Under Armour, like many other brands that have relied historically on wholesalers to sell its product, wants to generate more revenue from its own website and stores. But, its direct-to-consumer business has struggled for a couple of reasons. In order to right the ship, Under Armour is looking to open more full-price stores, continue to highlight the technical innovation in its apparel and performance wear, and build a new e-commerce platform.
Everyone loves to hate on Amazon. The e-commerce juggernaut ranks low on trustworthiness, DTC brands don't want to sell on it, and even Nike is no longer going to be working with Amazon Retail.
Nike made the announcement that it would no longer have a brand presence on Amazon. This move highlights the calculus businesses make about how they should interact with the e-commerce platform. As a result, a debate is ensuing about whether brands need Amazon or Amazon needs brands.
There's a rising supply of direct-to-consumer brands eager to hand over money to agencies to help them with their Facebook marketing. In the latest edition of our Confessions series, in which we offer anonymity in exchange for candor, we speak to a former marketer who cycled through several agencies -- ultimately landing at one that focused mostly on direct-to-consumer brands -- before going freelance.
Other news to know
JCPenney’s sales continue to drop while it hopes for a turnaround. The department store chain reported comparable store sales fell 9.3% during its third quarter earnings on Friday, and that its net operating loss for the quarter was $97 million. The bright spot: that’s 41% smaller than the net loss JCPenney reported during last year’s third quarter earnings.
Rent the Runway and Nordstrom are expanding their partnership. After adding drop-off locations at five Nordstrom stores earlier this year, Nordstrom will also now make some inventory available for purchase and rental through Rent the Runway.
Sam’s Club has a new CEO. Kathryn Lay, who has been at Walmart since 2015 and most recently served as the head of its U.S. Neighborhood Markets unit, will now oversee the chain of membership-only stores. Sam’s Club’s former CEO John Forner was appointed head of Walmart’s U.S. stores business in October.
$300 million Amount JCPenney has lost so far in 2019
While other retailers like Target and Walmart have consolidated the number of apps they offer in recent years, Nike has centered its app strategy around building a handful of apps to serve specifics audiences. There's Nike's main app, Nike+, to which Nike has added more features in recent years to make it easier to shop in-store. SNKRS targets sneakerheads with limited edition product drops, while Nike Train Club and Nike Run Club are marketed towards fitness fanatics who want an app to help them manage their workouts. In total, Nike has more than 170 million users across its family of apps.
There are so many DTC cookware brands it's hard to keep them straight. Now, these players are growing and trying to stay alive by expanding product lines and inking retail partnerships. The latest example is Material, which is now partnering with the furniture brand West Elm.
Facebook wants people to shop on its platform. The latest evidence comes from two product rollouts -- one for catalogs in WhatsApp, the other called Facebook Pay. It's part of a bigger industry realization that conversational messaging is the next big frontier for US platforms. But Facebook has some big hurdles to overcome in order to succeed.
More direct-to-consumer brands are experimenting with partnership marketing, in order to further diversify their marketing spend away from Facebook and Google. Although there are inexpensive ways to test out partnership marketing, it can take a lot of trial and error to figure out which brands are actually effective to partner with.
As livestreaming shopping videos have become increasingly popular in China, they've also become critically important to brands' strategies for the biggest shopping holiday in the country, Alibaba's Singles Day. Overall, the number of merchants who incorporated livestreaming into their Singles Day campaign was up 200% compared to last year, according to Alibaba.
Retail media is rich with data that the right team of analysts and strategists can help you unpack to better understand how your investment at retail is driving bottom lines. One metric doesn’t fit all; in fact, a combination of KPIs might be necessary to fully grasp sales success.
Retail media is growing in importance. The idea of retailers turning their websites into media platforms isn’t a new one, but over the past few years, has commanded more interest and more attention from brands. For brands specifically, advertising on retail media isn’t an ad problem anymore -- it’s a business problem.
Direct-to-consumer brands like to trumpet the fact that they have more access to customer data than traditional brands. Now, as they grow and add more products, they're also looking to launch loyalty programs that give them better insight into how their customers behave compared to traditional loyalty programs. Mizzen+Main, which sells mens dress shirts and pants, is launching a new loyalty program on Tuesday that it hopes will give the company more insight into when exactly its customers are looking to shop.
Amazon has a few new features it's testing with brands that look a lot like some Facebook programs. They all seem like ways to promote more content posted to the e-commerce platform -- and it looks like Amazon is beginning to listen to some of the needs of its partners.
Amazon Strategies
Jan 28–Jan 29, 2020
Join us at Amazon Strategies, where we’ll hear from brands successfully selling on Amazon, as well as leaders from agencies and consultancies that work with these retailers.
