The Indicator | January 17th, 2025

● Walmart will begin selling an assortment of secondhand luxury handbags, watches, and fine jewelry through a partnership with Rebag, an online resale platform. Brands in the offering include Hermès, Goyard, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Dior, which will be available to purchase on Walmart’s online marketplace. (Business of Fashion)

● Sephora is in the middle of the largest capital project in its history, wherein it is redesigning every store in its North American fleet of 700 stores over the next five years. Sephora examined heat maps and how people are shopping to inform the redesign. It has tested a format that makes it easier to update its stores, with a focus on its key categories of makeup, skin care, fragrance, and hair care. Sephora wants to ensure that the shopping experience represents its current assortment but also what the company thinks it may be in the future. (Retail Dive) 

● The investment arm of Ingka Group, the biggest global IKEA retailer, will invest €1 billion ($1.03 billion) into recycling companies as it aims to better manage the waste created when IKEA furniture, bedding, or mattresses are thrown away and end up incinerated or in landfill. (Business of Fashion)

● Skechers, the third-best selling footwear brand after Adidas and Nike, is on track to increase sales to $10 billion by 2026. The brand has focused on capturing parts of the market that are largely neglected by its competitors like retirees looking for comfortable kicks and families looking for something more affordable for their children. It has steered away from many marquee, high-priced celebrity athlete endorsements, and instead signed up stars who opted to wear Skechers after Nike and Adidas overlooked them. (WSJ)

● Poshmark, the resale marketplace, and Loop, the commerce platform, focused on reverse logistics like returns and exchanges, have joined forces to help customers resell items that cannot be returned. When a customer starts an online return and it turns out it was a final-sale item or the return window has closed, a “Resell on Poshmark” button appears. Loop gathers info on the item from the retailer’s product page, and the listing is automatically filled in with a description and images. (Retail Brew)