It will come as no surprise that as e-commerce surged during the pandemic, the country’s biggest retailers have leased or purchased plenty of real estate for warehouses and distribution centers.

While much of the space is used for the ever-growing volume of fulfillment and processing returns, there’s another reason major retailers are in the market for warehouse space.

Manufacturers traditionally have transported shipping containers of their products made in China and elsewhere to their own distribution centers (DCs), then shipped them to retailers’ stores or warehouses. But today, those containers increasingly are being shipped directly to retailers’ distribution centers. It’s a practice called direct import, and it’s created a need for more warehouse space for retailers while relaxing the need for such space from the retail brands they’re purchasing from.

One company that the direct-import surge is reshaping is Razor, the brand famous for the scooter it introduced in 2000, and whose products now include hoverboards, go-karts, and electric-powered ATVs and dirtbikes.

• In 2004, only 9% of Razor’s products were shipped from overseas factories directly to retailers’ distribution centers including Target, Amazon, and Walmart, according to data from Razor.
• In 2023, 83% of Razor’s products were shipped directly to retailers’ centers.

To find out more about the rapidly shifting state of direct import, we asked Bryan Wood, VP of global supply chain at Razor, for an explainer.

Keep reading here.—AAN

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US beauty sales grew by more than $600 million in the first quarter, according to Circana data, marking slow but continued growth for the industry. Prestige beauty saw an uptick of 9% year over year, while mass beauty sales were up 2%.

Within prestige, fragrance was the fastest-growing category, rising 13%, and gift set sales rose 22%, while mass fragrance sales dipped 2%. Travel-size fragrance outpaced full-sized products, and while consumers spent less $$ on fragrances as they opted for mini versions of luxury scents, they bought more frequently, Circana noted—units sold increased at twice the rate of the prestige category overall.

• Gen Alpha had a notable influence on the category: Prestige fragrance sales to higher income households (above $100,000) with children grew at twice the rate of households without kids. Overall, the average spend for buyers with kids was five times higher than for those without children.

Keep reading here.—EC

If you thought boutique gym membership prices were getting unreasonably high, well, this one’s going to be a shocker. Equinox is all set to introduce its most expensive membership program yet—which will cost you an eye-popping $40,000 per year.

Launched in partnership with Function Health, the extravagant membership, dubbed “Optimize by Equinox,” offers personal training, nutrition planning, massages, and sleep coaching. Members will undergo twice-yearly “biomarker” tests that analyze the heart, kidneys, liver, and metabolic and immune systems, along with testing for fitness, nutrients, and cancer markers.

“It’s the same as Formula 1 or an athlete, where you are given a team of top experts in all these different verticals, to design a program based on all the data that we collected,” Julia Klim, Equinox’s VP of strategic partnerships and business development, told CNBC.

Work it out: Now, this may be a $$$ proposition for most people, but a possibly beneficial one for brands that want to target the wealthiest of audiences.

Keep reading here.—JS

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