Factories based in the world’s second biggest garments exporter were closed for days following an uprising last week, sparked by the former prime minister’s government clamping down on student protesters, the Financial Times reported. 

Clothes and shoes deliveries to Europe and North American for the winter season have been delayed due to weeks of violence in the country.

Factories have turned to shipping goods by air and working overtime to make up for its backlog extending as far as a month.

Exporters in the country said some major retailers had moved their orders for upcoming seasons to other south-east Asian suppliers, leading to global supply chain disruption.

Mamun Rashid, an adviser to garment manufacturers in Bangladesh, M said: “For the time being, we’re diverting 40% of our orders to Cambodia or Indonesia.”

Many global retailers rely on the country for its garments, including fashion giant H&M and sports goods retailer Decathlon.

Earlier this month, it was reported that H&M, Uniqlo and Zara were facing potential delays in receiving their latest clothing collections due to the current political unrest in the region.

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The move will see the sportswear specialist hold onto its ecommerce rights to run the official online England store, and physical shops during England home games, domestic cup finals and concerts at Wembley Stadium.

The retailer is also set to act as the FA’s official partner in sourcing new licensees, which it said would ensure its “merchandise remains best-in-class across all categories”.

Fanatics said the Euros had been a record-breaking tournament for its England merchandise revenues, with the team’s 2024 kit roll out having “shattered site records on launch day”.

Fanatics international president Stephen Dowling said: “It is a pleasure and a privilege to expand our relationship with the FA and continue to serve fans of the Three Lions and Lionesses, two of the most iconic sides in world football.

“Fan optimism and belief around the England teams is at an all-time high coming off both the Euros this summer and the recent success of the Lionesses, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with the FA to bring England fans around the world closer to their favourite players and the national teams.”

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Titled ‘That’s So Primark’, the fashion retailer is introducing itself to American consumers and “inviting them to fall in love with its value, quality and style”.

The retailer, which is targeting up to 60 US stores, said the campaign is a natural extension of its new global creative platform, designed to educate Americans on what it means to be ‘so Primark’.

The brand awareness campaign, created in partnership with creative agency VCCP, is rooted in two hero films: ‘Window with a View’ and ‘Fall Again’, which will run across connected TV, streaming services, digital, social, radio, out of home and digital.

Primark global chief customer officer Michelle McEttrick said: “Across Europe, Primark is known as the place to shop for people who want to look good and feel good, without breaking the bank.

“Primark is still relatively unknown in the US, so we want to spread the word to savvy shoppers that they don’t need to sacrifice style if they’re on a budget.

“Whether they’re looking for head-turning statement pieces, or everyday wardrobe essentials, we want to give American consumers the chance to fall in love with their closet over and over again.”

The fashion retailer currently has 25 stores in the US, across 10 states. In its first half, sales in the country jumped 38.4% driven by new store openings, which it said had “performed well”.

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Revenues nudged up 1% to £79.4m from £75.1m last year.

The jewellery giant noted its UK performance remained ahead of the market, which it said was being impacted by dampened consumer sentiment.

It also attributed a rise in traffic during the quarter to the “improving strength of the Pandora brand despite the tough consumer backdrop”.

Across the global business, profit rose 12.7% to £153.1m, while sales grew 14.9% to £774.8m.

Pandora CEO and president Alexander Lacik said: “Our strategy continues to take Pandora to new heights despite general consumer spending being somewhat sluggish.

“We have successfully started the journey to make Pandora known as a full jewellery brand, and our results show that consumers like what they see.”

He added: “Thanks to our strong performance, we are again raising revenue guidance for 2024 and look to the second half of the year with optimism.”

The results come amid a wider challenging market for the luxury sector, with Burberry’s annual profit plunging 36% earlier this year.

The luxury fashion retailer said its like-for-like sales fell 12% in the final quarter, wiping out gains made earlier in the year.

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Tesco

Tesco revealed at the start of the month it has more than doubled the size of its online marketplace less than two months after it launched.

The UK’s biggest grocer is now listing more than 20,000 products from third-party sellers across garden, DIY, homeware, toys, sports, baby, beauty and petcare – up from the 9,000 SKUs initially.

The supermarket giant launched the marketplace in June, claiming it would become “one-stop shop for everything customers need” once it reaches full scale.

It’s not the first time that the retailer has dabbled in marketplaces, having launched Tesco Direct in 2012.

However, the grocer shut down the venture six years later, when it described it as a “small, loss-making part of the business” which had “no route to profitability”.

B&Q

B&Q revealed earlier this year that it was targeting two million products available on its marketplace by the end of next year as it continues to expand its online offer.

The retailer’s head of marketplace Tristan Commecy told Retail Gazette the platform is “still very much in the high growth phase” almost two years after launching with 300,000 products from 400 sellers.

Now entering its third year, the marketplace has over 1.2m products available from more than 1,000 sellers and represents 41% of the B&Q’s total online sales – up from 13% in 2022.

Ann Summers

Ann Summers became the latest retailer to launch its own marketplace last month when it unveiled Knickerbox.com.

The lingerie retailer described the platform as the “ultimate house of underwear”, with customers able to shop from 15 brands such as Calvin Klein Underwear, Lemonade Dolls, Curvy Kate, and Nudea.

Ann Summers said the marketplace, which will not sell sex toys or accessories, was a solution to its online business being challenged by Safe Search restrictions, which “reduces the visibility of the Ann Summers website and results in a large number of our customers unable to find it”, due to its range of adult toys.

Debenhams

Debenhams become the UK’s largest marketplace across fashion, beauty, sport and homeware in 2021 when it launched its platform.

The retailer, which was snapped up by Boohoo Group out of administration earlier that year, launched with an offer of 70,000 products.

Earlier this year, Boohoo Group reported “strong growth” in the Debenhams marketplace, and heralded its “capital-light, stockless model” for driving high margin growth.

It said that to improve profitability in its non-core labels, it has been transitioning them to the Debenhams marketplace, which it said was starting to bear fruit.

The platform now sells from over 3,500 brands – more than double the 1,600 it sold from the year before and around a third of its target to offer over 10,000 brands by the end of this year.

It’s unsurprising that Boohoo Group is looking to emulate the success of the online department store’s marketplace for its own flagship brand, which is set to launch at the end of this month.

Superdrug

Superdrug’s online health and beauty marketplace launched in 2022 and now lists over 22,000 products.

The platform is integrated onto Superdrug.com where third-party marketplace items sit alongside products it has always stocked.

Superdrug ecommerce, customer, and marketing director Matt Walburn told Retail Gazette the percentage of sales that go through marketplace “is increasing all the time”.

He said the platform recorded its biggest ever week outside of Christmas in June and is “on track to hit our targets for this year which is great”.

Walburn says that the marketplace allows Superdrug to quickly move into new trend areas and categories that it can’t launch in its physical stores, like fashion and Halloween costumes.

“Halloween is a big event for Superdrug…but we’ve never been able to add outfits alongside [make-up]. This is just an example of where the marketplace comes into its own.”

The Range

The Range launched its online marketplace in the Autumn of 2020 after discovering that 30% of the products it sold online over the summer had come from third-party suppliers.

A year later, the platform featured around 3,000 products, spanning general merchandise categories including furniture, electronics, lighting and DIY.

Almost four years later and the discount platform’s marketplace has grown more than tenfold to over 340,000 products, covering clothing and fragrances from Gucci, Dior and Maison Francis Kurkdjian too.

Mountain Warehouse

Mountain Warehouse launched its own online marketplace back in 2022 as it sought to provide a one-stop-shop with access to a wider range of outdoor clothing and equipment.

While sellers are expected to handle customer returns, tracking, pricing and second-line customer care, Mountain Warehouse offers access to its customer base and support with onboarding, data and customer insights, marketing, first-line customer care and the processing of orders.

The outdoor retailer revealed last week it now stocks more than 320 brands via its marketplace and sales through its third-party labels have skyrocketed over 150% year on year.

Online sales for the business grew 2.2% over in the year to February 25, accounting for almost a third of revenue compared to just under a quarter it represented prior to the pandemic.

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The Singapore-headquartered fast fashion giant is said to be looking for a large site within the Midlands’ “golden logistics triangle”, The Telegraph reported.

The fashion retailer sent a team of representatives to the UK to view prospective sites in the past few months, including in locations such as Castle Donington, Coventry, Daventry and Derby.

Shein is targeting buildings between 300,000sq ft and 400,000 sq ft – but it also understood to be considering warehouses as large as 600,000 sq ft.

It is understood the company is looking for a building that is already fitted out to handle ecommerce operations instead of building its own facility.

The retailer’s decision on a warehouse will be dependent upon its London IPO, as well as negotiations with its current third-party provider Super Smart Service, which handles the company’s UK orders from a Cannock warehouse.

The fashion giant is understood to have filed the initial paperwork with the Financial Conduct Authority in June.

However, the retailer has faced steep criticism from industry leaders since who are concerned over its use of a legal tax loophole for overseas shipments that have given the company an unfair advantage.

A Shein spokesman told the publication: “To support the growth of the business, Shein is actively exploring warehousing locations worldwide. However, Shein has no immediate plans to acquire warehouse space in the UK.”

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The grocery giant said it would give customers more information on each garment in its F&F fashion collection, including where the materials in each product have been sourced from, The Telegraph reported.

The move comes as Brussels works to improve supply chain transparency by launching new rules where businesses across the euro area are required to bring out digital product passports (DPPs).

Under the rules, which are set to be rolled out over different industries during the next eight years, companies will need to give shoppers detailed information on the materials used in their goods and their environmental impact.

Alongside the scheme, new requirements on how retailers manage their stock, including a ban on destroying unsold clothes, are being implemented. Firms that fail to follow the rules will receive fines and may be barred from selling products across the EU.

Tesco head of technical Joe Little told the newspaper: “DPPs represent an important step forward, encouraging and promoting sustainable and circular practices.”

In March, M&S-backed Nobody’s Child launched digital product passports in a bid to “underscore the brand’s commitment to elevating transparency, championing sustainable values and fostering a deeper connection with their conscious community”.

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The outdoor clothing specialist bounced back into the black over the year, making a £26.2m pre-tax profit, compared with a £1.5m loss the prior year when it was hit by incremental Covid-19 costs.

CEO Mark Neale put its strong performance down to shoppers flocking back to the high street post-pandemic and to capitalise on this, it opened 28 stores over the year, and 20 more since the year end. 

Store sales climbed 7.1% over the last year, helped by the new stores.

Neale said: “During Covid a lot of people were claiming nobody was ever going to visit stores again and their days were numbered. We never believed that, and it has proved to be wide of the mark.”

“Whilst our online business had a big boost during the pandemic, we kept investing in stores and their success shows customers relish choice and the opportunity to shop how and when they want.”

The new stores included 21 in the UK where it more than doubled the size of its Covent Garden branch and took on the ex-Wilko site in Cornwall, as well as eight international shops, including its first in Brisbane Australia.

It has already secured more Australian sites in Melbourne, which will open before the end of October. The retailer already has a strong business in neighbouring New Zealand, with 24 stores opened over the past six years.

Neale said: “The first customer we served in Brisbane was buying a jacket for a coach tour around Scotland. The next one needed gear for a trek up Mount Fuji. Australians love the outdoors, they love to travel and explore, and we’re hoping that they will soon love Mountain Warehouse as well.”

Mountain Warehouse plans to open up to 50 more branches and relocations globally in its current financial year.

In the UK, it is opted to open much larger stores, including some in retail parks, such as Bedford Retail Park, Maybird Retail Park in Stratford-upon-Avon, Malvern Shopping Park and Tunbridge Wells Shopping Park. 

The larger stores mean the retailer can stock a wider product range, including sections devoted to ski wear and the Animal brand, which it acquired three years ago and has started to open stand-alone stores for. It will soon have six Animal stores.

Neale said acquiring Animal had helped it “reach many new customers”.

Online sales at Mountain Warehouse edged up 2.2%, and now accounts for almost a third of revenue – up from just under a quarter pre-pandemic – helped by the success of its marketplace offer.

Mountain Warehouse Marketplace, where third-party sellers can list their products on its website, launched in 2022 and now has more than 320 brands. Marketplace sales jumped more than 150% year on year.

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Calling itself an “early technology adopter”, the online fashion giant is already harnessing AI-powered features within Microsoft’s suite of tools.

Asos is currently leveraging Power Automate for process automation, Teams Premium for automated meeting summaries, notes, actions, and live translations, and Microsoft Copilot to boost productivity.

Director of technology operations Victoria Arden said: “A core part of our business strategy is driving operational excellence within Asos: making sure we’re as fast, efficient, and effective as we can be, and investing our time and resources in the projects that matter.”

“Under this new agreement, we’re helping Asosers safely experiment with generative AI tools that can remove ‘busy work’ from their day, freeing them up to unlock greater creativity and insights and focus on delighting our customers.”

The new deal marks the latest step in the group’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft.

In 2022, Asos signed a new five-year agreement to continue using Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform. It uses Microsoft Azure and its AI capabilities to power its digital platforms and support its focus on data-driven decision-making, speed, and efficiency.

While earlier this year, the business launched customer testing for its AI Stylist: an Azure OpenAI-powered experience helping customers discover new looks through an easy-to-use, conversational interface, built using early access to Microsoft’s generative AI tools.

The retailer’s director of AI and machine learning Papinder Dosanjh added: “AI and Machine Learning are already transforming how we work at Asos, whether it’s supporting better demand forecasting, helping with data-driven decision-making, or powering our recommendation system – delivering billions of product recommendations to our customers per day.”

Microsoft UK general manager, retail and consumer goods industry Olaf Akkerman said: ” This renewed commitment will bring huge productivity gains, freeing up time so that Asos employees can focus on new, data-driven ways to better serve customers.”

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The fashion group is said to be in discussions with prospective buyers for the 43,963 sq ft office block at 10 Great Pulteney Street, Drapers reported.

It is understood that Boohoo will pursue a sale and leaseback transaction as it plans to remain in the building.

The five-storey office block houses 400 to 500 employees across Boohoo’s London-based brands such as Burton, Coast, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Karen Millen, Oasis, and Wallis, as well as other product, marketing, technology and central support roles across the group.

The building currently houses a beauty showroom on the ground floor and will soon welcome a new 6,000 sq ft group showroom in the next few months following the closure of its 3,500 sq ft venue at 6 to10 Great Portland Street.

It comes as the group’s lenders are understood to have drafted in advisers at FTI Consulting to discuss refinancing options for part of Boohoo’s £325m debt.

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