The promises and perils of digital waitlists
Last week I wrote about the authenticity of long lines, using Supreme and Everlane as contrasting examples. Long lines and limited scarcity are part of Supreme’s DNA, while they are out of place for a basics brand like Everlane. Either way, I noted…
The Grinds: Instacart may suffer from Walmart-Amazon food wars, Meghan Markle takes influencer marketing offline, Brookfield Ventures invests in tech-driven startups, Kering adapts to a changing luxury industry
In Walmart and Amazon’s food wars, Instacart may be the collateral damage. What happened Walmart continues to rev up its grocery operations at home and abroad. This week, the company announced that it will merge its grocery chain Asda with…
The difference between Supreme and Everlane’s long lines
If you happen to be near a Supreme store on a Thursday around 11am, you’re likely to see hundreds of people waiting in a barricaded line for the latest drop. Just a few blocks away from Supreme, you’ll see a line of one or two dozen people outside…
Basics brands are commodities. Why do people keep building them?
The hidden secret of most businesses is that the more boring the business, the better the business—the flashier, the worse. This heuristic is especially true in the consumer goods landscape, where brands run the hazard of seeking attention over…
The Full Price Report
Discount-heavy pricing strategies create long-term cycles of dependence that lead to promotion-addicted shoppers and lowered profit-margins—companies end up repeatedly undercutting themselves. Brands and retailers, therefore, are looking for ways to…
From online to offline: cost structures and sunken costs
The future potential of a business is closely linked to where it stands in the present. If the future is headed north but the current business is positioned south, it's going to take a lot of work to reorient itself. In the commerce world, the most…
Chat bots and interfaces in the fashion industry: a hybrid approach
Chat bots, the automated and sometimes smart contextual messaging systems, are all the rage, fresh off the heels of Facebook's annual developer conference and the release of Kik's bot platform. Think piece after think piece is trumpeting chat bots…