Daily LInks
1. Is luxury retail’s sweet spot? 76% of consumers with an income of $200,000 or more plan to purchase the same or even more luxury items in the next 3 months than they did in the past 3 months. – Read More on Retail Wire
2. Activist Bluebell Sets Sights on Luxury Group Richemont: The activist hedge fund wants to appoint a board representative for A-class shareholders who have weaker voting rights than the company’s B-class shares controlled by chairman Johann Rupert. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. What Second Life and Roblox can teach us about the metaverse: “If you’re worried about your company needing to jump in right this very minute to make your metaverse play, you can stop worrying.” – Read More on MIT Sloane Review
4. RELATED READ: What Lawsuits Over Second Life Tell Us About Trademarks in the Metaverse. The broad language of the Lanham Act – which defines “use in commerce” as the bona fide use of a mark in the ordinary course of trade – may also suggest that the offering up and sale of virtual goods in a virtual world as “use in commerce.” – Read More on TFL
5. How Paper Catalogs Remain Relevant in a Digital Age: For e-commerce retailers without physical stores, catalogs can effectively mimic stores’ sensory experiences to enhance customer affinity. Multichannel retailers can add an effective catalog marketing channel to their store and e-commerce channel strategies. – Read More on HBR
1. Fashion retailer H&M joins TJX, others in exiting Russia: H&M will wind down its business in Russia, a move that will cost almost $200 million and affect 6,000 staff as it joins a growing number of companies fully exiting the country. – Read More on Reuters
2. Cartier style and heritage director Pierre Rainero: “Globally, the buyers are becoming younger under the pressure of Asia because especially there, people have access to wealth at a younger age, so we face younger and younger clients for important pieces, which was not the case in the past.” – Read More on SCMP
3. Retail sales rose more than expected in June as consumers remain resilient despite inflation: Advance retail sales increased 1% for the month, better than the Dow Jones estimate of a 0.9% rise. That marked a big jump from the 0.1% decline in May. – Read More on CNBC
4. Online retailers are feeling the pain as pandemic-driven e-commerce slows: Now that the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom has slowed, small and medium businesses who sell products on Amazon are feeling the squeeze. – Read More on NPR
5. After Corvette Failure, Automakers Tread Carefully Into NFTs: Chevy paired a digital image of a Corvette Z06 in a Blade Runner-style cityscape, with a real-life 2023 ’Vette custom-painted to match the artwork. The automaker’s acid-green duo failed to receive a single bid. – Read More on Bloomberg
1. Chinese fast-fashion company Shein seeks U.S. IPO as soon as 2024, report says: While ESG concerns have not dissuaded large investors such as Sequoia Capital China, IDG Capital, and Tiger Global Management, recent executive moves within Shein appear to focus on improving their ESG appearance in preparation for an IPO. – Read More on CNBC
2. Farfetch: Luxury Fashion Is Likely in Trouble. A risk Farfetch faces is that brands will take their products off the marketplace and go direct to consumers. We have seen this with Nike dropping Foot locker and LVMH not allowing online sales of its products. – Read More on Seeking Alpha
3. Luxury Brands’ Pool of U.S. Shoppers Is Shrinking: Richer customers are still spending despite the stock-market rout and aggressive price increases across the luxury goods industry – but less well-heeled consumers are cutting back. – Read More on the WSJ
4. Amazon acts to end EU antitrust investigations, avoid fine: The European Commission in 2020 charged Amazon with using its size, power and data to push its own products and gain an unfair advantage over rival merchants that also use its platform. – Read More on Reuters
5. ‘Revenge spending’: Demand for fashion defies cost of living crunch. Shoppers are forking out almost a fifth more on clothing than last year, research from Kantar has found, taking the value 1% ahead of the 2019 figure. – Read More on the Guardian
6. People are paying more for clothes even as retailers like Walmart, Gap mark down prices to cut inventory: “A return to getting back out is really what’s driving the apparel growth. This experiential re-emergence that we still didn’t see fully last year.” – Read More on CNBC
1. Europe’s Fashion Industry Has a Long Way to Go on Diversity: A report from the British Fashion Council shows women hold under half of senior posts even though they account for the lion’s share of the industry’s consumers. Leaders of ethnic minority backgrounds make up just 9% of top management positions at the 100 companies surveyed. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Marketplace Platforms Do Not Guarantee Market Share Growth for the Luxury Sector: An owned DTC channel delivers far greater customer lifetime value and maintains margins, which in a constricting economy can be the single point of difference between profit and loss. – Read More on Forbes
3. Lawmakers eye work on Fashion Act during session recess: Lawmakers are taking the time while out of session to improve the Fashion Act after it didn’t advance out of committee this session. – Read More on Spectrum News
4. RELATED READ: As New York Lawmakers Unveil the Fashion Act, is Larger Reform on The Way? In order for such an industry-wide ESG reckoning to come into fruition (including by way of legislation, such as the Fashion Act), a number of foundational elements must be put into place first. – Read More on TFL
5. From Gap to Dollar General, Retail Chiefs Exit as Challenges Grow: Many U.S. retailers are opting for new leadership or moving ahead with pandemic-delayed succession plans as the industry adapts to challenges beyond the Covid-19 health crisis. – Read More on the WSJ
1. E-commerce: At the center of profitable growth in consumer goods. Explosive growth puts the United States second in social purchasing only to China, where that channel already makes up more than 13 percent of the e-commerce market. – Read More on McKinsey
2. Ouster of Gap CEO Syngal Follows Trend of Women Being Fired Faster: Women in the role step down after an average tenure of 6.6 years, compared with 9.9 years for men, according to data compiled by exechange.com. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. Startups eye metaverse, NFTs, to solve Africa’s economic woes: Mann hopes that metaverse spaces such as his Ubuntuland will be a “job creation tool” where users can showcase their skills or earn online. – Read More on Reuters
4. Most Expensive Bottle of Champagne Sold for $2.5 Million—NFTs Included: The bottle is printed with five NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, and the purchase includes a transfer of the digital ownership. – Read More on the WSJ
5. Twitter faces uncertain future amid legal showdown with Elon Musk: The company’s stock is falling and economic headwinds are coming. Analysts said Twitter will likely need an infusion of cash — either from Musk himself or from new bargain-hunting suitors. – Read More on S&P Global (In case you need the Twitter v. Musk complaint, you can find it here.)
1. How TikTok drives fast fashion: According to a Marketing Charts survey of Gen-Zers, 39% were directly influenced to buy a product after seeing it on TikTok. – Read More on Axios
2. Burberry Director Draws Protest Over Day Job as Danone CEO: A third of Burberry Group shareholders voted against the re-election of board member Antoine de Saint-Affrique amid concerns about directors who also hold other jobs spreading themselves too thin. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. Christie’s Sold $4.1 Billion in Art in the First Half of 2022: Roughly 34% of new global buyers are millennials, many of whom are gravitating to luxury goods like handbags. Christie’s sold a white crocodile Hermès Kelly handbag last month for $239,400. – Read More on the WSJ
4. TikTok is full of shady secret advertisements: With the internet and social media, there is a seemingly infinite supply of content to regulate and almost no transparency, which makes it exceedingly difficult for the agencies charged with enforcing the rules to know when they’re being broken. – Read More on Vox
5. Gap CEO exit opens door for spin-off talks again: The abrupt exit of Gap Inc’s CEO on the back of falling sales and shrinking margins will likely push the struggling apparel retailer to sell one or more of its brands, analysts said. – Read More on Reuters
1. LVMH’s Sephora to sell its Russian subsidiary: Plans for a law allowing Moscow to seize the assets of foreign businesses and impose criminal penalties has prompted some to accelerate their departure, such as Nike, which decided to leave last month after suspending operations in March. – Read More on CNBC
2. Lanvin Group Aims to Acquire Another Brand Next Year: First, Fosun aims to float Lanvin on the NYSE via a blank-check company in October or November, said Joann Cheng, chairman and chief executive officer of Lanvin Group. A potential acquisition would come after that. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. Diesel jeans founder aims to build Italian rival to compete with LVMH and Kering: “It’s not easy, but we are on the lookout for brands that can strengthen our luxury positioning. We will demonstrate to the world that even Italy can have its own luxury conglomerate.” – Read More on the FT
4. Luxury Brands Need to Take Web3 and the Metaverse Much More Seriously: We are at the very beginning of Web3, however the large players in the field are already investing unprecedented sums in shoring up their position in this new reality. – Read More on Jing
5. Burberry Joins Tiffany, Valentino and Coach in Closing Hong Kong Flagship: Burberry cited the lack of customers able or willing to come into the store to make purchases as the pandemic raged on, especially with the rise of eCommerce options in luxury fashion. – Read More on PYMNTS
1. Dior Seeks Compensation From Valentino: Dior is displeased about alleged disruptions to its business caused by the recent couture show that Valentino staged near the Spanish Steps in Rome. In a letter that it sent to Valentino on Friday, counsel for Dior is demanding that Valentino pay it a sum of 100,000 euros for preventing “regular foot traffic” to its nearby boutique. – Read More on WWD
2. Levi’s Closing in on 50-50 Split as Direct-to-Consumer Sales Accelerate: While this 1:1 physical-to-digital ratio is still a way off, the San Francisco-based denim giant is getting closer and closer, as redesigned stores, improved websites and apps and changing consumer habits combine to drive growth in digital. – Read More on PYMNTS
3. Digital Transformation Is Changing Supply Chain Relationships: Digital technologies are allowing companies to share supply chain information and assets in new ways. For example, it is making it possible for companies to share warehouse space and trucking capacity. – Read More on HBR
4. Analysis: Twitter has legal edge in deal dispute with Musk. Delaware courts, where the dispute between the two sides is set to be litigated, have set a high bar for acquirers being allowed to abandon their deals. – Read More on Reuters
5. Kanye West hit with lawsuit from luxury fashion rental company for allegedly failing to pay $200,000 in fees and not returning items: The David Casavant Archive is suing Kanye West on claims he failed to pay rental fees and return items. – Read More on Business Insider
6. Metaverse Potential Is Only Getting Bigger. So What’s Next for China and Web3? The estimated market size of the metaverse industry in the country has reached upwards of $8 trillion, with an estimated 37 million Chinese online users expected to have a virtual identity on metaverse platforms by 2025. – Read More on Jing
1. Should There Be a Higher Bar to Call Products ‘Sustainable’? As the FTC updates its guidance on green marketing, some advocates are pushing it to provide clarity on commonly used (and abused) terms. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. RETRO READ: The Problem with “Sustainability”? It Doesn’t Really Mean Anything. Terms like “sustainability,” “green,” “eco-friendly,” “ethical,” “responsibly-made,” and in many cases, even “upcycled” – lack concrete, uniform definitions with foundations in law that brands and consumers can observe. – Read More on TFL
3. How the Nike vs Adidas rivalry has found a new battleground – high fashion: There is “huge customer appetite” for such collaborations, not least as an entry point for fashionistas into the world of sneakers. – Read More on SCMP
4. The future of leather: How pineapple leaves, cacti and mycelium are revolutionizing the industry. With its versatility and low environmental impact, companies – like Mycoworks, which debuted their mycelium-based leather in the world of high fashion as a Hermès Victoria bag – are jumping at the opportunity to grow products with mycelium. – Read More on WeForum
5. E-commerce hasn’t killed physical retail. It’s made it more important than ever. The rising costs of digital marketing and over-saturation of DTC brands can significantly reduce gains made by saving on the overhead of a physical space. – Read More on Fast Co.
1. Reliance to bring Gap to India in latest retail bet: Under a long-term franchise agreement, Reliance will sell Gap merchandise through a mix of exclusive brand stores, multi-brand outlets and e-commerce platforms. – Read More on Reuters
2. Eileen Fisher wants her competitors to design better clothes: Since 2009, the brand has collected more than 1.3 million garments from customers (buying them for $5 a piece) and found creative ways to salvage them. – Read More on Fast Co.
3. H&M discovers it’s not easy being green: More than half of H&M’s scorecards portrayed products as being better for the environment than they actually were, while others allegedly gave information about the sustainability of a product that was completely opposite from the truth. – Read More on Retail Wire
4. TikTok Troubles Put Focus on Livestream Shopping’s Environmental, Data Impact: “It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data.” – Read More on PYMNTS
5. How e-commerce companies can brave the new retail environment: E-commerce growth as a percentage of total worldwide sales has not continued to persist as strongly as expected post-pandemic. Statista reports that e-commerce stood at 12.9% of total U.S. retail sales in Q4 of 2021, down from 13.6%. – Read More on TechCrunch