It is a pleasure to publish my latest contribution in the RBC Capital Markets Expert Call, a collaboration that started years ago. I talked to Richard Chamberlain, Retail Director at RBC, about the latest trends in Supply Chain, which have been impacted by the recent events of COVID and the war in Ukraine. The global … More Fashion Retail: Supply Chain Trends
Latest expert speaker call with Miya Knights and hosted by RBC contained interesting thoughts on how Amazon’s strategy has progressed and on current trends in Retail. Miya is a proven domain expert and leader, with extensive industry knowledge and networks built over 25 years’ experience as a journalist, editor, publisher, analyst, research director, head of … More Amazon and the Retail outlook x Miya Knights
This article is the continuation of Planning in Fashion, where design meets operations, described in Fashion Goes Tech. According to Gartner, a supply chain is a group of functions and processes focused on optimizing the flow of products, services and related information from sources of supply to customers or points of demand. It stretches across multiple tiers … More Fashion Goes Tech: Supply Chain
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
Pau Almar is an expert in fashion and apparel retailing that has held several senior management positions in Mango and Zara menswear for the last 10 years in commercial areas optimizing decision-taking, stock efficiency and in-store operations. Additionally, Pau is the editor of Very Good Retail a LinkedIn weekly newsletter about retail and the author … More A guide for potential double digit long-term growth in a mature environment
The Fashion Retailer has not accepted promotional or guest post since it was created in 2017. If it mentions fashion retailers, startups, or tech solutions, the main reason is describing best practices based on research and also more than 15 years of experience working for leading apparel brands. Today, I’m excited to introduce a collaboration … More Why nobody speaks about Inditex growth levers? (part 1)
This is the second part of my latest call with Richard Chamberlain, Head of Consumer Discretionary research at RBC Capital Markets Europe. The live session was exclusive to RBC clients, but these are the notes from the meeting. You can read the first part here RBC: How have supply chain bottlenecks changed the way fashion … More Fashion Retail Outlook: Expert Call with Alfonso Segura x RBC Capital Markets (part 2)
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
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
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
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
Bobbie Ttooulis (BT) has more than 20 years of experience in senior roles with companies ranging from global market leaders to tech start-ups and joined the GFS Board in 2017. True to her Greek Cypriot heritage, Bobbie loves nothing more than to be sharing great food and great company with friends and family. TFR: What … More A few words with Bobbie Ttooulis, Marketing Director at GFS
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
While I was writing how technology is impacting the retail business (book to be published in the coming 2-3 months), a young entrepreneur from Danemark contacted me through LinkedIn asking for advice. Morten presented me what Zliide could offer to omnichannel players when it´s time to rethink stores and customer experience. I didn´t hesitate to … More A few words with Morten Mogelmose, co-founder and CEO of Zliide
William Bernal is the CEO and founder of VIPO Group, a new company that is changing the way people shop in-store and online. He was born in Colombia and moved to France almost two years ago, where he finished his master studies in image and signal processing. William is an electronic engineer with a great … More A few words with VIPO Group CEO and Founder
Nowadays, we are living the “Retail Apocalypse volume 2” (phenomenon that started around 2010 in USA) and this won’t be the last time experts anticipate the end of retail. Stores will survive as described on Coronavirus and Fashion (v1 and v2). “Stores” will emerge again and again, but will we keep using that word? What … More The Future of Stores (1/2)
This article is the continuation of Coronavirus and Fashion (1/2), an overview of the short term strategy to overcome the Covid-19 crisis, the biggest challenge to face. Once the bleeding has stopped, companies will need to adapt their businesses for uncertain times. It will require anticipation, flexibility and agility. It’s time to breathe fresh air … More Coronavirus and Fashion (2/2)
TFR latest post was a sociological perspective on Coronavirus, a virus that has the potential to destabilize the pillars of Modern Life. This is a global threat, the worst challenge since WWII, that will cause the first ever global recession (every country is impacted). Blocking the economy might cause rebellion too. Note that guns and … More Coronavirus and Fashion (1/2)
Platforms or conglomerates business models excel at optimizing resources and reduce financial risks (everything impact on financials such as over-stocking, slower lead-times…). It’s the story of “a basket of eggs or eggs in baskets”. Understanding what is the value proposition and leveraging your key resources and partners is crucial to grow in a sustainable way. … More Fashion Technology Platforms
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
“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
Following last post about Inditex 2018 financial results, the aim of this post is understanding the leading fashion retailer performance in a deepest level. Retail Physical Footprint If we analyse the chart below we can make two deductions: Inditex is reducing its physical footprint growth from an average of +5% to approximately 0% from the … More Inditex 2018 Financial Results (2)
Ramir De Porrata-Doria is based in Barcelona. In 1992 he majored in Telecommunications Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). In 2000, he majored in Economics and Business Sciences, at the University of Barcelona. In 1997 he finished his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. He specialized in radiofrequency technologies, remote sensing, and radar. Ramir is today … More A few words with Keonn co-founder and CEO
Fashion as a Service (1/2) – Fashion Subscribtion Model Last month, I brought my DVD collection to a recycling drop off point. I owned more than one hundred DVDs including Matrix, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Metropolis, Ben Hur, The Lord of The Rings… Sadly, my collection has become e-waste, like cassette tapes and VHS, in … More Fashion as a Service (1)
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
Joaquin Villalba is the CEO and co-founder of Nextail, a smart platform for retail merchandising. A retail industry veteran, Joaquin has almost two decades of experience in innovation, retail and operations. Prior to Nextail, Joaquin was Head of European Logistics for Zara-Inditex, the world’s largest fashion retailer. In that capacity, he oversaw more than a … More A few words with Nextail Founder and CEO
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 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
Iván Abad Iglesias lives in Barcelona with his family, he is 40 years old and has more than 15 years of experience in retail. He has practically developed his entire career at Mango, where he became part of the Executive Committee, and a few months ago he began his career as an entrepreneur by launching … More A few words with a Retail expert and founder of Wemuse
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
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
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
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
Bonobos launches a new extended sizing line to include bigger/taller men, continuing their natural customer-centric business approach focused on better-fitting menswear. Founded by Brian Spaly (also founder of Trunk Club) and Andy Dunn, Bonobos is a menswear brand offering the perfect fit pants, a personal guideshop and customer service Ninjas. • Perfect fit: The objective … More Bonobos. Fit for every man
Step by step, Amazon is building its Fashion business with the first “Amazon Fashion” Pop-up Store in Europe. I guess many others will open soon, and maybe, its first retail permanent store too. But, to succeed, Amazon will need to acquire much expertise in the fashion business industry. The Pop-up store opened “5 days, 5 nights” last … More Amazon Fashion Pop-Up Store
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