Visits to a wide range of retail stores in New York and the Twin Cities in December confirmed the degree to which Star Wars is dominating shelf and floor space this holiday season. Not surprisingly, Star Wars products prevail at mass chains, including storewide at Target and in Walmart’s toy department (with Star Wars and […]
Archive | Retail
Heading to the Office
Direct-to-retail licensing agreements and exclusive distribution deals in the office supply channel have popped up sporadically for many years, with properties from TV financial expert Jean Schatzky to interior designer Christopher Lowell among those entering the market. But the incidence of such deals is slowly on the rise. This year, Martha Stewart renewed and expanded […]
Sleeping with the Enemy
Two specialty apparel retailers, Oasis and The Limited, have added their names this year to the ever-growing stable of retail chains embarking on outbound licensing programs. Oasis, a U.K. fashion retailer with 300 stores in the U.K. and Ireland and 79 elsewhere, retained Golden Goose as its licensing agent last month. It already has licensees […]
Thinking Inside the Box
Licensors are increasingly experimenting with “membership boxes” as a means of product sampling, promotion, and revenue generation. Membership boxes are delivered to customers monthly or quarterly on a subscription basis. Each box contains a selection of products, themed around a particular topic or focused on a specific product category, with the price typically about half […]
A Marriage of Product and Content
Several ventures launched within the past year are testing the potential of licensing to tie together content and merchandise in the hopes of spurring more sales of both: Johnson Publishing debuted a digital store for its Ebony and Jet brands. The shop allows customers to purchase content (including streaming and downloadable audio, video, music, and […]
The Rise of Social Shopping
Licensors and licensees are starting to experiment with social commerce—which fuses online shopping and social media—as a new opportunity for merchandise sales: HarperCollins is currently working with Twitter Commerce on a 35%-off promotion for the hardcover movie tie-in edition of Insurgent. The publisher and Twitter are both tweeting about the offer, targeting users who are […]
Safety in Numbers
Retail buyers in the fashion category are offering their consumers something brand new—while at the same time alleviating their risk a bit—by creating limited-edition collections tied to groups of emerging designers or celebrities. The fact that the names are lesser known gives early-adopting consumers an opportunity to be the first to support a potential future […]
In And Out
Pop-up shops have become a frequent method for licensors to test products, forge a connection with fans, and spur coverage in traditional and digital media. In fact, the number of pop-up initiatives tied to licensed properties proliferated in 2014, especially in the second half of the year. The technique is being adopted broadly, across property […]
The Changing Retail-to-Retail Landscape
Back in 2011, several retailers began launching licensing programs in which they lent their brand names or proprietary labels to outside manufacturers, who were allowed to distribute the products in other, non-competitive retail channels. Chains including Kitson, Eddie Bauer, Fred Segal, Frederick’s of Hollywood, Ann Taylor, Bombay Co., and more have signed such deals in […]
Calling All Designers
Electronics retailers are starting to take a step into fashion licensing by forging exclusive deals with designers and celebrities to raise their reputations when it comes to style. Best Buy has highlighted two such ventures during the fourth quarter. It is exclusively carrying a line of 50 Kate Spade New York-licensed tech accessories, ranging from […]