Author: BoF Studio
Consumers today are overwhelmed by choice across products and services. Seventy-four percent of customers report walking away from online purchases due to the sheer volume of choice, according to BoF & McKinsey’s The State of Fashion 2025 report. This behaviour is felt by global brands and retailers experiencing a decline in engagement and conversion rates in an already highly competitive market.Discretionary spend categories like fashion and luxury are further impacted by consumers’ increasingly cost-conscious practices, driven by ongoing price hikes in the sector and across essential products and services like food and energy. Individuals across wealth brackets are trading down…
The shape of the retail market and the demand that drives it is evolving. Planned and announced US store openings for 2024 are to total more than 4,200 — outpacing store closures by 20 percent and resulting in nearly 78 million square feet of new retail space, Coresight Research estimates.The market has moved accordingly and presents an opportune moment for the industry. Vacancy rates in US shopping centres fell to 5.3 percent in the last quarter of 2023, the lowest rate on record in more than 15 years, according to brokerage Cushman and Wakefield.Physical locations can offer tangible, sensory experiences…
With a feed driven by an interest-graph rather than a social graph structure, TikTok provides its audience with content based on individual interests dictated by their activity on the platform rather than who they follow. Through this approach, TikTok has popularised niche and idiosyncratic subjects that appeal to our specific interests, which has subsequently unlocked digital intimacy at scale.Seventy-two percent of TikTok users say it is easy for strangers to connect and bond around shared life experiences on the entertainment platform, according to TikTok Marketing Science Global Diversity on TikTok Study 2022 conducted by Flamingo Group, commissioned by the platform…
Seventy-one percent of executives plan to increase brand marketing spend in 2024, while only 46 percent intend to do the same for performance marketing, according to The Business of Fashion’s The State of Fashion 2024 report, published in partnership with McKinsey and Company.“Today, brands have two key marketing challenges: firstly, how can they swing the pendulum back to brand marketing and make that case to their CFOs? And how can they pull attribution back to avoid the inflated ROIs they’ve been reporting and look instead at an incremental view of the business?” said Sona Abaryan, a partner at Ekimetrics and…
The world’s most populous country, India is among the most culturally diverse countries in the world. With more than 40 percent of India’s population under the age of 25, a new generation of entrepreneurs and creators are building brands with purpose and innovation within the Indian beauty and personal care industry, which Euromonitor cites as a $16.5 billion market in 2023. The Estée Lauder Company’s New Incubation Ventures (NIV) brought together the next generation of beauty entrepreneurs and creative talent in partnership with the Indian beauty retailer and industry disruptor Nykka for their second annual BEAUTY&YOU India Awards programme.As Shana…
MILAN — On the Sunday of Milan Fashion Week spring/summer 2024, executives from across the luxury industry took part in a discussion on ‘Gender Equity and the Next Generation of Talent in Luxury’ at the Bulgari Hotel in the heart of Milan. The group explored issues facing female-identifying representatives in the C-suite and the needs of sponsorship in the workplace.Laura Burdese, marketing and communication vice president of Bulgari, Imran Amed, founder and CEO of The Business of Fashion, and Gemma D’Auria, senior partner at McKinsey & Co., at the BoF x Bulgari executive roundtable on ‘Gender Equity and the Next…
On September 25, the Sunday of Milan Fashion Week’s spring/summer 2023 shows, leaders from across fashion, luxury and jewellery industries met at the Bulgari Hotel for a roundtable discussion on how the industry can better empower its female-identifying workforce.Conducted under the Chatham House Rule, attendees shared their views on the power of external activations and activism before discussing the role leadership and people strategies play in female empowerment. The conversation rounded out on the topic of supporting women in the supply chain and ensuring social welfare within the global industry.BoF’s chief correspondent Lauren Sherman and Bulgari marketing and communication vice…