The move forms part of the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) six projects to trial the use of drones in deliveries, Reuters reported.

As it stands, British drone users are held to strict restriction to fly the machines beyond the visual line of sight.

However, as part of the trials revealed by the UK’s aviation regulator, selected projects would be allowed to fly their devices across distances beyond the user’s ability to see them, by implementing advanced technologies used for navigation, control and to detect other aircraft.

CAA director Sophie O’Sullivan said: “These innovative trials mark a significant step forward in integrating drones safely into UK airspace.

“Our goal is to make drone operations beyond visual line of sight a safe and everyday reality.”

The ecommerce giant initially revealed it was relaunching its delivery drones in the UK in October.

Amazon said it would begin deploying the unmanned, airborne vehicles for distributing goods from some of its same-day delivery sites, including one located in the UK.

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The robotic facility at the city’s Gateway 45 logistics park uses advanced technology across three floors of Amazon Robotics to stow, pick and ship customer orders.

The site is close to an Amazon delivery station and an Amazon Robotics sortation centre, and less than ten miles from the Wakefield fulfilment centre which began operations in October 2022.

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The centre is expected to create 2,000 jobs by November and in addition to the team members who pick, pack and ship customer orders, the firm is recruiting for a variety of other roles at the centre, including engineers, HR and IT professionals, as well as health and safety and finance specialists.

Regional director Richard Thompson said: “West Yorkshire is an important region for Amazon, with more than 3,800 small- and medium-sized enterprise selling partners, and I am delighted to confirm our ongoing commitment with this £500m investment in a new, state-of-the-art fulfilment centre in Leeds.”

This week, the ecommerce giant revealed it has teamed up with Barclays to launch a co-branded credit card that rewards users for their everyday spending.

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Amazon Barclaycard customers can earn 1% rewards on purchases made on the site and 0.5% rewards on all other spending for the first six months.

Prime members can also benefit from an additional 2% back from the online giant’s spending during its designated shopping events, such as Cyber Monday, and Prime Day.

The card comes with no annual fee, with shoppers currently receiving a £20 gift card from the retailer when their application is approved.

The new card marks the latest tie-up between the brands, which includes ‘Instalments’ by Barclays, a reusable credit account that lets Amazon shoppers spread the cost of purchases over £100 across fixed monthly payments.

The retailer’s UK country manager John Boumphrey said: “Delivering value to our customers is incredibly important to us, so we’re delighted to introduce a new payment option that allows customers to save and earn on Amazon.”

While the credit card is currently only available to new Barclays customers, the brands are aiming to open applications for the bank’s existing customers during the coming months.

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The Singapore-headquartered fast fashion giant is said to be looking for a large site within the Midlands’ “golden logistics triangle”, The Telegraph reported.

The fashion retailer sent a team of representatives to the UK to view prospective sites in the past few months, including in locations such as Castle Donington, Coventry, Daventry and Derby.

Shein is targeting buildings between 300,000sq ft and 400,000 sq ft – but it also understood to be considering warehouses as large as 600,000 sq ft.

It is understood the company is looking for a building that is already fitted out to handle ecommerce operations instead of building its own facility.

The retailer’s decision on a warehouse will be dependent upon its London IPO, as well as negotiations with its current third-party provider Super Smart Service, which handles the company’s UK orders from a Cannock warehouse.

The fashion giant is understood to have filed the initial paperwork with the Financial Conduct Authority in June.

However, the retailer has faced steep criticism from industry leaders since who are concerned over its use of a legal tax loophole for overseas shipments that have given the company an unfair advantage.

A Shein spokesman told the publication: “To support the growth of the business, Shein is actively exploring warehousing locations worldwide. However, Shein has no immediate plans to acquire warehouse space in the UK.”

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Calling itself an “early technology adopter”, the online fashion giant is already harnessing AI-powered features within Microsoft’s suite of tools.

Asos is currently leveraging Power Automate for process automation, Teams Premium for automated meeting summaries, notes, actions, and live translations, and Microsoft Copilot to boost productivity.

Director of technology operations Victoria Arden said: “A core part of our business strategy is driving operational excellence within Asos: making sure we’re as fast, efficient, and effective as we can be, and investing our time and resources in the projects that matter.”

“Under this new agreement, we’re helping Asosers safely experiment with generative AI tools that can remove ‘busy work’ from their day, freeing them up to unlock greater creativity and insights and focus on delighting our customers.”

The new deal marks the latest step in the group’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft.

In 2022, Asos signed a new five-year agreement to continue using Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform. It uses Microsoft Azure and its AI capabilities to power its digital platforms and support its focus on data-driven decision-making, speed, and efficiency.

While earlier this year, the business launched customer testing for its AI Stylist: an Azure OpenAI-powered experience helping customers discover new looks through an easy-to-use, conversational interface, built using early access to Microsoft’s generative AI tools.

The retailer’s director of AI and machine learning Papinder Dosanjh added: “AI and Machine Learning are already transforming how we work at Asos, whether it’s supporting better demand forecasting, helping with data-driven decision-making, or powering our recommendation system – delivering billions of product recommendations to our customers per day.”

Microsoft UK general manager, retail and consumer goods industry Olaf Akkerman said: ” This renewed commitment will bring huge productivity gains, freeing up time so that Asos employees can focus on new, data-driven ways to better serve customers.”

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The fashion group is said to be in discussions with prospective buyers for the 43,963 sq ft office block at 10 Great Pulteney Street, Drapers reported.

It is understood that Boohoo will pursue a sale and leaseback transaction as it plans to remain in the building.

The five-storey office block houses 400 to 500 employees across Boohoo’s London-based brands such as Burton, Coast, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Karen Millen, Oasis, and Wallis, as well as other product, marketing, technology and central support roles across the group.

The building currently houses a beauty showroom on the ground floor and will soon welcome a new 6,000 sq ft group showroom in the next few months following the closure of its 3,500 sq ft venue at 6 to10 Great Portland Street.

It comes as the group’s lenders are understood to have drafted in advisers at FTI Consulting to discuss refinancing options for part of Boohoo’s £325m debt.

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The German fashion giant said it leveraged the ‘Summer of Sports’ momentum, launching dedicated campaigns in major European cities and its first adaptive sports collection, which helped to deliver its best monthly sports performance in June.

Sales rose 3.4% to £2.2bn (€2.6bn) and gross merchandise volume increased 2.8% to £3.2bn (€3.8bn), as adjusted EBIT surged 18% to £147.1m (€171.6m).

It attributed the improvement in profitability to successful inventory management and lower fulfilment costs, helping to increase its EBIT margin 0.8 percentage points to 6.5%.

The green shoots come after Zalando updated its strategy in March as it set out plans to build the leading pan-European fashion and lifestyle ecommerce ecosystem around its two growth areas: business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B).

The retailer maintained its full-year guidance for the year and expects adjusted EBIT to be between £326.2m and £386.3m (€380m and €450m), and both GMV and revenue to grow 0% and 5% respectively this year.

It also revealed its chief financial officer Dr. Sandra Dembeck has decided not to renew her contract beyond her current term which ends on 28 February 2025 as she is “embracing a new career opportunity”.

Zalando co-chief executive Robert Gentz said: “Our ecosystem strategy empowers us to cover a larger share of the fashion and lifestyle e-commerce market, and the positive response from customers and partners in the second quarter validates our vision.

“Our B2C customers are excited by the quality brands we are adding, spending time with our new digital tools and content, and embracing our expanding lifestyle offerings in areas such as Sports, Designer and Beauty.

“We also recorded double-digit growth in B2B, demonstrating that both our growth vectors are delivering.”

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The makeup brand is not alone in turning to the social network to sell products.

Retailers including Asos, Zara, THG’s LookFantastic and even WHSmith have signed up to TikTok Shop – a shopping function that allows users to purchase directly through the popular app.

Asos launched on TikTok Shop in March as part of its efforts to reconnect with its twentysomething shoppers and boost sales.

The etailer’s head of sportswear Tim Williams says the platform is “where most of our customers are and [being on TikTok Shop] allows us to access them in a way which is really exciting”.

Asos initially launched 85 products from its Asos Design collection on the platform and had selected influencers to promote the products through shoppable short videos. The move not only boosted sales, but 57% of transactions came from new customers.

Williams explains the retailer has a “burgeoning relationship [with TikTok] so we’re doing some key drops”.

He concludes that Asos wants to be where its customer is and “clearly the customer is there for an increasing amount of time and I see that time is set to continue”.

Rival Zara is also taking note of its customers spending time on TikTok as it prepares to launch live shopping on the platform over the coming months. 

Owner Inditex revealed was investing in new ways to engage shoppers and was bringing the initiative to the UK, rest of Europe and the US following a successful trial in China, which had a positive impact on sales in the region.

The retailer softly launched its store on TikTok Shop back in November and is currently ranked as a top brand on the platform with more than 7.3k items sold.

It is a big expansion priority for retailers of all sizes, with almost one third (29%) of small retailers saying they would like to launch their presence on TikTok this year, closing the gap with large retailers who are 3 times more likely to already be on the platform, according to research from American Express.

From book bundles to £5,000 handbags

It’s no surprise that TikTok Shop is filled with an equally eclectic mix of products as it has users and content. 

“It goes without saying that, if you are a brand in the Gen Z space, being on TikTok Shop is a must,” says TikTok Shop UK marketing director Nora Zukauskaite.

“However, we have also launched several campaigns to help diversify our audience even further and, currently, the fastest-growing age demographics on the platform are the older segments,” she notes.

But what are they buying?

The platform’s largest community – BookTok – has “upended a lot of how books are published and sold”, WHSmith buyer John Webb previously told Retail Gazette, commenting on the retailer’s decision to start a selling a small collection of books on the platform.

Beauty is also one of the most successful categories, with a beauty product sold every two seconds on TikTok. The platform ranks behind just Amazon, Boots and LookFantastic as the UK’s fourth biggest beauty retailer, according to data by Nielsen IQ.

The firm’s vice-president of global beauty Claire Marty notes that TikTok shoppers also tend to spend more money at the end of the year on the platform than the average online shopper, and “a lot of the money is actually coming from older generation”.

While some retailers have been quick to meet their customers on the app – some are a bit more cautious about what it entails.

Superdrug ecommerce, customer, and marketing director Matt Walburn says the retailer has played around with selling on TikTok.

“We’ve had some really good results on it, particularly in terms of TikTok Live,” he says, referring to the app’s live streaming feature. 

He adds that the products it has showcased have generated “a lot of orders”.

“Now we’re at the stage where we think we’ve learned what we need to know,” says Walburn.

“We know [social commerce] is something that will take hold eventually in the UK and in Europe. We know Superdrug will be well placed to play in social commerce. We just want to get the timing right and make sure we do it in the right way.”

However, it’s not just major retailers jumping on TikTok Shop. Smaller brands have also been able to bolster their sales on the platform.

Made By Mitchell, which launched in Boots last month, became the first retailer to surpass $1m (£842,307) in sales in one day.

Founder Mitchell Halliday says: “TikTok Shop has significantly expanded our reach, allowing us to connect with a much wider audience compared to other platforms.

“The seamless transition between content viewing and purchasing has helped boost our sales considerably.”

Similarly, luxury reseller Luxe Collective is also reaping the benefits after it launched on the platform’s shop in April.

Founder and CEO Ben Gallagher says the company is on target to hit £11m in sales this year and estimates that around 20% to 30% would have come through TikTok.

Gallagher admits that he was sceptical of listing Chanel, Hermes and Louis Vuitton bags on an app that also sold dresses for 99p.

“I thought it would be more like a discount and an outlet type of thing that people wouldn’t be buying full price stuff on there,” he says.

“Don’t get me wrong, we have to discount it a little bit,” Gallagher notes, estimating the company is reducing its prices on the platform by an average of 5% compared to those on its ecommerce.

“We have to gamify it a little bit to get people watching and get views, but people are buying full price items on there. We’re selling stuff for thousands and thousands of pounds every single night, which is wild,” he adds.

The TikTok effect

TikTok Shop is certainly turning out to be a lucrative business and Luxe Collective’s Gallagher admits the business has had to “pivot massively due to the opportunity”.

In fact, its plan to open more physical retail spaces has dropped down its priority list as a result of its TikTok success.

NIQ’s Marty explains the app’s “strong algorithms” and shopping feature, which can be seamlessly integrated into video content, can drive people’s impulse purchases.

“My colleague didn’t really want to purchase on TikTok Shop – she just didn’t care, and one day she was like ‘the shop found me’. She was just scrolling and looking at stuff and ended up purchasing and spending way more than she would have usually,” Marty says.

Gallagher believes the platform’s shopping feature is much easier to navigate for both seller and customer than that of Instagram, which launched in 2020 but was removed from user’s homepages a year later.

“To be blunt, it’s just a joke compared to TikTok. What TikTok has created is just unbelievable and Instagram isn’t anything on it,” says Gallagher.

“We probably get zero sales from Instagram Shop, maybe one a month, and we get hundreds a month from TikTok,” he shares.

Even with social commerce becoming an increasingly important avenue for the business, it still only represents a fraction of total sales. However, that could soon change.

“We see social commerce as the future of fashion ecommerce,” says Boohoo senior influencer and PR manager Stephanie Riddell.

“It allows us to connect more deeply with our audience and leverage the authenticity and reach of our influencers to drive sales. This personalised approach is already showing significant promise in terms of increasing the value of social traffic to our site and creating more engaging customer journeys.

Riddell explains that social commerce is a “crucial element” of the retailer’s growth strategy and that “it will continue to have a substantial impact on our future sales by blending social engagement with seamless shopping experiences”.

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The changes come as the platform focuses on building the “marketplace of the future” by prioritising live commerce and shoppable content.

TikTok Shop is also introducing a “seller missions” programme, enabling UK sellers to reduce their fees if they create a “target number of TikTok live or shoppable videos”, Retail Week reported.

As part of the scheme, sellers can team up with popular creators on the app to achieve these goals, with TikTok Shop adding that the incentive will encourage sellers to grow their reach through live and shoppable videos.

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The parcel delivery group, which was previously owned by the Barclay family and narrowly avoided collapse in February, said the investment will enable it to further automate and modernise the business over the next three years.

This includes initiatives that will be rolled out in response to the acceleration of consumer Out of Home (OOH) deliveries and a material increase in parcel volumes through this fast-growing channel.

The funding deal comes after Paypoint, which has a partnership with the firm through its Collect+ division, supplied a £10m investment into the company in June.

Yodel chief executive Mike Hancox, who owns significant shareholding in the business, said: “I am delighted that we have secured a funding package that gives Yodel financial security into the future and the ability to continue investing in the long-term success of the business.

“I have to say thank you to my colleagues and our clients, who have been very supportive whilst Yodel has gone through a change of ownership, after many years with the Barclay family. We are excited to develop our Out of Home delivery offer and grateful for the support of the investors who will make this possible.”

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