German conglomerate Henkel continues to get serious about direct-to-consumer beauty. Recently, Henkel acquired majority stakes in DTC hair-color business ESalon in June 2019, and in Invincible Brands Holding, a DTC business that owns Hello Body, Banana Beauty and Mermaid+Me, in July 2020. Now, it is launching an incubated digital brand...

Eight years ago, startups turned to Shopify primarily to sell products online. Now, a startup might turn to Shopify to help fulfill orders, get some cash for their business, or use its point of sale system when it opens a physical store. As the startups that launched on Shopify, like...

Product payoff, texture, scent and color matching matter to all customers and to all categories even as store environments have changed. But in tandem with shopping moving online, product reviews have become all the more important.

Following its mid-March announcement to close its 1,254 U.S. stores (but still continuing to pay its store associates), Ulta disclosed on late Thursday that it was temporarily furloughing its associate support as of April 19. Ulta would not state the number of employees that would be affected by the furlough,...

Many direct-to-consumer brands have long held off on selling through Amazon. But they can't completely ignore its orbit, as Amazon still sets the conversation in e-commerce. There's a laundry list of DTC brands that have still held off on selling through Amazon -- Glossier, Warby Parker, Allbirds and Away to...

When California and New York announced statewide lockdowns late last week, it was a jolt to workers in the notoriously hard-working fashion industry. Rather than take it lying down, many started fighting for their companies. For example, rather than cease production altogether, they found a workaround in the form of...

This month, the probiotic skin-care brand will launch its full 30-plus product assortment in nearly all 1,200 stores -- where it sits in between Proactiv and Clarisonic -- and will host 500 events in said locations over the course of the year. The amplified suite of products and events is...

“Cosmeceutical” and “scientific” are some of the words that come to mind when thinking of German skin-care brands, but the G-beauty world is increasingly getting on board with clean, natural and plant-based marketing. 

Since April, luxury resale companies Rebag, Fashionphile, Vestiaire Collective and The Luxury Closet have attracted more than $134 million in total investments, reflecting resale's much brighter positioning compared to the rest of retail. The resale market is expected to grow from $7 billion this year to $36 billion by 2024,...

As many brands sour on the idea of physical retail, retail-as-a-service platforms are scoping up discounted leases and evolving their offerings to lure those on the fence. According to their new pitches, their turnkey spaces eliminate every timely concern around retail, including inflexibility and wasted investment. 

Looking at Simon's earnings and forecasts offers a good read on where retail in the U.S. is headed in the coming years. We've transcribed the company's fourth-quarter earnings call and annotated it with thoughts, comments, clarifications and links to relevant stories.

While creating clothes for Gen Z is one thing, getting customers to buy the styles is quite another. The tween and teen fashion brands that are seeing good traction early on have come to hold shared beliefs about their target shopper and, therefore, lean on parallel strategies. Along with peer-to-peer...