Daily LInks
1. UK retail sales growth fails to keep pace with soaring inflation: Consumer spending in July stronger than before pandemic but sector warns of “incredibly difficult period.” – Read More on the FT
2. Wealthy Chinese Selling Their Luxury Items for Quick Cash Amid Economic Downturn: The luxury brands will be hard to sell this year. “People have no money to spend because of the impact of the ongoing pandemic measures.” Plus, China’s COVID lockdown policies resulted in supply chain disruptions, affecting luxury sales and foreign trade lines. – Read More on Epoch Times
3. This entrepreneur is betting the future of retail runs on the blockchain and discord: Itsuki Daito is offering a web3 twist on brick-and-mortar retail: a store owned and operated by a decentralized autonomous organization. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. Ralph Lauren, Capri ride wave of inflation-resistant luxury demand: “High-income consumers are shopping in a way that is different from other times of inflation. Their priority is to shop for events they are returning to now after coming out of lockdowns and this is putting luxury goods companies in a good place.” – Read More on Yahoo
5. Michael Kors-owner beats quarterly estimates on resilient luxury demand: Rising inflation has had little impact on middle- and high-income households who have been happily spending on designer labels, having built up substantial savings during the pandemic. – Read More on Reuters
1. Used Lululemon Yoga Pants? Shoppers Overcome the “Ick Factor.” For the “younger generation, this notion of sharing clothing through rental services and purchasing lightly used gear isn’t as foreign,” the company’s CEO says. – Read More on the WSJ
2. ‘Chanel bags and lettuce seeds’: Luxury bargain hunters embrace eBay. Over the past few years, the business has been investing in tools for collectors and consumers of luxury goods, including authenticity guarantees for shoes and handbags. – Read More on Sydney Morning Herald
3. “They Said a Profitable Inclusive- Sizing Brand Wasn’t Possible.” Universal Standard, the world’s most inclusive-sizing brand, marks a year of profitability, 60% growth. – Read More on Forbes
4. China’s once-booming clothing markets face a reckoning amid post-pandemic e-commerce shift as sales dry up: Online channels, once seen as a remedy to declining offline sales, have also been waning amid weakening consumer demand as the world’s second largest economy slows. – Read More on SCMP
5. Qixi Festival proves a luxury luau as leading labels appeal to romantics: International luxury brands have debuted limited editions of products specially tailored for China ahead of Qixi Festival, or Chinese Valentine’s Day, on Thursday, to attract more Chinese consumers and make further investments in the country in line with localization strategies. – Read More on China Daily
1. The Hot New Trend for Gucci and Chanel: Middle America. China’s strict approach to containing Covid-19 has further bolstered the case for U.S. investment. That has convinced some brands to bulk up their U.S. presence, ending an era in which expanding in China dominated luxury executives’ thinking, people at these companies say. – Read More on the WSJ
2. Savile Row Fights to Stay Relevant as Suits Fall Out of Fashion: Tailors are adapting to popularity of casual wear and hotter climate, and new arrivals include bespoke streetwear brand Clothsurgeon. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. Crocs Gets Boost From Online Sales, Sees ‘Hey Dude’ Brand at $1B: Casual footwear-maker Crocs said continued gains in its digital sales as well as strong uptake of its newly acquired Hey Dude brand helped drive record second-quarter sales but warned the pace of growth would likely slow down. – Read More on PYMNTS
4. Retail investors perceive stocks, bonds to be more arcane than crypto, survey shows: The cryptocurrency market value ballooned to as much as $3 trillion last year, but it has lost nearly two-third of its value amid surging inflation and tightening financial conditions. – Read More on Reuters
5. Alibaba shed nearly 10,000 employees in June quarter as the e-commerce giant cuts costs amid sluggish sales, slowing economy: “The trend of digital transformation of enterprises is irreversible, although it is affected by the macroeconomic cycle and microeconomic environment, resulting in fluctuations in growth rate.” – Read More on Yahoo
1. Amazon Is Not Abandoning Private Label Business: While it slashed some slow-moving items, all of Amazon Basics and its other private label brands’ best-sellers are still available. – Read More on Markeplace Pulse
2. India’s Reliance signs franchise deal with fashion house Balenciaga: “It’s the most opportune time to introduce the brand to the country as the Indian luxury customer has matured and using fashion as a form of creative expression of their individuality.” – Read More on Reuters
3. Adidas’s Fitness Regime Looks Like a Stretch: The German brand’s problems in China go deeper than the recent lockdowns. International sports companies were losing market share to local competitors like Anta Sports before the pandemic. – Read More on the WSJ
4. RETRO READ: A Chinese Company’s Stock is Growing Faster than Nike and adidas, Making it the “World’s Hottest Sportswear Brand.” A native Chinese company – Li-Ning Sports Goods Co., the eponymous label of former 3-time Olympic gold medal gymnast, Li Ning – is among the top-growing apparel companies in the world. – Read More on TFL
5. How ultra-fast fashion chains like Shein, Boohoo tempt Generation Z with cheap clothing, despite the environmental cost: Demand for low-priced garments has nevertheless soared because of the highest inflation rates in decades, while many Covid-hit high street shops with big overheads struggle to compete. – Read More on SCMP
6. The future of global retail will be local: Shopify’s challenge to Amazon has failed, but an Indian bid to empower small merchants is worth watching. – Read More on the FT
1. Slowdown beckons as euro zone retail sales drop more than expected: “Respondents see almost a 60% chance of the euro zone following the U.S. into technical recession in the next 12 months,” according to the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat. – Read More on Reuters
2. Surging Retail Inventories Are Swamping U.S. Warehouses: Persistent supply-chain bottlenecks have also led many retailers to stretch out buying cycles, bringing in goods early to ensure shelves are stocked during the critical fall sales season. – Read More on the WSJ
3. Luxury Brands Gucci, Tiffany Dive Into NFTs Despite Slump: Kering SA’s Gucci and LVMH’s Tiffany & Co. this week added to the throng of high-end brands diving further into the cryptosphere, launching NFT-related projects. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. Metaverse – The next e-commerce revolution: The Metaverse will change the e-commerce experience by making the virtual experience more personal, more real, and more immersive, and brands that provide a winning personal experience would be entitled to charge a price premium. – Read More on Flow
5. Tod’s Founding Family to Take Luxury-Loafer Maker Private: Luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE currently holds 10% of Tod’s shares, and would continue to own a 10th of the company after a proposed delisting from the Milan Stock Exchange. – Read More on the WSJ
1. Estee Lauder Envies Tom Ford’s Fragrance. Does It Fancy Its Fashion? While the cosmetics group may covet full control of Tom Ford’s beauty and fragrance arm, dealing with the company’s clothing and accessories would be much more of a stretch. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Why India could single-handedly shape the future of e-commerce this summer: This month, retail giants and government regulators around the world will be watching closely as India rolls out the Open Network for Digital Commerce in 100 major cities. – Read More on Fortune
3. Metaverse branding’s success depends on its underlying purpose: “If brands can create something that’s engaging, and that there is some sort of purpose to it … it gives customers a reason to go back to it.” – Read More on CryptoSlate
4. Bangladesh’s garment sector faces energy, demand crises: “Uninterrupted energy supply is the key to delivering products in time. We’re facing a combination of multiple problems at home and abroad.” – Read More on AlJazeera
5. Is the pre-order retail model the key to a more sustainable fashion cycle? “With a pre-order, a look is only produced when there is proven demand. It is one of the most conscious ways to tap into what is next in fashion.” – Read More on Harper’s Bazaar
1. Does PE still have a taste for European fashion? The emergence of fast fashion operators has come to the detriment of established brands, with consumers increasingly going online for inexpensive apparel mass-produced in response to short-lived trends. – Read More on Yahoo
2. Estée Lauder in Talks to Buy Luxury Brand Tom Ford: Estée Lauder Cos. is in talks to buy luxury fashion brand Tom Ford, according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be a $3 billion or more deal representing the cosmetics giant’s largest-ever acquisition. – Read More on the WSJ
3. How the Higg Index, fashion’s leading sustainability tool, came under fire: The methodology was launched ten years ago by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. Then in 2109, it was spun off as a separate tech-focused public benefit corporation, which raised $50 million in its Series B funding this April. – Read More on Modern Retail
4. Singapore Fashion Chain Charles & Keith Weighs Stake Sale, Sources Say: Charles & Keith Group Pte, a Singapore-based fashion house, is exploring the sale of roughly a 20% stake, according to people with knowledge of the matter. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. How High Tech Is Transforming Fashion: This year, thanks in part to a significant round of funding, Space Runners’ goal is rounding out both digital and physical apparel offerings and becoming the go-to marketplace for fashion brands in the metaverse by offering immersive shopping experiences online. – Read More on Elle
1. Inside luxury fashion’s “sustainability” evolution: Valentino, Givenchy and Fendi are on track to promoting eco-friendly designs, while Farfetch has noticed a rise in consumer demand for ‘conscious’ products – especially among millennials. – Read More on SCMP
2. Where does your clothing come from? “The fashion industry has to be more intentional about making well-loved, long-wearing clothing, ‘rather than quickly becoming emotionally redundant and easily replaced.’” – Read More on El Pais
3. Luxury Brands Send a Confusing Economic Signal: Shoppers might be tightening their belts, but they are still pumping cash into Hermès handbags. Is demand for luxury goods somewhat recession-proof or simply a lagging indicator? The answer should be clearer later this year. – Read More on the WSJ
4. Amazon says consumer spending remains strong, bucking broader retail gloom: The e-commerce giant hasn’t seen the kinds of inflationary impacts that are hurting other retailers. CFO Brian Olsavsky says Amazon “saw demand increase during [Q2] and we had a very strong June.” – Read More on CNBC
5. Consumer e-commerce hits a brick wall in Japan: Japan’s e-commerce market has lost momentum after growing more than 20% since 2019, leveling off after rising sharply through early 2021. – Read More on Nikkei
6. As Inventory Piles Up, Liquidation Warehouses Are Busy: While overall spending rebounded last month, some major retailers say shoppers are buying less clothing, gardening equipment and electronics and focusing instead on basics like food and gas. – Read More on the New York Times
1. L’Oreal may continue to raise prices in a targeted manner, CEO says: The company has seen no reduction in volumes of goods sold, rather “we have so far continued to see upgrading of consumers in every category.” – Read More on Reuters
2. ESG Reports Aren’t a Replacement for Real Sustainability: Companies should undertake SWOT analyses through a sustainability lens, look specifically for material ESG issues that are resulting in risks and opportunities for the company, and then undertake and track return on sustainable investment, setting benchmarks and tracking financial performance over time. – Read More on HBR
3. Luxury sees gateway in Hainan: Last year, sales of personal luxury products in Hainan accounted for 13 percent of the total revenue of 470 billion yuan ($69.4 billion) nationwide. And 21 percent of global luxury sales revenue came from China. – Read More on China Daily
4. Rent the Runway’s CEO on How it Survived the Pandemic: “We realized that customers actually did like to buy clothes from us. Just a different way to shop for secondhand clothing that feels less like a treasure hunt and more like just a regular eCommerce experience.” – Read More on the WSJ
5. Korean fashion industry hit by COVID-19 resurgence, soaring inflation: The daily number of new COVID-19 infections is surging at a rapid pace and the soaring cost of living is slowing down consumer spending on fashion items. – Read More on Korea Times
1. Fashion resale platform Vestiaire Collective expands into South Korea: Online fashion resale platform Vestiaire Collective is expanding into South Korea, choosing the fast-growing luxury market as a springboard for a deeper push into Asia. – Read More on Reuters
2. International garment industry struggling to cope with US ban on Xinjiang cotton: “It’s very hard to differentiate between fabrics that were or were not manufactured using cotton from Xinjiang. We are anxious about our supply chain as it relies heavily on China and many of our members are large manufacturers, so this decision has put them under huge pressure.” – Read More on Global Times
3, Forward Thinking on the sustainability revolution in textiles and the fashion industry: “For all of the modernity that we think of this industry, it’s quite conservative. I remember talking to a brand recently, a luxury brand, and basically they said, “We haven’t changed suppliers for three generations.” – Read More on McKinsey
4. Here comes a ‘flurry’ of retail bankruptcies, former retail CEO warns: “I think we will see a flurry of bankruptcies likely in the first quarter of 2023 if this holiday season is anything less than completely robust.” – Read More on Yahoo
5. LVMH Q2 focused on managing demand for luxury goods: If — and when — demand for what LVMH calls “high quality products” should weaken, Guiony said it would “react swiftly, cut costs and delay store openings” exactly as it has in other down times, but noted this does not appear to be one of those periods just yet. – Read More on PYMNTS