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Lululemon’s Sales Growth is Slowing Ahead of the Holidays

December 07, 2023BruceDayne

Lululemon Athletica Inc.’s fourth-quarter revenue guidance trailed Wall Street estimates, a rare miss for the retailer whose performance routinely exceeds investor expectations.

Sales growth at the activewear company, while still robust compared with most peers, is slowing as higher-income shoppers spend more on things like travel and entertainment rather than apparel. Lululemon said Thursday that revenue in the holiday quarter is expected to be up 13 percent to 14 percent over last year, down from 19 percent growth seen in the three-month period that just ended.

On a call with analysts, CFO Meghan Frank said the company was pleased with its Thanksgiving weekend sales but it’s “being prudent with the planning” for the remainder of the quarter, which ends in late January.

The shares fell 2.3 percent at 5:04 PM in late New York trading. The stock’s strong performance this year — more than double the gain of the S&P 500 Index — has increased pressure for the company to keep up its pace of growth.

“It is crucial to note that the current price has reached an all-time high, accompanied by exceptionally elevated investor expectations,” Jessica Ramírez, an analyst at Jane Hali & Associates, wrote in a note ahead of Lululemon’s earnings. “This situation implies that any misstep in even a single aspect could potentially limit upside in the very near term.”

From its roots as a yogawear company, Lululemon has enticed shoppers globally with leggings and other sportswear that sell at a premium price. In addition to loyalty in the US and Canada, where it is based, the company has honed its growth strategy outside North America, where revenue rose 49 percent in the third quarter.

The retailer forecast fourth-quarter revenue in the range of $3.14 billion to $3.17 billion, while analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for $3.18 billion, on average.

In the third quarter, adjusted earnings per share came in better than expected while operating margin and gross margin missed Wall Street estimates. Lululemon recognised $72.1 million in charges in the quarter related to Mirror, the fitness product it plans to discontinue after inking a partnership with Peloton Interactive Inc. in September.

By Olivia Rockeman

Learn more:

At Lululemon, Being Black Is ‘Off-Brand’

In 2020, like many companies, the $50 billion yoga apparel brand created a new department to improve internal diversity and inclusion, and to create a more equitable playing field for minorities. In interviews with BoF, 14 current and former employees said things only got worse.

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Can AI Find Your Perfect Fitting Running Shoe?

December 07, 2023BruceDayne

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.

A shoe can make or break your run, no matter your fitness level. Ill-fitting shoes can cause blisters so bad you can’t run anymore or rub your toenails right off. Or the shoe just doesn’t serve your specific gait, compromising your performance.

That was the case when pro marathoner Nell Rojas made headlines for breaking a coveted contract with Adidas. She cited issues with Adidas’ Adizero Adios Pro 2 for the split in 2022.

“I know that shoe is an amazing shoe, and I know world records have been set in it and marathon winners run in it, but for whatever reason it didn’t work for me and my stride,” she told Women’s Running. “I raced in it and didn’t have good results. I was having a hard time recovering and dug myself into a huge hole, and I think a lot of it was because of the shoe change earlier this year.”

What if runners could save themselves from training in shoes that are ultimately bad for them? What if a software, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), could recommend the perfect shoe for you?

Why Is the Perfect Shoe so Elusive?

While pros are bound to a single brand, the rest of us are burdened with choice. Do you choose whatever your speediest friend is wearing? What looks the best? Do you choose one that has excellent online reviews? Or visit a running shoe store and rely on a random salesperson’s expertise?

Maybe you’ve done all of the above and still felt disappointed with the performance of your footwear. For many runners, finding the right shoe is tricky and frustrating. It’s also paramount to success in the sport.

“It’s the only equipment for running that needs to be perfect,” says Tim McConnell, who owns the store, West Seattle Runner alongside his wife Lori. Together, they’ve been fitting runners in shoes for more than a decade. Lori is also a certified running coach and licensed mental health counselor. The wrong shoes can not only make running uncomfortable, but can cause serious injuries up the chain.

So why is the perfect shoe so elusive? For one, just getting sizing correct is a complicated mess.To start, our feet change over time. As we age, feet flatten as ligaments and connective tissue loosen, causing feet to change size. Hormones during pregnancy do the same.

“Even as you get into that run, your foot swells,” says Mark Bouma, a Seattle-based physical therapist. Which means that your feet will be smaller in the store when you’re trying on shoes than they will be out on the pavement.

Sizes are also not precise and vary from brand-to-brand. In women’s running shoes, for example, it is estimated that 40 percent are not true to label size according to data recorded from Volumental–a company that makes 3D foot scanners for shoe stores.

Enter AI

Many running stores are equipped with 3D foot scanners that measure heel-to-toe-length, ball width, ball girth, heel width, arch height, and instep height. The scanners help store employees recommend shoe size, can generate custom insoles based on the readings, and use AI to recommend shoe models.

While this is a quick, simple, and free service that stores provide to the community, it’s an extra step that some consumers aren’t interested in or otherwise don’t have access to if they don’t live near a retailer. Instead, consumers purchase shoes online, hope they fit, and return if they don’t. It’s a cycle that causes friction for all parties–retailers, manufacturers, and consumers.

No one is surprised to hear that the trend of online shopping is not likely to go away. As Forbes reports, eCommerce continues to grow steadily and is expected to balloon to 24 percent of all retail sales by 2026.

What if there were a way to buy shoes online better? According to research from Salesforce, product recommendations powered by artificial intelligence can potentially affect $194 billion in online sales.

Artem Semjenow, founder and CEO of the running shoe app Neatsy.ai agrees that artificial intelligence and augmented reality can ease pain points for shoppers. His app allows users to scan their foot from their phone to receive the kind of recommendations they’d get in a running store as well as physical therapy recommendations related to any pain they are having.

As someone who suffered from debilitating foot pain, Semjanow, wanted to create a tool that would help people, not just runners, get access to affordable foot care and personalized shoe recommendations. Prior to founding his tech company, Semjanow was at Prisma Labs developing AI photo-editing software.

“I decided that I got tired of improving people’s selfies. It’s a cool job, don’t get me wrong. And people pay for self-improvement. But I wanted to make something more meaningful for the world.”

Through his own experience and what he knew from doctors in his own family is that when you go in with a problem, doctors will always try to take a more conservative approach to addressing your problem before suggesting an invasive treatment. What if he could develop an app that went through those conservative approaches to save users time and money? What that looks like on Neatsy.ai is giving guidance about basic foot ailments, suggesting physical therapy treatments, and recommending the shoes that you can purchase from the app.

The system uses augmented reality to create a 3D scan of the foot and artificial intelligence to make the recommendations and answer questions users have, similar to ChatGPT. Arguably more reliable than ChatGPT, Neatsy.ai has been trained using real medical cases in partnership with Harvard Foot and Ankle Research and Innovation Laboratory.

“They helped us collect the anonymous set of data of different cases for people—pretty much all the 3D foot shapes, and what real doctors have thought that the problem might be and what treatment and shoes doctor recommends in that particular case,” says Semjanow.

The team will soon publish research on the process of training AI using a mix of in-app scans and obtained medical cases.

What Is AI Missing?

When a store associate is conducting a shoe fitting, they are taking a lot of qualitative data into consideration: your running goals, your history with injury. They are watching you run in the shoe to see how your gait is affected.

“We even listen to the sounds of the runner,” says Lori McConnell. If the footfall is particularly loud or slapping, that might lead them to recommend a different shoe.

Shoe fit is an intricate puzzle when you consider the dynamic nature of the foot, says Craig Fox, D.P.M., an Illinois-based podiatrist. Then you add in the extra layer of performance goals or other tangible variables. “We know the size of your foot changes dynamically as you walk or run. What if you change socks? That may have an effect on shoe size. Even with 13 points of measurement, the challenge persists.”

It’s unlikely that any scan will understand how your foot moves under load, unless it is taken in motion, says Bouma. “If it’s just scanning your foot, you really don’t know what the other joints around the foot are doing.”

Another complication comes in the changing landscape of shoe design itself. Jon Teipen, principal footwear product line manager at Brooks, notes that shoes are more dynamic than they once were, which changes what we know about fit.

“You’re looking at more engineered materials that are a lot more intelligent, so they just have a little bit more give to them,” he says. In older designs, shoes would have a repeating mesh pattern with polyurethane (PU) overlays that made the upper more static and less accommodating to different feet. “[Now,] as you put your foot in there, the materials can expand out a little bit more than they used to be able to with all the extra overlays on it.”

He believes that extra level accommodation gives AI an advantage in spitting out a closer-fitting recommendation, as long as the internal measurements are right.

“On the other side, too, is that the materials have some flexibility and stretch to them. There’s some variants of the actual shoe structure itself that the program’s probably not going to be able to decipher either,” says Teipen. Dr. Fox notes that the same issues persist with foot scanners in store that are designed to narrow in on foot size and not much more. “Just because the shoe ‘fits’ on your foot, does not mean it is the best footbed for your foot type.”

‘A Footscan Gets You Halfway There’

Even running store owners agree in regard to the tech they use everyday.

“The scan gives us credibility,” says Tim McConnell who is used to customers not believing him when he suggests they’re wearing the wrong sized running shoe. But many of his recommendations are based on his experience and not necessarily because of the technology. “A footscan might get you halfway there,” he says.

A lot of that push back has to do with lack of education–adults not understanding that their feet can get bigger–and what industry experts call ‘vanity sizing’ –consumers holding on to a standard of femininity or masculinity attached to confining within a certain shoe size.

Teipen also sees how a technology like AI can help runners get beyond vanity sizing issues. “Tools like this that are a little bit more objective, might be good for people to get over any mental barriers they have.”

Semjanow also recognizes the limitations of Neatsy’s use of AI in such a broad category. With so many new shoe models released each year, the app is unable at the moment to recommend the newest, perhaps most advanced shoe models, as it relies on user reviews to generate recommendations.

“For example, HOKA introduced a new running model for summer 2024, and we just don’t have any data for that,” says Semjanow. Which means app users are more likely to be given recommendations for older models, rather than new ones.

“We want to establish more partnerships with shoe brands to actually get the data for different kinds of shoes before they are launched.”

It’s important to note that the company does receive a commission from shoes sold on the platform. But according to Semjanow, the commission is the same across the board, so there is no incentive for them to push one brand over another.

An AI Wishlist

AI may not be the perfect shoe conversion tool right now. But there are other ways AI will revolutionize the running shoe industry.

“The future of footwear lies in reimagining the selection process, focusing not on the shoe as a whole but as a sum of its parts,” says Dr. Fox. “Analogous to selecting eyeglasses, where frames are chosen and lenses are made to specifications, the concept of prioritizing the insole before the shoe itself could revolutionize the shoe buying experience.”

Brooks is in the early stages of utilizing AI in a generative design process.

“It’s starting to open up where we can move faster,” says Taipen. When working on a blueprint of a shoe, for example, shifting from a 2D to 3D model, these technologies allow them to modify characteristics faster than the modifying hand drawn designs. “The hope is, as we move into the future, to be able to do actual digital testing.”

With the forthcoming Hyperion Elite 4, for example, Brooks has partnered with Arris, a manufacturing tech company focused on performance products, for the shoe’s carbon plating.

“What they’re able to do is lay down each fiber individually, so they can add a little bit more stiffness in some spots, a little bit more flexibility in some spots. And then they can run it through their computer and test it and see what the performance and functionality would be. So they can do a lot of iterative testing before actually even building a part.”

Teipen is encouraged that generative design in AI will only get better.Likewise, Dr. Fox is hopeful about AI and AR in shoe manufacturing and retail.

“After three decades in podiatry, I’ve witnessed countless patients lugging shopping bags filled with shoes that didn’t quite work. Their stories often echoed the frustration of finding a temporary solution, only to return to the online marketplace in search of the elusive perfect shoe–the unicorn of footwear.”

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Best Christmas Gift: Books and Chocolate 2023

December 07, 2023BruceDayne

It’s the Best Christmas Gift: Books and Chocolate 2023 Edition. I write this post every year and – despite always preparing it at the start of November – it never gets published until a couple of weeks before Christmas. I sort of like it that way – it’s my very own Christmas tradition and quite in keeping with my own festive timeline. Because we don’t start thinking about presents at our house until ten or so days before Christmas and even then we just tend to order it all online! (I rarely meet anyone else who has such a relaxed, last-minute approach so do let me know if you’re a kindred spirit – drop me a note in the comments.)

This is the only Christmas shopping guide you really need. If you’re after the best Christmas present but don’t have ridiculous amounts of cash to spend then this ticks all of the boxes. Because imagine if you could buy someone the ultimate bespoke Christmas present – something that was thoughtful and looked exquisite – and bring it in for under twenty quid? A Christmas gift that was simple to order, easy to wrap, cheap to post and that made you – the giver – look learned, cultured and – dare I say it – ever so slightly debonair?

If you’ve never done a books and chocolates Christmas present before then you’ll be so pleased you read this post. You’ll be known forever, quietly, as the person who gives stylish gifts. And if you’re dubious as to whether this will work then take my birthday present from one of my oldest best friends; I unwrapped it on the train home from London and it was a simple notebook with a beautiful cover and a bar of Pump Street chocolate. I was genuinely overjoyed. It was just so chic and lovely.

So get stuck in – there are just a couple of rules: for the “books and chocs” present to truly work, the pairing needs to be a) quality and b) stylish. This isn’t a slab of Galaxy and the latest throwaway romance book from the shelf next to the tills at the Co-Op: we’re looking for literary gems with striking, graphic or immensely photogenic covers and then equally attractive bars of chocolate.

There’s nothing wrong with the slab of Galaxy, it’s just not really the vibe we’re going for here. We’re trying to create a Christmas present that looks and feels utterly delectable, despite its humble contents. We’re trying to gift something that seems thoughtful, carefully considered and tailored to the recipient. We want them to open the parcel and notice how pretty everything looks inside, how visually pleasing.

And if this all sounds too much like hard work then fear not: I’ve done the picking for you. You can either buy the exact books-and-chocs combinations below, or take inspiration from the pairings from previous years:

Books and Chocs 2022

Books and Chocs 2021

Books and Chocs 2020

Books and Chocs 2019

I try to pick new releases when it comes to the books, but sometimes the choices are just the best books I’ve read that year regardless of release date. They all have something in common, though; fine, enjoyable writing and lovely-looking jackets. Chocolates with pretty enough packaging are more difficult to source (and can be crazily expensive); I’ve listed all of my favourites at the bottom of the post, including the crow-pleasing budget options.

Right: without further ado, let’s get on with this year’s Best Christmas Gift: Books and Chocolate 2023.

(AD info: no paid or sponsored content. Books and chocolates all purchased. Affiliate links marked *.)

Oh Sister by Jodie Chapman, £14.29 here* + Rococo Rose Milk Chocolate Bar, £2.95 here – Total Spend: £17.24

I think that this is my book of the year; it was just so fabulously written, with not a word out of place and such brilliant attention to timing, that it could have been about paint drying and I’d have still enjoyed it. It wasn’t about paint drying, though, it was about three different women in varying stages of leaving a religious cult. So the subject matter couldn’t have been more fascinating. I couldn’t wait to get into bed every night to start where I’d left off…

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, £9.05 here* + Hip Oat Milk Chocolate, £2.00 here* – Total Spend: £11.05.

If ever there was a book for the modern-day mother… This is wild. Quite literally. A fast and furious read that perfectly encapsulates what it is to become a mum and completely lose your identity. It’s punchy, bold and leaves your jaw hanging open for at least the first third. (Also, how well does the cover

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, £7.60 here* + Tony Chocolonely, £1.35 here* – Total Spend: £8.95

I devoured Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle on my summer holidays and immediately ordered the second from the trilogy, pictured below. It has the exciting pace and plot of a crime novel, but at the same time it’s an extraordinary character study of an ordinary man who’s trying to stay on the right side of the law. Which is easier said than done in the Harlem of the early sixties. Absolutely cracking – it was like reading a film.

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead, £15.81 here* + Coco Black Forest Chocolate, £5 here* – Total Spend: £20.81

Ouch, went over-budget by 81p here but I promise you it’s worth it – what a gift! Whitehead’s genius in hefty hardback form and then the most delectable chocolate to enjoy whilst reading.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, £16.99 here* + Pana Organic Golden Comb, £2.70 here – Total Spend: £19.69

The Bee Sting is a book of brilliance. Set in Ireland, it’s a hefty un-telling of a family’s story, unwinding dark secrets and comic twists as the novel progresses. It really teaches you not to judge a book by its cover (HA!) for want of a better, less time-worn phrase, because the judgements you make about characters at the start almost always turn out to be wrong.

I’ve paired this Booker Shortlist novel with Pana Organic’s finest Golden Comb plant-based chocolate. I love Pana – it’s squidgier than traditional chocolate, almost like eating ganache, but no less satisfying.

Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo, £9.19 here* + Coco Milk Chocolate, £5.49 at Selfridges here* – Total Spend: £14.68

Read this last year, but I forgot to put it in. This has a surprising twist – and it’s not at the end of the novel, either. This is a thoroughly heartwarming novel and the characters immediately reel you, sit you down right in the middle of the story and surround you with their riotous noise. If you loved Girl, Woman, Other then you’ll know how vividly Bernadine Evaristo uses her words to paint London in all ; it’s just joyful.

Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang, £8.49 here* + Tony’s Chocolonely, £1.40 at Ocado – Total Spend: £9.89

Honestly? I didn’t love the last third of Yellowface but only because the first two thirds had been so completely mad. A novel about a girl who steals her best friend’s book and passes it off as her own, it made me cringe so hard in parts that I actually thought my body was going to turn inside out. There are “cancellation” scenes and bits about social media that’ll give me nightmares for years.

Oh and you cannot – I repeat cannot – go wrong with Tony Chocolonely in this whole “books n chocs” game. It’s graphic, looks slightly retro and cool and is really tasty. And easy to get hold of (any supermarket) and relatively inexpensive.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, £13.99 here* + Rococo Sea Salt Milk, £6.95 here – Total Spend: £20.94

Oh for flip’s sake, I did again – my maths is shocking! Just over the line on my budget but again, so worth it. What a novel. A glorious, moving, gently-written fictional tribute to the love four sisters have for one another and how quickly this love can be pulled apart. I found this very soothing, despite its quite heavy emotional load. Absolutely a must-read of the year.

Claire Keegan’s Foster, £7.45 here* + Rococo Salted Caramel Truffles, £9.95 here – Total Spend: £17.40

Good grief this is a good-looking little package. Who wouldn’t be simply delighted to unwrap this? I’ve featured Claire Keegan before; she’s officially master of the short story. Reading them is like shaking a snowglobe and watching the flakes settle with your nose to the glass. None of them take long to finish, but you feel bereft when they do and the temptation to shake the globe and read again is almost overwhelming. The little books make perfect stocking fillers.

Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris, £9.19 here* + Coco Chocolate, £5 here – Total Spend: £14.19

A grim story of war-torn Sarajevo but lifted, all the way through, by the hope and joy for life of the main character. There’s nothing dramatic or overblown about this novel – the horrors of war are almost underplayed – but it drives home how easily one part of the world can be suffering catastrophic conditions while the rest of the globe lives on.

That’s my shortlist for 2023. I hope that it gives you some good ideas – just click the links in each pairing title to buy online. Remember you can always cut the price of the chocolate to reduce total spend – the Tony’s and HiP bars are easily available and relatively inexpensive – but if you want to amp things up a bit and make the present extra-special, you can always whack in some fancy truffles. I always think that Charbonnel & Walker look incredibly pretty.

Let me know which Book & Choc pairing you like the look of the most. I think that the Nightbitch with the lips chocolate is, quite frankly, unbeatable.

[Little Women pictured in post is a special Puffin edition – it’s £9.99 and the best value for a pretty, very hefty hardback book. You can find it online here*.)

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Horizontal vs. Vertical Stripes | Fact and Fiction About Striped Clothing

December 07, 2023BruceDayne

Q: I’ve heard in the past that horizontal stripes make someone look wider and vertical stripes make them look taller and thinner. But I keep seeing studies going back and forth whether this is true. Who do I believe?

A: Three decades or so of research on this question have yielded inconsistent results. A more recent study seems to show that this is because the answer is actually more complicated than we all would like.

BACKGROUND:

There’s a famous optical illusion called the Helmholtz Illusion, discovered by a man named Helmholtz in 1867.

Which of these squares looks thinner and taller than the other? Most people would say the left square looks thinner and taller.

But that seems to go against the conventional wisdom that horizontal stripes make a person look fatter/wider. Wouldn’t it be the other way around?

man in polo with horizontal stripes — Horizontal stripes

A number of studies have tested this effect and have found conflicting results. Why would fashion work differently than this famous optical illusion?
Three Japanese researchers noticed some interesting patterns in the previous research. They all presented pictures of models wearing either horizontal or vertical stripes. However, they weren’t using the same models: some were fat and some were thin. Additionally, they were all shaded differently. And finally, they were presented in various orders.
These researchers decided there were multiple factors at play here and published a study testing their hypotheses in the journal i-Perception in 2013.
The researchers did a number of studies testing the possibility that three factors were influencing all the previous research on this subject that has been conducted:

Whether the model is slim or fat.

Whether previous judgments of other people influence later judgments of different people.

Whether judgments are so varied between people that the whole thing isn’t very useful.

EXPERIMENT:

31 undergraduate students (63% female) were recruited for the study.
The students were placed in a chair and put their chin in a chin rest that ensured that their eyes were a certain distance from a computer screen.
A number of computer images were flashed in the screens depicting people wearing clothing with either horizontal or vertical lines.
- The size of the images was digitally altered to be either slim or wide.
Two figures were shown side-by-side for 1.8 seconds. One had horizontal stripes and the other had vertical stripes. Then, participants were to judge which of the images were fatter and press a key indicating their response.
This method was done 20 times with slim figures and 20 times with fat figures, or with the fat figures first and then the slim figures.

RESULTS:

So what do you think – is conventional wisdom true for fashion, or is the Helmholtz Illusion the main driving factor?

The conventional wisdom was not found to be true. Horizontal stripes don’t make people look fatter and vertical stripes don’t make people look slimmer and taller.
BUT sometimes the stripes didn’t really make a difference at all.

Which factors influenced whether the Helmholtz Illusion held true for the figures?

Size of the Model:

YES. Slender models look even thinner with horizontal stripes (supporting the Helmholtz Illusion and going against conventional wisdom).
But this effect was not as strong for the wide models – for wide models, the type of stripe BY ITSELF actually didn’t have as much of an influence at all.
Order of Presentation:

YES. Here’s an interesting result. When SLENDER models were shown first to people, and then wide models, the Helmholtz Illusion was strongest of all (Horizontal stripes make people seem taller and slenderer) for both groups. This applied to both fat and slender images. Again, conventional wisdom does not seem to hold.
When the wide models were shown first, the type of stripe did NOT seem to matter for anyone.
Variance Between Observers:

YES. Significantly, the researchers found that, even though there were noticeable results when they compared averages, there was a wide variety of results across all participants.

man in sports jacket with vertical stripes

DISCUSSION:

So how do we interpret the results of this experiment? Here are some important conclusions that can be inferred from the results:

In no case was the conventional wisdom found to be true. Horizontal stripes did not, on the whole, make someone look wider. Vertical stripes, on the whole, did not make a person look taller and slimmer.

In fact, where there was an effect, it supported the opposite conclusion.

Horizontal stripes made slender people look taller and slenderer.

man in sweatshirt with horizontal stripes

On the fatter models, the kinds of stripes made much less difference.

People’s judgments seemed to be more influenced by what models they had previously judged.

For some reason (that the authors did not fully understand) when participants judged a large group of slender people first, the Helmholtz Illusion got very strong.

What does this mean for laypeople?

It means that when we view a person, we are mentally comparing them to people we have already seen.

Here’s the (very strange but scientifically supported) bottom line:

If a fat person is going to an event full of thin people, horizontal stripes may actually make them look slimmer and taller.

Why? The researchers weren’t sure.

Finally, there was another big take-away:

There was so much variation between participants in the study that the researchers concluded that stripes may not really, on the whole, make that huge of a difference.

This would explain why all the previous studies since the ‘80s were inconsistent.

This makes it seem like, unless you want to make a calculated, complex decision based on the results in this study, you might make your fashion selections based on other factors instead of whether the stripes are horizontal or vertical.

Whenever science doesn’t seem to go one way or the other, I say trust your own personal judgment.

REFERENCE

Ashida, H., Kuraguchi, K., & Miyoshi, K. (2013). Helmholtz illusion makes you look fit only when you are already fit, but not for everyone. I-Perception, 4, 347-351. Link: https://ipe.sagepub.com/content/4/5/347.short

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Temu Extends Lead Over Shein in US as Shoppers Embrace a Bargain

December 07, 2023BruceDayne

This year’s Black Friday sales may have disappointed a number of US retailers but for online marketplace Temu, November was another banner month.

Sales on the platform that’s backed by Chinese heavyweight PDD Holdings Inc. jumped 29 percent from a month ago to a new record, according to data from Bloomberg Second Measure, which analyses consumers’ card transactions, extending Temu’s lead over fast-fashion rival Shein.

Temu’s US transactions first topped Shein’s in May, when it beat Shein by about 20 percent. It’s extended that lead every month since, in November recording almost triple Shein’s observed sales in the country.

Temu’s explosive growth comes at a time when most American shoppers are tightening their belts, a worrisome sign for the US economy, which depends heavily on consumption. A group of retail brands that cater to the upper middle class — including Apple, Coach and Nordstrom — saw their biggest sales drop in two years in the three months ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.

Down the other end of the spectrum however, discounters such as Walmart Inc. and TJX Cos Inc., the parent company of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, had a good Black Friday. Even Amazon.com Inc., which tends to generate more spending in the immediate run-up to the Christmas holiday, boosted its Black Friday haul by 12 percent from a year ago.

With Temu, PDD is replicating the formula of low prices and a vibrant social media presence that’s made its Pinduoduo one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in China. Rapid overseas growth contributed to a much stronger-than-anticipated September quarter for PDD, which reported a 47 percent increase in net income off sales of 68.8 billion yuan ($9.6 billion).

While often lumped together — Shein and Temu both rely on extensive supply chain networks in China and while Shein is headquartered in Singapore, much of its operations are on the mainland — the two firms do have quite significant differences.

Shein operates and sells mostly under its own brand and specialises in cheap fashion, while Temu acts as an intermediary that lets consumers buy anything from jeans to knives and headphones directly from suppliers. Shein, which according to people familiar with the matter expects net income to reach $2.5 billion this year, has increasingly been moving in that direction too.

Shein is also said to be planning a US initial public offering, hoping for a valuation of as much as $90 billion.

Temu is meanwhile in talks to buy another ad spot at next year’s Super Bowl following a splashy debut this year that introduced its youth-oriented shopping service to millions of American consumers.

By Bloomberg News

Learn more:

Temu Drawing Shoppers From US Dollar Stores

As of last month, Temu accounted for nearly 17 percent of market share in the United States within the discount stores categories, according to data analytics firm Earnest Analytics.

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