The future of Fashion Retail – New concept stores: finding inspiration in the Grocery industry In my previous job as strategy and operations consultant, I have been involved in many projects concerning grocery retailers in South America and Europe. It was great to see how this industry, with such low margins and high traffic, is optimizing … More The future of fashion store formats
The fashion industry nature stresses the balance sheet, very sensitive between days of payment (days of payables) and collection period (days of receivables), with a high level of uncertainty because of fashion trends (if the customer likes the product or not), weather conditions (a warm winter will let stores with high levels of coats and jackets … More Nike, the new high-end fashion brand
Global volatility is the new normal and companies in all industries have to adapt and track external factors such as weather or social media. Climate change is not only impacting retail sales (revenues) but also other phases across the value chain like wool or cotton production (costs). Managing supply chain assets like fabrics and textiles … More Apparel Sourcing Trends
When I decided to start this blog, a couple of years ago, the main objective was to link art and science, as fashion is art and retail is, probably, operations. Fashion experts differenciate fashion companies from apparel retailers, but the business complexity behind these two models is quite unkown. Traditionally (1980-Now), there used to coexist … More Fashion Lab, the creativity Mecca
Headquarters relocation and global competition for talent In The New Fashion Retail Paradigm, I introduced the latest trends impacting the fashion retail industry. Headquarters location is an important one that deserves a deepest approach. Amazon announced in november 2018, after a year-long competition, that New York City and Northern Virginia will host its second headquarters. This … More Headquarters, cities and talent
Politics comes from the word Polis (City in Greek), that means “affairs of the cities”. Historically, we can consider three types of political systems: Authoritarianism, Monarchy and Democracy. While sources of social power didn´t change much, the capacity to impact them has innovated drastically. Today, new players such as brands are participating in the political arena … More Fashion politics
Deep analysis of Amazon Fashion Business: performance insights and challenges to compete in the apparel industry When Amazon started selling high-end brands in 2012, Jeff Bezos said “company’s new effort is not about selling clothes at deep discounts but at prices that ensure that the designer brands are happy”. Nowadays, the online giant is selling … More Amazon Fashion: The Omnichannel Fashion Retail Revolution is on
Best customer experience in retail Customer Experience matters and today more than ever before. But many companies are too big to change, or too slow to adapt. The latest “Retail Apocalypse” news is about SEARS, the iconic American retailer, going bankruptcy. Retailers will shrink their physical footprints while transforming their stores in brandships. Many think … More Innovative Customer Experience in NYC
While reading the latest Monocle´s report on Global Retail: Let´s talk shops, I decided it was the right time to take a step back and have perspective on the latest news that are impacting the fashion retail industry. This is just a sample of some of the latest topics and news that I feel “key” … More The New Fashion Retail Paradigm
Fashtech, or Fashion Technology, is a reality. Businesses, enabled by technology, have changed the way fashion retailers design, source, move, stock, deliver and service products. Today, every Business is a Digital Business. Niche brands are joining the long tail of specialization under a clear objective: Stretch, breathability, comfort, sustainability… in short, customer-centricity. It´s not only about Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and … More Ministry of Supply, Technology Apparel
Following the series about best brands for triathlon, we introduce sport #3: Running. Unlike cycling, running is cheap, and probably the cheapest sport you can practice. Consequently, the number of runners has been multiplied recently due to the economic crisis and more niche brands have appeared in the Footwear industry. During a triathlon race, running … More Top triathlon brands for Running
Following the series about best brands for triathlon, we introduce sport #2: Cycling. This is probably the most expensive sport to practice as a triathlon amateur and brands are working hard to offer high quality fabrics, components, materials, but also experiences. Bikes are men´s main diamonds (at a high-end level, prices are around $10.000 per … More Top triathlon brands for Cycling
According to Forbes, Sport Industry is expected to reach $73.5 billion by 2019 in the US. “Body cult” is dominating the modern society and the industry of leisure is continuously evolving and still growing: new sports such as extreme activities, tourism of sport, wearables, tracking Apps, Fitness Apps, new niche brands, sport medicine, 24/7 fitness centers and more. … More Top Triathlon brands for Swimming
Liquidity, everything is getting liquid. Bauman described our modern life as “liquid modernity“, where change is happening faster than ever. Relations, connections, organizations are ephemeral, flexible, plastic. As Politics, Economy and the organization of Society, businesses are already including “liquidity” in their value chain, from defining processes to defining their resources and capabilities. In the … More Fashion Co-Creation: As-a-Service Liquid Design Model
Fashion Technology: Innovation in Fashion Retail The objective of the Fashion 4.0 or Fashtech series was to simply describe what technologies and how digitization are disrupting the Fashion Retail industry, but also how they are transforming our daily lifes. What is Fashtech? Fashtech is the intersection of Fashion and Technology in the era of Digitization. Digital … More The Fashtech Ecosystem
This is the last post in a series about Fashion 4.0 in The Fashion Retailer blog: IoT and Fashion. In previous posts about Fashion Technology, we have reviewed how Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, 3D Printing and Blockchain are transforming the Fashion Retail industry. Those technologies are not hermetic and create synergies like the … More Internet of Things (IoT) in Fashion Retail
This is the 4th post about Fashion Technology or Fashtech in The Fashion Retailer. If Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and 3D Printing are some of the technologies that represent the 4th industrial revolution, Blockchain is the most trendy right now, and cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin) has something to do with it… What about Blockchain for Fashion … More Blockchain in Fashion Retail
This is the 3rd post about Fashion Technology or Fashtech for The Fashion Retailer: 3D Printing (or Knitting) for Fahion Retail. New technologies are enabling disruptive scenarios in the “Industry 4.0” for Fashion. The two first posts about Fashion 4.0 were focusing on Artificial Intelligence in Fashion and Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Fashion. … More 3D Printing in Fashion Retail
This is my second post about Fashion 4.0 or Fashtech for The Fashion Retailer: Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Fashion Retail Retail is evolving and adapting to digitalization or the phygital. Online is destroying the way retailers, or some of them, understood physical shopping. Business Models that successfully grew during the 20th century are … More AR and VR in Fashion Retail
Fashion Retail is adapting it´s business model at the pace of digitalization. As Darwin said, it is the most adaptable to change that will survive. After reading IESE insight “5 Building Blocks for Cyber-Physical Value Chains”, from Professor M. Sachon (Issue 33, Second Quarter 2017), I decided to start writing a series of articles about … More Artificial Intelligence in Fashion Retail
Patagonia‘s famous ad in 2011. Don’t buy it if you don’t need it. Millennials are driving companies to sustainable practices even their business model is based on volume. An example is The Social and Labour Converge Project signed by leading fashion companies such as H&M, Gap, Nike, Adidas, Levi Strauss, amongst others. Also Primark joined … More Sustainable Fashion
Last October, I spent a few days in NYC exploring the retail environment: Mostly new concept stores. I did a very interesting retail safari while visiting Warby Parker, Bonobos, Kith, Supreme, Lululemon lab, Amazon books, Rent the runway, Eataly, Dover St Market, The Row, All birds, Opening Ceremony and so on. A customer Journey in … More The Customer Journey of a Millennial
Sports, Fashion and Society: A sociological approach Sport is as old as humanity. Cave paintings have been found in the Lascaux caves in France that have been suggested to depict sprinting and wrestling in the Upper Paleolithic around 15,300 years ago. Later on, it was predictably in Greece that sports were first instituted formally, with the first Olympic Games recorded in 776 BCE in … More Sports and Fashion in the ironman era
From Capsule Wardrobe to Capsule Collection What is a Capsule Collection? According to Wikipedia, Capsule wardrobe is a term coined by Susie Faux, the owner of a London boutique called “Wardrobe” in the 1970s. According to Faux, a capsule wardrobe is a collection of a few essential items of clothing that don’t go out of … More Capsule Collection in Fashion
The Evolution of Supply Chain in the Fashion Industry Traditional Supply Chains are based on made-to-stock model, economies of scale and mass-production. This model is unidirectional and sequential. Companies have a concept, then design, plan, produce, stock, stock, stock, distribute….and somewhere you will find the customer. Nowadays, Supply Chain has totally changed into a platform, … More The Fashion Retail Value Chain Revolution
The State of Global Fashion Retailers: analysis of the latest financial results of Inditex, H&M, Fast Retailing and GAP … More The State of Global Fashion Retailers
The Fashion disruption Polish-born sociologist Zigmunt Bauman described our modern life as “liquid modernity“, where change is occurring more and more rapidly. Social entities are flexible, plastic. “Each new structure which replaces the previous one as soon as it is declared old-fashioned and past its use-by date is only another momentary settlement – acknowledged as temporary … More Fast Fashion, the art of liquidity
Growth evolution: Dinosarus and aliens in Fashion Industry Long Tail The chart above shows the Compound Annual Growth Rate and revenues (size of the bubbles), from 2007 to 2015, of some of the global leading retailers, including fashion, electronics and foods retailers. Inditex is still the king of fashion retail, H&M is fighting for the … More The Fashion Retail Long Tail
Many brands have evolved into groups that focus on different customer profiles. On the one hand, we have companies such as GAP, H&M, Inditex, Mango, Armani…that are focus on many segments in order to respond to different income, gender, style (e.g. COS vs H&M), size (e.g. Violeta by Mango) or categories (e.g. beauty, homewear) profiles. … More Diversification and Segmentation in Fashion retail
Consultants like tables, diagrams and charts… Fashion is not a science (some might disagree…) but using this “figure” makes easier to understand and organize something so complex as “needs”. Maslow was an American psychologist and was best-known for creating in 1943 the hierarchy of needs, or Maslow’s pyramid. As I said, using a pyramid is … More Maslow, evolution and Luxury Fashion