Daily LInks
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
1. Rent The Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman Thinks Fashion Rental is Inflation-Proof: “We have gone far beyond renting clothing for special occasions. [Customers are] now using us for everyday life, renting clothes to wear to work, nighttime occasions, or just to wear around the neighborhood.” – Read More on the Verge
2. Amazon’s retail business is ‘out of fashion now,’ analyst says: “I do think it’s going to take before the [e-commerce] business really finds its footing again. I think the consumer spend is away from where Amazon’s core is, but I think it’s going to come back over time and they’ll return to growth and better margins.” – Read More on Yahoo
3. Fashion brands from Zara to H&M urged to make ‘responsible exit’ from Myanmar: The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, an international NGO that tracks the human rights impacts of companies, released a study that revealed “widespread and systemic abuse in international brands’ supply chains.” – Read More on SCMP
4. Shopify stock sinks amid layoff plan as CEO admits, “I got this wrong.” Now, Shopify sees that the mix of e-commerce spending is getting back to about where it would have been expected using pre-COVID projections. “It’s now clear that bet didn’t pay off.” – Read More on MarketWatch
5. Fashion Industry Efforts to Verify Sustainability Make ‘Greenwashing’ Easier: The factories, mills and other industrial facilities that produce the raw materials, fibers, and finished apparel sold by leading fashion brands account for the vast majority of the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. – Read More on Inside Climate News
1. Mushroom-Leather Bags Fetch $3,000. Will Shoppers Care? MycoWorks and Bolt Threads, are leading a burgeoning industry to make materials that mimic the feel, durability and smell of leather, but without the animal hides. It’s taken years to get close to the real thing. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Why Corporate Apologies to Beijing Backfire: The contentious relationship between China and the West makes things worse. Any Western brand doing business in China risks a regime-instigated consumer backlash, whether or not it has knowingly “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.” – Read More on the WSJ
3. RELATED READ: Brands Can Be Rewarded for Social Activism – But They Also Risk Alienating Consumers. Customers may stop buying a brand if it supports the “wrong” side of an issue or supports it in the wrong way. If this happens, the door opens for rival brands to pick up those disgruntled customers purely by remaining neutral on an issue, gaining an edge simply by observing and reacting to what the first brand has done. – Read More on TFL
4. Saks CEO: Luxury consumer ‘remains highly engaged’ as inflation surges: “I think when you look at the younger cohort of consumer, they haven’t been through a moment like we’re going through. And we have to be mindful of … how that’s going to affect behavior in the next few months.” – Read More on Yahoo
5. Shein Private Bids Imply $30 Billion Valuation Drop Since April, Sources Say: Investors looking to sell stakes in Shein are evaluating bids at discounts of about 30% to its $100 billion valuation in April, amid concern about the Chinese fast-fashion giant’s slowing growth. – Read More on Bloomberg
1. Chanel Misses Interim Renewables Target in Sustainable Bond: The fashion giant Chanel missed an interim renewable energy target for 2021. Instead of meeting 97% of its electricity needs from renewable sources, it only reached 92%. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. US fashion industry: Bangladesh to get more orders than China, Vietnam over next 2 years. When asked from which countries or regions the US fashion companies planned to increase their sourcing value in the next two years, India led the way, followed by CAFTA-DR region and Bangladesh, with all three selected by more than half of surveyed parties. – Read More on Biz Standard
3. French agency to track impact of clothing industry on climate: The French Agency for Ecological Transition is looking to gather information on the origins of raw materials in clothing, what dyes were used, how far products travelled, and whether factories used solar energy or coal. – Read More on RFI
4. Mexico concerned by Chinese retailer Shein’s use of a Mayan design: The Culture Ministry said some details of Shein’s “Fan-Trim Top with Floral Print” were similar to a traditional huipil embroidery made in 2017 by an artisanal clothing brand from southeastern Mexico. – Read More on Reuters
5. Instagram is fueling a thrifting boom in India, Pakistan, and Nepal: Numerous Instagram-based thrift stores have emerged across India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal over the last three years, making the concept of secondhand fashion popular among young shoppers. These thrift stores have become a lucrative business for many young entrepreneurs. – Read More on Rest of World