Today in Retail: Amazon's clicks to bricks ambitions emerge

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Amazon’s appetite for eating other retailers’ lunch would appear to know no bounds.

Not content with blasting a path through the online retail landscape, across multiple categories, the US titan now seems to be eyeing the UK for a bricks-and-mortar venture.

Retail Week sources have confirmed reports Amazon is circling London sites with the view to launching a grocery offer, likely to be based on its checkout-free Seattle store.

Whether this a genuine play into the world of bricks-and-mortar grocery retail, or more of a PR exercise, is yet to be established.

Either way, the move – which would build on Amazon’s fast-growing Fresh offer – will be keenly watched across the whole sector.

Elsewhere today, Boohoo confirmed it is on track with its acquisition of Nasty Gal, with the deal expected to complete at the end of this month. Dobbies Garden Centres sales bloomed over Christmas, we r ound-up Dixons Carphone’s latest plans and catch-up with Ikea’s UK boss.

Quote of the day

“Traditionally we’ve been in the potato field where everybody has to drive. We can see very clearly that less and less people have cars, less and less people have time. I think we are now going into an evolution of our stores.”

Ikea UK boss Gillian Drakeford on the retailer’s plans for potential new store locations