Alibaba’s getting serious about the quality of the goods on its platforms and wants to attract more high-end brands. How’s it going to do it? The poacher is turning gamekeeper. The e-commerce giant frequently criticised for allowing counterfeit or low quality goods onto its sites is teaming up with four third-party inspection agencies to boost…
I took a trip down Oxford Street, South Molton Street and Regent Street in London yesterday, fully intending to photograph as many windows as possible. Unfortunately, I was sidetracked by Gap’s “all jeans for £20” one-day-only offer. When you’re weighed down by two pairs of Real Straight 26 waist/short and eight pairs of men’s Slim,…
A survey of fashion retailers in the UK last year saw 50% of them saying that maintaining customer loyalty is their biggest challenge. That’s no surprise really. A loyal customer is a very cost-effective customer as retailers don’t have to spend a lot of money to lure them in (although sensible retailers will definitely invest in…
Design awards are big news, especially when they’re created by some of the industry’s top names. Don’t forget 1954 when both Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld won the International Wool Secretariat’s prize – and look what happened to both of them. Anyway, yesterday in London, Hannah Jinkins became the latest name to be tipped…
So, the dust has settled on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and we can finally see what impact they had on shopping. In the UK, it was … well, very little. Really? After all that fuss, crashed websites and reports of surging sales? Yes, according to a report from Visa and Markit that showed little…
Hey, guess what – e-commerce is becoming really important to the luxury sector but not enough luxury brands quite ‘get it’ yet. OK, tell us something we don’t know. But cynicism aside, it’s always interesting when someone pulls that kind of information together and puts it into context. And that’s what L2’s latest Digital IQ…
Debenhams’ online sales are rising. Yippee. Debenhams physical store sales are… well, we won’t be sure until its trading update comes out in January. But some people in the know are concerned. Now, we’re used to department stores reporting ever-increasing online sales as a complement to sales made face-to-face. But Debenhams, analysts believe, has a…
The news gets worse at Gap Inc. The retail giant said that November sales fell 9%, or 8% on a currency-neutral basis. It has struggled to produce sales growth for some years but last year it did at least manage a 6% sales rise in November.
What’s to be done about J Crew? The company that was riding high and even considering an IPO just a couple of years ago has looked to be in danger of turning into fashion’s biggest basket case. It even admitted yesterday that the goodwill attached to the name is now zero compared to $1bn-plus not…
Are Black Friday and Cyber Monday really worth the effort? Let’s ask John Lewis. The department store operator’s latest figures suggest that maybe they are. How so? Well, it’s sales in the last seven days rose 4.8% year-on-year and – wait for the drum roll – 60.1% compared to the previous week. Cue fireworks, Christmas…
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