I’ve been following RBC Capital Markets, specially their retail insights, for a while. During my last expert call with their European team, we discussed about how important is to be agile in such uncertain times. Fast and agile from design to delivery, implementing new processes boosted by digital assets and developing a new corporate culture. … More Fashion Industry Update Q4 2022
I’m very excited to announce my latest collaboration with Drapers magazine, a leading authority on fashion retailing that has been covering this sector since 1887! The article “What area the essential ingredients for successful store retail?” by Emma Sheppard, explores the five key elements that make a store a success today: This is a brief … More Physical Stores are back: key elements for success
Last March, Paco Underhill was guest speaker during the Retail and Luxury Outlook organized by RBC Capital Markets. By the way, I will be speaking to RBC on the same topic in a few days. Paco Underhill is an environmental psychologist, consumer expert and best-selling author (ie Why we Buy; Call of the Mall), and … More Retail and Luxury Outlook by Paco Underhill
A few years ago, in a conference in Barcelona, I described how growing global uncertainties were impacting businesses and, as a consequence, how important was to invest in digitization and become a data-driven company. Examples of uncertainties included social riots (eg Yellow vests riots in France, Peruvian protests), weather extremes due to climate change or … More Inditex, the Bigger Picture by RBC
RBC hosted a very interesting and insightful call last week with Retail Expert Miya Knights, to discuss Amazon and the growth of omnichannel retailing. Miya is co-author of the books “Amazon: How the World’s Most Relentless Retailer will Continue to Revolutionize Commerce” and “Omnichannel Retail: How to Build Winning Stores in a Digital World.” RBC: … More “Amazon and the growth of omnichannel retailing” with RBC x Miya Knights
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! For a 2022 in which life and brotherhood thrive! Thanks for reading and supporting The Fashion Retailer! The blog was created in 2017 and already passed 500,000 all time views. Great news and energy to keep writing about the business of fashion retail, digital transformation and circularity! See below … More Happy Holidays and Happy Reading!
A few weeks ago, I was guest speaker during RBC exclusive expert call. Richard Chamberlain and myself discussed about supply chain disruptions and constraints, sustainability, casualization or retail transformation. Last week, Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets published European General Retail primer; the strong to get stronger, a report that presents latest market trends, financial … More Apparel Brands Report 2021
Covid-19 restrictions are being eased while vaccination rates are rising (e.g. 76.8% of the population in Spain is fully vaccinated). Stores are re-opening and shoppers are returning to brick-and-mortar stores (also to restaurants, bars and discos). Retail sales are expected to grow between 10.5% and 13.5% to an estimated total of $4.44 trillion to $4.56 … More In-Store Transformation
According to RBC Capital Markets Insights, European General Retail Apparel space reductions easing. We perceive early signs of space reductions in the sector easing off, as rentals reduce and stores remain an integral part of retailers’ omnichannel offers. RBC thinks this could be helpful for valuation multiples in the sector. Retailers continue to improve the … More Inditex Retail Space Turnaround: adapting to omnichannel
Last week, I listened to an interesting podcast from Business of Fashion: 10 Retail Archetypes of the Future featuring Dough Stephens. Stephens is a Canadian futurist, keynote speaker, author and business advisor on the future of retailing and consumerism. He also founded Retail Prophet. These are some compelling insights from the podcast: SHORT VERSUS LONG TERM Last year, during the … More Retailtainment and Enterprise Ecosystems
I’m thrilled to announce the publication of my second book: Fashion Goes Tech: How Technology is empowering retail businesses 2020 was a difficult year for many of us. We all lived different situations and realities, During 2020, in the middle of the lockdown in Spain, I became a father for the second time, making it … More My New Book! FASHION GOES TECH
Last week, Brooke Roberts-Islam wrote “Zara Meets Netflix” (Forbes). In others words, a business model based on “speed-to-market (fast-fashion), customer centricity and excellent operations” meets the “platform economy”. The article mentions FINESSE, a startup that replaces designers and buyers with data, describing itself as “Zara meets Netflix”. The startup, that raised $4.5 million for AI … More Digital Fashion Platforms: Zara meets Netflix
I usually prefer to mention niche players success stories because writing about big players making the right moves is not big surprise. But, when you are an elephant, adapting to changes is not easy neither fast. Even though, a few big apparel companies are dominating the industry showing no weaknesses. In my opinion, two apparel … More Global is boring, retail goes local
Coronavirus is impacting our democracies, our economies, our individual and social behaviors… When it comes to fashion, the virus is showing how difficult is to manage a seasonal business in such volatile and uncertain environment. Covid is killing cash flows in one of the most inventory-intensive businesses. Values-led collaborations in the sustainable era When it … More Values-led collaborations in fashion
Some time ago, Emily Rookwood wrote Why So Many CEOs Are Taking Up Cycling (2014. Spear´s Magazine). The article talked about the important shift in the people who are cycling. Today, in an amateur race you can find entrepreneurs, CFOs, CEOs, MDs, etc. Even Damian Lewis was driving a Passoni bike in Billionaire, a clear … More The Fashion of Cycling in Covid-19 era
A few months ago, I interviewed AJ Mak, founder of Chain of Demand, a predictive analytics company that empowers the retail industry to maximize sales and minimize inventory waste with AI-driven sales predictions. Chain of Demand just launched COVID19 Retail Response Tracker that is meant to help businesses better prepare for the upcoming quarters. Retail … More COVID-19 Tracker for the Retail Industry
The aim of The Fashion Retailer blog has been to provide an updated overview of the creative and scientific approach to the business of Fashion, from design to operations. Fashion is a form of social expression, and today that millions of people are staying home because of the coronavirus disease, it’s time to make a … More Coronavirus, the biggest challenge to face
As introduced in the previous post Co-Design: Innovation at the intersection, hyper-consumption and hyper-individualism enabled by technology in the phygital arena are offering customers infinite choices. It´s the long tail of brands and products that create the long tail of customers (from a mass/cebra target to YOU). Nowadays, some leading companies are already segmenting their … More Hyper-customization
As reported by Bloomberg (November 2019), Nike is breaking up with Amazon and will stop selling its apparel and sneakers directly from Amazon’s site. “As part of Nike’s focus on elevating consumer experiences through more direct, personal relationships, we have made the decision to complete our current pilot with Amazon Retail,” the company said in … More Why Nike and Amazon are breaking up
Last May, the startup 3DLOOK won the third edition of LVMH Innovation awards. The benefits of artificial intelligence and augmented reality were discussed in previous posts, but technology is constantly improving and there is still a very important restriction when buying online: finding the right size. The goal is driving up conversions and reduce ecommerce … More Body Scanning in Fashion
Proud to announce my first publication: FASHION RETAIL SAFARI, a personally curated selection on industry trends, insights and conversations with key opinion leaders that have been posted during 2019 on The Fashion Retail Blog. Fashion Retail Safari focuses on the following trending topics: General Thoughts about the Fashion Industry Customer Experience and Segmentation Fashion and … More Fashion Retail Safari on Amazon
Last 25th of October, I was guest speaker at Innovatours at the Movistar Center in Barcelona. The event revolved around Future Cities & Mobility, Food Innovation & Artisinal Food, Media & Creativity and Fashion. During Fashion Retail Safari, I introduced the main changes the fashion industry is facing, then went thru current trends and what … More Fashion Retail Safari @innovatours
“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge” as Bakunin said. Consumerism in the liquid era is fast, compulsive and ephemeral. It´s more experiential. I already illustrated this idea using Banksy´s self-destructing painting The Girl With Balloon (October 2018) in The New Fashion Retail Paradigm . Bansky, the anonymous satirical street artist, activist and film director, opened … More The Strategy behind Banky´s Merchandising
A “Tech” exec to replace a “design” exec as Nike CEO… From Design to Technology When I started this blog the aim was to explain how the creative side – Fashion – merges with the scientific side – Retail – of the business of Fashion or Apparel. The Fashion Retailer Blog. A merge of Fashion … More Fashion pivots to Technology
Burberry announced recently a partnership with luxury resale site The RealReal, to promote circular economy in fashion and sustainability. Resale is a rising trend within the Fashion as a Service landscape. It’s about nownership and environmental consumption, contributing to increase product lifespan. Many legacy retailers are supporting circular economy, even fast-fashion brands selling to mass-market … More Legacy brands embrace fashion resale
Inditex is one of the world’s largest fashion retailers. It has eight retail formats or brands (Zara & Zara Home, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho and Uterqüe) which sell their collections in 202 markets over an integrated offline-online store network. As of year-end 2018, it had a network of 7,490 stores and was selling … More Inditex 2018 Financial Results (1)
As Coresight Research commented on July, Recommerce and thrift shopping are going mainstream as consumers increasingly seek out value (both economic and ethics-based), clothing that expresses individuality and that is Instagrammable. Consumers are on both sides of the transaction, donating and consigning as well as purchasing. The desire to simplify and de-clutter is contributing to … More Resale Fashion goes mainstream
ITMA, the world’s largest international textile and garment technology exhibition, took place in Barcelona in June 2019. One of Europe’s largest denim producer, Candiani SpA has won the ITMA Sustainable Innovation Award, held in conjunction with ITMA 2019. Its innovative product, Candiani Re-Gen is a ‘circular denim’ fabric created from regenerated and recycled raw materials. … More Sustainable Jeans
L’Occitane en Provence at 555 Fifth Avenue, New York City, is the Retail Design Institute’s 2018 Store of the Year. The Institute was founded in 1961 to be a collaborative community where ideas, knowledge and passion would be shared at a local level and enable its members to fulfill the fast-paced planning and design needs … More 2018 Retail Design Store of the Year
On July, Custo Barcelona announced that will license its brand to Aeffe Group and move its activity to Italy. Custo was founded in the 80s as a result of an inspirational trip to USA by the Dalmau brothers. Two decades later, the company had revenues of 40 million euros and presented its collection during New … More Fashion Platforms and brands
Huge thanks to everybody out there, TFR has reached the 100 post. The Fashion Retailer blog was founded in 2017 with the purpose of bringing a realistic approach to the Fashion Retail industry by embracing the creative and analytical sides of the business. Here a small recap of all the topics we have gone thru: … More The Fashion Retailer post #100
In previous articles, we saw how companies are transforming the fashion business into a more sustainable ecosystem as new generations demand for sustainable products, including recycling and upcycling: Circular Economy in Fashion Sustainable Fashion Brands 3D Knitting in Fashion H&M Conscious Collection, Inditex Join Life or Green to Wear + and Adidas collab with Parley for the Oceans (trainers made from recycled ocean plastic) … More Adidas, walking for sustainability
Total Retail announced the 2019 top 100 Omnichannel Retailers ranking that reveals the list of publicly traded retailers and brands at the forefront of delivering the seamless cross-channel shopping experiences that consumers have come to expect. The top performers according to the report were Department Stores, with an average score of 7.35 for the brands within … More 2019 Top 100 Omnichannel Retailers by Total Retail
A retail love story: Macy´s embraces ephemeral experiences as part of their value proposition According to Coresight Research, in the US, year-to-date announced closures have exceeded the total recorded for the full year 2018. So far this year, US retailers have announced 5,994 store closures and 2,641 store openings. This compares to 5,864 closures and 3,239 openings for the full year 2018. Even … More Macy´s to launch new Story concept stores across the US
Reviewing a list of hot topics and trends from 2015 onwards, fashion technology and sustainability are amongst the most popular ones. As commented in The Fashtech Ecosystem: Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, 3D Printing Augmented and Virtual Reality and Internet of Things are some of the technologies that are changing the way customers shop, interact with the product and brands. Sustainable and Meaningful Fashion Brands … More What if sustainability starts in your closet?
If you think about what retailers are “reinventing” the fashion retail business and also leading the omnichannel era, you will probably mention Zara, Nike, H&M… and a few niche players like Everlane, Bonobos, Goop or Rent the Runway. Some might mention Amazon, but Amazon Fashion has room for improvement yet… Those companies are going beyond … More Fashion Connect: Bonprix Omnichannel concept
The role of the store is evolving and going beyond sales transactions (See a list of stores with the best customer experience in New York). Physical stores can have different roles like flagship, brandship, showroom, fulfillment center, pop-up store. In fact, the biggest store is in our pocket and it´s a cell phone. Reinventing retail … More Nordstrom reinvents retail stores
What if the question “what is your size” doesn´t make sense any more? If people can scan their bodies, their size would be unique. Economies of scale don´t apply in this business model but customer trends (personalization, sustainability…) are taking a different path than the McDonaldization of fashion (or “one size fits all”). Technology is … More Zozosuit, 3D Sizing and AI to improve customization in Fashion
United colors of Benetton renews its store concept with a new flasghip store in Padua, Italy. With a completely revamped hi-tech and informal concept that goes beyond the traditional concept of a store to become an urban and contemporary showroom. During a design thinking workshop for a leading fashion retailer, we came up with the idea of including a … More Benetton revamps its store format and customer experience
H&M announced in March 2018, during its quarterly results, a huge problem: $4.3 Billion in unsold clothes. There are many causes of unsold inventory like a wrong collection/product, bad forecasting, wrong allocations, decrease in traffic, wrong prices… But, the trend has changed and the Swedish fashion retailer announced a 9% sales increase (VAT included), 32% … More H&M embraces Fashtech