Daily LInks
1. How China’s ‘common prosperity’ goal, cancel culture and continuing Covid-19 travel curbs will affect luxury brands: Luxury brands need to look to China even more for inspiration and innovation. Why? Because luxury globally will be shaped by Chinese consumers. China will be the number one market for luxury in 2025. – Read More on SCMP
2. The revival of retail deals: 2021’s global retail M&A volume reached $227 billion as of Dec. 16, a year-over-year increase of 59%. That nearly keeps up with the broader increase of about 64% across all industries. – Read More on Axios
3. Your Ugly Christmas Sweater Is Branding’s Latest Weapon: The inexorable rise of “ugly” festive merch rests on the jesting irony of high-low self-deprecation: being cool enough to pull off the patently lame. But it’s getting harder to tell who, exactly, is the butt of the joke when every brand aspires to be fashion-forward for 15 minutes. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. Digital spin-offs are suddenly in fashion as ailing dept stores seek easy fixes: Nordstrom’s reported foray into this value-finding patch is still unconfirmed by the company, the Seattle-based luxury retailer has attained the services of Alix Partners to study the feasibility — and financial rewards — of possibly spinning-off its Nordstrom Rack unit into a completely new company. – Read More on PYMNTs
5. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs approved to buy fashion line out of bankruptcy: Combs’ company SLC Fashion LLC made the highest bid for the brand at an auction on Monday, bumping its final offer to $7.55 million from its initial $3.3 million bid. Four other bids were submitted prior to the auction. – Read More on Reuters
1. Chanel is Aiming for Hermes Status with Handbag Price Hikes: Luxury-sector executives and analysts say the magnitude of the increases signals an aggressive corporate strategy: asserting control over one of the brand’s most popular products while taking aim at higher-end rivals. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. RETRO READ: Chanel is Raising Prices, Reportedly Putting a Quota System in Place for Some of its Bags. Not the only brand placing limitations on the sale of certain products, Chanel joins the likes of Hermès, which has notoriously limited the quantities that consumers can purchase of certain “quota” bags, namely, Birkin and Kelly bags, to two bags per a calendar year in furtherance of a “very limited distribution strategy.” – Read More on TFL
3. Shopify: The Future of Retail. “In this increasingly complex, competitive, and crowded e-commerce landscape, we believe a differentiating factor lies in merchant’s ability to deliver immersive shopping experience to consumers across multi-channels.” – Read More on Seeking Alpha
4. Department stores becoming more lucrative as pandemic drags on: Local department stores are seeing growing sales as the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic prompts customers to purchase luxury goods sold in physical stores, rather than online, as a form of stress relief. To entice customers to visit regularly, department stores have begun putting on art exhibitions and employing other marketing strategies. – Read More on Korea Times
5. China shines regulatory spotlight on livestream retail boom: China’s internet watchdog drafted rules for the first time last year – being implemented on trial this year – to regulate the country’s livestreaming marketing industry requiring internet platforms to better monitor their content and ordering live-streamers to register with their real names. – Read More on Reuters
1. Pinterest Fires Back at Influencer Claiming She Helped Create the Site: Pinterest Inc. says a digital marketing strategist who claims she helped conceive the social media platform waited too long to accuse its founders in a lawsuit of reneging on a promise to compensate her. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Auction sales hit record $15 billion as young, wealthy collectors enter the market: The Big Three auction houses hit a record $15 billion in sales this year, as a surge in global wealth and a wave of young, first-time collectors drove sales of everything from Basquiats to Birkin bags. – Read More on CNBC
3. A year later, consumers are much more comfortable with living active lives. What’s in store for 2022? Much of consumers’ pent-up retail demand has been met, and spending is shifting back toward essentials such as groceries, as well as other segments like travel, whose resurgence took longer than retail’s. – Read More on Morning Consult
4. Nordstrom Considers Spinning off Rack into New Business: Experts have speculated that Nordstrom might complete a merger or acquisition after the Nordstrom family suspended a deal to buy the company in 2017. – Read More on PYMNTS
5. Nike beats revenue estimates on North America demand: Nike Inc beat quarterly revenue and profit estimates on Monday, lifted by strong demand for its sports shoes and apparel in North America, and said it was more confident of easing supply chain issues in its next fiscal year. – Read More on Reuters
1. Malls turn to luxury retailers: If your mall has survived the pandemic, it may look a little bit different than it did in 2019. Think more Burberry and Cartier stores, and fewer JCPenney storefronts. – Read More on MarketPlace
2. Mixed signals as Target, Walmart and other retailers brace for last-minute holiday rush: More shoppers are having trouble finding items, the survey found. 44% of respondents said they were unable to make a holiday purchase due to out of stocks, a month-over-month jump of 7%. – Read More on CNBC
3. Alibaba pledges overseas e-commerce focus as its China growth slows: Earlier this month, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd restructured its e-commerce business into separate China and international divisions, with the latter to be led by Jiang Fan, head of Alibaba’s flagship Taobao and Tmall marketplaces. – Read More on Reuters
4. RELATED READ: What Does the $2.8 Billion Alibaba Anti-Competition Penalty Mean for China’s Marketplace Model? The dominant player in China’s domestic online retail platform service market, with more than 725 million active customers and revenues of nearly $72 billion for the 2020 fiscal year, Alibaba Group has become the new poster child of a larger crackdown on anti-competition. – Read More on TFL
5. The False Allure of Managed Trade: Cotton clothing was far from the only industry the U.S. tried to manage in order to compete with Japanese imports. Japanese cars—smaller, cheaper and more fuel-efficient than their U.S. counterparts—threatened to dominate the American market in the 1970s. – Read More on the WSJ
6. Paris judge approves 10 million euro settlement with LVMH in spy case: LVMH will pay 10 million euros ($11.3 million) to settle claims that it hired France’s former domestic intelligence chief to spy on private citizens, in particular on a filmmaker who made a widely popular documentary targeting the group’s CEO. – Read More on France24
7. Five Direct to Consumer e-Commerce Trends for 2022: To compete with online DTC brands, some larger retailers will choose to emulate them. With less foot traffic in physical stores, many retailers will follow DTC brands’ lead and approach tech-savvy consumers online. – Read More on Forbes
1. Why Luxury Brands Will Keep Their Pandemic Playbooks: The industry is noticing “the strength of luxury in the United States, where a few years ago people were only pointing at China and Asia as the growth trajectory,” John Idol, CEO of Versace parent Capri Holdings Ltd., said recently. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. US e-commerce sales set to maintain pandemic-fueled heights into 2022: U.S. e-commerce sales are on track to exceed $1 trillion for the first time next year, as sales growth plateaus but total purchases remain far above pre-pandemic levels. – Read More on S&P Global
3. Target CEO addresses omicron, wages and shopper habits: “I expect stores will continue to be really important going forward [even if] Americans have learned how to use their smartphones and tablets to shop online. And I think we’re seeing all cohorts embracing both shopping in-store and using our same day services.” – Read More on the AP
4. China’s buy now pay later market is growing — but challenges remain, experts say: A few factors are fueling the “perfect storm” for the growing trend, according to Tuli. They include unprecedented low interest rates, the rise of online payment through “super apps” like Alipay and WeChat and extremely well-funded fintech start-ups eager to acquire new customers. – Read More on CNBC
5. Workers go hungry as Indian suppliers to top UK brands refuse to pay minimum wage: More than 400,000 garment workers in Karnataka have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020, according to an international labor rights organization that monitors working conditions in factories. – Read More on the Guardian
1. What will we wear in the metaverse? “There are more and more ‘second worlds’ where you can express yourself (but) there is probably an underestimation of the value being attached to individuals who want to express themselves in a virtual world with a virtual product, through a virtual persona,” per Gucci’s chief marketing officer Robert Triefus. – Read More on CNN
2. Retail Sales Weren’t as Bad as They Looked: Excluding gas and motor vehicles, the sectors that saw the most growth in November compared with the same month last year were food services, clothing, and sporting goods, hobbies, and books. – Read More on Barron’s
3. Sotheby’s Sells $7.3 Billion in Art, Fueled by Moneyed Millennials: The house said it sold nearly $100 million in NFTs, or nonfungible tokens on the blockchain often attached to images that exist only online. Sotheby’s sold the source code for the World Wide Web as an NFT for $5.4 million. – Read More on the WSJ
4. How Shein beat Amazon at its own game – and reinvented fast fashion: “Amazon wet the palate for online shopping, taught[Americans] how to shop online, and created the habit. Shein realized that and decided to optimize it.” – Read More on Rest of World
5. D2C Brands Buy Local, Build Local to Ease Supply Chain Woes: “We only really go abroad when we need a specific set of materials or capabilities that we can’t get in the U.S. We’re closer to our manufacturers, and that means we’ve been able to withstand some of the transportation uncertainties and cost increases involved with ocean freight.” – Read More on PYMNTS
1. A $4,115 digital handbag and a $341,000 virtual tiara: Here are some of the fashion brands that have joined the metaverse. The business potential for an entirely new virtual world is not lost on fashion brands, which are looking for a new consumer base to tap into. – Read More on Fortune
2. RELATED READ: Branding in the Metaverse and the Future of Virtual Goods Trademarks. While Nike is an early-mover both in terms of its entrance into the metaverse (it first partnered with Roblox back in 2019 and with video game-makers before that) and in terms of its trademark filings, the Swoosh is not the only trademark that is going to populate the growing metaverse. – Read More on TFL
3. India’s Aditya Birla Fashion to buy exclusive rights to Reebok in India: The deal will be effective once the global ownership of the Reebok brand is transferred from Adidas to Authentic Brands Group under a $2.37 billion acquisition announced in August. – Read More on Reuters
4. Chanel Picks Luxury Industry Outsider Leena Nair as Its Next CEO: It’s relatively rare for luxury companies to hire top executives from outside the industry, which has traditionally favored insiders or—in the case of the many family-run fashion houses—scions of the business founders. – Read More on the WSJ
5. Chanel’s fashion head on why prices might keep rising, ‘ultimate luxury’, sustainability, and creating surprises in Hong Kong: “I think that the increases will continue to happen not because of Chanel but the global situation. We want to offer the best creations to our customers so yes, it’s expensive.” – Read More on SCMP
1. This Luxury-Goods Stock Has Thrived. The Gains Can Continue: This year, Jeffrey Bezos was briefly knocked from his perch as the world’s richest man by French billionaire Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest maker and seller of luxury goods. – Read More on Barron’s
2. Made-to-Order Fashion Emerges as Viable Option: Made-to-order fashion also carries some level of luxury in a world where most clothing is mass-produced and copycats rule the day, meaning everyone likes to wear the same trendy item until they move on to the next one. – Read More on PYMNTS
3. The SEC Wants to Cut SPACs Down to Size: The SEC’s chair, Gary Gensler, has made clear for months that he is worried about the risks faced by investors in special purpose acquisition companies, which over the past two years have become a hugely popular way to take businesses public. – Read More on the NY Times
4. RELATED READ: As Retail-Focused SPACS Gain Steam, How Can Blank Check Firms, Target Companies Mitigate Liability? The new blank check firms “join the long list of companies riding the SPAC frenzy,” as SPACs – i.e., shell companies seeking to merge with private companies with the intention of taking them public – have boomed over the last year,” with a total of 248 SPACs raising $83.3 billion in 2020. In the first three months of 2021, alone, “246 SPACs [have] raised $76.7 billion, comprising 75 percent of IPOs.” – Read More on TFL
5. Takedown notices are threatening online thrift shops — just as business is exploding: By racking up takedown notices that are hard for small shops to fight, Liebesman says companies could be “trying to create a climate to encourage Congress to ‘do something’ about this huge problem that they are manufacturing.” – Read More on the Verge
1. eBay Makes a Run at StockX with New Emphasis on Sneakers: eBay is trying to cater to “high-value” buyers, or those making at least six purchases per year at over $800; these shoppers represent 20% of eBay’s customer base but deliver 75% of the company’s gross merchandise value (GMV). – Read More on PYMNTS
2. Analysts Offer Clues for Where to Invest in Xi’s New China: Rather than luxury products and flashy brands, staples and durable goods are expected to find favor. Those with high potential in rural markets may do especially well as policy makers look to address China’s rural-urban divide. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. That Big Office Building? It’s an E-Commerce Warehouse Now. Less than 40% of the workforce was back in the office as of early December. “There’s just not a lot of need for big-floor-plate, white-elephant suburban office buildings.” – Read More on the WSJ
4. Saks CEO Marc Metrick says e-commerce split makes sense for luxury retailer: “Instead of spending capital investing in your physical plants, you’re spending on marketing, investing in the future of your customers. And it’s a much better way to grow the business long term.” – Read More on CNBC
5. Zara Launches New Label Zara Atelier: The aptly named Zara Atelier collection will drop two, limited-edition collections a year which offer an ‘elevated, artistic interpretation of an iconic wardrobe staple’ in what is essentially the high street brand’s homage to couture. – Read More on Elle
6. RETRO READ: Zara’s foray away from purely fast fashion is an interesting move, and one that it has been quietly working towards for years. Here is a look at how the copycat became a bona fide fashion destination. – Read More on TFL
7. Rent the Runway-style UK fashion rental marketplace HURR raises $5.4M round led by Octopus: “As a millennial, I’m part of a generation that loves shared ownership. We’ve all witnessed the rise of disruptive tech-first businesses such as Airbnb and Uber and, if we can rent our houses and cars, why not our wardrobes.” – Read More on TechCrunch
1. Rent the Runway CEO says it is changing how it buys apparel from brands to boost its profits: It has one program known as “Share by RTR,” whereby it purchases apparel or accessories directly from brand partners on a consignment basis, at zero or low upfront costs, and shares profits with the brands – Read More on CNBC
2. U.S. Retail Chains Push Congress to Address Resale of Stolen Items: Officials from major U.S. retailers, including Home Depot, Best Buy and Target, called on Congress to intervene to thwart the online resale of stolen, fake, and dangerous merchandise. – Read More on PYMNTS
3. Luxury Brands Are Already Making Millions in the Metaverse: The likes of Gucci, Balenciaga, and Burberry are spinning up fashion and accessories that are meant exclusively to be world in the virtual world. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. Shein: the Chinese company storming the world of fast fashion. Each day, it adds 6,000 new items online, far more than any comparable retailer manages. It responds in real time to trends picked up by analytics software, which trawls through shopping and social media websites. – Read More on the FT
5. RELATED READ: From Dr Martens to Ralph Lauren, Lawsuits Are Starting to Build for $15 Billion Ultra-Fast Fashion Brand Shein. While fashion brands are “used to fighting on multiple fronts to protect their intellectual property, that challenge is only intensifying as major global players like Shein increasingly harness advanced data analytics to establish emerging fashion trends and rapidly create and produce associated designs that can be on the market within a matter of days.” – Read More on TFL
6. Rolex Seller Benefits From a Well-Timed U.S. Start: Watches of Switzerland’s stock has become a proxy for Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet—all privately held brands for which buyers face long waiting lists. Constrained supply of these products should continue to support prices and customer engagement with the retailer. – Read More on the WSJ