Weekly News Update // Week of March 15, 2021

 Here's TRAUB's roundup of recent consumer and retail news. Adidas and Peloton expand their relationship by launching a new collection of 11 items, Tmall introduces intellectual property trading platform IPmart, Nordstrom debuts interactive livestreams, and more. 

 M&A and INVESTMENTS

• Restaurant tech firm Olo shares soar 39% in IPO as online ordering surges CNBC
• Deliveroo aims to sell $1.4 billion of new shares in upcoming IPO Deliveroo
• Stripe closes $600M round at a $95B valuation TechCrunch 
• Squarespace raises $300M at a staggering $10B valuation TechCrunch
• Cannabis Technology Platform Dutchie Rolls Up $200M Series C To Hit $1.7B Valuation Crunchbase News

INDUSTRY NEWS

Adidas and Peloton expanded their relationship, launching a new collection of 11 items

If you’re a Peloton addict, you might soon find yourself receiving subliminal messages to outfit yourself in neon-colored Adidas bike shorts. Today, Peloton and Adidas announce a new partnership, where a select group of Peloton instructors will help design workout gear and wear these co-branded pieces on-screen. The brands will also collaborate on creating content that will stream on the Peloton app and in the Adidas Creators Club loyalty program. In addition to offering each brand exposure to the other brand’s audience, the partnership offers a glimpse into the future of both retail and fitness, as the world’s top activewear brands align themselves with fast-growing workout startups. Fast Company

Target launches grocery brand Favorite Day that’s focused on snacks, indulgences

Target is launching a food and beverage brand focused on snacking and indulging, as the retailer aims to give customers’ reasons to keep coming back even after the Covid pandemic. The new private label, Favorite Day, will include more than 700 products like premium ice creams, bakery items, beverage mixers, mocktails and cake decorating supplies. It will hit store shelves and Target’s website in early April. Rick Gomez, chief food and beverage officer, said Target has been developing Favorite Day for more than a year, but said it has gained relevance as people eat more meals at home and crave small ways to escape a stressful and monotonous time. “Right now, more than ever, people need that little bit of reward, a little bit of indulgence, a little bit of joy in their every day,” he said. CNBC

Alibaba’s Tmall Introduces Intellectual Property Trading Platform IPmart

In a move that enables China’s largest b-to-c e-commerce platform Tmall to move up the value chain and gain a bigger role in the increasingly lucrative fashion and lifestyle collaboration market, the site on Wednesday revealed the launch of IPmart, an intellectual property trading platform. According to Alimama, Alibaba’s marketing subsidiary, IPmart consists of IP Copyright Center, IP Contract Center, IP Eco Alliance, and IP Operation Center. The platform provides merchants with operational tools, including IP selection, licensing transaction, product development, and marketing. The platform will also be equipped with blockchain technology from Ant Group to solve trust and counterfeit problems during the licensing transactions. WWD

Poshmark debuts listing videos feature to showcase sellers' items

Poshmark has introduced its listing videos feature, which allows sellers to create accompanying videos for their product listings, the company stated in information emailed to Retail Dive. With the listing videos feature, sellers can post a cover image, record or upload a video, customize the video and post it with their listing. Sellers can only add one video per listing, and the listing videos can only be up to 15 seconds long, per Poshmark's email. The feature will allow consumers to get more details about products before purchasing them, such as the fit, drape and texture. The content will remain on the seller's page as long as the item is available for purchase and will automatically post to a seller's Posh Stories. Retail Dive

Nordstrom debuts interactive livestreams

Nordstrom on Wednesday announced a shoppable, interactive livestream platform, an extension of the more than 50 virtual events the retailer has hosted since last year. During each show, customers can shop at Nordstrom.com and participate in a live chat, according to an emailed press release. The first, on Thursday from the New York City flagship, will feature fashion designer turned stylist José Ramón Reyes demonstrating ways to wear Burberry pieces. Part of the presentation will be pre-recorded and will conclude with a question and answer session. Upcoming events feature beauty, skincare and fashion experts and brand representatives, who will provide tips and tricks of the trade, the company said. Retail Dive

Southeast Asia E-Commerce Opportunity

Covid-19 accelerated e-commerce growth across the world and Southeast Asia is no exception. The region’s internet industry is expected to triple pre-pandemic levels and be worth over $300 billion by 2025, according to data from Google, Temasek and Bain. The companies, which before the crisis estimated that e-commerce would hit $153 billion by 2025, have revised their forecast to $172 billion. Fuelling the emergence of major e-commerce firms like Tokopedia, Shopee and Lazada, is a growing middle-class demographic across the densely populated region, which boasts high mobile penetration rates, rapid GDP growth in countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, and a median age of just 29, according to McKinsey — a solid foundation upon which an online luxury market can be built and rapidly develop. In spite of all these encouraging signs, luxury players still largely rely on physical stores to sell to Southeast Asian consumers even while continuing to adopt advanced digital-first strategies in neighbouring China. It doesn’t help that the pandemic has shifted the sector’s focus to offsetting losses in Western markets by zeroing in on Mainland China. BoF

Chanel Launches ‘Next Prize’ and Culture Fund

As part of the Chanel Next Prize, 10 artists will receive awards of €100,000 each, intended to fund arts projects and help them access mentorship and networking opportunities that the brand helps facilitate. The Chanel Culture Fund, meanwhile, will work with art and culture institutions — including London’s National Portrait Gallery, The Underground Museum in Los Angeles, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and GES-2 in Moscow — to create new programmes that aim to, for example, enhance the representation of women or promote new ecologies for sustainable cities. The programme will take place over three years, as Chanel’s institutional partners begin to craft their post-pandemic reopening plans. Luxury brands and parent companies have offered prizes to emerging creatives and collaborated with museums on collections for years, as they tend to help deepen brand awareness and build equity. For example, LVMH enacted its eponymous Prize in 2014 while Gucci created its Changemakers Scholarship to help nurture and support nascent fashion talent in 2020. Rather than focusing singularly on fashion creatives, however, Chanel said it is taking a broader view. BoF

Toys R Us parent sells controlling stake to owner of Anne Klein, Joseph Abboud brands

Tru Kids, owner of the Toys R Us brand, has sold a controlling stake in the company to brand management specialist WHP Global. WHP, which is backed by two prominent investment firms and owns the Anne Klein and Joseph Abboud brands, is set to manage the global Toys R Us business and "direct its strategic expansion." WHP CEO and Chairman Yehuda Shmidman has served as vice chairman for Tru Kids since 2019. In a press release, Shmidman said that "we can leverage our global network and digital platform to help grow" the Toys R Us and Babies R Us brands. Retail Dive 

Walmart Appoints Brandon Maxwell Creative Director of Scoop, Free Assembly Brands

Brandon Maxwell has dressed Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama and Meghan Markle. Soon, Walmart Inc. shoppers can wear his styles, too. The world’s largest retailer hired Maxwell as the first-ever creative director for its Scoop and Free Assembly fashion brands, it said in a statement Tuesday. Maxwell, 36, will oversee four seasonal collections a year for the two labels, starting by influencing this year’s holiday range before his full lines appear in the spring of 2022. He will also get involved in marketing campaigns for both brands in the newly created role. Hiring Maxwell is Walmart’s latest attempt to become more of a fashion destination to boost apparel sales, which deliver fatter profit margins than its core grocery business. In recent years the company has launched and acquired plus-size clothing brands, opened a dedicated online site to sell Lord & Taylor’s more upscale offerings and elevated fashion-industry veteran Denise Incandela to run its apparel and private brands. The moves also aim to counter Amazon.com Inc.’s emergence as the nation’s most-shopped apparel merchant. BoF

COMINGS & GOINGS

• Dave Kimbell to Become CEO of Ulta Beauty AdWeek
• Walmart taps designer, Project Runway judge Brandon Maxwell to elevate its fashion labels CNBC
• L Brands Founder Leslie Wexner Permanently Leaving Victoria’s Secret WWD

GOOD READS

• The Secret Way People Buy and Sell Secondhand Clothes BoF 
  
• Who's the 'department store' now? Retail Dive