Daily LInks
1. Pandemic-inspired ‘revenge spending’ and explosive sales in China saved the luxury market in 2020 and changed it forever: The Chinese started to shop for luxury goods at home, brands became more comfortable with going online, and new customers who were pent up for months in lockdown and unable to spend money splashed out on luxury pieces. These changes are here to stay, experts say. – Read More on BI
2. Birkenstock Adds Rare Default Protection Clause in Bond Deal: The provision makes it harder for investors holding net short positions with credit default swaps contracts to trigger a default or accelerate one. It’s only the second instance of a company including such a term in Europe, following theme-park operator Merlin Entertainments’ debt deal more than a year ago. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. Shoppers Return to Malls, With an Urge to Spend: Foot traffic at a representative sample of 52 malls in March was up 86% from the same month last year. Customers are spending more on casual wear, accessories, jewelry and watches, analysts say. – Read More on WSJ
4. Crocs sales soar in fashion comeback: The shoe-maker reported record sales in the first three months of the year and raised its revenue outlook for 2021. Sales rose 64% to $460 million in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, with demand for Crocs being “stronger than ever” across the world. – Read More on the BBC
5. Stitch Fix sells $1.7 billion of clothes each year. Now, its visionary CEO is passing the baton: The founder and CEO of Stitch Fix is handing over the reins of her company to Elizabeth Spaulding in August, in one of very few female-to-female transitions of power at a public company. – Read More on Fast Co.
1. A Company Paid $1.8 Million for Yeezy Sneakers So You Can Afford Them: The sneakers weren’t purchased by a footwear-loving collector. Instead, they were acquired by the company Rares, which plans to fractionalize pieces of the shoes as an investment. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. RELATED READ: Are Birkin Bags Really a Better Investment than Stocks and Gold? One Company is Actively Testing That Theory. The alternative investment industry is expected to grow by 59 percent by 2023, reaching $14 trillion in assets, with institutional investors, as well as high-net-worth individuals and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, looking to “safe-haven alternatives where they can be almost certain that a financial or equity market correction will not dent their returns. – Read More on TFL
3. From McNuggets to Louis Vuitton, K-pop’s BTS notch up marketing deals: “As disparate as their businesses might seem, McDonald’s and Louis Vuitton share a need to onboard new generations of consumers.” Asia – and especially China, where K-pop is also popular – provides major markets for luxury brands, and has fueled sales bounces as COVID-19 restrictions ease. – Read More on Reuters
4. Western brands tested by China amid forced labor allegation backlash: “Fundamentally, this is really about values and belief systems.” And while China may represent a growing market for retailers, socially-conscious millennials and Gen Z shoppers in the U.S. and Europe also represent a “numerically significant” demographic that can’t be ignored. – Read More on CNBC
5. Amazon poised to beat Q1 Street estimates, provide e-commerce insights: Analysts expect the Seattle company’s first-quarter revenue to grow nearly 39% year over year to $104.65 billion, on the higher end of Amazon’s guidance, according to S&P Capital IQ estimates as of April 26. – Read More on S&P Global
1. China’s Demand for Luxury Goods Gets Own Cargo Route: Cainiao’s move to bring more handbags and watches into China as shoppers clear out high-end boutiques comes as companies rush to pivot their strategies to take advantage of the more than $110 billion of luxury spending trapped on the mainland. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Britain’s Boohoo may link executive bonuses to improved worker rights: British online fashion retailer Boohoo is considering linking bosses’ multi-million pound bonuses to Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) improvements, including workers’ rights, it said this weekend. – Read More on Reuters
3. RETRO READ: As Fast Fashion Gets Faster and Cheaper, the Giants Behind it Are Facing Scrutiny. The consumer outrage and the financial consequences that have followed from the reports of abuse within Boohoo’s supply chain have been swift and significant. Yet, the allegations, themselves, are hardly unheard of when it comes to this specific – and relatively new – breed of fast fashion companies. – Read More on TFL
4. Kardashian SKKN Launch, Covergirl Revamp Mark New Coty Strategy: The moves mark the latest efforts to rejuvenate a company that had been trying to turn things around even before the rise of mask-wearing last year hurt demand for makeup. After acknowledging in 2019 that some of its brands had become stagnant, Coty has invested in businesses from members of the Kardashian family and revamped its own leadership team. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. 3-D Printing Stocks Are Still Running on Hype: The buzz around the 2013 3-D printing craze turned out to be a stock-market bust. While the design potential of the technology is certainly alluring, it remains to be seen whether the industry’s products are ready to go from prototyping objects to mass production. – Read More on the WSJ
6. The rise and fall of Victoria’s Secret, America’s biggest lingerie retailer: It achieved explosive success in the late 1990s and 2000s but has struggled in more recent years and been accused of losing relevance. – Read More on BI
1. Vestiaire Sees Asia’s Luxury Shoppers Warm to Secondhand Gucci: The reseller’s orders volume doubled in a year when retailers worldwide were crippled by the pandemic — much of that thanks to Asia, where the number of new secondhand sellers jumped 98% and orders surged by 122%. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Can a fairer fashion industry emerge from crisis? “Not enough has changed in the past year. I can’t think of a single big multinational company that is doing something bold. The greenwashing has amped up 150% but the actual change that is required to make the system one that can sustain itself has not happened.” – Read More on the Guardian
3. Greenwashing Fashion: “The fact that these companies continue to overproduce while claiming to be working towards sustainability is just ridiculous.” Zara, for example, offers around 20 new clothing collections each year, and the company’s founder was briefly the richest person in the world in 2017. – Read More on the Nation
4. RELATED READ: Fashion’s Buzzy Tech Initiatives, Alone, Won’t Solve its Sustainability Issues. A small – but heavily advertised – recycled capsule collection from a fast fashion titan, here or certified circular series of items from a multi-billion dollar company, there, is mathematically immaterial. – Read More on TFL
5. Two Defunct Retailers Are Plotting Comebacks—Here’s Why One Is More Likely to Survive: Century 21 and department store Lord & Taylor are among the retailers that shut down in 2020 only to announce plans to reopen months later. They both have big plans for 2021. – Read More on AdWeek
6. Right now, retailers are writing their own rules on climate action. Does that need to change? Heightened pressure from the executive order and increasingly eco-conscious consumers have propelled retailers to set varying sustainability goals. But because corporate response to the climate crisis remains unregulated, experts warn that companies often end up making misleading claims — otherwise known as greenwashing. – Read More on Retail Dive
1. FTC Nominee Khan Calls for More Scrutiny of Tech Giants’ Power: “The source of the power is the fact that you have basically these two main options, and so that gives these companies the power to really set the terms in this market. Certain terms and conditions really lack any type of beneficial justification, and so I think in those cases we need to be especially skeptical and really look closely.” – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Lululemon is testing a resale program where shoppers can sell and buy used items: Lululemon customers in California and Texas will be able to trade in gently used Lululemon items in a store or by mail in exchange for a Lululemon gift card. Then, those gently used items will start to be sold online. – Read More on CNBC
3. Why it’s so hard to eliminate plastic from the supply chain. Everlane has cut out 90% of virgin plastic, but the remaining 10% is proving tricky, as global recycling and manufacturing systems are not set up to address specialized objects (such as zipper teeth). – Read More on Fast Co.
4. RELATED READ: “Plastic-Free” Fashion is Not Necessarily as Clean or Green as it Seems. When they have been found in environmental samples, natural textile fibers are often present in comparable concentrations than their plastic alternatives. Yet, very little is known of their environmental impact. Therefore, until they do biodegrade, natural fibers will present the same physical threat as plastic fibers. – Read More on TFL
5. The high cost of India’s cheap garment exports: India exports garments, fabrics and raw materials for clothing, footwear and headwear, and every stage of production, for each of these items, is heavily dependent on the consumption of water. And the low prices associated with mass market fashion are achieved by keeping production costs low and low production costs, in turn, come at the expense of environmental protection and workers’ rights. – Read More on AlJazeera
6. The Human Cost of Fashion Is Taking Its Toll: “Brands that do not disclose their supply chains often say that it’s a business secret they won’t share for competitive reasons,” explains Sarah Ditty, global policy director at Fashion Revolution. “However, not a single brand that has disclosed their supply chain has ever reported losing a supplier to a competitor as a result of being transparent.” – Read More on British Vogue
1. The post-pandemic spending spree has begun: Champagne, skirts and shaving kits are some items that have sold at higher rates in recent weeks. Clothing stores saw sales rise by 18.3 percent. – Read More on CNBC
2. In Luxury, Finding the Right Price Is Everything: Pricing for luxury is counterintuitive. In the world of normal and premium products, we are used to the idea that product complexity drives value. What matters is the brand story, and that is totally against our human intuition. How can a story be more valuable than something you can touch and feel? – Read More on Jing Daily
3. RETRO READ: What Are Luxury Brands Really Selling? Brands – the big, well-established, world-famous ones, at least – are in the business of selling their trademarks, and the marketing-driven, “luxury”-centric messages (i.e., the story-telling) associated with them. – Read More on TFL
4. Retail M&A Expected to Heat Up Through the Pandemic: Merger values had plummeted some 80 percent as the initial round of lockdowns began, but the activity picked up again toward the end of the year to close 2020 at a 29 percent decline in M&A values overall in the Americas, according to a December report by the consulting group EY. – Read More on Yahoo
5. As shipping costs increase, brands are rethinking their growth strategies: The trick for brands going forward is to continue walking the infinite channel diversification tightrope. That way, he went on, companies are prepared “for when the next inevitable supply chain breakdown happens.” – Read More on Modern Retail
6. Future Returns: Investing in the Global Luxury Industry: Luxury goods may not see a full recovery until 2022 or 2023, but the speedy adaptation to selling online undertaken by many companies offers a compelling reason to consider investing in luxury stocks. – Read More on Barron’s
1. One Year on, Has the Pandemic Taught the Fashion Industry Sustainable Lessons? The hope is that brands will rethink their relationships with their factories and change their purchasing practices – the way they negotiate and mercilessly drive down contracts with factories. – Read More on Vogue
2. Billionaire Fungs Weigh Sale of Luxury Bagmaker Delvaux: Hong Kong billionaire brothers Victor and William Fung are exploring selling their stake in Delvaux, a 192-year-old Belgian luxury leather bagmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. Another rumored deal in the making? The LVMH-affiliated L Catterton is said to be looking to add Etro to its growing roster. While the Etro family has long denied interest in selling its namesake company, on Monday it said it was “evaluating possible partnerships,” as sources say it has tapped Rothschild as its adviser. – Read More on WWD
4. Defeated Amazon union campaign could still spur more labor activism in Big Tech: Big Tech companies are likely to see more organized labor initiatives from blue- and white-collar employees, despite a recent failed effort to form a union at an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in Alabama, labor experts say. – Read More on S&P Global
5. From Gently Used Nikes To Rapper-Backed Reeboks, Footwear Moves to Find New Feet: At the heart of Nike’s makeover are materials, which the company says account for 70 percent of its carbon footprint, and are at the foot of its push to accelerate research and development around sustainable materials and finding low-carbon alternatives to market at scale. – Read More on PYMNTS
6. RELATED READ: Companies are Pushing for Circularity and Raising Legal Questions in the Process. Nike revealed that as part of a new “Refurbished” initiative, it will take “like new (maybe worn for a day or two before being returned), gently worn (a little longer) and cosmetically flawed (think: something like a small snag that happened in manufacturing)” sneakers that consumers return, “tidy them up,” and sell them at a number of its stores across the U.S., alongside brand-new wares. – Read More on TFL
1. Fashion industry evolves, as virus forces a rethink: “Brands have been deciding more and more when their optimal time to show is… They want to control their business more and that is their right.” – Read More on AP
2. Luxury Brands Are Betting Their Future on China, But it May Be a Risky Gamble: “China’s become a ‘honey trap’ for luxury businesses. Ever since the crisis of 2008, that was the place where most of the growth was for luxury brands, but once you are totally focused on one market, the result is you neglect other key markets that have a different approach to luxury, like the U.S. and Europe.” – Read More on Forbes
3. What the Fashion Industry Can Learn From Apple: “We make these devices; people use them; they oftentimes re-sell or pass them on for a long lifetime after the first lifetime. They’re made to last. They’re high quality.” – Read More on ELLE
4. RETRO READ: Is Apple a Luxury Brand? Well, That Depends on Your Definition of Luxury. “If change is happening at Apple, it … seems like it’s moving from high-end electronics company to something more like a luxury fashion brand, moving away from focusing on user experience and magnificent industrial engineering as driving forces, and moving toward a company that offers trendiness, status, and individuality first, then nailing down the mechanics of the things.” – Read More on TFL
5. E-commerce pioneer Wenzel launches “Amazon on steroids.” German entrepreneur Ralf Wenzel, formerly of Delivery Hero and Softbank is launching a global rapid delivery retail platform, entering a field that is attracting huge investment and experiencing explosive growth. – Read More on Reuters
6. Video calls, personal shopper services, making sales on social media – pandemic forces luxury brands into “distance selling.” The pandemic has forced luxury goods companies to use social media, video and virtual showrooms to woo their wealthy customers in Europe and keep them shopping at a time when tourists, especially from China, have been absent for more than a year. – Read More on SCMP
1. It’s Time to Retire the Idea of Women’s Watches: Making watches unisex is a smart business decision. First, they would be catering to 100 percent of their customers. Not 45 percent or 55 percent, but all of us. This would allow them to use their marketing dollars in joint campaigns showing both men and women wearing their products. Fashion scions like Gucci are already launching un-gendered apparel collections. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Four ways consumer spending will change once more people are vaccinated: Young consumers are spending money on post-Covid purchases, such as apparel and handbags, and they’re also more eager than other generations to interact with people outside of their household. – Read More on CNBC
3. As China increases control, what’s the future of Hong Kong fashion? “It seems to be a very natural development for local brands to embrace what’s going on in Hong Kong and to be inspired by the [pro-democracy] movement. But it all depends on a few factors: whether they rely on the Chinese market for businesses, what their brand values are and how they approach this sensitive matter.” – Read More on i-D
4. Will Crypto Be Regulated? The BitMEX Case Could Bring Laws to Bitcoin Regulators as well as Wall Street are stepping in to remake the crypto industry as the value of Bitcoin surges. It recently traded at more than $60,000, up from about $7,000 a year ago. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. U.S. Economy Ramps Up on Spending Surge, Hiring Gains: The gain in consumer spending—the biggest driver of economic activity—came as the government began distributing hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus funds to households. It was the largest monthly gain since last May, during the initial recovery from lockdowns early in the Covid-19 pandemic. – Read More on the WSJ
1. Clean beauty is now a $1 billion business. Just ask Beautycounter: The Carlyle Group, which manages $246 billion in assets, is known for investing in consumer brands including Supreme and sneaker brand Golden Goose, which made big exits when they were acquired. – Read More on Fast Co.
2. Luxury Brands Are Helped By a Lack of Other Spending Options: LVMH has been well managed during the crisis. It took advantage of strong demand for its goods in Asia, where sales increased by 86% in the first quarter. The business renegotiated rents in its stricken travel-retail unit and spent on marketing when rivals trimmed back. – Read More on the WSJ
3. March retail sales are expected to have surged as consumers spent $1,400 checks: A multi-month burst of consumer spending is expected to kickstart an economy that is expected to boom this year. The strongest growth is expected in the current quarter, which some economists say could see gross domestic product growth of more than 10%. – Read More on CNBC
4. Is Your Brand Ready for Its Retail Media Moment? If you’re a retailer with strong first-party data collection (and historical first-party data), a path to monetization has been cleared for you. When you put those two things together, you see why retail media is booming. – Read More on AdWeek
5. RELATED READ: As Consumer Data Becomes Increasingly More Valuable to Companies, Is it Time for a Comprehensive U.S. Privacy Law? Consumers want better protection for their data, and businesses want clear national laws instead of 50 different state standards. Yet there is virtually no consensus about what a broad privacy law should entail. – Read More on TFL