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The Glossy Podcast
Week in Review: Walmart's climate target miss, fraudulent returns and the return of Louis Vuitton x Murakami
00:25:13
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- [00:05]
A
Hello and welcome back to the Glossy Week in Review podcast. I'm your host, senior fashion reporter Dani Parisi, and I'm here with our international reporter, Zofia Zviglinska. Hello, Zofia. How was your break?
- [00:15]
B
Yeah, lovely. I have been away for a long time.
- [00:19]
A
Yeah. You spent a couple weeks in Japan, I think, right?
- [00:21]
B
I did. There was onsens and snow and great food and yeah, everything was brilliant. And now it's raining in the UK again, so, you know, I spent part.
- [00:33]
A
Of my break in the distant exotic land of Maryland, which was, you know, also kind of snowy. But it was fun. That's where my family is and my wife's family and it was, it was a great time was had by all. But I'm happy to be back and this is our first episode of the year and I hope everyone listening had a good break and a good New Year's and a good holiday and all that stuff. But let's jump right into it. We got a couple of fun things to talk about. I always say fun and then like the first one is the most depressing one. The first topic is we're going to talk about Walmart missing its climate goals and basically just kind of giving up on them. In part, I should not have said fun. That's not fun at all. So we'll talk about that. And kind of a similar, just vibe across, I think a lot of companies where they're sort of just like, yeah, we're not doing that and just like dropping their, their climate goals or at least revising them down significantly. We're also going to talk about the ongoing problem of fraudulent returns and how some brands kind of deal with that issue, which I know is increasingly a huge headache for them. And then finally we're going to talk about the return of the Takashi Murakami and Louis Vuitton collaboration, which was a huge deal in the early 2000s and now it's back. Let's start talking about Walmart though. Over the break. Walmart announced that it was not going to meet its short term emission reduction goals. I think just before Christmas they put out a statement saying that their, their initial goals had been to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by the end of this year, 2025, and then 65% by 2030. And they basically were just like, yeah, that's not achievable and that's not going to happen. And just kind of threw up their hands and were like, yep, sorry, can't, can't do that. I feel like Zofia, you and I have specifically have talked about this kind of stuff quite a bit. But like, I don't believe anything companies say anymore when they put out like climate goals. It's just. Cause like they either like don't meet it, they announce quietly, they're like, oh yeah, that's not gonna happen. Or they like don't even announce it, they just like kind of let it. It slowly disappears from their website or whatever. It's very frustrating that like one of the biggest companies in the country is just like, oh, well, nothing we can do, all we have is billions of dollars, but like, it's too hard to reduce our emissions. And I don't know, I find it like, very kind of cynical. What do you think?
- [02:42]
B
No, I'm definitely in the same boat. It's basically, there's no penalty for not meeting or delaying these target emissions. So I think it's quite bad when companies are able to just kind of get off the hook essentially without having any kind of penalties for announcing these things and then pushing them back either by five years or 10 years, depending on which company you're kind of talking about. Because obviously this is a number of companies that have done this already. Maybe not so much in the fashion space, but definitely in wider retail. The beauty giant in the uk, Unilever, has also pulled out of its target commitments. And obviously some of the bigger oil companies like Shell and BP have also talked about not being able to meet their targets as well. And I think that it's just generally a really, really terrible thing to do to announce these targets and then just basically be like, you know what? Actually, no, I'm not going to actually.
- [03:42]
A
We change our mind. Yeah. And I kind of think there's a little bit of like a bait and switch type of energy here where they make a big announcement like we're going to meet these goals, they get the positive press about it and then they like quietly release a statement that's like, actually we're not doing that. And my. The most charitable thing would be like, well, they really thought they could and then they just couldn't. But like, the more cynical side of me is like, did they ever actually think this was going to happen or was it always just to like appear like they're. And I'm not just talking about Walmart, like you said. There's a lot of companies that have done similar things actually just I think around the same time, a little earlier in December, Coca Cola kind of did the same thing. They had super specific goals to reduce their Plastic waste production, which by the way, Coke is like the number one producer of plastic waste. And then they were just like, yeah, we're not going to do that, and then abandoned their. All of their specific goals in favor of like very vague goals that don't have specific numbers attached, which is obviously preferable to them because then there's no accountability and no measure of whether they succeeded or not. If your vague goal is just be better, then you can define it however you want retroactively. Whereas if you say specifically, we're going to reduce our emissions by 30% by this year, and then that year comes and goes without that happening, there's no getting out of it unless you, a year beforehand just say that you're not going to meet it and erase it from your website, which seems to be.
- [05:07]
B
Like the de facto kind of way that companies were approaching it. And the Coca Cola thing was really disappointing as well because it came around the same time as COP and there was a lot of talk about plastic pollution there. And I think it was just another kind of nail in the coffin for sustainability when the whole kind of news around COP was that it had become a bit of a farce, really. I think the other thing with the Walmart to note is that, and I was reading into it a little bit more, is that a lot of this is basically just tied to Walmart's growth, which means that it's not able to meet these targets because it's growing its fleet of vehicles so much. Or for example, it's like having to use up more product for free storage or for air conditioning. And all of that's kind of going up, all of those numbers are going up. And what's more interesting as well is the carbon emissions for Walmart alone are bigger than the whole of the UK's emissions, which I was like, what? That's actually insane.
- [06:07]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's wild. And when the companies are that big, the UK as a world government, as a nation, has more, I don't know, I feel like there's more obligations and more scrutiny almost over it. Whereas Walmart could have larger emissions than an entire nation with less oversight and less rules, fewer rules, I should say, over what they do. So I don't know, I'm just like, I'm feeling very depressed and kind of cynical about the whole corporate sustainability thing. I never really thought there was a ton of genuine energy behind it and now it definitely feels like even the pretense is kind of falling away. I mean, I think you and I talked on a Recent episode about the unwokening of a lot of businesses where it's like there was a time where they at least pretended to be, you know, like, we're doing more with like diversity and inclusiveness, we're doing more around the climate. And I feel like a lot of that is just like, eh, you know what? Actually we don't really care and just feeling less obligated to even pretend that that's happening. I do think there's some level of like we shouldn't appear totally, totally evil. But I feel like, yeah, even some of the need to pay lip service to this stuff feels like it doesn't even seem necessary to a lot of big companies anymore.
- [07:29]
B
Yeah, definitely. And for that kind of fashion retail space, when this is coming at the same time as the regulation stuff coming out of the eu, that's still meant to be going ahead. So I'm wondering if for companies which do have a bit more of an international presence or either that's online or in store, maybe they'll be a little bit more hesitant to announce moving away from all of these pledges. Maybe they'll be the ones who actually keep to them because they'll have that kind of regulation backing, which I think is also one of those bigger problems. They're saying that, you know, regulation is unclear and therefore that's why they're not doing it. I think for fashion and retail brands with like the Green Claims act, it seems like that's going to be something that they might actually have to stick to.
- [08:14]
A
Yeah. And I think another factor is like we now also, the US is very likely to pull out of like the Paris climate Accords. And when you have a huge nation just kind of abdicating its responsibility like that, I think that sends a signal to like the rest of the world that like maybe we should all just pull out and like, who cares? So I feel like that's also contributing to this. Man, I did really say we were had fun topics and then we went into the most depressing topic of all time. How about we move on a little bit and let's talk about fraudulent returns, which I know if anyone who's listening to this who runs like a brand or does E commerce is probably experienced what we're about to talk about. But there was a really interesting report this week about fraudulent returns and the annoying process of having to deal with returns, especially when the return itself does not really like meet the criteria. I think fraudulent returns resulted in like over $100 billion in losses for brands last year. It has decreased a little bit since the year before. But I know from talking to brands and talking to people in E Commerce that it's a huge headache. And there's lots of strategies and we can talk about a few of them that I've seen from brands about like, sort of how to deal with returns or discourage them. And I'm not really sure if I've. If I've gotten a good sense of like, what's working best. Actually, if anyone is listening to this and has any thoughts, I would love to hear. But Zofia, what have you heard from some of the brands you talk to about, like, how they're feeling about returns? It does seem like a big pain in the ass basically for a lot of people I talk to.
- [09:45]
B
Yeah, I feel like it's mostly like a supply chain issue for a lot of these brands. They're putting out collections faster than these returns are able to kind of come in, which means that as soon as they've got a new collection out and then people buy it and then return it, a new collection's already in store. So they're unable to sell the items from that previous collection that someone has returned. So I feel like a lot of that is kind of tied to these kind of super fast kind of turnarounds for collections. And that's also a reason why a lot of people are returning items. And therefore that's why companies are making these return policies a little bit harder. There's no free returns anymore. A lot of those companies have pulled back on those kind of things. I think it's also something that is prompting people to maybe offer different timelines in terms of those returns, depending on how many items you've returned in previous months. That's something that a lot of brands that I've talked to have looked at basically personalizing those return strategies so that not every customer has the same level of return options.
- [10:52]
A
Yeah, I've seen some interesting strategies as well. Definitely think altering the kind of conditions of a return, adding a little bit of a charge, I think dissuades people from returning a ton of stuff. There's an interesting thing they talk about in the report called wardrobing, which is basically you buy an outfit, wear it to like an event or something, and then return it, which is like sort of the business model of like rent the Runway or something. But I think lots of people do that with regular clothes as well or like from regular brands. And I don't know if like rental. I mean, I think some of the rental companies have sort of pitched themselves as the alternative to that. And maybe that's something that they've said to like the brands. But I feel like I don't know how you dissuade that from happening because I don't know if charging for returns really works. I think it's. I don't know if it dissuades people, but it does probably defray the cost a little bit of processing the return. Because when you get a return, not only are you just like unselling that product, but there's also additional costs of like taking it back and sorting it and stuff. So there's like you incur costs as the brand as well. So that was just a bunch of stuff about returns. What else are you thinking?
- [12:05]
B
I know with wardrobing there's been a couple of times when I've ordered things from various retailers. It's not just kind of one and they either have really big tags on their items, which means that for example, if you're going to be wearing it to an event, it'll be extremely uncomfortable to wear something with a large tag or else they kind of loop it around the item so that again, it would be extremely visible if someone was to take a photo in it. And then I think that that's some of the more, you know, kind of literal kind of physical examples of how to stop people doing that. And obviously like there's a lot of policies now which says that you can't remove certain tags from items if you want to return them. And those are also quite big. So it's like multiple different strategies of how to do it just through like attaching physical items to that purchase.
- [12:56]
A
Having a big visible tag on it is pretty funny. Just to discourage Instagram posts is pretty hilarious. One strategy that I think I've talked about on this podcast before, but I heard about it a couple months ago and I thought it was so interesting. From Markarian New York based women's wear brand. Really great brand with like cool stuff. But one of the things they do is if they see that somebody, they make kind of like small batch stuff. So it's not a ton of product. If they see somebody buying a bunch of the same product in several different sizes like that, they're probably going to try them all on and return all but one. They'll just reach out to them directly and be like, hey, do you need help finding your right size? Do you want to come in and try stuff on? Not punish them or anything, but just reach out and be like, it looks like you might be thinking about buying all these and then returning them. Can we help in some way to sort of avoid that? And the designer Alexandra O'Neill told me that it does help. And they have had people respond positively and be like, yeah, actually I do need to know my size and sometimes people still want to buy multiple sizes anyway and like they let them do it. But it, it does seem like it helps. And that might not be possible for a brand doing a, a huge scale, like a huge volume of product, but I think for smaller batches that's like you can reach out to each buyer individually. Like, I think that's a pretty interesting strategy.
- [14:13]
B
Yeah, definitely that's interesting because like designers nowadays, like I guess they've shifted from customers buying stuff in store. If you're like a high end designer or you know, even a niche designer who has this very small set of customers, they're still selling DTC and have to find a way to kind of connect with their customer even if it's online, even if that transaction is far less personable as it would be in store. I think the other thing is, and I'm wondering with Apple kind of releasing its new AI features if there's going to be a slight push towards having those measurements online so that you know, for example, how you compare your items. There's been a lot of integrations already in terms of the camera and various different features where you can kind of use that to help you with online shopping generally. I'm wondering if that's also going to start applying to retail purchases or clothing purchases where you might be able to actually attach your measurements to that. I still feel like that's one of the biggest ways that that kind of return problem could be addressed.
- [15:21]
A
Yeah. And I also think one final thought from me on returns is like part of the reason I think it's more of an issue. It seems like two brands now is like a lot of things comes back to just the different economic environment we're in and like during a sort of low interest rate climate that we were in a couple years ago where there was like cash flowing everywhere and like, you know, the investors would give you as much money as you needed and it was fine. And I think a lot of companies had very generous return policies and they, because even if it was like losing them money, because they were like, who cares about losing money? We're growing like more customers and stuff. And now that's not the case. It's like high interest rates and investors are not giving out cash super easily. And so all of a sudden I think those generous return policies are kind of like fading away and brands are like, how do we like, not lose as much money as we can on. On these returns? So that's like. I mean, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is just like a different environment. It's like you can't just be fine with losing money for a long time the way you used to be able to. That's all. Do you have any other thoughts on returns or do you want to move on?
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B
No, I think we can move on to our last topic.
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A
Yes, our last topic is that the Murakami and Louis Vuitton collaboration is back. This was like, pretty big deal. It was sort of one of the first big luxury fashion and art collaborations, I would guess, or maybe at least one of the most influential ones I can remember. But back in the early 2000s, Takashi Murakami, who if probably most listeners know, but if you don't, you would definitely recognize his, like, very colorful style, did this collaboration with Louis Vuitton. And I feel like it was. I mean, I was like a kid at the time, but even I remember it kind of being everywhere. I was like, looking at pictures earlier. Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton, Naomi Campbell, Lindsay Lohan, all the big A list people from 2003 or whatever were carrying these Murakami and Louis Vuitton bags. Louis Vuitton announced a kind of revival of that collaboration with Zendaya, who's kind of like the equivalent of that sort of A list celebrity now, and just kind of like bringing back very similar. I mean, honestly, it looks very similar to the original collaboration. It's going to be. It's touching, like 200 different styles. I think bags and other, you know, parts of the Louis Vuitton catalog certainly feels like going back to the. Well, a little bit like this was successful in the past. Let's bring it back. Zofia, what are your thoughts on this collaboration?
- [17:48]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a kind of blast from the past. And it feels like Louis Vuitton in particular is kind of pushing into it in quite a big way. Like 200 items is a lot. And some of the cheapest stuff is like $80 I saw for like a notebook. And then the most expensive thing that I saw was this, like, courier lesine, which is like this massive trunk from Louis Vuitton which is going for. I have no idea what the conversion here is, but I'd say about $65,000, which is insane. So, like, there's a lot available and it seems like They've kind of spread the gamut so that it's both available for, like, customers who just want to try an item or buy a keychain or something, even though it's quite expensive, to be honest. And then on the other side, you could buy a set of trunks for that super luxury customer who's probably got those same nostalgic memories of the first Takashi Murakami collab. And obviously I think the whole campaign that they've done has been relatively successful. Based on the Instagram watches and comments that I've seen, it seems like there's a lot of excitement for this collab, even though it's basically a rehash of the original.
- [19:05]
A
Yeah, you're right that they. I think they were very confident that it was going to be big. Like 200 styles right out the gate, a big campaign with Zendaya. And then also there they are announced another drop happening in March. So it's kind of like a TV show getting season two, like, ordered, you know, before the first season's even out. They're clearly very confident. You know, I was talking with our editor in chief, Jill, about this earlier, but I have noticed just a general across not just fashion, but across a lot of different industries and culture, the more risk averse companies are and should preface this by saying, I don't think of Louis Vuitton or LVMH as particularly risk averse, but just in general, I think companies are getting more risk averse. And when that happens, there's a lot more like, well, what was successful before? Let's just like bring that back. Like, that's why when you go to the movie theater, like every movie is a reboot of some movie from the 80s and the original actor is like 100 years old now, and they still make them put on the costume and come do it. Because it's like, we know that this is a safe bet. It's probably not going to be good, but it will. Like, people will come see it and kind of feel like this sort of uncharitable way to describe it. But it does seem like this Murakami collab was a huge deal in the 2000s. And it's like, let's just run it back. Like, we know people will like it. It's been long enough that it doesn't. It had some space from the original collaboration. I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea. I'm just saying I do think it kind of plays into this larger, like, safer, let's do what we've done before. We know it'll be a big hit. Kind of like trend. I see across a lot of things, again, not just fashion. Do you feel that that's kind of where that's coming from?
- [20:39]
B
Yeah, it's definitely that kind of nostalgia fuel that I've seen. Like last year, I know that Gap did that with that kind of initial Zac Posen collab, where I think they were bringing some stuff back. And I feel like a lot of brands have kind of called back to what they've been doing 10 years ago, and therefore they're now kind of reissuing it in a whole lot of new packaging, which essentially is kind of what's happening here as well. Although I do feel like the designs are very similar, so I'm wondering if they're kind of looking more just reissuing those items. I did think it was quite interesting because I've been watching different collab strategies, and I think the Loewe ones recently, they have such a limited range of products that this feels very different in terms of that approach from that luxury side. This is a spread. I don't know how many items they have of each unit, but I'm wondering if that's something that will mean that there'll be certain products which will sell out really quickly, most likely those on the lower end, and then most of those higher ticket items won't sell. So I'm just curious in terms of those Collab strategies and wondering why LV decided to do such a big push when a lot of those kind of earlier launches are basically collectibles now. They're bags that people covet. It's something that you really want. This early bag from the 2000s, and now if you're reissuing them with 200 different styles, that's probably going to reduce that demand and also create a whole load of new stock, which is, based on current perception, going to be worse in quality than the stuff that came out originally.
- [22:16]
A
Yeah, no, I. I think all of that is true and I. I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea what they're doing, but I think you're. You're right about everything. And it is kind of exciting when something's been. Has a big place in, like, the culture and then it's gone for a while and then there's like the big comeback. But I do think something to keep in mind is that you can only do that maybe so many times before. It's like, you know, if they had been releasing a new Murakami collection every year. I think people would still like it, but it would just be, you know, regular part of the catalog. And when you wait and then there's a break and then something comes back, I think that is often more impactful. I think that's all the time we have this week. But, Zofia, thank you so much for being here. This was a great first episode of 2025.
- [22:57]
B
Yeah. Bring on the Air. Thank you so much for having me on.
- [23:00]
A
Yeah. And you will be back on many times throughout this year. For those of you listening, don't forget to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to this because that helps us out so much. And don't forget to subscribe to the Glossy podcast because you'll hear interviews with industry insiders every Wednesday and weekend review episodes every Friday. Until then, thank you all for listening.