Amazon wants to view your selfies, location and calendar to recommend outfits for you to wear today, displayed on a virtual avatar of you.
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#Retail. What worked? What failed and why? What’s next?
Join Anne Marie Stephen, Steve Dennis and me for a dynamic, entertaining and informative discussion on Sunday, January 13th, from 7 until 9 PM.
In 2019, regardless of size, tenure or segment of business retailers, brands and suppliers must recognize that they can no longer navigate the new landscape with old maps.
Tomorrow’s retail winners will be nimble, data-driven, fast-to-market and cost efficient. They will have the foresight, fortitude and fearlessness to disrupt their own identity and legacy models.
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
The rate of change will escalate. There is no time for deep contemplation. Winners will leap, measure and then optimize.
Failing fast will be a requirement, not an option. Succeeding fast will be a requirement, too.
Warning: One can identify prognosticators who use a crystal ball to predict the retail future. They’re the ones with glass shards in their bleeding hands and smoke issuing from their charred eyebrows.
20 “super winner” companies now account for 97% of economic profit in the retail and fashion industry, a dramatic increase from 70% in 2010.
This finding is one of many interesting insights released in the “State of Fashion 2019” report from McKinsey & Company and The Business of Fashion.
The study shows increased polarization, with luxury and value advancing and mid-market players falling behind. “Well-known European luxury companies tended to be overrepresented in the top 20, with North American companies coming in a close second.”
Over time North American department stores lost out, with none remaining in the top 20, compared with three 10 years ago — a stark illustration of the fragility of the traditional retailing model.
The report states that 20% of companies represent 128% of the total industry economic profit.
Retailers have been trying for years to escape more than $90 billion in swipe fees levied by credit-card companies.
Some believe the answer lies in payment apps, with also allow retailers to collect consumer data and may provide “stickiness” with their loyalty programs.
While shoppers have largely shunned mobile payments offered by third-party providers like Apple, Google and PayPal, retailers are trying to persuade customers to embrace the technology by dangling discounts and other perks.
Several chains, including Walmart, Starbucks & Kohl’s , have had some success by baking the apps into their own loyalty programs—and more than half of companies surveyed recently by the National Retail Federation said they’ve implemented “branded digital wallets” or are considering it.
Ralph Lauren’s barber, Clemente Dimonda, used to work on Jamaica Ave., in Queens.
Dimonda said. “One day, this man grab me by the jacket, and he say, ‘Look at me!’ I say, ‘I look at you!’ He say, ‘You’re too qualified for this area. You got to go to New York. You make a lot of money.’ Mr. Dimonda raised his finger and poked the air to finish: “I never forget.”
That was 50 years ago. Mr. Dimonda still wields scissors at age 85. He gives a “gentleman cut, no crazy look, high class, clean,” and uses old-fashioned supplies like witch hazel & cotton necklaces to catch loose hair.
After years located on 5th Avenue & 46th St., Mr. Dimonda now works from a shop designed by Mr. Lauren and tucked into the Polo headquarters at 650 Madison Ave. The operation looks like “the sort of a barbershop you’d expect to see on an ocean liner in the ’30s.”
Tommy Hilfiger “used to come here for an excuse,” Dimonda suggested that Mr. Hilfiger was less interested in a haircut than a look around the Polo offices. “He used to come at night. One night I show him out, ‘Tommy, let’s go.’ He say, ‘No, go ahead, I follow you.’ I say, ‘No. You follow me.’ Since then, no more Tommy.” Mr. Hilfiger did not return a request for comment.
– Steven Kurutz for The New York Times.
Miquela Sousa, who recently graced billboards from London to Japan as part of an UGG ad campaign, ticks off all the boxes for a fashion model of the moment: She is exotic, attractive and huge on Instagram.
She is also entirely fake news, a computer-generated character who—despite her Instagram posts—can’t feel the pain of a hangover or appreciate how hard it is to walk in stilettos.
Miquela was created by LA startup, Brud, which is betting that it can turn her, and other CGI social-media personalities, into a cast of characters that is one part Marvel Entertainment and one part Kardashian.
Like comic-book characters or even Barbie, they can evolve with the times without aging. And, unlike real-life characters, their drama can be managed. Brud launched Miquela on Instagram in 2016. With carefully composed images, she appeared lifelike and didn’t identify herself as CGI until recently, as part of a staged drama that played out over a series of posts. On Instagram, she (it?) professed to be angry at Brud for lying to her about her true origin. Yoree Koh & Georgia Wells – The Wall Street Journalh
The Starbucks Reserve Roastery opened its doors today in New York City. A further example of mortar & brick retail expansion.
The 23,000 sq. ft. flagship showcases coffee’s journey from bean to cup and joins locations in Seattle, Shanghai & Milan, with future openings coming to Tokyo & Chicago.
The store is a fully working coffee roastery, where small-batch and rare single-origin coffees and blends are created. “We designed the Roastery as the pinnacle experience around all-things-coffee, there is nothing else like it in the world…
It serves as a Starbucks brand amplifier and a platform for future innovation,” said Kevin Johnson, Starbuck’s new ceo.
The Roastery will debut the Arriviamo (aperitivo) Bar, where mixologists will serve cocktails and “spiritfrees” featuring coffee and tea, Drinks will include the Nocino Notte, made with cold brew coffee, barrel-aged gin and black truffle salt, and the Triomphe, made with Teavana Darjeeling Tea, gin, dry Riesling, aquavit, passionfruit sparkling water & orange saffron bitters.
Customers will also discover the Milanese bakery Princi with on-site baking of fresh breads, Pizzas, cornetti, focaccias, desserts and more.
If young customers are no longer hanging out at shopping malls, where are they hanging out?
Owen Williams of char.gd may have it figured out. Fortnite replaces the mall, Starbucks or just loitering in the city, it’s become the coveted ‘third place’ for millions of people around the world.
“Fortnite is a different kind of video game, because it’s not about the game, it’s a place. A place where we hang out together, regardless of whether we’re playing.”
“Fortnite, for anyone not a teen-ager or a parent or educator of teens, is the third-person shooter game that has taken over the hearts and minds—and the time, both discretionary and otherwise—of adolescent and collegiate America. Released last September, it is right now by many measures the most popular video game in the world. At times, there have been more than three million people playing it at once.” – The New Yorker
Fortnite is influencing American culture, shopping, and fashion. Its effects on streetwear are clearly visible on the runway. Oh, and the goal of the game is simple. 100 people parachute onto an island together and search for weapons. The winner will be the sole survivor, everyone else must die.
UNTUCKit, the company known for its untucked shirts, is looking to raise money at a valuation greater than $600 million.
As reported by Lauren Thomas for CNBC, the “digital first” company, launched in 2011, now has roughly $150 million in sales, 50 stores and is profitable.
Untuckit has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to raise money to fuel growth
UNTUCKit now offers women’s dresses, T-shirts, jackets and shirts, in addition to boys’ shirts and bottoms.
Congratulations to co-founders Aaron Sanandres and Chris Riccobono.
Notably, several companies including J.Crew, Proper Cloth and Gap Inc. also produce shirts in an “untucked” fit.
