrado Brondi told Reuters his company did not rule a possible bourse listing in the future, adding it had no financial need for it at present.
Brondi said AB Parfumes had sales of around €100 million, which would add to Give Back Beauty’s net revenues that totalled around €300 million in 2024.
Give Back Beauty, which was founded in 2019 and has a distribution deal with Dolce & Gabbana and a beauty license with Tommy Hilfiger, has a core profit margin currently a little over 15%, it said.
AB Parfums is being sold by Italy’s Angelini Industries, a family-owned group that is mostly active in the pharmaceutical sector.
Give Back Beauty’s business is currently focused on fragrances, which represent roughly 70% of its revenues, but it aims to grow its skincare, make-up and haircare product lines, Brondi said.
German retail sales rose in 2024, but growth should be more modest this year due to the high level of uncertainty, according to retail association HDE.
Last year, retail sales rose 1.1% compared to the previous year in inflation-adjusted terms, official data showed on Friday. The HDE forecasts 0.5% growth in real terms this year.
“Consumption and the retail sector in Germany will not really gain momentum in 2025 either,” said HDE managing director Stefan Genth. “There is simply too much uncertainty,” he said. “Wars, high energy costs and overall economic stagnation are a toxic cocktail for consumption.”
In nominal terms, retail sales rose by 2.5% in 2024 and are expected to grow by 2.0% in 2025, according to HDE’s forecast.
The latest HDE survey with 700 retailers shows that 22% of respondents expect sales to increase this year, while almost half of them expect results to be below the previous year’s level.
In December, retail sales fell by 1.6% compared with the previous month, official data showed. Analysts had predicted a 0.2% increase.
Many big names in UK retail had a good Christmas season — despite the sector being generally sluggish — but it seems John Lewis Partnership (JLP) may not have been one of them.
The retailer — which operates its eponymous department stores and webstore, plus Waitrose supermarkets — has missed its profit target after a disappointing festive season.
It hasn’t shared any info officially but internal documents seen by The Telegraph suggest bad news to come when it does release its results.
Those internal documents have only been shared with staff so far with the company saying that sales have fallen short of expectations and it’s unlikely to achieve its hoped-for £131 million full-year profit.
The company is said to have blamed “lower consumer confidence and weaker than expected market confidence” for the sales miss in the month to 21 December, although also the fact that key trading days fell outside the period.
Sales targets were missed at both of the firm’s chains, although the newspaper said it still claimed it outperformed rivals and staff should be “proud of our performance”.
It will be interesting therefore to see exactly what its figures were as a number of rivals have actually reported a good Christmas. If its stores have beaten other supermarkets and chains like M&S, perhaps its targets were too ambitious in the first place.
We won’t know for a while, but we do know that with M&S resurgent, JLP’s supermarkets and department stores have lost some of their lustre as the destination of choice for Britain’s middle classes.
So what were the firm’s benchmarks? Back in September it had said it was seeing strong demand and expected a significant rise in profits for the year to January. The prior year’s pre-tax profit had been £56 million and the year before that it made a loss.
It had also talked about its turnaround efforts paying off and that it was seeing a “considerable improvement” in performance, with the John Lewis chain in particular expected to benefit from a buoyant second half.