Panera is testing Amazon’s palm-scanning tech – RetailWire
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Two Panera Bread restaurants in St. Louis are testing Amazon One, the palm-scanning technology designed to give customers access to their loyalty program perks and enable payments. “We think the payment plus loyalty identification is the secret sauce that can unlock a really personalized, warm and efficient experience for our guests,” said George Hanson, chief digital officer at Panera.
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It seems like nowadays, DTC brands are moving faster into wholesale.
Direct-to-consumer retail thrived during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when customers couldn’t visit larger retailers, looking online instead for purchases. Some companies who have historically counted on their wholesale partners even started leaning more heavily toward their direct-to-consumer channels. Nike has been pivoting to a DTC strategy over the past few years, investing more in stand-alone stores and minimizing its presence at places like Foot Locker (though, Foot Locker executives this week said that the company was working to revitalize its partnership with Nike). In 2019, Levi’s CEO said its wholesale revenue represented 30% of its business, down from 50% in 2011. More recently the retailer has been working to make DTC account for 60% of overall revenue.
But as stores have reopened, plenty of digitally native and new brands have rushed onto shelves at mass retailers instead.
So is DTC dead? Not at all, according to some experts and brand owners in the industry.
DTC channels still provide key benefits for brands, and can help better inform a wholesale strategy. But as e-commerce has evolved and categories have become more saturated, the move into wholesale might be happening sooner than before.
‘Investors are looking at wholesale’
Some well-known, early disruptors in the DTC space include brands like Dollar Shave Club, Casper and Warby Parker.
All were founded around 10 years ago, and times have changed since then.
When these brands were gaining traction online, the cost of acquiring customers on platforms like Facebook was low and therefore could be scaled quickly, according to Alex Song, founder and CEO of Proxima AI.
The opportunity on these platforms was greater back then and the economics allowed this initial group of brands to acquire customers very fast, Song added.
While many DTC darlings built a strong presence selling through their own channels, many brands will need to look to wholesale for growth, an avenue newer companies are pushed to do sooner than before.
“You don’t have to fully go wholesale, but you kind of need to start exploring that earlier,” Song said. “The more recent stretch of brands … you’ll see that they’re all leveraging wholesale much more immediately.”
Platforms like Facebook and Shopify may have endless real estate to place ads on, leaving only the best brands to snag the finite space on retail shelves, according to Song. For those that can get spots in stores, funding from investors may come more easily.
“Investors are looking at wholesale and retail relationships as a proof point of the brands that they want to back,” added Song.
“I think that we’re really looking for distribution unlocks both in retail or in other ways in order to make a DTC investment,” Hippeau told Retail Dive in January.
How DTC feedback boosts wholesale
Having a wholesale plan doesn’t mean abandoning DTC. The two channels can complement each other, as DTC data gives brands a better idea of how to approach wholesale.
When iOS 14.5 launched in 2021, DTC brands had to deal with the increased privacy options Apple provided users that could limit the data gleaned from their online activity.
Despite the chaos this might have caused for businesses at the time, emerging brands like canned fish company Fishwife still see data and direct feedback as one of the best parts of maintaining and growing a DTC channel.
“We do a ton of regular, in-depth surveying of our customers and each one told us that anchovies, the first product we brought into Whole Foods, would knock it out of the park,” Fishwife founder and CEO Becca Millstein told Retail Dive via email. “Nothing gives you more confidence than having your customer tell you directly that they are dying to buy a certain product from you.”
Loops CEO also told Retail Dive in January that the company chose to work on a partnership with Target based on customer surveys the brand conducted through its DTC channels, helping it make sure it was reaching customers wherever they shopped. The home products company Grove Collaborative also formed and surveyed a group of 100 customers from the brand’s private Facebook group to help inform its new wellness hub.
“I’d have to agree that the best way to gather first-party data, for Fishwife in 2023, at least, is DTC,” Millstein said. “You just get so much custom data from the DTC experience via your website, email, and SMS.”
Millstein added that building a strong community through DTC first has helped it better prepare to move onto retail shelves, where the stakes are higher for a brand of its size.
The brand awareness and customer knowledge that comes from DTC can also attract retailers, instead of the other way around.
Food brand Fly By Jing – which recently raised $12 million and has become known for its Sichuan chili crisp – was able to gain DTC traction online that helped it step into one of the biggest grocery store chains in the nation.
“We started out four years ago just purely DTC. And we’ve been able to build a really strong community brand presence online,” Fly By Jing CEO and founder Jing Gao told Retail Dive. “And the thing is that after we really built up our brand awareness, a lot of retailers actually ended up coming to us. So we started out with Whole Foods, which was a buyer who just was a fan.”
And while wholesale is now about half of the company’s business, Gao is still investing in growing the DTC audience through the viewpoint that its online site is a place to retain diehard customers.
“I think the online site, as we grow further into retail, will become less and less like the first point of contact for a customer to get the brand,” Gao added. “Then the DTC site evolves to become more of like a retention channel and maybe where we release limited-edition partnerships or exciting products that we may not necessarily go into retail with yet.”
The National Hockey League on Tuesday announced that sports apparel retailer Fanatics will provide on-ice uniforms for players and supply jerseys at retail. The 10-year agreement begins with the 2024-25 season.
Fanatics replaces Adidas, which has been the official uniform provider since the 2017-2018 season. Adidas chose not to continue its NHL jersey deal after its contract expires after the 2023-24 season.
Fanatics said its partnership with the NHL has evolved over the past two decades to include e-commerce, retail operations, replica jerseys and other apparel. CEO Michael Rubin called the expanded partnership “a seminal moment” for the apparel company.
Dive Insight:
When players on the NHL’s 32 teams hit the ice fnevor the 2024-25, they’ll be in Fanatics apparel. Fanatics has designed and manufactured the NHL’s official performance, training apparel and headwear for NHL players since 2018.
Through a partnership expansion in 2017, the company began producing official NHL replica jerseys. Fanatics also runs NHLShop.com and on-site retail at some NHL events, according to ESPN. The apparel company also began making and supplying MLB’s official on-field uniforms in 2017.
In a statement, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman called Fanatics an “industry market leader” that has a “proven track record in e-commerce and retail operations, licensed fan merchandise and performance gear.”
The sports apparel company said it has assembled “an experienced team of hockey industry leaders with decades of direct experience working with the NHL and its teams,” and that it will work closely with the league “to prepare for the debut of its on-ice uniforms during the 2024-25 season.” Doug Mack, CEO of Fanatics Commerce, said in an NHL news release that changes to uniform outfitting and fan apparel will be player-driven.
The NHL’s game jerseys are made in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, near Montreal. The league said Fanatics will continue using the same factory, the same specs, and initially, the company will continue using some of the same fabrics.
In terms of the retail experience, Fanatics said that it will apply its vertical commerce model to the new NHL jerseys, which will allow fans to buy products in real-time, allowing them, for example, to buy something if a team acquires a player.
“We think we’ll be uniquely positioned to capitalize and grow the business,” said Brian Jennings, the NHL’s senior executive vice president of marketing and chief branding officer.
“What we anticipate is a professional and seamless transition,” Jennings said. “We’ll have a pivot point and move on over to Fanatics for the ’24-25 season with that same thrust for our event designs and team designs being at the forefront.”
While the deal’s financial terms were not disclosed, the sports apparel market reached a valuation of $200 billion this year, according to market research firm Fact.MR. The firm said the market is expected to continue growing, potentially reaching $400 billion by 2032.
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Dive Brief:
Allbirds has made what it calls the first zero-carbon shoe, dubbed the “M0.0NSHOT.” The brand said it achieved this without relying on carbon offsets, which is when a company counteracts its own emissions by purchasing certificates linked to activities that lower carbon dioxide.
The new shoe uses carbon-negative materials such as merino wool, sugarcane-based foam and eyelets made of bioplastic that use a polymer formed from converted methane, according to a press release shared with Retail Dive. Allbirds worked with a regenerative wool program to source wool from Lake Hawea Station in New Zealand.
Allbirds will first show the shoe in June at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen. The product has a footprint of 0.0 kilograms CO2e versus an industry average of 14 kilograms (about 30 pounds) CO2e, according to the brand.
Dive Insight:
Allbirds is working off the momentum it started through its partnership with Adidas in 2020, when it created what it called the lowest-carbon footprint shoe at the time.
“We believe this will revolutionize the path to net zero and act as rocket-fuel for the entire industry. We could spend decades debating the finer points of carbon sequestration, or we can innovate today with a common sense approach,” Hana Kajimura, head of sustainability at Allbirds, said in a statement. “It’s about progress, not perfection. The scientists have shown us what’s possible — now it’s time for the fashion industry to carry the open-sourced learnings from M0.0NSHOT forward.”
The brand is also open-sourcing a toolkit that outlines how it got Moonshot to net zero, which will be more so like a plan for brands to work with Allbirds on utilizing the innovation, co-CEO and co-founder Tim Brown told Retail Dive.
As the shoe is not commercially available yet, Allbirds has not settled on a price for the product, according to Brown, though the brand is conscious of the higher prices often associated with sustainability-focused products.
“Quite frankly, we haven’t landed on a specific price here,” Brown added. “I think we will offer value here. And when we sell that, when we get to the point of selling this product, that won’t be for some astronomical marked-up price. This will be about accessible pricing. And maybe it’s a little bit more expensive than the other things that we make because of the various pieces that we’re putting together.”
The brand plans to eventually use the methodology and manufacturing processes from the Moonshot in its other products, particularly the regenerative wool aspect.
The Moonshot shoe’s carbon footprint is determined using the brand’s life cycle assessment tool calculator, which the company created to determine the footprint of all its products and has made it publicly accessible for other brands to use. However, the tool — which was third-party verified against ISO 14067 requirements when first created — was modified for the Moonshot because its footprint deviates from standards by accounting for on-farm carbon sequestration and emissions. ISO 14067 is a set of principles, requirements and guidelines from the International Organization for Standardization for the quantification and reporting of the carbon footprint of a product.
The executive acknowledged that the brand is stepping into new territory with this release, but the company still stands behind the science used in Moonshot’s development.
“That’s not to say that there aren’t different ways of interpreting this, and different debates that you could have on indirect land usage and the methodologies that underpin our frameworks,” Brown said. “But we’ve been really transparent with this. And in the absence of anyone else having done this before, we’re trying to show leadership here.”
While Allbirds has prided itself on creating more sustainable products, its earnings haven’t demonstrated that consumers are spending on its lineup of offerings.
The brand’s CFO Mike Bufano announced earlier this month that he was exiting the brand, with plans to stay through mid-May. During its end-of-year earnings report this month, the brand also announced it was scaling back its store opening plans, opening just three stores this year compared to the 19 it opened in 2022. Its Q4 earnings report showed net revenue fell by 13.4% year over year to $84.2 million, and net loss grew by 138% to $24.9 million.
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Dive Brief:
Under one website, shoppers can purchase resale luxury with the introduction of dejaWOOO.com. The company announced the launch on March 16, according to a press release shared with Retail Dive.
The platform examines online resale platforms for search results. The site combs through over 1 million luxury products from over 3,000 brands listed.
The tech company was founded in 2021 and received a pre-seed investment for the site. The company in one year amassed more than 40,000 followers across its Chinese social platforms RED, WeChat and Weibo.
Dive Insight:
Headquartered in China, DejaWooo says it is the most comprehensive global search engine for pre-owned fashion. The site curates products based on search terms and filters such as by designers,stores and by specific clothing and accessory items. Users can also compare and distinguish by price with filters on searches as well as saving favorite items to an account.
“Beyond offering unique and rare fashion items not available on the high-street, pre-owned fashion represents an opportunity for the industry to embrace more sustainable pathways,” co-founder Gregory Cole said in a press release. “Our vision is to contribute to this sustainable shift by building consumer trust while offering brands and partners an evolving picture of pre-owned fashion shopping trends. Beyond retail, we are also exploring partnerships with sustainable and upcycling organizations to reduce fashion’s environmental impact.”
The platform will also regularly launch curated drops to their site. This consists of a video dedicated to exploring historical fashion trends and specific items related to the theme. The current one listed on the site is “Curtain Calls” which discusses the history and sentiment of curtain calls done by luxury designers and creative directors at the end of their fashion shows. The products listed feature Dior, Celine, Chanel and more.
Some of the resale platforms featured on DejaWooo include Vestiaire Collective, Lampoo, The Luxury Closet, Designer Revival, What Goes Around Comes Around, Collector Square and others.
Since DejaWooo is a search engine, the site said it cannot guarantee global shipping, authenticity or work with refunds/exchanges. The site noted that it only lists products from merchants who meet specific criteria for the most reliable results.
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Dive Brief:
Former GNC Chief Executive Officer Josh Burris is taking on the CEO reins at teen apparel retailer Rue21, effective April 3, according to a company spokesperson.
Burris will replace Bill Brand, who announced his intention to step down just this month, according to a company press release.
Burris left GNC in January after two years as CEO. His quarter-century of retail experience includes stints at Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, DKNY, Karl Lagerfeld Paris, Calvin Klein Performance, Wilsons Leather and GH Bass & Co, among others.
Dive Insight:
Rue21 is working on a turnaround at a tough time for apparel retail, though the segment saw among the healthiest sales jumps in the industry last month.
About two years ago the company, citing rising sales, announced it would continue to expand its footprint.
Vuk Djunic, a partner at Blue Torch Capital, said that Burris’ track record would help the retailer in its current turnaround. Blue Torch Capital is a middle market direct lender that works with companies that need capital support for growth, acquisitions, operational challenges or financial distress.
“Josh has decades of experience transforming popular consumer-facing brands which makes him best equipped to lead Rue21 into its next chapter,” Djunic said in a statement.
