Daily LInks
1. Estee Lauder Says ‘Lipstick Index’ Is Out, Moisturizer Is In: Lipstick – and makeup broadly – is falling out of favor as consumers wear masks and don’t go out as much to meet friends. Instead, shoppers are immersing themselves in skin-care routines while hunkered down at home. Estee Lauder’s skin-care sales were already outpacing makeup before the outbreak devastated the global economy. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Alibaba’s Online Orders Soar During Coronavirus, Fueling a Sales Recovery: As the coronavirus led to widespread city lockdowns earlier this year, more Chinese consumers turned to e-commerce and their platforms to buy fresh food and groceries online to cook at home, Alibaba’s CEO Mr. Zhang told investors in May. This helped offset a drop in spending on clothing and cosmetics. – Read More on the Wall Street Journal
3. RELATED READ: Alibaba’s Luxury Pavilion is One of the Most Intriguing Spaces on the Web. As of 2018, more than 100,000 shoppers on the Pavilion each spend over RMB 1 million ($159,000) a year on luxury goods from Alibaba. Maybe even more striking than the $150,000-plus that individuals are spending each year on luxury goods on Alibaba is the average age of these shoppers. They are 28 years old or younger. In other words, significantly younger than their Western counterparts. – Read More on TFL
4. Forced labor in China presents dilemmas for fashion brands: Some retailers, such as PVH Corp, whose brands include Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, publicly said they would cut ties with Xinjiang, out of concern for labor practices. Supply-chain auditors for Western makers of electronics and footwear say there are numerous “red flags” indicating Uighurs may have been forcibly transferred to factories in other Chinese regions. – Read More on the Economist
5. RELATED READ: U.S. Lawmakers Introduce New Bill to Crack Down on Imports of Products Made in Chinese Detention Camps. If enacted, the bill will alter existing law in that it will impose a “‘rebuttable presumption’ that assumes that all goods manufactured in Xinjiang are made with forced labor and therefore, banned under the 1930 Tariff Act” – meaning that they will be barred from importation into the U.S. – “unless the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection certifies otherwise.” – Read More on TFL
6. Are masks helping or hindering the fashion industry? Sales of masks have reached $346 million on Etsy, but is the need to wear a face covering putting us off hitting the shops? Maybe, but if there is anything that 2020 has proved, it’s that humans are adaptable, and in a matter of months they have formed a newly integral part of daily life. – Read More on the Telegraph