Lipstick index, meet fragrance index

Author

Stephen Babcock
February 09, 2023

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XY Retail CTO Puneet Arora compares the current wave of change in software to the arrival of the assembly line for cars. The complexity of retail has long required custom-built systems that were difficult to change. By contrast, XY Retail’s platform allows retailers to easily add new features on top of a common infrastructure.

Leonard Lauder coined the “lipstick index” to describe how sales of cosmetics rose, even as the economy saw a downturn. During this period of wider pullback, Coty CEO Sue Nabi sees the fragrance index emerging. She outlined key reasons why beauty is poised to outperform the economy as a whole.

The Adobe Digital Price Index continues to record ecommerce prices moving down. Alongside a year-over-year decline in January, key categories such as grocery saw inflation cool off. But prices were up 1.7% on a monthly basis, as the period of heavy holiday discounting ended with the new year.

Supply chain chaos is giving way to import slowdown. Activity levels at the nation’s ports are drawing comparisons to the early days of the pandemic, when factories and stores were closed. The combination of slowing consumer demand and digging out from last year’s inventory glut is leading retailers to order less merchandise, according to the National Retail Federation’s Global Port Tracker.

“Alibaba is in a constant state of becoming, adapting, and changing, but it has stayed faithful to a steady set of principles,” according to Brian A. Wong. Take a step back with an enlightening excerpt from his new book on what drives the pioneering internet company, and its role in the global economy. – The Big Think

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