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.

There’s an AI Encouragement Gap

Jasmine Glasheen — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

It looks like Gen Z, the generation that’s the most politically bifurcated by gender, can now add the “AI encouragement gap” (the significant divide between the high rate at which students and employees are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and the low level of support, guidance, or encouragement they receive from their institutions or employers) to their list of grievances. The chasm between a tech-savvy generation and their less tech-savvy managers is setting up a workplace showdown. As many have predicted, AI’s impact on next gen career prospects is nefarious: AI is not only snatching up entry-level roles, but it is also creating a worker-manager intelligence gap in the workplace.

Is AI changing the workplace culture? And the answer is: The generation gap at work is also causing an AI information gap; older less-tech savvy workers are unable (or unwilling) to encourage and support younger tech-savvy workers to use AI.

Next Gen Against a Wall

The gap adds to the next gen’s lack of motivation, which has led to derision from their predecessors, and they’ve been dubbed “lazy” by those who fail to understand the concept of a generational mental health crisis. Rising costs of housing amid stagnating salaries, bleak professional prospects, a contentious political landscape, and the fact that the world may burn to a crisp due to global warming have the youngest generation in the workforce feeling anxious. Gen Z is entering a job market where 35 percent of entry-level jobs require 3+ years of experience, and 45 percent of employers post ghost jobs.

McKinsey’s “Women in the Workplace 2025” report shows that gender also plays a role when it comes to seeking career advancement in our dystopian marketplace. While 88 percent of entry-level women say their career is important to them (around the same level as men), only 69 percent of entry-level women say they want a promotion, compared to 80 percent of entry-level men. And, contrary to what our AI overlords once told us, this disparity is only being exacerbated as companies add artificial intelligence to the mix. Companies are prioritizing training and encouraging men to become AI fluent over women. Early data on gender disparities in workforce AI training and encouragement show that the workplace of the future might be gender biased. McKinsey reports that fewer entry-level women (21 percent) report that their managers have encouraged them to use AI, compared with 33 percent of entry-level men. Analysts are calling AI the new “labor market currency.” If that’s true, Gen Z women will have to fight for adequate AI training, sponsorship, and encouragement, or they risk being left behind.

They Can’t Spend What They’ll Never Have

We can’t talk about Generation Z consumers without discussing their financial straits. Gen Z has the highest average personal debt of any generation, at a whopping $94,101 a pop that’s way higher than millennials ($59,181) and Gen X ($53,255). They have fewer economic prospects and are entering a stale job market that economist Diane Swonk told Fortune is “gut-wrenching” for the middle class. There’s a thin line between optimism and delusion, and next gen consumers are realists. Since they have to be ready for an uncertain future, they consume media critically and research every dollar they spend.

The “AI Encouragement Gap” Creates Generational Disconnects

While gender is perhaps the most concerning factor impacting AI adoption in the workplace, it doesn’t stand alone: age, confidence, and politics surrounding AI adoption also play a role. Even the gender factor is layered. Employers aren’t encouraging women to learn AI technologies in the same way, but women are also more reluctant to adopt AI into their daily workflow. The key issue is that while a majority of students may use AI, just a few feel their organization encourages its use. This puts the generational digital divide in stark contrast. Next gens may look at their older colleagues as out of touch with technology, which leads to the encouragement gap: You can’t teach what you don’t know.

A Gender Bias Culture

So, how does gender bias come into play? Although only 7 percent of Gen Z consumers identify as non-binary, those who do subscribe to gender norms are more divided than ever in political leanings, policy, and even in the media they consume. Consider that 80 percent of “The Joe Rogan Experience” listeners are men, while 70 percent of progressive-leaning “Call Her Daddy” listeners are women. They’re even using different platforms, with men outnumbering women by two to one on X and Reddit.

Gen Z women entering the workforce today find their optimistic enthusiasm quickly mitigated by reality. While most companies still say they are committed to fostering an inclusive culture, few are equally committed to giving women equal career advancement opportunities as men, particularly at entry and senior levels. As a result, Gen Z women who are entering the workforce are screaming from the rafters that career milestones that felt attainable to their predecessors don’t feel attainable for them. Fortune blames this disparity on “pessimism,” which would imply next gen’s bleak career prospects are just a matter of perspective, but the truth is more complex.

Grim Career Prospects Dampen Next Gen Spend

Gen Z purchasing behavior is characterized by frugality and underconsumption. They aren’t the only ones clutching their wallets. Millennials are scaling back, too, and consumer confidence across the board recently plunged to a 12-year low. Speaking of millennials, Gen Z watched us go through recessions, pandemics, government shutdowns, and the advent of AI. When they see their university degree-holding predecessors struggle to leverage their decades in the workforce to make a liveable wage, it’s hard to believe in their own career prospects. After all, millennials started our careers when the job market was rife with opportunities, whereas all Gen Z knows is an Orwellian present.

You may think that, AI encouragement gap aside, at least Gen Z can look forward to a prosperous future, but future employment prospects are equally grim. Goldman Sachs economists David Mericle and Pierfrancesco Mei say that “jobless growth” will be the new normal. The middle class is eroding, and Gen Z literally cannot afford to spend like their predecessors did at their age. They’ve had to learn to express individuality in new ways: Showing off their taste through vintage finds and books rather than a prestige label. They are running marathons over buying Birkins.

When AI fluency defines our corporate future, unplugging may be the greatest form of luxury. How to individuate in a culture dominated by AI? Next gens are buying to express their individuality rather than conforming to a certain social caste. Their curated individual styles influence everything from how they decorate their homes to the notebooks they buy for class. They are shifting into using clothing to proclaim themselves to the world. Individuation is the antithesis of AI homogenization, and they’ll continue to differentiate themselves through fashion––as long as they can afford it.

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.

Retailers Should Be Wary of Trade School Grads

Mikelya Fournier — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

This is a true story. I am a veteran of the dysfunctional retail beauty training business. It’s not technically a scandal, but it’s a signal. This report isn’t just a complaint (well, sort of). I’m pulling back the curtain in an honest attempt to level up the profession and ensure that, ultimately customers walk away without any regrets. That starts with well-trained graduates who have experience in real-life situations, taught by working professionals who share their knowledge.

What’s a subtle reason retailers face so many returns? And the answer is: dysfunctional educational and trade school training.

A Cautionary Tale

I earned my beauty license after decades of working in natural hair. After nine grueling months of what felt like an endless pregnancy and then transitioning into the retail space, I found a disturbing disconnect between the classroom and performance on a retail sales floor. This is an industry-wide problem. If you ask any local retail manager, they’ll probably tell you they’re retraining new hires from scratch while eating the costs of avoidable returns. And that’s if the retailer still has a training program, which is another story, but at the root of the customer/sales associate disconnect. Bottom line: We should be concerned about how our sales associates and beauticians are being trained.

As a customer, walk into almost any beauty retailer, be it salon or anywhere else, and odds are you’ll leave with the wrong foundation shade, hair services that disappoint, and a skincare routine that misses the mark for your actual skin issue. As much as retail would like to make this a people problem, there’s no denying it’s very much an infrastructure problem. In short, the way we train beauty talent doesn’t match the way beauty is being sold or how consumers want to purchase it.

On the Big Stage

In the U.S. alone, the hair salon industry generates an estimated $60 billion in annual revenue. And a big chunk of this revenue engine is decided by the customer in front of the checkout counter. And that’s before you even get into what clients spend online maintaining results at home.

On the product side, the global professional hair-care channel is projected to be around $23.5 billion in 2025 worldwide. This includes products being moved through professional recommendations. The most notable powerhouses with the biggest portfolios are the ones that shape the industry because they’re the ones funding training and securing prime product placements on shelves. We’re talking L’Oréal, Paul Mitchell, Estée Lauder Companies (Aveda), and the likes.

Meanwhile, shiny new players like Olaplex and amika have entered this newer era where shoppers expect more than “this smells good and feels nice.” Olaplex set a standard by making haircare feel almost clinical with their exclusive product mechanisms and haircare routines. amika brought a whimsical spin on haircare but didn’t compromise on quality and community building. But all that momentum still collapses if associates can’t translate products into the right recommendation for a real face, scalp, or hair texture.

Retailers Feel the Pinch

Achieving desired personal beauty is, by definition, intimate. Retailers like Sephora or even the brands in most department stores lack a private space for personal consultation. These services are performed on the floor amidst the distractions of store traffic and demanding shoppers. Consumers already have high expectations when it comes to complexion accuracy and routine curation, and it’s so sad that too many customers are still walking out of the store with products that don’t align with their wants or needs.

Then, you have hybrid model retailers who promote the “store plus salon model” where there’s a solid educational backbone. But that doesn’t solve the problem of new beauty pros who hit the floor lacking in brand fluency. For example, in professional retail stores, associates at CosmoProf and Sally’s are often undertrained on the science of beauty—what works for which texture, tone, or regimen. To be blunt, what retailers fail to realize is that the counter is only as good as the training behind it.

Training Camps

Education has mostly moved online and on demand to teach standardized hair and beauty theory. Retailers and brand houses are also building supportive educational infrastructure internally. In a recent SEC filing, Ulta cited an education program that serves nearly 7,500 salon professionals, while Coty built an internal “Coty Campus” to upskill 11,000 employees. These initiatives are admirable. But where things fall short is the lack of post-secondary ongoing coursework that includes curriculum on retail sales or even how to work with the products that are in big box beauty retailers. In the beauty business, lifelong learning and frequent product updates are table stakes.

Excellent training isn’t cheap. Compared to a typical four-year college education ($100,000-$264,000), or two-year technical training ($10,000 -$30,000), trade school training is affordable. According to legacy beauty educator Milady, a typical U.S. cosmetology program runs around $16,000, including tuition, kit, and licensing.

Cosmetology programs are often underfunded, so when budgets are stretched, schools ration products and students are rationed on practice. In the long run, retailers are hurt because students show up to the workforce unprepared to properly service customers who eventually return products. As a reminder, processing a return can cost up to 59 percent of an item’s original price, which is a constant headache for retailers across the board.

The government is getting involved. The Gainful Employment rule directly ties federal aid to employment outcomes. Starting in 2026, students who enroll in an academic program that leaves them as graduates with debt they can’t afford will have to sign a disclosure notice. This new federal rule aims to provide families with more information about the costs and risks associated with programs. This means that educational programs that chronically deliver high debt and low earnings risk losing eligibility. Whether you love the policy or hate it, it’s forcing schools, brands, and retailers alike to tighten their investment alignment between training and real job results.

The Irrelevant Classroom

In beauty school, you get required reading, tests, and hands-on practice. That’s it! I never met brand reps from big beauty brands or learned about the products sold in stores. I had to research product information and experiment on my own, which was costly. My experience was not unique. The lack of real-life case studies, use cases, and professional experts as visiting teachers is a common practice.

Originally, I planned to use my license to offer more services at my salon, but then I pivoted to test my skills by working at a salon in a major beauty retailer. Here’s what I noticed, and these lessons can be generalized to other training education/programs, which should give any retail leader pause.

Board prep is more important than job readiness. Most programs teach licensure requirements, which emphasize safety, sanitation, and basic technique. Even during the middle of my studies, I was forced to sign a paper that stripped me of a cosmetology diploma (never mind the money I paid for core curriculum courses) and replaced it with a “certificate for licensure.” Aside from the switch-pitch credentials, the training was out of touch with the real world. What is not taught are on-site skills. Employees need to be speedy, adept at good consultations, and have retail smarts. New grads often struggle with building routines, picking the right product for the customer, or finishing a service on time. This leads to longer appointments, fewer product sales, and inconsistent services in the retail environment.
Too many gaps in product fluency. I was never taught about specific product lines in school. Our inventory was random, nonexistent, or watered down. Can you imagine bleaching someone’s hair and realizing you have no toners? Learning how products work together was not in the curriculum. As a result, on the retail floor, graduates don’t know how to deal with different textures, finishes, or shade systems. It’s hard to be loyal to brands or make good recommendations without prior experience with said brands. Retailers feel the impact of this immediately. Workers who don’t look at beauty as an ecosystem and don’t suggest related products for upsells, result in customers returning purchases due to dissatisfaction.
Tight budgets limit hands-on practice. In my case, paying $800 for a toolkit of shears, a razor, rollers, perm rods, a blow dryer, a flat iron, and three mannequin heads for one year was crazy. I also ran out of materials halfway through the course and had to buy more. There was a lack of real-life professionals who could demonstrate faster styling techniques and makeup shade matching. Training for completing a sales routine was missing, which is so integral for being an asset to a retailer.
Drastically underdeveloped soft skills. Soft skills aren’t part of a state board exam. Inclusive consultations? Expectation setting? Service recovery? Empathy? These skills are treated as optional, but when you break into retail, they are most certainly non-negotiable. These skills are at the heart of building trust with customers; they reduce buyer’s remorse and protect store margins.

What’s the Fix?
For starters, any school curriculum has to be closely aligned with real retail tasks. Brand-backed product modules and tracking practice hours tied to actual product assortments should be requisite. Assessing soft skills alongside technical ones is critical.

Programs that teach the consult, the match, and the close while measuring accuracy and speed will produce graduates who are truly ready for the sales floor. Retail needs graduates who can perform on day one. Until training mirrors the realities of the sales floor, there’s a serious disconnect.

My solution is to make school look like the retail floor, then measure outcomes the same way retailers do.

Tie curriculum directly to product use. If you want confident recommendations, train on the actual product assortments graduates will use in stores. Plug brand academies and retailer modules into required coursework (complexion mapping, curl systems, scalp health) and verify competency with short assessments.
Build “workforce labs” that connect the classroom to the counter. Co-create cohort rotations with nearby schools inside select stores where students can complete live consults, timed services, and real shade-matching under staff supervision. This could serve as a candidate qualifying tool by tying hiring to lab performance versus only conducting interviews.
Lower the cost of practice. It would certainly help to underwrite student kits with tiered brand sponsorships and retailer grants. To track progress, require utilization reporting so the products and tools turn into practice hours.

Postscript

I came to school with 20-plus years in natural haircare. I expected to add precision cutting, color theory, and a retail-ready consult. Instead, I was immersed in a system designed to pass a test. This isn’t an indictment against instructors; it’s about aligning programs that mirror real life.

I think the beauty industry sees education as charity, not a way to help retail success. When new beauty pros know products and are confident in consults, sales go up, and returns go down. We have the technology, the programs, and the pressure from government regulations. So, what’s the issue? If schools, stores, and services align, retailers will see profits rise.

Is Netflix House the Next Big Retail Thing?

Warren Shoulberg — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

I have seen the future of the Great American Shopping Mall…maybe. And I survived. As department stores crash and burn, specialty chains fold up like cheap lawn chairs, and food courts become Ozempic victims, a new potential victor has arrived on the retail scene. And it’s not coming from a traditional retailing company, startup from techdom or a visitor from another planet. It’s from a streaming entertainment behemoth.

Is Netflix House a new retail paradigm? And the answer is: More likely it’s the latest shiny, new retail toy. But it does have a few superpowers: capturing the attention, imagination and wallets of its loyal fans. Is it sustainable with repeat visits? We’ll see.

Streaming Retail

Netflix House is the latest riff in retailing, with its first two stores having opened late last year, and at least one more on the way in 2027 in Las Vegas. It represents a potential new format that could rescue shopping malls from the ongoing deterioration in American retailing. Then again, it could be the latest colossal failure in a long line of retail concepts that promised big things and ended up with padlocked doors and large going-out-of-business signs in their windows. Or worse, dream malls that became food courts and carnivals.

I just got back from Dallas, where Netflix House has set up shop; its other location is in King of Prussia, PA. And I’m here to tell you it’s exciting, innovative and was packed on a busy Saturday afternoon. Whether it will succeed is, of course, an entirely different matter. We’ll see how it fares in a whimsical customer-driven retail marketplace.

What’s in the House?

The Dallas Netflix store, opened in December in what had once been a Belk store in the still popular upscale Galleria, including Nordstrom, Macy’s, Louis Vuitton, an ice-skating rink and architecture inspired by Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele shopping space. Netflix measures out at 100,000 square feet on two floors with direct access from both the interior and exterior of the mall (with a big red square emblazoned on the store’s wall that Netflix hailed as an homage to its mail-in DVD envelope origins). The King of Prussia store is similar in design.

While it’s free to enter, once inside, the meter starts running the minute you actually want to do anything. The star attractions are two interactive experiences (c’mon, what else can you call them?) based on wildly popular Netflix series: Stranger Things Escape the Dark and Squid Games Survive the Trials. Tickets for these immersive experiences run about $40, depending on the timed entry and other factors. What do you get for that? Good question. As we were clearly not the right target demographic for either room (in fact our mere appearance at the place brought up the average age of the crowd by a factor of two), all we can tell you is that they are part game room, part escape room and part nightmare. The Stranger Things room carries a “parental supervision required for guests under 14 due to graphic content” warning.

Long lines to enter both spaces called “Studios” on a busy Saturday afternoon seemed to indicate they had winners on their hands, though you have to wonder how many repeat visitors these kinds of things will get. We also thought it odd that both these experiences were located on the lower level of the place (we can’t quite call it a store) rather than more visibly on the larger main floor. For such a hot ticket, it seems shortsighted to have only one kiosk on-site to purchase tickets. But just like movie theaters, the popular online ticketing service guarantees timed reservations.

Level Up

The main floor showcased the Netflix Bites restaurant, which, in addition to the usual teenage wasteland burgers, pizza and fries assortment, features a few Netflix property-themed offerings such as Red Bite Green Bite fried chicken and Perfect Pickle Pie. If you have to ask, you probably are sticking with the burger. There’s a bar with more Netflix tie-ins like Streaming Optimism and Passion on Demand. There’s also plenty of giant servings of iced tea; this is the South, after all. It should be noted that Netflix road-tested the Bites concept last year with pop-ups in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, both of which are now closed as the company has moved to the House concept.

Then there’s the game room, called RePlay, featuring a wide assortment of arcade games, many of which are naturally themed to Netflix properties and offer multi-player competitive contests. Again, Netflix’s targets of loyal fans (and next gens) totally get how to play these games

The Merch

Of course, there’s the prerequisite, high-margin gift shop. It’s huge, maybe 10,000 square feet and full of anything and everything you’d ever want in Netflix products. Given the creativity shown in the rest of the House, we were a bit disappointed to see a fairly standard assortment of apparel, water bottles and fashion accessories with only the occasional inspired item. How could they not sell squid?

No matter, the lines were long here, snaking through a checkout lane that offered last-minute pick-up items in the best tradition of a Bed Bath & Beyond and Sephora. And they weren’t giving anything away either, mind you.

Is a House a Store?

As well done as Netflix House is on most levels, let’s remember it’s not exactly a new concept. Disney tried—and failed—with urban shopping area themed attractions two decades ago. In the 1990s, Radio Shack rolled out a giant retail concept called Incredible Universe which, while it didn’t include interactive areas, was a theme park kind of experience. It too failed. And American Dream in the swamps of Jersey is nothing if not an amusement park masquerading as a shopping center with rides, a water park, ice skating and enough interactive storefronts to keep a family of four occupied (and broke) for days at a time. It remains to be seen if it will be the success its developers keep saying it will become. All said, the Harry Potter immersive stores seem to be holding up.

If you’re in the retail business, you really need to see a Netflix House. It is onto the most compelling reasons for retail to succeed: customer engagement, surprise and delight. It captures the imagination and attention, plus the dollars of its fans. See for yourself and decide if this is truly the next big thing. Retailing has always been a game. It’s Netflix’s (potentially) winning move right now.

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.

Creeping Out Customers Is the New Normal

Jasmine Glasheen — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Brand marketing has long hawked the illusion of perfection with flawless models, soft lighting, and “aspirational,” i.e., highly photoshopped beauty. But walk into a store right now, and you’re just as likely to see models with contorted faces and gothic product packaging. Take Elf Beauty’s new “corpse paint” collab with Liquid Death water, which is literally packaged in mini coffins. Brands like Elf, that cater to Gen Z, are intentionally creeping out customers to cut through the noise of an oversaturated market…and it’s working.

The creep-out trend is driven by a greater aesthetic shift away from the pursuit of perfection, which smacks of AI’s veneer. Next gens are moving away from the dated and increasingly unattainable, idealized “filtered look” towards Uncanny Valley, reflecting today’s dystopian elements of the economic and political landscape. Whether it’s Columbia’s social media account for the Grim Reaper or everyone and their mom walking out with Wednesday’s dark lipstick, these looks leverage the psychology of fright to create an indelible memory, both glamorous and otherwise.

That discomfort creates thumb-stopping content. Look at millennial skincare brand The Ordinary’s “Periodic Fable” video, a hack on the “non-scientific” table with actors coated with dystopian facial masks promoting the truth about beauty, not exactly the aspirational look we’re used to from beauty brands. But therein lies its genius. Their truth is a shot of adrenaline that triggers a stronger trust to purchase than the uniform, airbrushed celebrity endorsements. Next gens are informed; they know Kim K isn’t really drinking that diet tea.

The human mind remembers what stands out and, for this most individualistic generation, uniqueness is the top signal. These creepy dabbles into darker tropes are meant to differentiate the brand and delight the cynical, overstimulated consumers they’re meant to target. More mature consumers may be alienated by the same content, although they’re missing the point. Brands that cater to wider age ranges have to walk a fine line: go too dark, you’ll alienate a loyal customer base; be too uniform, and next gens won’t remember your ad at all. The key takeaway? If you want to connect with next gens, go to the dark side and embrace the shadows.

The State of Gen Z in 2026: The Checked-Out Generation

Jasmine Glasheen — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

The generation we thought would be radically progressive is now embracing tradwife aesthetics. In 2026, we anticipate Gen Z purchasing behavior to continue in a disturbing trend: They’re spending less and expecting more from retailers––affordable, upscale-style brands that align with their values. And affordability isn’t an afterthought, either. In a five-year review of Gen Z consumers, PwC found that more than 79 percent wait for products to go on sale, and only 21 percent regularly pay full price.

Who could fault Gen Z for being discerning? Headlines are rife with tales of the unfriendly “no-hire, no-fire” labor market they’re trying to break into, and a generational mental health crisis that now seems could last their whole lifespan. Political and economic uncertainty dog them around every turn, and job opportunities are few. Gen Z is a politically bifurcated demographic of stressed-out, risk-averse consumers facing career stagnation and uncertainty in 2026. Let’s talk about how their lifestyle differs from previous generations and how to sell to them.

Why are so many young consumers disconnected from popular influencer memes? And the answer is: They no longer see their future in influencers (or Emily) wearing Balenciaga boots to frolic in Paris when they have more in common with the person working the McDonald’s counter.

The Economic Reality

It’s hard to sell the American Dream to a demographic for whom it feels unattainable. Gen Z’s obsession with the 2010s “Millennial Optimism Era” isn’t indicative of a longing for financial certainty. Millennials faced the aftershocks of the Great Recession and, according to a Pew Research Center report from 2014, were the “first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income.”

But that still feels halcyon to people in their early 20s today. Unemployment is up 2.1 percent for consumers aged 20–24. That number is even higher for those aged 16–19, up 3.5 points. Oxford Economics estimates that 1 million more young adults are living at home than pre-pandemic trends indicated. Gen Z is entering a less hospitable professional playing field than their predecessors faced, so it only makes sense they’re reluctant to spend.

Does it really surprise retailers that twenty-somethings still living with their parents are more concerned with survival than ephemeral fashion trends? Oxford Economics found that consumers who still live at home spend $1200 less annually than their peers who move out, creating a $12-13 billion hit to U.S. consumption. Critics often point to the fact that Gen Z has less student loan debt than their predecessors, assumiung their more positive economic prospects. To put this in perspective, credit card delinquencies are actually rising, which points to an alarming trend: Gen Z is spending less and still falling behind.

A Generation Raised on Quantification

Gen Z was raised on metrics. They learned to chase social media likes and high test scores before they could drive. They were funnelled into the high-pressure American education system, where schools operate like publicly traded companies. Of course, their mental health would be suffering. Nearly 1 in 4 17-year-old boys have ADHD, nearly 32 percent of adolescents have been diagnosed with anxiety, and more than one in 10 have experienced a major depressive disorder.

A generation raised on the constant quantification of social media is now entering adulthood, only to be met with a grim reality of the current job market, which holds few opportunities to reach the success metrics they see on social media. Like their millennial predecessors, “first” homes and mortgages feel unattainable to Gen Z. Perhaps it’s the lack of opportunity that’s made Gen Z nostalgic for a time in which they’ve never lived and returning to tradition where they can revive old fashion, beauty, and lifestyle norms.

Being thin has returned as the model body standard in fashion. While some luxury brands like Coach are still outspokenly size inclusive, many brands are once again pivoting away from crafting clothing that fits their core consumer base to court an unattainable body ideal.

Aesthetics Shift to Identify In-Groups

The U.S. political climate is causing a bifurcation in next-gen fashion proclivities between those who ascribe to a “return to traditional values” and those who don’t. Next gens are watching brands they once loved for their unretouched inclusivity (anyone remember AE’s Aerie line?) that drank the Kool-Aid and began catering to the tradwife aesthetic with modest prairie dresses and the Ozempic-fueled re-engineering of body positivity. Heroin chic 90s aesthetics are back. The dystopian feeling of witnessing celebrities who were once body positivity icons dwindle away is yet another nod to the creep-out aesthetic that’s dominating every vertical, from fashion to CPG.

Fashion is becoming more about in-group identification between gender bifurcated “traditional values” customers and those for whom self-expression and inclusivity are still a priority. Fashion also reflects the strained job market with pandemic styles like athleisure, pajama dressing, and quiet luxury falling by the wayside. Fueled by nostalgia for the millennial hipster life of the 2010s and a strained job market, young people are wearing office attire everywhere.

The Voice of Reason

The Gen Z consumer of 2026 is overwhelmed, still living at home, and nostalgic about fashion. Many are no longer spending to express their individuality; they are spending to express their values in a politically bifurcated society. In this environment, the old methods of aspirational marketing no longer work. Young consumers no longer see their future in influencers (or Emily) wearing Balenciaga boots to frolic in Paris when they have more in common with the person working the McDonald’s counter.

Ignoring Gen Z’s sober economic reality will only alienate them. Instead, meet them where they are (their parents’ house) with transparency, value, and awareness while they weather the storm. And, for goodness’ sake, don’t pull your plus-size section.

Shein Gets Bookish with New Alibris Collab

Jasmine Glasheen — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 05:01:00 +0000

When you think of rare books, do you think about Chinese fast fashion retailer, Shein? You soon will, as Shein is following in H&M and Zara’s footsteps by expanding into lifestyle categories. However, unlike H&M and Zara, Shein is dealing with declining apparel sales by honing in on intellectually curious readers—partnering with used books retailer, Alibris, to offer more than 100,000 cross-genre titles—including affordable textbooks for students.

Shein’s Alibris partnership points to the greater trend of fast-fashion retailers seeking competitive differentiators beyond low prices in light of massive import tariffs. While Shein and Temu had long been transitioning to local fulfillment centers to circumvent tariffs before the de minimis exemption ended, they now must compete with U.S.-based discount retailers with better reputations, like Old Navy. Let’s take a look at the current retail climate and why fast-fashion retailers like Shein are experimenting with lifestyle categories to stay relevant.

The Shein-Alibris partnership points to a greater retail trend: product assortments as a branding move. As consumers navigate economic uncertainty, there’s a strong chance that apparel will take another hit. But people will always spend on their hobbies and interests.

Tariffs Call for Differentiation Beyond Price

Fast-fashion brands are hustling in the face of U.S.-China tariffs. Price increases abound and, in May, the Washington Post reported a price hike of 43 percent on a sampling of women’s clothes on Shein. Whether a result of U.S.-China tariffs or increasing social pressure not to buy from environmentally destructive fast-fashion brands, Shein was losing U.S. customers, and it wasn’t alone in this. Chinese fast-fashion retailers like Shein and Temu can’t offer the low prices that once made them competitive. Customers noticed the price hike and altered their shopping behavior to reflect this change.

U.S.-based discount retailers like Old Navy, Kohls, and Nordstrom Rack have been reaping the benefits since tariffs began. So have value stores like Savers Value Village. In October, Shein sales reportedly declined 8 percent YoY. In May, Michael Gunther, Head of Insights at Consumer Edge, told Chain Store Age, “The data isn’t just showing a slight dip—we’re seeing a rapid reallocation of spend from these popular Chinese discount platforms.”

At first, it looked like the Chinese discount retailer boom of recent years might come to an end. But the fast-fashion behemoth still plans to almost double profits in 2025, from $1.1 billion to $2 billion this year. Shein’s strategy to achieve said profits in light of unprecedented tariffs? Localizing shipping centers is just part of the puzzle. Shein is also following in the footsteps of H&M, Zara, and even Temu by diversifying their offerings.

Identity-Driven Consumers Love Brands that Get It

The retail industry has long been driven by the relationship between brand identity and customer identity. In the olden days (prior to year 2000), it was all about brands building awareness to create the illusion of trust. Today, brands need to exhibit the values and cultural markers of their core customer base—such as dialect, aesthetic sensibility, awareness of purchasing priorities, etc. Generation Z is identity-driven, so retailers’ need to reflect their consumers will only strengthen as next gens step into their adult career paths and strengthen their buying power.

PWC highlights this relationship in “The Gen Z Paradox,” saying, “It turns out Gen Z isn’t just price-conscious. They’re value-conscious, with an emphasis on emotional and social value, not just discounts.” Think about that aforementioned emotional and social value in terms of retailers like Shein choosing to expand into lifestyle categories––the categories they choose to offer are as much a branding opportunity as a sales opportunity. For next gens, emotional and social value is achieved when they see their unique identities reflected through the more obvious retail marketing, yes, but also in the inventory of their favorite brands and retailers.

Fast-fashion brands like Shein are creating correlations between their platform and lifestyle categories that speak to the consumers they want to target. In a proprietary survey, more than half of survey respondents from Shein’s customer base said they read “one to three books a month.” And what better way to show consumers your brand reflects their lifestyle than to stock a category like rare books, that’s ignored by other brands in Shein’s price bracket?

Fast Fashion Retailers Do “Lifestyle” Now

Shein is not the first-fast fashion retailer to offer a more diverse product mix. Retailers that are historically value-conscious, like fast-fashion retailers, caught on that adding categories can help them attract consumers beyond their usual value-conscious base back in the early aughts. In fact, H&M and Zara have been on the expansion track since the early 2000s, whereas Chinese retailers Temu and Shein only recently followed suit.

H&M

Home goods were once relegated to luxury and mid-market sectors. But millennials are all grown up and, guess what? We still can’t afford an $85 towel. Swedish fast fashion retailer H&M caught onto this disparity, branching out into home goods under the banner of democratizing categories that were once reserved for the wealthy. Now H&M is soft launching H&M Beauty with clean, often vegan cosmetics, self-care, and hair products that haven’t been subjected to animal testing.

Why?

H&M says their expansion into beauty is a natural step given their brand positioning. “Our positioning is not about exclusivity,” H&M beauty global general manager, Cathrine Wigzell, told The Times of India, “but about making high-quality, fashion-forward beauty available to everyone.”

Zara

Zara was one of the first-fast fashion retailers to diversify its offerings, expanding into homeware with its Zara Home line back in the early 2000s. However, in 2021, the retailer launched Zara Beauty and recently launched a Zara Hair line in collaboration with the division’s new creative director, Guido Palau. Zara even has its toes in the experiential retail pond with Zacaffé, an in-store café concept.

Why?

Zara branched out into home goods for similar reasons as H&M, there was a market for low-cost home goods, and they wanted to keep their millennial consumer base, which was spending less on apparel when tariffs first hit. But Zara’s foray into hair care with its private label line truly set them apart. While H&M and Zara compete for value consumers’ beauty spend, H&M is quickly gaining a monopoly on hair with its own low-cost, celebrity stylist-affiliated haircare line.

Brand Building Through Product Assortments

The Shein-Alibris partnership points to a greater retail trend: product assortments as a branding move. As consumers navigate economic uncertainty, there’s a strong chance that apparel will take another hit. But people will always spend on their hobbies and interests, whether it’s the escapism afforded by a rare Russian novel from Shein, or the fortifying power of a cruelty-free Zara lip gloss with a strong punch of color.

A final word of caution: Think of branching out into new categories as a branding move. Retailers that look for a lifestyle fit as profit potential will be best positioned for long-term success.

Creeping Out Customers Is the New Normal

Jasmine Glasheen — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 05:01:00 +0000

Until recently, the concept of trusted household name brands like Heinz, Columbia, and Burger King using creep-out marketing tactics was unfathomable. But it’s 2025 and, like most things the old guard said would never come to pass, we’re seeing legacy brands dip their toes in subversive waters once relegated to campaigns from niche startups. From Heinz ketchup’s macabre take on the old milk mustache trope featuring Joker-like “Heinz Smiles” to Gushers “Fruithead” video series, we’re seeing an unprecedented level of subversive and scary brand marketing.

Let’s look at the factors driving retail’s shift to the macabre, the brands doing it right, and how to roll out creepy marketing without alienating your consumer base.

Generation Z seeks out unpolished emotional experiences from brands, but the same subversive societal critiques that pique next gen’s interest may alienate traditional consumers.

A Shot of Adrenaline to Customers’ Wallets

Creep-out marketing tactics draw upon emotions that cut through the noise of the oversaturated retail landscape. This year, brands realized that there’s sound psychology behind creep-out marketing, which is why brands we’d never expect are now taking big risks with creepy visuals that would’ve alienated our predecessors. I recently covered the overwhelm next gens face when they encounter overstimulating physical and digital retail spaces and how low-stimuli spaces can help next gens feel comfortable in stores. Creep-out marketing cuts through overwhelm in a different way: by stimulating consumers’ emotions.

Have you ever heard the saying “no publicity is bad publicity?” This theory may no longer have legs in light of today’s political unrest. But could this theory hold true in terms of evoking consumer emotion? Is no emotion a bad emotion when it comes to evoking consumers’ intent to purchase? People don’t forget what makes them feel, whether it’s through tender moments or making them fear for their lives for a split second. The Harvard Business Review described our attraction to horror themes, saying, “Exposure to terrifying acts, or even the anticipation of those acts, can stimulate us (. . .) Fright can trigger the release of adrenaline, resulting in heightened sensations and surging energy.”

And brands are catching on. Unsettling ads permeated every aesthetically driven retail sector in 2025, from fashion, skincare and food to software solutions, consumer packaged goods and the resurgence of wrought iron in home décor.

The Goth Aesthetic Reigns Again

Fashion responds to the zeitgeist of the times, and creep-out marketing is emerging in a time when gothic fashion is coming back with a bang, reflecting society’s reaction to an imbalanced economy and political unrest. The goth aesthetic emerged on the tail end of a period of unemployment and economic uncertainty in the late 70s in Britain, when youth turned to a dark aesthetic to express their inner turmoil. The 2007-2009 recession brought new life to goth fashion; black clothing and smudged eye makeup became the norm.

Last year, Vogue said it’s “Showtime for the Goth Revival.” This year, Coveteur asked why beauty has become so unsettling. Many journalists point to the goth aesthetic as a recession indicator. While the correlation is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, parallels abound between the current economic and political climates and those preceding past crises. Perhaps most notably, financial Reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin spoke to Vanity Fair about the parallels between the economy in 1929 before the Great Depression and the global financial climate today. Once again, consumers are aesthetically and emotionally drawn to the macabre and smart brands across verticals are already heeding the call.

What could be more indicative of the Gothic revival than its influence on CPG goods and software? Enter the Halloween-themed “Fruithead” horror film from Gushers and Yahoo Mail’s “Reply All Is Scary” ad. Even sportswear brands like Columbia are taking a walk on the dark side. As part of its “engineered for whatever” campaign, Columbia came out with a Death Wishes line with a “Last Will and Testament” sewn into each piece. The cheeky slogan of “Columbia makes its gear so tough it could outlive you” and a Grim Reaper character, @Reaper_1938 on TikTok and Instagram, topped off the campaign.

Creep-Out Marketing Cuts Through Conformity

Generation Z seeks out unpolished emotional experiences from brands, but the same subversive societal critiques that pique next gen’s interest may alienate traditional consumers. Take this ad called “Periodic Fable” from millennial skincare brand, The Ordinary. While some say the ad responds to the perfectionism of the beauty industry, others maintain that it critiques buzzy skincare lines that don’t perform as promised. The actors in the ad uniformly tap their strangely contorted faces as they repeat skincare buzzwords in tandem. But this creepy ad, created in partnership with Uncommon Creative Studio has inspired discussion way beyond the Halloween ad push.

The creep-out trend is a sharp departure from the days when brands simply hired attractive celebrities to apply their products in slow motion outdoors. Together with the goth revival, creep-out marketing tactics will continue in 2026. However, just like there are numerous subversive subcultures that fall under the goth umbrella: steampunk, cybergoth, gothabilly––brands using creep-out marketing tactics will need to find the unique approach that resonates with their customer base.

There’s a disparity in how consumers respond to creepy tropes, with younger audiences (18-24) responding most favorably to horror tropes. Consumer data is brands’ guiding star when determining whether creep-out marketing initiatives will resonate with their customers. Brands with a significant segment of mature consumers might opt for the more kitsch side of creepy, like Columbia’s “Grim Reaper” character. Others will aim to mesmerize consumers with an eerie horror art film they’ll never forget, à la The Ordinary. Overstimulated customers need a strong sensory reboot, and creep-out marketing provides them with just that. So, going into 2026, there’s no question about it: from apparel to software and CPG, something wicked this way comes.