Breakfast briefing: Retail news on Tesco, House of Fraser, retail theft and HMV

Tesco in talks with eReceipts for electronic e-mail receipts in 2014

Supermarket giant Tesco is in talks with technology firm eReceipts to launch electronic e-mail receipts in 2014, thereby replacing the traditional paper document, The Mirror reported. Customers will have the option of receving receipts via e-mail rather than on papers. The technology can also monitor shopping habits and alert shoppers to items they may have forgotten. Supported by eReceipts chairman, Lord Ian MacLaurin, the idea is set to take off in the New Year. A spokesperson for eReceipts said, “We are talking to five big supermarkets. There will be an announcement after Christmas”. Tesco refused to confirm the move.

House of Fraser fast-tracks plans for listing on London stock in first quarter

Department store House of Fraser has accelerated plans for a listing on London’s stock market in the first quarter of 2014 after tapping Rothschild as advisers, City A.M reported. The store is expected to hold a beauty parade of banks before Christmas to co-ordinate and run a share offering, with plans to float the firm. The float could raise upwards of £350m and comes on the back of a mini-frenzy in London’s new issues market.

UK retailers lose £3.4bn owing to shoplifting, fraud, administrative errors

UK retailers lost about £3.4bn due to shoplifting, fraud and administrative mistakes last year, according to a new Euromonitor report. Shoplifting has remained a persistent problem for UK retailers.

External theft was blamed for 36% of missing stock, the largest proportion. Staff theft accounted for a third of the value of all thefts at UK retailers, with culprits aiming for high value items. This figure is in line with other nations. In the UK about 1.2% of stock goes missing per retailer. UK retailers benefited from tighter stock keeping as well as more widespread use of security tags, according to the report. About a quarter of losses were caused by administrative errors, such as a mis-labelled product.

iWeb Solutions launches new ecommerce website For HMV in Ireland

iWeb Solutions, an ecommerce web development and design agency, has launched a new ecommerce website for entertainment retailer HMV in the Republic of Ireland, Digital Journal reported. The new website has been designed with the ecommerce platform, Magento, and extensively uses its Multi-Store functionality. This enables multiple browse-able Store Views to be created, while the catalogue and inventory remain the same for all.

The front end design, the shop front, can be modified for a specific audience without affecting the core information of what’s in stock. This makes it possible to switch between languages and currencies, if required. The website is also integrated with its back office and West 10 Entertainment, which offers data on all new home entertainment releases for HMV customers.

More than 60,000 SuperValu customers’ payment card data might be leaked

Over 60,000 customers of Irish food chain SuperValu may have had their financial data leaked after the retailer announced a data breach is more extensive than first thought, The Irish Independent reported. Super Valu had warned customers of its loyalty holiday scheme, operated by Loyaltybuild, that their banking data may have been accessed by a third party. A statement by SuperValu warns customers that Loyaltybuild had advised the Data Protection Commissioner that the security breach of its system ‘is more extensive than it first anticipated’.

The programme has since been suspended and the data protection commissioner was informed of the leak, but at the time SuperValu said it was not aware of any breaches of details of payment cards. It said that 62,500 customers who made bookings during this period have been told to contact their bank or financial institution as soon as possible. They have also been advised to immediately check the transactions on their payment cards for any suspicious activity.