When someone splurges on a luxury hotel, it may be for a variety of reasons: utmost comfort, top-notch service, great restaurants and sometimes even shopping. Well, shopping may not be the priority, but hospitality groups have realized retail plays an essential part in building a spectacular luxury experience.

Over at Manhattan’s The Mark hotel on the Upper East Side, it is a core part of the historic hotel’s strategy, general manager Etienne Haro, told Retail Brew.

Its premier retail outlet, Le Shop, is available online and features a range of monogrammed merchandise such as candles, apparel, perfumes, bathrobes, baseball caps, and even dog sweaters. The items are created exclusively in partnership with luxury retailers, including Lingua Franca for apparel, Frédéric Malle for scent, and La Bottega for its bathroom products, which per Haro are made with certain specifications in mind. “The idea behind them was to make…the healthiest [product] with minimal chemicals…It is very neutral, in terms of scent, but also in terms of the components,” Haro said.

While its merchandise shop is mostly online and doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar location on site, guests of the hotel also have access to a book in their rooms featuring the items. “I would say 50% of the sales are done by in-house guests buying these retail items on site but we don’t have a shop per se,” Haro explained.

However, that doesn’t mean The Mark hasn’t brought its retail business into the physical realm.

Keep reading here.—JS

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Solid holiday spending in December gave rise to the biggest monthly US retail sales bump in three months.

US retail sales were up 0.6% to $709.9 billion in December, the Commerce Department reported on Wednesday, a performance that beat economists’ expectations. The uptick was notably above the Consumer Price Index, which increased 0.3% in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week.

Sales increased 5.6% from December 2022, and total sales for 2023 jumped 3.2% year over year. The holiday shopping season of October through December also got a 3.9% bump compared to a year ago.

Nine of the 13 categories covered in the report posted sales increases in December, with department stores delivering the highest monthly rise.

Keep reading here.—EC

The first major supply-chain concern of 2024 is here—and it has been since last year.

Since November 2023, Houthi rebel groups have carried out around two dozen attacks against commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea, jeopardizing a critical trade route, destabilizing the flow of goods, and upping shipping times.

The attacks, which the group claims are an attempt to target vessels tied to Israel, show little sign of stopping. After the US and UK recently launched retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets, a Houthi official warned they’ll “pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences” for the move.

In light of the attacks many major shipping groups, including industry leader Maersk, which controls around one-sixth of international container shipping, have rerouted vessels. Now, many shipping companies are relying on the Cape of Good Hope, which takes significantly longer, adding a possible three weeks to shipping times, per Reuters.

Keep reading here on CFO Brew.—NP