This week last year: Asda beefs up online offer

This week last year, Asda pledged to ramp up its online shopping service by increasing the non-food lines on offer. The move was in response to customer demand, according to the Wal-Mart-owned grocer. However, today Iceland shut down its own home shopping division, again after listening to what its customers wanted.

A year ago, Somerfield revealed plans for a massive store portfolio expansion to boost its convenience store format position. The claim prompted one analyst to predict that there would be casualties in the convenience store sector as a result. But over the past twelve months, there has been strong competition in the convenience store sector and this week Somerfield itself has been at the centre of buy out speculation.

At the beginning of April last year, Hennes & Mauritz said it expected to have 100 UK stores by the end of the year. The retailer said that the UK market was close to becoming its second biggest market after Germany, overtaking its home base in Sweden. Now in 2005, H&M has only managed to set up 92 stores in the UK. However, the retailer did manage to launch a flagship store in Knightsbridge this week.