Daily LInks
1. Levi’s Stitches Up Its Secondhand Market: Trove LLC CEO Andy Ruben used to run e-commerce at Walmart; now, he helps brands like Eileen Fisher and REI buy back their products and sell them again. He buys his kids worn gear from Patagonia – another client – sells it when they outgrow it and spends the proceeds on other new, used garments. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. How luxury goods retailing is faring in Covid world: While overall sales in the retail sector are picking up, one category is feeling the pinch of the Covid-19 pandemic much harder. Marketview data shows sales in the luxury retailing segment of the market were down 41.1 percent in the five months from April to August. Spending in the category has halved from $48.7 million for that period in 2019 to $28.7 million in 2020. – Read More on NZ Herald
3. The path forward for the US retail industry: “The beneficiaries of this shift include big brands, which are seeing 50 percent growth during the crisis,” and private labels. “Some 80 percent of consumers who started buying private-label products during the pandemic indicate that they intend to continue doing so even after the COVID-19 crisis subsides.” – Read More on McKinsey
4. An Innovative Way to Prevent Adversarial Supplier Relationships: Formal relational contracts are designed to keep the parties’ expectations continuously aligned. This kind of agreement is a legally enforceable written contract that puts the parties’ relationship above the specific points of the deal. The parties embrace the fact that all contracts are incomplete and can never cover all the contingencies that may occur. This time it is a pandemic. Next time it will be something else. – Read More on HBR
5. Can Amazon upend the luxury sector? Luxury brands tend to prefer the concession model because it offers more control, less discounting, and ability to move inventory. But their ideal model is to sell directly on their own-branded websites where they do not have to give away any commission and do not dilute their brand equity, industry executives said. – Read More on the FT
6. For Brands, Getting Out the Vote Can Also Mean Getting Into Consumers’ Good Graces: “The more companies there are that are doing this, the safer it gets for all of them. I think we’re definitely over the threshold broadly where it’s sensible to think that there’s very little risk in this. The bandwagon is rolling.” – Read More on Morning Consult
7. RELATED READ: How Amazon Turned its Long-Rumored Luxury Venture Into a Reality. Maybe even more important than its pattern of filing lawsuits and introducing new anti-counterfeiting initiatives in order to send a clear message to consumers and potential brand partners about its stance on enforcement, Amazon appears to have critically ceded a fair share of control to its brand partners when it comes to how the “Luxury Stores” will work. – Read More on TFL
