News roundup--Debenhams, Peacocks, more

Debenhams has launched the next instalment of its “Life Made Fabulous” TV ad campaign after its summer campaign provided a million pound sales boost for its swimwear category. The first autumn/winter advert is set to air today during Emmerdale on ITV1 and will run up until 9th September 2012.

Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland are to share in a £69 million return from the collapse of apparel retailer Peacocks, despite the retailer’s pension fund being left with a £15.8 million shortfall. The Telegraph reports that the banks, as secured creditors, will receive a return of £35 million and on top of this have already shared £34 million, which was held in the company’s bank accounts on the day Peacocks was placed into administration. The £69 million return is slightly more than half the £134 million the banking syndicate was owed as a result of the retailer’s collapse.

The Telegraph notes that Marks & Spencer is set to install free Wi-Fi into all of its UK stores and arm customer assistants with iPads as part of plans to push its ecommerce offering. The article states that the retailer is investing £100 million on new technology and £150 million on a new model, or platform, for its website that will be ready by 2014.

Apparel and homewares retailer Matalan has partnered with ecommerce personalisation provider RichRelevance to deliver ecommerce personalisation on its site with the aim to increase merchandising control and extend its personalisation across multiple channels. The integration gives Matalan the ability to analyse shopping behaviour and affinities alongside data on relationships between products, product categories, brands and attributes.

According to the Independent John Lewis will be the first UK retailer to partner with Barnes & Noble and sell its Nook electronic book readers. The Nook device will compete with Amazon’s Kindle and the Apple iPad.