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Gone are the days when models would proudly walk down the ramp, decked up in an outfit made out of animal fur. Today, consumers are more aware and sensitive towards the needs of animals and are openly saying no to animal products and outfits made of animal fur/skin (thanks to veganism).

The buzzword in fashion is "sustainability". Today, sustainability has become an absolute necessity in the luxury industry as well as in fashion as a whole.

Leading fashion and luxury brands are left with no choice but to embed sustainability into their business models for 21st-century challenges and work in a more eco-efficient way.

Furthermore, global luxury and fashion brands are now looking at sustainability as an opportunity as CEOs are now realising that sustainability is good for business as it enhances creativity.

From a talent perspective, there has now emerged the need to hire a highly evolved Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). Globally, this is one of the most sought after roles for most fashion and apparel companies, and in the last couple of years, this has been reflected in India as well.

Increased focus on sustainable fashion products

Top chief sustainability officers believe that sustainable development is no longer an option for the luxury industry. If fashion and luxury brands want to be remembered for their products 10-15 years down the line, they must adopt sustainable practices. Businesses must now consider sustainable technology as an investment that would have a long-term impact.

Sustainability is all about sourcing the finest raw materials more sustainably and responsibly, taking care of the people all along the supply chain and testing innovative materials and innovative processes.

As a trendsetting industry, the global fashion industry must serve as a role model, and as informed consumers, we must support them in their endeavour to build a sustainable environment.

What role does CSO play

In the past, a CSO's role has often been in the background of decision-making. Their role has been restricted to the technical/engineering aspects of the business, ensuring that a company meets necessary green compliances, liaising with external stakeholders such as environmental activists and consumer groups, and implementing effective corporate social responsibility programmes.

The last few years have changed the scenario. Today, the CSO plays a key role in making product and process-oriented decisions. Fine-tuning operations by implementing green strategies, technologies and methodologies are important roles to set and meet the company's overall carbon goals.

The so-called climate emergency has led to chief sustainability officers becoming increasingly influential and expanding their research into product development, manufacturing, and marketing.

CSO roles in the fashion space are not new, at least not globally, and LVMH (Louis Vuitton) has had a Sustainability Director since the nineties, however, now this is becoming more of a norm than aberrations.

This trend has started reflecting increasingly in the quest for Superior Talent for this function. While having a series of discussions around succession planning for a leading fashion and apparel business house, it was quite apparent that one of the key hires in the new structure would be a Chief Sustainability Officer well versed with the best of global norms.

Parameters of success for Chief Sustainability Officer

CSO's can achieve success over rapidly evolving sustainability in terms of several factors despite the intersectional and cross-functional roles they have to play. At an individual level, an ideal CSO needs to have the ability to quickly and clearly perceive global megatrends and the organisation's position in light of this megatrend.

In terms of qualifications and skill set, as the function becomes increasingly professionalised, so too have the educational backgrounds of sustainability heads today.

The aim is to achieve sustainability in every part of the business. The Chief Sustainability Officer has to be an inspirational leader who can look at the larger picture. It is quite likely that going forward the Chief Sustainability Officer may well lead Business Strategy for the company, and pave the way for more CSOs in the C Suite.

Hence, the verdict is clear. As more and more high-end luxury brands are embracing sustainable strategies, the need for a strong CSO is becoming more important now than ever before
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

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How Chief Sustainability Officers can be the saviour of fashion and luxury brands

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Gone are the days when models would proudly walk down the ramp, decked up in an outfit made out of animal fur. Today, consumers are more aware and sensitive towards the needs of animals and are openly saying no to animal products and outfits made of animal fur/skin (thanks to veganism).

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SMCP Group, the French holding company for ready-to-wear labels Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot & De Fursac hopes it has found a solution for retail's store-staffing problem: A training academy for sales associates.

On Jan. 30, SMCP Retail Lab, a year-long programme in partnership with Parisian schools Ema Sup Paris and Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), will welcome 22 students in its inaugural class. The course is designed to train participants on "how to mingle with clients offline and online" and "develop customer satisfaction," said Isabelle Guichot, SMCP's chief executive officer. Classes will be taught by professors from both schools and feature "conferences" with director-level employees from SMCP's brands.

The idea was borne out of a late 2021 hackathon the company held just as the Great Resignation was reaching a fever pitch and many fashion firms were feeling the talent crunch hardest at the store level. The hope is that it will do more than simply scratch recruiting off the company's to-do list.

According to Guichot, the academy represents an opportunity for SMCP to diversify its talent pool, enlighten people on the upward mobility of a retail career path, and evolve the sales associate role to become more modern and exciting.

"A problem that we see is that we try to hire people that are always coming from the same kind of field and from other brands," she said. "The only way that we could [change] that is to create a school and be extremely open to the talents that we [bring in]."

The challenge fashion firms face in hiring and retaining in-store sales associates - and expanding the position beyond stocking shelves and ringing up cash registers - is hardly new. But in a post-pandemic world where employees across the board have new demands around compensation, purpose and more, it's especially difficult to lure people into these roles.

Many retailers - such as Macy's, Walmart and Target in the US - have raised their hourly wages. The pressures have stretched globally: Zara parent Inditex is deep in negotiations with unions in Spain that want the retailer to implement raises across all store roles in the country. Just last week, Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing Co Ltd announced wage hikes in Japan as high as 40 percent.

Some companies have taken a stab at making these jobs more flexible when it comes to scheduling - in many cases, with minimal results. Roughly 80 percent of global business leaders in retail and similar industries with frontline employees, such as restaurants, said frontline turnover has increased and that workers are rejecting conditions that went unchallenged just two years ago, according to a study this month by Forrester Consulting and WorkJam, a software application for retail workers.

Even in Europe where sales roles, particularly at high-end stores, have historically had a more elevated reputation and employees may take home higher and more stable, less commission-based earnings, companies have struggled with short-staffed stores. That's then led to a drop-off in the experience shoppers have come to expect, said Lisa Yae, managing partner of the Retail & Luxury Goods Practice at Hanold Associates.

"The way companies have been needing to hire ... has caused them to lose sight of some of the more comprehensive training and onboarding sales associates need," she said.

Most fashion firms haven't realised the level of comprehensive education and development and overall employee experience their sales associates need, experts say. As a result, many are leaving money on the table.

"When it comes to business leaders' priorities, there's still tension between the need to grow profitability and the [importance of] employee experience," said Steve Kramer, CEO of Workjam. "Historically companies don't look at their frontline people as the lever to grow revenues, but in fact, it is the lever."

An Opportunity and Step-Change

The need to attract and retain top salespeople is amplified by the fact that if today's digital-savvy consumers do make the trek to a store to buy a fashion item - no matter the price - they "expect salespeople to love fashion as much as they do," said Marie Driscoll, managing director luxury & retail at Coresight Research, an advisory and research firm specialising in retail and technology.

Increasingly, the solve requires companies to create and mould their salespeople themselves.

"Today's sales associate has to be able to talk the lexicon," Driscoll said. "Even if you're not selling a luxury item, you need salespeople who are able to say 'You see this blue jacket, Chanel has a blue jacket just like that but ours is a tenth of the price."

Those are the kind of lessons and techniques the SMCP course are meant to instil (albeit with a luxury tilt), Guichot said.

"It doesn't have to be a basic sales job if people are passionate about it," she said. "You can also enrich yourself in this job by unlocking all the capabilities, live-shopping, clienteling through their social media, giving styling advice ... being more customer-centric."

To find its first class, SMCP expanded its outreach beyond its typical posts on LinkedIn and Indeed, inviting social media users on TikTok, Instagram, Spotify and Facebook to apply. (The only prerequisite was to be at least 18 years old.) In a nod to younger talent, the company asked applicants to submit a short video answering a series of questions, including why they wanted to be a part of the programme.

SMCP narrowed its list down to "the people we felt were the most motivated during their videos," Guichot said, and that group was invited for a "speed-dating" style interview with team leaders.

"We've been really adopting new ways of communicating to get new talents," she said. "We are being extremely inclusive to [draw in] people who may have thought "fashion isn't for me; they won't accept me."

As more seasoned associates move out of their roles (in some cases at a more rapid clip due to pandemic safety concerns), brands and retailers need to upgrade their approach to draw in younger Gen-Z and millennial talent who "are motivated by different things," Yae said.

In 2017, the US' National Retail Federation introduced Rise Up, a credentialing programme to drum up more excitement around retail jobs, with a curriculum developed alongside retailers like Macy's, Nordstrom and Burlington stores. So far, the initiative has trained 425,000 people, the NRF said.

SMCP's programme, free of charge to participants, will operate like a work study, with students taking classes on the Paris campuses of both schools and also holding internships spread across 22 of the company's stores.

Down the line, the company, which operates 1,670 stores in the US, Hong Kong, China and Europe, hopes to expand to other regions, namely the US to work with schools like The Fashion Institute of Technology, Guichot said.

At the end of the school year, the first group of participants will receive a formal certification and will be offered opportunities to work for one or several of the Group's brands in-store.

"If we do our jobs right... we would hope all [the students] would want to stay with us," Guichot said. "This can be viral ... we set no limits for this programme."

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How Brands Can Create Retail Jobs People Actually Want

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SMCP Group, the French holding company for ready-to-wear labels Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot & De Fursac hopes it has found a solution for retail's store-staffing problem: A training academy for sales associates. On Jan. 30, SMCP Retail Lab, a year-long programme in partnership with Parisian schools Ema Sup Paris and Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), will welcome 22 students in its inaugural class.

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The Year Ahead: What a Fashion Company Looks Like in 2023

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Fashion executives need a new vision for what the organisation of the future will look like, focusing on attracting and retaining top talent as well as elevating teams and senior positions to align with strategic objectives for growth.

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The crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic hit the fashion industry especially hard. Online shopping surged, but not enough to erase the damage done by store closings and economic worries, which caused people to curtail spending on nonessential goods. Industry revenue this year could drop by more than one-third, the equivalent of up to $640 billion in lost sales.

Countries are now beginning to reopen their economies, and companies and people are gradually returning to work. But fashion won't-and shouldn't-return to what it was. The behaviors, preferences, and shifts in mindset that people have adopted during the pandemic will lead to permanent changes, including bifurcated spending, accelerated adoption of e-commerce, and increased demand for purpose-driven brands and sustainable fashion.

For brands, the trends and the dramatic drop in sales will contribute to substantial retail overcapacity. It will lead companies to adopt a new shape of P&L, accelerate the shift to digital and omnichannel distribution, embrace data analytics for decision making, and, for those with cash, pursue M&As when they have the opportunity. The sooner brands come to terms with this new reality, the sooner they can take the steps needed to rebound and succeed. It is time for a reset, not a restart.

Changing Consumer Behaviors and Preferences

The pandemic is reshaping the fashion industry. Consumer behaviors and sentiments in the US exemplify what's happening. Shelter-in-place orders affected 300 million people and led to a sharp decline in use of public transportation and an increase in nesting. According to BCG and other research, 81% of US consumers believe that the pandemic will lead to a recession, and more than half worry about their personal finances and plan to spend less on fashion as a result. An increased focus on value is already evident-more than four in ten US consumers say that they expect brands to offer discounts or other promotions once stores reopen.

Around the world, more people are shopping online and ordering merchandise online to pick up in person-trends that are expected to continue. COVID-19 lockdowns also have led to an uptick in first-time e-commerce shoppers-14% of consumers in the US and 17% in China bought fashion online for the first time because of the pandemic. In that respect, it's similar to what happened during the SARS epidemic, when e-commerce spending increased and remained at the new level after the outbreak subsided. The COVID-19 crisis has made people more conscious of sustainability and the environment, and it has piqued interest in spending on health and wellness and essentials such as casual apparel, skin care, and home products.

Shifting consumer sentiments and behaviors have major implications for fashion brands:

Consumers will shop less, and be choosier when they do. Although overall spending will decline, interest will increase in casualwear, activewear, home categories, and beauty products, at the expense of such categories as handbags and formalwear. Instead of conspicuous consumption, think inconspicuous spending.

Channel shifts will accelerate. Sales through digital and social media-especially mobile-will hit overdrive, with digital channels in key markets accounting for a larger portion of total sales. To grab customers' attention, brands will need to strengthen their online presence through customization, community-building, and superior online-shopping interfaces and deliveries.

With more people shopping online, retail stores' role will change. Flagship locations will remain for brand image purposes, but the majority of physical locations are likely to be smaller, sell merchandise that's customized for the area, and be set up to fulfill online orders. Some will also serve as hubs for community activities.

Shifting preferences will squeeze midrange brands. In keeping with past economic contractions, more consumers worldwide will either trade down to lower-priced goods or trade up to premium brands they may perceive as providing more value than they did previously, leaving brands with midrange price points to feel the pinch.

Demand will accelerate for sustainability and purposeful brands. More than ever, consumers will favor brands with a purpose, and sustainability will become a minimum requirement. Brands must ensure that they operate in ways that are environmentally and socially responsible.

Consumers will expect more. People will want convenience, including an intuitive online shopping experience and fast deliveries. As consumers gravitate to social media and more individualized forms of communication over mass media, companies will need to provide shoppers with messaging that is more timely, relevant, and personalized.

Preparing for Fashion's New Reality

Like companies everywhere, fashion brands initially reacted to the COVID-19 crisis by taking quick steps to ensure employee safety and preserve cash. Now, as economies begin to reopen and consumer sentiments reflect a new reality, brands must act on two fronts. (See Exhibit 1.)

Declutter

There's no question that the shape of fashion P&L must change. In fact, we believe that if brands don't act, margins will collapse. (See Exhibit 2.) Our forecasts show fashion industry sales dropping 30% this year (compared with 2019) and up to 15% in 2021. That could lead to a 14% decrease in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) over the same period if a company were to take no action to adapt its cost base to account for the lower sales.

Out of necessity, a company's short-term actions should center on right-sizing operations, including rethinking sales channels and adopting a new P&L and associated costs to address shifting preferences and behaviors.

Reset the distribution footprint. Brands must rethink their overall distribution footprint to account for department stores and other wholesale channels that are consolidating or closing, the reduced foot traffic in company-owned stores even as economies start to reopen, and the increase in online shopping. For brands, it's a chance to reset their wholesale and retail partnerships and streamline their sales organizations. If a brand's reset includes a stronger push into direct-to-consumer channels, the company needs to update or expand its website-which could now cost more because every other brand will be doing the same thing, increasing competition for the optimum e-tail experience. Companies also need to solidify ties with multibrand platforms, such as Asos and Zalando, that continue to accelerate, along with such e-commerce giants as Amazon and Alibaba's TMall, which have only gotten stronger during the pandemic.

Companies that own retail outlets need to conduct a thorough analysis of locations and close the low-performing ones. For remaining outlets, they may need to renegotiate rent and rethink layouts and staffing to improve profits from physical stores. That could include using more modular fixtures to make it easier to reconfigure merchandise displays and, if they haven't already, set aside an area of the store to fulfill online orders.

Scrutinize all costs in light of the new P&L. To adjust to lower revenue and preserve operating profits, brands need to review and adjust costs across the board, including cost of goods sold, rent, personnel, marketing, and the like. For example, an overcapacity of unsold merchandise will lead to higher markdowns, which will squeeze margins if brands aren't able to lower unit costs by renegotiating with suppliers. To preserve margins, brands also may need to consolidate materials sources and suppliers and be more vigilant about the timing and management of markdowns.

As companies invest more effort into digital channels, the extra amount they spend on online marketing and brand purpose could be partially offset by near-term decreases in budgets for large-scale events and above-the-line costs. It makes adopting data-based marketing that much more important to increase reach with the same digital media budget.

Reduce supplier costs and increase flexibility. Brands with a strong supply chain will be in a better position to take advantage of the recovery once economies start to rebound. Because the near-term future could still be unstable, they need to forge close supplier partnerships in order to remain as flexible as possible, reduce costs, decrease the time it takes to get inventory to market, and increase risk sharing. Brands and suppliers need to come up with mutually beneficial solutions to minimize cancellations and other adjustments to orders. As part of solidifying their supply chain, brands need to adopt agile in-season inventory management.

Adopt zero-based organization redesign and AI-powered decision making. Undertaking a zero-based organization redesign is another way that brands can make their operating model leaner and more agile. In this process, a company determines the systems it would put in place if it were launching today, often using data analytics to forecast and augment decision making and identify areas of cost savings. A reorganization could lead a company to adopt a bionic operating model, one that seamlessly integrates the capabilities of people and technology. A bionic operating model also gives brands the opportunity to digitize their product development and supply chain to make both of them more agile and effective.

Invest

Companies must invest in areas that allow them to create advantage in adversity, building the organization, capabilities, and processes that they need for the future and that they can use to capitalize on opportunities to expand and gain market share.

Build a strong AI and technology backbone to digitize core processes. Adoption of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) will be among the fashion industry's most significant changes in the coming decade, and one of its biggest challenges. Brands have been slow adopters for the most part, but laggards can take a page from companies that already use these technologies. Data will become an even more important competitive advantage: the brands with the most usable data will win. The biggest winners will be the brands that can codify data from all sales channels and consolidate it onto a single analytics platform to improve decision making on such core processes as planning, buying, promotions, markdowns, and in-season inventory management. Creating a market-leading e-commerce platform is another part of building out a more robust tech backbone.

Address elevated consumer demands. It's more important than ever for brands to keep on top of customers' needs and preferences in order to reorient and communicate their purpose. As part of the reorientation, brands must spend less on glossy, highly produced materials and more on content that's real, personal, and made for social-media channels, whether it's editorial, advertising, live video, or user-generated content. As consumer tastes shift toward casual and home-related categories, brands also need to rethink their product and merchandising mix and adjust price points, which may include tradeoffs between price and quality.

A silver lining of the crisis could be the accelerated pursuit of sustainability in fashion. After years of talk, it's time for brands to get serious about sustainability, which has become table stakes for the industry. They need to understand what sustainability means for their business and invest in making progress. Any effort needs to start at the top, and it must be communicated to customers.

Build brand online and digitize pathways. Digital commerce could increase to 35% to 55% of total sales in key markets, so brands must boost their digital presence to keep up. Purchases of all kinds-whether online or offline-are being influenced by digital, including mobile and social selling. Winning at digital is winning overall. Online platforms will continue to gain market share through acquisitions and organic growth. But significant opportunities remain for brands that can build community and engagement around what they offer. They can also take advantage of increasing consumer interest in the resale and re-commerce markets.

A key growth area over the next decade will be personalization at scale, one-on-one engagement with customers across multiple channels, including in stores, on social media, and through digital. We call this clienteling 2.0. A number of brands and retailers are already testing this concept; some found success during pandemic-generated lockdowns, after turning store associates into digital stylists and having them engage with consumers and sell merchandise directly through WeChat and Instagram.

Retain and cultivate talent with analytics and digital skills. Finding data scientists, data analysts, and other people with the digital skills brands need to remake their business will be a challenge. Although the COVID-19 crisis has brought widespread layoffs, it may not have increased the available supply of people with the needed skills. If a brand's efforts include expanding its tech backbone or e-commerce operations, the ramifications extend beyond new talent to the existing workforce as well. That could include deciding which people to bring back to work first, or how to Decoding Global Trends in Upskilling and Reskilling to take on new duties. Brands that are scaling down sales channels or other operations also need to consider the feasibility of reskilling people from those functions for completely new roles.

Look for M&A opportunities. Although most brands will lose revenue through 2022, we believe some could be in a position to benefit from industry consolidation and bankruptcies. Companies with cash to spend can take advantage of industry valuations that have dropped by an average 33% year-to-date, to a near-recession-era low of 7.8 times enterprise value over EBITDA. (See Exhibit 3.)

On the basis of our analysis, we believe that companies may discover opportunities to acquire both healthy brands and brands that need a partner to provide a needed influx of capital. Earlier BCG research showed that deals made in a weak economy create more value for buyers than those made in a strong economy; a year after an acquisition, relative shareholder return is nearly 7% higher, and after two years, the difference increases to more than 9%. Brands can pursue M&As to acquire direct competitors to expand horizontally and increase scale and market share; integrate across the supply chain into production or last-mile delivery; buy adjacent products or capabilities in order to diversify their product portfolios; or buy AI or digital startups, for example, to gain competencies to enhance their core business.

The next two to three years could be the most tumultuous that most people in the fashion industry will ever know. Agile, decisive brands that can free up capital to invest can set themselves up to create advantage in adversity. They can right-size operations and adopt new business practices while continuing to give customers what they want. Make no mistake, though, these actions will not be easy, and the window for taking them will be brief. But brands that act quickly can give themselves a better chance of not just surviving the chaos but becoming stronger because of it.

About Boston Consulting Group

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders-empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.

Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.

© Boston Consulting Group 2021. All rights reserved.

For information or permission to reprint, please contact BCG at permissions@bcg.com. To find the latest BCG content and register to receive e-alerts on this topic or others, please visit bcg.com. Follow Boston Consulting Group on Facebook and Twitter.

Featured Content

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The crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic hit the fashion industry especially hard. Online shopping surged, but not enough to erase the damage done by store closings and economic worries, which caused people to curtail spending on nonessential goods. Industry revenue this year could drop by more than one-third, the equivalent of up to $640 billion in lost sales.

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Opportunities-The State of Fashion Report

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Opportunities-The State of Fashion Report

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How Instagram Engagement Rate Calculator works

You type in the username of any non-private Instagram account (influencer or brand) and get the Engagement Rate (ER). Simple, isn't it?

You don't need to connect your account to use our Instagram ER Calculator. The analysis is based on posts that the influencer has right now; therefore, you could easily check the ER on your own profile or the profiles of your competitors.

In some cases, we'll ask you to check CAPTCHA.

How to calculate ER

Instagram ER calculator takes the total number of likes and comments from the most recent 18 posts. These are then divided by 18 (to gain average per post). The calculator divides this by the account's current quantity of followers, then multiplies it by 100%. So, the Engagement rate formula looks like this:
ER = (( Likes + Comments ) / Posts ) / Followers * 100%
Post Engagements / Number of Followers

The last 18 posts are analyzed as follows:
ER = (( Post 1 Likes + Post 1 Comments + Post 2 Likes + Post 2 Comments + ... + Post 18 Likes + Post 18 Comments) / 18 ) / Followers * 100%
As a worked example, take an account with 100k followers and 200 posts. The past 18 posts can be summarized as 6 posts with 10k likes and 10 comments, 6 posts with 8k likes and 20 comments, and 6 posts with 11k likes and 3 comments.

So engagement rate formula will be: ((((10000+10)*6+(8000+20)*6+(11000+3)*6)/18)/100000)*100% = 9.68%

In real life, every post has a unique number of likes and comments (otherwise, there could be fake likes), so this formula will be much longer. On the surface, this calculation looks complicated, but this is one simple formula in Excel.So it's time-consuming, not complicated, because you need to type in all the posts statistics by hand.

Why do we check the last 18 posts?

We've completed research to determine that a review of 18 posts is sufficient to understand ER for the majority of accounts - from profiles with one post per week to fan groups with dozens of publications per day. If the account has published fewer than 18 posts, we'll divide by the number of posts.

In addition,there is a question if we should add statistics of deleted posts.

It is common practice in some countries to limit the time that promotions are active. For example, an influencer posts something mentioning a brand, but there are 3 price options: 1 day, 3 days, and forever. That means the influencer deletes the publication after this period of time. So, our calculator summarizes this type of post too.

Why do you need an Engagement Rate Calculator for Instagram

Having seen the long calculation process, it is very time-consuming to complete this by hand. Furthermore, in order to gather the data necessary, you need to export all the posts' statistics and then use a formula to get the final ER value. Hooray! It's Excel time.

Why would anybody calculate ER by hand when there is a free online solution?
Our free online Instagram ER calculator helps to:

1. Get ER in a few seconds

2. Analyze any non-private account from 500 followers

3. See the main info about an account

4. Get a follower growth history

So, you get basic information about accounts for free. By the way, a follower growth graph shows if there is an organic or suspicious increase in subscribers. It's one of the simplest ways to reveal giveaway or inauthentic growth.

Read our article about tools for tracking daily followers growth.

How to use the Engagement Rate Calculator to find influencers for your brand

Start with an Engagement Rate check.

Whilst there may be a lot of methods for manual searches, including:

Promo campaigns from non-competitive brands

Instagram recommendations

Google searches (like "top sports influencers in Brazil")

Hashtag searches

Other influencers' mentions

Direct collaboration offers for managers

Your colleague or mom likes this influencer (word of mouth)

All these methods, however, will lead you to the moment when you need to check ER. It's the most common and basic check. It helps you to figure out if it's ok to continue communications with an influencer or not.

For example, you have an offer from an influencer's manager in Direct. Just use this calculator to quantify this influencer ER. If their ER is below average, you could decide not to waste time on integration and politely refuse their offer.

If you need hundreds of influencers, you could use our influencer discovery feature, which boasts a 90M+ database and 15+ filters, including category, size and demographics, and keywords. Try it for free.

What is an Instagram Engagement Rate

Engagement rate (ER) is one of the metrics used to gain an overall evaluation of an Instagram account. In its most common meaning, it's the sum of likes and comments divided by the number of posts and the number of followers. More about how to use Engagement Rate

What does Engagement rate tell us about influencers

ER is one of the most commonly used metrics in influencer marketing. So, why is Instagram Engagement so important?

The reason is Instagram algorithms. In fact, if you post something, it will not necessarily be shown to all of your followers. Dozens of algorithms are used to decide whether content will appear in someone's feed or explore section. ER is particularly influential in this because Instagram wants more engaging posts in its customers' feeds. More engaging posts → more time spent on Instagram.

It is important to understand that follower quantity means nothing in influencer marketing.

There could be an influencer with one million subscribers and 0.1% ER. Or someone with 10k followers and 10% ER. They will both have a similar reach. If you are looking for an influencer to collaborate with, you will choose the one with an engaged audience and higher reach. That's the main point of marketing, and therefore, ER is incredibly important.

So, in short, ER helps you to choose the right influencers at the start of a campaign.

What is the average Instagram Engagement Rate in 2022

Average ER depends on the country, category, and size of the influencer's following.

For example, influencers from the USA have higher ER than similar accounts in Brazil or India; nano influencers have better average ER compared to macro-influencers; sports influencers engage their audience better than lifestyle-focused influencers. Brands often have lower ER than influencers.

Average and good Engagement Rate according to influencer's size:

Nano-influencers (5-10k followers): average - 2.6%; good - 5.9%; excellent - 11.2%

Micro-influencers (10-100k followers): average - 1.8%; good - 4.1%; excellent - 8.1%

Macro-influencers (100k-1m followers): average - 1.5%; good - 3.6%; excellent - 7.3%

Celebrities (1m and more): average - 1.5%; good - 3.7%; excellent - 7.2%

This data is our benchmark based on an analysis of 7.5 million Instagram accounts.

So, you need to compare similar accounts by size, type and category to make a decision.

For example, you shouldn't compare Mary, who has 832k followers and 4.3% ER, to Katty (18k followers, 14% ER). They are fundamentally different. In this case, you could even have different goals for campaigns with these opinion leaders. To compare, you need to predict the CPM or conversion rate for your campaign.

Why is my Instagram engagement so low?

There could be a lot of reasons, from a low-quality audience gathered previously to problems with your content (your audience wants to see something else from you). We have an article about low ER and methods to increase it.

Does Engagement Rate Calculator help to find fake followers

The answer is, most likely, no.

Whilst a very low ER (0.5% and below) could give you an indication of fake followers; you would need a full report to know for sure.

Basically, ER shows the number of reactions but not the authenticity of these reactions or accounts. There are a lot of methods to get fake or inauthentic likes, comments, or followers, including:

Bots

Follows for follows

Liketime and giveaways

Engagement pods (a community of individuals who have united with the purpose to assist each other with the promotion of Instagram posts and get an increase in ERs)

Mass following and mass likes

All these methods could result in a high number of likes and followers but not a loyal audience. They will also all affect Engagement Rate.

So a low ER is an indicator of possible fake followers, and a high ER means that you need to research more to understand why this creator or opinion leader has such good statistics.

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Instagram Engagement Calculator - trendHERO

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Free online Engagement Rate calculator for Instagram. Find out engagement rate for any non-private profile (brand or influencer)

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At the same time, the ecommerce growth rate more than doubled, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. As retailers faced lockdowns and layoffs, many questioned whether physical stores would survive.

Specific categories are leading the growth in store count: this year, discount, auto, and direct-to-consumer brands will make up over 50% of new store openings.

While physical retail has exceeded expectations, the pandemic has forever altered how we shop in person. Consumers expect stores to be digital-first, focused on speed, convenience, and community. As retailers navigate the future of physical retail, they will need to transform their store strategies to meet evolving customer needs.

In this article, we'll discuss:

New consumer habits

Consumers now expect complete control over their shopping journeys. "Today, shoppers have higher expectations than ever before," says Tolia.

The pandemic accelerated the demand for convenience and personalization. Customers want options that allow them to design their own shopping experience. Buy-online, pick-up-in-store ( ), appointment shopping, and self-checkout put shoppers in control.

Along with convenience, consumers will maintain a proclivity for health and safety. Shoppers will expect options like curbside pickup and to remain.

Although consumers expect a digital-first shopping experience, they also crave connection. After two years of social distancing, shoppers want opportunities for community and engagement.

Leap is seeing this trend in stores. "Customers still want and expect an immersive, high-touch experience," says Tolia. "If anything, they desire it more than ever... We see that shoppers are eager to engage with salespeople to learn about brands."

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Navigating a new retail landscape

These shifting consumer habits have transformed how retailers grow and operate stores.

Changing retail location strategies

Before the pandemic, brands prioritized high retail streets in cities like LA and NYC. Now, retailers are expanding to smaller markets and nontraditional retail centers.

Leap is also seeing a shift in where brands are opening stores. "While major cities like NYC, LA, and Chicago remain in demand, brands are also following population trends and prioritizing year-round warm-weather locations [such as] Florida, Texas, and Arizona," says Tolia.

Brands will continue experimenting with store formats that prioritize customer service as retailers navigate a new normal.

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Using stores to drive customer engagement and loyalty

Nate Checketts, CEO and cofounder of Rhone, sees stores as vital tools to tell the brandߴs story. Speaking on NRFߴs Retail Gets Real podcast, he said. "The why of brick-and-mortar for us is pretty simple. It works. Our in-store customers are more valuable to us."

Walsh agrees. "Stores are critical to driving brand awareness, profitability, [and] lifetime value. Weߴre getting better data about the ߵhalo effectߴ of opening stores on overall sales... Itߴs meaningful."

Retailers are using stores to deepen the consumerߴs connection with the brand. In a crowded social and ecommerce space, stores can drive engagement and loyalty.

Connecting online and offline

The biggest challenge for retailers will be creating a cohesive customer journey. Shoppers want a unified experience across online and offline channels. "While it may be much more complicated from the brandߴs perspective, the customer expects it to be seamless, so seamless it must be," says Tolia.

From BOPIS programs to virtual shopping, retailers have more options than ever to connect with consumers. Brands will need to decide what programs and digital tools work best for their business.

According to Jackson, "A custom approach [will] determine what makes the most sense for each business type. The simplest place to start is mapping the customer journey with your brand. Where does it start?...What brought them further into the journey? What happens along the way?"

With Shopify POS, you can accept exchanges for purchases made online or at another store location and your inventory will be updated instantly-no manual reconciliation required.

Digital-first in practice

Here are some ways retailers are using digital tools to create a seamless customer journey.

Digital-first customer discovery

Champs has created a digital virtual reality experience at their new "Homefield" store. The "Champs Sports Combine" encourages customers to test new products. Shoppers can take part in virtual shuttle runs or test their high jump.

Digital-first customer education

Brands are also using digital tools in-store to familiarize customers with their products.

Lush introduced the "Lush Lens" as part of their effort to reduce packaging waste. Shoppers can use the Lush app to scan a product with their smartphone. The app will access the productߴs description, ingredient list, and price.

Digital-first personalized customer experience

Digital-first community building

Roark, an adventure lifestyle brand, uses physical stores to drive storytelling. The brand releases two collections a year based on a particular travel destination. Customers can follow "the adventure" on social media and in the Roark Journal. Roark also infuses elements of the collections in its store design to keep stores fresh.

While the future of stores seemed questionable in March 2020, brands are now more confident than ever in physical retail.

As consumer habits evolve, brands will need to shift how they grow and operate stores to meet those expectations. However, brick and mortar stores have been and will remain an integral part of serving customers and connecting with local communities.

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Digital retail FAQ

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The Future of Physical Retail in a Digital-First World

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At the same time, the ecommerce growth rate more than doubled, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. As retailers faced lockdowns and layoffs, many questioned whether physical stores would survive. Specific categories are leading the growth in store count: this year, discount, auto, and direct-to-consumer brands will make up over 50% of new store openings.

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After the worst 18 months in retail history, luxury brands are making their new stores hyper local for the creative crowd. Hannah Marriott heads to Shoreditch's biggest openings to see how they live up to the eastern promise

This may sound like Bond Street behaviour but I'm watching this scene unfold in east London, where the mega-brand has recently popped up just off Redchurch Street, covering the Sir David Adjaye-designed former house of artist Sue Webster in yellow-and-turquoise monograms. But while it might be the most visible, Gucci is far from the only luxury brand making waves in the area.

Shore thing: Gucci's Shoreditch pop-up

"Customers might have that Berlin vibe, be more into industrial design. People who are affluent but are looking for a different energy"

Bottega Veneta's Shoreditch space at the Tea Building;

Most Read

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Why London's high fashion stores are heading east

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After the worst 18 months in retail history, luxury brands are making their new stores hyper local for the creative crowd. Hannah Marriott heads to Shoreditch's biggest openings to see how they live up to the eastern promise

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Retailers Need To Engage Shoppers’ Five Senses To Save Physical Retail

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Too many retailers are overlooking the most powerful competitive weapon in their arsenal against the onslaught of e-commerce retailers: the ability to activate and engage shoppers with a multi-sensory experience in-store.

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Luxury brands spent decades turning design, aspiration, and high-quality goods into a $380 billion global behemoth. The coronavirus pandemic changed it all in a few short months. Sales have plummeted, leading to forecasts for a precipitous decline in 2020 revenue and massive uncertainty about the ability of many brands to rebound. The long-term impact of the crisis on brands will be just as dramatic, accelerating shifts in consumption and consumer preferences that will upset the existing equilibrium of power.

BCG believes that industries of all kinds-including luxury-will go through a three-phase recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, one that we call " Flatten, Fight, and Future." Based on our discussions with luxury brands' C-suite leaders, we believe the industry faces a protracted Fight phase, where regions gradually restart their economies but business outlooks remain uncertain because of the potential for the virus to reemerge. At the same time, brands are grappling with a fundamental shift in what "luxury" means, as consumers become more environmentally and socially aware and digital channels become more important as sources of inspiration and sales. Companies that respond by streamlining operations, redefining luxury to be less conspicuous and more inclusive, and investing in new ways of doing business are more likely to not just power through these uncertain, changing times but emerge stronger for the future.

The End of Luxury's Golden Era

The crisis has slowed a decade of growth across luxury categories that was buoyed by a bullish global economy and the relative affluence of Chinese consumers, who in recent years accounted for 35% of luxury purchases worldwide. Growth was further spurred by the democratization of luxury goods ushered in by lower opening price points, excitement over new categories such as high-end sneakers and casualwear, and collaborations between labels.

Now, even the most optimistic forecasts show sales of luxury goods dropping 25% to 45% in 2020. (See Exhibit 1.) In a best-case scenario, where a vaccine becomes available or the economic ramifications of the pandemic are not too severe, people will resume shopping and traveling and give a boost to luxury goods sales. But in a worst-case scenario, where a vaccine takes longer to develop or the recession is more severe, companies will struggle to regain momentum and people's ability and willingness to buy luxury goods will suffer.

Taking these factors into account, we expect that the industry's recovery will be gradual. Although performance will vary across individual categories, we believe that a worst-case scenario could cause overall sales in 2021 to be 20% lower than in 2019, followed by a somewhat smaller decline in 2022. By 2023 and beyond, we expect sales in most categories to return to precrisis levels.

For now, though, the new reality is upending the status quo in several ways.

Current events are reshaping how people think and behave. The COVID-19 crisis and recent protests to end racism have made existing social inequities even more apparent and people less comfortable with easy and conspicuous affluence. The COVID-19 pandemic paused travel and travel-related shopping for the foreseeable future. It's also driven more people to shop online, including those who avoided it in the past. Luxury slowly had begun to become more diverse and inclusive. In light of the current state of the world, that move is now nonnegotiable.

Category sales are shifting. Although consumers are spending less on luxury goods during and immediately after lockdown periods, brands whose products are perceived to be timeless have not and will not be affected as much as those that are more dependent on fashion trends and fads. In addition, categories that are further along in incorporating digital platforms and technologies into sales and distribution channels should fare better.

We believe skin care, makeup, footwear, and leather goods are in the best position to rebound. Sales in these categories are less tied to seasons, holidays, or other key moments than are others, and online sales are already relatively strong. We expect that sales in these categories will decline in 2020 but recover faster than others, potentially reaching precrisis levels in 2021 or 2022.

By contrast, watches and jewelry will on average face more challenges because of their continued strong reliance on sales through physical and wholesale channels, and because of the extreme drop in international travel. Today, e-commerce accounts for only 10% of watch sales and 5% of jewelry and eyewear sales. Ready-to-wear brands also will struggle; any revenue they realize from a seasonal rebound could be offset by the need to offer discounts to sell off excess inventory. We expect sales in these categories to drop by 35% to 50% this year and not reach precrisis levels until at least 2023.

Countries are recovering at different rates. China experienced the worst of the crisis ahead of most other places, and the Chinese economy has already recovered to the point where GDP growth is forecast to surpass the 2019 increase and continue to expand. Sales of luxury goods in China are expected to rebound and end the year as much as 10% above the 2019 mark, as more Chinese who normally shop for luxury goods when they travel stay home and spend in the country.

By contrast, European countries such as France, Italy, and the UK could suffer from the effects of the crisis well beyond 2020. In those countries, less international travel and weak local demand amid prolonged economic fallout from the crisis will continue to hurt sales of luxury goods. In the US and Japan, consumers expect the crisis to create a recession, and they plan to spend less on luxury goods as a result. In the US, the luxury market will be further hurt by the closings of some department stores and high-end retailers, as well as by the current social and political climate.

Online channels are blossoming. Some luxury brands had been cautious about venturing into e-commerce because it doesn't fit consumer expectations for a high-end shopping experience. But as more people bypass shopping in person for the convenience and relative safety of buying things online, luxury brands must accelerate sales through online channels.

The crisis hit department stores especially hard, and we expect them to continue to be affected unless they adopt more personalized "clienteling 2.0" sales practices and expand digital sales channels.

Challenges and Opportunities

Shifting economic, consumer, and societal trends present challenges and opportunities for luxury brands and retailers.

Demand for sustainability grows. Addressing consumer interest in sustainability is now table stakes for the industry. Brands must rethink their entire value chain to ensure that it is environmentally and ethically sound. Such a reevaluation could lead them to make a number of changes, including sourcing more materials locally, reducing their carbon footprint, providing more support for local communities, and supporting animal rights.

Diversity and inclusivity are must-haves. The year 2020 will be known as one of turmoil, but hopefully also one of change. The luxury business, as with all industries, must use the opportunity to make diversity and inclusivity a priority for their workforce and customers.

A quieter style of luxury emerges. The next decade will be one of uneasy affluence, with shoppers in many parts of the world reverting to less conspicuous forms of luxury. In a recent BCG consumer survey, more than half of the respondents expected their preference to increase for luxury items that are understated and everlasting. Chinese consumers, however, continue to prefer luxury items with embellishments, logos, and other visible adornments, a difference that could polarize luxury values between East and West.

Midterm tourist sales remain low. Because travel in most parts of the world is on hold, brands must find a way to make up for the revenue lost from a decline in sales to tourists, in particular the sales to individuals of ultrahigh net worth. To make up the difference, many brands will need to prioritize replacement of the revenue lost from Chinese tourists with sales to local markets.

Digital channels accelerate. Before the crisis, e-commerce accounted for 10% to 12% of luxury sales worldwide. Lockdown periods created a boom in online shopping, including higher sales to e-commerce novices. We expect new shopping behaviors to endure beyond the crisis, similar to how the SARS crisis in Asia was the turning point for digital and online platforms there. We also expect online shopping behaviors to continue to include not only transactions but also the inspiration stage of the purchase journey, which now accounts for a large portion of consumers' online shopping-related activity. Generation Z shoppers-those aged 5 to 25-in particular devote half of the time they spend making a purchase either seeking inspiration or inspiring others. More than 70% of the age group globally and 82% in the US decide what to buy during the inspiration stage of the purchase journey.

The market is significantly more volatile. The full extent of COVID-19's impact on the industry and the impending recession remains to be seen. To navigate the uncertainties, brands must develop the ability to track, analyze, and act on signs of trends in demand. Data analysis will play a larger role in such intelligence gathering, allowing brands to create and deliver the right merchandise to the right place at the right time. We also expect to see more industry consolidation, with size and scale becoming even more important than they were in the previous decade.

How Luxury Brands Can Win in the New Reality

Brands that address challenges and opportunities without delay will be in a better position to navigate the new reality. In the initial Flatten phase, luxury players prioritized protecting their people and cash. Some switched to making personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer, and other essentials. In most regions, brands now are transitioning to the Fight phase, where they need to reset and streamline operations and invest in areas that will drive advantage into the Future phase of the new luxury reality. (See Exhibit 2.)

Reset and Streamline
Companies must rethink what, when, and how they sell in order to recalibrate operations to meet a changed sales picture.

Reset distribution. To reengineer distribution, brands must bolster their presence in key cities in the regions where they operate, because as long as travel restrictions inhibit tourist-related purchases, those areas will represent a larger portion of sales. To attract more local clientele, brands must step up their value proposition, offering more merchandise that's relevant to local shoppers, sourcing more merchandise closer to home, and spending more on local marketing.

Because department stores continue to operate under pressure, brands must take care to partner with successful enterprises even as they build out their direct-to-consumer channels-including their own stores. We expect brands to sell through multiple digital channels, including their own websites, digital-only pure players such as Net-A-Porter and Farfetch, and social networks. In addition to selling merchandise, digital channels have become essential inspiration points in the prepurchase phase of the consumer journey. To win over luxury buyers, brands must invest in boosting their visibility in these channels, offering such amenities as virtual try-ons and giving customers a more personalized shopping experience. We also expect the recessionary economies in some regions to accelerate growth of platforms that sell preowned merchandise. Luxury brands will need to determine if and how to engage with these platforms.

Make supply chains more efficient and agile. To respond faster to shifting market conditions, reduce time to market, and decrease exposure to market volatility, brands must reinvent their supply chain and renegotiate supplier relationships. To create a more agile supply chain that allows them to be more flexible, brands may need to shift from high-volume manufacturing partners to producers that operate more factories located closer to customers. That way they can cut delivery times and improve time to market. They would also have redundant coverage should factories in certain areas shut down because of a public health crisis or become inaccessible owing to trade wars. We expect some brands to integrate vertically, particularly large companies and conglomerates that would benefit from acquiring manufacturing capacity if controlling the means of production could earn them a competitive edge.

Reset costs to adjust the P&L. To counter the near-term reality of lower revenue and preserve operating profits, luxury brands must reshape their P&L. They must adjust costs across the board, including such fundamentals as the cost of goods sold, rent, and personnel.

Rethink the fashion calendar. Even before the crisis, the fashion and luxury industries were working to reconcile the disconnect between the long-entrenched cycles for unveiling, delivering, and marking down merchandise and the reality of consumers' shopping habits, preferences, and needs. The crisis has intensified the need to change in order to reduce expenses, increase margins, and operate more sustainably, among other things. Such a change is no small undertaking. It would require overhauling a brand's entire fashion calendar, including the number of collections it produces each year and when, where, and how those collections are shown and delivered. And it would have a trickle-down effect on wholesale and e-commerce channels.

Implement a zero-based organization redesign. Implementing a zero-based organization redesign is another way that luxury brands can make their cost structure leaner and more agile. In the process, a company considers what it would need if it were to launch today, and then it puts those systems in place, including data analytics to forecast and augment decision making and identify cost savings. A zero-based reorganization could lead a company to adopt a bionic operating model, one that seamlessly integrates the capabilities of people and technology. A bionic operating model also gives brands the chance to digitize product development and their supply chain to be more agile and effective.

Invest

If brands successfully revamp operations, they may be able to free up the resources necessary to expand into new sales channels and to invest in such areas as data analytics and artificial intelligence.

Address the changing consumer. Luxury brands haven't always made consumer concerns the center of their business. They need to now, starting with making diversity and inclusivity a key objective, with clear plans and performance targets. Efforts to become more diverse should encompass personnel at all levels-from retail staff up to and including the C-suite and board. Brands also need to make sustainability a key pillar in everything they do. This is not only about growing consumer demand. Going green now could serve as a hedge against rising commodity prices and the stricter environmental regulations that are expected in some parts of the world. Brands must take similar steps to address consumer demand for purpose and social consciousness in the companies they patronize. To remain relevant to the next generation of customers, they must do a better job of sharing their purpose and values, and demonstrating their heritage and authenticity. And underlying all this will be the need to, with some notable exceptions, cater to a quieter, less conspicuous form of luxury that is characterized by temperance, slow fashion, and quality.

Invest in inspiration. If consumers are spending more time in the inspiration phase of the purchase journey, then brands need to be there as well, including on social channels such as Instagram and WeChat. To be culturally credible, brands need to cultivate an image that's both aspirational and accessible, and they must make it easy for their audience to communicate and interact with them. Brands can use their social channels to show how they participate in social, civic, environmental, and other causes. To be as transparent and authentic as possible, they should also collaborate with third parties-to deepen their awareness of local groups and subcultures-and support cultural pioneers and the circles they direct.

Embrace clienteling 2.0. As shopping preferences and habits evolve, brands must develop tools for engaging with high-end customers. In the next decade, we believe this will mean focusing on clienteling 2.0, combining people and data by, for example, using machine learning to share relevant information with salespeople in order to improve how they engage with customers. A number of brands and retailers are already testing this concept; some found success during pandemic-generated lockdowns, after turning store associates into digital stylists and having them engage with consumers and sell merchandise directly through WeChat and Instagram. In our client work, we've seen companies that implement clienteling 2.0 boost sales by 10% to 15%.

Accelerate the digital ecosystem. Many luxury brands have been slow to embrace digital channels, but given how many people shopped online for the first time during the pandemic-including some who bought luxury goods-they need to catch up, and quickly. Brands must create online experiences that feel exclusive and beyond what nonluxury retailers offer. Experiences should take into account not just shopping and purchase transactions but also related activities such as fashion shows, private showings, personal shoppers, white-glove delivery, and other customized services.

Build an AI-driven technology backbone. Adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics, and other components of an enterprise-wide technology backbone will become a key differentiator in the industry. If the Fight phase of crisis recovery continues for some time, it may be difficult to predict product trends, at least in the near term. Brands can use AI to steer the way, doing pulse checks on buying patterns, for example, to improve demand tracking and analysis and gain insights that competitors might not have. AI also can help brands manage manufacturing and stock in a more agile way. The benefits include improved in-season inventory management and markdowns. And it can help them customize their value proposition to a hyperpersonalized level.

Bring fresh skills to the workforce. The pursuit of talent with the necessary skills will be one of the luxury industry's biggest challenges in the coming decade. The industry needs data engineers, data scientists, analysts, and other digitally savvy talent-all people whose talents make them highly sought after. There will also be a need to upskill existing talent as AI and advanced analytics continue to transform all areas of the value chain.

The times and changing attitudes are redefining the meaning of luxury, forcing brands to rethink every aspect of their business. The key imperatives are operating more sustainably, ensuring diversity and inclusivity, embracing digital capabilities, and integrating people and technology. Companies with timeless, classic products and the cash to upgrade to these new ways of doing business will consolidate power at the expense of brands that fail to act.

Guia Ricci

Principal

Milan

Alexandre Prénaud

Principal

Paris

About Boston Consulting Group

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation-inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact.

To succeed, organizations must blend digital and human capabilities. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives to spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting along with technology and design, corporate and digital ventures-and business purpose. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, generating results that allow our clients to thrive.

© Boston Consulting Group 2020. All rights reserved.

For information or permission to reprint, please contact BCG at permissions@bcg.com. To find the latest BCG content and register to receive e-alerts on this topic or others, please visit bcg.com. Follow Boston Consulting Group on Facebook and Twitter.

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Luxury brands spent decades turning design, aspiration, and high-quality goods into a $380 billion global behemoth. The coronavirus pandemic changed it all in a few short months. Sales have plummeted, leading to forecasts for a precipitous decline in 2020 revenue and massive uncertainty about the ability of many brands to rebound.

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The US and Europe are still leading while new luxury markets are emerging. In 2022, the luxury market generated positive growth for 95% of brands.

The global luxury market is projected to grow by 21% in 2022, reaching €1.4 trillion; the personal luxury goods market is expected to show accelerated growth of 22% to €353 billion

The personal luxury market is projected to see further growth of at least 3-8% next year, even given a downturn in global economic conditions, and to 2030, by when the market value is expected to climb to around €540-580 billion, a rise of 60% or more compared to 2022

Generational trends are a powerful driver, with 'Gen Y' and 'Gen Z' continue leading the growth this year, and spending by Gen Z and 'Gen Alpha' set to grow some three times faster than for other generations until 2030, by when they will make up a third of the market

MILAN-November 15, 2022-The global luxury goods market took a further leap forward during 2022, despite highly uncertain economic and consumer market conditions. And it remains poised to see further expansion next year, and for the rest of the decade to 2030, even in the face of present economic turbulence, the 21 st edition of the Bain & Company-Altagamma Luxury Study, says today.

The global luxury goods industry overall is projected to achieve a market value of some €1.4 trillion in sales revenue this year, growing by 21% from 2021 (at current exchange rates), according to the latest Bain & Company report with Altagamma, the Italian luxury goods manufacturers' industry association.

The personal luxury goods industry, in particular, saw a further growth acceleration this year, coming on the heels of the V-shaped rebound enjoyed in 2021, the research shows. Boosted by a strong market performance across quarters, and despite macro-economic indicators worsening globally, as well as specific challenges in China, the personal luxury sector is set to see the value of its sales jump to €353 billion in 2022, marking an advance of 22% at current exchange rates (or 15% at constant exchange rates) versus the previous year, the study projects.

The performance of the last quarter of this year, in determining the final outcome for 2022, will largely depend on the progressive lifting of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions in China, as well as evolution of European and American luxury consumer confidence in the face of rising inflation and cost of living pressures, and potential recession in the US and European economies, the report notes.

But despite present and continuing economic challenges, the luxury market continued to perform strongly throughout this year to date, with winners for brands across the board, and positive growth for some 95% of brands, today's report concludes.

Yet luxury brand players are continuing to invest in future growth, even in the face of high inflation and rising costs, so that their profitability is slightly decreasing, following an unprecedented increase in 2021.

"The nouvelle vague - the new wave - of the luxury goods market will demand evolution amid disruption, adaptation amid uncertainty, and an expansion of creativity in all of the basics - all while new trends and concepts develop", said Claudia D'Arpizio, a Bain & Company partner and leader of Bain's Global Luxury Goods and Fashion practice, the lead author of the study.
2023 luxury market now set to be more resilient to recession than during the 2009 global financial crisis
Even in the face of recessionary conditions expected across leading economies into 2023, the Bain and Altagamma analysis forecasts further expansion in sales and market value for luxury goods through the coming year and decade.

The analysis notes that, even with a possible global recession next year, the impact on the industry could be different from that of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

The luxury market now appears better equipped to cope with economic turbulence with its consumer base both larger and more concentrated, and customer-centricity and a multi-touchpoint ecosystem set to provide resiliency amid disruptions, the report finds.

As a result, Bain-Altagamma analysis sets out two scenarios, with sales growth in the personal luxury goods market set to be between 3 to 5% or 6 to 8% (at constant exchange rates), depending on the strength of economic recovery in China and the ability of the US and Europe to withstand economic headwinds.
Tech-enabled profit pools and strong generational trends to drive 60%+ market growth to 2030
Prospects for personal luxury goods market out to 2030 are also highly positive, today's analysis concludes. It finds that solid market fundamentals and new tech-enabled profit pools, are set to boost the market's value to €540-580 billion by the end of the present decade, from €353 billion estimated for 2022 - a rise of 60% or more.

A powerful factor for sector growth in the rest of the decade will be generational trends, the analysis reports. 'Gen Y' and 'Gen Z' accounted for the entire growth of the market in 2022, it notes. In coming years, the spending of Gen Z and 'Gen Alpha' is set to grow some three times faster than for other generations until 2030, making up a third of the market. This is, in part, driven by a more precocious attitude towards luxury, with Gen Z consumers starting to buy luxury items some 3 to 5 years earlier than Millennials (at 15 years-old, versus at 18-20), and Gen Alpha expected to behave in a similar way.

This generational factor is one of the critical trends affecting the development of the luxury market in 2022, and for the rest of the decade, that are highlighted by today's report. Taken together, the study characterizes these trends as the 'nouvelle vague' - or 'new wave' - of developments for the sector.

Commenting on the critical trends and themes for the luxury industry up to 2030, Federica Levato, partner at Bain & Company and leader of the firm's EMEA Luxury Goods and Fashion practice, co-author of today's report, said: "In their path to 2030, luxury brands will need to leverage their cultural avant-garde position and insurgent excellence to overcome the challenges ahead and shape the world. Just as they recently did through excellent products and human-centric engagement, they must now deal with new priorities: ESG, creativity chain, tech & data. These domains are rich with opportunities for luxury brands - but investments for future growth are crucial."
The other five key trends identified in the report are: Old continents are still leading, but new markets are surprising
While US luxury market is still strong, and Europe managed to recover beyond 2019 thanks to solid local demand alongside an extra-boost from US and Middle Eastern tourist shoppers, new markets are surprising the industry. South-east Asia and Korea are winning in terms of growth and potential.
Stores are winning back their role
Although there will never be "another China" in terms of growth' contribution to the industry, India and emerging Southeast Asian and African countries have a significant potential nevertheless. Yet, they still require an infrastructure catch-up to facilitate the expansion locally. Among the rising stars, India stands out for growth potential, which could see its luxury market expand to 3.5 times today's size by 2030, propelled by an increasing interest and evolving attitudes and behaviors among (young) customers towards luxury goods.
Expanding customer base, yet elevated
Meanwhile, China itself, which remains crucial to the long-term of the luxury market, continues to confront a challenging phase due to Covid lockdowns and is still performing below 2021 figures. China's luxury market is expected to recover between H1 and H2 2023.
Over-performance of all categories, restocking wardrobe in the rising "post-streetwear" era
Retail continues to dominate, while online channels are seeing a normalization in their growth. The coming years will see a further blurring of the boundaries between 'mono-brand' and ecommerce, which will increasingly push brands to take an 'Omnichannel 3.0' approach, enabled and enhanced by new technologies.

The luxury market's consumer base is broadening with some 400 million consumers in 2022 expected to expand to 500M by 2030. This market growth is driven by factors that go beyond aspiration, with consumers becoming more knowledgeable and choosy, and intensified competition for loyalty and advocacy. The higher and top end of the luxury market is also expanding at the same time and accounted for some 40% of market value in 2022 compared with 35% last year, with these consumers hungry for unique products and experiences, and putting brands VIC (Very Important Client) strategies into overdrive.
Luxury and art are converging
All luxury categories have now recovered to 2019 levels or better, with hard luxury, leather and apparel leading the resurgence following the pandemic. A deliberate (and effective) 'elevation strategy' has driven a progressive price increase across the industry (driving around 60% of the 2019-2022 growth) without damaging volume growth.
Media contacts: For any questions or to arrange an interview, please contact:
This trend has also been reflected in product categories, through the shift to the 'post-streetwear' era, which maintains some elements of so-called streetwear (such as gender fluidity, occasion-less apparel, inclusivity and sports-driven inspiration) but goes beyond its style codes through new and enhanced techniques, materials and functionalities.

Luxury is converting into art, with the ultimate objective of transcending from its original form, rooted in craftmanship and functional excellence, towards broader meanings, empowered by imagination and symbolic power, to build its handmade creations.

Gary Duncan (London) - Email: gary.duncan@bain.com

Orsola Randi (Milan) - Email: orsola.randi@bain.com Tel: +39 339 327 3672

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Global luxury goods market takes 2022 leap forward and remains poised for further growth despite economic turbulence

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The US and Europe are still leading while new luxury markets are emerging. In 2022, the luxury market generated positive growth for 95% of brands.

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The mouth watering aroma of chocolate is down to a chemical that gives roses their fragrance, according to a new study

The mouth watering aroma of chocolate is down to a chemical that gives roses their fragrance, according to a new study.

Roasted cocoa beans are rich in beta-ionone - found in perfume and essential oils, say scientists.

The breakthrough explains why chocolate is so alluring - and could lead to even tastier snack bars, suggests the research.

Brits are among the biggest consumers - devouring an average of around 1.5 tonnes worth more than £12,000 in their lifetime. They tuck into an average 7,004 bars - weighing in at 700lbs.

The smell alone is usually enough to evoke strong cravings from even the most disciplined eaters.

Much like a fine wine, high quality chocolate has a multi layered scent and flavour with notes of vanilla, banana or vinegar.

Now a German team has identified the substances that make up this heavenly aroma - opening the door to unique 'designer chocolates'.

They bought two types of dark chocolate, each with a distinctive aroma, from a local grocery store.

Using state of the art techniques called extract and stable isotope dilution analyses, they identified the volatile compounds that contributed to the scents.

These are chemicals that transform into gases easily at room temperature - and are inhaled along with the air we breathe.

That brings them into contact with more than 900 odorant receptors in the upper half of the nostril - making us crave chocolate.

Some, such as beta-ionone that makes violets and roses smell so nice, have never been identified in chocolate before.

Using the data, the researchers then reconstructed the aromas of both chocolate varieties. These smelled very similar to the original bars, a trained sensory panel decided.

The findings published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, may help manufacturers control and improve the flavour of chocolate bars by assessing the key components in their mixtures.

Dr Carolin Seyfried, of the Technical University of Munich, said: "Chocolate is one of the most-consumed treats around the world.

"Flavour is more than just what the tongue tastes - smell also plays a key role, with many compounds working together to create a unique sensory experience.

"Although nearly 600 compounds have been identified in chocolate over the last century, only a fraction of them are known to contribute to the aroma."

Previous studies have identified compounds responsible for the scent of milk and dark chocolates.

But it has been unclear how much of each component is needed to make something smell specifically like dark chocolate.

So Dr Seyfried and co author Dr Michael Granvogl decided to build the scent from scratch for the first time.

They said: "In summary, this study is the rst to successfully characterise the key aroma compounds in dark chocolate.

"Owing to its production with fermentation and roasting steps, the aroma of chocolate and cocoa products is very complex, containing a relatively high number of odorants, and thus more than 25 compounds were needed to simulate the overall aroma."

The researchers were funded by the Research Association of the German Food Industry through the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy.

An earlier study by the same group found the aroma of roasted cocoa beans - the key ingredient for chocolate - emerges from a host of substances.

Individually these smell like potato chips, cooked meat, peaches, raw beef fat, cooked cabbage, human sweat, earth, cucumber and honey.

Chocolate pioneer Professor Peter Schieberle, who runs the lab, says: "To develop better chocolate, you need to know the chemistry behind the aroma and taste substances in cocoa and other ingredients.

"That understanding must begin with the flavor substances in the raw cocoa bean, extend through all the processing steps and continue as the consumer eats the chocolate.

"When you put chocolate in your mouth, a chemical reaction happens. Some people just bite and swallow chocolate. If you do that, the reaction doesn't have time to happen, and you lose a lot of flavour."

Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, the seeds of the cacao tree. But they have to be processed to bring out their characteristic flavour.

This starts with fermentation, in which the moist seeds sit for days in baskets covered with banana leaves while yeasts and bacteria grow on the beans and alter their nature.

The beans are dried in the sun and then roasted. Worldwide, about 3 million tons of cocoa are produced each year.

Cocoa production developed over the years by trial and error, not by scientific analysis, so the substances that give chocolate its subtle flavours were largely unknown.

Over the past three decades Prof Schieberle's team has uncovered many secrets of chocolate's allure.

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Scientists reveal why the smell of chocolate is so appealing

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The mouth watering aroma of chocolate is down to a chemical that gives roses their fragrance, according to a new study The mouth watering aroma of chocolate is down to a chemical that gives roses their fragrance, according to a new study. Roasted cocoa beans are rich in beta-ionone - found in perfume and essential oils, say scientists.

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Manufacturers of apparel product are largely undertaken in Asia and other emerging markets of the Indo Pacific regions.

There are often political to social to economic or at times natural calamities or instability in the markets where there are readymade garments factories or plants. They have several upstream sub-contracting units as well, which form the ancillary or supporting actors to these main manufacturers.

Production is vulnerable to disruption from natural disasters (for instance flooding in the monsoon season). Logistic infrastructure's in these markets is also often very poor. The long distances moved to mean that transportation is vulnerable to disruption and delay due to poor condition of the roads & infrastructure.

Outsourcing of production means that relationships and communication are key to mitigating risks in terms of quality control, reliability of supply, and so on. Increasing interest in the conditions in which low-paid workers make goods has increased reputational risk for Western retailers and manufacturers, which we hear quite often these days due to awareness and collaborative actions of/by the rights groups or NGOs.

Short seasons for fashion items mean that the logistics of supply is crucial to businesses' success or failure. Many fashion retailers work with very low levels of inventory, using quick response (QR) manufacturing techniques which works in the overall efficacy but also places extra stress on the supply chain. In many respects, the international flows of fashion goods and the 'virtual enterprise networks that have sprung up resemble high-tech supply chains in their complexity. This so where the manufacturers still exist in Europe, they usually outsource the labor-intensive parts of the manufacturing process to low-wage Countries. This is slightly different from retailers buying goods directly from cheaper remote suppliers, as sub-contracting units are integrated within the manufacturer's internal supply chain.

Fabrics, cut parts, or semi-garments are shipped to lower-cost production regions where they are sewn in for re-import into Europe. Turkey, Poland, and Romania in Eastern Europe, Morocco, and Tunisia (in the Mediterranean regions) are amongst the most popular countries where this takes place.

Suppliers from these markets have become integrated into European suppliers' evolution towards QR. Where the QR supplier is located in regions such as Turkey and North Africa - that is, in low-cost areas but with easier access to the European Union -point-of-origin warehousing is often utilized. The customization of garments takes place in the warehouse and they are then cross-docked in the destination markets. This is much cheaper than undertaking the same services in a European warehouse, for example- Q.R manufacturing can be carried out in markets further afield, but it will usually rely on air freight for effect, thereby pushing up the logistics costs even further.

QR manufacturers must be able to

· Manufacture to shorter product run with short lead times.

· Produce trial runs in limited time

· Ramp up production to full runs in a short period

· Ensure quality & contract delivery schedules.

The most successful fashion retailers have been those that manage high-rotation products in small quantities. They also are able to purge their stores of non-selling stock, as it is expensive to store low-rotation garments and there is the opportunity cost related to not being able to stock best-sellers. Therefore there is a growing need for reverse logistics operations right the way through the season and not just at the end, as used to be the case. It may then be possible to re-distribute these goods to other stores, rather than sell them at a discount, As in the high-tech sector, many of the risks, therefore, come about because of the outsourced and remote nature of production, often in developing countries.

Efforts by companies such as Spanish retailer Zara have been focused on driving out internal' risks by Reducing inventory and product lifecycles and doing this in a smart way without driving up labor costs by over-reliance on European suppliers. This has meant, of course, that transport is critical to the fashion logistics supply chain. The fashion industry is also at risk from upstream bottlenecks or disruption affecting commodities. For instance, climatic conditions affecting the cotton harvest could have serious implications for the supply of raw materials. Because such conditions tend to impact whole regions, the effect is system-wide. This is perhaps one issue that is unique to this particular sector.

Sourcing clothing and textiles from foreign markets also carry with it other risks that are not as evident in other sectors. One of these is the impact of Quotas or Trade Volumes. TV still exists to limit the number of goods that can be imported from a certain market. When volumes exceed a certain level, punitive tariffs are applied. This obviously complicates supply chains, as retailers have to plan around these volume restrictions.

In recent years, consumer demands have made the business of supply chain management even & more challenging.

Trade or Supply chain experts report that retailers are no longer able to rely on consumers accepting fashion items reflecting the four distinct seasons (winter, spring, summer, and autumn). Instead, there are far more in-season changes, meaning that a fashion item may have a shelf life of only a few weeks before consumers move on to new colors, designs, or textures.

At a micro-level, but still highly significant, is the role that celebrity can play in influencing consumer tastes. Successful retailers are able to replicate the style of a dress worn by a particular high-profile person ad ensure that it is in their stores within days, using QR manufacturers in Southern or Eastern Europe. This leaves the retailers still attempting to forecast demand and source goods on a quarterly basis trailing in their wake.

Not every retailer has managed the change from locally sourced fashion to global supply chains successfully. In the early 2000s UK retailers- Next and M&S struggled initially to migrate from its traditionally UK-focused sourcing strategy when pricing pressures forced it to source from low-cost markets. It was not able to maintain a just-in-time delivery schedule to its stores, the quality fell and the range of goods on offer looked increasingly incoherent because of the large number of suppliers and designs used. This eventually impacted severely on the company's bottom line.

To reverse this trend, the retailer established a new supply chain strategy. To reduce complexity it focused 75 percent of its sourcing on a smaller number of key suppliers with whom it built personal relationships and who supplied the company directly, cutting out agents. The product design (taken in-house) and forecasting were directly integrated into supply chain management. The product became far more responsive to customer demands and suppliers became better able to fulfill this demand in a timely fashion. To further reduce risk, these retailers via their own local liaison teams have built relationships with their tier 2 suppliers, improving the reliability of raw material supply to its garment manufacturers.

M&S categorizes risks in a slightly different way from other retailers or manufacturers. They are divided into 'acceptable' and 'non- acceptable'. For example, market volatility, changes in fashion, the popularity of certain materials, and so on, are looked upon as being acceptable risks - the normal risks of being in the fashion business, so to speak. However, poor management of the supply base, lack of financial stability of the supply base, political risk, and the inability to develop a robust and achievable strategy are viewed as non-acceptable.

Summarize: The risk of the VUCA world is driving several supply chain elements to rely increasingly on the changing of technology and use to its potent to cut down on more and more on the lead time, cut manageable cost runs, improve quality, started to be more towards the cause of sustainability and creating value chain.

This is also applicable to every industry as all of them are being impacted in this and depending on the severity of the risk involved, an evolving plan is being drafted or is being put into action by industry giants. When fashion retailers were shocked by the Rana Plaza tragedy back in 2013, ( I was personally involved in the relief efforts of the human tragedy ) where there was an immense loss of life as products were being made of several known global brands, in those time a complete risk evaluations plan was drawn and managed along with my associates. In all of these tragedies, I have seen the lack of supply chain visibility, and the management's unpreparedness to deal with such unforeseen events was at the root cause of it.

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Manufacturers of apparel product are largely undertaken in Asia and other emerging markets of the Indo Pacific regions. There are often political to social to economic or at times natural calamities or instability in the markets where there are readymade garments factories or plants.

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At MATCHESFASHION are mission is to offer the most personal luxury shopping experience in the world. We are renowned and respected for the relationships we build with clients and our brand partnerships. To achieve our ambition, we capitalise on our unique combination of technical savviness and global innovation mixed with curated content. We like to think of it as logic meeting magic. When we come together, great things happen.

MATCHESFASHION started with a single shop in Wimbledon over 30 years ago and has grown into one of the biggest global destinations in online luxury for men and women, with a modern edit of over 450 established and new generation designers, delivering to over 176 countries. We are famous for our fashion point of view, with a forward-looking focus on innovation and emerging talent. Our aspiration is to be the most personal luxury shopping site in the world. We offer 24/7 advice through our fashion-concierge team MyStylist, as well as at our London stores and new retail experience, event space and broadcasting hub at 5 Carlos Place in Mayfair.

We live by these values:

We believe we all have a part to play: We are focused on the same goals and help one another succeed. Our company acts as one team and supports each other.

We are ambitious for our future: We are brave, try new things, test and learn to drive the right ideas forward. We also make the right decisions, always putting our customers at the heart.

We celebrate each other: We are respectful, kind and welcoming and take the time to reflect on our achievements, recognizing both big and small.

We lead the way, moving our industry forward, and we are always looking for talented individuals to join our team and help inspire the world with us. At MATCHESFASHION we believe that everyone has a part to play and we are committed to building a working environment with a balanced and inclusive culture. We want people to be themselves and be inspired to do their best work. We value difference and know it's key in driving the innovation that gives us our advantage as a brand.

MATCHESFASHION is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for our people.

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At MATCHESFASHION are mission is to offer the most personal luxury shopping experience in the world. We are renowned and respected for the relationships we build with clients and our brand partnerships. To achieve our ambition, we capitalise on our unique combination of technical savviness and global innovation mixed with curated content.

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Yker Valerio speakswith Professor Chahan Yeretzian of the ZHAW Coffee Excellence Center about the importance of reducing energy consumption in modern-day coffee shops.
Even before the recent rise in oil and gas prices, energy efficiency was a priority for many businesses around the world. And in few industries is it more pressing than in hospitality.

According to Energy Star, " restaurants use about five to seven times more energy per square foot than other commercial buildings ". As relatively high-consumption businesses, restaurants and cafés direct much of their energy use into refrigeration, lightning, and air-conditioning.

The global reach of coffee shop businesses adds to the relevance of their energy efficiency goals, not only also from an environmental point of view, but from an economic perspective.

Chahan Yeretzian is head of the Coffee Excellence Center at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). He explains that energy efficiency has a strong association with environmental, ethical, economic, and political implications.

"The ethical aspect of energy efficiency is paramount because energy consumption creates huge dependencies and environmental impacts," he says. "European countries are very energy dependent, so energy consumption is a political statement."

He adds that energy efficiency is also a selling point, as it can be high on the list of customer expectations.

Regarding the economic impact of energy efficiency, recent research backs its importance. According to the latest International Energy Agency (IEA) Energy Efficiency report, around 80% of additional energy efficiency gains over the next decade will result in savings for consumers.

Additionally, research by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute suggests that energy efficiency measures work faster and cost less than implementing renewable energies. In this regard, coffee shops of all sizes can benefit from improving their energy efficiency while contributing to the spreading of ethical business practices.

How to measure energy efficiency

Deciding where to start streamlining your energy consumption can be challenging. For that reason, learning to measure energy efficiency first is crucial.

A widely used approach is to perform an energy audit, which involves studying how a business uses energy and making recommendations for improvements. According to a recent study by the European Investment Bank, an energy audit is a valuable tool and is particularly effective for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Chahan claims that hiring an expert to perform an energy audit is essential, but a good start could be checking the energy consumption of existing equipment like coffee machines, dishwashers, and refrigerators.

"Nowadays, coffee machines and many other appliances have energy efficiency labels," he explains. "These will help coffee shop owners buy more efficient appliances, enhancing the overall energy efficiency."

However, detailed energy audits can sometimes be too challenging for business owners without extensive training and adequate equipment.

As such, following more accessible recommendations from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s DIY energy assessment guide can be quite helpful for business owners who don't have the budget to hire an expert.

Finding improvement areas for energy efficiency can start with the following steps:

Locate and seal air leaks and consider proper ventilation.

Check insulation levels at your premises. This is critical for old buildings, as insulation standards are always improving.

Inspect heating and cooling equipment and consider more efficient alternatives.

Evaluate your lightning and whether it's all necessary.

Determine the most critical areas for improvement, considering the findings, costs, and ease of implementation involved.

Improving energy efficiency

Replacing old appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners, dishwashers, batch coffee brewers, and espresso machines can help considerably improve a business' energy efficiency.

However, Chahan recommends avoiding buying high-performance appliances unnecessarily.

"It's common to see coffee shops with espresso machines equipped with four brewing units, when they rarely use more than two," he says

For this reason, it's crucial to buy energy-efficient coffee machines, such as those with dimmable and programmed lighting systems, that suit individual business needs.

Furthermore, the way your coffee business is structured can also cut energy use. "Roasting on-site can be surprisingly efficient compared with centralised roasting, and accounting for transport energy consumption," Chahan says.

Installing solar panels and reducing waste can boost energy efficiency, too. Solar panels can help coffee shops reduce their energy bills by generating renewable energy, while reducing waste or using sustainable packaging helps coffee shops save money and decreases the amount of waste in landfills.

This doesn't just help the coffee business - it also eases the strain on the services that process waste, resulting in lower energy consumption.

LED lighting is another area where coffee shops can make a big difference. They use much less energy than traditional light bulbs and last far longer.

However, focusing on the coffee shop itself isn't necessarily enough. These days, businesses can easily influence the behaviour of both partners and customers. That means that they have the potential to improve the energy efficiency of the entire value chain.

It's no exaggeration that coffee shops have more ways than ever to improve their energy efficiency than ever before.

So, start with an energy audit and adopt recommendations accordingly, and encourage business partners and customers to take steps toward a more energy-efficient coffee value chain. At the end of the day, it benefits all involved.

How to design an energy-efficient coffee shop

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How to design an energy-efficient coffee shop

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Yker Valerio speakswith Professor Chahan Yeretzian of the ZHAW Coffee Excellence Center about the importance of reducing energy consumption in modern-day coffee shops. Even before the recent rise in oil and gas prices, energy efficiency was a priority for many businesses around the world. And in few industries is it more pressing than in hospitality.

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Discover Boutiques in East London - Trouva

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Discover the best independent boutiques in East London at Trouva

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- Ken Blanchard

Our understanding of leadership must continually evolve to remain relevant and impactful in today's business climate. One method of leadership that develops an ability to meet the ever-changing needs of an organization and its employees is called Situational Leadership.

Situational Leadership is adaptive, flexible, weighs variables, and provides us with the tools to best suit our current circumstances and meet our desired goals. A leader who is capable of this approach will embody the following five characteristics (1):

1) Insight: A Situational Leader understands the needs of their employees, then adjusts their leadership style to meet those needs.

2) Flexibility: A Situational Leader moves seamlessly from one leadership style to another to meet current demands.

3) Trust: A Situational Leader gains the trust and confidence of their employees.

4) Problem Solving: A Situational Leader solves problems using the most applicable leadership style for the current challenge they are facing.

5) Coach: A Situational Leader is capable of evaluating the maturity and competence of their employees and then applies the best strategy to enhance their employees' skill sets and goals.

Two researchers, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, developed the Situational Leadership model during the mid-1970s and subsequently developed separate, revised models. The underlying concepts of their models focus on adaptive leadership styles tailored to a group's maturity/developmental level.

Pictured below is a graphic, combining elements from the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory and Blanchard's revised Situational Leadership Theory II. It depicts four leadership styles on a supportive/directive scale, based on the developmental level of those being led: Delegating, Supporting, Coaching, and Directing.

Next, let's discuss situational factors to consider when determining the best leadership style to use (2).

Begin by considering interpersonal factors. For example, a group lacking in efficiency and productivity might benefit from a style emphasizing direction, organization, and clearly defined roles. On the other hand, a highly productive group might benefit from a more democratic style allowing greater independence and input in decision making.

Secondly, you should consider the actual task at hand. A Situational Leader needs to have a clear idea of what a task entails to successfully guide a team or employee to accomplish it. This may seem like an obvious point, but it is not uncommon for a leader to lack the appropriate understanding of what's required to complete a particular task/project, leaving a major gap in their ability to lead effectively.

Thirdly, consider the maturity levels of each individual based on ability and willingness. For example, assigning a project to a member who is willing but lacks the appropriate ability level is a recipe for failure (and vice versa). This is why the developmental levels were a key element of the Hersey-Blanchard theories.

And lastly, consider the situation you're facing-hence, situational leadership theories. There are also instances when the situation itself will override all of the above factors. To help us visualize this, we overlaid the graphic below with some situational examples:

If there were an innovative change occurring in your organization, you may want to use a Delegating approach to encourage idea generation and collaborative teamwork. An interpersonal conflict may be best served by a Supporting approach, offering a high level of support but low amount of directives. A major reorganization prompting new processes/structure may call for a Coaching style with high support and high directives to guide your team through the changes. A major crisis would require you to immediately default to a Directing approach, overriding all other situational factors.

An additional Situational Leadership style that is helpful to use or combine with the Hersey-Blanchard model is called the Just Ask leadership approach (3). The Just Ask approach uses questions to increase alignment, engagement and accountability. It's best used when working with a group of varying abilities or if you're unsure about an individual's ability.

The Just Ask approach requires comfort in not knowing. Leaders often find it difficult to allow their team to work through situations instead of just providing the answers for them. This approach is a great tool to release an answer-providing habit and learn how to ask more questions to guide your team to their own solutions.

There are four styles of questioning in the Just Ask approach: Professor, Judge, Innovator, and Director. The Professor style is best used to generate ideas, build understanding, and expand insight. The Judge style is most helpful when analyzing and prioritizing ideas, reaching decisions, and focusing on shared understanding. The Innovator style is helpful when exploring new directions, identifying opportunities, improving current methods, and rallying a team. The Director style is best used when implementing a plan, focusing your team to get specific results, and to spark action.

Here are some sample questions:

Ultimately, the key learning to take away from Situational Leadership approaches is that is a necessity in today's business landscapes. By adding to our leadership skills toolbox, we can continue to grow in our own abilities and encourage our employees' growth in the process. This will, in turn, promote growth and innovation in our teams and organizations.

References:

(1)- https://online.stu.edu/situational-leadership/

(2)- https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-situational-theory-of-leadership-2795321

(3)- https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/just-ask-leadership-why-great-managers-always-ask-the-right-questions/

Interested in what we have to say? Check out our article on Employee Engagement.

Ashleigh partners with her clients to solve their most challenging problems. Her practice focuses on the intersection between strategy and people. She has deep experience in strategy development and implementation of key strategies, organizational design, executive coaching and change management. Ashleigh combines her experience, an understanding of organizational culture and a practical mindset to meet her clients' needs.

By Ashleigh Gunter, Managing Partner, and Laura Magrone, Consultant at The Gunter Group.

If you could improve your company's profits by 21%, reduce attrition by 24% to 59%, and improve your employees' morale-all without significant cash outflow or investment-would you do it ( 1 )? It is doubtful anyone would answer no to the above question, although that is what many are essentially doing when they don't make employee engagement a priority in their organization.

Employee engagement extends far beyond simply measuring employee satisfaction; it can be defined as a measure of employee commitment to the organization, which drives company performance and outcomes. It is the act of including all employees in a conversation about what would make your organization better and then including each and every one of them in an action plan to drive changes. This is a proven effective approach for organizations of all sizes.

Business outcomes are directly impacted by employee engagement and are a key driver for implementing an employee engagement program. In an analysis completed by Gallup, a popular vendor for employee engagement surveys, results revealed that groups with higher employee engagement ratings significantly outperformed groups with lower ratings on crucial performance outcomes, including decreased turnover rates ( 2 ).

Establishing an Employee Engagement Program
Once you've decided to embark on improving employee engagement, you need to first consider how you will measure engagement. There are a wide variety of tools and vendors you can use, ranging from self-administered surveys to integrated platforms with extensive consulting support. If you choose to create your own and use something straightforward like SurveyMonkey, keep your survey simple. We recommend using publically available engagement questions rather than trying to develop new questions on your own. This will save you the time and effort of figuring out how to ask the right questions.

The Gallup organization has spent years developing the science around employee engagement. After millions of surveys, interviews, and significant in-depth analysis, they devised 12 statements as the key drivers of employee engagement. In the book 12: The Elements of Great Managing, Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter, Ph.D. describe these elements in detail. Here they are at a glance:

The 12 elements can be categorized based on four key areas: Basic Needs , Management Support , Teamwork , and Growth . These must be viewed as foundational. Basic Needs must be met before shifting to Management Support . Management Support must be solid before focusing on Teamwork , and so on. When using an engagement survey provided by Gallup, the results include these 12 elements and are helpful in honing focus areas to ensure your employees' needs are being met.

If you choose to engage with a vendor that provides an engagement survey tool or provides a package of tools and consulting services, make your selections based on the availability of benchmark comparisons, confidentiality, cost-effectiveness, ability to view segmented results (department, tenure, function), and flexibility of question format. Take time to carefully consider these criteria and select something that will work for your organization in the long-term.

After selecting a tool/vendor, you should determine an effective communication strategy to launch the program, ensuring employees know why, how, what, and when the program is happening. Participation is critical. If you only get a small percentage of your organization to respond to the survey, you won't have meaningful data. Too often, only the employees who are really unhappy or are really happy end up responding, leaving the employer with an inaccurate view of true engagement across the company. It is okay to provide incentives to encourage employees to participate in the survey. It is not okay for managers to tell employees that they have to take the survey. We'll review more common pitfalls when implementing an employee engagement program below.

Once the results are received back from your employees, it's time to get to work! Most employers make the mistake of assuming that they should take the results of the survey and 'fix things' for their employees. However, what we find is that this leader-led approach doesn't improve engagement. What actually improves engagement is including all employees in the process of reviewing the results and making a commitment to change one item in each work group and then following through on that commitment. For instance, one of the clients I work with had a team who worked through how to improve vacation coverage for one another. The approach provided a softer re-entry to work and enabled employees to enjoy their vacations more and not stress too much about coming back. This led to increased engagement within the team and was a win for all involved.

While this approach sounds easy, it still requires very clear communication to employees and good engagement meeting facilitation. When employees review engagement results, they often want to focus on what they cannot control. For instance, "If I just got paid more, I would be so much more engaged" or "If I had five more days of vacation each year, things would be so much better." The leader in the conversation must focus the discussion on what your team can change rather than what the team wishes the leadership would change. Once they can land on a specific thing to change, then the team needs to collectively commit to an improvement plan and determine how best to track and report progress against it. Don't forget to share your results with others so that successful ideas can be replicated across the organization when appropriate. Sharing results also builds momentum and motivation to continue building on your employee engagement program.

There are some common pitfalls many organizations encounter which can undermine an entire employee engagement program. They are ( 3 ):

In an engaged environment, employees are not only excited to come to work, but are committed to driving toward business goals. They take pride not only in being part of a great team, but in contributing to the success of the business. They are empowered to use their strengths to shine and are energized by doing so. It requires committed leadership and an openness and humility to evaluate yourself and your organization's growth opportunities. Making employee engagement a priority provides amazing possibilities for improvements both for your employees and your organization as a whole.
References: 1 - 2 - 3 - https://www.qualtrics.com/uk/experience-management/employee/engagement/pitfalls-to-avoid/ http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/163130/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236366/right-culture-not-employee-satisfaction.aspx

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Ashleigh Gunter, Author at The Gunter Group

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Ken Blanchard Our understanding of leadership must continually evolve to remain relevant and impactful in today's business climate. One method of leadership that develops an ability to meet the ever-changing needs of an organization and its employees is called Situational Leadership.

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As co-founders and former co-chief executives of MatchesFashion, Tom and Ruth Chapman turned a brick-and-mortar store into a global platform stocking the most influential international luxury brands, while championing British fashion talent. In 2017 Apax Partners acquired a majority stake in MatchesFashion in a deal that valued the company at a reported $1 billion.

Ruth and Tom created Matchesfashion.com - then known as MatchesFashion - in 1987 in Wimbledon. They were the first multi-brand retailer to introduce designers including Prada and Bottega Veneta into the UK market. A standalone menswear store was opened - along with Max Mara's first franchise store - in 1992. The business currently operates five stores in premium locations across the British capital.

Over the years, the Chapmans expanded their retail network to include 14 stores across the British capital. In 2006, seeing the digital opportunity before many, Matchesfashion.com launched its e-commerce store. With great foresight, Matchesfashion.com launched with international shipping, allowing it to begin building an international business in the nascent days of e-commerce. Today, Matchesfashion.com stocks 450 established and emerging designers, receives 55 million visitors a year, with 80 percent of orders coming from the 176 international markets the site serves.

In 2013, all brand platforms were renamed MatchesFashion.com to create a uniform brand identity across several multimedia platforms. The company is a model example of digital retail, engaging in meaningful collaborations with style influencers who curate selections of apparel and accessories, themed shoppable edits and 24/7 personalised styling advice available online. The company's website is responsible for 95 percent of its revenue.

The pair stepped down as co-chief executives in 2015, taking on the role of joint chairmen instead. They were succeeded by their chief operating officer Ulric Jerome, who aims to establish Matchesfashion.com as the world's foremost online luxury fashion retailer. They continue to hold advisory roles at the company their sale to Apax in September 2017.

The Chapmans live in Wimbledon, London with their youngest daughter and two dogs.

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Tom & Ruth Chapman are part of the BoF 500

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As co-founders and former co-chief executives of MatchesFashion, Tom and Ruth Chapman turned a brick-and-mortar store into a global platform stocking the most influential international luxury brands, while championing British fashion talent. In 2017 Apax Partners acquired a majority stake in MatchesFashion in a deal that valued the company at a reported $1 billion.

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This article first appeared in The State of Fashion: Technology, an in-depth report co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company.
It's no secret that fashion brands need to make highly personalised customer experience a cornerstone of their digital businesses. Their customers expect nothing less. Consumers have had their personalisation expectations redefined by the likes of Netflix, Spotify and Amazon. Shoppers expect brands to provide them with product choices and experiences that are tailored to their individual preferences. Indeed, 71 percent of global consumers want companies to deliver personalised communications and products, and 76 percent are unhappy when this is not offered.

Not so long ago, a personalised experience in fashion was something only very high-end, luxury shoppers could receive. Luxury boutique associates would lavish attention on key customers, manually recording an individual's personal tastes and shopping habits in notebook after notebook to help them tailor their service. Building a long-lasting rapport with these shoppers was an exclusive, elaborate, not to mention inefficient, exercise.

Fast forward to today and brands are facing a convergence of factors that make personalisation a priority. Declining brand loyalty among customers and increased competition for attention from social media platforms, along with tightening regulations and moves by Apple and Google to modify access to third-party data, are all impacting the ability of brands to connect with customers online. Now more than ever, personalisation can hold the key for brands to capture market share.

Shoppers expect brands to provide them with product choices and experiences that are tailored to their individual preferences.

That said, the fashion industry today generally confines personalisation to marketing recommendations for customer sub-segments, based on past purchases or online browsing history, held back by talent and technology constraints. There's scope to go further. For the first time, businesses have tools that enable them to work with all types of data across channels in real time.

This is evident in e-commerce, where platforms powered by cloud-based technologies could run AI or machine learning algorithms to accelerate the processing and analysis of Big Data on customer behaviour. The result of these analytical capabilities would mean brands are equipped to provide hyper-personalised, one-to-one experiences - similar to those of the sales associate in an exclusive boutique, but available to customers across all fashion segments, from high street to luxury.

Offering hyper personalisation will require companies to reimagine how e-commerce operates. Search-based shopping is likely to shift to the individualised discovery of products and styles offered in the right size and fit. All customers will have a curated experience on their own versions of brand websites and marketplaces, from landing page to payment, akin to their experience on social media feeds. With this, companies will use personalisation technology to build experiences that drive customer engagement and, ultimately, loyalty.

Fashion retailer Zalando has taken steps towards this vision. It uses data analytics to offer its customers millions of tailored "Zalando interfaces." By incorporating preferences into its algorithm, product displays are automatically tailored to each customer, from size to their favourite brands. The retailer is also exploring 3D body scanning technology to enhance size and fit selections.

Another company embracing this opportunity is The Yes. The fashion marketplace has built an extensive product taxonomy while also deploying machine learning and computer vision to synthesise hundreds of data points for each product. The algorithm then translates shopper preferences into a personalised exploration feed.

Meanwhile, styling service Stitch Fix tailors products to customers' tastes and needs and uses a discovery tool called "style shuffle" to help users indicate designers they like. Fast-fashion player Shein offers each customer a scrollable feed of products powered by a real-time recommendation algorithm informed by myriad data points across social media and other channels.

Offering hyper personalisation will require companies to reimagine the way that fashion e-commerce operates across platforms - a potentially complex, fast-evolving challenge.

Accelerating first-party data collection
Looking ahead in the luxury segment, hyper personalisation is set to also play out in physical stores. Store associates can leverage first-party data to provide customers with a unique experience no matter which store they enter, taking in-store clienteling to the next level. What's more, as technologies advance, it is feasible that brands will be able to create digital wardrobes for each customer along with personalised styling recommendations.
Creating a 360-degree customer view
Offering hyper personalisation will require companies to reimagine the way that fashion e-commerce operates across platforms - a potentially complex, fast-evolving challenge that can overwhelm brands. This can be managed by:
Aligning the 'human touch' and AI

Challenge: Changes to data privacy laws and restrictions on third-party data collection in various jurisdictions have rendered data management platforms and third-party cookies less relevant.

Solution: Brands need to maximise their first-party data collection to enable personalisation across platforms and channels. This can happen, for example, through loyalty programmes that help identify and link customer purchases online and offline. In-store apps can also track offline browsing behaviour, and brands can create campaigns that collect data in exchange for loyalty points or discounts. In these efforts, brands need to be mindful of adhering to data privacy regulations (e.g. GDPR in Europe).

Scaling personalisation solutions

Challenge: When shopping for fashion, customers can generate a vast amount of data across channels and platforms - ranging from location data to website or app engagement time. This data tends to be unstructured, in multiple formats and scattered across different databases. In isolation, this provides little or no insight.

Solution: Brands need to establish a complete customer profile connected to a unique ID across data sources and channels. A customer data platform is needed to host all data assets and consolidate the customer view, as are rigorous data standardisation and cleaning processes. The result is brands could create a single dataset that joins up customer preferences and behaviours at a granular level across platforms, channels and product categories. For retailers, this could also span data from different brands. Companies should consult current data legislation when creating these customer profiles.

Challenge: Fashion customer behaviour can be difficult to predict, not least because of fashion's rapid trend cycles and the low levels of repeat purchasing among individual shoppers. Furthermore, a stand-alone personalised algorithm might not align with a brand's strategic priorities without human intervention.

Solution: Players need to develop advanced AI models, such as those that display products and photo styles best suited to the individual customer, or models that use advanced size and fit algorithms. These models should incorporate behavioural data, such as login time and add-to-cart behaviours, along with nuances relating to the brand's market and segment positioning.

Challenge: A significant platform upgrade is required to deliver sophisticated, hyper-personalised e-commerce content, which is informed by thousands of data points and delivered across multiple channels with ultra-fast loading times.

Solution: A company's portfolio of design and distribution tools needs to include content management systems that can standardise, centralise and distribute digital elements to support marketing alongside content delivery networks that help deliver thousands of unique landing and content pages. Their portfolio should also include an e-commerce platform for their website and app, so that brands can deliver personalisation to every customer across all journeys.

A priority for executives should be to establish hyper personalisation as a core competency. Brands will need to invest strategically across all their data and analytics activations, from collection to cross-channel implementation. In many cases, this will mean setting up a dedicated cross-functional team, comprising product managers, marketing domain experts, software engineers and data scientists. Brands that set themselves up to win will hone their ability to deliver intelligent, targeted marketing and e-commerce solutions for every customer.

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The Opportunity in Hyper-Personalising Shopping

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This article first appeared in The State of Fashion: Technology , an in-depth report co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company. It's no secret that fashion brands need to make highly personalised customer experience a cornerstone of their digital businesses. Their customers expect nothing less.

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Bethany Williams is a UK-based menswear designer committed to effecting social change by collaborating with new charities each season while addressing problems from all angles of the industry, from agriculture to communication. With only three collections under her belt, the newcomer has quickly gained recognition from the likes of Anna Wintour and Nicolas Ghesquière for her work with homeless shelters, foodbanks and recycled garments co-created by prison inmates.

Williams began her career working part-time at a fashion magazine but, taking after her pattern-cutter mother, she pursued fashion design starting with a fine art foundation in Brighton, followed by menswear fashion design at the London College of Fashion . Alongside her studies, the young designer volunteered at homeless shelters and food kitchens in Brighton, a move that ignited the spark to effect social change with her work.

She founded her label in 2017 and chose to source book waste, second-hand denim and hand-woven textiles to create 100 percent recycled garments for her projects. Williams has collaborated with the Vauxhall Food Bank, The Mobile Library Charity and the Adelaide House women's shelter, providing employment for female inmates and casting models from the TIH homeless modelling agency. In her work, Williams casts light on issues such as youth homelessness and hidden hunger in society. Her collections are stocked by Farfetch, Galeries Lafayette Paris, Dune in Tokyo and Odd92 in New York. Williams donates a sizeable portion of profits to the charities involved.

For her motivation to create 2019's standard of an ethical fashion business, the young designer was shortlisted for the LVMH designer prize, received the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design and was featured in the Next Green talents showcase by Yoox and Vogue Italia. Williams also continues to work as a fashion consultant in partnership with companies including Kering, Adidas and the Design Museum.

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Bethany Williams is a UK-based menswear designer committed to effecting social change by collaborating with new charities each season while addressing problems from all angles of the industry, from agriculture to communication. With only three collections under her belt, the newcomer has quickly gained recognition from the likes of Anna Wintour and Nicolas Ghesquière for her work with homeless shelters, foodbanks and recycled garments co-created by prison inmates.

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Tekla makes thoughtful fabrics for you and your home. Main collections are Organic Bedding, Organic Towels and Robes as well as pure wool plaids. Designed in Copenhagen and produced in Europe.

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matchesfashion.com

matchesfashion offer the latest designer fashion from over 650 designer brands including alexander mcqueen, isabel marant, balenciaga and saint laurent.

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matchesfashion.com Traffic Analytics & Market Share | Similarweb

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matchesfashion.com matchesfashion offer the latest designer fashion from over 650 designer brands including alexander mcqueen, isabel marant, balenciaga and saint laurent. Connect this website Reflect your success Verify your website's traffic and engagement metrics by connecting to Google Analytics Avg Visit Duration 00:03:48 Company MatchesFashion Limited Annual Revenue $200.0M - $1.0B Website ranking helps evaluate the value of a business.

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"What are the kids wearing these days?" is the perennial question fashion forecasters ask. The fashion industry, often out of necessity, is obsessed with chasing youth, especially as young consumers enter the workforce, inform new styles and shift buying behaviours.

Gen-Z - aged between 12 and 25 and accounting for approximately 25 percent of the world's population - is now coming into its own. But Gen-Z is truly unique. As the first digital natives, their formative years have been unlike that of previous generations, creating a greater cultural chasm between Gen-Z and older generations. Social platforms have given Gen-Z tastemakers an unparalleled ability to convene and speak to audiences.

In the US, Gen-Z is particularly shaping the culture and moving the economy with a purchasing power of about $360 billion. Each generation experiences distinct events that shape its life outlook. Baby Boomers benefitted from an economic boom after World War II, living in an age of optimism. Gen-X matured as social mores changed and female labour participation jumped, living in an age of independence. Millennials, typically the children of more affluent Baby Boomers, benefitted from the advent of the internet, living in an age of idealism. Yet, Millennials are old enough to remember a less digital world.

Gen-Z is much more pragmatic, growing up under the lens of technology from the outset. The worsening climate crisis, pressing global movements such as "Me Too" and "Black Lives Matter" and the Covid-19 pandemic all serve as a backdrop for the current age - an age of realism.

Gen-Z and Fashion in the Age of Realism is the newest report from BoF Insights, exploring Gen-Z's relationship to fashion, identifying the distinct personality types, their sources of inspiration, their preferred brands, and their approach to sustainable fashion. This report is informed by in-depth analysis of social media behaviour, a survey of nearly 1,000 Gen-Zers as well as focus groups.

Fashion is the favourite entertainment category for US Gen-Zers to spend money on, outranking other categories like dining, video games and consoles, and music. Young consumers are critical to the fashion industry, not least because per capita spending on fashion declines as we age:

To best engage with and speak to young consumers, BoF Insights partnered with Quilt.AI - an AI-powered insights company - to canvass social media behaviour and profiles to identify six personality "clusters" that characterise the US Gen-Z population. While Gen-Z is like other generations in that they defy stereotyping, these clusters are a critical heuristic for executives to understand Gen-Zers' shared affiliations, interests and perspectives:

BoF Insights has also collaborated with Juv Consulting - a company launched by three 16-year-old entrepreneurs in 2016 - to field a proprietary survey of nearly 1,000 US Gen-Zers. This survey reveals that 89 percent of the survey participants rate fashion as important for boosting confidence, while 82 percent say fashion is important for establishing their identities. For Gen-Zers, fashion is less about being trendy or denoting status.

Keeping up with fads has become more difficult than ever, as social media has accelerated trend formation. Moreover, Gen-Z has inverted the design process - aesthetics like Barbiecore, Cottagecore, Dark Academia and Coastal Grandma originated bottoms-up from social media and resale platform content instead of top-down from fashion brands and retailers. As a result, many Gen-Zers tend to adapt pieces representative of trends into their own personal styles, as opposed to following trends full-scale.

Brands like Nike, Gucci and Adidas have built the most ardent following among this generation as the leading favoured brands among our panel. Gucci is the only luxury brand to appear in the top 10 list of unprompted favourite brands, while Louis Vuitton appears further down among the top 20. Gucci is notable for its efforts to court young consumers early on within virtual gaming worlds like Roblox. In particular, BoF Insights reveals that the majority of Gen-Zers aspire to buy more luxury clothing and accessories as they gain purchasing power.

The report completes its analysis with a playbook for fashion executives, unpacking how your companies can best connect with Gen-Z through four pillars: communications, style, communities and brand evolution.

Assesses the generational divide and prevailing attitudes of each major US generation from Baby Boomers to Gen-Zers, including a detailed examination of why Gen-Z is distinct by identifying six key values

Features proprietary research with Gen-Z consumers in the US, revealing the most in-demand fashion and footwear brands, shopping triggers, sources of inspiration, and information for purchasing and finally methods of product disposal (including resale)

Analyses six key personality clusters that are representative of the US Gen-Z population using machine learning applied to social media profiles

Highlights concise case studies on Dr. Martens, Gucci, PacSun, Princess Polly and Remass (one of the top sellers on Depop), as well as strategic analysis of fashion companies like Abercrombie & Fitch, Aritzia, Forever 21, Gap, Guess, J.Crew, Nike and Patagonia

Unpacks tactics for brands and retailers to effectively appeal to Gen-Z related to tailoring communications, honing in on style/positioning amid trend acceleration, building and engaging communities, and enabling a company to identify and adapt to cultural and technological shifts

Survey panel of approximately 1,000 Gen-Z participants (aged 13 - 25) across the US fielded by Juv Consulting

Social media analysis by Quilt.AI of approximately 5,000 public Instagram posts conducted via machine learning to create six personality clusters

4 focus groups with a total of 15 Gen-Z participants located across the US (conducted with The Z Suite from BCG PR and Juv Consulting)

8 interviews with executives from agencies, consultants, start-up operators and influencers and 12 interviews with founders, chief executives and other senior executives from brands, retailers, rental platforms, resale platforms, and gaming and social media platforms

Companies featured in the report include: Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, American Eagle, Aritzia, By Rotation, Claire's, Depop, Forever 21, Gucci, Guess, H&M, Levi's, Louis Vuitton, Nike, Old Navy, PacSun, Patagonia, Pink, Princess Polly, Puma, Roblox, Shein, TikTok, Under Armour, Uniqlo, Urban Outfitters, Vans and Zara.

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BoF Insights | Gen-Z and Fashion in the Age of Realism

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Find out what makes Gen-Zers so unique and crucial to the fashion industry in the latest BoF Insights report. Co-created with Gen-Zers as well as a host of fashion and social media experts, we unpack what this generation expects from fashion today, and tomorrow.

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Sustainability Movement in fragrances by Sana Jardin

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Beyond Sustainability™ is a movement based on the principles of a circular economy. The model focuses on social impact and trains and supports female entrepreneurs to become agents of change in their community.

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Brands need to think about their products' afterlife

More and more shoppers and fashion brands are realising that producing better is not enough anymore. Brands need to produce less while also thinking about their garments' afterlife, which is why circularity and circular fashion have grown in popularity in recent years. And shoppers need to buy less, ensuring they take care of their garments and dispose of them responsibly.

Circular fashion is about designing waste and pollution out of our clothes and ensuring they help regenerate natural systems at the end of their (long) lives. It is based partly on William McDonough and Michael Braungart's Cradle to Cradle design philosophy. Circular fashion moves away from the traditional linear take-make-dispose business model. A growing number of brands are looking for ways to use what's already been created and give shoppers options for recycling, upcycling, and donating clothes they don't want anymore.

As a result, we're seeing numerous fashion brands promote recycling or take-back schemes. But what are these take-back schemes exactly? Are they good for people and the environment? And are there sustainable brands using take-back programs to which you can donate your old clothes with confidence? Let's take a look.

What are take-back schemes exactly?

First things first, what is a take-back scheme? According to the Circular Economy Practitioner Guide, a take-back scheme "is an initiative organised by a manufacturer or retailer, to collect used products or materials from consumers and reintroduce them to the original processing and manufacturing cycle."

For example, you might have heard about H&M's Garment Collection program, which allows you to put old clothes into in-store recycling bins to be given a new life in exchange for a voucher.

Are take-back schemes good for people and the planet?

It's encouraging to see brands starting to transition to more circular business models, but take-back schemes are far from perfect solutions to a much deeper systemic issue.

On paper, take-back schemes are far better than simply throwing your clothes in the trash: they make it easy for shoppers to donate clothes, helping to boost the recycling rate and divert clothes out of landfills.

But the truth is, with many high street brands, it's hard to know what happens to our clothes once they've been dropped into in-store recycling bins. For example, H&M says, "​​Once you've dropped off your previously loved fashion in one of [its] garment collecting boxes, [its] business partner I:CO takes over. They empty the boxes and sort the contents into three categories:

Rewear: Wearable clothes are marketed as second hand clothing.

Reuse: If the clothes or textiles are not suitable for rewear, they're turned into other products, such as remake collections or cleaning cloths.

Recycle: All other clothes and textiles are shredded into textile fibres and used to make insulation materials, for example."

While this all sounds nice, the brand doesn't give more details, such as where the clothes are being remarketed or what percentage of the clothes are reworn, reused, or recycled.

We now know recycling textiles is not as easy as it seems and that the fashion industry still lacks proper systems and processes to take care of discarded clothing. Breaking down materials in a recycling system is emissions-intensive and reinforces the unfortunate societal norm that says an item can be disposable after one use. In the fashion industry, fabrics and textiles have not traditionally been the most straightforward items to recycle, and there remains a lot of confusion around how to recycle clothing.

Plus, as Head of Ratings Kristian Hardiman highlighted in our guide to recycled clothing materials, while we are seeing positive steps in the right direction, "the reality is that the fashion industry as we know it is fraught with fractured systems. Regardless of the material and its impact, there is an underlying issue: too much virgin material is being used to make our clothing." This overabundance has led to colossal textile waste issues from numerous areas of the production line, including pre-consumer and post-consumer waste.

And that's if the brand chooses to recycle clothes. Some prefer to donate clothes left in in-store bins to charities, such as Zara, which gives old clothes to local charities and organisations. The issue is that charity stores continue to have massive problems with receiving soiled, torn, or otherwise unsuitable textiles that can't be sold or given away. In some cases, charities are forced to spend money sorting and disposing of this material, of which an estimated 25% goes directly to landfill. An additional 40-50% is exported into the problematic global second hand clothing trade, which swamps the local textile market of countries such as Ghana.

Finally, some have argued that some take-back schemes may simply be tokenistic gestures. Having in-store collection bins and encouraging shoppers to bring old clothes back isn't enough to counter the detrimental environmental impacts of encouraging over-consumption and over-production-especially if consumers are given discounts or vouchers to use towards a new purchase, perpetuating the vicious cycle.

At the end of the day, take-back schemes are great if they are part of a greater plan to move to a circular business model that doesn't keep pushing shoppers to consume, and if the brand behind it is fully transparent about what happens to donated clothes.

9 brands using take-back schemes to recycle waste responsibly

Luckily, such brands exist. If you want to give your old clothes a new life but want to make sure the brands you are donating them to are working to reduce their environmental and social impact and change the fashion industry for the better, today's your lucky day. Here are 9 sustainable and ethical fashion brands using take-back schemes to recycle waste the right way.

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9 Brands Using Take-Back Schemes to Recycle Waste Responsibly - Good On You

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More and more shoppers and fashion brands are realising that producing better is not enough anymore. Brands need to produce less while also thinking about their garments' afterlife, which is why circularity and circular fashion have grown in popularity in recent years.

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Interaction for changing rooms: the POLYTOUCH® Smart Mirror supports your search for alternatives by colour, size, style and more

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In 2019, there were 1.1M residents in East London postcode area with an average age of 33.9 years. Population density was 10.0k residents per square kilometer. Population grew by 37.8% since 2002 and population average age increased by 0.9 years in the same period. Based on Census, there were 2.67 residents per household in 2011.

total residents
estimates 2019

average age
estimates 2019

population density
estimates 2019

residents per household
Census 2011

shows a number of residents per square kilometer(km²), estimates from 2018.

Population average age by LSOA (County) in 2018.

Total population per year outlines headcount differences.

Working age population share compared to working age population share in England & Wales, 2019.

age group

head-count

% share of population

% for Eng & Wales

0-15

241k

21.2%

19.1%

16-64

798k

70.4%

62.3%

65+

95.6k

8.4%

18.5%

Comparison of postcode areas average ages, 2019 population estimates.

East London
average age

England & Wales
average age

Purple-colored areas are business or industrial areas. Green-colored areas provide quieter surroundings and better living. Map is based on a UK Census 2011 data. Colors calculated from the ratio of number of residents divided by a number of workday people.

Other reports for East London postcode area

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East-London population stats in maps and graphs.

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In 2019, there were 1.1M residents in East London postcode area with an average age of 33.9 years. Population density was 10.0k residents per square kilometer. Population grew by 37.8% since 2002 and population average age increased by 0.9 years in the same period. Based on Census, there were 2.67 residents per household in 2011.

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Executive Summary

Generation Z-which includes children, teens, and young adults born between 1997 and 2012-is the most racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse generation in history. As this cohort matures into a unique and powerful consumer bloc, brands hoping to win over Gen Zers must understand how they grew up, what they believe in, and what makes them tick.
How does Gen Z's diversity affect its outlook on life?
In their formative years, US Gen Zers were governed by the nation's first Black president and saw the legalization of same-sex marriage. They celebrate individual differences and gravitate toward brands and causes they perceive as authentic and inclusive.
Which social issues are the most important to Gen Z?
Social consciousness is a defining characteristic of Gen Z, and they are most passionate about racial equity. They also feel strongly about climate change, sustainability, environmental responsibility, gender equity, access to healthcare, an end to gun violence, and economic opportunity.
What does Gen Z expect from companies and brands?
Gen Z is more skeptical than previous generations and less likely to trust businesses to do good in the world. They are more likely to patronize brands that work to effect social change, share their values, and reflect their expectations of themselves.

WHAT'S IN THIS REPORT? Recent Gen Z demographic and psychographic data paired with insights about how this generation will help shape society, culture, commerce, and business in the years to come.

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US Generation Z Demographic and Psychographic Overview

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Generation Z-which includes children, teens, and young adults born between 1997 and 2012-is the most racially, ethnically, and sexually diverse generation in history. As this cohort matures into a unique and powerful consumer bloc, brands hoping to win over Gen Zers must understand how they grew up, what they believe in, and what makes them tick.

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Peter Do's recent Spring/Summer 2023 collection broke ground not only because it collaborated with K-Pop behemoth SM Entertainment, but also because it introduced his first-ever menswear collection. Additionally, the award-winning designer partnered with TômTex Co. to create 'leather' made from food-waste for certain runway items featured in the show.

Taking a closer look at Do's " Green Chemistry " used in his SS23 collection, two pairs of leather-alternative items made their way in front of buyers and consumers - a pair of tan glossed wide-legged pants, and a pair of black glossed wide-legged pants. Coupled with those trousers, Do also created a tan scoop neck tank and a black scoop neck tank to provide a full look.

Championing sustainability, the leather-like materials were constructed from shrimp and mushroom food-waste, thus presenting an innovative step towards positive changes in clothing production for the fashion industry.

Commenting on the 100% biodegradable material used in the collection, Do says: "Working with TômTex was not only personally meaningful to me as a Vietnamese American and child of immigrants, but also extremely exciting in the sense of being able to incorporate such innovations from my peers into our collection. This partnership was definitely the beginning of textile innovation for us, and we're excited to continue to explore new techniques and fabrications with TômTex, to move fashion forward."

Buffering Do's sentiment, TômTex Co. founder and CEO, Uyen Tran, shares: "We could not have asked for a better partner than Peter Do to introduce our first garments made from seashell waste and mushrooms to the global community. I worked for Peter in the early years of his brand. The philosophy he adopted for fashion and the way he prioritized community and people has profoundly impacted my view of the material world."

"We are fascinated by the way nature recycles everything because we see today's waste is tomorrow's raw materials. Peter Do and TômTex share common values of craftsmanship, quality, innovation and community," added Tran.

Peter Do's full runway collection and menswear debut can be viewed on the brand's website.

In other news, Willy Chavarria took NYFW to church for Spring/Summer 2023.

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Here's a Closer Look at Peter Do's "Green Chemistry" Used in His SS23 Show

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Peter Do's recent Spring/Summer 2023 collection broke ground not only because it collaborated with K-Pop behemoth SM Entertainment, but also because it introduced his first-ever menswear collection. Additionally, the award-winning designer partnered with TômTex Co. to create 'leather' made from food-waste for certain runway items featured in the show.

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At Mother of Pearl we have always taken social responsibility seriously and we care deeply about the lives of the people involved in the production of our garments.

We work very closely with our factories. The majority of our factories are in Europe and we make sure to visit them regularly and personally meet the people there. We have very close working relationships with our factories and speak with them on a daily basis. We request audits from all factories regularly, and make sure to thoroughly check up on these. We have our own 'Ethics commitment' that we ask all factories we work with to adhere to.

It's important to note that social responsibilities lie not only in the factory that manufactures your garment but also in the entire supply chain that comes before. In the last 25 years, 270,000 cotton pickers in India committed suicide, an astronomical number and one rarely discussed*. This is just one shocking and sad fact that signifies some of the injustices that take place in the industry.

It is a very tricky and complex task to trace a garment all the way back to its origin for numerous reasons. But we are always striving for more transparency, setting us apart from most brands. We dig deep to get to the beginning of the supply chain for all our products, you can filter this by 'Fibre to final' on our sustainable attributes.

A garment passes through many hands along its journey. By no means is it possible to personally meet every one of those involved but we do strive to ensure social responsibility at every stage. We seek to only partner with companies that we believe in, from our work in the field to our day-to-day activities in the office.

MOP is striving to integrate the three 'R' pillars (Repair, Resell, Reuse) across our brand. By gradually introducing these options to our community we're taking responsibility for our garments once they are created.

We use cookies to enhance your shopping experience. By continuing using the website we assume that you agree to the use of these cookies. For more information check our Privacy Policy. OK, GOT IT

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Social Responsibility - Sustainable Luxury Fashion by Mother of Pearl

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"It's important to note that social responsibilities lie not only in the factory that manufactures your garment but also in the entire supply chain that comes before."

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In January, Lunya released a version of its washable silk pyjamas in a new colour, "humble green," that proved an instant hit.

The shade's success didn't come as a surprise to the loungewear brand. A couple months earlier, Lunya sent emails and texts to its best customers with a link to a survey asking them what colour pyjamas they would buy. The winner, humble green, went on sale exclusively to customers who responded. (Two months later the item was made available for everyone to purchase).

The survey was part of a company-wideinitiative to convince existing customers to spend more with the brand. So far this year, repeat purchases have made up nearly 60 percent of sales, up from 35 percent in 2019, saidAnnie Feldman, Lunya's senior director of retention. Her role itself was created as part of the brand's renewed focus on driving customer loyalty.

"We've grown from an acquisition business to a more retention focused business," Feldman said.

Lunya isn't the only start-up making that same pivot. Brands face stiff competition for consumers' attention online. The cost of placing ads on social media has risen sharply in recent years, and privacy updates by Apple and Google are making it harder to target likely customers. Brands are discovering their marketing budget is better invested in generating new sales from repeat customers.

Building customer loyalty requires more finesse than plastering Instagram with ads, however. Brands need a compelling answer to the question of why customers should keep shopping with them over a legion of lookalikes, which may offer lower prices.

Retention campaigns often start with sending one-off discount codes to customers who handed over their email or phone number the last time they made a purchase. That can immediately boost sales and fend off budget competitors. But long-term its main effect is to increase the number of people who opt out of receiving a brand's communications, said Alex Beller, co-founder and president of Postscript, a text message marketing software provider.

Brands instead need to establish a relationship with customers where they feel like they are part of the brand, similar to what Lunya did with its survey.

That could mean developing new products with existing customers in mind, connecting shoppers who share similar values, or creating programs that reward frequent shoppers.

"It's about building an emotional connection," said Brian Long, co-founder and chief executive of digital marketing software company Attentive. "You can't just do sales."

The Necessity of Newness

While many new brands initially gain traction with a single hero product or category, they can retain those first waves of customers by expanding their assortment.

Figs, which puts a fashionable spin on scrubs, rolls out new products almost every week, the company's co-founder and chief executive Trina Spear said. Products such as a 21-pocket cargo pant or a puffer jacket that can be completely folded into one of its pockets are meant to keep shoppers who buy the brand's functional workwear eagerly anticipating the next drop. Last year, around 70 percent of the healthcare apparel brand's more than $400 million in sales came from repeat customers.

Lunya's survey left little to chance, even if it was customers deciding the winning colour. The company asked respondents to choose among styles that used dyed fabric it already stocked, so it could put the humble green pyjamas on sale within a few months, Feldman said.

"It was very strategic," she said.

Find Your Tribe

Lunya's survey wouldn't have worked if its customers weren't already invested in the brand's success. A strong community is therefore a key element of retention campaigns.

Discussion platforms like Discord and Reddit have become an increasingly popular tool for companies to solicit feedback from customers.

Parade actively talks to around 5,000 of its most avid customers on Slack, where shoppers are able to vote on what products the brand creates, the colours and prints those products come in and, even, help the company choose stars for its ad campaigns.

In June, the Gen-Z focused intimates brand launched a new line of boxer briefs, trunks and bodysuits made with recycled cotton that was marketed to people of all gender identities. Before producing and releasing the garments, members of Parade's Slack community weighed in on the type of underwear and colours they wanted to see in the line. This kind of engagement bleeds into demand for the products, said Cami Téllez, founder, creative director and chief executive of Parade.

"When they interact, they are more excited to shop," Téllez said. "They feel like they co-own the brand with us."

Rewarding Behaviour

Not every customer is so intensely interested in a brand that they'll join its Discord server. To turn more casual customers into reliable buyers, some brands offer product subscriptions, where shoppers can buy a bundle of goods at lower prices and even enjoy fringe benefits. This is an especially attractive strategy for beauty brands, since the shorter life span of cosmetics and fragrances make them ripe for recurring purchases.

Osea has recently awakened to this opportunity. The 26-year-old skincare brand launched its "subscribe and save" program about a year ago as a way to reward customers who can prove their loyalty. Subscribers who pay to receive their favourite body balms, serums or body oils every one to four months, at 10 percent off each order, also get free shipping, early access to new products and the ability to add full sized samples to their product replenishments at no additional cost.

Osea's subscription service has become a bedrock of its increasingly important retention strategy - more than half of the company's annual sales come from repeat purchases, said Melissa Palmer, the company's co-founder and chief executive.

"The product is what does the greatest work for us for retention," she said. "On the base level, people want to repurchase the product."

Editor's Note: This article was revised on 9 December 2022. A previous version misspelled Figs' CEO's surname.

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How Brands Can Turn Customers Into Repeat Shoppers

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In January, Lunya released a version of its washable silk pyjamas in a new colour, "humble green," that proved an instant hit. The shade's success didn't come as a surprise to the loungewear brand. A couple months earlier, Lunya sent emails and texts to its best customers with a link to a survey asking them what colour pyjamas they would buy.

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At the same time, the ecommerce growth rate more than doubled, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. As retailers faced lockdowns and layoffs, many questioned whether physical stores would survive.

Specific categories are leading the growth in store count: this year, discount, auto, and direct-to-consumer brands will make up over 50% of new store openings.

While physical retail has exceeded expectations, the pandemic has forever altered how we shop in person. Consumers expect stores to be digital-first, focused on speed, convenience, and community. As retailers navigate the future of physical retail, they will need to transform their store strategies to meet evolving customer needs.

In this article, we'll discuss:

New consumer habits

Consumers now expect complete control over their shopping journeys. "Today, shoppers have higher expectations than ever before," says Tolia.

The pandemic accelerated the demand for convenience and personalization. Customers want options that allow them to design their own shopping experience. Buy-online, pick-up-in-store ( ), appointment shopping, and self-checkout put shoppers in control.

Along with convenience, consumers will maintain a proclivity for health and safety. Shoppers will expect options like curbside pickup and to remain.

Although consumers expect a digital-first shopping experience, they also crave connection. After two years of social distancing, shoppers want opportunities for community and engagement.

Leap is seeing this trend in stores. "Customers still want and expect an immersive, high-touch experience," says Tolia. "If anything, they desire it more than ever... We see that shoppers are eager to engage with salespeople to learn about brands."

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Navigating a new retail landscape

These shifting consumer habits have transformed how retailers grow and operate stores.

Changing retail location strategies

Before the pandemic, brands prioritized high retail streets in cities like LA and NYC. Now, retailers are expanding to smaller markets and nontraditional retail centers.

Leap is also seeing a shift in where brands are opening stores. "While major cities like NYC, LA, and Chicago remain in demand, brands are also following population trends and prioritizing year-round warm-weather locations [such as] Florida, Texas, and Arizona," says Tolia.

Brands will continue experimenting with store formats that prioritize customer service as retailers navigate a new normal.

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Using stores to drive customer engagement and loyalty

Nate Checketts, CEO and cofounder of Rhone, sees stores as vital tools to tell the brandߴs story. Speaking on NRFߴs Retail Gets Real podcast, he said. "The why of brick-and-mortar for us is pretty simple. It works. Our in-store customers are more valuable to us."

Walsh agrees. "Stores are critical to driving brand awareness, profitability, [and] lifetime value. Weߴre getting better data about the ߵhalo effectߴ of opening stores on overall sales... Itߴs meaningful."

Retailers are using stores to deepen the consumerߴs connection with the brand. In a crowded social and ecommerce space, stores can drive engagement and loyalty.

Connecting online and offline

The biggest challenge for retailers will be creating a cohesive customer journey. Shoppers want a unified experience across online and offline channels. "While it may be much more complicated from the brandߴs perspective, the customer expects it to be seamless, so seamless it must be," says Tolia.

From BOPIS programs to virtual shopping, retailers have more options than ever to connect with consumers. Brands will need to decide what programs and digital tools work best for their business.

According to Jackson, "A custom approach [will] determine what makes the most sense for each business type. The simplest place to start is mapping the customer journey with your brand. Where does it start?...What brought them further into the journey? What happens along the way?"

With Shopify POS, you can accept exchanges for purchases made online or at another store location and your inventory will be updated instantly-no manual reconciliation required.

Digital-first in practice

Here are some ways retailers are using digital tools to create a seamless customer journey.

Digital-first customer discovery

Champs has created a digital virtual reality experience at their new "Homefield" store. The "Champs Sports Combine" encourages customers to test new products. Shoppers can take part in virtual shuttle runs or test their high jump.

Digital-first customer education

Brands are also using digital tools in-store to familiarize customers with their products.

Lush introduced the "Lush Lens" as part of their effort to reduce packaging waste. Shoppers can use the Lush app to scan a product with their smartphone. The app will access the productߴs description, ingredient list, and price.

Digital-first personalized customer experience

Digital-first community building

Roark, an adventure lifestyle brand, uses physical stores to drive storytelling. The brand releases two collections a year based on a particular travel destination. Customers can follow "the adventure" on social media and in the Roark Journal. Roark also infuses elements of the collections in its store design to keep stores fresh.

While the future of stores seemed questionable in March 2020, brands are now more confident than ever in physical retail.

As consumer habits evolve, brands will need to shift how they grow and operate stores to meet those expectations. However, brick and mortar stores have been and will remain an integral part of serving customers and connecting with local communities.

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Digital retail FAQ

What is digital retail?

Why is digital retailing important?

Which is an advantage of digital retailing?

What is Phygital retail?

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The Future of Physical Retail in a Digital-First World

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At the same time, the ecommerce growth rate more than doubled, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. As retailers faced lockdowns and layoffs, many questioned whether physical stores would survive. Specific categories are leading the growth in store count: this year, discount, auto, and direct-to-consumer brands will make up over 50% of new store openings.

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Women’s Designer Fashion | Luxury Designer Clothing | MATCHESFASHION UK

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Shop women’s designer fashion from luxury brands including Gucci, Saint Laurent, Chloe, Valentino, Isabel Marant, Balenciaga and Stella McCartney at MATCHESFASHION.COM

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Researching a market? Our free online course Introduction to Market Sizing offers a practical 30-minute primer on market research and calculating market size.
Barriers to entry are factors that prevent a startup from entering a particular market. As a whole, they comprise one of the five forces that determine the intensity of competition in an industry (the others are industry rivalry, the bargaining power of buyers, the bargaining power of suppliers and the threat of substitutes). The intensity of competition in a certain field determines the attractiveness of a market (that is, low intensity means that the market is attractive).

Factors involved as barriers to entry may be either innocent (for example, the dominating company's absolute cost advantage) or deliberate (for example, high spending on advertising by incumbents makes it very expensive for new firms to enter the market).

Barriers to entry act as a deterrent against new competitors. They serve as a defensive mechanism that imposes a cost element to new entrants, which incumbents do not have to bear. Startups need to understand any barriers to entry for their business and market for two key reasons:

1. Startups might seek to enter a business with high barriers to entry. Doing so would put the startup at a significant disadvantage that is difficult to overcome.

2. Startups that become market leaders must understand how to protect their position by building barriers to entry.

Sources of barriers to entry into a market

There are seven sources of barriers to entry:

Economies of scale

These are declines in the unit costs of a product as the absolute volume per period increases. These force the entrant to either come in at a large scale (risking strong reaction from incumbents) or a small scale (forcing a cost disadvantage).

Product differentiation

Incumbents have brand identification and customer loyalties. This forces entrants to spend heavily to overcome these loyalties. Startups may bring a different product to market, but its benefits must be clearly communicated to the target customer. Startups must find an effective positioning, which often requires marketing resources beyond their means.

Capital requirements

These are the financial resources required for infrastructure, machinery, R&D and advertising. Startups may get around capital requirements by outsourcing parts of the operation to companies that can leverage existing investments.

Switching costs

These are one-time costs the buyer faces when switching an existing supplier's product to a new entrant (for example, employee retraining, new equipment, technical support).

Access to distribution channels

This can be a barrier if logical distribution channels have been locked up by incumbents.

Cost disadvantages independent of scale

Incumbents may have cost advantages that cannot be replicated by a potential entrant. Factors include the learning or experience curve, proprietary product technology, access to raw materials, favourable locations and government subsidies.

Government policy

Governments can limit or prevent entry to industries with various controls (for example, licensing requirements, limits to access to raw materials). Startups in highly regulated industries will find that incumbents have fine-tuned their business according to regulation.

What response can new entrants expect?

The expected reaction of industry incumbents towards a new entrant influences the prospect or threat of entry by a new competitor. A number of conditions indicate the likelihood of retaliation to entry:

A history of strong retaliation to entrants

Established firms with substantial resources to retaliate (for example, excess cash, distribution channel leverage, excess productive capacity)

Established firms with commitment to the industry and highly illiquid assets

Slow industry growth

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Barriers to entry: Factors preventing startup entry into a market

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Researching a market? Our free online course Introduction to Market Sizing offers a practical 30-minute primer on market research and calculating market size. Barriers to entry are factors that prevent a startup from entering a particular market.

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"Mirror, mirror on the wall. . ." The idea of a mirror not only reflecting your image back to you but also augmenting it is no longer a fairytale. Several companies have made significant progress in creating smart mirrors, also called digital mirrors or smart displays, that can help you in the dressing room as well as when you're in the hair stylist's seat or shopping for makeup.

The Magic Of Smart Mirrors: Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality And The Internet of Things
Adobe Stock

Technology Behind Smart Mirrors
The silver-glassed mirrors most of us are familiar with today got their start more than 200 years ago in Germany. While they still serve a useful purpose when reflecting your image back to you, some fashion and beauty leaders figured that if you added smart technology to mirrors, they could elevate the customer experience. This vision is now a reality thanks to the significant advances that have been made in artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and gesture recognition technology. These mirrors can adjust your image, including the clothes you wear to your hairstyle, hair color, and makeup to create a very realistic augmented reflection.
Applications of Smart Mirrors
The beauty of a digital makeover is it's easy to experiment and hit "undo" when you don't like the results. L'Oréal launched an app called Style My Hair in partnership with ModiFace that allows customers to become a blonde (or any other hair color)-at least digitally-on live video. The technology colors hair strand by strand to create a fully dimensional, realistic look. Not loving blonde? Just swipe on the app and change your color again. This technology is beneficial when a colorist consults with a client regarding what they want and lets the client see-quite effectively-how the color will look on them prior to committing to the real thing.

YouCam Makeup-Magic Selfie Cam, developed by Perfect Corp., is a similar app that can show you what you'll look like with a new hair color (and eye color), try on makeup as well as a skincare analysis feature that identifies issues to troubleshoot with a skincare routine. Shopping for cosmetics in real-life can involve taking makeup on and off as you try new shades of highlighter, foundation, blush, lipstick, and eye shadow. Being able to do this virtually prevents any adverse reactions, especially for sensitive skin and makes experimentation easy as you swap between different options.

The same technology can help people see how a new hairstyle will complement their face-or not-before any irreversible cuts are made. It can also be helpful to determine a style for a special occasion or see how a style you saw in a magazine will work with your face shape before you head to the salon.

Coty's version of the smart mirror is the CES 2019 Innovation Awards Honoree- Wella Professionals Smart Mirror. This mirror allows stylists to provide more personalized consultations. Like the apps discussed above, the Wella Professionals Smart Mirror is able to do a live AR hair color try on and can provide a 360-degree of the style so the client can see what it will look like from all angles. In addition, using facial recognition technology, it can retrieve past styles for each customer, allowing the stylist and client to really assess what worked and what didn't. Also important, the mirror provides a curated feed of content with trending styles and classic looks to help inspire both stylists and customers when trying to determine a new look. It also connects to a mobile app so the stylist and customer can stay in contact in between appointments.

Memory Mirror, a digital mirror created by MemoMi, combines a full-length mirror with high-tech including a 70-inch LCD, computer and HD camera that can record videos so you can save, share and review your try-on sessions. Neiman Marcus installed MemoMi's mirrors in 34 locations. Another mirror altering the retail experience is the Oak Mirror by Oak Labs. It serves as a digital assistant in a dressing room, allowing customers to request other colors, styles, or accessories from a sales assistant.

Sephora is another beauty retailer that offers a 3D augmented reality mirror. Customers trying out different products can move their face from side to side, and the augmented eye shadow or lipstick stays where it is supposed to creating a very realistic effect. The technology is expected to not only enhance the customer experience but drive sales. When it's easier to experiment with different looks, it makes it easier to discover new products to purchase.

While your haircut, hair color, and makeup choices are important for your overall look, SenseMi expanded the makeover capabilities to create a virtual dressing mirror, too. The company's smart mirror is used in retail stores, and there's a home version that allows you to "try" on clothes digitally, plus it's able to send you reminders about your calendar, tell you the traffic details along your normal commuting route and more. SenseMi even sells a smart table that provides a multi-touch, interactive experience that can be used in hotels, schools, hospitals, and more.

Artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality will help to make retail stores more interactive and the online experience more real-life. Perhaps more importantly, with the help of makeover apps and smart mirrors, the days of bad haircuts, and color and makeup choices will be a thing of the past.

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The Magic Of Smart Mirrors: Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality And The Internet of Things

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Try it before you buy it has new meaning now that there are smart mirrors. These tools use artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and the internet of things to allow customers to "try on" new hair colors, styles, makeup, and more before they commit to it.

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Demography, London's Population & Geography - Trust For London

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Data source: Mid-year population estimates, ONS (2021). Population of the UK by country of birth and nationality, 2021 Census. Ethnic group populations, 2021 Census.. Around 8.8 million people live in London, which had overall growth since 2011 of 6.7% - slightly higher than the rest of England's growth of 5.9%.

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Full Circle Marketplace is a dedicated space to buy and sell pre-owned Mara Hoffman garments. By shopping pre-owned, you'll be helping our garments go full circle, from one closet to another. By selling pre-owned, you'll be giving your items a chance at a new beginning.

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FULL CIRCLE MARKETPLACE Keeping timeless Mara Hoffman pieces in circulation and out of the landfill. I WANT TO SHOP I WANT TO SELL I WANT TO SELL FULL CIRCLE MARKETPLACE Keeping timeless Mara Hoffman pieces in circulation and out of the landfill.

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Will VR platform Xydrobe change the way you shop fashion in 2023?

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Accessed via futuristic ‘Xydrobes’ – physical sphere-shaped portals – virtual shopping universe Xydrobe promises the future of retail and digital brand storytelling, with fashion’s major players already signed up to be a part

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‘It’s more sustainable – and I still get to wear something new every weekend’: how rental fashion became big business

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Once the preserve of A-listers going to award shows, high street brands are now making hiring clothes more affordable. But can renting really cure our addiction to throwaway fashion – and is it as good for the environment as many claim?

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Consumer brands always struggle behind the scenes to launch new products on schedule. Hardware products are built by managing intricate overlapping dependencies in design and manufacturing over a long development cycle. Because many steps depend on the completion of the preceding one in a decidedly unagile way, any disruption to that process, such as scaling an unproven new technology, shortages of raw materials, factory labor disputes, or transportation challenges, will often cause frustrating delays. COVID-19, the chip shortage, and other supply chain challenges have only made schedules harder to meet and, as a result, more difficult to predict when a product will actually ship. In this article, we will break down the top reasons why hardware products get delayed and why you may want to plan ahead before making a purchase this year.

Supply Chain Complexity

While a lot of attention has been placed on the great chip shortage of 2021, companies have been at the mercy of the supply chain for a long time. The trend toward lean manufacturing in the early 2000s has come with the trade-off of being only a few weeks away from running out of basic parts to feed the factories. In a stable economy, this system works well and saves cost, but sudden changes like the COVID-19 lockdowns have exposed the brittleness of this process we have taken for granted for so long.

For most products, the individual subcomponents can come from many different suppliers from across the globe and often have their own complicated supply chains. A part might say "made in X country" but it might be designed elsewhere and require raw materials from all around the world.

In 2014, I worked at Amazon on the Kindle Voyage which was the first Kindle to have a flush front display. To produce this new module, components were sourced from Japan, China, Taiwan, and Germany. The German component was also modified in Finland, and all of it was ultimately integrated in China. The scheduling logistics for ensuring all the parts made it on time to a build was a nightmare, and this was before anything had even been assembled. I can only imagine how much more challenging that process would have been if I was trying to do this same thing in 2020 or 2021.

Scaling Problems

Typical consumer hardware products follow the EVT/DVT/PVT development model where prototypes are designed and built-in small batches at builds until certain design and manufacturing milestones are met. At each of the stage gates, the engineering and operations teams evaluate their designs, squash bugs, and stabilize processes until the product is ready for mass production. These prototypes are extensively tested under conditions that mimic real-world conditions and are used for developing firmware and software. While builds are carefully overseen by teams of engineers, production is usually run simultaneously on many different lines in different factories around the world according to a locked and stable process. Maintaining the same high level of quality while using materials from multiple vendors across lines in different factories can lead to issues or combinations that were never fully tested in the prototype builds.

Occasionally, issues that might have been dismissed as a minor anomaly at an early stage become major problems as brands begin to ramp up production quantities. Where engineers may have found one issue in a few hundred or thousand devices, they might uncover hundreds or thousands of instances as they scale to building millions of units. Brands set yield targets at each step in the line and for the overall production and if an issue starts to become an outsized source of yield loss, that is usually an indication of an uncaught material, design, or process issue.

Compounding a brand's scaling issues is that every component vendor goes through the same growing pains of ramping production capacity. Vendors can be tempted to send cherry-picked "good" parts at a pre-production build to secure contracts. However, they do so at the risk of overcommitting before they have truly finalized their processes. Instead of hitting an expected yield, they may have to make 5 to 10 times the initial quantity and screen out those that meet the highest standards. However, once contracts are locked and high-volume manufacturing starts, those vendors will need to make the economics work by achieving those target yield numbers or reducing part quality.

As an example, in 2017, the new iPhone X was announced in mid-September without an official ship date. Rumors were that the new display module with its novel edge-to-edge design, rounded corners, and large notch could only be produced by a single vendor, Samsung. Yield loss due to quality issues and growing pains in developing this new component likely held production back from ramping at full capacity. Because it was such a signature part of the product, there was nothing Apple could do but wait for enough volume to meet their ramp targets. Apple finally announced pre-orders in late October and began shipping on November 3rd almost 2 months after the announcement.

Software and Platform Challenges

We may think software development is easy with agile development and frequent app updates. We have been conditioned to think that software is fungible and can be fixed after the fact. But device software is often more challenging. This is because unlike apps which use the APIs and output from the operating system, the base layers of software need to stably run sensors, inputs and outputs to achieve consistent and reliable results. Brands often start by building breadboard platforms outside of the actual housing. This allows them to get a head start on creating the firmware required to talk to all the different parts using prototype components before production is set at the semiconductor foundry. Once a platform is up and running, the operating system and application layers of software can start to be built. Of course, moving from the platform to the real product requires extensive tuning and adjustment and maybe even tweaks to the software.

With more complexity built into each product every year, and with consumers expecting new products to just work, brands are under a lot of pressure to test and validate their software. To avoid embarrassing security patches or fatal flaws in production, massive teams of quality assurance engineers will test different configurations under different conditions.

In 2012, during the development of the 3rd generation of the Kindle Fire tablets, the main processor supplier, Texas Instruments, decided to get out of the business of making its OMAP processors. The team was forced to change the hardware platform entirely to Qualcomm chips. This meant that they needed to start from scratch to ensure all the drivers and components could work with the replacement processor. Luckily, this setback did not delay the program significantly, but that was only through heroic efforts by the team. Sometimes, though, making a switch has more drastic consequences. The automobile industry has relied for years on stable, older components and can't quickly pivot to the latest technology because they don't know how newer components will perform in 5 or 10 years.

Regulatory Hurdles

Products today are more complex than ever before. Everything from vacuums to cars comes with embedded connectivity in the form of Bluetooth, NFC, UWB, Wi-Fi, or cellular. With more connectivity comes more regulation as governments want to make sure the radiative elements of products don't emit too much power as they transmit data in close proximity to our vital organs. Launching a product like a new phone or tablet across the globe requires certification in different jurisdictions, each with slightly different requirements. Each unique SKU of a product must undergo compliance testing at the FCC in the US and CE in Europe before it can be declared safe to sell. Other countries have their own regulatory bodies, some of which require more information or more time. You will often see different launch dates in countries with stricter regulations or more bureaucracy such as South Korea or Brazil.

Shipping/Transportation Delays

One of the challenges with launching physical products is that even if the brand does everything right from concept to mass production, they must still submit to the whims of retail distribution. This means entrusting your products to carriers or shippers to send products around the world. Everything from bad weather to longshoreman strikes can severely impact the final delivery of goods from manufacturing hubs in Asia to warehouses and stores across the world. For a brand to have products in-store around the country or world on the same day means having a massive logistics arm to manage that distribution.

The pandemic has changed customs policies, reduced capacity at the docks, and left many cargo ships floating offshore. This in turn has slowed delivery times while increasing the cost of a single container load. Where a container load in the past might have cost $1000 to send from Asia, today that same size shipment might cost $20,000 to $30,000. Instead, companies may be tempted to ship with air freight as the price is almost at parity. Of course, COVID vaccine shipments are taking high priority on a lot of shipments, and reduced passenger flights have reduced supply there as well.

What can the industry do?

Even before the pandemic occurred, executives at consumer brands had been looking for ways to combat these issues. The challenges with COVID have only served to remind us how delicate our old way of doing things was and further incentivized teams to accelerate the adoption of new technologies. More and more companies are investing in remote real-time oversight at factories up and down the supply chain. With these new streams of data, insights and analysis are being used to better predict and respond to sudden changes. Those that are able to adapt quickly are starting to see the fruits of their investments as they are able to reduce delays and get products out more quickly.

At Instrumental, we have created a Manufacturing Optimization System that can help engineers find problems faster. Many of these topics are covered in-depth in the Manufacturing Optimization Handbook. If you are looking for ways to reduce your time to market, improve transparency, and get ahead of the curve on the next set of tools in manufacturing, contact us at sales@instrumental.com .

What should you do?

2021 has created the perfect storm of challenges for everyone. Supply chain disruptions are happening often making it harder to plan what to build. Some companies are attempting to pivot to using alternate components but will need to write and test with new software. With prototypes being harder to develop due to travel restrictions and regulators having more challenges keeping up with demand, new products are not getting approved as quickly and the shipping and labor shortages have increased costs and reduced throughput. This will be one of the most disjointed holiday seasons on record and we have already seen companies like Amazon try to entice people to buy gifts early with sales starting in October.
Chris Li is a former Amazon Product Design Engineering Manager and current teardown lead for Instrumental. He brought multiple generations of the Kindle to market and advised on the first Echo and Fire TV products. He also worked as the VP of Product Design at the healthtech startup, PillDrill, which shipped an award-winning medication tracking system.

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The Top 5 Reasons Why Consumer Products Get Delayed - Instrumental

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Consumer brands always struggle behind the scenes to launch new products on schedule. Hardware products are built by managing intricate overlapping dependencies in design and manufacturing over a long development cycle.

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SAP BrandVoice: Why The Circular Economy Is The Perfect Fit For The Fashion Industry

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Sustainability legislation drives new proposals in Europe and signals a major shift for the fashion industry.

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At HURR, one of the best online rental platform in the U.K, you can rent high-end clothes and accessories in seconds. R enters have the possibility to ship their garments to rent using RePack.

About HURR

HURR Collective is the UK's first peer-to-peer wardrobe rental platform, on a mission to make renting an everyday occurrence, whilst paving the way towards a more sustainable future. HURR shows how circular fashion can be put into action.

Why renting makes sense?

You have a positive impact on the environment : you extend the life cycle of your clothes, and you avoid buying new ones. By the way, extending the life of your clothes by just 9 months can reduce their water footprint by 25 - 30%. Not bad.

You save money, space and time : no need to buy this expensive suit you'll only wear once, that would just end in your already overflowing wardrobe anyway.

Reusable packaging in a rental environment

As a startup championing sustainable fashion, they've searched high and low for a packaging company with a simple solution to the growing problem of e-commerce waste.

Renting clothes is all about reuse, it just didn't make sense to ship them in single-use!

So there it is, one of the many steps HURR is taking to create a truly circular model, and providing HURR members with a smart packaging solution: RePack.

Interested in reusable packaging?

How HURR implemented reusable packaging for its members

In a rental business, packages travel back and forth between the owner of the garments and the person renting it through the platform.

This is the ideal environment to use reusable packaging. HURR decided to use our Closed-Loop model for RePack and to give the possibility to its community of renters to pack their order in RePack.

On the peer-to-peer platform, interested users can simply order RePacks to HURR which delivers it to their doorstep. From there, the renters use RePack for all their rental orders, and once the RePack is too damaged, all they have to do is to drop it in a postbox with the return label. We take them back for deep cleaning or upcycling!

Implement RePack for your own rental system!

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Case Study: HURR, using reusable packaging on its rental platform

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At HURR, one of the best online rental platform in the U.K, you can rent high-end clothes and accessories in seconds. R enters have the possibility to ship their garments to rent using RePack. HURR Collective is the UK's first peer-to-peer wardrobe rental platform, on a mission to make renting an everyday occurrence, whilst paving the way towards a more sustainable future.

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H&M tests smart mirrors at COS stores in a bid for a more personalized experience

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Fitting room mirrors can identify products, including the size and color, and provide customized product or styling recommendations.

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Human resource and training professionals seem to jump from fad to fad and are often guilty of burning through large sums of money reinventing the wheel with custom content. "It's different here," they truly believe. "We have a unique culture. We're special!"

Yet, if there was ever a standard for new manager training it has to be the theory of situational leadership.

What Is Situational Leadership® Theory?

The idea behind situational leadership is that you, the leader, should your leadership approach to be more or less directive, and more or less supportive, based on the .

And the situation means whether your direct report (i.e., team member) is a competent and committed superstar, or on the other end of the scale, an incompetent slacker.

For example, you've got a young newbie on your team with little experience. You would want to be very "directive"-show her how to do it, tell her to do it, make sure it's done right. But for another team member who has ten more years of experience than you do, and has always performed well, you'd just delegate and get out of the way. They don't need you looking over their shoulder and being all micro-managey. (No, that's not a real word. But it's funny.)

"So What? What's So Great About That?"

So you're not impressed with this model, huh?

That's because today, it seems like common sense. But before there was the idea of situational leadership most people assumed there was One Right Way to Lead. You could argue about what the right way was - Autocratic , Laissez-Faire , , Transformational - but it was just assumed you had a model and led everyone the same way.

But in the 1960s leadership wonks started coming up with a variety of " contingency theories ." Meaning the best leadership style would be contingent on things like organizational integrity, environmental factors, the type of tasks that needed to be completed, etc.

And in the sixties, there was a lot of research and competing theories even within the broad idea of contingent-leadership. So they put all the professors on an island and each week they voted the most annoying leadership geek off the island until there was a single winner.

OK, that never happened. I was just making sure you didn't fall asleep. What really happened was...

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard: The Lennon and McCartney of Leadership

In the year that the Beatles would release Abbey Road, Dr. Paul Hersey and Dr. Ken Blanchard released Management of Organizational Behavior , a textbook that would turn them into rockstars of the leadership world. It's a textbook that would be used in business courses for over forty years.

(What, they don't look like rock stars to you?)

It was this textbook that laid out the original version of the model, and Hersey and Blanchard become partners in a management consulting and training company called The Center for Leadership Studies.

But remember what eventually happened to the Beatles?

Yep, the rockstars of leadership split up, too.

Two Different Versions? You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

In 1979, ten years after launching the theory of all theories, Blanchard left to start his own company, now known as The Ken Blanchard Companies. And he continued to refine the Situational Leadership ® model and began to call it Situational Leadership ® II.

To purists, there are important differences between the two models. For most HR professionals and managers, not so much.

More recently, the two companies sued each other over the right to use the "Situational Leadership ®" name. It was agreed that after the year 2020, The Center for Leadership Studies would continue to use the Situational Leadership ® name, while The Ken Blanchard Companies would have to refer to their model as just SLII ®.

You can see some of the differences between the two versions in the visual model. Situational Leadership ® offered by The Center for Leadership Studies looks like this:

The SLII ® model offered by The Ken Blanchard Companies looks like this:

The original model labels the four quadrants of leadership: Telling, Selling, Participating, Delegating.

The revised Blanchard model labels them: Directing, Coaching, Supporting, Delegating.

To further explain situational leadership theory, we'll stick with the Blanchard SLII ® framework, and reference the image directly above.

The situational leader follows three simple steps:

1. Identify the specific goal; frame it as a SMART goal

2. Diagnose the individual's level of competence and commitment

3. Apply the correct leadership style

To understand and define the "performance readiness" of the follower, you determine how competent they are and how committed they are. You can see in the image above that followers move from D1 to D4 classifications as they become fully developed.

The SLII ® model describes four basic levels of leadership based on a combination of directing and supporting:

You then match your leadership approach to their stage of development:

For a D1 follower, use an S1 "Directing" style

For a D2 follower, use an S2 "Coaching" style

For a D3 follower, use an S3 "Supporting" style

For a D4 follower, use an S4 "Delegating" style

A critical aspect of situational leadership is that you don't make a single judgment about each employee. "Kevin is such a D1! I've got to direct everything..."

Rather it's task-specific. A seasoned sales professional might be a D4 when it comes to sales calls, but a D1 when it comes to using the new CRM software system. As the leader, you'd delegate sales related items, but be highly directive when it comes to call planning, digital notes, and reporting.

Scholarly Research

Researchers continue to study situational leadership; notable published papers include:

More Information

Visit The Center for Leadership Studies to learn more about Situational Leadership ®.

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Situational Leadership® Theory In Plain Language: The Landmark Model From Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard | LEADx

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Human resource and training professionals seem to jump from fad to fad and are often guilty of burning through large sums of money reinventing the wheel with custom content. "It's different here," they truly believe. "We have a unique culture. We're special!"

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Wes Anderson is probably jealous of Emily Adams Bode.

She constructs clothes from vintage merit badges and sports pennants. She's got a whisper network of antique dealers from Paris to Atlanta. She collects tiny pieces of 1960s furniture. She can discern between the different tribes of High School Art Girl.™ ("I was never a jaded goth girl, never a fun glitter girl. I was more in the vein of preppy vintage," she says, because again: Wes Anderson could never.)

But Bode isn't just a certain classification of cool, or even an arbiter of New York's fashion future-though with a CFDA Award, the 30-year-old is certainly that. But the reason we're obsessed with her is because besides the buzz, the cool factor, and the Moonlight Kingdom vibes, Emily Bode is at the vanguard of a new way to shop.

"It starts with the fact that sustainability doesn't mean what you think it means," she sighs. "People love using that word, but look: sustainability doesn't mean you're making new clothes out of new fabric, even if that fabric is easier on the environment. If you're over-producing clothes you can't sell, even if they're made from eco-friendly fabrics, then guess what? It's not sustainable! And maybe you're not even looking towards the communities you effect with your production. Maybe the fabric is sustainable but the way you treat people or the way you run your facility is toxic. And I know it's complex. I know we still have to sell things."

To prove it, Bode opened a tiny boutique in Chinatown last year, selling bespoke and limited-run pieces in a mix of upcycled, recycled, and natural fabrics. "We have a huge size range, over 20 sizes really," she says, noting that every garment is meant to be unisex. "And the funny thing is, my mentors and teachers would have been so against that. They would be like, 'You can't open a store until you know your customer! Know their size!' But too bad!" she laughs. "We make larger and smaller sizes because larger and smaller people buy our clothes. Because we're a made-to-order business, we only have to make what we know we're selling, which right now is pants. We had no idea people would be so into our pants," which are basically the Dazed and Confused movie flares in fabrics that range from '70s denim to Japanese silk.

But what happens when a sustainable clothing line wins fashion awards, scores Insta-Fame, lands on magazine covers, and suddenly they need to actually buy fabric? "We still do a lot of vintage sourcing from all over the world," Bode says, "But we're really relying on Woolmark. They have opened up doors to the best wool suppliers in the world, who wouldn't have talked to me before," she laughs. "They let me make replicas of my vintage fabric pieces and still feel like it's part of our mission."

"So much of the brand, to me, is creating heirloom garments and preserving these histories and techniques that otherwise would be lost forever," she says. "Woolmark lets us pair with these smaller mills that have traceable and certified sustainable yarns. To have a really clear view of where your materials are coming from and transparency on that, that's sustainable."

This week, Emily competes for the prestigious Woolmark Prize which will provide even more funding and support for the designer should she win (like Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent, who are just two of the many success stories to come from the international contest). But unlike those legendary designers, she doesn't feel the same rivalry with her peers, including fellow American cool kid Matthew Adams Dolan.

"Fashion loves to make people compete," she says. "It's just part of the industry, it's part of the way they do design schools... but I refuse to believe my peers, and the people around me who I like and respect, are my actual 'competition,' you know?" She laughs. "I think of it as, 'You're competing for a thing. You're not competing in life.' We're not really similar, me and these other designers."

And to Emily Bode, that's exactly the point.

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Emily Adams Bode Is Going to Change How You Shop

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Wes Anderson is probably jealous of Emily Adams Bode. She constructs clothes from vintage merit badges and sports pennants. She's got a whisper network of antique dealers from Paris to Atlanta. She collects tiny pieces of 1960s furniture. She can discern between the different tribes of High School Art Girl.™ ("I was never a jaded goth girl, never a fun glitter girl.

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At Knoops, we prioritise the use of environmentally friendly materials and sustainable products across our company - from the sourcing of our chocolate to the fabric of our stores. We continually review our supply chain to ensure that it remains in line with our ecological and ethical values.

Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.

Press the space key then arrow keys to make a selection.

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Sustainability - What We're Doing - Knoops

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At Knoops, we prioritise the use of environmentally friendly materials and sustainable products across our company - from the sourcing of our chocolate to the fabric of our stores. We continually review our supply chain to ensure that it remains in line with our ecological and ethical values.

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Colors are used to communicate different messages all the time. A red light gives you a visual cue to hit the brakes. If someone says they've got the blues, you know they're feeling sad. And if a person says they're "going green," you'll know they're trying to be eco-conscious.

Not only do colors inform moods, styles, and tones - they can heavily influence generational marketing strategies.

Generational marketing involves catering marketing efforts to specific generations. To successfully market to a set age group, you have to understand their shared values, style choices, and - you guessed it - color preferences.

So let's lend a bit of color to age-based marketing and explore just how a color (or several) can define a generation.

Pantone Color of the Year creates a generational marketing timeline

For more than 20 years, color experts from the Pantone Color Institute have used color psychology and researched color influences to provide seasonal trend forecasts. And because the Institute has named a Color of the Year annually since 2000, we can see how color has influenced generational marketing throughout the past two decades.

This is not to say that the Pantone Color of the Year is the definitive source of color trends - but it's pretty influential. Their team of color experts look into trends stemming from everything like fashion and entertainment to technology and sporting events. So I'll be referencing Pantone, as well as other color experts, as we explore the colors that influence marketing messages, product packaging, and fashion trends for different generations.

Boomers prefer neutrals and trustworthy classics

The baby boomer generation includes people born between the late 1940s and early 1960s. As of 2022, this generation holds 50% of wealth in the United States.

Boomers overtook the silent generation in percentage of wealth around 2006, which shifted generational marketing tactics towards the generation with increased buying power. So, while there is no official color for boomers, I'd argue that Pantone's 2006 Color of the Year, Sand Dollar, could be considered Boomer Beige. According to Pantone, Sand Dollar is "considered a neutral color that expresses concern about the economy." If that doesn't say boomer, I don't know what does.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Color experts attest to the boomer generation's strong preference for neutral colors that fit into more "mature" or "traditional" palettes. Classic colors include beige, gray, and dark or muted blues. For accent colors, boomers like muted oranges and browns along with deep reds, much like the 2007 Color of the Year, a maroon shade called Chili Pepper.

Boomers lean towards calming colors, particularly when it comes to interior design. Both PPG Paints and Yankee Barn Homes have shared boomer-core palettes that focus on muted neutral tones like Volcanic Ash gray, Dreamy Blue, Chocolate Moment brown, and Mother of Pearl off-white.

So why do boomers love beige, blue, and all those muted neutrals so much? It's likely a combination of color psychology and how colors are used in design. For example, the " Designers Dictionary of Color " states that beige has a calming effect and is often connected to conservative values. Blue - the neutral shade of choice for most boomer-centric businesses - communicates honesty and loyalty, which is why it's considered a "corporate color."

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Generational marketing tactics back up these preferences. Color experts point out that blue is a dominant color for businesses that cater to boomers: insurance companies, senior living buildings, financial planners, travel agents, etc.

Gen Xers go for the basics with organic touches

Generation Xers - those born between the mid 1960s and 1980 - have significant purchasing power as well, holding 30% of wealth in the US. Generation X also lacks an "official" color, but we can see the shift from the boomer generation to Gen X through the Pantone Colors of the Year.

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After Sand Dollar beige and Chili Pepper maroon, we have a middle ground Blue Iris, a nature-adjacent Mimosa yellow, a bright Turquoise, and a reddish-pink Honeysuckle. This transition tracks with Gen X color preferences, which build on the basics from the previous generation and add in more nature-centric colors like greens, reds, and violets. Plus, 2010 is when Gen X's buying power began to increase consistently.

At first glance, the Gen-X palettes from PPG Paints and Yankee Barn Homes seem similar to the boomer palettes. However, Gen Xers brighten up their homes with organic colors like Golden Grass green, Cajun Spice red, Sauteed Mushroom brown, and Heart's Content pink.

According to "The Designers Dictionary of Color," turquoise (the unofficial Gen X color) is associated with nature and considered soothing, even though it's much brighter than the muted shades that boomers prefer. Avocado or dark green is another Gen X favorite because it feels organic and restful to the eye. Appliances from the 1970s (when many Gen Xers grew up) often came in avocado green, so nostalgia could play into the preference as well.

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Generational marketing for this demographic includes mostly natural colors but with brighter accents compared to boomers' preferences. Financial apps are a great example. Both boomers and Gen X are concerned with finances, but Gen Xers are more open to using smartphones and apps to manage their money. Popular financial apps like Mint and Zeta lean heavily into shades of green for their main brand colors. Zeta also features organic colors like sky blue and golden yellow in their branding.

Millennials love millennial pink and energetic shades

Generation Y consumers, better known as millennials, were born between 1981 and 1996. Although millennials are all old enough to be in the workforce, they hold significantly less wealth compared to older age groups - a mere 6%. But this demographic remains a crucial target audience because they hold the strongest sense of brand loyalty. In other words - we're broke, but we're loyal.

This generation has a namesake color, millennial pink, which isn't an exact shade but rather a range that encompasses dusty rose, a peachy pink, and sometimes includes muted salmon tones. Versions of this color are so popular that the origin and ownership get murky. Beauty Brand, Glossier, went as far as to trademark their particular shade of millennial pink to protect their branding. And in 2016, the year that the youngest millennials came of age, Pantone's Color of the Year was Rose Quartz - a version of millennial pink.

Some theorize that millennial pink is a rebellious response to the over-feminization of pink. A color that was once considered "just for girls" was reclaimed as a gender neutral shade and used for everything from gender neutral watches to hoodies.

In addition to the rosy signature color, millennials also favor bright and energetic colors like mint green, coral, baby blue, orange, and lavender. Millennial color palettes from PPG Paints and Yankee Barn Homes combine neutral whites, grays, and baby blues with lively accent colors like Mediterranean Blue, Fuchsia Flock, and Twinkle Toes yellow.

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Generational marketing efforts geared towards millennials employ a lot of bright colors. Apple products are a great example, with many color options playing right into millennial preferences. Think rose gold iPhones, iPads with a lavender finish, and Apple watches with tangerine bands.

Nike, another brand that ranks high with millennial consumers, leans into millennial color preferences, as well. Browse through Nike's best sellers and you'll see lively designs featuring bright mint greens, sunny oranges and yellows, and of course, millennial pink.

Gen Zers embrace Gen Z yellow and bright, contrasting colors

Generation Z includes people born in between 1997 and 2012, which leaves a large portion of this generation outside of the workforce. But don't underestimate young people's influence on generational marketing strategy. According to a Bank of America survey, Gen Z purchasing power will overtake millennials' by 2030.

This age group's signature color is Gen Z yellow - a bright, sunny shade of yellow that matches the 2021 Pantone Color of the Year, Illuminating. Gen Z yellow was the first hue to loosen the vice grip millennial pink held on marketing aimed at younger consumers.

‍ Color psychology tells us that yellow often represents joy, positivity, and sunshine - all things that make sense for the youngest generation. Plus, "The Designer's Dictionary of Color" explains that fluorescent yellow is often adopted by teenage and younger audiences because of its alignment with energy and optimism.

But Gen Z yellow has competition - a range of bright, cheerful shades of green, collectively called Gen Z green. This vivid color is now seen everywhere from the runway to product packaging.

Whether you're team green or yellow, both of these signature shades showcase Gen Z's love of exciting colors that pop in Instagram photos that look like the saturation was cranked all the way up.

Since only a portion of Gen Z has entered the workforce, generational marketing efforts tend to go after a mix of Gen Z'ers and millennials. Brands talking to this mixed customer base love to go for the social media appeal with their experiences and products. Take the "$10 razor going viral," from Billie Razors, for instance.

Billie goes all in on their colorful branding with colors like pink, orange, baby blue, coral, and lavender. Billie might even be ahead of the game with their increased use of lavender - rumor has it that Gen Z purple is the next big thing. The 2022 Pantone Color of the Year was a light purple color called Very Peri, after all.

Colors offer a golden opportunity for generational marketing

Whether you're designing the look of your loyalty program, emailing marketing campaigns, or promoting your online shopping experience - color is crucial. When you know how color influences different groups of people, you're better prepared to attract your target audience. So go paint your products, websites, and packaging accordingly.

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How color plays into generational marketing | Webflow Blog

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Colors are used to communicate different messages all the time. A red light gives you a visual cue to hit the brakes. If someone says they've got the blues, you know they're feeling sad. And if a person says they're "going green," you'll know they're trying to be eco-conscious.

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Green transportation is any means of travel that doesn't negatively impact the environment. Green transportation can be private (like a fast ebike), or public transit (like an electric city bus). Walking is also considered a green mode of travel.

The common denominator among green transportation everywhere is that it's sustainable. Sustainable transportation is powered by resources that aren't depleted when used, making them harnessable by future generations.

Types of sustainable (green) vehicles

Looking to make a move toward green transportation? Here are three sustainable options people are embracing in 2021.

1. All-electric vehicles

All-electric vehicles use one or more electric motors. They can be vehicles powered by solar cells, electric batteries, or electric generators to convert fuel to electricity.

All-electric vehicles are greener than vehicles powered by combustion engines because they don't burn up fossil fuel (which isn't renewable), and they don't negatively impact the environment in the same way exhaust does either.

It's also important to note that it's not only highly-visible car companies like Tesla embracing the use of electric-powered engines either. Public buses, light rail commuter trains, and intercity trains are beginning to run on electric motors too.

2. Hybrid vehicles

Hybrid vehicles pair an electric motor with a traditional combustion engine. Electric motors excel at creating power, whereas combustion engines are better at maintaining high speeds.

Hybrid vehicles operate on the premise that each power source will do what it does best. Although hybrid vehicles are less "green" than all-electric vehicles, they still produce fewer greenhouse emissions than vehicles running purely on a combustion engine, making them greener.

Depending on how they are driven, hybrid cars cut emissions from 26 to 90 percent when compared to traditional vehicles. Like all-electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles can be found in both private and public transportation.

3. Electric bikes

If you've ever wondered what an ebike is, the abbreviation stands for "electric bicycle", and it's essentially a traditional bicycle with an electric motor.

Ebike batteries last for hours, and can help riders go from 15-25 mph. But some ebikes can go even faster than that.

There are different models of electric bicycles, with the greenest version being the pedal-assist ebike. Pedal assist requires the rider to pedal before the motor begins to engage. However, there are also models that continuously use the motor as well.

Electric bikes are effective modes of green transportation for a number of reasons. For instance, ebike production requires fewer resources than fulls-sized vehicles, and they demand less energy too.

Ebikes are just starting to become popular in the United States. However, they're already an increasingly popular form of green transportation in Europe and Asia. Especially in cities, where getting around the landscape on an ebike is easier for couriers and commuters.

The importance of green transportation today

Making the switch to green transportation is important to protect our planet for future generations. In addition, we can reduce our use of fossil fuels, which are finite and cause global pollution issues.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 28 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from transportation vehicles. And, the majority of these emissions (59 percent) come from passenger vehicles. These numbers have increased by 30 percent since 1990, even as green transportation has become more popular. Clearly, we need to do more.

A culture that embraces green transportation will not only reduce air pollution and help the population stay healthier, but individuals will spend fewer resources on energy and governments will become less dependent on providers of fossil fuels. With this one change, we'll all become closer to living in a sustainable society.

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What is Green Transportation? The Importance of Sustainable Travel

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Green transportation is how you get from A to B without harming the environment. Read on to learn more about green transportation and sustainable vehicles.

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Former Browns’ Shoreditch store available for rent

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Luxury fashion retailer Browns’ former Club Row store is on the rental market for retailers looking for a flagship site.

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Innovative strategies for a more consumer centric fashion brand

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Fashion is about collaboration. Today, brands must adopt a more consumer-centric strategy in order to capture the times and the market.

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Key performance indicators (KPIs) are milestones on the road to online retail success. Monitoring them will help ecommerce entrepreneurs identify progress toward sales, marketing, and customer service goals.

Your KPIs should be chosen and monitored based on your specific business goals, but having an understanding of as many KPIs as possible can be beneficial. Certain KPIs support some goals while they're irrelevant for others.

In this guide, we'll cover important ecommerce metrics you should measure and give you examples on what KPIs you should track, and how to track them in Shopify.
Table of Contents
Here is the definition of key performance indicators, types of key performance indicators, and 67 examples of ecommerce key performance indicators.

What is a performance indicator?

A performance indicator is a quantifiable measurement or data point used to gauge performance relative to some goal. As an example, some online retailers may have a goal to increase site traffic 50% in the next year.

Relative to this goal, a performance indicator might be the number of unique visitors the site receives daily or which traffic sources send visitors (paid advertising, search engine optimization, brand or display advertising, a YouTube video, etc.) For some businesses, customer lifetime value is the most important KPI to track.

For others, customer satisfaction or customer acquisition cost is the main focus for business growth. Although most businesses will have multiple KPI's to focus on, you don't want to spread yourself too thin. Just like with setting personal goals, having two to three areas of focus is key.

What is a key performance indicator?

For most goals there could be many performance indicators-often too many-so often people narrow it down to just two or three impactful data points, known as key performance indicators. KPIs are those measurements that most accurately and succinctly show whether or not a business is progressing toward its goal.

Use Shopify's built-in reporting and analytics help you make better decisions, faster. Choose from over 60 pre-built dashboards and reports or customize your own to spot trends, capitalize on opportunities, and supercharge your decision-making.

Why are KPIs Important?

KPIs are important just like strategy and goal setting are important. Without KPIs, it's difficult to gauge progress over time. You'd be making decisions based on gut instinct, personal preference or belief, or other unfounded hypotheses. KPIs tell you more information about your business and your customers, so you can make informed and strategic decisions.

But KPIs aren't important on their own. The real value lies in the actionable insights you take away from analyzing the data. You'll be able to more accurately devise strategies to drive more online sales, as well as understand where there may be problems in your business.

Plus, the data related to KPIs can be distributed to the larger team. This can be used to educate your employees and come together for critical problem-solving.

Types of key performance indicators

There are many types of key performance indicators. They may be qualitative, quantitative, predictive of the future, or revealing of the past. KPIs also touch on various business operations. When it comes to ecommerce, KPIs generally fall into one of the following five categories:

70 key performance indicator examples for ecommerce

Note: The performance indicators listed below are in no way an exhaustive list. There are an almost infinite number of KPIs to consider for your ecommerce business.

What are KPIs for sales?

Sales KPIs are measures that tell you how your business is doing in terms of conversions and revenue. You can look at sales KPIs related to a specific channel, time period, team, employee, etc. to inform business decisions.

💡 TIP: Go to your Analytics dashboard in Shopify admin to see these sales KPIs and track progress towards your goals.

Examples of important ecommerce metrics and KPIs for sales include:

Sales: Ecommerce retailers can monitor total sales by the hour, day, week, month, quarter, or year.

Average order size: Sometimes called the average market basket, the average order size tells you how much a customer typically spends on a single order.

Gross profit: Calculate this KPI by subtracting the total cost of goods sold from total sales.

Average margin: Average margin, or average profit margin, is a percentage that represents your profit margin over a period of time.

Average order value (AOV): The average value of an order from your customers.

Number of transactions: This is the total number of transactions. Use this KPI in conjunction with average order size or total number of site visitors for deeper insights.

Conversion rate: The conversion rate, also a percentage, is the rate at which users on your ecommerce site are converting (or buying). This is calculated by dividing the total number of visitors (to a site, page, category, or selection of pages) by the total number of conversions.

Shopping cart abandonment rate: The shopping cart abandonment rate tells you how many users are adding products to their shopping cart but not checking out. The lower this number, the better. If your cart abandonment rate is high, there may be too much friction in the checkout process.

New customer orders versus returning customer orders: This metric shows a comparison between new and repeat customers. Many business owners focus only on customer acquisition, but customer retention can also drive loyalty, word of mouth marketing, and higher order values.

Cost of goods sold (COGS): COGS tells you how much you're spending to sell a product. This includes manufacturing, employee wages, and overhead costs.

Total available market relative to a retailer's share of market: Tracking this KPI will tell you how much your business is growing compared to others within your industry.

Product affinity: This KPI tells you which products are purchased together. This can and should inform cross-promotion strategies.

Product relationship: This is which products are viewed consecutively. Again, use this KPI to formulate effective cross-selling tactics.

Inventory levels: This KPI could tell you how much stock is on hand, how long product is sitting, how quickly product is selling, etc.

Competitive pricing: It's important to gauge your success and growth against yourself and against your competitors. Monitor your competitors' pricing strategies and compare them to your own.

Customer lifetime value (CLV): The CLV tells you how much a customer is worth to your business over the course of their relationship with your brand. You want to increase this number over time through strengthening relationships and focusing on customer loyalty.

Revenue per visitor (RPV): RPV gives you an average of how much a person spends during a single visit to your site. If this KPI is low, you can view website analytics to see how you can drive more online sales.

Churn rate: For an online retailer, the churn rate tells you how quickly customers are leaving your brand or canceling/failing to renew a subscription with your brand.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC): CAC tells you how much your company spends on acquiring a new customer. This is measured by looking at your marketing spend and how it breaks down per individual customer.

What are KPIs for marketing?

KPIs for marketing tell you how well you're doing in relation to your marketing and advertising goals. These also impact your sales KPIs.

If you run an ecommerce store, you can use marketing KPIs to understand which products are selling, who's buying them, how they're buying them, and why they're buying them. This can help you market more strategically in the future, write better product descriptions, and inform product development.

💡 TIP: Go to your Analytics dashboard in Shopify admin to track marketing KPIs and ensure you're hitting your objectives.

Examples of KPIs you can use for marketing include:

Website traffic: Site traffic refers to the total number of visits to your ecommerce site. More site traffic means more users are hitting your store.

New visitors versus returning visitors: New site visitors are first-time visitors to your site. Returning visitors, on the other hand, have been to your site before. While looking at this metric alone won't reveal much, it can help ecommerce retailers gauge success of digital marketing campaigns. If you're running a retargeted ad, for example, returning visitors should be higher.

Time on site: This KPI tells you how much time visitors are spending on your website. Generally, more time spent means they've had deeper engagements with your brand. Usually, you'll want to see more time spent on blog content and landing pages and less time spent through the checkout process.

Bounce rate: The bounce rate tells you how many users exit your site after viewing only one page. If this number is high, you'll want to investigate why visitors are leaving your site instead of exploring.

Page views per visit: Page views per visit refers to the average number of pages a user will view on your site during each visit. Again, more pages usually means more engagement. However, if it's taking users too many clicks to find the products they're looking for, you want to revisit your site design.

Average session duration: The average amount of time a person spends on your site during a single visit is called the average session duration.

Traffic source: The traffic source KPI tells you where visitors are coming from or how they found your site. This will provide information about which channels are driving the most traffic, such as organic search, paid ads, or social media.

Mobile site traffic: Monitor the total number of users who use mobile devices to access your store and make sure your site is optimized for mobile.

Day part monitoring: Looking at when site visitors come can tell you which are peak traffic times.

Newsletter subscribers: The number of newsletter subscribers refers to how many users have opted into your email marketing list. If you have more subscribers, you can reach more consumers. However, you'll also want to look at related data, such as the demographics of your newsletter subscribers, to make sure you're reaching your target audience.

Texting subscribers: Newer to digital marketing than email, ecommerce brands can reach consumers through SMS-based marketing. Texting subscribers refers to the number of customers on your text message contact list.

Subscriber growth rate: This tells you how quickly your subscriber list is growing. Pairing this KPI with the total number of subscribers will give you good insight into this channel.

Email open rate: This KPI tells you the percentage of subscribers that open your email. If you have a low email open rate, you could test new subject lines, or try cleaning your list for inactive or irrelevant subscribers.

Email click-through rate (CTR): While the open rate tells you the percentage of subscribers who open the email, the click-through rate tells you the percentage of those who actually clicked on a link after opening. This is arguably more important than the open rate because without clicks, you won't drive any traffic to your site.

Unsubscribes: You can look at both the total number and the rate of unsubscriptions for your email list.

Chat sessions initiated: If you have live chat functionality on your ecommerce store using a tool like Shopify Inbox, the number of chat sessions initiated tells you how many users engaged with the tool to speak to a virtual aide.

Social followers and fans: Whether you're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, or Snapchat (or a combination of a few), the number of followers or fans you have is a useful KPI to gauge customer loyalty and brand awareness. Many of those social media networks also have tools that ecommerce businesses can use to learn more about their social followers.

Return on ad spend (ROAS): if you're running ad campaigns, ROAS tells you the amount of revenue earned for every dollar spent on advertising on a specific channel like Google or Facebook.

Blended ROAS: this metric blends how much you spend on ads across all channels to give you a broader view of how efficiently your ad campaigns generate revenue.

Cost per click (CPC): Also known as pay-per-click, this KPI tells you how much you spend each time a potential customer clicks on one of your paid ads on Google, Facebook, or other channels.

Social media engagement: Social media engagement tells you how actively your followers and fans are interacting with your brand on social media.

Clicks: The total number of clicks a link gets. You could measure this KPI almost anywhere: on your website, social media, email, display ads, PPC, etc.

Average clickthrough rate (CTR): The average click-through rate tells you the percentage of users on a page (or asset) who click on a link.

Average position: The average position KPI tells you about your site's search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search performance. This demonstrates where you are on search engine results pages. Most online retailers have the goal of being number one for their targeted keywords.

Pay-per-click (PPC) traffic volume: If you're running PPC campaigns, this tells you how much traffic you're successfully driving to your site.

Blog traffic: You can find this KPI by simply creating a filtered view in your analytics tool. It's also helpful to compare blog traffic to overall site traffic.

Number and quality of product reviews: Product reviews are great for a number of reasons: They provide social proof, they can help with SEO, and they give you valuable feedback for your business. The quantity and content of product reviews are important KPIs to track for your ecommerce business.

Banner or display advertising CTRs: The CTRs for your banner and display ads will tell you the percentage of viewers who have clicked on the ad. This KPI will give you insight into your copy, imagery, and offer performance.

Affiliate performance rates: If you engage in affiliate marketing, this KPI will help you understand which channels are most successful.

You can track your ecommerce marketing analytics in Google Analytics or using Shopify's built-in analytics tools.

What are KPIs customer service?

Customer service KPIs tell you how effective your customer service is and if you're meeting expectations. You might be wondering: What should the KPIs be in our call center, for our email support team, for our social media support team, etc. Measuring and tracking these KPIs will help you ensure you're providing a positive customer experience.

Key performance indicators for customer service include:

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score: The CSAT KPI is typically measured by customer responses to a very common survey question: "How satisfied were you with your experience?" This is usually answered with a numbered scale. Customer satisfaction is incredibly important to track, as it can impact virtually every part of your business.

Net promoter score (NPS): Your NPS KPI provides insight into your customer relationships and loyalty by telling you how likely customers are to recommend your brand to someone in their network.

Hit rate: Calculate your hit rate by taking the total number of sales of a single product and dividing it by the number of customers who have contacted your customer service team about said product.

Customer service email count: This is the number of emails your customer support team receives.

Customer service phone call count: Rather than email, this is how frequently your customer support team is reached via phone.

Customer service chat count: If you have live chat on your ecommerce site, you may have a customer service chat count.

First response time: First response time is the average amount of time it takes a customer to receive the first response to their query. Aim low!

Average resolution time: This is the amount of time it takes for a customer support issue to be resolved, starting from the point at which the customer reached out about the problem.

Active issues: The total number of active issues tells you how many queries are currently in progress.

Backlogs: Backlogs are when issues are getting backed up in your system. This could be caused by a number of factors.

Concern classification: Beyond the total number of customer support interactions, look at quantitative data around trends to see if you can be proactive and reduce customer support queries. You'll classify the customer concerns that will help identify trends and your progress in solving issues.

Service escalation rate: The service escalation rate KPI tells you how many times a customer has asked a customer service representative to redirect them to a supervisor or other senior employee. You want to keep this number low.

Tracking and working to improve customer service related KPIs can help you increase customer lifetime value, as well as reduce customer acquisition cost.

What are KPIs for manufacturing?

KPIs for manufacturing are, predictably, related to your supply chain and production processes. These may tell you where efficiencies and inefficiencies are, as well as help you understand productivity and expenses.

KPIs for manufacturing in ecommerce include:

Cycle time: The cycle time manufacturing KPI tells you how long it takes to manufacture a single product from start to finish. Monitoring this KPI will give you insight into production efficiency.

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE): The OEE KPI provides ecommerce businesses with insight into how well manufacturing equipment is performing.

Overall labor effectiveness (OLE): Just as you'll want insight into your equipment, the OLE KPI will tell you how productive the staff operating the machines are.

Yield: Yield is a straightforward manufacturing KPI. It is the number of products you have manufactured. Consider analyzing the yield variance KPI in manufacturing, too, as that will tell you how much you deviate from your average.

First time yield (FTY) and first time through (FTT): FTY, also referred to as first pass yield, is a quality-based KPI. It tells you how wasteful your production processes are. To calculate FTY, divide the number of successfully manufactured units by the total number of units that started the process.

Number of non-compliance events or incidents: In manufacturing, there are several sets of regulations, licenses, and policies businesses must comply with. These are typically related to safety, working conditions, and quality. You'll want to reduce this number to ensure you're operating within the mandated guidelines.

What are KPIs for project management?

KPIs for project management give you insight into how well your teams are performing and completing specific tasks, which is critically important when running an ecommerce store. Each project or initiative within your ecommerce business has different goals, and must be managed with different processes and workflows. Project management KPIs tell you how well each team is working to achieve their respective goals and how well their processes are working to help them achieve those goals.

KPIs for project management include:

Hours worked: The total hours worked tells you how much time a team put into a project. Project managers should also assess the variance in estimated versus. actual hours worked to better predict and resource future projects.

Budget: The budget indicates how much money you have allocated for the specific project. Project managers and ecommerce business owners will want to make sure that the budget is realistic; if you're repeatedly over budget, some adjustments to your project planning need to be made.

Return on investment (ROI): The ROI KPI for project management tells you how much your efforts earned your business. The higher this number, the better. The ROI accounts for all of your expenses and earnings related to a project.

Cost variance: Just as it's helpful to compare real vs. predicted timing and hours, you should examine the total cost against the predicted cost. This will help you understand where you need to reel it in and where you may want to invest more.

Cost performance index (CPI): The CPI for project management, like ROI, tells you how much your resource investment is worth. The CPI is calculated by dividing the earned value by the actual costs. If you come in under one, there's room for improvement.

How do I create a KPI?

Selecting your KPIs begins with clearly stating your goals and understanding which areas of business impact those goals. Of course, KPIs for ecommerce can and should differ for each of your goals, whether they're related to boosting sales, streamlining marketing, or improving customer service.

Key performance indicator templates

Here are a few key performance indicator templates, with examples of goals and the associated KPIs.

GOAL 1: Boost sales 10% in the next quarter.

KPI examples:

GOAL 2: Increase conversion rate 2% in the next year.

KPI examples:

Conversion rate.

Shopping cart abandonment rate.

Competitive pricing.

GOAL 3: Grow site traffic 20% in the next year.

KPI examples:

Site traffic.

Traffic sources.

Promotional click-through rates.

Social shares.

Bounce rates.

GOAL 4: Reduce customer service calls by half in the next 6 months.

KPI examples:

Service call classification.

Pages visited immediately before call.

There are many performance indicators and the value of those indicators is directly tied to the goal measured. Monitoring which page someone visited before initiating a customer service call makes sense as a KPI for GOAL 4 since it could help identify areas of confusion that, when corrected, would reduce customer service calls. But that same performance indicator would be useless for GOAL 3.

Once you have set goals and selected KPIs, monitoring those indicators should become an everyday exercise. Most importantly: Performance should inform business decisions and you should use KPIs to drive actions.
Illustration by Till Lauer

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70 Ecommerce KPIs for Tracking Business Success

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Key performance indicators (KPIs) are milestones on the road to online retail success. Monitoring them will help ecommerce entrepreneurs identify progress toward sales, marketing, and customer service goals. Your KPIs should be chosen and monitored based on your specific business goals, but having an understanding of as many KPIs as possible can be beneficial.

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Harvey Nichols - Designer Fashion, Beauty, Food & Wine

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Go Green or Go Home

A warming planet and increased carbon footprint is an undeniable threat that human activity is the main cause of, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Whilst world leaders get some of the blame for climate change inaction, it is also up to individuals and businesses to do their part.

However, measuring carbon footprints might not be on top of everyone's to-do list, and understandably so. It might seem like way too complex a task to get involved in, but these 5 companies are here to change that. They provide an engaging, fun way for people and companies to track their environmental impact and become more sustainable:
Capture
Capture was founded in 2019 by Abdul Aziz and Josie Stoker. Initially funded and developed through the Antler programme in Singapore, where the cofounders met, it has grown to a small team of 5 people working remotely from all parts of the globe.

Their mission is simple: helping people and communities to become more sustainable. This mobile app tracks your carbon footprint by using your GPS information, detecting your mode of travel, and calculating the CO2 emissions in your journeys.

There is also a Capture for Teams feature: an in-app area where employees or community members can come together in efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. It includes an option to join commitments and set your team up for eco-friendly challenges.
Logicladder
Founded in 2011 by Mayank Chauhan and Atindra Chandel, Logicladder is a data-led software startup dedicated to helping companies track their environmental impact. Headquartered in Gurugram, India, the startup was funded by ONGC and has now 50 members on the team.

Whilst working for global corporations such as Exxon and Anglo Eastern, the cofounders both realised how little was being done by big companies to reduce their environmental impact. They joined forces to develop Logicladder.

The platform serves as a sustainability management tool that tracks water, heating, lighting, greenhouse gases emissions and solid waste, and it does so by compiling the data from systems, as well as sensors and web services. Logicladder focuses on holding companies accountable, as it has a strong compliance management and reporting system.
Treepoints
Treepoints is an online subscription service founded in 2020 by Anthony Collias and Jacob Wedderburn-Day. The startup is based in London and has a team of 5 people. It is the world's first app to give subscribers rewards for offsetting their carbon footprint.

The subscription can be made individually, or you can also create a Treepoints team for your company and have shared carbon reduction goals. The rewards take the form of Treepoints credit that you can then spend on eco-friendly brands such as Chillys, Lush and Patagonia.

The cofounders mission is to incentivise people to be more sustainable by rewarding them for reducing their carbon footprint, donating to climate projects and referring other people.

85% of their total revenue is sent to Gold Standard projects, and the startup is aiming to reach $1 billion to support carbon offsetting projects by 2030.
Rvolt.
Rvolt. is a Berlin-based startup with the mission of empowering people to reduce their carbon footprint through fun digital experiences. It was founded in 2018 by Quirin Blendl.

It works as a mobile app that engages users through games while measuring their carbon footprint and home energy consumption. The app also comes with special features, such as a renewable energy forecast, where you can see the times of the day when your energy consumption will produce the lowest carbon emissions.

The Rvolt. team has only three members but in 2019, it was nominated one of the top 100 most innovative startups worldwide.
CarbonSpace
CarbonSpace is a monitoring platform that uses AI technology, satellite data and ground-based sensors to measure greenhouse gas emissions. Founded by Dr. Oleg Demidov, CarbonSpace is headquartered in Berlin, with a team of 4 and investments from Rockstart.

This remote service can be used by companies to monitor the carbon footprint of specific locations for supply chains, clients or partners. The GHG emissions data is shown on a map, and you can receive monthly updates and insights in your dashboard.

CarbonSpace has collaborated with research bodies, governments, certification bodies and state agencies, and it is also used to compare the carbon footprint of regions and countries.

At Storm4 we are dedicated to working with the top GreenTech businesses worldwide, to connect them with the best talent to drive their mission. If you are looking to expand your team, or want advise on remuneration and employee retention, get in touch. Our team of GreenTech recruitment experts are best placed to help you build and grow your team, in order to create a more sustainable tomorrow.

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5 Companies Helping People To Track Their Carbon Footprint

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A warming planet and increased carbon footprint is an undeniable threat that human activity is the main cause of, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Whilst world leaders get some of the blame for climate change inaction, it is also up to individuals and businesses to do their part.

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INFOGRAPHIC: How the millennial generation will transform the economy – based on research from Goldman Sachs

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"Everything we create is going to be our responsibility at some point, and we're trying to find creative and inspiring ways to keep those pieces working in the world," Vevers recalled during the panel at Crystal Bridges. "Our most significant discovery," he added in an email, "was that we had to learn to 'design in reverse,' with circularity in mind from the start, rather than starting with the design and sourcing the materials to match."

The Wavy Dinky, one of Coachtopia's inaugural designs, features core design elements that ensure it can have a long life in the real world. Take the bag's binding, or contrasting trim, which is generally one of the things that first shows wear and tear. Here, it's easily removable without having to take the entire bag apart (bindings are usually sandwiched between layers of leather or other material). The handle, another piece susceptible to age, has been made from 70 per cent recycled resin and is detachable, which also allows for possible customisation and personalisation.

"Coachtopia was inspired by learnings from our Coach (Re)Loved program and circular designs for our Runway," Vevers explained in an email. (Re)Loved launched in 2021 and allows customers to bring in their old Coach bags - in whatever state they're in - to be repaired or exchanged for a new one. Older bags from the 1970s and 1980s tend to be harder to repair since the trend at the time involved hiding construction elements, which also often involved glue. These styles that aren't fixable are instead taken apart and their materials repurposed into new pieces, like the aforementioned sneakers. (Every item bearing the Coachtopia label will be equipped with an NFC chip that will allow it to be tracked as it is "repaired, restored, and reused," no doubt feeding useful information about consumer behaviour to the company in the process.)

Working towards a zero-waste future means that using smallish scraps to make patchworked clothes and accessories, à la the checkerboard Wavy Dinky, cannot be the only way forward. Solving for this issue led to one of Coachtopia's most exciting technical developments: a process in which the inevitable detritus of bag making - the thin straps of leather that are the result of trimming or shaping something to size (the scraps of the scraps) - are "pressed" together to create a new material. The Jackson Pollock-like result is used to create colourful, one-of-a-kind handbags.

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Not everyone knows who Peter Do is - but they will.

The 29-year-old designer has quickly become the most talked about new-name in fashion. Do refuses to show his face in photos, which is an interesting demeanor given today's world of oversharing. Often spotted in a baseball cap and high turtleneck hitting just below his nose, Peter Do does absolutely no advertising and relies on his Instagram to capture people into his aesthetic of powerful yet wearable designs.

Do - whose fourth ever collection has just launched in 40 of the top global retailers - is included in Bergdorf Goodman's RADAR initiative along with eight other emerging designers. BG RADAR gives a unique platform to next-gen fashion talent through physical store space in the iconic department store, digital marketing, events and more.

"We have a long history of a lot of discovery," Linda Fargo, Bergdorf Goodman's fashion director and Senior Vice President told In The Know.

After winning the 2014 LVMH Award post-graduation from The Fashion Institute of Technology, Do landed a one-year contract at Céline under Pheobe Philo and then went on to spend time at Derek Lam before starting his own namesake label.

Strong silhouettes and statement suiting is nothing new, but there is something upon first glance at a Peter Do garment that makes you stop and think. It's a refreshing and advanced perspective on what already exists and deeper dive into the world of impeccable tailoring.

Peter Do's Fall 2020 collection is full of wins. There's an assortment of chic bolero jackets and shrug knits that perfectly compliment each other. Luxe leathers and rich fabrications lay the foundation of it all. This season's hero item comes in the form a waterproof, reversible trench coat - a piece Do has been perfecting for years. However, it's the pair of two-toned trousers with contrasted leather that will undoubtedly make it into every fashion girl's closet.

In this day and age, where moving from one trend to the next is considered fashion, Peter Do's sustainable collection of clean, cool construction is very much on time.

In The Know's Laura Galvan caught up with Do inside the BG Restaurant at Bergdorf Goodman during New York Fashion Week. Learn more about the soon-to-be household designer from our conversation below:
I was at a student at FIT when you won the 2014 LVMH Graduate prize - How did that change the course of your life?
That was my fashion boot camp. I was 23-years-old and I was the youngest designer in a French house at Céline. I had no idea what I was doing. It was really hard and I learned a lot. I was thrown into that and I had to learn really quick to adapt. I got to have many other really great opportunities since. After Céline, I left and got a job at Derek Lam and then I left because I wanted to do my own thing and now here we are...
Describe Peter Do's aesthetic in 3 words.
This is really hard. It's not minimal, it's clean -- Versatile and fun.

How does it feel to see your work in the iconic doors of Bergdorf Goodman?

Bergdorf [Goodman] is where I discovered Celine for the first time. It was 2012. I walked in and saw this amazing coat and I was like 'who the hell made this amazing coat?' So, Bergdrof Goodman is where I first found out about Celine. It's come full circle.
The brand has been celebrated for mastering tailoring and suiting. How are you constantly perfecting that craftsmanship?
I think what makes our suiting special is that it is truly made for a women's body. A lot of time we take a men's blazer and we alter it, but everything is made from scratch. The sleeve, the chest piece, the canvas. Even the fabric we develop from scratch. We constantly do fittings. The shoulder pads are different and the lining is different so that's what makes our suiting different. It's actually made for a women's body.
You've been working on perfecting a waterproof, convertible trench for years. What was the most complicated part about getting it right?
It was difficult because everyone has a trench coat. I didn't want to make another basic trench coat. That's what we struggled with the most. It took a very long time to perfect the shape and it's waterproof. It's very functional.
Can you talk about the role of sustainability at Peter Do as a young designer?
We are aiming to ban all plastic by the end of the year. We already banned single use plastic in the studio. Every time someone brings in a plastic cup in, [to the office] I deduct the clothing allowance. Everyone has started to bring their own cups now.

Our hanger process changed to paper hangers instead of plastic hangers. All of our plastics are compostable and biodegradable, so by the end of 2020 we are completely stopping plastic.

Which other new designers should we be keeping our eye on?
One of my good friends started the brand Orseund Iris. She's [Alana Johnson] a really good friend of mine and we started our brands at similar times. She's doing really well. I love her brand. Orseund Iris, that's the one.
Where do you see your brand in the next decade?
We want to do a show next and I want to open a boutique in New York within five years. That's our short-term goal. I want to build an atelier in New York and bring back the craft of the garment district. That's one of our goals. Just build a company where everyone's excited to go to work and are treated really nicely. I want to build a nice company. We want to show the world that it's possible to be nice and chic...You do better work when you're happy.

It's really not easy to stick out in this space of fashion and you are doing it. Elizabeth von der Goltz told Vogue that "we haven't seen a new designer of this caliber in a long time."

It's kind of surreal because we are so far in Brooklyn. I really don't go out. So, when we get all of this pretty amazing news and press, we are really humble to be recognized for the work that we do. I just hope that we are starting a trend where people can see that you can be yourself and you can be nice and kind and do your job.
Lastly, Who is the Peter Do girl?
We always say that we make day-wear for the women who make the most out of her day. Anyone who makes the most out of there day and looks good doing it -- that's the Peter Do women.

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Who is Peter Do and why is everyone talking about the young fashion designer?

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Not everyone knows who Peter Do is - but they will. The 29-year-old designer has quickly become the most talked about new-name in fashion. Do refuses to show his face in photos, which is an interesting demeanor given today's world of oversharing.

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Want to know what the highest-paying jobs in the UK are? We list them here including roles you don't need a degree for.
More than half of UK workers intend to look for a new job in 2023, according to recruiter Hays. With just under 1.2 million vacancies in Britain, there are plenty of opportunities around.

In this article, we cover:

Read more: Minimum wage rise 2023: How much is it going up?

What are the highest-paying jobs in the UK?

Chief executive and senior-level roles are perhaps unsurprisingly the highest-paid jobs in the UK, according to analysis of official ONS data by SavetheStudent.

Marketing, sales and advertising directors, doctors, headteachers and airline pilots also come in the top 10.

It is very difficult however to definitively determine what the highest-paid jobs are. There can be a lot of variation between roles depending on your experience, individual companies, and location.

For example, a teacher in London can expect to be paid up to £42,624 a year, according to the Department of Education. The same teacher in the rest of England and Wales would receive up to £36,961.

The average solicitor's salary in the UK is £55,200 a year. This does not include bonuses or profit-sharing schemes, according to Jobted. A newly qualified solicitor can expect an average salary of £35,000 per year.
Read more: Which jobs are most at risk from AI?
These are the best-paid jobs in the UK, according to SavetheStudent:

1. Chief Executives and Senior Officials - £79,835

2. Marketing, Sales and Advertising Directors - £77,695

3. Information Technology Directors - £73,571

4. Specialist Medical Practitioners - £68,614

5. Headteachers and Principals - £66,686

6. Public Relations and Communications Directors - £66,510

7. Financial Managers and Directors - £64,193

8. Aircraft Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers - £62,778

9. Functional Managers and Directors - £61,139

10. Senior Police Officers - £59,141

11. Train and Tram Drivers - £58,868

12. Barristers and Judges - £53,110

13. Health Services and Public Health Managers and Directors - £50,789

14. Rail Transport Operatives - £50,561

15. Electrical Engineers - £50,487

16. IT Business Analysts, Architects and Systems Designers - £50,396

17. Business and Financial Project Management Professionals - £50,287

18. Research and Development (R&D) Managers - £50,027

19. Taxation Experts - £49,916

20. Senior paramedics - £49,909

What are the highest-paying companies in the UK?

Technology and finance firms make up the majority of the highest-paying companies in the UK, according to Glassdoor.

The top 10 companies hand out an average base salary of over £93,000 to staff. This places their average employee in the top 4% of UK taxpayers:

1. Citadel - financial services company (£121,759)

2. Contino - business management consultant (£108,128)

3. White & Case - international law firm (£10,115)

4. G-Research- quantitative finance research firm (£101,066)

5. Google Cloud - cloud computing services (£99,677)

6. Palantir Technologies - software company (£98,095)

7. Squarepoint Capital - investment services (£96,933)

8. Bank of America Merill Lynch (£94,393)

9. MongoDB - developer data platform (£93,993)

10. Pegasystems - software company (£93,844)

What are the best companies to work for in the UK?

The highest-paying roles aren't necessarily the roles with the highest satisfaction scores.

The best companies to work take into account work-life balance, a good team and culture, great pay. They also have perks, strong leadership and good career growth.

Jobsite Glassdoor ranks tech companies in its top 50 list with Apple, Microsoft and Google all making the cut. Management consultancy firms do even better. Bain and Company come top and Boston Consulting Group is third.

Based on the five criteria above, Glassdoor ranked the following as the best companies to work for in the UK:

What are the best university degrees for job prospects?

The highest-paying jobs aren't always the roles with the highest salaries

University is not the only route to a good job but many positions do require one. Competition is fierce once you get out into the real world of work so it is important to do your research when choosing a degree.

There are over 65,000 university courses on offer. The subject area which offers the highest employment rates for graduates is medicine and dentistry, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Over 99% of people can expect to be employed in this sector within six months of graduating, commanding a salary for medicine and dentistry is around £30,000 per year.

Veterinary science comes second with almost 96% of graduates finding employment within six months of graduation, commanding a £30,500 wage.

Over 90% of graduates in allied medicine subjects (such as pharmacy and physiotherapy), education and architecture also found work within six months of leaving university.

What are the best-paid graduate jobs?

University degrees don't come cheap but many companies offer lucrative graduate training schemes and graduate positions with a view to developing their next generation of leaders.

So if you are looking for an immediate return on your university investment, these are the best-paid graduate jobs according to graduate career resource website, Milkround:

1. Management Consultant £47,500

2. Investment Banker £40,000

3. Trainee Solicitor £26,500 - £50,000

4. Graduate Sales Manager Retail £37-44,000

5. Graduate Area Manager £38,000

6. Petroleum Engineer £35,000

7. Actuary £35,000

8. Vet £32,000

9. Clinical Scientist £32,000

10. Software Developer £32,000

Note that salaries will vary between organisations and location. Graduate roles are likely to be better paid in London than the rest of the UK.

What high-paying jobs don't need degrees?

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need a degree to get a high paying job. A third of graduates earn less than those who go straight into the job market, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

In fact many of the most famous and richest CEOs in the world, such as Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, never graduated from university.

You also don't need a degree to be a train or tram driver, positions that also feature in the top highest-paying jobs in the UK.

While a degree may help, in many industries, experience and knowledge is equally valuable. Although you may need to carry out continuing career development courses.

Personal trainers (salary of up to £60,000), estate agents (£49,000), nutrition consultants (£44,000) and recruitment consultants (£30,000) are the top paying jobs that you don't need a degree for, according to data from FutureFit:

1. Personal trainer: average salary - £28,000, highest salary - £60,000

2. Estate agents: average salary - £21,500, highest salary - £49,000

3. Nutrition coach: average salary - £26,797, highest salary - £44,000

4. Recruitment consultant: average salary - £23,000 highest salary - £30,000

5. Pilates instructors: average salary - £25,000 highest salary - £52,000

6. FireFighter: average salary - £30,027 highest salary - £36,000

7. Health & wellbeing coach: average salary - £20,300, highest salary - £25,000

8. Police officer: average salary - £29,310, highest salary - £41,000

9. Marketing executive: average salary - £24,141, highest salary - £30,000

10. Computer games tester: average salary - £31,090, highest salary - £40,000

Which jobs will receive the biggest pay rises in 2023?

The jobs that are likely to receive the biggest boosts to workers' pay packets this year, according to recruiter Hays, are those where there is a significant skills shortage.

Increased demand for cyber security experts, electrical engineers, construction workers and sustainability managers, is likely to push up wages for these roles.

IT and cyber security managers can expect to receive some of the biggest wages (£81,500 a year) in 2023 as the world becomes increasingly digitised.

The most sought-after employees however are expected to be electrical (£48,875) and automation engineers (£48,000) which have the biggest number of shortages according to the government.

Quantity surveyor (£55,250), qualified social worker ( £31,583 - two years experience) and part-qualified/newly qualified accountant (£31,396) also feature in the most in-demand jobs list of 2023.

UK minimum wage changes in 2023

From April 1 2023, a number of minimum wage rises came into effect.

The national minimum age rate for workers aged 23 or above went up from £9.50 an hour to £10.42.

There were also changes brought in for 17-year-olds and apprentices.

Read our minimum wage rise 2023 guide for a full list of changes.

What are the highest-paying tech jobs in the UK?

The technology industry in the UK is thriving and competition for the best talent is fierce. Valued at over £800,000, the industry is worth five times that of France and Sweden, and double that of Germany, according to gov.uk.

There are thousands of roles to choose from but the tech job with the highest average salary in the UK is senior software engineer at £63,824, according to data from Indeed.

Operations engineers and data engineers can also expect to earn over £60,000 on average, while developers can expect an average salary of between £53,000-58,000 a year.

What is London weighting?

You are likely to be paid more working in London than in other areas of the UK due to the higher cost of living in the capital.

This supplement to your wage is often referred to as the London Weighting or the London Allowance. The concept first appeared in a 1974 report of the Pay Board.

There is no set amount or agreed universal method for calculating how much you will receive. Instead, it will vary depending on your employer and industry.

Research from the Trust for London recommends a minimum London weighting of £9,600 in Inner London and £6,549 in Outer London is needed to cover a basic standard of living in the capital.

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Highest-paying jobs in the UK - Times Money Mentor

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Want to know what the highest-paying jobs in the UK are? We list them here including roles you don't need a degree for. More than half of UK workers intend to look for a new job in 2023, according to recruiter Hays. With just under 1.2 million vacancies in Britain, there are plenty of opportunities around.

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Matchesfashion.com, the British multibrand boutique founded by husband and wife Tom and Ruth Chapman in 1987, is marking its 30th year in business with an announcement. The company has released its financials for the first time this week. And they're worthy of celebration. Full-year revenues for 2016 were a record £204m, with 61 per cent growth year on year; online sales grew 73 per cent and the site had 55m visits.

The shop - which started life as a small boutique in Wimbledon Village, went online in 2007 and rebranded as Matchesfashion.com in 2013 to reflect its increasingly digital profile - has come a long way. Today, it represents 450 brands and this year will generate 95 per cent of its sales online. And while its UK market is still its most mature, 80 per cent of its sales are made outside Britain, with the US expected to emerge as its biggest market by the end of 2017.

The speed and tenacity with which the company has grown, while still remaining profitable, now places it among the main players in luxury ecommerce. It's especially notable that Matches has both increased its customer numbers and its client's average spend, which grew by 14 per cent, in 2016, to £511. Last year, it introduced a 90-minute delivery service within the London area: "We even out-Primed Amazon," says Ulric Jerome, the company's chief executive.

The 39-year-old entrepreneur joined Matches in 2013, and was made chief executive in 2015, when the Chapmans "stepped back" to become co-chairs (the couple retain a 67 per cent share of the business). But when I ask him if this financial release might suggest they're preparing to sell, I'm quickly rebuffed.

"Last year was really when we started to see the fruits of the effort we've made in technology," Jerome explains of their decision to go public. "When we talked to our suppliers or our industry peers about our business, everybody said: 'Why are you not more vocal about what you're doing?' What we've done is not only change the foundation of the business to do the £204m, but change it so that we can bring a lot more growth. From what we know we're the fastest-growing luxury company online with the best profitability. Some companies are growing fast but they are not doing it with profitability. So this is what differentiates us." When asked about projections, he adds: "We will break a billion. At one point or another, that's for sure."

So many numbers. So many transactions. So many of those distinctive marbled cardboard boxes crossing thresholds every day, each containing goods wrapped in tissue and sealed with the signature of the hands that packed it. The company's data are proudly displayed on screens throughout the brand's smartly domestic offices that occupy three floors of the Shard, London Bridge, and house 400 of its 530-strong team. Guiding me round the space, Tom, a charismatic 53-year-old who started out in the hospitality industry and still has the competent swagger of an all-knowing hotel manager, directs me towards screens ticking up all manner of facts: here a connectivity chart tracing the other brands with which a customer will most likely interact; there is a tally of the most popular sale items at any given moment; at this moment Saint Laurent's statement "YSL" logo heels (£770), Alexander McQueen platform trainers (£360), and a plain black Vetements T-shirt produced with Hanes (£80) are clicking up the sales. In Tom's office, a blizzard of numbers on his desktop reveal sales are up 330 per cent compared with this day last year.

At times, the atmosphere is akin to a trading floor. But there remain quaint reminders that this is still a fashion business: in one department, a team of staff patiently measure hem lengths and handbag proportions to better advise customers on size and fit. In the adjoining studio, Rachael Proud, creative director of the brand's own in-house label Raey, edits the men's and women's collections that now drip-feed in store every few weeks. Its trans-seasonal, utilitarian denim jeans, peacoats, cashmere sweaters and blazers have become bestsellers, and the brand will soon open a bricks-and-mortar store in Notting Hill.

Information is king. You have to remain open, you have to listen, and you have to keep people happy

Ruth Chapman

Matches's recent success may have been built on a vast overhaul of its digital infrastructure. But the heart of the business is still driven by the Chapmans' passionate dedication to service, and the integrity of its product.

"People talk about plans and the future and where are you going to be in five years," says Tom from a corner office, adjacent to his wife's, that looks over south London. "The reality is, when we started online we did it for one reason. We wanted to make the customers' lives better and easier. And if you have that in your spirit, everything else falls into place. It just does."

Tom is reluctant to describe his specific role in the trio's dynamic. "I'm very good at hiring very good people to do things I can't do very well," he insists. Yet his attention to detail is unmissable. When I suggest he won't be happy until delivery times can match the time it takes an image to travel the length of one's optic nerve, his face twitches with the thrill of possibility.

Right now, though, he's focused on service, and keeping everyone happy - from the top 3 per cent of clients (who represent 35 per cent of the business), to the first-timers he hopes to lure back. "We have one of the highest retentions in the market, around 65 per cent retention rate," says Tom. "And last year, we had another 175,000 people join the business as new clients. So my big challenge this year is to keep every single percentage point of those consumers."

By contrast to Tom, Ruth has a more holistic approach. "I am, I think, the mummy [of Matches]," says the tall, patrician retailer with long white hair and a soft voice that belies her intellectual acuity and understanding of the business. "I'm more of a mentor: a sounding board," she continues. "I'm good with ideas, and sorting things out. I mean I will shriek when I think things are really wrong. But generally I am doing a proper chairman's job now I think."

***

When Matches first opened in the late 1980s, the luxury market was still relatively new. The conglomerate brands, Kering and LVMH, were in their infancy, the ready-to-wear market was still dominated by the big Italian luxury houses and deliveries were contained within the two twice yearly collections. The advent of pre-collections, see-now-buy-now product, the internet, business travel and the rise of the "lifestyle" wardrobe have completely transformed the business.

"It used to be driven by the designers and the houses, and you used to be thrilled to just be buying from them," says Ruth of the shifts in fashion. "You'd just go and take whatever it was and then you'd figure out ways to sell it. Whereas now you're driven by the customer and what they want. And the designers are really interested in that; they want the data, they want your feedback, they want to know best prices. So we're in a really strong position from that perspective. Also, we're not tied in any way to the fashion calendar because we look at a year's calendar. And when there are gaps, when the fashion industry aren't delivering anything to us, we'll go to our most flexible designers and say we need something for these months."

Ruth's powers of persuasion are long practised: it was she who first bought Versace, Prada and Bottega Veneta into the UK, and her passion for finding the next big designer name remains undimmed. She's happy to take risks, if she "believes" in the product, but her role today requires a far more specific level of support than merely putting stock on the shop floor. "People get very excited about newness, but also we have an obligation to a brand, when we pick it up, to really launch it properly, to talk about it, to give it lots of TLC," she continues. "We have to give them visibility and credibility. And the customer trusts us to have done the work, which is why it's so important that we've gotten price right, and the quality has to be there, and the design integrity has to be there."

The Chapmans are tireless in their efforts to launch things "properly". They host dozens of public events, dinners, special preview events and pop-ups to promote the brands they work with. Many events are staged in the Matches townhouse, a storeyed building in Marylebone, London, used to host private client sales, press events and drinks evenings, although they are equally willing to travel. When a designer agrees to collaborate on a collection - like a capsule of shirt dresses by Joseph Altuzarra, or a full range of alphabet beach bags by Mary Katrantzou - they should expect to sign up for a six-city world tour of cocktail evenings and soirées: and they should expect to sell out of the product.

We're the fastest-growing luxury company online with the best profitability. This differentiates us

Ulric Jerome

For Ruth, these events are an invaluable research tool. "I guess we've always had that overview of everything," she says. "Fashion, obviously, is lifeblood to me. But I am quite an anthropologist in many ways. I have to look at how our lives change, how the culture is changing, and how that affects what we wear."

Today, the Matches customer might be a teenager in Korea, buying a sneaker from an exclusive collection produced with Vetements. Or it might be a 40-year-old woman in Wimbledon searching for a statement coat. But even while some aspects of the client interaction are totally changed (one client made a single order of £96,000 on her smartphone last year), other things remain constant. "Relationships are the most important thing," she says. "Relationships with your customer, with your supplier, with people you meet outside a show. Information is king, or queen. You have to remain open, you have to listen, and make sure you keep all the people connected to you happy."

Speaking of relationships, I wonder how her own have fared over the years. Tom and Ruth have stayed married, and raised three children, alongside their entwined careers. To have managed that, and the tumult of taking on a chief executive to overhaul "every platform of the business" can't have been without its moments.

"It's draining sometimes and exhausting," says Ruth of being married to the job. "And we'll take the fights home sometimes, that's a nightmare. And there will be other fights about who walks the dog . . . It's not always brilliant but we'll keep doing it." She pauses. "I'm a great believer in good tensions. If everyone was saying yes to each other something would be really wrong."

"The chemistry between us works very well," agrees Jerome of the founder-newcomer dynamic. "The first thing we agreed together was that we had to do a shift of technology and they embraced it right away. They were very supportive of how we could bring all our expertise together to create a global, scaleable luxury destination."

"The partnership has been amazing," adds Ruth. "Tom and I were so nervous about taking investment, so nervous about everyone's horror stories. We've been lucky. It's a very good partnership." Just like those co-ordinated accessories, the business matches up very nicely.
Photographs: Greg Funnell
Letter in response to this article:
My kids (and dog) know to leave my FT well alone / From Gautam Hazarika

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Matches' makers: the British luxury fashion retailer announces record results

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Matchesfashion.com, the British multibrand boutique founded by husband and wife Tom and Ruth Chapman in 1987, is marking its 30th year in business with an announcement. The company has released its financials for the first time this week. And they're worthy of celebration.

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Life is full of contrasts. As we navigate expectations and dreams in search of meaning and comfort, we long for a balanced life with room to be ourselves. A place where we can realise the true value of things and feel at home. Based on a passion for authentic design and with responsibility at the heart of every choice we make, we create honest products and calm environments that inspire you to balance the contrasts in life.

From our home in Copenhagen, we work with artisans around the world, fusing our Scandinavian mindset with global skills and traditions. Our collections are defined by soft forms, rich textures and curious details that let you create composed atmospheres with a touch of the unexpected. From materials and processes to production and delivery, we challenge ourselves to help shape a sustainable future, making it easier for you to make responsible choices. We create collections of furniture, accessories and lighting, so you can create space to feel comfortably you.

A Note from Our Founder.

It all started with wallpaper, or rather, a lack of it... In 2005, I had just moved into a house with my husband, and just couldn't seem to find a wallpaper that fit our taste. I therefore decided to make my own, which resulted in ten different wallpaper designs. I applied to exhibit them at a trade fair in Denmark but couldn't afford to manufacture all ten designs, so with just one wallpaper and a handful of printouts, ferm LIVING was born.

"Most important to me, however, is that ferm LIVING reflects a set of values that we can be proud of."

Over the past 14 years, ferm LIVING has grown into something I never imagined. It's as though we've been building a house, and that house has become a home, with a lot of talented employees and a great product portfolio that we continue to grow together.

Most important to me, however, is that ferm LIVING reflects a set of values that we can be proud of. Our biggest ambition is, and has always been, to inspire people to create the kind of space that makes them feel comfortable, that allows them to be themselves in their own home. A home, after all, is much more than a collection of beautiful objects - it's the place where life happens.

"A home, after all, is much more than a collection of beautiful objects - it's the place where life happens."

We will continue to put out inspiring, quality designs in honest materials, continue to take care of our house by investing in its upkeep - fostering long-term partnerships with our manufacturers and a company culture that promotes balance and transparency - and more than ever, continue and advance our commitment to ethical and sustainable practices that are kind to our planet.

Thank you for joining us on the journey.
Welcome home.
Trine Andersen
Founder and Creative Director

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Life is created by contrasts - Read our story here - ferm LIVING

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Life is full of contrasts. As we navigate expectations and dreams in search of meaning and comfort, we long for a balanced life with room to be ourselves. A place where we can realise the true value of things and feel at home.

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Your favourite fashion brands and emerging designers all in one place. Discover Gucci, Saint Laurent, Valentino and many more. Express delivery & free returns.

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Our commitment to reduce our impact on nature led us to launch "Gucci-Up" in 2018, a project dedicated to the recovery and creative reuse of leftover materials from manufacturing.

Our contribution to the circular economy has strengthened in recent years and, with Gucci-Up, it is being incorporated more and more through new collaborations and innovations.

"Up" stands for "upcycling", which technically means "giving value" to items that are traditionally considered as waste and turning them into resources; raw materials that can be used again and again in new production cycles. In upcycling, waste is transformed through repurposing, repairing and remanufacturing in a way that increases their value, giving it a second life or a virtuous recovery because it makes the most of natural resources and avoids waste going to landfill.

With Gucci-Up, obsolete or out-of-collection materials, scraps and waste generated by our production processes become a precious resource that triggers a new process of regeneration; a process that contributes to the reduction of environmental impacts but also in the creation of positive impacts for the community through the involvement of social enterprises.

High-quality leather and textiles that are no longer used in our production have the possibility of extending their life cycle through different destinations: they are put back on the market or donated to social enterprises for use in socially responsible projects.

In recent years we have set up several specific TAKE BACK and re-use programmes for leftover materials from manufacturing. These initiatives have led to considerable environmental savings associated with the decreased purchase of new raw materials.

Some examples:

In 2022 alone, we collected 648 tons of leather and textile leftovers from Gucci's suppliers totalling 2,171 tons between 2018 and 2022. We've also regenerated 67 tons of metal scraps, equalling 271 tons since 2018, and our material donations amounted to 48,000 meters of fabric in 2022 and 65,000 meters since launching the initiative. We will continue to expand our Gucci-Up programme and also find further innovative ways to upcycle our leftover materials.

Regeneration and recycling of textile waste from our supply chain achieved through a partnership with Green Line, a company specializing in the collection and recycling of textile scraps.

Regeneration of leftover materials from the Gucci Off The Grid ECONYL® scraps are recovered from the production of Gucci Off The Grid and then recycled to create new ECONYL® materials as part of the "GUCCI-ECONYL® PRE CONSUMER FABRIC TAKE BACK PROGRAM".

Collection and reuse of industrial packaging. From 2019, we have reused protective boxes for transporting our accessories to reduce the number of new boxes we make. This is a relatively simple step with the potential for huge impact. In 2022, Gucci has been able to reuse 360,000 boxes, which meant we avoided using 44 tons of plastic for industrial packaging and 175 tons since we launched the programme in 2019.

Promote upcycling through all our discontinued non-branded fabrics and leathers, reusing internally or through external channels, such as donating these materials to non-profit organizations. Starting in 2020, we developed an environmentally friendly process to remove logos or other customizations from leather. In addition, as far as metals are concerned, all accessories are destined for recycling.

Extending into the community, Gucci-Up also contributes to the creation of entrepreneurial projects through partnerships with non-profit organizations that support disadvantaged people: women, migrants, people with disabilities. These partnerships translate into stories of emancipation, empowerment, redemption and innovation. Different stories, but all of them characterized by sustainability and a positive social impact. Discover some of their stories.
...see stories (Quid, Colori Vivi)

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Our commitment to reduce our impact on nature led us to launch "Gucci-Up" in 2018, a project dedicated to the recovery and creative reuse of leftover materials from manufacturing. Our contribution to the circular economy has strengthened in recent years and, with Gucci-Up, it is being incorporated more and more through new collaborations and innovations.

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Despite over a decade of being encouraged to wash clothes at 30°C or lower, nearly two thirds of Europeans (63%), still wash at 40°C or higher, according to 'The Truth About Laundry' - the largest-ever European study of laundry habits from Electrolux, with 12,000 adults surveyed.
As part of its Better Living Program, Electrolux has bold sustainability targets in clothing care - with the aim to make clothes last twice as long with half the environmental impact by 2030. To help achieve these targets, The Truth About Laundry survey was conducted to understand current attitudes and behaviors when it comes to how people care for their clothes, and to what extent people consider the environment.

The survey finds that 'auto-pilot' laundry habits are out of step with climate concerns and modern capabilities. Nearly six out of ten people (59%) are more or less on auto-pilot when it comes to washing clothes, stating they do the laundry the way they were taught to by previous generations.

The report includes detailed analysis to show that reducing wash temperature from 40°C to 30°C would save over 27kg of CO2 equivalent, per household, per year. Across Europe that would equate to an equivalent saving of 4.9m tonnes of CO2, the same as removing over one million cars from the road. If the 15% of households across Europe that regularly wash their clothes at 50°C or higher were also to change, the total equivalent CO2 saving could be as high as 6m tonnes a year.

When it comes to washing temperatures, gender appears to play a part but is not as significant as the influence of age. Women, for example, are more likely to wash at 40°C than men (50% vs 45%), and men are more likely to wash at 60°C (13% vs 8%). However, across Europe, 45% of adults aged 18 to 34 wash their clothes at 30°C versus only 31% of 45 to 54 year olds and only 28% of 55+ year olds.

As for the main reasons why more people don't choose to wash at lower temperatures, nearly half (47%) said they weren't confident their laundry would be clean. 39% voiced particular concerns over the ability of a colder wash to remove stains and 21% said it was purely out of habit.

Habitual laundry practices might also explain why over half of all adults (53%) are unaware of a link between washing at higher temperatures and making clothes last longer. The reason why this is important, according to the research, is that the key to changing laundry habits for the good of planet, could rest in turning the conversation towards fashion.

"What our report shows," says Vanessa Butani, Director of Sustainability, Electrolux Europe, "is that people do care about their clothes and the vast majority recognize there are environmental benefits to making their clothes last longer. If we can educate and encourage people to take small but significant steps to update their laundry practices, the savings will be significant. Savings to people as they get more use out of their clothes and from the money they invested in them. Savings to their own carbon footprint. And, most critically of all, if everyone were to join forces, the millions of tonnes of CO2 savings to the planet in what is our biggest race for life."

Read The Truth About Laundry report here
For a deeper dive, read the white paper here

For more information on the Better Living Program and clothing care targets and actions, visit https://www.betterlivingprogram.com/better-clothing-care

Methodology

The findings in the report are based on quantitative data collected from 12,000 adults across twelve European markets. OnePoll, a survey-led market research company - managed the research in collaboration with Electrolux and its partners. The survey was fielded between 21st July and 7th August 2020 with data collected in the following countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The data was weighted for each country to ensure accurate representation by age, marital status, income/social class, ethnicity and region. For a statistic of 50% the margin of error for sampling on a sample of 1000 respondents is ±3.1%. For smaller or larger statistics, the margin of error will decrease and falls to 1.9% for a statistic of 10% or 90%. This is based on all countries having 1000 respondents per market. This margin of error is small making the data highly reliable.

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Electrolux study reveals current laundry practices out of step with climate concerns

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Despite over a decade of being encouraged to wash clothes at 30°C or lower, nearly two thirds of Europeans (63%), still wash at 40°C or higher, according to 'The Truth About Laundry' - the largest-ever European study of laundry habits from Electrolux, with 12,000 adults surveyed.

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Millennials and Generation Zs have long pushed for social change, but the 10th annual Deloitte Global Millennial and Gen Z Survey reveals that they believe the world has reached a tipping point on issues such as racial justice, inequality and the environment.

Millennials and Gen Zs are taking action to drive the change they want to see in the world. They are becoming more politically involved, making a conscious effort to ensure they spend their money with companies that reflect their values and pushing for change on societal issues. They believe in their individual power to make a difference, but they are also demanding that businesses and governments do their part to help build a better future.

"The recent embrace of stakeholder capitalism is, at least in part, an illustration of the influence millennials and Gen Zs have already had. Businesses are increasingly being held accountable for their impact on society," says Michele Parmelee, Deloitte Global Deputy CEO and Chief People & Purpose Officer. "However, less than half of these younger generations currently say that business is having a positive impact on society, which is a stark reminder that companies have much more work to do."

Fighting For Racial Justice

Six in 10 Gen Zs and 56% of millennials say that systemic racism is fairly or very widespread throughout society. But, a year after the murder of George Floyd fueled the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Deloitte's survey shows that more than half of millennials and Gen Zs believe that society may be on the precipice of real change when it comes to systemic racism.

Somewhere between 15 million and 26 million people in the United States participated in demonstrations in the weeks following Floyd's death, inspiring hundreds of thousands of people around the globe to take to the streets in solidarity.

"The size and geographic spread of the protests, the use of social media to share information widely and public support from organizations who might typically have stayed on the sidelines have kept the issue of systemic racism in the spotlight," says Parmelee. "While much more will be needed to eradicate racism, many feel encouraged that real change is possible if people and organizations continue to take action."

For many millennials and Gen Zs, the issue of racial justice is deeply personal. At least 1 in 5 of those surveyed by Deloitte say they feel personally discriminated against all of the time or frequently because of an aspect of their backgrounds, such as race or gender identification.

One-quarter of respondents also say they've experienced discrimination by their governments, and nearly the same percentage (22%) feel they've been discriminated against in the workplace.

Although half of millennials and Gen Zs say individuals hold the greatest potential to help break down systemic racism, 3 in 5 believe that positive change will need to come from the top down-driven by changes in attitude and actions from those in power, such as business and government leaders.

Prioritizing The Environment

"One of the few positive outcomes of the global pandemic has been the realization of how quickly individuals, organizations and institutions can change when necessary," says Parmelee. "The temporary reduction in carbon emissions during the pandemic lockdowns, for instance, showed people how quickly these changes could lead to less pollution and cleaner water, stoking some environmental optimism."

When it comes to the environment, about 40% of millennials and Gen Zs believe that more people will personally commit to take actions to address climate issues after the pandemic. These actions could include anything from recycling more and increasing their use of public transportation to changing eating habits and making fewer "fast-fashion" clothing purchases.

While millennials and Gen Zs feel more positive about individuals' commitment to protect the environment, they are concerned that business leaders will deprioritize the fight against climate change as they reckon with the aftermath of the pandemic.

This concern may be justified. Another recent Deloitte survey found that 65% of business leaders said their organizations needed to cut back on environmental sustainability initiatives in some way due to the pandemic. However, the same survey also found that, similar to many millennials and Gen Zs, business leaders are concerned about the environment and believe action is needed to mitigate the effects of climate change. None said that they were planning to stop their sustainability efforts completely, indicating that environmental sustainability will remain on the agenda despite setbacks from the pandemic.

How Millennials And Gen Zs Are Pushing Businesses To Drive Change

Many millennials and Gen Zs make decisions about their careers and about where they shop based on their values. Forty-four percent of millennials and 49% of Gen Zs surveyed said that, over the past two years, they have made choices about the types of work they would do-and the organizations they'd be willing to work for-based on their personal values. And as consumers, they often stop or initiate relationships based on how companies treat the environment, protect personal data and position themselves on social and political issues. This year, almost a third of respondents started or deepened consumer relationships with companies based on their response to the COVID-19 crisis, while around a quarter stopped or lessened relationships for the same reason.

"Organizations that are not aligned with millennial and Gen-Z values risk losing favor with this large and increasingly influential cohort," Parmelee says. "Business leaders can and should help drive meaningful change on the issues that matter most to these groups, like racial justice, inequality and climate change." That could mean ensuring the environment remains a priority, even in challenging times. Or reevaluating the way their organizations look at hiring and retention to promote diversity and inclusion.

"Driving societal change is not just the right thing for leaders to do, but it's also good for business," Parmelee says. "Those who are purpose-led and share and support these younger generations' vision for a brighter future will come out on top."

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Deloitte BrandVoice: For Millennials And Gen Zs, Social Issues Are Top Of Mind-Here's How Organizations Can Drive Meaningful Change

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Millennials and Generation Zs have long pushed for social change, but the 10th annual Deloitte Global Millennial and Gen Z Survey reveals that they believe the world has reached a tipping point on issues such as racial justice, inequality and the environment.

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The resale market is growing by the day, and Harvey Nichols is the latest retailer to get on board the movement. The iconic London department store will be teaming up with Reflaunt to allow customers the opportunity to sell their pre-loved goods in a straightforward way.

The partnership will see the Reflaunt Resell Service launch in Harvey Nichols stores across the UK, and online, at the end of this month. Customers will be able to bring in their pre-loved designer pieces, or have them picked up, where Reflaunt will then take care of the entire process, from authentication to pricing and the uploading of imagery.

Customers will then receive 80 per cent of the resale price directly via bank transfer, or can choose to receive an enhanced sum by opting for Harvey Nichols vouchers instead. The aim is for the entire experience to be seamless and hassle-free, encouraging customers to extend the life of their pre-loved items that they no longer have use for.

Reflaunt boasts the largest second-hand community in the world, with 50 million shoppers across a network of 25 international marketplaces. It works by bridging luxury fashion brands with leading second-hand marketplaces and encouraging a circular approach to luxury fashion.

"We're thrilled to be partnering with Reflaunt, to offer our customers a circular model of consumption and ensure luxury fashion items are given the longer lifespan that they deserve," Manju Malhotra, CEO of Harvey Nichols said. "This innovative service provides customers with an effortless way to part with their pre-loved items and in rehoming them with a new owner, not only earns them Harvey Nichols vouchers, but closes the fashion circle."

This initiative follows in the footsteps of the likes of MyTheresa, Selfridges and Farfetch, who have all launched resale initiatives in recent months.

The Reflaunt Resell Service will be available online at Harvey Nichols from 26 August.

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Harvey Nichols is the latest retailer to enter the resale market

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The resale market is growing by the day, and Harvey Nichols is the latest retailer to get on board the movement. The iconic London department store will be teaming up with Reflaunt to allow customers the opportunity to sell their pre-loved goods in a straightforward way.

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Retailers Need To Engage Shoppers’ Five Senses To Save Physical Retail

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Too many retailers are overlooking the most powerful competitive weapon in their arsenal against the onslaught of e-commerce retailers: the ability to activate and engage shoppers with a multi-sensory experience in-store.

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Retail Store Layouts: An Expert Guide To Store Design

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Retail store layout, also referred to as store design or layout design, is a term used for the way retailers set up product displays, fixtures, and merchandise in-store. There's no right or wrong way to lay out your store, but it's important to focus on your target market, your space, and the types of products you sell to come up with a retail store layout that works for your business.

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Shop Community At COACH. Enjoy Free Shipping & Returns On All Orders.

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In recent years, trends and seasonality of clothing have started to be questioned. With the pandemic we have lived and continued to experiment to a lesser degree, things have changed a lot and this problem that was already put on the table has grown.

Do consumers and brands really need to follow trends and seasons in fashion? Seasonality should mean clothing according to a period with certain climatic characteristics. But in the fast-fashion world that is not really the situation, we have gone from 2 or 4 seasons a year with one collection per season, to sometimes 52 collections a year for brands like Shein, Zara or Fashion Nova. This means every week they are re-stocking their stores. Living in the social media era the youth customers were used to wearing clothing and discarding it because once they posted it, the life of the piece was over.

2020 was a year that made fashion tremble, the year runways were cancelled, Gucci and Prada cancelled collections, Michael Kors and Saint Lauren stopped participating in the seasonal calendar. The truth was, consumers were mostly at home wearing loungewear and activewear. Many brands suffer the consequences and furthermore, the factories and the workers were left unpaid and fired.

This served to wake up some of the consumer's and make them realize how big labels are overproducing and the impact they are having. Although for 2021, many have slowly come back to buy every time they can, there are more and more fashionistas considering the true value of their clothing. According to Global Data, "51%* of people aged 16-24 years old have been buying second-hand or 'used' clothing more often. People are actively looking for alternatives to fast fashion" Which helps us to understand that trends are not their main worry anymore and how they are getting to understand the impact of fast fashion.

So, what are the consumers of this new era considering when buying seasonless clothing? Local brands need to know their target. If your brand is based in a country where you can barely differentiate seasons, there is no need to emphasize so much to keep up with the fashion seasonal calendar. It is also not necessary to try every trend. Pick the ones that will work with your DNA, but don't lose your essence. If a brand is based in a place where you need to produce different clothing for the climate conditions and follow seasonality, then focus on producing items that won't be out of fashion the moment the season ends, but on creating pieces that shoppers will wear year after year.

Image: Graciela Huam

Another key point to consider is the increasing appreciation of the made-to-order model that many sustainable businesses are implementing. This means more dependence on timeless and core pieces, smaller drops, less waste produced. This makes brands stronger to face problematic seasons such as the COVID-19 pandemic. From the consumer's point of view, this is something to bear in mind, but there's also the fact that they feel a sense of owning a custom-made piece, something more special and less mainstream because there won't be millions of replicas.

Honest marketing is another valid reason to purchase from a seasonless fashion brand, according to Vogue Business brands that predicate radical transparency and tell all about their journey to sustainability, the good and the bad, including the mistakes made, are more likely to appeal to a millennial and Gen Z audience. They now expect a brand to be fully transparent on their whole process and question every statement they release. Brands are encouraged to best and to talk about it, not sell lies. No brand is yet fully sustainable, but the road is important and misleading the clients is sure to be a deal-breaker.

A brand that has embraced this model, recently just releasing 1 collection per year is Graciela Huam. Their pieces are timeless yet youthful and fun, but able to last in time for its style and quality. They are currently offering pre-orders and they constantly share their background in their social media and web. You can track their origins; know the work the farmers and artisans do and check out their beautiful pieces on their web.

To summarize, brands and designers nowadays must be proactive and accept the changes and act on them before it is too late. Not only for the greater good but thinking from a business perspective too, because even though people making the difference continue to be a minority, the numbers are increasing and better to be part of the change instead of being hit by it.

Image: Graciela Huam

Read more about Graciela Huam on the brandpage:fashionunited.com/companies/graciela-huam

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In recent years, trends and seasonality of clothing have started to be questioned. With the pandemic we have lived and continued to experiment to a lesser degree, things have changed a lot and this problem that was already put on the table has grown.

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Sign up to our newsletter for a truly global perspective on the fashion industry

This year, as economies reopened and most countries eased out of lockdowns, fashion went big on bricks-and-mortar retail in a bid to reach discerning shoppers looking to be entertained.

To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.

In the face of a tough year, retail has been forced to evolve online and off.

Bricks-and-mortar multi-brand retailers are already up against competition from e-commerce natives, high acquisition costs, unpredictable inventory and demand, and difficult profit targets. Now, they're also dealing with volatile consumer behaviour, as higher interest rates, raised inflation, rising energy bills and expectations of a recession have made shoppers less confident about the state of the economy. At the same time, online luxury retailers that saw a burst in sales during the pandemic are facing consolidation and a plateauing, meaning a rethink in strategy.

Despite the challenges, what's clear is that physical stores are making a gradual comeback. Through the first six months of 2022, major US retailers announced 4,329 openings, an increase of 1.9 per cent compared to the same period in 2021, while there were 1,912 announced US store closures, 58.1 per cent less than the same time last year, according to the most recent data available from Coresight Research. Overall, retail sales in June were up 8.4 per cent year-over-year and 18 per cent higher than pre-pandemic, the US Commerce Department said.

The formula for brick-and-mortar retail has evolved since the pandemic. Not only have customer expectations heightened since experiencing the ease and flexibility that comes with online shopping, they also need enticing back. Retailers are having to work harder than ever before, says Doug Stephens, founder of consultancy Retail Prophet. "Brands that can provide a fundamentally more entertaining experience to fashion consumers are going to be responded to favourably."

Bigger brands, bigger experiences

This year, retailers upped their game to get people into stores. One of the biggest luxury retail projects of the year was Dior's whole-store takeover of Harrods, which runs from December to January. With a café, immersive exhibition, two pop-up shops and window displays, it marks Harrods's biggest brand takeover to date, according to partnerships director Alex Unitt. As the initiative still has another four weeks to go, he's reluctant to share footfall or sales metrics, but the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive, he says. "I think the multifaceted nature of the project means there is broad appeal and something for everyone to enjoy."

Other retailers have also stepped up their partnerships in recent years. Browns Fashion hosted an installation for Dior's latest collaboration with Japanese label Sacai last November, and more recently, an exclusive edit of Alessandro Michele's latest collection for Gucci, titled Cosmogonie - coincidentally as the designer announced he would be leaving the brand after seven years. In May, Selfridges hosted Jacquemus's first pop-up in London, an immersive three-part experience that included a 24-hour vending machine dispensing colourways of the brand's top-selling Chiquito and Bambino bags.

In an unexpected move, retailers are also partnering with each other as a way to combine merchandising prowess, share customer crossover and throw bigger weight around. Selfridges navigated two collaborations this autumn, one with cult London boutique Machine-A and the other with Smets, the multi-brand retailer based in Brussels. In the US, Nordstrom has inked partnerships with 11 Honoré, the luxury e-commerce platform, which later partnered with luxury resale and consignment platform The RealReal in October. It's a relatively new approach that could become more popular as retailers figure out new ways to attract customers.

Expect more partnerships of this scale in 2023. "There are many different access points to luxury," Harrods's Unitt explains. "Delivering new and exciting environments and experiences for all our customers to enjoy is part of how we maintain that differentiator. The creativity that our partner brands bring to the table shows what together we can bring to life." Harrods will continue to work with brands on offering a creative and visual experience as well as exclusive products, which fits into the retailer's strategy "to offer a rarefied and unique experience", he says. "This resonates well with our customers and exclusive products available as part of brand takeovers always perform strongly."

Refreshing the store

Luxury brands are also investing more heavily into key flagship stores. In March, Dior celebrated the reopening of its historic flagship on Avenue Montaigne, a 10,000 square-metre space that includes a gallery space, the restaurant Monsieur Dior and Pâtisserie Dior, two eateries both led by French chef Jean Imbert, three gardens, a 200-metre guest suite and more. "We don't regard it as a boutique, we see it as a complete experience," said Dior chairman Pietro Beccari.

Tiffany's iconic flagship on New York's Fifth Avenue is currently undergoing a massive renovation with LVMH's architect of choice Peter Marino handling the interior, while Burberry, which in September named Daniel Lee as its new creative director, is accelerating the conversion of all its stores to the new concept by the end of 2026. The shuttered Burberry store on London's Bond Street is due to open in the summer of 2023, new CEO Jonathan Akeroyd said in November. Meanwhile, more mainstream brands, such as Nike, are investing in dedicated retail concepts, such as Rise and House of Innovation, to get closer to its customers.

When a group rebuilds a brand, that often includes refreshing the store experience, observed Mario Ortelli, managing director of luxury advisory firm Ortelli & Co. "After communications and products, we expect the brand to roll out a massive plan of store revamping, that includes assessing locations and introducing new formats." With a sea change of creative directors at luxury houses, more store overhauls can be expected.

Brands are also opening flagship stores in markets they want to have a bigger presence in. Rising British designer Samuel Ross, founder of the menswear label A-Cold-Wall, plans to open two new flagship stores in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen. For other brands, growth in countries such as Japan and South Korea can help counteract the slowdown in China, which is still recovering from Covid-related lockdowns. French brand Ami opened a flagship store in Seoul in September (at 300 square metres, it's the brand's biggest in the world); while Boucheron plans to open a new flagship store in Tokyo in the second half of 2023.

Luxury retailers are also expanding their presence internationally. Machine-A opened its first permanent store outside of the UK in Shanghai this September, hosting a Raf Simons shop-in-shop - the Belgian brand's first direct-to-consumer location in China. (In a surprise announcement in November, the designer said he would shutter his namesake label.) French luxury department store Printemps announced plans to open its first US store in New York by spring 2024, marking its second location outside of France (its other international store is in Doha). Italian retailer Luisaviaroma, which has two stores in Florence and a strong online business, plans to open its first US flagship in Manhattan in 2023.

A shakeup of players

As luxury's most prestigious brands continue to hone their direct-to-consumer strategies, multi-brand retailers are being forced to redefine their strategies.

Among the most significant luxury deals of the year was Swiss luxury conglomerate Richemont's plan to sell a 47.5 per cent and 3.2 per cent stake in loss-making e-commerce firm Yoox Net-a-Porter to Farfetch and Symphony Global, respectively. Richemont wrote down $2.7 billion as a result of the deal. In October, YNAP announced that its CEO Geoffroy Lefebvre would step down and be replaced on an interim basis by Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and The Outnet president Alison Loehnis. Meanwhile, Farfetch-owned cult boutique Browns lost its managing director Paul Brennan to Marc Jacobs, where he is now managing director EMEA, following the American brand's relocation of its headquarters to London.

Matchesfashion also saw a shakeup in its executive leadership. In July, the loss-making luxury retailer, owned by private equity firm Apax Partners, named Nick Beighton, formerly chief of British e-tailer Asos, as its new CEO. Days after Beigton's appointment, Farfetch's former SVP of logistics Stuart Hill was appointed as its new chief operating officer, and Frasers Group exec Carl Tallents joined in September as chief commercial officer. One of the changes Beighton plans to make is to open Matchesfashion up to an e-concessions model, where the brand controls the stock, rather than the lower-margin wholesale model where the retailer buys the stock.

Among the few profitable online luxury retailers is Mytheresa, which continues to post strong quarterly gains. The Munich-based platform's continued focus on the resilient high-end luxury sector has enabled the business to deliver growth that is "far beyond what you see for the other broad-based e-commerce players that are not focusing on luxury", according to chief executive Michael Kliger. "In these times of uncertainty, we want to be prudent. Our biggest priority is to not give up on our positioning, to not go lower price, to not engage in promotions and to not run after the wrong customers," he told Vogue Business in November.

Forecast to be one of the most resilient sectors amid global recession fears, the luxury market is expected to grow between 3 and 8 per cent next year, according to a joint forecast from Bain & Co and Altagamma. However, retailers will also have to watch out for young shoppers, who play a significant role, with Generation Z - those born between 1997 and 2012 - expected to account for more than a third of luxury purchases by the end of the decade. Reaching these consumers requires a different tactic, and new commerce models including personalised shopping platform Threads Styling, which in September was acquired by Chalhoub Group, the largest retail operator in the Middle East, and mystery box Heat, which helps brand get rid of unsold stock and is funded by LVMH Luxury Ventures, are resonating with this demographic.

Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author: Rejina Pyo plots next growth phase with new store Prada to name former Luxottica chief as group CEO Pierpaolo Piccioli and Wales Bonner among honourees at 2022 Fashion Awards

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The year in retail: Store openings, collaborations and consolidation

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Sign up to our newsletter for a truly global perspective on the fashion industry This year, as economies reopened and most countries eased out of lockdowns, fashion went big on bricks-and-mortar retail in a bid to reach discerning shoppers looking to be entertained. To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here .

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Tanya Taylor entered summer with heaps of her signature floral dresses and a sense of unease.

With weddings back in full swing, demand was up. But the stock market had just plunged, and with the national mood grim, the New York City-based designer anticipated that shoppers wouldn't be in the mood for bright, breezy looks for long - that come August, her company might end up with too much unsold merchandise, which would need to be marked down.

Rather than waiting to see how the season played out, Taylor planned a pop-up shop in Charleston, South Carolina, a relatively new market for the label. Her team pulled together an event in two weeks. Within three days of selling, Taylor sold double the amount she had projected - all at full price.

"It's our job to find the customer that matches inventory," Taylor said. "That's how we've felt less anxiety and more control."

From independent designers to global brands, retailers are finding themselves with an inventory problem this summer. During the pandemic, many thought they had kicked their habit of ordering too much merchandise and relying on end-of-season sales to clear out warehouses and stores. But a combination of shipping delays and misreading the post-pandemic consumer has caused stockpiles to come roaring back.

On average, large publicly traded apparel retailers' inventory levels were 27 percent higher in June than a year prior, according to data from BlueFin Research Partners. For some, the situation is even more extreme. In its most recent earnings report, women's apparel retailer Aritzia said inventories were more than 80 percent higher than last year.

Discounting has returned with a vengeance. Across men's, women's and children's apparel in the UK, more than 71 percent of products were marked down as of July 17, Edited data shows. That's compared to 22 percent last year and 47 percent in 2019. In the US, 60 percent of products were marked down, versus 48 percent in 2019.

"Everybody was thinking they were doing themselves a favour by getting ahead of supply chain [issues]," said BlueFin analyst Rebecca Duval. "But as we turned the corner into 2022, consumer discretionary dropped significantly and so you had a juxtaposition of demand dropping but inventories that support a much higher sales plan."

For many companies, getting back to the fat profit margins of 2021 - when their biggest problem was finding enough clothes to sell - is already out of reach. Now, the goal is to head off a glut of unsold clothes, whether it's with sales or more creative measures, and once again recalibrate orders with manufacturers to try to avoid a repeat this winter.

Merchandising Blunders

Early in the pandemic, the fashion industry saw an opportunity.

For more than a decade, brands and retailers had been locked in a cycle of ordering too much each season and then competing with each other to offer the steepest discounts. Despite near-constant markdowns, some brands were throwing away mountains of clothing or stashing merchandise away in warehouses.

During lockdowns in 2020, when stores shuttered and entire populations were isolated at home, retailers had no choice but to get rid of unsold products however they could. When they looked ahead to future assortments, they planned conservatively. Covid-related factory closures worldwide also forced many companies to cut back on orders.

Fashion retailers thrived in 2021, using low inventories and booming demand to raise prices and rein in discounting. Many talked about it as a permanent shift toward a more disciplined approach to pricing.

Some brands have kept their promise - Tapestry's on-hand inventory level is up in the low single digits compared to last year, it said in a recent earnings call, but the company has raised handbag prices by 20 percent.

But many are finding themselves sliding back to where they were in 2019. The reason, experts say, is twofold. When fashion companies were planning their 2022 offerings in the fall of last year, many relied on that year's sky-high sales as a baseline for their demand forecasts. That proved overly optimistic. When demand slowed in the spring of 2022, products began to pile up.

"[Retailers] felt so desperate to get products, and then maybe got overexcited," said designer Batsheva Hay. "And then Omicron hit, and it was like, 'Whoa, what do we do?'"

Hay added she was surprised when some of her wholesale clients cancelled orders for her namesake brand earlier this year. Luckily, they've yet to do it again since.

All the while, supply-chain disruptions meant that retailers had no way of guaranteeing that products would arrive on time. Some retailers are just now receiving items slated for spring. Companies responded by asking for deliveries as soon as possible, meaning some retailers are now holding delayed spring merchandise, in-season summer clothes plus their fall inventories.

The good news is that consumer demand hasn't fallen off a cliff, despite increasingly dire economic forecasts. In the first six months of 2022, US clothing sales were up 10 percent compared to the same period in 2021, according to Census data. That leaves retailers with more tools to work with than the last few times there was a mismatch between inventories and demand.

"We're not seeing the deep reduction in consumer demand that we were in 2009 or the early part of the pandemic," said Eric Fisch, national sector head of retail and apparel at HSBC's corporate banking division. "In the near future, there'll be markdowns, but at the start of next year, maybe there will be equilibrium."

Damage Control

When brands have leftover product, their first instinct is to mark it down or sell it to off-price retailers. This generally removes the inventory problem, but at the expense of margins.

Discounts are sometimes the best option: they allow companies to quickly move on from last season's issues and plan future orders with a relatively clean slate. But with patience and creativity, taking the margin hit doesn't have to be the only option, as Taylor's pop-up shows.

Companies can save extra products for the following year, for instance. Old Navy has asked its vendors to hold millions of units for up to three months, according to Duval.

Fisch said that moving manufacturing closer to North America could result in clearer inventory planning because it would reduce the lead time between ordering clothes and when they arrive in stores from overseas factories. But domestic manufacturing is far pricier than production in China or Bangladesh.

"It's not that they didn't plan well - nothing hit how they planned it," said Nikki Baird, vice president of strategy at Aptos, a retail services firm.

Wait and Hold

Some retailers have already cut their orders for the future quarters. American Eagle Outfitters as well as Abercrombie & Fitch have reduced fourth-quarter order sizes by 10 percent or more, according to Duval's research.

Reducing product volume is the best way to avoid excess inventory, but it's not always possible. In that case, keeping some products for future seasons may be the next best option, experts say. That works best with core pieces in evergreen silhouettes.

"If you have the stomach to really wait, to sit on the product and use your capital to not provide discounts," said Fisch. "The problem is that if every other brand is doing markdowns, it makes it that much more difficult."

And if markdowns are inevitable, aim for a "trickle, not a waterfall," he advised.

Tanya Taylor's Charleston sale wasn't free for the brand, which had to organise the event in a new market and arrange for food and drinks for shoppers. But the bump in full-priced sales made the upfront costs worth it, and the pop-up was successful as a brand-building strategy as well, Taylor said.

She added she's done similar off-the-cuff shopping events for some special customers. In one case, a woman DM'ed the brand on Instagram and asked if she could receive some inventory to host a shopping party with her friends. Taylor agreed, and the event turned out to be very profitable.

"It almost made her, an ambassador, become a retailer herself," Taylor said. "It's all about making sure you support inventory-sell-through through the [strength] of the brand."
Editor's note: This article was amended on 20 July, 2022. A previous version stated Nikki Baird is the VP of retail innovation at Aptos instead of VP of strategy.

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Why Fashion's Inventory Problem Is Back (And How to Solve It)

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Tanya Taylor entered summer with heaps of her signature floral dresses and a sense of unease. With weddings back in full swing, demand was up.

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You can't manage what you can't measure. So, to help you create workplace health initiatives that are genuinely effective, we're summarising our employee wellbeing statistics for 2023 in this article.

Employee wellbeing has been thrust to the forefront in the last two years in a way that has never happened before.

Last year, our organisations and their people were presented with new and ever-changing challenges.

These challenges affect every employee differently, so it's crucial organisations can create effective wellbeing strategies to target issues that really matter. And the only way to create really effective wellbeing strategies is through a data-driven approach.

For years, Champion Health has been gaining these insights into all areas of employee wellbeing. Below, we're summarising our findings for the past 12 months.

Employee wellbeing statistics

Every year, we create The Workplace Health Report, which highlights our anonymous employee wellbeing statistics generated over the past 12 months.

In this article, you'll get an overview of these employee wellbeing statistics - from mental health to MSK pain - so you can discover the health trends prevalent in organisations like yours right now.

We believe this will help you to cut through the noise in workplace health, so you can start targeting your wellbeing initiatives for maximum impact.

For a closer look at each area of wellbeing, you're encouraged to follow the links under the relevant sections below.

Stress

As an employer, you're always striving to find that 'sweet spot', where your people are productive and challenged but not at the expense of their health or happiness.

Currently, our data shows that 76% of our professionals are experiencing moderate to high levels of stress - a percentage increase of 13% compared to data from 2022.

However, everybody's capacity to manage stress is different, which raises the importance of an individualised approach to stress management.

For example, 35% of employees report that the stress they experience at work is having a negative impact on them.

Anxiety and depression

Across the board, high numbers of employees are experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression. Our data reveals that 60% of employees feel anxious and 56% are experiencing symptoms of depression.

These figures are similar to those published in Champion's previous data release in January 2022.

And whilst most employees do not report a current mental health diagnosis, 1 in 4 met the criteria for 'clinically relevant symptoms' of anxiety and depression, suggesting they would benefit from further assessment and support from a qualified mental health professional.

Poor mental health is also cited as a factor that impacts productivity for almost 1 in 5 employees, contributing to costly levels of presenteeism (on both a personal and business level).

Despite the best efforts of organisations, the data suggests that many employees are still struggling. Whilst this might not be solely due to factors at work, the effects are certainly felt in the workplace.

Musculoskeletal (MSK) pain

Musculoskeletal (MSK) health is a wellbeing issue that's too often overlooked. But it's having a significant impact on your employee's health.

In the UK alone, 7.3 million working days were lost due to work-related musculoskeletal disorders in 2022.

Our data also shows that 41% of employees are currently experiencing MSK pain. While this number has fallen since last year, this shows that employee MSK health is still a significant challenge facing employers.

The knock-on effects of this are professional as well as personal, with 17% of employees reporting that MSK pain negatively impacts their productivity at work.

The data also shows that many employees experiencing MSK pain are not seeking the
support they need from a specialist. Less than half of those experiencing MSK pain report actively seeking assistance.

Given that MSK issues can be managed successfully when treated early, this is a key area in which employers can provide effective support.

Financial health

With living costs soaring, financial wellbeing will be top of mind for many people right now.

That is reflected in our data, which shows that financial pressure is affecting 37% of individuals. This makes financial pressure the leading external cause of employee stress, ahead of relationships (32%) and parenting (29%).

Like anxiety and depression, our data also shows that financial pressure is disproportionately affecting your younger employees.

For more data, we've gone into more depth around financial health statistics in this report.

Data compared with 2022

During 2022, Champion found that 67% of employees experienced moderate to high levels of stress, while 34% experienced negative stress at work.

In terms of anxiety, similar levels were reported, with 58% of individuals experiencing at least mild symptoms of anxiety last year.

Finally, when it came to reporting on levels of depression, 52% of employees said they had experienced at least mild symptoms of depression, with 22% reporting symptoms that were clinically relevant.

How can employers help?

The message is clear for employers: wellbeing in the workplace is a top priority, for both your people and your business.

Many businesses already have strategies in place, but we know they can be improved. What's more, if you don't have a strategy in place, it's time to start thinking.

From our work with employers across the UK, we know that organisations are in desperate need of proactive wellbeing strategies that address 100% of the workforce.

Rather than relying on reactive strategies that only reach employees when they hit 'crisis point', proactive strategies work across the organisation to reduce the likelihood of these crises.

For a deeper dive into the data, read the full Workplace Health Report.

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Employee Wellbeing Statistics | 2023 Report | Champion Health

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You can't manage what you can't measure. So, to help you create workplace health initiatives that are genuinely effective, we're summarising our employee wellbeing statistics for 2023 in this article. Employee wellbeing has been thrust to the forefront in the last two years in a way that has never happened before.

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What Is RFID Inventory Management? 2023 Comprehensive Guide

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Are you ready to take your inventory management needs to the next level? RFID inventory system can help you improve visibility and enhance inventory accuracy and tracking, giving you greater overall control.
Compare Top Inventory Management Software Leaders [addtoany]
RFID inventory management help…

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CAAD Retail Design Barcelona | Diseño de espacios comerciales y visual merchandising

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However, physical spaces have to do much more, especially in the post-coronavirus era, if they do not want to be swallowed up by the ecommerce world.

In this context, there are those who seek to create a unique shopping experience with options such as, for example, smart fitting rooms. From CAAD we want to talk to you today about this innovative way to attract customers to physical establishments and boost sales and interaction with the consumer.

The digital transformation of a company has become a constant and long-term process. As new technologies change and appear, there are always developments that help the retail sector to continue evolving and adapting to today's society and to the needs and demands of the consumer. We have seen it in recent months with the coronavirus, which is driving omnichannel strategies and new trends in window dressing and visual merchandising.

Taking into account that online commerce grows day by day and only in the second quarter of 2019 it had a turnover of more than 12,000 million, it is up to physical establishments to renovate or die. In the online world it is possible to analyze the behavior of customers and their decision-making, something that for years has also been worked on in physical stores through, for example, heat maps. However, if traditional commerce does not want to be swallowed up by online stores, it has to go far beyond data analysis and create a unique shopping experience that allows it to connect with the customer.

In the retail sector, digital transformation is an opportunity for innovation focused on the consumer in order to improve their shopping experience and, consequently, increase business sales. An innovative way to ensure that the customer has an authentic experience is smart fitting rooms.

How do smart fitting rooms work?

A smart fitting room can take many forms and purposes. However, it all started about a decade ago with RFID tags that allow the entire stock to be managed digitally, among other functionalities.

These self-adhesive labels that incorporate radio frequency technology facilitate the function of smart fitting rooms. When the customer is in the fitting room, the mirror, thanks to RFID tags, recognizes all the garments that the consumer wants to try on. Thus, through the screen you can search for other sizes, colors or also discover suggested accessories to combine with that garment. In case the fitting room is not in use, the screen works as a mirror or can display videos and photos.

There are different types of smart fitting rooms on the market. Thus, we can speak, for example, of virtual clothing fitting rooms that use 3D technology and augmented reality:

They detect the contour of the person thanks to a software with a scanner.

They allow you to wear the selected virtual garments to see how they look and even take a photo to save or share.

Add the garments to the shopping cart, make an online purchase and complete the purchase process with a QR code.

Other functionalities among smart fitting rooms are, for example, the ability to translate content into different languages. By the way, no smart fitting rooms has cameras. Therefore, clients can rest assured that their privacy is protected.

One of the smart fitting rooms, or smart mirrors, available on the market has been developed by SAP. It is a tool that guarantees an innovative, magical shopping experience and, most importantly, totally personalized according to the customer's tastes.

Once inside the smart fitting room and after having identified ourselves, it is possible to see the store's catalog, receive recommendations based on the type of garments we like the most, retrieve the searches we have made in the online store from home, and add to the basket purchase the garments that we have tried on in the physical establishment.

Another added value for the shopping experience with these digital fitting rooms is the possibility, for example, to order another size or color without having to leave the fitting room. When we make the request, the employees, who have a smartwatch, receive a notice with the request to be able to take the new requested garment to the fitting room.

"When the customer decides on a specific item of clothing, they can make the purchase directly from inside the changing room, paying with total security and choosing the option of picking up the items at the counter or receiving it at their home in less than 48 hours.

It is undoubtedly a much more unique and comfortable shopping experience for the customer, but also for the establishment that can collect a lot of information about consumer preferences and what is happening in the physical space. In fact, at the end of the purchase, the mirror shows a satisfaction survey and all this data is saved in order to continue offering a personalized and increasingly satisfactory shopping experience.

Advantages of using smart fitting rooms in physical stores

Throughout this article, the most positive aspects of smart fitting rooms have been discussed, especially for the consumer. From the point of view of the brand or physical store the advantages are the following:

It allows you to offer a unique and personalized shopping experience that differentiates you from the competition.

Facilitates customer service in store.

Offers extensive knowledge about the garments that the customer chooses, the fabrics and colors that they like the most and what items they decide to buy. Also, for example, it allows to calculate the time that the buyer stays in the store.

By obtaining all this data, the physical channel manages to catch up with e-commerce in terms of big data. Thanks to this analysis of this data, it is later possible to strengthen the relationship with the consumer by offering, for example, personalized recommendations. All this in order to increase sales from the physical space and compete with ecommerce since this type of shopping experience combines the best of the digital world and of buying in person with a super exclusive service.

It is such an innovative tool that smart mirrors are also being incorporated outside of the fitting room so that customers can virtually try on clothes.

Brands with smart fitting rooms

Some brands have been incorporating this innovative technology in their physical stores for years. For example, Rebecca Minkoff is a brand dedicated to complements and accessories. However, when they installed the smart fitting rooms, they realized that their customers were looking for clothes to match their accessories. Therefore, they spend more time looking at the product catalog and buy more calmly and happier.

The Spanish fashion brand Mango, with the support of the technology company Vodafone, developed in 2018 a mirror in the fitting rooms that works as a tablet. The mirror works as a scanner, detects the garments that have been introduced in the fitting room and allows you to order sizes or colors. The same kind of fitting room was made by Zara years before, in 2015.

These are just some examples of how smart fitting rooms or smart mirrors are another step in the digital transformation of companies. Without any doubt, the physical spaces will remain with us for a long time, developing innovative tools to get us to approach the store to buy, with the expectation of living a much more unique, comfortable and personalized experience than buying online. Will traditional commerce win the battle with electronic commerce or at least balance the sales between physical establishments and e-commerce?

Follow us in and , sign up to our newsletter and you will keep up to date with trends and issues related to retail.

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Smart fitting rooms: improve the customer experience and increase sales

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However, physical spaces have to do much more, especially in the post-coronavirus era, if they do not want to be swallowed up by the ecommerce world.

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Home " Retail waste management

Waste management in retail is a key focus area to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill and help protect our planet. At Business Waste, we understand the difficulties the retail sector faces managing daily retail waste and offer a range of services for collection and disposal.

Whether you're a small convenience store in a rural village, a large supermarket, shopping centre, or retail store in an airport, you still need efficient and cost-effective retail waste management. We work with all retail companies, no matter how big or small, to help you better manage your rubbish with our specialist retail waste collection services.

Retailers end up with many types of waste that could be harmful to their immediate surroundings and the environment. As a responsible retailer, you should know where your waste comes from and ends up. Get a free quote today for collection of your retail waste from anywhere in the UK by calling 0800 211 8390 or contacting us online.

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Retail waste disposal
and recycling

Methods of retail waste disposal depends on the type of rubbish your shop produces. It's important that you store each waste stream in separate bins to avoid the chance of contamination, so as much as possible is recycled. Our licensed waste carriers can then collect your retail waste bins and take them to an appropriate facility for disposal.

We operate on a zero landfill policy, so aim to ensure as much waste in retail as possible is recycled or reused. Some of the common disposal and recycling methods for retail waste types include:

Food waste - rather than heading to landfill, food waste can go through anaerobic digestion to produce biogas that's used to generate renewable energy.

Glass recycling - waste glass is sorted, cleaned, crushed, heated, and formed into new glass products.

Plastic recycling - it depends on the type of plastic, but kinds like PET for drinks bottles are shredded, cleaned, melted, and turned into pellets to form new plastics.

Textile waste - old clothes can be recycled by being shredded into polyester chips or the fibres cleaned, separated, and spun back into yarn.

WEEE waste - electronic products are normally broken down into their component parts, which are recycled based on their materials (such as metals and plastics).

240L wheelie bin

A standard two-wheel bin that can be used for just food or glass waste, or general waste and recyclables.

1100L wheelie bin

The largest four-wheel bin available to store general waste, dry mixed recycling, and other waste types.

Balers

These large bins compact recyclable waste of the same type, such as paper, cardboard, and plastic, to save space.

Retail waste
collection

Arrange retail waste collections with Business Waste wherever your shop, supermarket, or store is in the UK. We cover the whole country and provide retail waste management services to organisations of all sizes - from city centre clothes stores to the local village shop.

Enjoy free bins delivered to your retail outlet - you just pay for collection. Ensure you have an accessible point and enough space for delivery and storage of the bins you need. Then arrange retail waste pickup and our licensed waste carriers will collect at an agreed time and date.

You can arrange retail waste collections on a daily, weekly, or fortnightly schedule. These are flexible too, as we realise the impact seasonality has on the retail industry especially. After retail waste pickup, our drivers will transport your rubbish to a nearby facility for appropriate disposal.

Get a free quote from a retail waste expert by speaking to one of our friendly team. They can advise on the bins and collection schedules suited to your organisation and answer any questions you have. Contact us online or call 0800 211 8390 today.

How does retail
waste collection work?

1. Select your free bins

It's quick and easy to organise commercial waste collection for your business.

Simply start by telling us the:

Type of waste you need removing

Size of bins you require

Number of bins you want

We'll provide you with a free quote.

2. Arrange delivery

When you're happy with the type, number, and size of free bins, tell us when you need your bins delivering.

Let us know about any access issues where you want the bins delivering - such as locked gates, access codes and times. We'll get you up and running in no time.

3. Fill up your bin

After the free bins arrive at your chosen location, fill them up with the agreed waste type.

Make sure you remain within any weight limits for the specific waste type and bin size.

4. Get your business waste collected

We'll arrange waste collection at a time and frequency to suit you and the amount of waste you have.

Retail waste
regulations

In 1997, the Packaging Waste Regulations were introduced in the UK. The new regulations stated that retail businesses must meet the requirements of the European Directive for packaging waste. The regulations were introduced to encourage businesses to increase their use of recyclable packaging and decrease the amount of packaging they use.

In 2015, the UK government introduced new waste regulations that asked businesses to separate their recyclable materials from non-recyclable materials. For example, businesses are required to have separate bins for their paper, plastic, and glass waste. These regulations were introduced to help UK retailers to increase their recycling efforts.

Retail waste
FAQs

Every UK business needs a waste management plan. For shops and stores, a retail waste management plan ensures all rubbish is disposed of correctly and ensures efficient waste management systems are in place. A waste management system can identify areas where you create excess refuse to reduce the amount of retail waste going to landfill.

Site waste management plans (SWMPs) were introduced to reduce the amount of waste businesses produce. Retailers use SWMPs to plan how any waste they generate is managed. A SWMP contains important information such as what waste needs to be recycled, disposed of, or reused, and how the business will do so. The plan must be regularly updated to ensure it accurately reflects the waste needs and obligations of a business.

Technically, there's no legal requirement for a retail business to have a SWMP. However, introducing and maintaining one has many benefits. For example, a business can reduce costs by planning the most efficient waste management systems and increase their profits by using a SWMP to look at where they can reduce waste.

Reducing retail waste is important to help the environment and save your business money. There are a few ways a retail business can cut the amount of rubbish produced. To reduce retail waste, you can try:

Analysing sales patterns to avoid over-purchasing products

Reducing packaging and single-use plastics

Making processes digital and reducing paper use

Reusing plastic crates instead of cardboard boxes

Returning used clothes hangers to the supplier for reuse or recycling

The amount of waste in the retail industry is hard to quantify as it covers a range of different types and encompasses all sorts of businesses. One progress report claims that 280,000 tonnes of retail food waste are produced each year in the UK. However, there are still large amounts of packaging and other waste generated in retail too - which doesn't all get recycled.

In today's world, businesses face increasing pressure to 'go green' and create sustainable business models. This pressure isn't just from the government but also from consumers. Today's consumer is interested in the sustainability of a product and will avoid retail shops that have a reputation for treating the environment poorly.

A retail shop with a positive green reputation is seen as trustworthy by the consumer. They can build a positive reputation easily. Plus, you'll have a more positive impact in protecting the future of our planet and reduce the landfill tax you pay in the process.

A recycling baler is a common bin used by many retailers. The benefits of using a recycling baler include streamlining your waste management system, as waste will be compressed into a bale that's easily stored. This frees up valuable space for storage and transportation.

Read our full guide to balers for more information.

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Home " Retail waste management Waste management in retail is a key focus area to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill and help protect our planet. At Business Waste, we understand the difficulties the retail sector faces managing daily retail waste and offer a range of services for collection and disposal.

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Marina Meredith is a Warwickshire based artist born of Italian parents and brought up near Montpelier in France. Initially influenced by her compatriots Cézanne and Matisse, her work today has a more English feel. Although not formally trained, Marina has studied drawing under Arthur Keene for several years, believing that good draughtsmanship is the basis of a sound painting technique. As her own style has evolved, Marina has found herself drawn more and more to English painters such as Winifred Nicholson and Mary Fedden, who are great influences on her present work.

Marina specializes in Still Life and Interior subjects. Studio based, her preferred method is painting in oil on canvas or board. Paint is applied expressively with both brush and knife. The paintings are then reworked to create depth and texture to her slightly abstracted images with their flattened perspective.

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Marina Meredith is a Warwickshire based artist born of Italian parents and brought up near Montpelier in France. Initially influenced by her compatriots Cézanne and Matisse, her work today has a more English feel. Although not formally trained, Marina has studied drawing under Arthur Keene for several years, believing that...

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The Best Concept Stores in London | Mr Hudson

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London boasts a diverse range of concept stores. Mr Hudson introduces you to the best in London, from fashion to design.

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Why Is Sustainable Fashion So Important? 9 Shocking Facts To Make the Switch!

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Ever wondered why Sustainable Fashion is so important in the big scale of things? The answers may shock you!

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In early 2017, broccoli supplies in England collapsed due to a crop failure in Spain, prices soared, shops set up barricades.

A street artist made light of such woes as real broccoli started to appear in art on Shoreditch walls!

The art consisted of real broccoli cut in half with additional collaged elements showing the face, hands and feet of a bearded gentleman. From January 2017 on round and square mirrors Broccoli Man appeared, then from March the natural greens of the broccoli were replaced by reds.

The placement was often amusing, such as on this huge unofficial billboard advertising a tv program about a certain recreational plant, suggesting that the programme was an in-depth feature on broccoli.

Adrian Boswell, the artist behind the face in the broccoli introduced himself one morning, and in addition to being a very friendly chap who regards putting broccoli up on walls as an obvious thing to do, Adrian is also a prolific collage artist.

Adrian's gallery is on Brick Lane at the Old Truman Brewery, just ask for Broccoli Man.

Adrian is a quiet spoken, industrious indeed prolific artist. He acknowledges that his work ethic and intense bursts of activity may see him working 30 hour continuous sessions without sleep in his studio.

Adrian has a number of projects in the pipeline including opening a gallery abroad, taking the broccoli street art concept to another level and, of course, producing more studio art. He is also engaged on an ambitious book project, hoping to produce a book a year for 10 years.

Broccoli continues to appear on the street, the broccoli has turned gold, perhaps in response to that brief period in 2017 when it became a luxury item and recently a rainbow spectrum of broccoli appeared.

In the most recent installations in Shoreditch, gold Broccoli Man has appeared imprisoned in a cage

This blog post is based on a l onger blogpost on Graffoto in which we examine the whole broccoli crisis in more depth and ponder an unexpected role for government spits in suppressing evidence of the broccoli crisis.

Link: Adrian Boswell website

All photos Dave Stuart except additional gallery photos of artwork courtesy Adrian Boswell website

Other sources: Websites of The Times, The Daily Telegraph, www.her.ie, www.bbc.co.uk

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Broccoli Man Shoreditch Street Art | Shoreditch Street Art Tours London Street Art Tours

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In early 2017, broccoli supplies in England collapsed due to a crop failure in Spain, prices soared, shops set up barricades. A street artist made light of such woes as real broccoli started to appear in art on Shoreditch walls!

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Bethany Williams at London Fashion Week 2022

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BoF's guide to why and how Gen-Z in the US engages with fashion - defining six personality clusters and examining behaviours through social media analysis, surveys and focus groups. Gen-Z - aged between 12 and 25 and accounting for approximately 25 percent of the world's population - is now coming into its own.

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Bode is a luxury menswear brand that expresses a sentimentality for the past through the study of personal narratives and historical techniques. Modern workwear silhouettes united with female-centric traditions of quilting, mending, and appliqué shape the collections. Each piece tells a story and is tailor-made.

Emily Adams Bode Aujla was the first female designer to show at NYFW: Men's. She is paving the way for women entrepreneurs in the menswear industry. In 2016, the brand began with a collection of one-of-a-kind garments composed entirely of antique textiles and continue to reinvigorate American menswear through the art of storytelling and preservation. Bode has been recognized with numerous awards, including: 2022 and 2021 CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year, 2020 Woolmark Prize: Karl Lagerfeld Award, 2019 LVMH Prize Finalist, 2019 CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year, 2019 Business of Fashion 500, 2019 GQ's Breakthrough Designer of The Year, and Forbes 30 Under 30.
Recent Awards:
2022
CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year
Cooper Hewitt National Design Award: Emerging Designer

2021
CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year

2020
Woolmark Prize: Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation

2019
LVMH Prize Finalist
CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year
Business of Fashion 500
Forbes 30 Under 30
GQ's Breakthrough Designer of the Year

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Bode is a luxury menswear brand that expresses a sentimentality for the past through the study of personal narratives and historical techniques. Modern workwear silhouettes united with female-centric traditions of quilting, mending, and appliqué shape the collections. Each piece tells a story, and is tailor made in New York.

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Established in 2018 by Bleue Wickham-Burnham, Bleue Burnham is a fine jewellery brand based in London. The purpose and philosophy of our practice is to create jewellery of timeless beauty and extraordinary quality, which is developed and actualised from detailed research of human culture and its con…

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If you're tired of well-known apparel brands greenwashing and seeking to shop elsewhere sustainably, look no further. Attire The Studio 's main pillar is transparency when it comes to how their garments are made.

The brand was founded by Xenia Adonts who is based in Paris, France. She turned her influencer success into a sustainable fashion company. Determined to do something different and stand out amongst the saturated influencer-owned brands, Attire The Studio was born. "I was always frustrated that there are so many brands out there that sell very overpriced polyester to their followers. I wanted to create value not only for customers but also for the environment and the future of fashion," shares Adonts in a YOYOKULALA .

The brand has factories in Italy and Portugal, many of which are family-owned. The raw materials used in the brand's clothing are the key to keeping their success and sustainability thriving. Notably, Attire The Studio only certified organic cotton since other uncertified cotton is often riddled with pesticides and uses a large amount of water in the production process. Not only are the materials eco-conscious but their packaging is also plastic-free.

Attire The Studio is a luxury brand so it isn't always affordable to the everyday person, though the high price tag is explained through a cost breakdown. From the cost of fabric, hardware, labour and transportation, it is evident a large amount of work goes into making sustainable and quality clothing with a price that measures accordingly.

If you take a scroll through their website you'll see tailored timeless pieces to fit into any wardrobe. You can also take a look into the brand's factories and see how they continue sustainability efforts by using solar panels as an energy source for example.

Proving that it is possible to be sustainable without sacrificing quality or style and can turn a profit, Attire The Studio sets the example of transparency in fashion.

All images in this article are courtesy of Attire The Studio.

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Transparency in Garment Production With Attire The Studio

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If you're tired of well-known apparel brands greenwashing and seeking to shop elsewhere sustainably, look no further. Attire The Studio 's main pillar is transparency when it comes to how their garments are made. The brand was founded by Xenia Adonts who is based in Paris, France.

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Luxury brands spent decades turning design, aspiration, and high-quality goods into a $380 billion global behemoth. The coronavirus pandemic changed it all in a few short months. Sales have plummeted, leading to forecasts for a precipitous decline in 2020 revenue and massive uncertainty about the ability of many brands to rebound. The long-term impact of the crisis on brands will be just as dramatic, accelerating shifts in consumption and consumer preferences that will upset the existing equilibrium of power.

BCG believes that industries of all kinds-including luxury-will go through a three-phase recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, one that we call " Flatten, Fight, and Future." Based on our discussions with luxury brands' C-suite leaders, we believe the industry faces a protracted Fight phase, where regions gradually restart their economies but business outlooks remain uncertain because of the potential for the virus to reemerge. At the same time, brands are grappling with a fundamental shift in what "luxury" means, as consumers become more environmentally and socially aware and digital channels become more important as sources of inspiration and sales. Companies that respond by streamlining operations, redefining luxury to be less conspicuous and more inclusive, and investing in new ways of doing business are more likely to not just power through these uncertain, changing times but emerge stronger for the future.

The End of Luxury's Golden Era

The crisis has slowed a decade of growth across luxury categories that was buoyed by a bullish global economy and the relative affluence of Chinese consumers, who in recent years accounted for 35% of luxury purchases worldwide. Growth was further spurred by the democratization of luxury goods ushered in by lower opening price points, excitement over new categories such as high-end sneakers and casualwear, and collaborations between labels.

Now, even the most optimistic forecasts show sales of luxury goods dropping 25% to 45% in 2020. (See Exhibit 1.) In a best-case scenario, where a vaccine becomes available or the economic ramifications of the pandemic are not too severe, people will resume shopping and traveling and give a boost to luxury goods sales. But in a worst-case scenario, where a vaccine takes longer to develop or the recession is more severe, companies will struggle to regain momentum and people's ability and willingness to buy luxury goods will suffer.

Taking these factors into account, we expect that the industry's recovery will be gradual. Although performance will vary across individual categories, we believe that a worst-case scenario could cause overall sales in 2021 to be 20% lower than in 2019, followed by a somewhat smaller decline in 2022. By 2023 and beyond, we expect sales in most categories to return to precrisis levels.

For now, though, the new reality is upending the status quo in several ways.

Current events are reshaping how people think and behave. The COVID-19 crisis and recent protests to end racism have made existing social inequities even more apparent and people less comfortable with easy and conspicuous affluence. The COVID-19 pandemic paused travel and travel-related shopping for the foreseeable future. It's also driven more people to shop online, including those who avoided it in the past. Luxury slowly had begun to become more diverse and inclusive. In light of the current state of the world, that move is now nonnegotiable.

Category sales are shifting. Although consumers are spending less on luxury goods during and immediately after lockdown periods, brands whose products are perceived to be timeless have not and will not be affected as much as those that are more dependent on fashion trends and fads. In addition, categories that are further along in incorporating digital platforms and technologies into sales and distribution channels should fare better.

We believe skin care, makeup, footwear, and leather goods are in the best position to rebound. Sales in these categories are less tied to seasons, holidays, or other key moments than are others, and online sales are already relatively strong. We expect that sales in these categories will decline in 2020 but recover faster than others, potentially reaching precrisis levels in 2021 or 2022.

By contrast, watches and jewelry will on average face more challenges because of their continued strong reliance on sales through physical and wholesale channels, and because of the extreme drop in international travel. Today, e-commerce accounts for only 10% of watch sales and 5% of jewelry and eyewear sales. Ready-to-wear brands also will struggle; any revenue they realize from a seasonal rebound could be offset by the need to offer discounts to sell off excess inventory. We expect sales in these categories to drop by 35% to 50% this year and not reach precrisis levels until at least 2023.

Countries are recovering at different rates. China experienced the worst of the crisis ahead of most other places, and the Chinese economy has already recovered to the point where GDP growth is forecast to surpass the 2019 increase and continue to expand. Sales of luxury goods in China are expected to rebound and end the year as much as 10% above the 2019 mark, as more Chinese who normally shop for luxury goods when they travel stay home and spend in the country.

By contrast, European countries such as France, Italy, and the UK could suffer from the effects of the crisis well beyond 2020. In those countries, less international travel and weak local demand amid prolonged economic fallout from the crisis will continue to hurt sales of luxury goods. In the US and Japan, consumers expect the crisis to create a recession, and they plan to spend less on luxury goods as a result. In the US, the luxury market will be further hurt by the closings of some department stores and high-end retailers, as well as by the current social and political climate.

Online channels are blossoming. Some luxury brands had been cautious about venturing into e-commerce because it doesn't fit consumer expectations for a high-end shopping experience. But as more people bypass shopping in person for the convenience and relative safety of buying things online, luxury brands must accelerate sales through online channels.

The crisis hit department stores especially hard, and we expect them to continue to be affected unless they adopt more personalized "clienteling 2.0" sales practices and expand digital sales channels.

Challenges and Opportunities

Shifting economic, consumer, and societal trends present challenges and opportunities for luxury brands and retailers.

Demand for sustainability grows. Addressing consumer interest in sustainability is now table stakes for the industry. Brands must rethink their entire value chain to ensure that it is environmentally and ethically sound. Such a reevaluation could lead them to make a number of changes, including sourcing more materials locally, reducing their carbon footprint, providing more support for local communities, and supporting animal rights.

Diversity and inclusivity are must-haves. The year 2020 will be known as one of turmoil, but hopefully also one of change. The luxury business, as with all industries, must use the opportunity to make diversity and inclusivity a priority for their workforce and customers.

A quieter style of luxury emerges. The next decade will be one of uneasy affluence, with shoppers in many parts of the world reverting to less conspicuous forms of luxury. In a recent BCG consumer survey, more than half of the respondents expected their preference to increase for luxury items that are understated and everlasting. Chinese consumers, however, continue to prefer luxury items with embellishments, logos, and other visible adornments, a difference that could polarize luxury values between East and West.

Midterm tourist sales remain low. Because travel in most parts of the world is on hold, brands must find a way to make up for the revenue lost from a decline in sales to tourists, in particular the sales to individuals of ultrahigh net worth. To make up the difference, many brands will need to prioritize replacement of the revenue lost from Chinese tourists with sales to local markets.

Digital channels accelerate. Before the crisis, e-commerce accounted for 10% to 12% of luxury sales worldwide. Lockdown periods created a boom in online shopping, including higher sales to e-commerce novices. We expect new shopping behaviors to endure beyond the crisis, similar to how the SARS crisis in Asia was the turning point for digital and online platforms there. We also expect online shopping behaviors to continue to include not only transactions but also the inspiration stage of the purchase journey, which now accounts for a large portion of consumers' online shopping-related activity. Generation Z shoppers-those aged 5 to 25-in particular devote half of the time they spend making a purchase either seeking inspiration or inspiring others. More than 70% of the age group globally and 82% in the US decide what to buy during the inspiration stage of the purchase journey.

The market is significantly more volatile. The full extent of COVID-19's impact on the industry and the impending recession remains to be seen. To navigate the uncertainties, brands must develop the ability to track, analyze, and act on signs of trends in demand. Data analysis will play a larger role in such intelligence gathering, allowing brands to create and deliver the right merchandise to the right place at the right time. We also expect to see more industry consolidation, with size and scale becoming even more important than they were in the previous decade.

How Luxury Brands Can Win in the New Reality

Brands that address challenges and opportunities without delay will be in a better position to navigate the new reality. In the initial Flatten phase, luxury players prioritized protecting their people and cash. Some switched to making personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer, and other essentials. In most regions, brands now are transitioning to the Fight phase, where they need to reset and streamline operations and invest in areas that will drive advantage into the Future phase of the new luxury reality. (See Exhibit 2.)

Reset and Streamline
Companies must rethink what, when, and how they sell in order to recalibrate operations to meet a changed sales picture.

Reset distribution. To reengineer distribution, brands must bolster their presence in key cities in the regions where they operate, because as long as travel restrictions inhibit tourist-related purchases, those areas will represent a larger portion of sales. To attract more local clientele, brands must step up their value proposition, offering more merchandise that's relevant to local shoppers, sourcing more merchandise closer to home, and spending more on local marketing.

Because department stores continue to operate under pressure, brands must take care to partner with successful enterprises even as they build out their direct-to-consumer channels-including their own stores. We expect brands to sell through multiple digital channels, including their own websites, digital-only pure players such as Net-A-Porter and Farfetch, and social networks. In addition to selling merchandise, digital channels have become essential inspiration points in the prepurchase phase of the consumer journey. To win over luxury buyers, brands must invest in boosting their visibility in these channels, offering such amenities as virtual try-ons and giving customers a more personalized shopping experience. We also expect the recessionary economies in some regions to accelerate growth of platforms that sell preowned merchandise. Luxury brands will need to determine if and how to engage with these platforms.

Make supply chains more efficient and agile. To respond faster to shifting market conditions, reduce time to market, and decrease exposure to market volatility, brands must reinvent their supply chain and renegotiate supplier relationships. To create a more agile supply chain that allows them to be more flexible, brands may need to shift from high-volume manufacturing partners to producers that operate more factories located closer to customers. That way they can cut delivery times and improve time to market. They would also have redundant coverage should factories in certain areas shut down because of a public health crisis or become inaccessible owing to trade wars. We expect some brands to integrate vertically, particularly large companies and conglomerates that would benefit from acquiring manufacturing capacity if controlling the means of production could earn them a competitive edge.

Reset costs to adjust the P&L. To counter the near-term reality of lower revenue and preserve operating profits, luxury brands must reshape their P&L. They must adjust costs across the board, including such fundamentals as the cost of goods sold, rent, and personnel.

Rethink the fashion calendar. Even before the crisis, the fashion and luxury industries were working to reconcile the disconnect between the long-entrenched cycles for unveiling, delivering, and marking down merchandise and the reality of consumers' shopping habits, preferences, and needs. The crisis has intensified the need to change in order to reduce expenses, increase margins, and operate more sustainably, among other things. Such a change is no small undertaking. It would require overhauling a brand's entire fashion calendar, including the number of collections it produces each year and when, where, and how those collections are shown and delivered. And it would have a trickle-down effect on wholesale and e-commerce channels.

Implement a zero-based organization redesign. Implementing a zero-based organization redesign is another way that luxury brands can make their cost structure leaner and more agile. In the process, a company considers what it would need if it were to launch today, and then it puts those systems in place, including data analytics to forecast and augment decision making and identify cost savings. A zero-based reorganization could lead a company to adopt a bionic operating model, one that seamlessly integrates the capabilities of people and technology. A bionic operating model also gives brands the chance to digitize product development and their supply chain to be more agile and effective.

Invest

If brands successfully revamp operations, they may be able to free up the resources necessary to expand into new sales channels and to invest in such areas as data analytics and artificial intelligence.

Address the changing consumer. Luxury brands haven't always made consumer concerns the center of their business. They need to now, starting with making diversity and inclusivity a key objective, with clear plans and performance targets. Efforts to become more diverse should encompass personnel at all levels-from retail staff up to and including the C-suite and board. Brands also need to make sustainability a key pillar in everything they do. This is not only about growing consumer demand. Going green now could serve as a hedge against rising commodity prices and the stricter environmental regulations that are expected in some parts of the world. Brands must take similar steps to address consumer demand for purpose and social consciousness in the companies they patronize. To remain relevant to the next generation of customers, they must do a better job of sharing their purpose and values, and demonstrating their heritage and authenticity. And underlying all this will be the need to, with some notable exceptions, cater to a quieter, less conspicuous form of luxury that is characterized by temperance, slow fashion, and quality.

Invest in inspiration. If consumers are spending more time in the inspiration phase of the purchase journey, then brands need to be there as well, including on social channels such as Instagram and WeChat. To be culturally credible, brands need to cultivate an image that's both aspirational and accessible, and they must make it easy for their audience to communicate and interact with them. Brands can use their social channels to show how they participate in social, civic, environmental, and other causes. To be as transparent and authentic as possible, they should also collaborate with third parties-to deepen their awareness of local groups and subcultures-and support cultural pioneers and the circles they direct.

Embrace clienteling 2.0. As shopping preferences and habits evolve, brands must develop tools for engaging with high-end customers. In the next decade, we believe this will mean focusing on clienteling 2.0, combining people and data by, for example, using machine learning to share relevant information with salespeople in order to improve how they engage with customers. A number of brands and retailers are already testing this concept; some found success during pandemic-generated lockdowns, after turning store associates into digital stylists and having them engage with consumers and sell merchandise directly through WeChat and Instagram. In our client work, we've seen companies that implement clienteling 2.0 boost sales by 10% to 15%.

Accelerate the digital ecosystem. Many luxury brands have been slow to embrace digital channels, but given how many people shopped online for the first time during the pandemic-including some who bought luxury goods-they need to catch up, and quickly. Brands must create online experiences that feel exclusive and beyond what nonluxury retailers offer. Experiences should take into account not just shopping and purchase transactions but also related activities such as fashion shows, private showings, personal shoppers, white-glove delivery, and other customized services.

Build an AI-driven technology backbone. Adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics, and other components of an enterprise-wide technology backbone will become a key differentiator in the industry. If the Fight phase of crisis recovery continues for some time, it may be difficult to predict product trends, at least in the near term. Brands can use AI to steer the way, doing pulse checks on buying patterns, for example, to improve demand tracking and analysis and gain insights that competitors might not have. AI also can help brands manage manufacturing and stock in a more agile way. The benefits include improved in-season inventory management and markdowns. And it can help them customize their value proposition to a hyperpersonalized level.

Bring fresh skills to the workforce. The pursuit of talent with the necessary skills will be one of the luxury industry's biggest challenges in the coming decade. The industry needs data engineers, data scientists, analysts, and other digitally savvy talent-all people whose talents make them highly sought after. There will also be a need to upskill existing talent as AI and advanced analytics continue to transform all areas of the value chain.

The times and changing attitudes are redefining the meaning of luxury, forcing brands to rethink every aspect of their business. The key imperatives are operating more sustainably, ensuring diversity and inclusivity, embracing digital capabilities, and integrating people and technology. Companies with timeless, classic products and the cash to upgrade to these new ways of doing business will consolidate power at the expense of brands that fail to act.

Guia Ricci

Principal

Milan

Alexandre Prénaud

Principal

Paris

About Boston Consulting Group

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation-inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact.

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Luxury brands spent decades turning design, aspiration, and high-quality goods into a $380 billion global behemoth. The coronavirus pandemic changed it all in a few short months. Sales have plummeted, leading to forecasts for a precipitous decline in 2020 revenue and massive uncertainty about the ability of many brands to rebound.

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We are proud to say that our collection and packaging is completely plastic-free. All our fabrics are 100% natural and 100% biodegradable. Natural fabrics require little to no toxins in the production process (as opposed to man-made fabrics). We do not use any polyester or polyester blend fabrics; polyester can only be recycled a limited amount of times because it loses so much of its quality after being broken down, and it releases micro-plastics in the recycling process that pollute landfills and oceans. We chose not to use polyester mixed fabrics despite the fact that they are more affordable because they cannot be recycled - the process to separate polyester mixed fabrics takes too much effort and requires too many chemicals.
(Please note that these are my personal values and priorities and just because something is important to me does not mean that other efforts don't matter or are wrong. At the end of the day it is personal preference and a personal belief system that define a company's culture.)

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We are proud to say that our collection and packaging is completely plastic-free. All our fabrics are 100% natural and 100% biodegradable. Natural fabrics require little to no toxins in the production process (as opposed to man-made fabrics).

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Victoria Prew, co-founder and CEO of HURR Collective, the UK's first peer-to-peer wardrobe rental ... [+]
Morgane Maurice

Launched at Christmas in 2018, HURR offers high-end fashion to those preferring to rent than buy. A website and app (HURR also has a permanent space inside Selfridges in London), its millennial co-founder and CEO Victoria Prew was sick of the linear and disposable structures taken for granted by the fashion industry. Offering a mix of peer-to-peer rentals, alongside stock available directly from exclusive brand partners, HURR is a win-win for everyone involved-with those who lend expecting to make back the cost of an item after just a few rentals. Add to that, today travel is booming on the platform. And with HURR's curated content for ski and sun vacations, users can assemble their ideal (and sustainable) travel wardrobes with ease.

What's the story behind the name, HURR? It's derived from "Huur," which means "Rent" in Afrikaans. My co-founder [Matthew Geleta] is South African!

How did you come up with the idea? I've always been fascinated by the idea of reinventing ownership and the sharing economy-why can't we access amazing things for shorter periods of time? As a millennial myself I've witnessed the monumental rise of sharing platforms, such as Uber and Airbnb-as consumers, we rent our cars, we rent our houses-so my "lightbulb" moment came when I considered our wardrobes, why can't we rent those too?

How do you find your lenders? How do you ensure the quality of the items listed? With over 45,000 listings across the HURR platform, to this day over 90 percent of our traffic is organic, benefiting hugely from viral word-of-mouth. We're very proud that HURR is the most trusted way to rent and lend your wardrobe, with top lenders making over $43,000 a year from their wardrobes. Add to that, we take a curated approach to listings, and we provide valuable content around upcoming trends, as well as predictions and insights about the top-performing pieces and brands.

I write a lot about travel, and with your ski and sun capsule collections, I imagine a lot of HURR users rent to create the perfect vacation wardrobes-tell me a bit about your travel habits-what is always in your suitcase? Absolutely! We see HURR as the go-to platform for "elevating your everyday." I love planning my rental wardrobe before a holiday. I usually mix current-season dresses (my go-to brands are Taller Marmo, 16Arlington and Missoni) with vintage accessories-I love our collaboration with Susan Caplan, a top vintage curator of Chanel and statement pieces.

And skiwear is booming on HURR right now!

How do you ensure a seamless and stress-free delivery and return process when relying on so many different people and with so many variables at play? Community is the beating heart of HURR, and our top lenders massively contribute to our strategy. Equally, as a brand, we have tried to think ahead and provide as many tools and resources as possible to ensure a seamless experience from searching on the website to the return of an evening dress. Our partnership with the dry-cleaning company Oxwash makes it hassle-free for lenders to clean items between rentals, and lenders can also purchase reusable packaging through the HURR platform.

Tell me a little about your journey to become interested in sustainability? Why is it important to you? I've always been obsessed with the idea of "reinventing ownership" in fashion, and I never understood the linear model that's dominated the industry for so long, it never made any sense to me. The circular economy is, without question, the most exciting opportunity within the fashion industry and the time for change is now.

From a personal standpoint, I passionately believe that fashion should be fun, but it shouldn't cost the planet. I live by the 30 plus wear rule (only purchasing items that I know I'll wear over 30 times), and think we all have our part to play in sharing clothes, extending the lifespan of our wardrobes and using resale, rental and repair services as frequently as possible.

What does no one ever tell you about running a business? Everyone will have an opinion, but no one knows your business better than you. Always trust your gut instinct.

Where is your favorite place to visit? I love Italy-is there anywhere better for style and food?!

Where is on your bucket list? At some point of my life, I'd love to trek to Everest Base Camp and visit Nepal.

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How HURR Became The Go-To Place To Create The Perfect Vacation Wardrobe

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Launched at Christmas in 2018, HURR offers high-end fashion to those preferring to rent than buy. A website and app (HURR also has a permanent space inside Selfridges in London), its millennial co-founder and CEO Victoria Prew was sick of the linear and disposable structures taken for granted by the fashion industry.