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
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
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
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
A few words with Greg Mercer, CEO and Founder of Jungle Scout: Amazon Product Finder & Research Tool. While writing a deep dive about Amazon Fashion that I will publish soon, I met Jungle Scout, which provided me with an interesting data report regarding Amazon’s private label fashion presence. Retail should embrace technology as I … More A few words with Jungle Scout´s Founder and CEO
“The King is dead, long live the King?” Large retailers are celebrating the new american retail market share redistribution but many of them are coming to an end. The traditional proclamation “the King is dead, long live the King” dates back to the XIII-XIV century in Europe and was used as a way to maintain the … More Sears Goes Bankrupt
A Few words with Alexander Yashin, Operations RFID expert at LPP Alexander Yashin is 31 years old, Russian, master degree in engineering of IT systems. He has joined fashion retail industry in 2007 as a cashier in a store. Since 2014 he has been working on RFID solutions in retail. The Fashion Retailer: What is … More A few words with LPP´s RFID Expert
The World is rapidly evolving and the new environment requirements (industry, economy, new business models, analytics, digital platforms, uberization…) oblige companies to adapt their operating model to survive. The future workforce will be a mix of bots, external and internal talent that will face new roles and new needed skills. Walmart, the retail behemoth from … More Virtual Training: building a Digital Workforce at Walmart
Uniqlo recently presented its latest innovation in manufacturing: 3D Knit. Some weeks ago, I posted 3D knitting or printing in fashion: benefits and success cases where you can find more details about this trend. With Uniqlo´s 3D Knit dresses and sweaters launch, it´s clear that this is not science fiction any more. As a fashion technology (fashtech) … More 3D Knitting by Uniqlo
Every industry has its main players, but also disruptors, innovators, niche players that find a different business model, innovate in fabrics, have a different approach to the customer… We can mention the value proposition of Warby Parker (Pure player, high quality, good price), Bonobos (Easy shopping, better fit), Rent the Runway (Fashion-as-a-service), Everlane (Radical Transparency), … More Retail Game Changers 2018
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
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
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
As I commented in a previous post at fashion retail news, Strategic Acquisitions: Walmart vs Amazon, M&A is one of the main strategic options for companies that want to ensure their success in a very competitive and globalized market. As digital technology continues to evolve and manufacturing 4.0 is reshaping the value chain of every … More Nike´s Direct Consumer Offense
ANALYTICS IS KILLING CREATIVITY The Fashion Industry is evolving as retail landscape is also in reconstruction. Big data, machine learning and technology 4.0 are leadind the change and users are accelerating it thru e-commerce and the online arena. All the steps and participants along the fashion value chain are impacted and evolution is a need … More Is Data killing creativity in Fashion?
M&A is one of the main strategic options for companies that want to ensure their success in a very competitive and globalized market. Even more, in a hyper-connected society and customer centric economy. The retail industry is not any more about increasing the number of macrostores in order to have more efficient economies of scale, … More Strategic Acquisitions: Amazon vs Walmart
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
Cecilia Cano is Operations Manager at Brownie. 31, degree in Business Administration, fitness fan, fashion retail and cooking passionate. Cecilia started her professional career at Deloitte Audit Services, in finance, but switched to fashion retail and found her path. She spent 7 years at Oysho, Inditex, as a Buyer and Project & Product Manager for … More A few words with Brownie´s Head of Operations
Millenials are prioritizing experiences over tangible products. More than 75% of Millenials would choose to spend money on an experience over buying a product (Harris Group study – 2016). More than that, the experience is not based on onwnership, but on NOwnership. They (we) want to feel the adrenaline but without ties, and sharing economy is already … More Le Tote, fashion based on customer data
Do you know what Kendo is? Based in San Francisco, Kendo creates or acquires beauty brands and focuses on developing them into global powerhouses. The portfolio today consists of Kat Von D Beauty, Marc Jacobs Beauty, Formula X Nail, OleHenriksen and Bite Beauty. The name KENDO is a play on the phrase “can do.” What … More Future proofing: Inside LVMH’s under-the-radar beauty brand incubator
