When Primark, the next-gen’s fast-fashion retailer of choice, opened its first U.S. store in Boston’s Downtown Crossing in October of 2015, I said, “Primark’s value proposition sets the pricing bar so low that it will be almost impossible for competitors to crawl under it. And they’ve set the experience and trendy merchandise bar so high, relative to their pricing, that competitors will find it an enormous challenge to simply match it, much less beat it. They own this space.” And indeed, Primark’s value proposition did own its space as it …
Strategy
Profiles in Courage
Is courage an outlier or core principle in your organization? We operate in today’s complex callout culture, both personally and professionally. It takes critical thinking to identify what is courageous versus what is opportunistic. Courage is not typically at the top of the list of leadership prerequisites. However, courage is key to everything: to challenge, share ideas, speak up, try new things, and receive feedback. Courage in Action Leaders are historically measured by their ability to deliver a bottom-line result to meet all …
Walmart and Amazon Vie for Fashion Crown
What a difference a year makes. Amazon recently eclipsed Walmart as the retailer with the highest apparel sales, and its growth doesn’t show signs of slowing down anytime soon. According to Wells Fargo, Amazon’s apparel and footwear sales in the U.S. grew by 15 percent in last year. This means that Amazon’s apparel sales are now 20 percent to 25 percent above Walmart’s. The luxury segment is a particular bright spot for Amazon. Not in the sales made by the luxury brands, but in Amazon using the luxury segment to create a better brand …
Luxury May Not Be the Success Story You Think
By now you’ve heard the news that leading luxury brands are bringing in cash hand over fist. LVMH, with its Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Fendi and newly acquired Tiffany brands, reported “record first half performance” with revenues up 56 percent over same period in 2020 and organic growth up 11 percent compared to 2019. Its Fashion and Leather Goods segment did even better, up 38 percent over 2019. The news led to hyperbolic headlines including in the Wall Street Journal, “Luxury Shares Soar as Louis Vuitton Shrugs Off Pandemic,” as it …
The Great Fragmentation and AI: The Case for Neighborhood Shops
If you think of yesterday’s “mass market” as a nice glass bowl, that market today has shattered into a thousand small fragments of glass. This was the opening sentence in Chapter 4 of my co-authored book with Michael Dart, Retail’s Seismic Shift, published in 2017. Easy Come, Easy Go Do you remember the “must-have toy,” or must have latest fashion trend, (probably triggered by John Fairchild splashing the “miniskirt” across the front page of WWD), or the hot jeans brand of the moment? Or how about the many other examples across consumer …
The Great Fragmentation and AI: The Case for Neighborhood ShopsRead More
Is J.Crew Adapting, Or Abandoning its Signature Style?
J.Crew was one of the most beloved brands of the early aughts. But the preppy retailer fell hard and fast, filing for bankruptcy during the height of the coronavirus crisis last year. Many have been pontificating that the money moves J.Crew made led to the company’s $1.3 billion dollar debt. But in this case, it isn’t all about the Benjamins. The company failed to continue attracting customers during the recession. J.Crew’s 2020 bankruptcy comes down to the fact that the brand’s offerings didn’t reflect the cultural zeitgeist of the of the …
Is J.Crew Adapting, Or Abandoning its Signature Style?Read More
The Retail Workforce of the Future
Millennials and Gen Z make up around half of the global workforce. Many are frontline retail workers whose jobs were impacted during the pandemic. Whether they were laid off, suffered reduced hours, or had to switch from a nonessential retail job (such as cosmetics sales) to an essential one (such as stocking shelves at an Amazon warehouse), there is nary a next-gen whose career trajectory wasn’t deeply impacted by the last year of lockdowns. Job Insecurity Slows Frontline Employee Loyalty The pandemic showed frontline retail workers the …
Will Shopify Solve Amazon’s Antitrust Issue?
The easy answer to whether Shopify will solve Amazon’s antitrust issue is no, but the more nuanced answer is hmm. Amazon's FTC investigation does not challenge the giant's behavior in the ecommerce retail sector. While Amazon is clearly the market leader, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and others are close competitors. The People Want to Know The Amazon antitrust challenge currently under consideration encompasses third-party merchants who sell on Amazon. The inquiry assumes that Amazon is an essential conduit between the merchant and the …