News
Following the success of its Store of the Future fitting room, Chanel are looking to expand it into three more stores for Q1/Q2 of 2020. The state-of-the-art high tech dressing room was created for Chanel by Farfetch and designed to create a seamless meeting of high-tech journey, boutique visit and personal shopper.
“This was a very big moment for Farfetch, as Chanel is an amazing brand with which to work. We have similar visions. Making seamless technology to enhance the customer journey, and harnessing the power of the fashion advisors,” said Sandrine Deveaux, head of Farfetch’s retail innovation business unit, Store of the Future.
The project offers all eight Chanel collections, except haute couture, and includes two ready-to-wear seasons; two pre-colls; Métiers d’Art; Cruise; Coco Beach and Coco Neige, for skiing and après-ski and allowing customers to mix ideas from multiple shows and seasons. Fashion Advisors are also able to have direct access to Chanel’s stock, so know whether any item is available that day.
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Isabella Oliver, the UK-based maternity brand, has launched a rental programme in a bid to increase the longevity of maternity clothing and encourage customers to ‘go greener’.
With more and more high street brands entering the maternity sector, expectant mums have more clothing options than ever before. But maternity wear has a short lifespan, with most women wearing specialist stretchy jeans and other maternity pieces only from around 16 weeks into the pregnancy and until just a few week after giving birth, meaning maternity clothing is often not seen as worth spending a lot of money on.
To tackle this issue, Isabella Oliver is offering customers the option to rent clothing including partywear and key pregnancy essentials for a period of two weeks. Customers also have the option to buy the product outright and the concept does seem particularly well suited to the maternity sector.
Geoff van Sonsbeeck, co-founder and CEO of Isabella Oliver, said: “We are committed to reducing the environmental impact of clothing. Rental is just one of the ways in which we are developing a circular textile economy, eliminating the need for fast fashion and therefore reducing garments going to landfill.”
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Amazon has made history as the first brand in the world to be worth over $200 billion (£153bn), defending its position as the world’s most valuable brand for the third consecutive year.
According to the latest Brand Finance Global 500 ranking, launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Amazon’s brand value has now reached $220.8 billion, after growing by 18% compared to last year.
This is over $60 billion more than Google and $80 billion more than Apple, the world’s second and third most valuable brands.
Microsoft, worth $117bn, and Samsung, worth $94.4bn, complete the top five. And while 44 retail brands feature in this year’s ranking, the first fashion name to appear is Nike, rising a spot to number 41 with a $34.7 billion value. Gucci moved up to spot 99 with a market value of $17.8 billion, and it was followed by Adidas at 109 and Louis Vuitton at 110.
Target (114), Zara (No.128), and H&M (135) beat Chanel in market valuation, with the famous luxury house coming in at number 136. JD.com (142), Uniqlo (143), Hermes (154) and TJ Maxx (189) are also featured in the top 200 most valuable brands.
According to Brand Finance, the novelty of operating in the digital space is starting to wear off, with some online retailers losing brand value while bricks-and-mortar chains are making gains. This is demonstrated by Walmart, which jumped up three places to enter the top 10 once again after beefing up its digital strategy. The US retailer has recently launched Alphabots, robots that pick and pack online grocery orders at high speeds.
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UK online spend is set to reach £75bn by 2024, and clothing and footwear will remain the largest product sector, a new study has predicted.
According to GlobalData’s UK Online Retailing 2019-2024 report, online spending will surge by 30.4% over the next few years, as shoppers continue to shift away from physical stores.
This means that almost one fifth of UK retail spend will happen online by 2024. Fashion retailers will continue to lead the way online, offering consumers better shopping experiences and more convenience than ever before.
Clothing and footwear will continue to dominate the online market, but the biggest driver of growth will be the food and grocery market as the number of people who have purchased food online increases. The sector is predicted to rise by £5bn to reach £16.2bn, making it the second largest product category behind clothing and footwear. An e-tail survey of 10,000 UK online shoppers found that just one third of consumers have purchased food and grocery online in the past 12 months, compared to almost two thirds that shopped with online fashion retailers.
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Visa is buying Plaid, an American financial services company, in a deal worth $5.3 billion — roughly double the startup’s last private valuation.
Plaid’s API software lets startups connect to users’ bank accounts and works with Venmo, mobile investing app Robinhood and cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Gemini.
Plaid says 25% of people in the United States with bank accounts have connected to the fintech company through an app. Visa and rival Mastercard were early investors in the start-up, along with the venture arms of Goldman Sachs, Citi and American Express.
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Liberis, the fintech on a mission to reshape small business finance for good, has successfully closed a £32 million funding round in its largest equity capital fundraise to date.
This investment represents the company’s first institutional equity fundraise and was led by FTV Capital – a growth equity firm with a successful track record of supporting high-growth financial services and technology companies.
Liberis is backed by Blenheim Chalcot, the UK’s leading digital venture builder, who welcome FTV as co-investors in Liberis. This investment brings Liberis’ total debt and equity funding to over £150 million.
Since its inception, Liberis has provided over 15,000 small businesses with more than £450 million in funding of which the majority through its innovative Funding-as-a-Service platform with integrated partners.
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medino, a business on a mission to make pharmacy shopping more convenient, has announced that it has closed a £440k funding round.
The ecommerce platform offers over 3000 health, well-being and pharmacy products and has quickly gained traction with a thriving customer base in the UK, surpassing 50,000 orders in December. Their focus is on facilitating the purchase of items that might be overpriced or out of stock at a local pharmacy or unavailable due to limited opening hours.
The recent funding round, comprised of a number of angel investors with experience in digital and e-commerce as well as leading investors in some of Europe’s fastest-growing online pharmacy’s, will be used to further fuel medino's growth.
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ClassPass, the global fitness and wellness marketplace, has announced the close of a $285 million Series E investment.
The round, which was led by L Catterton and Apax Digital, with additional participation by existing investor Temasek, follows the successful expansion by ClassPass into 28 countries and the signing of more than 1,000 leading employers into its corporate wellness program.
Founded in 2013, ClassPass pioneered the modern-day fitness and wellness marketplace. Today, ClassPass has over 650 employees across five continents and partners with more than 30,000 boutique studios, gyms and wellness providers, offering members access to the largest global network of wellness-inspired experiences.
The investment will enable ClassPass to continue rapidly scaling its proprietary reservation and booking technology. Its superior model and technology have made it the marketplace of choice for providers who leverage ClassPass’ advanced machine learning capabilities to maximise their revenue and optimise utilisation.
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Dominic Chappell, the former owner of BHS, has been ordered to pay £9.5 million into the retailer’s pension schemes following a decision after three years of legal battles.
Chappell had acquired BHS for only £1 through his Retail Acquisitions firm from Philip Green in 2015, 13 months before it crashed, leaving 11,000 people without jobs and a pensions deficit of £571m. Green had agreed to a £363m cash settlement with the Pensions Regulator in 2018.
In November, Chappell was banned from holding any company directorships for ten years by the Insolvency Service. Later this year, he will face a separate trial for tax fraud, which he denies.
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Capri Holdings Limited, the luxury fashion conglomerate, has joined the host of clothing brands offering support to Australia's bushfire relief efforts.
The group - which includes Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors - has pledged a donation of AUD $100,000 to the Australian Red Cross, to help support the relief and rebuilding efforts for individuals and communities devastated by the fires.
Earlier this month, the luxury conglomerate Kering - whose brands include Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga - announced plans to donate of AUD $1 million to local Australian organizations tackling the crisis. PVH Corp, the parent brand of companies including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, has also pledged a AUD $100,000 donation to the Australian Red Cross Disaster and Recovery Fund, while cult yoga label Lululemon donated AUD $50,000.
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