Summer is officially here and while many are thinking of summer vacation, the retail industry continued to keep busy in June. Especially Target, which is recovering from a mid-month cash register technology issue that may have lost the retailer more than $100 million in sales. According to RetailDive, the spring quarter was rough for many specialty retailers due to cold weather, increased shipping costs and questions over tariffs. But looking ahead to July, Amazon Prime Day is scheduled for two days this year, July 15 and 16, and has caused many other retailers to create their own shopping experiences to compete with Amazon. Techcrunch reports that 250 retailers will compete against Amazon, with brands like Walmart and Target planning big sales.
Here are some of the other stories to check out from June:
1. Congrats to KWI client NBC Universal’s ShopwithGolf for their new partnership with Venus Williams and her EleVen by Venus Williams line. Shop with Golf is NBCUniversal’s content commerce platform with GOLF Channel.
2. Facebook announced Libra, a blockchain powered digital currency that allows anyone in the world to pay with their smartphone. Libra is governed by an independent consortium made up of global players like eBay, Mastercard, Visa, Uber and Spotify. Initial targets for Libra include the world’s unbanked population and will also be available for peer-to-peer payments, working around financial institutions.
3. The Launch of Verishop by Imran Khan, former Snapchat Chief Strategy Officer. Verishop, a digital marketplace for luxury goods with more than 150 contemporary brands across multiple lifestyle categories, is being called the Amazon of luxury. Today’s luxury only marketplaces have many risks for consumers, like receiving counterfeit goods or poor quality control on shipping and handling. At launch, Verishop will have almost 1,200 styles and 10,000+ stock keeping units, all hand-picked for quality control and curation.
4. Modern Retail reports on the changing strategy of DTC brands as more and more brands are selling through wholesale channels to big-box retailers. This makes “direct to consumer’ more of a misnomer as the new crop of brands struggle with growing their brands.