Industry News & Headlines | May 2024

June 19, 2024

Positivity is in the air as May looks to have picked up where April left off – plenty of new vacancies coming through the door as companies accelerate their hiring, particularly within software engineering and sales/partnerships.

Partnership hires seem to be a real growth area for digital commerce-focused vendors and agencies over the past couple of years, and having heard some of the success stories from forming true partnerships between organisations, I can certainly see why.

As new roles go live, it has to be said that we are still experiencing extremely high application numbers for most vacancies.

Whilst the general feeling is that this is a somewhat time-consuming way of recruiting, there are still some good applicants for most roles, you just need to have the bandwidth to sift through the hundreds of CVs (or indeed, engage with a specialist recruiter if you’re not already to take on the heavy lifting in that regard!).

Looking at the market more generally, we had reports just a few weeks ago that the UK had officially come out of recession, with the fasted growth in almost two years.

Whilst we aren’t automatically out of the trenches quite yet, we expect this to have a positive impact on both new work streams being signed off and on the hiring of both permanent and contractor resources.

This was confirmed in a recent survey conducted by the Simply Commerce team, which revealed that 53% of digital commerce leaders believe their companies will be hiring this year.

 

Market Spotlight + Top 5 eCommerce Stories This Month

  •  M&S continues its turnaround with a +58% leap in profit in the first quarter of this year to £672.5 million. Overall sales at the high street giant were up +19.3% to £13billion, with a +5.3% increase in turnover at Clothing & Home READ MORE
  • Temu‘s owner PDD Holdings has posted soaring profits and revenue for the first quarter of this year. The company saw total revenues increase +131% to £9.3bn. Operating profit surged +275% year on year to £2.8bn READ MORE
  • boohoo reported group sales declined 17% YoY to £1.4bn in the year to 29 February, driven by ‘difficult market conditions’. The fashion retailer’s pre-tax losses widened to £159.9m in the period from £90.7m last year, with gross profit falling 16% to £756m READ MORE
  • Amazon announced plans to build a £500m robotic warehouse in Northampton, projected to be fully operational by 2026. The facility, featuring three floors of robotics technology for stowing and picking customer orders, will initially create 1,400 jobs, ranging from engineers to HR, finance and IT staff READ MORE
  • TikTok shop is due to go live in Continental Europe this Summer and has already started inviting merchants to beta-test READ MORE

 

Each month we send out the latest industry news and headlines, plus sector insight such as this via our newsletter, The Pulse. This also includes the latest jobs and internal news… click HERE  to subscribe

 

Written by:

James Hodges

Director of Client Engagement

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Industry News & Headlines | April 2024

May 19, 2024

The month of April seems to have been a catalyst for many. We’ve seen and heard new workstreams being signed off, new hires being approved, previously paused projects picked back up, and lots of contacts in the network securing new positions.

I have my suspicions that the start of a new financial year may have impacted this upward trend and played a big part in new hiring budgets being approved.

Simply Commerce noticed a notable uptick in new vacancies throughout the month. In fact, April has been one of our strongest months for new vacancies. We have also noticed:

🔴 30% of new vacancies are contract

🔴 30% of new vacancies sit within delivery or middle management

🔴 70% of new vacancies within engineering and testing.

Whilst new vacancies were high, April still had its challenges. We are seeing lengthy interview processes with extra due diligence happening. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s important to make the right hire, however, with the market slowly turning, particularly within engineering, we are already seeing companies that can move through the process quickly win the race to some great candidates.

Finally, SC attended the Retail Technology Show and what an event that was, the atmosphere was buzzing, the footfall was huge and the general takeaways are that there is still so much that can be done within this space. Personalisation & Content, Search and Product Information seem to be the 3 key areas of investment – along with Gen-AI of course.

 

Market Spotlight + Top 5 eCommerce Stories This Month

  • JD Sports expanded its flagship store in Westfield Stratford City, adding 4,000 sq ft and enhancing its digital features including immersive shopping experiences READ MORE
  • TikTok Shop UK expanded into preowned luxury fashion, joining existing offerings such as flowers and wellness, partnering with Luxe Collective Fashion, Sellier Knightsbridge, Sign of the Times, and Break. Archive READ MORE
  • ASOS.com continues to struggle as it recorded an 18% decline in sales in the 26 weeks to 3 March, with adjusted group revenue falling to £1.5bn. Loss before tax improved slightly to £270m, from a £290m loss last year READ MORE
  • Frasers Group acquired Dutch sports retailer Twin Sport, as part of its international expansion strategy. Twin Sport, with 17 stores in the Netherlands, yielded nearly £64m revenue in 2023. Frasers is also securing 10 former Sprinter retail locations READ MORE
  • Vinted revenue increased 61% up to €596 million from 22 to 23, more importantly, however, finally reaching profitability for the first time READ MORE

 

Each month we send out the latest industry news and headlines, plus sector insight such as this via our newsletter, The Pulse. This also includes the latest jobs and internal news… click HERE  to subscribe

 

Written by:

James Hodges

Director of Client Engagement

Connect on LinkedIn

Industry News & Headlines | March 2024

April 19, 2024

March was a strange month with more ups and downs than a rollercoaster, however, we finished on a positive note and this has certainly continued into the first week of April. 

Lots of positive data came out over the last month too:

🔸The IoD Directors’ Economic Confidence Index, which measures business leader optimism in prospects for the UK economy, rose to -12 in March 2024, having dropped back to -25 in February showing the mood of CEOs in the UK economy is rapidly improving.

🔸The Financial Times announced that UK public inflation expectations fell to the lowest in 2 years, a real positive sign and normally a good lead indicator of economic growth.

With such promising indicators, it’s clear that despite the ebbs and flows of activity in Q1. we’re on a trajectory of growth and stability as we move forward into April and beyond – and not before time.

 

Market Spotlight + Top 5 eCommerce Stories This Month

  • H&M experienced a significant boost in operating profit in Q1, nearly tripling to £155 million, resulting in a margin increase of 3.9%. READ MORE
  • PDD Holdings, owner of Temu, announced impressive sales figures of £27bn for last year, (nearly double that of 2022) with full-year operating profit soaring by 93% to £6.3bn READ MORE
  • Depop has announced an update to its fee structure, will see the elimination of its 10% selling fees for all UK users READ MORE
  • Several high street retailers including Sainsburys, Tesco, Greggs, and McDonalds were urged to address legacy issues within their operating systems after they suffered from major IT issues just days apart READ MORE
  • The turnover of the B2B market is projected to reach €1.7 trillion by 2025 READ MORE

 

Each month we send out the latest industry news and headlines, plus sector insight such as this via our newsletter, The Pulse. This also includes the latest jobs and internal news… click HERE  to subscribe

 

Written by:

James Hodges

Director of Client Engagement

Connect on LinkedIn