Retail Unwrapped from The Robin Report

Why Chanel and A$AP Rocky Reignite Luxury

Jasmine Glasheen — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Luxury brands need to attract next gen shoppers to survive. Gen Z and their younger cohort, Generation Alpha, are set to drive 40 percent of all fashion spend by 2035; heritage luxury brands that aren’t relatable to young consumers won’t make it into the 2030s. The issue is that younger consumers often have very different priorities than the luxury brands’ customer base. Stalwarts like Tiffany and Chanel aren’t packing the same punch; they didn’t even make the Lyst index of hottest luxury brands in Q4 of 2025.

Traditional luxury status symbols like Birkin bags don’t resonate with younger consumer demographics that are hyper-focused on individuation, forcing heritage luxury brands to rethink their marketing. For next gens, ubiquity reads as uniformity. So, brands are moving away from relying on legacy as their sole selling point and tapping into unexpected strategies to target Gen Z and millennial consumers. And they’re doing this in some interesting, dare we say, inspiring ways.

How can traditional luxury brands groom next gens as their future customers? Follow the lead of Chanel and Louis Vuitton in appealing to Gen Z’s sense of humor, personalized style, and desire for individuation.

Combatting Uniformity

Ubiquity and devaluation kill the perception of coveted luxury. Two years ago, The New York Times reported, “Luxury brands have triggered their own death spiral by selling overpriced, overexposed and lower-quality products,” calling out Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci for price hikes, for some popular of their items those hikes were as high as 111 percent. Chanel and Marc Jacobs were lambasted for hiking prices while also cutting quality. Two years later, the price hikes continue, but luxury brands are justifying them by refocusing on artistry and quality.

Next gens grew up being exposed to brands like Balenciaga and Burberry through their diffusion lines at T.J. Maxx, so they don’t associate those name brands with a luxury experience. Craftsmanship is no longer assumed as exclusive to luxury brands, so they are highlighting their exceptional craftsmanship on digital platforms to reinforce brand prestige. When it comes to the artistry and quality of luxury brands, next gens need to see it firsthand (on social media or in store) to believe it.

Above all, next gens don’t want to blend in. Brands built around personalization, like the embroidery brand Abbode, are entering the marketplace. And brands including Louis Vuitton, Loewe (next gen favorite on the Lyst index), and Dior offer customization services as part of their value proposition.

Next Gens Say “Prove It”

BCG predicts Gen Z’s luxury spending will rise from 4 percent to 25 percent by 2030. So, how can luxury brands make themselves relatable to next gens without losing their quintessential style? And how can they get them to pay full price for a luxury item, rather than wait to find it at a consignment shop or thrift store? Chanel and Louis Vuitton’s recent artistic collaborations serve as inspiration.

Louis Vuitton and Murakami

Louis Vuitton harnessed Zendaya’s star power for the 130^th anniversary of the Monogram and the Speedy bag, and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami created delightful moments on the Monogram’s offerings and website. Murakami’s iconic re-edition pays playful homage to the LV Monogram. Vivid, color-saturated design livens up the luxury stalwart’s signature pieces. The Murakami experience is inspiring: His art creates an unexpected, immersive twist on an icon that immediately delights and rejuvenates an 1896 luxury staple.

Chanel Taps Gondry

Chanel’s teaser for its Métiers d’Art 2026 show is signature Michel Gondry—fanciful and completely devoid of dialogue film. The brand tapped Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Gondry and brand ambassadors A$AP Rocky, and Margaret Qualley for the charming mini film. Gondry is a master of technique including varied film speeds and surrealism juxtaposed with imagination to entertain and intrigue. The show’s title, translated from French, means “the art of doing it well,” and the film lives up to its name. Chanel (and the New York subway) stars as a perfectly normal wardrobe staple for next gens in a perfectly normal, relatable style in a joyful cinematic moment.

Signaling Safety and Shared Interests

The personalization trend isn’t just about overstimulated next gens trying to differentiate themselves from the herd. While some have called Gen Z’s hyper-personal style “virtue signalling,” it’s more about signalling belonging within their respective communities, on all sides of the political spectrum. In this contentious era, it’s become more important for people with similar leanings to identify one another, safely from afar. Many next gens care more about proclaiming who they are, whom they love, and what they believe in more than conforming to a gendered attractiveness standard. That’s why we’re seeing baggy, sometimes comedic silhouettes like the Alladinesque “balloon pant” and the camo pant of the early 90s come back into the cultural zeitgeist.

Don’t hate us, but the millennial statement tee is also back, buoyed by nostalgia for the early aughts and a bifurcated political climate. Consumers are walking billboards for their causes, interests, and senses of humor. But next gens are taking statement apparel to the next level, wearing statement bags, hats, jewelry, heck even nail art.

Affordable Luxury

Luxury brands ignore Gen Z’s financial reality at their own peril. Bank of America reports that Gen Z and millennial’s spend only rose by .05 percent YoY in August of 2025, compared to 2.4 percent for boomers. Even well-off Gen Zs don’t have the once-promising career prospects as their millennial predecessors, and let’s be real, it’s hard to justify buying a $4,500 Murikami bag with Afterpay if you have no prospect of enough money coming in. The result is a return to affordable, aspirational luxury brands, particularly those like Ralph Lauren and Coach, for staples.

Coach and Ralph Lauren received the top 10 placements on the Lyst index. Coach’s saw its total revenue rise 9.9 percent to about $5.6 billion for the 12 months ended in June. Ralph Lauren saw revenue rise 6.8 percent in the 12 months ended in March. Ralph Lauren’s cable-knit quarter zip sweater was actually the hottest luxury item last quarter. Next gen luxury consumers are also more interested in little-known luxury brands, investing in burgeoning brands like five-year-old Tokyo menswear brand A.PRESSE that focus on craftsmanship over peacocking wealth in recognizable ways that recognizable products aren’t.

In selling luxury to next gens, a recognizable product isn’t enough. For highly individuated Gen Z consumers, overhyped brand awareness can read as ubiquity and work against you. Quality craftsmanship isn’t a given for luxury brands anymore; customers need to see evidence that they’re getting genuine quality for their investment. And artistic inspiration, as we see from Louis Vuitton and Chanel, might just be the key to push prospective luxury customers into making their first purchase.

Korean Brands Are Moving into a Mall Near You

Mark Faithfull — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

For much of the past decade, the dominant narrative for global retail has been framed around China and its manufacturing scale, digital platforms, ultra-fast and cheap fashion platforms, plus its ability to flood global markets with low-cost goods. Yet as regulatory pressure on Chinese exports intensifies in both the U.S. and Europe and geopolitical friction disrupts supply chains, South Korea, fuelled by the global phenomenon of K-pop culture, is emerging as a dynamic Asian force across beauty, fashion, lifestyle and specialty retail.

Korean Cultural Influence

The rise of Korean brands reflects a structural shift in how global consumers discover, trust and buy products. The visibility of K-Beauty has reached a tipping point, most notably next to London’s Chinatown, where tourists literally trip over one K-brand after another. There is no doubt that South Korea has arrived as a world influence.

What began years earlier as niche experimentation with off-the-wall beauty treatments from sheet masks and snail mucin has matured into mainstream adoption across the major retail chains. Brands such as premium skincare brand Laneige, nature-inspired Innisfree, derm-focused COSRX and skincare specialist Beauty of Joseon have moved from Asian beauty stores into Europe’s biggest chains, including Boots, Sephora and Douglas.

Sephora’s European rollout of Korean skincare lines accelerated last year, with COSRX’s Advanced Snail 96 Essence consistently ranking among its top-selling serums in France and Germany, while Laneige’s Lip Sleeping Mask became a viral bestseller thanks to TikTok-driven campaigns in the U.K. and Italy. Consumer appeal was not just about novelty but about perceived efficacy, transparency of ingredients and a narrative of innovation.

What’s the latest trend in Asian imports? And the answer is: Watch Korean brands that resonate with consumers with storytelling, propelled by evergreen K-pop culture.

Korean Brands Invest in Europe

At the same time, Korean beauty conglomerates have been laying the groundwork in Europe. Amorepacific—Korea’s answer to Estee Lauder—expanded its European logistics hubs in the Netherlands and Poland in 2025, reducing delivery times and opening direct-to-consumer channels. LG Household & Health Care, an equivalent to Procter & Gamble beauty or Unilever, strengthened its partnerships with European retailers and invested in localized product development, launching SPF formulations adapted to EU regulatory standards and European skin-tone ranges.

CJ Olive Young, South Korea’s dominant beauty retailer. broadly in the mode of Sephora or Ulta Beauty, also accelerated its international ecommerce push, recording double-digit growth in European orders last year. And in January, it forged a strategic partnership with Sephora in a move that marks the Korean firm’s entry into the fast-growing ‘middle vendor’ market connecting K-beauty brands with global distributors.

Korean Brands Beyond Beauty

Beyond beauty, Korean retail brands began to appear in categories previously dominated by Chinese players. XimiVogue, originally founded in China but increasingly repositioned with Korean-inspired branding and partnerships, expanded aggressively across Europe in 2025, with stores in Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe, with an offer that has often seen it dubbed the Korean Miniso. By 2025, Korean streetwear brands such as Ader Error, luxury menswear Wooyoungmi and eyewear specialist Gentle Monster had established flagship stores in European capitals and cultivated loyal followings among Gen Z consumers. Gentle Monster’s experiential retail spaces in London and Paris blurred the boundary between art installation and eyewear retail.

XimiVogue’s strategic pivot toward Korean cultural references proved timely. As European regulators tightened scrutiny on Chinese imports, particularly around product safety, sustainability claims and product dumping concerns as a fallout from U.S. tariffs, retailers with Korean branding have faced far fewer political and reputational barriers.

Indeed, this regulatory context is crucial. The European Union has introduced stricter enforcement of the Digital Services Act and tightened customs controls on low-value parcels, notably hitting Chinese ultra-fast fashion and marketplace platforms. And the mood music suggests that trade barriers for China will only become more challenging. Korean brands, by contrast, have benefited from South Korea’s status as a trusted trade partner with strong intellectual property protections and a reputation for quality manufacturing.

Korean Fashions Expand in the U.S.

Musinsa, Korea’s biggest curated fashion ecommerce platform, launched cross-border services targeting European consumers, leveraging curated Korean brands rather than mass-market imports. The same dynamic has played out even more dramatically in the U.S., where Korean brands have moved from cult status to mainstream retail. By the third quarter of 2025, the U.S. accounted for more than 51 percent of K-beauty’s global online sales, overtaking China for the first time as the world’s largest e-commerce market for Korean beauty products, with sales jumping 37 percent year-on-year.

NielsenIQ reported that K-beauty sales in the U.S. reached roughly $2 billion in 2025, far outpacing the growth of the overall beauty market and driven by facial skincare and rapidly expanding haircare categories. Major American retailers have responded by racing to integrate Korean brands into their assortments, with Sephora, Ulta, Target, Walmart and Costco having all expanded Korean product lines, while some retailers have created dedicated K-beauty zones.

Torriden officially entered Sephora’s U.S. network in 2025, rolling out hydration and derma products its products across more than 400 stores and online after viral TikTok exposure and a successful pop-up campaign. Amorepacific’s Aestura launched at Sephora early last year, positioning dermatology-led Korean skincare as a credible alternative to legacy brands. Herbal skincare specialist Hanyul debuted in over 300 Sephora stores in the same year, while independent Korean companies such as make-up and skincare brand Tirtir, premium d’Alba and Beauty of Joseon have started showing up within U.S. chains including Ulta, Target and Costco, reflecting a broader push into physical retail presence.

In grocery, Korean-origin supermarket chain H Mart has announced plans to open its largest-ever U.S. location in California, transforming a former Kohl’s site in Pacific Commons Shopping Center into a 100,000-square-foot experiential retail hub combining groceries, a food hall and dine-in restaurants. Construction is expected to start late this year.

Korean Big Picture

Amid it all, the role of entertainment is key. K-pop and K-drama continued to act as global marketing engines for Korean products and the international success of series such as drama Queen of Tears, global hit Squid Game and the sustained global tours of a myriad of groups, most notably BTS, have provided constant exposure for Korean fashion and beauty.

But what distinguishes Korea’s retail expansion from China’s is not just aesthetics but strategy. Chinese platforms have often relied on price leadership and logistical scale, pushing vast volumes of low-cost goods through digital channels. Korean brands, by contrast, have emphasized brand equity, storytelling and innovation. The Korean approach aligns more closely with premiumization trends in Western markets and the Gen Z era of little treats in a world that is offering them little comfort.

Regulation at the Heart of the Korean Approach

Another critical factor is agility when it comes to regulation and compliance. Korean companies have historically operated within stringent domestic regulatory frameworks, particularly in cosmetics and electronics. This has translated into smooth adaptation to European standards and, as a result, when the EU introduced updated cosmetic ingredient regulations in 2025, Korean brands were able to reformulate and relabel products faster than many of their Chinese competitors. Similarly, Korean electronics and lifestyle brands have leveraged their existing compliance culture to expand into smart home accessories, wearable devices and design-led consumer electronics.

Yet as more Korean brands enter European and U.S. markets, competition is intensifying. The risk of overexposure, brand dilution and the loss of their first mover advantage is real, particularly in beauty, where dozens of Korean brands now compete for shelf space and digital attention amid a fickle and short-memory customer base.

Korean retail has also been caught up in the ever-fluctuating U.S. tariff battles, and although most beauty, fashion and general merchandise goods face a 15 percent tariff, some categories, such as automobiles, are currently facing 25 percent tariffs. Balancing global expansion with authentic identity will be the defining test of 2026.

The Olympics Is a Runway Grab

Glyn Atwal — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

The Olympic rings are among the world’s most recognized symbols. Brands invest millions to be associated with the event’s values and global visibility. At the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, legacy sponsors like Coca-Cola and Visa leveraged this platform to reinforce their brand stature. But a new gold medal contender has stepped onto the podium: luxury fashion. As Yuki Bi, CEO of Helios Worldwide, notes, “The ‘fashion as sport’ trend has been strong since the Paris Summer Olympics, and it is here to stay, at least for a while.”

What’s the latest shiny influencer strategy for fashion brands? And the answer is: Olympic champions.

Sportainment

The emotional pull of Brazilian skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen winning South America’s first-ever Winter Olympics medal cannot be measured in social media metrics. It also helps explain why the Opening Ceremony, which featured not just Mariah Carey but also a runway show of white EA7 Emporio Armani and Ralph Lauren Americana-themed-uniforms, broke viewership records.

“It’s not new for brands to sponsor or design national team uniforms for major games,” says Bi, “but how it is being promoted, and the amount of attention they are garnering this Winter Olympics, is unprecedented.” This attention is driving demand for Olympic-themed merchandise. Polo Ralph Lauren’s Team USA Opening Ceremony Toggle Coat ($1,998) is already sold out in all sizes on the Ralph Lauren U.S. site. However, a key impact is the potential for brand earned media revenue (EMV), which can rival other sponsorship deals. According to data from Launchmetrics, Ralph Lauren had already generated $8.3 million in Media Impact Value (MIV) before the Winter Olympics even started!

This merging of sport and entertainment, or ‘sportainment,’ is a now-familiar formula across global events like Formula One. At the Winter Olympics, it is redefining engagement entirely. Clips of Snoop Dogg, Honorary Coach of Team USA, dominate feeds because sport has become storytelling for a new generation. According to Bi, “The popularity of the Olympic Games among Gen Z audiences stems from the vlog-like snippets of content across social media, especially TikTok and YouTube Shorts. In fact, most Gen Z audiences are watching the Winter Olympics via 15–30-second social media shorts.”

Fandom

Athletes have always been role models. Veteran skier Lindsay Vonn has been a Rolex Brand Ambassador since 2009. But recently, luxury fashion houses have been joining the race to sign the next sporting icon. At Beijing 2022, 18-year-old freestyle skier Eileen Gu’s gold medal tally led to a high-profile partnership with Louis Vuitton. The Winter Games have amplified celebrity endorsements into an entirely new form of influence. A game-changer is how fandom is creating a direct channel for brand storytelling at an unprecedented scale. Jutta Leerdam, who is an Omega Olympic ambassador, has over 6.2 million Instagram followers. Authentic content is driving engagement. Canadian speed skater Brooklyn McDougall’s unboxing her Lululemon gear went viral on TikTok.

High Performances

Luxury fashion partnering with sport isn’t new, but the Winter Olympics gives brands a stylistic signature and mass reach. Armani outfitting Team Italia makes cultural sense, but the Games also offer a platform for function-first brands such as Lululemon with Team Canada and Uniqlo with Team Sweden to elevate their fashion credibility.

“Fashion brands are realizing that their audiences and sports fans are no longer mutually exclusive,” Bi says. “In fact, Gen Z finds sports a very cool topic that adds social credibility to their lives. So, when brands invest in the Winter Olympic Games, they are also acquiring a brand new, aspirational young audience that they can grow in the future.”

The Winter Games are a live product demo under some of the most extreme conditions imaginable. When Lucas Pinheiro Braathen won gold wearing a white Moncler race suit, it was a victory for Moncler’s technical innovation. The brand extends the message with Moncler Grenoble’s “The Beyond Performance” exhibit in Milan. As Bi notes, “Younger audiences are learning from this year’s Milan Winter Olympics that competition gear can be fashionable and attractive while maintaining functionality.”

Brands are also replicating the Olympic experience in their retail environments, from the snow-white Armani jackets at Milano Linate Airport to experiential formats such as Ralph Lauren’s Olympic-themed pop-ups stretching from Cortina d’Ampezzo to Aspen.

Inclusivity

As the Winter Paralympics approach, inclusivity is emerging as a defining narrative. This is less about logo-first branding and more about meaningful design. Brands like Lululemon have introduced “Paralympian-approved” adaptive gear with magnetic zippers, seated-fit silhouettes, and braille details. It’s a powerful message that fashion and sport have no boundaries.

The Winter Olympics in a fashion capital is more than a natural convergence of sport and style. The Games have become a global podium for luxury brands. The result is a boost in brand prestige and reputation. Brand Finance reports that luxury apparel buyers who followed the Paris Olympics rated Louis Vuitton more highly for ‘reputation, social commitment, brand I love, trust, and recommendation.’

It’s a return on investment that can translate into long-term revenue growth. The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles will be even more of a spectacle and will put pressure on luxury brands to up their game. Which brands are ready to go for the gold?

Kohls: The Robin Report Retail Miss of the Week, 2.21.26

Warren Shoulberg — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

The idea of full price retailers setting aside a dedicated promotional area in their stores goes back at least to the famous “O” tables (opportunities) merchandised by up-and-coming junior buyers at A&S including Allen Questrom and Mike Gould. And then there were the Blue Light Specials at Kmart in its heyday. The best manifestations more recently were the Target Bullseye Dollar Spots, which have since lost much their luster and focus like so much else in the store. So, Kohls’ introduction of a similar merchandising concept called the Deal Bar doesn’t get any kudos from us. In fact, what worries us is Kohl’s chronically poor execution at the store level. Why can’t they get this right; it’s not rocket science. This could easily turn into a pile of leftovers, markdowns and irrelevance. We hope not but Kohl’s track record on such programs continues to be pretty dismal.

Eyewear Outperforms Luxury Categories

Glyn Atwal — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Why do the Kardashians always wear sunglasses? TikTok may have its own addictive answer, but celebrity influence has given luxury eyewear renewed life for aspirational customers. While the global market for personal luxury goods stagnated in 2025, eyewear continues to outperform other categories; Bain & Co. is projecting growth of 2 to 4 percent. And there are no signs of slowing.

Is luxury eyewear a growth opportunity? And the answer is: Eyewear outperforms other categories, projected to grow two to four percent, and design innovation no longer comes from a single creative vision; it is the result of an ongoing dialogue between design, data, and culture.

Licensing Leaps

Customers can now own a piece of the celebrity-driven luxury lifestyle as wannabe style setters, whether they wear prescription glasses or not. Licensing eyewear deals have made luxury logos accessible to an expanding base of consumers, many of whom are first-time luxury buyers. This business model continues to reap rewards. EssilorLuxottica, the world’s largest eyewear company, manages licenses for luxury brands including Giorgio Armani, Brunello Cucinelli, Burberry, Chanel, and Dolce & Gabbana. In Q3 2025, it reported its best quarterly performance ever, with revenue rising 11.7 percent to €6.9 billion. The consumer investment is significant, with luxury eyewear ranging from $202 for the A$AP Rocky Ray-Ban Wayfarer Puffer to $6,721 for the diamond edition.

The allure of the logo remains a critical decision point. According to the EY Luxury Client Index 2025, 42 percent of “prestige aspirational” luxury clients buy luxury fashion as a marker of status. That said, the global success of South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster is a reminder that for Gen Z, eyewear is less about status and more about self-expression as a statement of identity.

As luxury brands scale up eyewear operations, including launches like Victoria Beckham Eyewear with the Safilo Group, the landscape will only grow more crowded. This market demands agility as brands compete for consumers’ wallets and eyes amid unprecedented competition through social media exposure and expansive product choice.

Eyewear as a Proxy for Luxury

Accessories have historically been entry products for aspirational luxury customers, and eyewear is no exception. An impressive 71 percent of luxury clients are primarily driven by a desire to own high-quality products. Quality and provenance matter. Persol, for example, has been crafting sunglasses by hand since 1917 with artisans at its Lauriano plant in Turin, Italy, ensuring its Craftsmanship Campaign.

Sustainability gives luxury consumers the confidence to signal purpose. Nearly one-third (31 percent) of luxury clients rank sustainability among the top five factors influencing purchase decisions. Savvy eyewear brands merge sustainability with innovation. Balenciaga’s Blackout sunglasses (€1,200, made in Italy) use Eastman Acetate Renew, combining cellulose derived from wood pulp with recycled plastic that would otherwise end up in landfills.

Eyewear is also a visual extension of a brand’s DNA. Here’s where the ephemeral influence of emotion, identity and possibility play critical roles. Longchamp, for example, says its sunglasses “reveal the allure of the Longchamp Parisienne.” Maybe that’s true, but brands sell when they excite and surprise. According to Mor Margalit, Director of Brand Merchandising at GlassesUSA.com, “Design innovation in eyewear today no longer comes from a single creative vision. It is the result of an ongoing dialogue between design, data, and culture.”

Successful eyewear also rivals the versatility of today’s designer handbag collections. Gentle Monster is redefining the category through collaborations such as Tekken 8 and its Pocket Collection with Bratz, transforming culture and community into eyewear icons. Coach x GlassesUSA.com’s limited-edition Milky Pink Frame for 2026 embraces the concept of fusion fashion, which, according to Mor Margalit, is “recognizing that people don’t dress according to one fixed aesthetic. They blend moods, styles, and personal expression throughout their everyday lives.” For fashionistas (and the easily bored), multiple branded eyewear is the norm, similar to a closet full of handbags.

Celeb collabs are table stakes for luxury brands. Identifying eyewear-specific brand ambassadors creates emotional connections akin to those in beauty and fragrance. Orlando Bloom, for instance, is a brand ambassador for Porsche Design’s timepiece and eyewear collections.

Visionary Innovation

According to The State of Fashion 2026, smart eyewear is “poised for a breakout in 2026.” Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous failed Meta Ray-Ban demo, consumer interest remains high, with waiting lists for AI-enabled glasses that take photos, record videos, make calls, play music, and access Meta’s AI assistant. Yet smart eyewear is not only about technology. BoF and McKinsey & Co. survey data show that style influences one-third of smart-glasses buyers. It’s a wake-up call and an opportunity for luxury brands to differentiate.

Eyecare is a new, cool, integral to both the fashion runway and the everyday wardrobe. Fashion and lifestyle brands without a core eyewear business may be leaving brand equity on the table. Visionary creativity is essential to capture a share of this growing market. After all, in the world according to the Kardashians, staying relevant and relatable may simply come down to how you frame the future.

Is Your Brand Scented?

Dana Wood — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

With offices on four continents, more than 500 employees toiling in 119 countries, and a client roster that includes Marriott and Westin hotels, Heathrow and Tampa International airports and an eclectic mix of retailers (Kookaï, Altar’d State, Plato’s Closet and Play It Again Sports)—not to mention a bustling DTC business in home diffusers—ScentAir likes to describe itself as “the global leader in scent marketing.”

Of course, it’s the client ScentAir won’t confirm, Disney Resorts, that probably contributes a mega chunk to the 32-year-old, Charlotte, North Carolina-based enterprise’s bottom line. “As a privately held company, we respect the privacy and preferences of all our clients and do not disclose client-specific information without their express permission,” says Evin Ellis, ScentAir’s Director of Global Marketing & E-Commerce. “Many of our clients consider their scent programs to be an integral part of their brand experience and differentiation and therefore choose to keep these details confidential.”

But here’s what Ellis is more than happy to share: the positively rosy current state of the ambient scent market. “We estimate the total addressable market (TAM) for scent marketing at around $3 billion globally,” he says. That’s a lot of piped-in perfume.

Does scent marketing work? And the answer is: Just ask Baccarat, Altr’d States, The Northface, and Disney.

Translating a Retailer’s Core Values Into a Signature Scent

Though she isn’t as willing to hazard a guess at the scope of the ambient market as Ellis, Scent Marketing, Inc. CEO Caroline Fabrigas is equally bullish on the category’s prospects. Serving clients that span boutique and mega-chain hotels (Arlo,1 Hotels, Hyatt Place, Baccarat, Auberge Resorts), retail (The Northface, Converse, Wayfair, Aeropostale), wellness (Physique 57, The Well) and commercial real estate developers (Fisher Brothers, SL Green, Naftali Group), when she says the scent marketing business is booming, it’s an understatement.

“For a smaller company, we have some great clients,” says Fabrigas, who has a core team of seven working from the company’s Scarsdale, New York, headquarters and an equivalently sized crew to whom she outsources projects. She mentions Coach as a new retail win, and recent experiential ventures like scenting Fifth Avenue during the holidays. When we spoke, she was just about to head to Boston to discuss partnering with the MTA.

But how, exactly, does Fabrigas and her team translate a hotel, retail store, workout studio or multi-unit Miami condo into a scent? There are multiple ways; the most elaborate and costly is custom development. For Kindling, the signature scent for 1 Hotels, Scent Marketing took the key stakeholders through a four-step process that includes: Discovering the brand’s core values and unique connection with nature; defining the initial prototype via an exclusive olfactory ingredient palette; designing and developing a prototype scent; and delivering and diffusing the finished product throughout the brand’s properties.

“We call it a journey,” Fabrigas says of the custom process. “It takes about 10 to 12 weeks and starts with an intake session and analyzing the brand.” After Scent Marketing has landed on an initial prototype, the ideal next step is an in-person “sniffing session” that may yield a request for a tweak or two. “But that’s rare,” says Fabrigas, “because of all the pre-work we’re doing.”

If a brand doesn’t have the budget, time or desire to express itself by building a signature fragrance from scratch, other options for landing on a scent for a public space include “Guided Scent Curation.” In this case, Fabrigas and team visit the untapped archives of some of the world’s major oil houses. The third, least costly, process is for a brand to buy directly from the company’s in-house scent library.

With a quick look at the scent library section of the Scent Marketing website, retailers can pick from ready-made fragrances. The names of the scents evoke their emotional and psychological effects: Full of Energy, Teak & Herbs, Walk in the Woods, Fresh Tea, Exaltation, Pink Grapefruit and Mint Focus.

Evoke a Beloved Vacation Scent at Home

While it doesn’t have direct ties to hospitality or real estate, Tocca has long had a stellar candle and reed diffuser business. An offshoot of the boho-chic namesake fashion brand, which launched in 1994, Tocca’s home products followed beauty, which made its debut in 1997. According to COO Joyce Barnes, Tocca added home in 1999, kicking off with its still-popular “blue box” classic candle collection. “We were a fashion brand at the time and had started to dip our toes into beauty with three products: a solid perfume, a dry body oil and a laundry delicate,” Barnes recalls. “We saw home as a logical next step in our beauty division. And to be frank, our candles were popular straight out of the gate.”

Named for posh vacation destinations—think Chamonix, Amalfi, Montauk and St. Tropez—the candles and diffusers have been a solid boost to Tocca’s balance sheet. “We are first and foremost a fine fragrance house, so our eau de parfums continue to be the majority of our business,” says Barnes. “But we’ve been pleased with how home fragrance gives us the opportunity to expand into other channels.”

And for now, at least, the home scent sector is looking bright. “People are investing in their homes, and fragrance is a beautiful way to really personalize their environment,” says Barnes. “We also continue to see customers’ interest in exploring different ways to layer fragrance in their lives. They don’t just want to wear their favorite scents; they want to live among their favorite scents, too.”

From Commercial Lobbies to Living Rooms: The Rise of D2C

Even more extensively than ScentAir, Scent Marketing is making sure consumers have multiple ways to nab the fragrances they become addicted to when staying at chic hotels and shopping at their favorite stores. On scentfluence.com, its D2C site, a full range of property-affiliated candles and room sprays is on offer—everything from Fireside for Baccarat and Deep Blue Med Spa Collection to Fisher Bros @Ease. The company’s physical store, Scentfluence Aroma Design Studio, is based in Scarsdale. Scentfluence is about to make its debut on Amazon in addition to the debut of “The Perfect Weekend” candles currently landing at Wayfair stores across the country.

None of the category’s success is a surprise to Dr. Liz Lehman, licensed physician and CEO of Alluminate Life, an international wellness brand crafted to enhance mind-body health. “Any public gathering place that is designed to evoke a mood, feeling, or brand identity benefits from an ambient fragrance,” she says.

And while public scenting is on the uptick, it certainly isn’t new. “I remember Disney World smelling like sunshine and laughter as a child,” Lehman recalls. “Hospitality groups have used scenting for years.” Today, the phenomenon is on a distinct upward trajectory. “As research studies continue to publish the psychological link between scent, behavior and mood, and consumers desire a more enhanced experiential environment,” says Lehman, “I have no doubt that scent in public spaces will be as important as furnishings and lighting.”

Fabrigas couldn’t agree more. “I think of scent as being ‘a logo in the air,’ another way to communicate your brand message,” she says. “It’s really powerful and actually more memorable than something you can see.”

A New Formula for Luxury Marketing

Kate Newlin — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

“What becomes a legend most?” Remember the famous ad line when fur was in fashion, and that fame-saturated double-page photo shoot vision appeared in every fashion magazine. But that was back when there were real fashion magazines, not today’s celebrity showcases masquerading as style books.

Legacy as Liability?

Today, I ask the question from a different angle of the cultural prism: What becomes a legacy legend most? More specifically, a luxury legacy legend. Why luxury? Because luxe is where the money is, and legacy brands have an embedded baseline of that most difficult and expensive asset: consumer awareness of their origin stories.

But there’s a flip side to awareness. I’m talking about the risk of once-great brands suspended in hibernation in the depths of memory. These are the ones, theoretically at least, awaiting resuscitation. They may be tempted by some Chimera, that fire-breathing animal of Greek myth with a lion’s head, goat’s body and serpent’s tail: AKA, stupid money and stupider debt. These luxury brands are charades as uber confident and a total denigration of customer respect and product knowledge.

Is luxury legacy a risk or a liability? And the answer is: If brands trade on a mutation of the relevance of luxury legacy that dilutes their value, they risk losing the past and the future.

Luxury Odyssey

As a trained future trends analyst, I have spent the past 18 months consulting for one of the premier legacy luxury businesses, which came of age in that long-ago and far-away ‘what becomes a legend most’ era. I have learned much on this business strategy odyssey. The focus is on the mission-critical centrality of the Ultra High Net Worth audience – and its influencers – as the last bastion of margin-accretive growth. The exploration showcases the obvious age-old edict: The rich really are different. During this journey I had the great good fortune of engaging with savvy luxury brand stewards, sales associates, private wealth managers, so-called creative agency executives, comatose retailers, and the journalists who cover them. These kaleidoscopic viewpoints coalesced into my current vision, and I have developed the reignition model for luxury legends built on seven non-negotiables.

Seven Truths in Pursuit of Genuine, Sustainable Growth

Truth One. The uber luxury market is the only one poised for genuine, sustainable, profitable growth. It’s time to forget about the ‘aspirational’ consumer, lusting after high-end, name-checked logos and settling for an over-packaged bottle of a marquee brand’s fragrance. Forget too, while we’re at it, the quaint notion of ‘masstige.’ Why? Because life changes at the macro-level while marketers change at the micro-level. Aspirations change. The definition of prestige evolves. The culture shifts.

Truth Two. Private equity and its doppelgänger, personal greed, are actively ringing the death knell of retail. Ask not Saks for whom the bell tolls. All the while, we avert our gaze from the obvious impossibility of carrying or ever repaying the gravitational pull of race-to-the-bottom debt. This all takes place during a technological revolution upending the notion that we’re willing to leave home for the acquisition of goods. Not clothing. Not jewelry. Not groceries. Not nothing. Unless and until it’s personally relevant. Interesting. Exciting. In short, bespoke.

Truth Three. The Ultra High Net Worth customer does not ‘shop’ in a mall or at the car dealership or at the auction house. They dispatch lesser mortals to deal with lesser mortals. Yes, the fabulous designer invites the equally fabulous client to fly in on the corporate jet to Paris or Milan, but it’s the stylist’s job to curate the wardrobe and speak with sales associates to deliver options to be chosen in the privacy of the client’s various homes. Knowledgeable human to knowledgeable human. How to reach the UHNW? See them as individuals. Meet them where they spend their time and money—unapologetically. Our model shows the power in valuing their values: Their non-profit galas, their family resorts, their joie de vivre pursuits, and their friends.

Truth Four. Successful luxury brands use their retail locations as ads that we walk into. They provide the luxury ‘lifestyle experience’ on display in case the merely wealthy—personal shoppers, tourists and husbands in search of ‘something’—stumble in the day before or on ‘the day’ itself: Valentine’s, anniversary, birthday, and the ‘I’m so, so sorry, and it will never happen again’ day.

Truth Five. Marketing and product creativity are at their nadir. This goes for the conventional creative and performative hype of AI. Luxe marketing demands the personal engagement and recommendation of ‘one person I know,’ in preference to some desperate cool hunt for anonymous ‘friends’ pestering us in bot-speak. Creatives who grew up in the world of CPG marketing are ill-equipped to understand the un-commoditized revelations of genuine craftsmanship. They are even less able to communicate through the dog-whistle tropes of exclusivity to be noticed by the one percent of the one percent. Equally, designers tremble at the notion of separating the exquisite workmanship of their vision from its ability to be manufactured on the cheap two oceans away.

Truth Six. Modern retail is a gauntlet to survive, not an experience to engage. Nor even enjoy. Much of our work over the past two decades has centered on a core understanding of the customer. Freud said it best: We all want to feel significant. We hunger for it. We mourn its loss. When we speak to consumers under hypnosis – yes, hypnosis – they describe that sought-after feeling of a great shopping experience as ‘I felt lucky.’ The easiest way to cheat that ‘lucky’ feeling is to mass produce and ‘buy one and get 50 percent off another.’ This generation of marketers has literally addicted consumers to price promotion. But for the Ultra High Net Worth, that doesn’t work. Paying a hefty luxury tax on their most recent fill-in-the-blank acquisition offers unstated bragging rights of the ‘what me worry?’ mentality.

Truth Seven. The long-heralded transfer of wealth from one generation to another is near. But it won’t mean an après moi le deluge spending binge. Rather, the old guard has set up Family Offices with savvy financial managers to educate and exert fiscal restraint in ways that may well irritate next-gen revelers. Thanks to ever-increasing longevity, boomers have had quite a bit of time to monitor their children’s and grandchildren’s behaviors, and they are not going gently into the night.

Legacy as an Asset

For any brand, revive your legacy, reconnecting with those who already know and love you. Reach out to past and present clients and their trusted advisors to prove you’re an investment-grade acquisition. Then ignite exploration by next-gen audiences for whom you may be ‘new to you’ but are worthy of respect. Finally, show up where they are and reinforce that you share their values and humanity. All the while, focus on the unmet need of those most willing to exchange money for genuine cultural currency. Then, stand back and watch your legacy transform your business into a goldmine. Finally, what becomes a legend most? The spotlight.

Curate or Get Curated

Rich Honiball — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

We live in an age of abundance: more information, more options, more products, more channels, more noise. On the surface, this abundance appears to be a gift—greater access, freedom, and personalization. But beneath that promise lies a growing tension: complexity fatigue.

Choice as No Choice

Consumers are surrounded by choice, and increasingly exhausted by it. They download dozens of apps but use only a handful. They fill closets with clothing but rotate through the same limited number of familiar pieces. They buy groceries with good intentions, only to discard a third of what they bring home. They scroll endlessly, browse extensively, and yet often procrastinate before committing to a decision.

These are not isolated behaviors. They are signals. Signals that challenge the long-held retail assumption that more choice equates to more value. These signals also suggest that the future of retail is not about expanding selection endlessly, but about refining it intentionally. These are signals that point toward a deliberate focus on curation.

Is customer value in retail unlimited choice and abundance? And the answer is: Curation wins loyalty and relevance, aligns customers’ wants and needs, and diminishes complexity fatigue.

Complexity Fatigue

The average smartphone today holds roughly 80 installed apps. Yet only about nine are used daily, and fewer than half of those 80 are used even once a month. The rest sit dormant, available and irrelevant. Consumers don’t delete them because they no longer provide value, but because it requires too much effort. Whether busy, lazy, or overwhelmed, we all naturally seek the path of least resistance.

The same overabundance issue appears at home. The average American single-family house now exceeds 2,100 square feet, yet daily life typically takes place in a small fraction of that space. Entire rooms exist only for occasional use. Space is abundant; its utility is not.

Closets tell a similar story. Studies consistently show that people regularly wear only 50 to 60 percent of the clothing they own. The rest sits untouched. Many garments are worn fewer than ten times before being discarded, oftentimes with regret. The flip side is the upcycling apparel market, but it still doesn’t solve the habit of over-purchasing.

Often, aspirational buying doesn’t align with real behavior. Across categories, ownership exceeds usage and wants exceed needs. This is a mismatch between human psychological reward-driven yearnings and the conventional assumption that more is always better.

What Research Has Been Telling Us for Years

This wants and needs tension is nothing new. Behavioral science has been studying it for decades. One of the most cited examples is the well-known “jam study,” conducted by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. When shoppers were presented with 24 varieties of jam, they were more likely to stop and sample. On the other hand, shoppers presented with just six varieties were far more likely to stop and make a purchase.

That finding became a cornerstone of what later came to be known as the “paradox of choice,” a concept explored extensively by psychologist Barry Schwartz. His research demonstrated that excessive choice increases anxiety, regret, and decision paralysis. People fear making the wrong choice, so they delay making any choice at all. Subsequent studies reinforced this across many categories: retirement plans, consumer electronics, apparel, and even healthcare decisions. When options proliferate beyond a manageable threshold, satisfaction declines, confidence erodes, and conversion is sidelined. For years, marketers and the CPG industry have been aware of this research, but too often they continue to march in the opposite direction.

The Endless Aisle

Digital commerce unlocked the paradox of choice on steroids. The infinite shelf space of endless digital aisles became a competitive advantage. More SKUs delivered a broader reach and theoretically higher odds of appealing to individual preferences. For a time, this worked. Search was an exercise in discovery filtered by algorithms that promised personal preference relevance at scale.

But scale brought its own problems. As assortments ballooned, discovery became more opaque. Search results expanded beyond comprehension. Comparison shopping turned into an exercise in fatigue with cart abandonment and surging returns. Too much choice transformed into supply chain nightmares. Add to that, a significant percentage of shoppers now cite “too many options” as a reason for abandoning purchases, particularly in categories like apparel, beauty, and consumer electronics. What was once framed as an empowerment tool has increasingly become a burden. The conversation requires a shift away from “endless aisles” to curating “best aisles.” The goal is to no longer offer everything, but rather to offer the right things, replacing maximum choice with meaningful choice.

Technology Is a Steward, not a Substitute

While many frame AI and human curation as a tug-of-war, the real opportunity lies in partnership and harmony. Technology serves as a powerful retail steward—managing redundancy, detecting assortment drift, and supporting complexity at scale—but it cannot decide what matters. There is a critical distinction: AI and predictive analytics excel at forecasting what might happen based on the past. But the past is not always a prelude to the present, and often what worked in the past is no guarantee of what will work in the present. When it comes to curation, default prediction is high risk. The pathway to innovation isn’t to simply anticipate trends; it is to set them. This requires the human expertise—instinct, cultural nuance, and emotional drivers—that dashboards cannot replicate. Curation is a retailer’s foundational skill; waiting for a perfect technology to streamline that process is an abdication of leadership. Technology and specifically AI should be viewed as a partner to human judgment, with tech as a tool, not a proxy for human beings.

The Human Touch

Perhaps most importantly, curation re-humanizes retail. Historically, retail thrived on trust. Loyal shoppers return not for endless choices, but because the selection makes sense. The modern practice of curation is supported by data, scaled by technology, and guided by human judgment. The irony is self-evident. When consumers have access to everything, they increasingly reward those who offer fewer choices, provided that fewer is better. Healthy retail will not be decided by those who carry the most. It will be led by deft curation, because in a world overwhelmed by abundance, relevance wins.

The implications are clear. Retailers that continue to compete primarily on product breadth risk becoming background noise. Availability doesn’t equate to value. Curation isn’t a niche strategy reserved for luxury brands or personal shoppers. It is becoming table stakes for relevance in a crowded, fatigued marketplace.

What’s TikTok Shop’s Future?

Jasmine Glasheen — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

The joy of discovery is TikTok’s competitive advantage, so it doesn’t have to have the perfect product for every consumer. It doesn’t try to be Amazon. Consumers don’t go to TikTok Shop to buy Clorox Wipe refills, but 83 percent of shoppers have discovered a new product on TikTok Shop, and 70 percent have discovered a new brand.

The growth of TikTok Shop in 2025 is a case study in consumer interest versus international trade policy. Despite tariffs having cut profits from Chinese companies by the Peterson Institute estimates averaging 47.5 percent on Chinese imports, American consumers still provided the largest chunk of TikTok Shop’s quarterly revenue, which more than doubled from the previous year to reach a projected $15 billion in U.S. sales for 2025. On a global scale, TikTok Shop moved $19 billion in the third quarter of 2025 alone.

Will TikTok Shop U.S. change under American ownership? And the answer is: The platform will carry on with its successful, personalized feeds and has its sights set on behemoths Instagram and Facebook to scale and steal marketshare.

TikTok Rising

Much has been said about TikTok Shop gaining on Amazon. TikTok Shop’s U.S. revenue grew by 128 percent year-over-year through April 2025, whereas Amazon U.S. ecommerce retail sales rose 7 percent in the same period, and its growth is decelerating as Gen Z and millennial consumers shift to social commerce over online marketplaces.

Let’s look at how TikTok is leading engagement-driven retail, how the carve-out of TikTok’s U.S. business into a separate entity could change both its own retail strategy and the U.S. retail landscape overall. A consortium of investors is acquiring its U.S. operations. This group includes tech company Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and the investment firm MGX. As part of the deal, Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, is leading the consortium. The deal is expected to be finalized by January 2026, making the U.S. division a separate, American-controlled entity.

Leading the Engagement Economy

TikTok wasn’t the first app to give users algorithmic suggestions based on their engagement habits, rather than shopping behavior alone. But TikTok Shop did turn engagement-driven selling into an art. With over 70 million products, a strong coupon strategy for next gens’ value consciousness, and a July “Deals for Days” promotion that rivals Amazon Prime Days, TikTok Shop has revolutionized the way users engage with brands.

Rather than offering a categorical search (where users type their search intent into the bar at the top of the screen and the app provides recommendations), TikTok Shop’s algorithm automatically provides engagement-driven product recommendations. Content users engage with videos watched, creators followed, time spent hovering, etc., all of which inform the content sequence shown to users.

TikTok Shop harnesses the power of interest-driven impulse shopping through entertainment, rather than consumer necessity, like Amazon. This phenomenon is (obnoxiously) called “shoppertainment,” a phenomenon in the retail industry pioneered by QVC and the home shopping network. But using “shoppertainment” to lock down Gen Z consumer loyalty is where TikTok Shop excels. The idea of shoppertainment isn’t giving consumers exactly what they need; it’s incentivizing consumers to buy by creating desire. Instagram and Facebook each generate 3-4 times the GMV of TikTok Shop, and Instagram’s image-based search and heavy influencer presence make it TikTok’s main competition.

Discovery or Consumer Targeting? It’s All in the Algorithm

The joy of discovery is TikTok’s competitive advantage, so it doesn’t have to have the perfect product for every consumer. Since it doesn’t host the household name brands of its U.S. competitors, TikTok Shop can’t compete for U.S. consumers based on specific product assortments. So, it doesn’t try to be another Amazon. Consumers don’t go to TikTok Shop to buy Clorox Wipe refills, but 83 percent of shoppers have discovered a new product on TikTok Shop, and 70 percent have discovered a new brand.

So, how does TikTok Shop “shoppertain” (apologies) notoriously frugal Gen Z consumers into spending on products they don’t need? The surprising product selection is innovative; my feed shows stick-on camera holders, k-beauty serums, hair styling apparatuses, powdered yerba mate tea, etc. often advertised by influencers I know offline. TikTok Shop harnesses the power of its micro influencers and macro influencers to create a sense of safety around imported products. (You’d think Kim K’s diet tea snafu in 2018 would’ve awakened consumers to the fact that the celebrities foisting products upon them don’t always use said products, but here we find ourselves.)

The team behind TikTok understands the discovery-driven niche in the burgeoning arena of social commerce. The platform’s new growth framework is “ACE,” which stands for “Assortment, Content, and Empowerment,” and is focused is on giving sellers the free tools to produce content to attract their audience. And these efforts aren’t lost on prospective sellers. TikTok recently reported 171,000 local and small businesses on the platform, and sales to U.S. SMBs grew by 70 percent YoY.

Federal Pushback on Chinese Social Media

It’s hard for the federal government to make a case against TikTok. Since it hosts so many small and local businesses, the idea that TikTok Shop is stealing sales from U.S. retailers doesn’t stand up to fact. The positioning of data centers and customer data is a data sovereignty issue. The sale is a move to ring-fence U.S. data and commercial activities within the borders of America.

The era of governmentally ascribed consumer behavior has come to an end. TikTok’s fame doesn’t just seem impervious to trade policy; it benefits from the headlines even when those headlines are about the forced sale of its parent company, ByteDance, to U.S. investors. We will be waiting to see how or if the new owners alter the online marketplace.

Far from the sale driving U.S. shoppers back to Amazon or another national seller, TikTok Shop now commands 18.2 percent of total social commerce in the U.S. and that share is expected to hit 24.1 percent by 2027. Now that TikTok Shop is partially owned by a group of heavy-hitting millionaires, we might see it have the investment power to grow from a disruptive underdog into an influential architect of American retail.

Washington’s attempt to curb the influence of Chinese retailers reveals a fascinating disconnect between what consumers want to purchase and the actions of their elected officials. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Retailers can no longer remain neutral. The TikTok controversy wasn’t about a social issue like Eugenics that impacts all marginalized people, like American Eagle’s “Great Jeans” campaign this year. Consumers’ indifference to the government’s drive to abandon the platform evidences a greater shopper shift towards the non-geopolitical. While the government’s issue was, ostensibly, data protection from foreign entities, it hasn’t stopped next gens from using TikTok Shop.

For now, the data is clear: If the TikTok algorithm continues to deliver discovery and entertainment, we’re predicting consumers will keep choosing the “For You Page” over the Google search bar or their Amazon feed. And that is proof of a larger competitive ecommerce challenge, regardless of geopolitical issues.

Costco: The Robin Report Retail Miss of the Week, 1.31.2026

Warren Shoulberg — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Yeah, you’re reading this right, the do-no-wrong-best-retailer-in-the-business Costco might have just screwed up. A proposed class action lawsuit has reportedly been filed in San Diego claiming that Costco’s labeling on its famed $4.99 rotisserie chicken contains “No preservatives, MSG, gluten, artificial flavors, or colors” is…foul (fowl?). The suit alleges that the chickens contain “additives sodium phosphate and carrageenan.” We have no scientific definition of what those are, but they sound suspicious. On the best-retailer-we-know plus side, Costco now says it will remove the “no preservatives” signage and explains that these substances “support moisture retention, texture, and product consistency during cooking. Both ingredients are approved by food safety authorities.” OK, Ok, although watchdog consumers don’t want you to have to read the small print. This has to count as a blemish on a company that has just about the best reputation in the retail world, not to mention the most loyal customer base. We’re fans of their chicken, by the way, and this misstep isn’t going to stop us from getting just about the best bargain out there. But Costco has clearly lost a game of chicken with its customers.