What: Gap has announced its distribution partnership with Amazon Fashion which will offer a range of the brand’s stock on the marketplace’s US and Canadian sites.

Why it is important: The Gap group moves to engage with new customers and expand its channels to combat continued falling revenues and increased operational costs.

Gap will launch a selection of basic essentials across adult, teen, children’s and baby categories as part of its agreement to open a new distribution channel through Amazon’s services.

Gap launches through Amazon US and Canada

What: Saks Off 5th’s website has launched a ‘Guaranteed Deliver Date’ service that allows customers to see a more accurate delivery date for an order at the time of checkout.

Why it is important: Just in time for the holidays, Saks is taking a customer-centric approach with their new guaranteed delivery date service provided for all possible shipping methods, allowing customers to select the delivery date and cost option that best suits them.

Instead of three- to five-day time frames for delivery or waiting until an order has shipped for customers to have visibility, Saks Off 5th online customers can now see specific delivery dates when browsing product detail pages or at the time of checkout.

In addition, Saks Off 5th.com has introduced next-day and expedited delivery options.

Saks Off 5th enhances delivery service

What: According to Bain & Company and Altagamma’s most recent study, the luxury goods segment will continue to expand until 2030 despite global political and economic uncertainty.

Why it is important: The study concluded that the global luxury goods industry is projected to achieve a market value of 1.4 trillion euros in 2022, up 21% compared to 2021.

Revenues are projected to climb to 353 billion euros, a 22% increase between 2021 and 2022. However, personal luxury goods are expected to see slowing market growth of around 3-8% in 2023. Analysts remain positive that luxury will be resilient to recession unlike during the 2009 financial crisis with growth of 60% by 2030 and a potential increase of 550 billion to 570 billion euros compared to 2022.

China will be a key factor for the fourth quarter performance of 2022 and the growth of the luxury market. As well, brands and retailers focused on this segment will need to prioritise ESG, creativity, agility, technology and data.

Global luxury goods market to reach 1.4 trillion in 2022

What: Monetising store surface at Walmart is seen as a logical way to generate new streams of revenue.

Why it is important: Such an approach is not novel per se, but in the way it is implemented, thanks to the use of tech and legal flexibility to make access to in-store concessions scalable to many companies and almost fully automated.

Walmart stores across the US will now allow small businesses to rent retail space, thanks to a partnership with pop-up shop marketplace platform Popable. The start-up will pair a local participating Walmart store to a corresponding company listed on the platform. Leases will be short-term, from one month to a year, with terms negotiated directly between the brand and the store.

Walmart is exploring new ways of generating revenue streams. For instance, it has also launched Walmart Creator, a social commerce platform making it easy for influencers to monetise shoppable products from the retailer.

Walmart launches short-term rental leases for SMEs 

What: Korean retail groups posted unexpected losses in 2022 Q3.

Why it is important: Their department stores divisions are all growing and posting profits, which are offset by overseas, online and other categories businesses.

Korean department stores announced disappointing results for the third 2022 quarter:

-    Shinsegae increased sales by 17,3%, to €1,41bn, but profit fell to  €70m, down 50% from last year. The department store activity specifically increased by 19,8% to €440m.

-    Lotte shopping reported sales increasing by 0,2% to €2,88bn, but last year profit of €220m turned into a net loss of €70m this year. The department store activity increased sales by 17,3% to €550m and its operating profit increased to €80m, thanks to fashion items and international brands. China, online activity and the low performance of the electronic goods retailer Lotte Himart are the main reasons for the net loss at the mother company level.

Shinsegae- Source 1

Lotte- Source 2

What: In collaboration with its National Business Involvement Group, Marks & Spencer has introduced changes to provide M&S Retail Managers more flexibility in their scheduling to support employee work/life balance.

Why it is important: Following a trial across 100 stores, 75% of managers that participated reported positive impacts on family life by compressing their hours and 73% reported a positive impact on their time for themselves.

In addition to managers being able to compress hours, extend, and opt for part-time or full-time scheduling, M&S has launched ‘Job Share Finder’ which allows for staff to job share. Part-time managers have also been able to access a version of compressed working offers.

Marks & Spencer launches changes for better work/life balance

What: Mirakl, which engineers online marketplaces for retailers and brands around the world, has launched Mirakl Ads, a service meant to help businesses monetize e-commerce traffic.

Why it is important: Increasingly, retailers and brands are integrating marketplace formats onto their e-commerce websites to broaden their assortments with additional merchandise categories, brands and items, with the aim to generate more online traffic.

The service provides metrics on what ads are generating the best sales and helps businesses create more effective ad campaigns and direct ads to customers most likely to respond. A marketplace operator is able to serve up ads through the Mirakl platform.

The company also said Mirakl Ads is compatible with marketplace, drop ship and first-party e-commerce, and that it has established a team of retail media experts to help set up and scale campaigns.

Mirakl Ads will surface the most relevant sponsored products to the right customers, as well as streamline campaign management with automated campaign capabilities that leverage sales data and sellers’ store catalogues to determine which sponsored ads will generate the best engagement, while also offering real-time performance metrics.

The unified solution also eliminates the need for multiple logins, additional integrations and disparate budgets.

Mirakl launches service to monetize e-commerce traffic 

What: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade returns to the web3 virtual world this holiday season with a new experience including virtual galleries from five NFT projects that will give fans the power to select the first-ever NFT Macy’s Parade balloon.

Why it is important: Launching on the OnCyber metaverse, Macy’s is celebrating the 96th Thanksgiving Day Parade virtually with NFT projects and the opportunity for fans to vote for their favourite creators, helping one design be transformed into a balloon in next year’s Macy’s Parade.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade goes into the metaverse

What: Frasers Group has emerged as the winner in the race to buy upscale tailor Gieves & Hawkes, as expected.

Why it is important: The acquisition fits into the Frasers strategy that includes buying ‘distressed’ brands and turning them around; one of London’s oldest bespoke tailors now joins a group that includes a mix of high-end and mass-market brands and retailers, and one that remains heavily committed to physical retail.

As well as operating the brand’s stores, Frasers has the ability to do that for Gieves & Hawkes by selling the label in its existing luxury retail outlets so it would be no surprise if products started appearing in the Flannels chain and the firm’s department stores. It will be interesting to see whether Frasers maintains the brand’s ultra-luxury profile or offers a more hybrid experience with some slightly lower price points such as those seen at Hackett.

Loss-making Gieves & Hawkes has five UK stores with its flagship on London’s luxury bespoke tailoring hub, Savile Row. Its other locations are in Bath, Birmingham, Chester and Winchester. It’s understood that the stores are part of the deal.

Frasers Group is new Gieves & Hawkes owner

What: The social messaging platform WhatsApp is launching a feature that will allow users in the UK to find, message and buy from businesses through the app.

Why it is important: Instead of having to look online and retrieve phone numbers from websites, users can now search and connect directly with businesses in the UK, providing a convenient way to quickly get assistance and make purchases.

Additionally, WhatsApp noted that it was also looking to potentially expand its payment feature, which it has recently launched in India to allow users to make a payment from a chat. The feature is first available for users in the UK, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia and Mexico, and will allow companies using its WhatsApp Business Platform to apply the function.

WhatsApp launches feature for users to contact UK businesses

What: Cos is set to open a flagship store in Mexico City during the summer of 2023 as its first presence in the country.

Why it is important: Cos continues to scale the business globally through new markets as it announces its 2023 plans for a Mexico City flagship store.

The brand’s environmental focus will also be reflected in the design of the store with bamboo wardrobes, recycled acrylic vitrine display cases and a rail system made from recycled aluminium. The concept is also designed to be maintained, repaired and repurposed.

Cos has expanded across Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America and the Middle East since its launch in 2007. The brand now has an established presence in 48 physical markets, 39 online markets and select wholesale partners.

Cos enters Mexico

What: In the high-end shopping centre ION Orchard, Gucci Beauty has unveiled its first store.

Why it is important: The beauty boutique opening follows Kering’s Q3 results showing single-digit growth for Gucci, leading to continued efforts to revitalise the brand, which generates more than half of Kering’s total revenue despite now being below the performance of the group’s other brands.

Gucci is focusing on acceleration through its relaunch which centres around timeless products and gaining greater visibility in the Asian markets. Coty has announced that a second Gucci Beauty store will open in 2023.

Gucci Beauty opens first boutique in Singapore

What: The place “where America shops” has closed its chapter 11 filing.

Why it is important: Sears is now a ghost compared to what it used to be, and remaining with 20+ stores does not bring enough competitive advantage in 2023’s landscape to expect much from them.

Sears has emerged from bankruptcy after 4 years and more than 10,000 court filings, with almost two dozen stores left, down from almost 3,500 at its heyday. The company entered bankruptcy in October 2018 with 687 stores.

Most of them were sold in attempts to resolve debts. Analysts do not expect much from the 20+ Sears stores still open.

Sears out of bankruptcy, with two dozen stores left 

What: The largest US mall owner, Simon Property Group, has a strong outlook on brick-and-mortar retail.

Why it is important: The CEO of Simon Property Group believes that retailers need to invest more heavily in brick-and-mortar stores considering recent e-commerce sales declining.

Despite economic concerns, Simon Property Group reported resiliency with a 94.5% occupancy rate in Q3 as well as there has been very little slowdown for new store openings and lease renewals. The group also cites the numerous announcements by brands that will expand their store fleets along with many digitally native brands moving into physical stores or through wholesale partnerships.

Simon Property Group doubles down on malls

What: Consumers are turning to private-label brands to ease the impact of high prices this holiday season.

Why it is important: Target last week noted that shoppers are trading down to owned brands, which continue to outperform their national counterparts by growing twice as fast as total business in Q3.

In addition to often being cheaper, private labels can also fill in product white space in underserved markets, such as women’s activewear. Kohl’s reported that more middle-income consumers are trading down to its private label brands leading the CFO to say the retailer will feature its owned brands more prominently in its marketing.

Walmart’s penetration in the private brand sector has been flat since 2019 but picked up in March of this year with private brand penetration in the food category having increased about 130 basis points in Q3.

Retailers report private labels were boosted by inflation

What: Macy’s CEO spoke about its hope for the holiday season to bring a spike in sales while the retailer continues deepening markdowns on summer merchandise, despite claiming inventories are in an adequate position.

Why it is important: While Macy’s Q3 showed declines, the results beat Wall Street’s expectations leading stock prices to jump 15% from 2.96 dollars per share to 22.67 dollars.

Macy’s reported that total sales declined 3.9% to USD 5.23 billion from USD 5.44 billion one year ago but inched up 1.1% compared to 2019 Q3 reports. Macy’s CEOs hoping to see a seesaw pattern for holiday sales with an increase between Thanksgiving and Christmas due to the colder weather, the Toys “R” Us rollout and the launch of the marketplace on macys.com. These factors will expand the brand and product offerings, plus new and improved pricing and markdown management systems will allow for efficiency when meeting client demands.

Macy’s prepares for Christmas following Q3 declines

What: UK-based luxury retailers Selfridges, Flannels and Matchesfashion are utilizing Hurr’s platform for fashion rental to meet circularity commitments.

Why it is important: Matchesfashion, like other retailers and brands, is using Hurr’s white-label technology to meet sustainability goals with the hopes that luxury retailers existing within the fashion rental space will increase consumer demand for circularity.

Questions still remain on whether clothing rental is a sustainable endeavour or not considering the construction, wear and cleaning of garments.

Hurr is reliant on brands to design clothes to fit a circular system to complement its efforts on improving cleaning and transportation as it aims to reinvent ownership and extend the lifecycle of products.

Matches Fashion joins clothing rental platform Hurr

What: After a 21% sales increase for Q1 and almost 17% for Q2, Ulta Beauty is shaking up its traditional approach to merchandising.

Why it is important: Ulta’s new store design presents brands in a category-by-category approach putting the retailer’s own point of view first and ignoring traditional price, brand, or channel segmentation.

The goal is to help customers navigate the stores and inspire them along their shopping journey by placing adjacent categories in a logical progression. The entrance takes a thematic approach over promotional or brand-centric merchandising. This is where customers discover brands which are launching, followed by skincare, then hair tools, accessories and hair care products. The store remains divided into two sides, but each side will house different categories. Instead of mass and prestige, one side will be dedicated to makeup and the other side to hair and skin. The Beauty Bar which focuses on impulse and travel- or trial-sized products will need into the check-out area which is not located at the back of the store. A Conscious Beauty section will house clean brands and a “Hero” Wall will showcase top-selling or most-loved products from different brands. The Ulta salon will be located behind the check-out.

The beauty retailer will open or remodel around 44 stores with the new format this year with 50 stores projected to open in 2023.

Ulta Beauty’s new store format

What: Business consultancy Caci has found that over half of British shoppers believe that online shopping is cheaper than physical retail.

Why it is important: The study has revealed that British shoppers think online retail is cheaper than physical, a behaviour that could impact the performance of retailers this holiday season.

In Caci’s survey, 56% of respondents had perceived online as cheaper, while 36% said they would be shopping more in-store this Christmas. The consultancy agency tied the behavioural shift with the rising cost of living. While there may be strong footfall, Caci believes retailers could see basket sizes below expectations. Physical retail should not be underestimated, yet past research from the agency has revealed an uptick in online sales within a store’s catchment area.

Finally, 50% of those surveyed reported that they would visit the same stores as the previous year for their Christmas shopping, emphasising the value of customer loyalty. 36% of respondents have already begun Christmas shopping to spread the budget.

Study finds Brits believe online shopping is cheaper than in-store

What: Hong Kong no longer has the world’s most-expensive retail district after rents plummeted due to Covid curbs and restrictions on visitors.

Why it is important: Hong Kong is struggling with a downturn after some of the world’s strictest Covid measures and the closed border with mainland China slashed the number of visitors. The city received just 250,000 arrivals in the first nine months of this year, compared with almost 56 million for the whole of 2019.

Manhattan’s Upper Fifth Avenue is now the priciest street globally for shopping, according to a survey by commercial property firm Cushman & Wakefield Plc. Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui district comes second, followed by Italy’s Via Montenapoleone in Milan. The previously annual survey is the first since 2019.

Annual rents for Upper Fifth Avenue shops averaged $2,000 per square foot, up 14% from pre-pandemic levels, according to the report. Rents in Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon fell 41% to $1,436 per square foot in the period, while those in Via Montenapoleone rose 9% to $1,380.

London’s New Bond Street slid one place to fourth, with average rents down 11%, while the Avenue des Champs Élysées in Paris came in fifth after they fell an average 18%, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Hong Kong loses top ranking for luxury shopping to New York 

What: Marks & Spencer has acquired the intellectual property rights of the fashion personalisation website Thread.

Why it is important: Marks & Spencer’s co-chief executive expects that this addition to the retailer’s current personalisation offer will help boost sales by 100 million pounds a year.

Thread collapsed into administration, leading to a pre-packed deal providing Marks & Spenser with source codes and algorithms that the retailer will integrate into their website to improve clothing recommendations for size, style and budget.

As well, M&S will hire 30 of Thread’s staff, including founders Kieran O’Neill and Ben Phillips.

Marks & Spencer acquires Thread’s technology for personalisation

What: Macy’s is using space within 35 of its stores to function as mini distribution centers as the retailer positions its e-commerce network to handle an expected influx of shipments ahead of the holidays.

Why is it important: The move gives Macy’s distribution network a presence closer to customers, allowing the retailer to better service demand during the holiday season, but also creates more space at other facilities for new products down the line.

The mini distribution centres are semi-automated and expected to save shipping costs, speed deliveries and reduce the need for split shipments.

The retailer has maintained strict inventory discipline, as well as made investments in data and analytics that has laid the foundation for continued inventory control and is now in the position to buy more product if demand calls for it.

Macy’s establishes mini distribution centres

What: Michelle Gass of Kohl’s is moving over to Levi Strauss as president with plans for her to succeed current CEO Chip Bergh in 2024.

Why it is important: Michelle Gass will lead the Levi Strauss brand’s global digital and commercial operations as president and board member until she succeeds current CEO Chip Bergh in 2024.

Meanwhile, Tom Kingsbury will take on the CEO duties in the interim period while a committee looks to replace Gass.

Kohl’s CEO exits for Levi’s - Retail Dive

Kohl’s CEO exits for Levi’s - WWD

What: Frasers has purchased over three million shares of common stock, representing 4.3% of Hugo Boss’ entire share capital, along with 21.1 million shares via the sale of put options, representing 30.3% of share capital.

Why it is important: Frasers continues to aggressively purchase stock in its acquisition strategy, with Hugo Boss representing the potential to widen the group’s reach within the premium market.

In addition to raising its Hugo Boss stake to approximately one billion euros worth of shares, Frasers’ stake in Mysale has also grown to over 94% of shares.

In 2022 alone, Frasers has acquired Studio Retail, Missguided, Sneakerbou and I Saw It first. Potential acquisitions may be seen following its recent purchase of stakes in N Brown, Gieves & Hawkes and Asos.

Frasers continues to raise stake in Hugo Boss