Daily LInks
1. As travel resumes, China’s luxury shoppers ask: Paris or Hainan? In 2021, Hainan accounted for 13% of China’s domestic luxury spend vs. 6% pre-pandemic, and tax regulations are set to continue to loosen. By 2025, luxury brands will be able to operate their own duty-free stores, rather than rely on partnerships with local players. – Read More on Reuters
2. With Patagonia leading the pack, what’s next for sustainability in apparel? Patagonia announced it was “time for us as a company to address the issue of consumerism and do it head on.” “Everything we make takes something from the planet we can’t give back.” – Read More on Modern Retail
3. RELATED READ: Patagonia and the Potential Perils of Philanthro-Capitalism. A major barrier for sustainable companies is the assumption of shareholder primacy – that managers must maximize profits on behalf of the company’s owners. – Read More on TFL
4. Five Questions with Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group Marketing Director & Head of CSR: “One of the biggest challenges and opportunities arose in the last 2 years is how to be effectively present in the Web3. We are creatively and strategically approaching Web3 while some of our competitors are rushing to be there.” – Read More on Interbrand
5. California’s Workers’-Rights Push Threatens What’s Left of ‘Made in the USA’ Fashion: California’s Garment Worker Protection Act is a year-old law that takes aim at the industry practice of paying workers a piece rate, and renders fashion brands liable for labor abuses across their supply chains. Similar bills are under consideration in New York state and in the US Congress. – Read More on Bloomberg
6. Biden administration AI policy efforts to be complex balancing act in 2023: With a lack of movement at the federal level, state and city government AI laws are more likely to surface in the coming months. – Read More on S&P Global
1. How Luxury Rental Services Are Changing Our Relationship with Fashion: “The luxury borrowing industry is booming,” Blake Geffen, the founder of Vivrelle said. The handbag rental co. currently has a waitlist of 8,000 users and counting. – Read More on Elle
2. Retailers to Roll Out the Red Carpet for High-Spending Chinese Tourists, Now Free to Travel Abroad: This is welcome news not just for Chinese travelers and airlines but also overseas retailers, particularly luxury goods retailers. The Chinese have historically been the world’s biggest spenders while traveling abroad. – Read More on US Funds
3. Retail M&A sinks in 2022: Diving deeper, deal value in the consumer products and services sector fell 44% while values in consumer staples fell 37%. The number of deals was also down, with a 24% dip in the retail space, a 14% decline in consumer products and services, and a 19% fall in consumer staples. – Read More on Axios
4. Online Sales Growth Chugs on Despite Gloomy Forecasts: According to the data, liberation from COVID restrictions that sent consumers flooding back to brick-and-mortar stores did not prevent growth in online purchasing, which in fact grew. – Read More on PYMNTS
5. European shares clock third day of gains on upbeat economic data: China-exposed luxury companies LVMH and Richemont rose 5.0% and 2.4%, respectively, lifting the index. – Read More on Reuters
1. What to Watch: The CEO Search Goes On at Supreme-owner VF, Kohl’s, Gap and The RealReal. CEO searches are harder today since it is no longer enough to be good at retail or good at e-commerce, but brands of all stripes need to be good at both and figure out how to bring the two sides of the business together with the right balance. – Read More on Yahoo
2. In the cost-of-living crisis, should fashion brands tighten their belts? Another sector that has seen a swift change has been the fashion industry, with clothing brands seeing a 2% year-on-year decline in sales, and a month-on-month drop from July to August of 11%. – Read More on the Drum
3. Shopify launches new subscription product to lure big retail clients: The company said it had signed up toymaker Mattel Inc for the product, and was looking to bring other enterprise clients it works with, such as Glossier, Coty, Steve Madden and Staples, onboard. – Read More on Reuters
4. Stella McCartney on Building a More Sustainable Fashion Industry in 2023: “Greenwashing is a phrase for a reason. Our industry is very good at PR and very good at making things seem other than they really are.” – Read More on Vogue
5. RELATED READ: Amid Increasing Scrutiny, How Brands Can Counter the Risk of Greenwashing. For those businesses wishing to avoid the perception of greenwashing, the introduction of “ESG” clauses into supply chain contracts, while useful, is not a solution in and of itself. – Read More on TFL
1. Can Hong Kong recover from Covid-19 to reclaim luxury retail market crown? A double whammy of Hong Kong’s worst social unrest in decades and the Covid-19 pandemic knocked Russell Street – and subsequently Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon – off the perch of the world’s most expensive retail spaces in terms of rents per square foot. – Read More on SCMP
2. Bleeding billions: Can Meta still deliver the future of the internet? Zuckerberg and Meta have never been very precise with their definitions or promises for the metaverse, instead describing it in vague emotive terms and claiming that Meta would only be one corporation among many working to further an open, collaborative standard. – Read More on Sydney Morning Herald
3. David Beckham Tripled Revenues to £34 Million Before Qatar Deal: At the same time, Victoria Beckham’s fashion business narrows its losses, with turnover falling by 6% to 36.1 million pounds in the 12 months to Dec. 31, 2020, while losses after taxes were down to 8.6 million pounds from 16.6 million pounds. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. Sometimes a shoe is not just a shoe: One of the biggest trends of the past twenty years has been the rise of corporate swag. Wearing a Google t-shirt, an AirBnB backpack, or a logo-festooned Hydra bottle are all symbols of belonging to a herd called “work.” These logos advertised where you worked and thus gave you a place in Silicon Valley’s social hierarchy. – Read More on OM.co
5. Footfall slumped 27% on British high streets after Christmas, data shows: Analysis from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) found that 17,145 shops closed for good in 2022 – which is a jump of almost 50% on the 11,449 shops closed in 2021. – Read More on the Guardian
1. Business Disruptions Wane as Some Industries See a Return to Normal: Goods are moving around the world again and reaching companies and consumers, despite some production bottlenecks and Covid outbreaks inside China. – Read More on the WSJ
2. How can technology help the fashion industry move towards sustainability? “This buyer-seller relationship exists in the industry between the brand and the supplier. That dynamic needs to be changed into [something] more co-developed and co-created.” – Read More on TechNode
3. RELATED READ: Fashion’s Buzzy Tech Initiatives, Alone, Won’t Solve its Sustainability Issues. Consistent overproduction, the endless quest for scale, and the downward spiral of wages are key issues that stand out in fashion’s quest to clean up its act, but more than that, transparency continues to be a problem. – Read More on TFL
4. Catering to North Korea’s elite, department stores stock up on fake luxury goods: “Chanel brand bags, perfumes and alcoholic beverages are being imported in large quantities on Dandong-Sinuiju freight trains that are assigned to trading companies affiliated with the party.” – Read More on RFA
5. Luxury Brand Montblanc Sees Opportunity in Airports and Smaller Cities: The company is targeting airport retail stores — both duty-free and duty-paid — because those locations allow it to engage with customers it wouldn’t see in a traditional store and because there’s a growing number of airports opening in the country. – Read More on PYMNTS
1. Luxury brands brace for a 2023 slowdown: Heading into 2022, the €353bn luxury goods market had reason to celebrate. Covid-19 restrictions had largely eased outside China, shares in luxury brands outperformed the broader stock market for a sixth year in a row. – Read More on the FT
2. How teen brands are making the metaverse part of their retail strategies: Forever 21 is selling the real version of its avatar-centered hoodie, beanie, and t-shirt in stores and on its website. While Forever 21 didn’t disclose how much revenue it has made from metaverse-inspired apparel, it said the items have “sold really well.” – Read More on Modern Retail
3. Retailers Need New Strategies to Counter Discounting Pressures: We also saw another approach exemplified by Dior Beauty; it focused on a four-tier loyalty program that provides exclusive benefits that rewards members’ engagement with the brand to motivate action. – Read More on Forbes
4. Target, Nike, Urban Outfitters Get Jump on January Clearance Sales: Retailers’ ongoing markdowns are happening as consumers are cutting back on their spending. The latest edition of Mastercard’s Spending Pulse found that spending on popular holiday items like jewelry and electronics fell more than 5% between Nov. 1 and Christmas Eve. – Read More on PYMNTS
5. IRS Updates FAQs for Reporting E-Commerce Platform Transactions: The Internal Revenue Service provided clarification Wednesday on which taxpayers would receive a form to report business transactions through e-commerce platforms such as Venmo and Paypal, as well as how to report gains from sales. – Read More on Bloomberg
1. U.S. Supreme Court has busy year ahead for intellectual property law: The copyright world is eagerly awaiting the high court’s ruling in a dispute between Andy Warhol’s estate and celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith over their depictions of the rock star Prince. – Read More on Reuters
2. Could Your Next Outfit Be Made of CO2? It’s this sort of trash to treasure process that eliminates emissions and then it turns into a useful product. People find that idea easy to understand, and they’re super excited about it. The challenge is how to do this profitably and in a cost competitive way, and that’s the piece that no one’s really figured out yet. – Read More on the WSJ
3. These climate wins brought some unexpected hope in 2022: U.S. President Joe Biden and China President Xi Jinping agreed to restart bilateral climate talks that had been suspended earlier in the year over trade disputes. And wealthy nations agreed to secure funding to compensate developing countries for loss and damage from climate change. – Read More on S&P Global
4. South Korea Nov retail sales fall for third straight month: South Korea’s retail sales fell for a third straight month in November, government data showed on Thursday, and were set to end the last quarter of 2022 with losses, reversing gains in the third quarter. – Read More on Yahoo
5. E-commerce will go viral on social media in 2023: There’s early evidence that selling goods over live social networking works beyond the People’s Republic. Viewers enjoy interacting with celebrities and so-called influencers, but the ultimate goal is clicks to buy. – Read More on Reuters
1. Japan retail sales up for ninth month led by tourism help: Japanese retail sales rose for a ninth straight month in November, data showed on Tuesday, as the lifting of COVID-19 border controls and the government’s domestic travel subsidy helped consumer demand. – Read More on Reuters
2. China-addicted luxury stocks cheer Beijing’s looser COVID curbs: China will stop requiring inbound travelers to go into quarantine starting from Jan. 8. News of the loosening lifted stock markets worldwide, with luxury shares in particular benefitting. – Read More on Nasdaq
3. Beam Bold advocates ‘buy less, buy better’ to supplant fast fashion with sustainable retail: Brands such as Singaporean start-up Style Theory have been tapping into a growing appetite for sustainable clothing, or circular fashion. – Read More on SCMP
4. Chinese Rush for Exit as Beijing Ends Zero-Covid and Opens Its Doors: The mixed feelings toward visitors from China also serve as a reminder that Chinese tourists are the world’s biggest source of tourism revenue, together spending about $250 billion a year on average in the five years before the pandemic. – Read More on the WSJ
5. A year of acrimonious ESG battles comes to a close with more in store for 2023: Observers say they are seeing little evidence that the 2022 anti-ESG campaign has had a chilling effect on corporate America or its investors. “I think we’re seeing the biggest appetite coming from the U.S. in terms of getting [ESG] done.” – Read More on S&P Global
1. U.S. retail sales grows 7.6% in holiday season: U.S. retail sales rose 7.6% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, which encompasses a majority of the holiday season, as steep discounts lured deal-hungry consumers, a Mastercard report showed on Monday. – Read More on Reuters
2. American fashion brands are finally coming for the high-end luxury market: However, Estée Lauder’s purchase in November of Tom Ford—an American company with super-premium pricing—may indicate a shift in how the world perceives American brands. After fetching a valuation of $2.8 billion, the company has secured a seat at luxury’s power table. – Read More on Quartz
3. Fear, misfortune and Kanye West: how Adidas lost its luster. Adidas is stuck with Yeezy sneakers worth more than $500 million after parting ways with West. The German sportswear giant is now trying to sell the items under its own brand to minimize potential losses. – Read More on the FT
4. Rolex watches a better investment than stocks, gold or real estate if you bought a decade ago: Prices of Rolex watches on the secondary market skyrocketed during the first several months of 2022, before dipping a bit as the year ended. – Read More on SCMP
5. Birkenstocks one of most purchased fashion items of 2022: Birkenstocks, trouser suits and seam-free workout sets were three of the most purchased fashion items of 2022. – Read More on the Guardian
1. China’s Richest Shoppers Hold the Key to Luxury’s Future: As China moves away from its long-held Zero-Covid approach, the luxury industry (and its investors) hopes the country’s reopening will make up for a sputtering US, which has been the engine of high-end growth for the past two years. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. 2022: A Tumultuous Year in ESG and Sustainability. The past year has been a challenging one for companies on the ESG front. Overlapping environmental, social, and political crises — from flooding and wildfires to the first war in Europe in 80 years — have made the jobs of leaders that much harder. – Read More on HBR
3. Apple Watches violate AliveCor patents but import ban on hold -U.S. ITC: Apple Watches with an electrocardiogram (ECG) function infringe patents belonging to medical device maker AliveCor Inc, the U.S. International Trade Commission affirmed on Thursday. – Read More on Reuters
4. Eyeliner Out of Stock? Blame TikTok: From makeup to Dash miniature waffle makers and Stanley water tumblers, items are going viral on TikTok and other social-media platforms, launching seemingly modest products into booming sales and making the items nearly impossible to find. – Read More on the WSJ
5. How virtual clothes could help solve fashion’s waste problem: Digital spaces could be used as a testbed for the physical world. For example, a designer could release an item of digital clothing in 10 colors in the metaverse, and use the sales data to inform which colors to use for the real-world version. – Read More on CNN