Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.

Retail Brew

Jeena Sharma

retailbrew.com

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A close-up of a clothing rack with three women's outfits hanging on a gold bar with a teal background

Apparel

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Ever since President Donald Trump’s sweeping Liberation Day tariff announcement in April, retailers have been chained to thinking and talking about pricing. Now, they actually have to make decisions.

Between tariff policy back-and-forths, supplier negotiations, and wavering consumer demand, retailers’ pricing has been in flux. But now, the impact has 

 in consumer pricing. The consumer price index rose 0.4% in August, and 2.9% year over year, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week. Apparel prices rose 0.5% in August, with categories like women’s outerwear jumping 4.4% month over month and 5.4% YoY.

Over the last two months, retailers have shifted from watching and waiting to making choices on how tariffs will impact their pricing strategies, Jacqueline Martinez, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group and former VP of pricing and promotions at Michaels and Pier 1 Imports, told Retail Brew.

To confront tariffs and changing shopping behaviors, many retailers are seeking agility in pricing, rethinking their approach to retail fixtures like physical price tags, while others are testing the possibility of ditching discounts. While the approaches may differ, they all have their drawbacks.

For apparel retailers, most products are made overseas and imported, so they’re “ticketed” (have a price tag attached to them) with the price set in stone in said country before they arrive stateside, Martinez said. Most prices on store shelves now, therefore, were decided six to nine months ago, but decision-making now for new arrivals isn’t so clear cut.

Martinez said some retailers are looking for ways to have more flexibility with these ticketed prices to be able to change them—up or down—once they enter the US to account for changes in tariffs, their talks with suppliers, and shifting consumer behavior. That means evaluating options to ticket products in the US rather than overseas or use signage in stores to indicate price instead of on-garment ticketing, she said.

“There’s more re-ticketing discussions in those categories than I’ve seen in a long time, because people recognize that it’s still an uncertain environment, and they need to create those levers,” Martinez said.

 that Target and Walmart have allegedly been tasking their employees with removing perforated price tags from many in-store apparel items. Workers at both retailers claimed this directive was tariff-related, with one noting Target “can’t keep up with constant price changes,” though neither retailer would confirm this. Nearly a month since that story, consumers 

 TikToks sharing torn-off price tags at Target and Walmart.

These strategy shifts aren’t easy to execute, Martinez noted. Ticketing stateside rather than abroad can be an expensive move, and the use of signs can be “operationally hard,” she said. Jeff Sward, founding partner of retail merchandising consultancy Merchandising Metrics, previously told Retail Brew that the latter practice can get “messy” if products aren’t put in the right place.

“There’s lots of reasons not to, but the reasons to do it are piling up,” Martinez said.

That doesn’t mean retailers are ready to go all-in on newer tech like electronic shelf labels, which many have been slow to adopt because they can get damaged or stop working fairly easily. And store apps that allow customers to scan barcodes to see pricing haven’t seen enough consumer adoption to be a worthwhile solution yet either.

“Retailers—especially ones that care deeply about how they’re perceived on value—are going to want to make sure their customers see them as being transparent, fair, and honest about the pricing,” she said, but if “uncertainty continues for another year,” retailers may change their tune and invest more in solutions that allow for pricing agility.

Some retailers, meanwhile, are taking a bit of a different approach—leaning into selling products at full price to see how much consumers are willing to keep spending.

“We are making a full-court press and selling higher full-price sales than we have done in the past,” Harmit Singh, Levi Strauss’s EVP and chief financial and growth officer, said at the Goldman Sachs Global Retailing Conference earlier this month. Retailers like Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch have also recently shared similar strategies, 

 have even spoken about raising prices simply due to the “pricing power” it has with consumers.

This strategy is “aspirational for a lot of retailers,” Martinez said. Retailers will have to sell through their inventory by the end of the season, so how much consumers buy will influence whether or not they eventually need to enact discounts.

“What they may intend to do right now may not be what they have to do in the season,” Martinez said. “Consumers will get a vote.”

As tariff impact hits, retailers are shifting pricing strategies

Tasked with making decisions on how they’ll handle tariff costs, many retailers are seeking more opportunities for pricing flexibility.

As tariff impact hits, retailers are shifting pricing strategies—down to the tag

Walmart and Target have allegedly been directing employees to remove prices from tags on many in-store apparel items for several months, according to social media posts.

Posts across TikTok, Reddit, and Facebook from people claiming to be the retailers’ workers, as well as consumers, show workers removing the bottom portion of tags with prices and consumers discovering ripped tags in stores. Posts show whole displays of clothing for brands like Walmart’s Wonder Nation and Target’s Auden at stores across the country with altered tags.

Social media posts accusing both retailers of the practice began appearing online around the same time. These posters claim that removing price tags can allow the retailers to raise prices more easily, possibly in response to tariffs, and the moves have garnered criticism both from workers who say their shifts have been dedicated to the task and confused consumers who believe the retailers are attempting to conceal price increases.

 from July 25, a poster claiming to be a Target employee bemoans “having to rip off EVERY individual price,” noting she spent “almost a whole 8-hour shift” performing the task. 

 August 8 TikTok by someone saying they are a Target worker shows her tearing off the price tags on stacks of jeans, claiming that the retailer “can’t keep up with constant price changes.” Some Reddit users made similar assertions in a July 20 r/Target thread—claiming employees had to work past closing or come in at 4am to remove prices on tags.

 shows someone claiming to be a Walmart employee removing prices from apparel tagged with the Walmart-exclusive Child of Mine by Carter’s brand. “Processing/working freight takes longer just because of the tariffs and prices going up…I’m over it,” she said in the caption. Another post this week 

 an apparent Walmart worker with a handful of ripped-off price tags.

Consumers have taken notice, posting their own 

, threads, and Facebook discussions questioning the torn-off price tags and whether they indicated inflated pricing, noting removed pricing deterred them from buying.

Retail Brew visited a New York City Target location on August 21 and 22 and found a significant number of removed prices across its private-label brands Auden, All in Motion, and A New Day. Many items weren’t re-stickered and had no indication of price. One item was not recognized by Target’s app when Retail Brew scanned its barcode.

All in Motion Target private label price tag

Auden bra intimates display Target price tag

At an Auden underwear display with most price tags removed, Retail Brew identified a handful of untouched tags whose scanned barcodes revealed prices $1–$2 higher than printed on the tag. Some products had been re-stickered with higher prices, with increases of $2–$5. Similarly, one 

 filmed in a Walmart location shows stray unaltered tags with prices conflicting with higher on-rack pricing signs.

The tag changes at Walmart have come after the retailer enacted a new labeling process across all brands in its fashion department in May that led it to direct employees to remove select perforated price tags, using signs or stickers on the clothing displays to indicate the price, Walmart’s director of media relations, Jaeme Laczkowski, told Retail Brew. Some, not all, prices were changed as a result, but the company would not confirm if any were tariff-related changes. However, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said last week in the retailer’s Q2 earnings call that “as we replenish inventory at post-tariff price levels, we’ve continued to see our costs increase each week.”

Walmart tags that differ from prices on the signs, as seen in TikToks, are a result of incorrect placement or a sign representing the highest price of items in the display, per Laczkowski. Walmart does not have in-store price check scanners, so consumers must use the Walmart app, ask an associate to scan the tags, or bring the tag to checkout to confirm the price for tags whose price has been removed.

Target did not respond to questions Retail Brew sent regarding the price tag removals.

When asked about tariff-related price increases on its Q2 earnings call last week, Richard H. Gomez, Target’s EVP and chief commercial officer, said the retailer will “take price as a last resort.” He noted the retailer will be “leaning into” its private-label brands to deliver value to customers.

The move by Target also comes just after the retailer 

 its 10-year price-matching initiative in July that allowed consumers to receive a price match for items sold by Walmart and Amazon.

Jeff Sward, founding partner of retail merchandising consultancy Merchandising Metrics, and Liza Amlani, principal and founder of Retail Strategy Group, both told Retail Brew that price removal from tagged products is not a common practice.

Since retailers pay to label and price products, their subsequent removal is a “wasteful strategy,” Amlani wrote in an email, and Sward said doing so at such a high volume is a “highly inefficient, highly expensive process.”

The sole use of signs to indicate price for apparel at big box retailers can get “messy,” Sward said, and when there’s multiple styles on one fixture at different prices, or when products are moved to the wrong spot, it gets “messier and messier.”

“It’s just hard to believe that the big guys like Walmart and Target didn’t have a better mechanism for making this all happen,” he said. “Of course customers are going to get frustrated and maybe not buy stuff, [especially] if they think they’re in the process of being ripped off.”

Target A New Day private label price tag removed

Are Walmart and Target asking employees to tear the prices off clothing tags?

Social media posts show store associates saying they have been tasked with removing prices on private label apparel tags over the last few months. 

 (and days later, partially and temporarily walked back) 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports and doubled the 10% Chinese import tariffs enacted last month, a move that garnered significant retail industry pushback.

The tariffs sparked a trade war, swiftly 

 by retaliatory tariffs from Canada and China, and the promise of tariffs from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. These tariffs on imports and exports threaten to raise prices across many consumer goods categories, including alcohol, apparel, agricultural products, appliances, and toys. Retailers like Target and Best Buy have already 

A slew of retail industry trade associations have voiced concerns over tariffs this week, with many urging reconsideration, renegotiation, or carve-outs for certain industries. Since Tuesday’s announcement, Trump is 

 a pause on tariffs for Mexican and Canadian goods outlined in the USMCA agreement, which includes agricultural products and textiles and apparel, until April 2.

David French, the National Retail Federation’s EVP of government relations, called the tariffs a “tool” the administration is using to “achieve a secure border.”

“We urge [the administration] to explore other options to accomplish the same goals,” he said. “As long as these tariffs are in place, Americans will be forced to pay higher prices on household goods.”

Michael Hanson, Retail Industry Leaders Association’s SVP, public affairs, said the tariffs “risk destabilizing the North American economy,” noting that retailers are prepared to work with Trump on “championing tax policies that support retail workers, communities, and consumers."

The American Apparel and Footwear Association President and CEO Steve Lamar noted that the tariffs would create a “potentially crushing burden” on US businesses and consumers, asking Congress to “reactivate and renew beneficial trade agreements.”

The Agricultural Retailers Association and the Fertilizer Institute released a joint statement noting the taxes on fertilizer imports like potash would raise prices for farmers and eventually elevate grocery costs for consumers, asking Trump for a “strategic carve out.” The Toasts not Tariffs Coalition—a group of 52 associations, including NRF, representing the US alcohol industry—called for lifting tariffs for distilled spirits and wine. Included in the USMCA, some fertilizers and spirits and wine are now exempt from tariffs, per Thursday’s amendment.

Across other organizations: The American Frozen Food Institute, the National Farmers Union, Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (which cited a YoY footwear sales drop of 26.2%), and a number of 

 expressed concerns over the tariffs this week. In prior weeks, groups like the Personal Care Products Council, the Organic Trade Association, and the Consumer Brands Association have spoken out against them.

Retail trades speak out against Trump’s tariffs

Some groups representing agricultural and alcohol industries requested exceptions to the steep taxes. 

Last April, when Taylor Swift was spotted wearing activewear brand Popflex’s Pirouette Skort, the product experienced 

—and 19,000 preorders—sending founder and CEO Cassey Ho scrambling to meet demand. Secretly, behind the scenes, she was stretching herself thin designing her debut line for Target, which hit stores nationwide last month.

Ho, who rose to fame as founder of Pilates platform Blogilates, previously launched workout equipment with Target under the name in 2020. When Target contacted Ho in December 2023 about an apparel line, she set out to design more affordable versions of Popflex products, which range from $60 leggings to more than $100 for outerwear.

“We started off the deck with comments from people being like, ‘Why can’t I get this at Target?’ ‘When’s it going to be at Target?’ ‘I can’t afford Popflex,’” Ho told Retail Brew. “The whole point was to make this more accessible for more people.”

The 108-page deck she presented to Target ultimately became an activewear line priced starting at $15, available at the retailer for six weeks. The line has already gone viral, garnering TikToks of product 

Creating the line while balancing the sudden popularity and stamping down skort dupes that popped up made 2024 a “difficult” year with constant problem-solving, Ho said. Adapting the line to be not only cheaper, but sold in stores for the first time, wasn’t easy, and Ho shared how a team of seven made it happen and the risk it took to, well, dupe itself.

While Popflex, founded in 2016, could spend nearly three years taking an item from design to the digital shelf, the Target turnaround was just under a year. Ho said the company largely used “tried-and-true” patterns from PopFlex, though Target gave her directions like making products “look emotional on the hanger,” using “romantic” embellishments like ruffles and colors like purples, blues, and pinks. Gena Fox, SVP of Apparel and Accessories at Target, told Retail Brew in an email that the line combines “style and affordability.”

Popflex’s Pirouette skort ($60) is now the “Ballerina skort” ($35)—Ho hopes it’ll end her ongoing battles with fast fashion dupes of the product that’ve cropped up since last April—while the Zip Cloud Hoodie ($70) became the Marshmallow Hooded Sweatshirt ($35). The company had to source different fabrics, and often use slightly less, to meet the lower price point, so the skort may not be 

as fluffy—it utilizes fewer gathers—nor the hoodie 

Ho said she considered comments she’d been receiving on social media about product features consumers could do without for a lower price, like removable bra pads, which the new line has nixed. But she still maintained quality standards like fabrics being stretchy and “squat proof,” she noted.

With such large unit orders to satisfy nationwide merchandising, any small mistake would be huge, she noted. At one point, her team realized Blogilates’s black fabrics for tops were a different black shade than its bottoms, a move that could be fixed with different color names online but wouldn’t fly in stores, she noted. This left 57,000 yards of black fabric unusable, forcing them to re-weave and re-dye fabric, plus pay air shipping to meet Target’s deadline. (Popflex is working to determine use for the extra fabric in its designs, Ho said.) Creating hanging tags with barcodes and sizing stickers was also a learning curve, she said.

Ho said customers have requested a lower-price point version of Popflex for years. However, ahead of the Target announcement, when Ho posted on 

 asking followers if she should do that, many comments advised against it over fears of jeopardized quality and cannibalizing Popflex sales, which Ho admitted “got me really nervous.” An Instagram poll she posted was 60%-40% for and against the move, she shared.

Despite the initial pushback, the line has garnered a slew of social media attention since its December 28 debut, and she estimated it had sold out 60% when we spoke. She said the release also boosted Popflex’s sales, serving as a “discovery channel” for consumers unfamiliar with Popflex and Blogilates (the tag on the clothes features a brief bio of Ho, noting her as CEO and founder of both brands).

With the two brands, "almost everyone is happy,” Ho noted. Every consumer’s perspective of fair pricing and quality is different, but she’s found cost-sensitive consumers are ultimately willing to take small concessions when the “biggest barrier” for many has been price, Ho said, while those wanting higher quality will opt for Popflex.

“If they’re telling me something, they’re speaking from a place of need, and all you have to do is satisfy their need, and there you go, you’ve got a business,” she said.

Still, Ho is sticking to some beliefs about quality: $20 leggings are simply “not gonna happen,” she said—unless consumers want them to be see-through.

Popflex duped its own products with its Blogilates line at Target

Founder and CEO Cassey Ho shared the process—and risks—of creating the lower-priced activewear line for the retailer. 

How activewear brand Popflex duped its own products with its new Blogilates line at Target 

A new National Retail Federation (NRF) study this week found that president-elect Donald Trump’s proposed import tariffs could cut US consumers’ spending power by $46–$78 billion, or $362–$624 per household, every year they’re in effect.

Trump has proposed 10%–20% tariffs on foreign country imports and 60%–100% tariffs on imports from China in an effort to boost domestic manufacturing. The NRF study analyzed the proposed tariffs’ potential impact across six retail categories—apparel, toys, furniture, household appliances, footwear, and travel goods (like purses and luggage)—concluding that subsequent costs would be “too large for US retailers to absorb,” and be passed along to consumers.

“A tariff is a tax paid by the US importer, not a foreign country or the exporter,” NRF VP of Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold noted in a statement. “This tax ultimately comes out of consumers’ pockets through higher prices.”

The NRF found that if Trump’s tariff plan is enacted, consumers each year would pay: $13.9–$24 billion more for apparel (an $80 pair of jeans would jump to $90–$96); $8.8–$14.2 billion for toys; $8.5–$13.1 billion more for furniture; $6.4–$10.8 billion more for household appliances; $6.4–$10.7 billion for footwear; and $2.2–$3.9 billion for travel goods.

In apparel, NRF found that consumers would subsequently reduce spending by 22%–33%, and those continuing to buy these products would lose spending power. This shift would disproportionately impact low-income families, who spend three times the post-tax income in this category than high-income households.

While these tariffs would benefit the US apparel manufacturing industry, boosting revenue by $712–$1.2 billion, consumers would pay $20 for every dollar in revenue gain, ultimately resulting in a net loss for the US economy of $16–$18 billion. The study also pointed to a recent Cato Institute survey that found two-thirds of Americans oppose paying just $10 more for blue jeans as a result of tariffs, even if meant to boost the US blue jean manufacturing industry.

Findings regarding net loss were similar across the five other categories, as well as impact to low-income households, with the exception of travel goods.

The proposed tariffs’ impact on cost would be “detrimental” and cut US GDP by up to $50 billion, per the NRF.

Trump tariffs could cut consumer spending power by up to $78 billion

A study released this week found that President-elect Trump’s tariffs would result in net loss for the US economy across six core retail categories. 

NRF: Trump tariffs could cut consumer spending power by up to $78 billion

Another day, another major executive change. This time it was at Tom Ford, where Creative Director Peter Hawkings 

 this week. Although Hawkings had only been creative director at the brand since 2023, he oversaw its menswear department for years. No successor has been announced yet, but it should happen in the “near future,” according to the company.

“I want to thank Peter for his collaboration since Tom Ford Fashion became part of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group,” Lelio Gavazza, CEO of Tom Ford Fashion, said 

. “Along with his team, Peter has contributed to this important initial phase of development.”

As designer Tom Ford’s successor, Hawkings came into the creative director job with a lot of expectations, and in his brief time at the label known for its sexy-meets-classic aesthetic, lived up to many of them. His take, however, was a bit more subdued than what Ford had been known for.

“My vision of sexiness is going to be probably more subtle than Tom’s,” Hawkings 

But given his short stint in the role, it’s hard to tell whether his ideas resonated with consumers. It is certain that luxury is having a hard time, and even the biggest brands are struggling to figure out just how to keep consumers engaged and excited at a time when most shoppers are cutting back on discretionary spending.

It also means the pressure on the creative director at a luxury retailer is multifold, and executive shifts are rampant.

, where CEO Jonathan Akeroyd was abruptly replaced by Joshua Schulman, former CEO of Michael Kors, Coach, and Jimmy Choo. His departure, although sudden, was likely influenced by stagnating sales and a dropping share price over the past few months.

Peter Hawkings’s exit from Tom Ford

After just a year as creative director, Hawkings abruptly left his role.

Peter Hawkings’s exit from Tom Ford signals a challenging time for execs in luxury 

Alex Vuocolo

Hands-free shoe brand Kizik has grown rapidly under its direct-to-consumer (DTC) model, with sales of its slip-on footwear rising from around $4 million to $5 million a few years ago to $100 million today, its CEO Monte Deere told Retail Brew.

But marketing to customers directly can be expensive and unpredictable, Deere said, so now the DTC brand is expanding into wholesale and 

“Gross margin is really, really great at e-commerce,” Deere said. “What’s unpredictable is the marketing expense to sell the shoes.”

This story might sound familiar: Fellow DTC brands such as Allbirds and Solo Brands have followed a similar formula—and to varying degrees of success. Solo Brands, for example, recently 

 after pivoting into wholesale, in part because weakness in the DTC channel was dragging on sales.

Deere said Kizik plans to avoid these pitfalls by controlling the pace of its expansion into these other channels.

Deere said the brand is opening brick-and-mortar stores gradually, testing their performance and using that knowledge to inform future openings. He noted that Kizik opened its first brick-and-mortar location in Utah last year. Now it’s opening five more across a range of different marketplaces based on that learning experience.

“You have to keep things moving, but we’re not going to commit to 50 stores before we’ve tested five,” he said, adding that the longer-term goal is to open 15 stores by 2025.

Deere said he expects brick-and-mortar stores sales to contribute 15% of revenue by next year.

When it comes to wholesale, however, Kizik is expanding at a faster clip. Building on its partnership with Nordstrom, the brand plans to sell out of 500 wholesale locations by the end of the year after starting 2024 with just five, according to Deere.

“We opened the gate to wholesale and our friends at retail rushed right through it,” Deere said.

Having a greater presence in wholesalers, he added, gets the brand in front of customers and makes the cost of selling more predictable.

An additional aspect of this transition is that Kizik is shifting its marketing spend from performance (i.e., generating leads and sales online) to brand awareness, which Deere noted can be “challenging for an e-commerce-first company.”

The brand is nonetheless leaning into this approach with the launch of a new marketing campaign called "Motion Is Magic," which is emphasizing the comfort and frictionless experience of its slip-on shoes.

In another branding initiative, Kizik recently opened a pop-up store in New York City’s Soho neighborhood that features interactive visual installations.

“It’s one thing to spend dollars to close a sale through Google or Meta,” Deere said. “It’s another thing to put up a beautiful pop-up experience.”