Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Lazada is courting top European fashion and design brands to help fend off Asian rivals and eventually reach its goal of $100 billion in e-commerce volume by 2030.

Executives met this week in Milan with founders and managers of more than a hundred Italian brands interested in tapping Southeast Asia through LazMall Luxury, a recently launched platform. Those included Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo and Tod’s, chief business officer Jason Chen told Bloomberg News.

That courtship is one aspect of a campaign to try and fend off Sea Ltd.’s Shopee, ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok and PDD Holdings Inc. in a Southeast Asian online commerce arena expected to reach $186 billion by 2025. TikTok and Shopee in particular have vied fiercely for merchants and shoppers in key markets from Indonesia to Singapore.

“Lazada is ready to ramp up as entering this new phase of e-commerce development, where profitability, commercialisation and long-term gains are priorities for the business,” Chen said in an online Zoom interview. “The current push to broaden our luxury segment will further fuel these efforts as we reinforce our brand positioning.”

Lazada and AliExpress are at the heart of Alibaba’s business outside China, now among its fastest-growing divisions because of an economic downturn back home.

Alibaba, which under new management is recovering from a years-long crackdown on its business by Beijing, is now driving expansion in the Asian region. One of its biggest rivals there is Sea, which in August raised its retail sales outlook in a sign it’s making headway in that market.

High-end demand is key to Alibaba’s effort, Chen said. Along with India and the Middle East, Southeast Asia is regarded as one of the world’s faster-growing markets for luxury, especially as China grapples with a sagging economy.

Unlike rivals, Lazada can offer brands more control over pricing and marketing, he argued. Alibaba’s Tmall Luxury Pavilion, created in 2017 and now a repository for some 200 brands, offers a template for Lazada, Chen said.

“When a company decides to open its own online store on our platform, it manages all the operations, from pricing to logistics,” he said. “This is particularly important for the fashion houses, which are keen to keep control of the entire selling process.”

By Flavia Rotondi

Learn more:

Alibaba Misses Quarterly Revenue Estimates

Alibaba Group Holding’s domestic e-commerce sales came under pressure from cautious spending by Chinese consumers in a faltering economy.

Veteran fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone remembers a time when it was frowned upon for brands to advertise their end-of-season sales.

“It just used to be something for people in the industry,” said Cutrone, founder and chief executive of public relations agency People’s Revolution. “Media outlets and editors wouldn’t dare promote them.”

Today, however, the once-exclusive events to offload unsold inventory and design samples are ubiquitous, with brands from Maison Margiela to Cult Gaia to Reformation and Everlane staging sales to clear their stockrooms.

Sample sales aren’t just coming out of hiding; they’re increasingly viewed as another tool in brands’ marketing arsenal, especially now that they routinely go viral on TikTok. But they still retain enough of their in-the-know sheen to serve as a more glamorous way to offload unsold inventory than a messy sales rack inside a store, or dumping merchandise on an off-price retailer.

“I never buy anything full price,” said Emily Glaser, 23, an assistant buyer at Macy’s based in New York. “I just think it’s kind of dumb. You can easily search that an item is full-price here or on sale there. And sample sales tend to always have the best prices.”

How Sample Sales Work

Brands looking to hold a sample sale often go with a specialist. The biggest in the US is 260 Sample Sale, which began running the logistics of sample sales for designer brands in 2003, counting Diane Von Furstenberg as an early client. The business now boasts eight locations across New York City and Los Angeles and has expanded to Dallas, Chicago and Miami and held 346 samples sales this year.

Meanwhile, a crop of social media-savvy start-ups such as Sensoria, Sample Sale London and Alfargo’s Marketplace have also entered the scene, moving the experience online, improving customer service with sales floor personnel and bringing a personal touch to marketing them as an option that doesn’t dilute brand clients’ premium positioning in the market.

No More Stigma

Other brands host sample sales in-house, seeing the events as an opportunity to connect with a new set of shoppers.

Los Angeles-based retailer Lisa Says Gah has permanently removed the sale section from its online shop and retail stores, instead hosting two sample sales a year in its Los Angeles and San Francisco locations, according to founder Lisa Bühler.

While the label previously worked with 260 Sample Sale, Bühler realised that when hosted in-house, the events are a way to build stronger relationships with shoppers. She often introduces herself to customers while they wait in line.

“The sales also create a lot of buzz for the brand because more people stop in and passersby wonder what is going on,” she said.

By discounting less frequently, Bühler hopes that her customers will shop the brand at full price in between sample sales.

All the Trimmings

Some sample sale platforms are pitching themselves to brands as elevated alternatives to off-price channels, breaking the stereotype of disorganised, chaotic sales floors with minimal customer service.

Alfargo’s Marketplace, a sample sale operator that specialises in menswear, hosts its sales at members-only club NeueHouse in New York, and offers tailoring and custom embroidery services on site.

New York start-up Sensoria shoots new product content for the overstock it sells online. Sensoria has its own team of photographers and stylists to present last season’s stale merchandise in a fresh light.

The traditional hush-hush type of sample sale still works for some labels like The Row and Khaite, as long as the client list remains highly exclusive.

“For the Khaite sale, I had to get on a mailing list and I tried calling the sale operator but it was ultimately through word-of-mouth and personal recommendations that I was allowed in,” said Rachel Mohler Roberts, 32, a New York-based political-technology founder who snagged a few discounted sweaters. “It’s quite tedious but it makes the sales feel a bit more special. Otherwise, you’re just shopping at a glorified TJ Maxx.”

Where big pharma goes, the wellness industry follows closely behind. Next stop: GLP-1 receptor agonists.

Called glucagon-like peptide-1 in full, the term “GLP-1″ on a supplement bottle would likely have confused the average shopper a few years ago. But that was before the rise of medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, the brand names for semaglutide, which mimics the hormone GLP-1 that reduces feelings of hunger. Originally prescribed for type 2 diabetics, semaglutide can also slow digestion and curb cravings, leading to dramatic weight loss for many users.

More recently, their widespread adoption has also created a cottage industry of products, from supplements to nutrition plans, designed to complement and enhance the effects of the injections. Others are positioned as alternatives to GLP-1 agonist medications – Kourtney Kardashian’s supplement brand Lemme, for example, unveiled its GLP-1 supplement on Sep. 12. Made with plant extracts, the product’s description says it “supports your body’s GLP-1 hormone, reduces hunger,” and “supports healthy weight management.”

Lemme joins a growing group of supplement makers hitting the market with products claiming to either increase or “support” GLP-1 levels in the body, using careful language and scientific study findings to back up their claims. Pendulum and Codeage both sell a GLP-1 Probiotic, and Supergut offers a Gut Healthy GLP-1 Booster. Some leave out explicit mentions of GLP-1, but clearly allude to it: Arrae’s MB-1 supplement for “metabolic burn” is described on its product listing as a “natural faux-zempic” without mentioning the hormone directly.

Others, like weight management wellness brand SoWell, are releasing products intended to be used alongside GLP-1 agonist injections. SoWell founder Dr. Alexandra Sowa, an internal medicine physician focused on obesity treatment, launched the brand’s GLP-1 Support System in August 2024, which includes packages of fibre, protein, and electrolyte powders meant to help ease common side effects like nausea and dizziness.

There is massive opportunity in the so-called “Ozempiconomy.” Last year, Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk surpassed LVMH as the company with the highest market cap in Europe. Circana found that weight management was the third most important wellness concept for US consumers, after improved overall physical health and reduced stress, and between August 2023 and 2024, searches for “GLP-1 supplement” swelled 792.1 percent, according to data from the trend analysis platform Spate.

Wellness brands who are able to hop on the trend successfully have the potential to tap into several customer groups, including those wary of pharmaceuticals for weight loss, those with cost concerns or severe side effects from the drugs, and those on the drugs themselves.

But there’s a fine line to tread in doing so: experts, including doctors, say that the use of the hormone in product names amounts mainly to a marketing tactic capitalising on skyrocketing public interest.

“This is a lot of marketing,” said Dr. Rekha Kumar, the founder of weight loss telehealth startup Found. “The biggest reason people stop GLP-1s happens to be nausea, and now you’re seeing tons of things out there that help with nausea. Those are real side effects, and they do need to be addressed, but you will see people trying to make money off of it.”

Over-the-Counter ‘Faux-Zempic’

While GLP-1 receptor agonists have been shown to be highly effective in weight loss, there are multiple reasons consumers seek out alternatives.

Lemme launched in 2022, and since then, the brand received “thousands of messages from people who were looking for natural alternatives to GLP-1 medications,” said Simon Huck, co-founder of Lemme, who observed “a lot of hesitancy” among potential customers.

Brand-name GLP-1 agonists can be cost-prohibitive, especially when patients don’t meet the BMI threshold set to qualify for insurance coverage.

The Vitamin Shoppe, for example, offers GLP-1 medications in partnership with a telehealth company WellSync. The cost of its brand-name drug injections, including Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, range from $1,174 to $1,524 a month, while compounded versions — created by pharmacies when brand names are in short supply — run between $174 to $194 a month. But even cheaper are supplements claiming to boost GLP-1 levels: The Vitamin Shoppe sells the SuperGut GLP-1 Booster probiotic at $29 for 15 packets, or less than $60 a month.

These supplements, which typically come in the familiar gummy, pill, or powder formats, are also a more approachable concept for customers wary of injections.

“There are just some people that are opposed to pharma because they worry about what the impact of that might be or the expense,” said Muriel Gonzalez, the president of supplement retailer The Vitamin Shoppe.

But customers seeking a direct alternative to the new class of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs via supplements will be disappointed, said Kumar.

While GLP-1 drugs are artificial mimickers of the hormone, supplement brands are targeted toward boosting the natural GLP-1 that is produced in the body through a wide range of different ingredients. But natural GLP-1 is broken down quickly by enzymes, while GLP-1 drugs are not — hence why they are so effective at curbing hunger for long periods of time, said Kumar.

One plant extract, berberine, has been touted as a GLP-1 drug alternative; Google searches for it have grown 31 percent over the past year through August 2024. But those claims have been debunked. Berberine sales for The Vitamin Shoppe peaked in June 2023 with 110 percent sales growth, but sales have flattened since the second quarter of 2024.

“The medication took 30 years to create because it is different from our natural GLP-1,” said Kumar. “There’s many food products, extracts, supplements, things out there that we can correlate to an increase in the level of GLP-1, but that’s completely different and really not related to what the impact of GLP-1 receptor agonists have on someone.”

The New Normal

It’s not just semaglutide alternatives that are gaining traction, but products designed for those who are taking the shots themselves. It’s a market that seems to be growing by the day: As of May 2024, one in eight Americans have taken a GLP-1 medication, according to health policy research organisation KFF.

These offerings cater to all parts of a patient’s semaglutide journey, starting with the early days of using the drug — 26 percent of patients taking a GLP-1 drug discontinue use within three months, according to a recent study published in JAMA. While cost can be one reason for stopping, experts say that many patients are quitting due to the severity of the side effects such as nausea and dizziness. New products like SoWell’s latest launch are meant to help ease those side effects.

“If you just stop drinking, eating, just because the drug over-suppresses your appetite, you’re not going to feel well. You’re not going to have success on these medications,” said Dr. Sowa.

A variety of companies are getting in on the GLP-1 support market. Upscale gym chains including Equinox and Life Time have rolled out strength-focused training plans for members on GLP-1 drugs; Life Time also provides GLP-1 agonist injections at an onsite clinic. WeightWatchers, which recently acquired Sequence, a telehealth company that prescribes GLP-1 medicine, created a special diet plan for those on the drugs. Weight-loss brand Atkins, food and beverage company Nestlé and the nutrition arm of healthcare brand Abbott have created food products designed for GLP-1 agonist users.

Soon enough, there will be “tons of options available for the consumer,” said Huck.

Bernard Arnault’s family is nearing the purchase of a majority stake in second-tier football club Paris FC, investing alongside Red Bull, as the billionaire clan diversifies into sports, people familiar with the matter said.

Under the terms discussed, the Arnault family will initially take a stake of about 55 percent through its holding company Agache, before buying out club chairman Pierre Ferracci’s 30 percent holding in 2027, said the people, requesting anonymity. Red Bull will acquire a stake of about 15 percent, they added.

Paris FC, founded in 1972, is currently the leader of France’s Ligue 2, one step below the top league. The club is less known than Paris Saint-Germain, the French capital’s main football team, whose international profile soared under the ownership of Qatar and with star players like Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.

The move to invest was a family decision involving Bernard Arnault and his five children, who all work at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, the luxury group he controls, a person familiar with the transaction’s rationale said.

French sports newspaper L’Equipe first reported the news on Wednesday. A representative for the Arnault family declined to comment.

Paris FC is known to have a large training academy which scouts for emerging football talent in the wider Paris region.

The future owners are not looking to challenge PSG immediately, but plan to have the team qualify for the top French league and eventually seek to take part in the European Champions League, according to L’Equipe. The club will benefit from a budget in a range between €100 million ($109 million) and €200 million over several years, the paper reported.

A spokesman for Red Bull declined to comment. A representative for Ferracci didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The news comes amid a recent foray by LVMH into sports sponsorships. Last week, the group signed a 10-year deal with Formula 1 worth potentially $1 billion, replacing Rolex SA. LVMH was also a major sponsor of the Olympic and Paralympic Games held in Paris over the summer.

Several French football clubs big and small have attracted takeover interest from investors in the past few years. Another Ligue 2 team located north of Paris, Red Star FC, is in talks to be acquired by private equity investor Steve Pagliuca, Bloomberg has reported.

Earlier on Wednesday, Red Bull announced former Liverpool FC manager Juergen Klopp will become its global head of football in January. Red Bull owns a number of teams, including Leipzig, Salzburg and the New York Red Bulls. It also has a stake in English Championship team Leeds United.

With this transaction, Arnault would join another prominent luxury family, the Pinaults, who own the football club Stade Rennais FC via their Artemis family vehicle. The Pinaults are the controlling shareholders of Gucci parent company Kering SA.

By Benoit Berthelot and Angelina Rascouet

Learn more:

LVMH and Formula 1 Announce 10-Year Partnership

The tie up will involve several of LVMH’s houses, including Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennessy and TAG Heuer.