Is Inditex Becoming the New Arcadia? What Zara’s Owner Can Learn from the Last High Street Empire
Rebecca Harris explores what Inditex can learn from Arcadia’s decline, including risks around brand overlap, store estate management, cultural relevance, and reputational responsibilities. She highlights why early signals of consumer disengagement are critical for sustaining high street dominance.
Close the AI Gap – Or Lose the Customer!
This report reveals how AI is reshaping the fashion shopping experience – and the implications for retailers. The report – based on Mustard’s NatRep survey of n=1,000 UK consumers – reveals that consumer expectation of AI in fashion retail are rising. Our exclusive market research also shows there are clear unmet needs for fashion retailers […]
The Point Of No Returns? How AI Is Helping to Fix Fashion’s Returns Problem
AI is quietly reducing fashion returns. Drawing on Mustard’s latest retail market research, Rebecca Harris explores how AI-driven fit and visualisation tools are changing behaviour, protecting margins and reshaping fashion eCommerce
Why customer satisfaction is only half the story
Andrew Wiseman reviews the latest UKCSI retail results, and wonders why the focus doesn’t move beyond satisfaction. When my Retail Gazette daily newsletter dropped this morning, one of the main headlines was that John Lewis has topped the UK customer satisfaction rankings again. Never Knowingly Undersold and all that. Cue the headlines, the applause, the […]
The Accidental Billboard Behind a 40p JD Sports Bag
A bright yellow 40p JD Sports bag has become an accidental branding masterstroke — a low-cost, high-visibility brand asset powered by real-world behaviour. Andrew Wiseman explores how it happened, and what it means for marketers and researchers.
Manchester: A Northern Powerhouse of Fashion
Paris, London, New York, Milan. When someone asks which cities rule the fashion industry, the “Big Four” usually spring to mind. Marking their territory, with everything from production, fashion houses, to some of the biggest retail stores – the existence of fashion within those cities is partly the reason why they are sought-after destinations. But among the big contenders, Manchester, a city with just under three million inhabitants, has quickly established itself as one of the UK’s most important style hubs, and the gleaming HQ to some of the globe’s most lucrative online fashion brands.