1. What CEOs Are Seeing and Saying About Covid, the Election and the Economy: “There’s a crazy notion that nationalizing your supply chain creates greater resilience. That’s not the case. It’s having a globally connected supply chain with multiple points of back up.” – Read More on the WSJ
2. RELATED READ: Forget Reshoring, if Fashion Wants to Innovate, Companies Should Focus on Omnishoring. After a long and strong wave of offshoring – manufacturers moving their factories abroad, often to low-cost countries such as China – limits to that model have emerged, especially in the fashion industry. These include hidden costs in logistics, quality and in coordination, as well as counterfeiting, negative impact on the environment and poor working conditions. – Read More on TFL
3. Luxury goods, luxury multiple for newbie Cettire: Cettire sells globally via its website. It sources products from more than 1300 designer brands – think Gucci, Balenciaga, Burberry – and sells more than 160,000 products. Its margins are understood to be about 35 percent, helped along by its ability to be fully integrated with suppliers and the fact that its global logistics are all handled from outside of Australia. – Read More on AFR
4. Estee Lauder Says Duty-Free Sales in China Are Bouncing Back: Chief Executive Officer Fabrizio Freda said Monday that Chinese travel stores — the type seen in airports and train stations — were a “stand-out performer” in the company’s most recent quarter, posting double-digit growth. Global travel sales, meanwhile, were flat from a year earlier. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. RETRO READ: Travel Retail, a Luxury Cash Cow, Down as Much as 70% in Some Hubs. For luxury brands, the risk is sizable. Coresight put airport retail sales at $44 billion in 2019, and Switzerland-based Dufry projects the value of the segment to inch towards $67 billion over the next few years. Given the revenues at are up for grabs (and growing) in this segment of the market, many luxury groups have focused their attention here. As NPD Travel Retail analyst Luke Stockton told Skift last year, “If travel retail isn’t of strategic important to global brands, it should be.” – Read More on TFL
6. Retailers Use AI to Improve Online Recommendations for Shoppers: Companies keep their algorithms a closely guarded secret. Amazon Inc.’s AI algorithms scour millions of listings for items matching a buyer’s search query, weighing more than 100 variables, such as past purchases, age, gender, and a long list of criteria known only to company insiders. – Read More on the WSJ