Malique Morris
DTC Correspondent

Malique Morris is the Direct-to-Consumer Correspondent of The Business of Fashion (BoF). He is based in New York City and covers digitally-native brands and the broader changes in the online shopping industry. Previously, Malique was a retail and e-commerce reporter at The Information. He has a Bachelors in Television & Radio from Brooklyn College at City University of New York, and Masters in Business & Economics Reporting from Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.

Retail

How Brands Can Choose the Right In-Store Technology

In a post-Covid retail landscape where consumers are seduced by the convenience of e-commerce, brands are introducing technology in store in an attempt to replicate that ease.

Beauty

How a DTC Veteran Made a Showerhead One of Beauty’s Hottest Items

DTC veteran Ryan Babenzien’s new start-up is employing guerilla-style marketing and partnerships with wellness-centric retailers to become beauty’s latest must-have brand.

Direct-to-Consumer

For Many Digital Retailers, Profits and Growth Appear to Be Mutually Exclusive

DTC brands and e-commerce platforms delivered some rare good news this week in the form of shrinking losses, but investors were largely unimpressed.

Direct-to-Consumer

Why There May Never Be a Gen-Z Glossier or Warby Parker

Instead of emulating the face-paced growth favoured by their predecessors, Gen-Z-centric fashion and beauty start-ups are taking a steadier approach to brand-building.

Marketing

What Fashion Needs to Know About Lemon8

TikTok parent company ByteDance has already proved it can build a social media platform that dictates what users will watch. Now, it’s created an app to influence what they buy.

Direct-to-Consumer

Why Fashion Hasn’t Given Up on Social Commerce

Outside Asian markets, companies have yet to see lasting success in melding social media and e-commerce. But platforms and brands continue to adapt social selling to meet their respective consumers.

Direct-to-Consumer

Walmart Sells Menswear Brand Bonobos

The deal is the latest sign that Walmart’s efforts to move into the DTC sector have fallen short.

Marketing

Behind the Text Message Marketing Boom

Text messaging has emerged as one of the best tools for brands to keep customers coming back. But as fast as shoppers are to get on board with texts, they are even quicker to run away. Brands must balance using SMS to drive transactions and building deeper connections with customers.

Direct-to-Consumer

Will Brands Ever Get Product Recommendations Right?

The technology that exists for brands to offer customers individualised online shopping experiences is expensive and complex. But some start-ups are finding ways to personalise product recommendations and more.

Retail

Lizzo’s Shapewear Brand Yitty Is Launching Its First Gender Neutral Line

A year after making a splash in the shapewear market, Yitty is expanding its product offering to underrepresented gender identities and ramping up its customer engagement efforts.

Direct-to-Consumer

Should Brands Stop Offering Free Returns?

Fashion start-ups can no longer foot the bill for costly online returns, but they have to find ways to reduce the costs of returns without losing customers.

Sustainability

Can a Zero-Carbon Sneaker Make Allbirds Cool Again?

The footwear company says it has cracked its holy-grail goal to develop a net-zero carbon shoe. All investors want is a path to profitability.

The News in Brief

Farfetch Returns to Sales Growth

The online luxury retailer’s revenue rose 8 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2023, above analyst’s expectations.

At Warby Parker and Allbirds, Signs of Progress

The eyewear maker’s results were consistent with its recent outings. Sales rose 12 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of the year on the strength of its growing store fleet. It also decreased its losses by $23 million and increased its adjusted earnings before interest and taxes by $17 million.

Farfetch’s Sales Drop, Still Beats Expectations

Farfetch’s year-on-year sales decline continued in the final quarter of 2022 as the luxury e-commerce firm faced sustained geographic challenges in Russia and China. But the company expects new partnerships will help sales grow more than 10 percent in 2023, and reach as high as $10 billion by 2025.

Report: Beyoncé's Ivy Park Misses Adidas’ Sales Targets

Sales for the singer’s inclusive streetwear line, which is produced in collaboration with Adidas, fell more than 50 percent in 2022 to $40 million, far below Adidas’ $250 million revenue projections, according to a new report from the The Wall Street Journal. Adidas also anticipated losing $10 million from the partnership last year.

Everlane Slashes 17% of Corporate Workforce

The DTC basics brand announced internally on Wednesday that it will cut staff to help improve profitability by the end of the year amid rising inflation and recession fears, according to an internal email viewed by BoF.

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