Retail & brands

Some prices are mostly the name, some are mostly the cost of moving the goods, and a few are whatever regulation allows. Apparel, luxury houses, dollar stores, sneakers, guns, and cannabis — every episode written out, landed cost to sticker price.

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12 case studies

Case study — Retail & brandsHow Abercrombie & Fitch came back from the deadIt was not the CEO's comments that sank Abercrombie. It was the hundreds of stores opened to hide falling sales.10 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy UNIQLO makes more money than GucciSame playbook, three outcomes. The only variable was whether the boss knew what stage he was in.16 min readCase study — Retail & brandsHow a $1,000 jacket became a luxury brandCanada Goose built a real luxury brand in ten years. The margins prove it. The share price says it may not matter.14 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy gun prices make no senseThe most lucrative consumer market in America is also the only one with no prices, no ads, and no data.16 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy Hermès bags are so hard to buyGucci spends 12% of revenue on advertising. Hermès spends 4%, makes you earn the bag, and its products appreciate 14.2%.9 min readCase study — Retail & brandsHow Yeezy and UltraBOOST saved AdidasThree failed five-year strategies, then one year that produced UltraBOOST, NMD, and Yeezy together.10 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy self-checkout didn't replace cashiersAmazon's cashierless store was a thousand people in India watching cameras. Every retailer copied it anyway.15 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy GameStop failedThe pre-owned disc was a perpetuity at 47% margins. Then the publishers worked out how to make it non-transferable.14 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy the sneaker market collapsedStimulus money made everyone a reseller. What survived is the people who can price a used shoe from memory.11 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy Under Armour failedIts products were ugly. Rather than fix that, Kevin Plank spent $700M on fitness apps and called Under Armour a tech company.14 min readCase study — Retail & brandsHow Dollar Tree makes money selling everything for a dollarA fifteenth the size of a Walmart, a better gross margin than either giant, and 700 new stores while Target opened 58.10 min readCase study — Retail & brandsWhy marijuana legalization never paid offEvery public cannabis company loses money. Three self-funded LA shops do not. Being unable to lose money is the advantage.15 min read