Retail & Circularity Weekly Roundup
Keeping you updated on Luxury, Retail & Circularity with a weekly article best-of from November 9th to November 15th.
The week in articles
1. Capitalism, the devil 👹
Consumers and business trust. An old tale of two sides. Consumers have defaulted to high expectations and low trust when they start any brand engagement. And now?
That’s the new nature of the game. More and more, consumers start the relationship with a brand from the defensive side. “You must be tricking me, you must be charging me way more, you must be harming the planet”. What happened?
Let’s face it, corps were becoming greedy. It cannot be all for the purpose of profit anymore. Nobody is buying that. (Apart from some investors, but show you have their long-term goals covered.)
It’s time for a Corporate detox! But the good thing is, companies detoxing are performing well.
Mckinsey makes the case for what they call Stakeholder Capitalism. Meaning your company should have the best interests of your consumers, suppliers, employees, at stake.
Need help? Mckinsey got you covered with a roadmap to this change. (https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-case-for-stakeholder-capitalism)
2. Fashion and the environment 🌿
88% of consumers and trendsetters consider important for brands to tackle environment issues. This is a lot.
Fashion sits at the top of the top polluting industries next to *oil*, and agriculture. Time for a change.
We already saw the industry is ready to pay its dues. But do they know how to walk the talk? The key is to ensure circularity across the supply change, but how?
The Asean Post goes deep into what needs to change and how in their latest article. (https://theaseanpost.com/article/fashion-bad-environment)
3. Retail and the new normal 🦠
Behold the Covid report season! This week we got one in-depth report on how retail can adapt supply chains.
Newsflash, consumers will be more mindful of their purchases and also research more. Value for buck is here, again.
Is not only that online will play a major role. It will, across all categories. Consumers will incorporate new habits. Some here to stay behaviors are:
Using new store or restaurant apps.
Buy online for pickup in store
Buy pre-owned
Use self-checkout
Use deal finder plug-ins
What do this points have in common? They mean retailers need to adapt, because what was once seen as a nice to have is now a must.
Mckinsey bring in a detail report into what changes you should incorporate to keep up. (https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/how-retail-can-adapt-supply-chains-to-win-in-the-next-normal)
4. Get up, my generation 🙌
Fashion Revolution is naming the new generation as generation conscious. The bet is, conscious living will be top of the agenda for this group.
This new generation incorporates both Millennials and Get Z. And they are willing to pay more for sustainable goods. They prefer to buy from sustainable brands.
The new generation seeks conscious consumption and new purchase models. From Resale, to DIY, not forgetting P2P.
The Fashion Revolution article defines what this new generation is all about. (https://www.fashionrevolution.org/the-rise-of-generation-conscious/)
5. Fashion are you sustainable? 🤥
The industry is becoming ultra-green. We see announcements week on week on sustainability, and promises of a greener future.
We see the words “circularity”, “recycled”, “positive impact”, “negative waste” in every brand proposition. Is this marketing fad?
Stella McCartney said she doesn’t even know what sustainable means anymore. Apparently one of the problems is that sustainable may mean one thing to you and another to me.
How can the industry back up its promises? How can we as shoppers also help? The Financial Times asks the experts and provide some insights on their latest article. (https://www.ft.com/content/d174e7d7-97c4-43fc-8765-95075e5fcce7)
Thought of the week
The age of sustainability. Last week we saw a growing trend on the need of brands to clearly go from marketing to action when it comes to sustainability.
The current time and place make up a good scenario for the change to happen. Brands will start planning 2021, and sustainability will be up there on every board meeting radar.
Right now it seems the question is what and how. Sustainable is everywhere but what is the metric that will make you better than me? The industry needs to rally around something, and it looks like it could be Carbon.
“Part of the challenge is that ‘sustainability’ means 10 different things to 10 different people — microplastics, air quality, recyclability, biodiversity,” he continues. “Some of those factors have competing incentives, so it can be confusing in terms of what is the right thing to do. What we’re doing is coming to the conclusion that all things matter, but all line up to carbon.” — Tim Brown, All Birds Co-Founder
This is it for this week! Stay tuned for the week ahead 😎
GG
