My collaboration with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) started a few years ago and this is an interesting interview about trends in retail. Ethan Chernofsky is the VP of Marketing at Placer.ai and is giving fresh insights around consumer behavior, omnichannel, retail formats or loyalty. Placer.ai collects geolocation and proximity data from devices that are … More Retail Trends, by Placer.ai
Following with Fashion business strategy and operations insights from Fashion Goes Tech, my latest book on how technology is empowering retail businesses. Today, we move forward across the value chain phases within the business of fashion: Planning. Charles Higgins Kepner said that successful merchandising incorporates the 5Bs: “the right product, in the right place, at … More Fashion Goes Tech: Digital Transformation in Fashion (4) – part 1/2
A few months ago, TFR commented about the merchandise lifecycle and how retailers, specially apparel ones, deal with stock managament. Following the value chain process, this article aims to describe one of the main areas within the business of fashion: Designing. Designing (part 1/2) The Design Department is probably the most creative area within the … More Fashion Goes Tech: Digitization in Retail (3)
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
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
As described in Fashion Goes Tech, my latest book, retail hasn’t changed much in the last century but, over the last 20 years, digitization has drastically transformed the way companies do business and how customers shop. Retail was already facing the digital challenge when Covid-19 unexpectedly forced a shortening of the “adaption deadline” (Fashion Goes … More How to deal with Planning Volatility in Fashion: New Marketing Merchandise Calendar
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
Digital era, the long tail, streetwear, social media, pure players, business platforms, influencers, liquid design… these are some of the ingredients for cooking this article… Global volatility, from geopolitics to social instability, is the new normal. Companies in all industries need to adapt the way they manage their businesses in an ever changing landscape. Agility … More Influencer Brands
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
Dollar Stores, Urban Deserts, Sustainability and Black Lives Matter I’ve been following Dollar Stores (Retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, automotive parts, dry goods, hardware, home furnishings, and a selection of groceries. It usually sells them at discounted prices, sometimes at one or several fixed price points, such as one dollar – Wikipedia) … More Urban Fashion Deserts?
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
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)
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
Last week, I met a friend that works at Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), a well-known design education center in Barcelona. We were discussing about how companies were redesigning their approach to customers’ journeys, and how students were helping them and the different collaboration projects in place. Design is not only about the functional aspect … More Co-Design: Innovation at the intersection
Last March, I described how fashion retail will change its store format strategy. As an example, I explained how grocery retailers where segmenting their store formats (hypermarket, supermarket and neighborhood stores) to respond to different shopping occasions. In grocery, shopping area and assortment are aligned, from a wide and deep assortment in large stores, to … More New Retail: Curated Fashion Boutiques
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
Continuing Fashion as a Service – subscription boxes model previous post, the following article comments on rental clothing. Millennials are prioritizing experiences over tangible products. They want to feel the adrenaline but without ties, and the sharing economy is helping them to satisfy wider needs like sustainability. Millennial, born-digital companies, are understanding the Experience Economy, creating business … More Fashion as a Service (2)
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)
See Rose Go founders, Erin Cavanaugh and Yi Zhou, have over 40 years combined global fashion industry experience including premium brands, Nordstrom, Nike, Converse and American Eagle. Our experience is rooted in customer service, quality product creation and an innovative design process. Erin most recently led global omni-channel apparel product marketing and insight strategies under Nike, … More A few words with See Rose Go founders
The Fashion Luxury Industry, like other industries, has seen the rise of big corporations such as LVMH or Kering. Some luxury goods conglomerates are more diversified than others. LVMH portfolio, for example, includes high-end brands in the categories of wines & spirits, fashion & leather goods, perfumes & cosmetics, watches & jewelry, selective retailing (e.g. Sephora) … More Luxury and Fashion Corporations
Many fashion retailers define their strategy starting from their value proposition and key positioning levers (assortment, price, experience, speed, channels…) to differentiate themselves from competition. It’s part of their DNA but also define their purpose and business model. The segmentation of fashion brands is illustrated on a pyramid where the more expensive brands are on … More The Fashion Pyramid of brands
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
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
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
Nike recently opened its first new concept store: Nike by Melrose, in Melrose Avenue (LA). The retail approach is brand new and takes into account the latest trends in fashion such are customization, localized assortment and omnichannel. In this store, product (footwear and apparel) mix is unique and exclusive, different from other Nike stores, and … More Nike´s new retail approach: curated stores
The Curated Hyper-Segmentation era is here The Long Tail illustrates how traditional business based on Blockbuster, built under massive media, celebrities, mass-market products, Hollywood, MTV, have lost their strength and even disappeared. The Pareto principle resulted in a global mainstream, clone society: a Zebra Society (Zebra as a metaphor for a non-differentiated, extremely homogeneous society), empowered … More Amazon Storefronts
Fashtech, phygital, omnichannel, hybrid retail…I´m sure that sociolinguistics are happy to think about new words to describe Fashion 4.0 and the omnichannel era. It´s seems creativity is everywhere. But as a Sociologist, I can confirm that our society is evolving faster than wording, and we will see many other attributes to describe some of the … More H&M uses Artificial Intelligence to optimize the assortment
Who says retail is dead? It´s the retail apocalypse for many department stores or fashion retailers in USA that couldn´t manage their different channels and pricing…but Supreme is the example of retail excellence in the Millenials era. An era where niche players have the power as I wrote in the Fashion retail long tail. According … More Niche fashion is the new black for investors
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
Millennials are prioritizing experiences over tangible products. More than 75% of Millennials 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 … More Le Tote, fashion based on customer data
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
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
First, Benetton´s garment dye, second Zara´s fast-fashion based on excellent operations. Now, it´s time to Ultra fast-fashion, and pure players are in pole position. … More Report: ‘Ultra-fast’ fashion players gain on Zara, H&M
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