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Reimagining Physical Retail: Where the Future of Shopping Actually Happens

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26 Dec, 2024

This post was originally published on Good on You

After a decade of algorithmic recommendations and infinite-scroll fatigue, physical retail is offering something the digital world can’t quite crack. Those at the cutting edge of this transformation show how stores can become spaces for building sustainable businesses—creating clear opportunities in an industry racing to evolve.

Sustainable fashion’s growth story? It’s happening IRL

Neighbouring the fluorescent sensory overload of your average high street stores, Nudie Jeans Repair Shops don’t only sell jeans—they tell the story of denim’s evolution. Stacked against unpolished concrete walls on rustic shelves are neat piles of new jeans and covetably worn-in pre-loved pieces. Approachable staff are at the ready to find you the perfect fit. It’s also a hub for circularity: here, loyal customers return to their Nudie jeans (for free, for life). It’s a retail experience that stands out, and that’s no mean feat in an increasingly competitive market.

Following almost five years of online dominance, physical retail’s performance is returning to pre-pandemic levels. In many ways, the world has changed, and retail stores need to adapt to shifting consumer demands. While high streets and shopping centres are still dominated by faceless global brands, the inherent values that small brands bring to retail spaces—namely community, curation, and storytelling—are capturing the attention of landlords, investors, and shoppers alike.

Experts believe that physical retail can be an effective vehicle for education and engagement with circularity initiatives like repair services and takeback programmes to help extend the life of garments, but an omnichannel, data-backed approach will be critical to the future of such in-store experiences. Could 2025 see a shift in fashion’s retail landscape?

Nudie Jeans Repair Shop interior showing a calm and inviting interior space with natural wood, architectural lighting features, and items displayed inviting browsing
Nudie Jeans Repair Shops invite shoppers into both the brand’s aesthetic and values.

Physical retail has a personal edge over e-commerce’s endless scroll

While the physical limitations of storefronts can’t compete with the vast abyss of e-commerce, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Business of Fashion and McKinsey’s latest State of Fashion report estimates that 74% of shoppers have walked away from online purchases because of the sheer volume of products on offer.

Increasingly, shoppers want curation and the ability to discover brands they might never have heard of—not just those with the best SEO. “We’re living in such an oversaturated world where there is so much noise and so much choice,” says Rebecca Morter, founder and chief executive of Lone Design Club (LDC).

Shoppers spill outside a buzzy Lone Design Club pop-up concept shop.
Lone Design Club’s buzzy pop-ups and unique multi-brand concepts challenge the homogeneity of contemporary retail.

LDC has hosted more than 110 pop-ups around the UK—predominantly London but also Liverpool, Cardiff, and Leeds—since 2018, creating physical retail spaces for around 3,500 independent, sustainably minded small businesses in that time.

“It’s all about curation, personalisation, and an experience that feels like it’s been tailored for you,” says Morter. “For us, retail is about how a brand can grow its audience, retain customers, and bring them into its world. Crucially, it allows brands to be proactive in conveying their sustainability story.”

The beauty of physical retail is being able to actually convey that story on a deeper level.

Rebecca Morter – Lone Design Club founder

To communicate these stories in a store environment, knowledgeable and passionate retail staff are increasingly vital. “For a lot of businesses, sustainability is at the heart of their storytelling. Store staff are not just going in to try and sell, but they’re using sustainability as an exciting talking point,” says Morter. “For LDC, the beauty of physical retail is being able to actually convey that story on a deeper level, with experts in stores who want to share this knowledge.”

Nudie curates its spaces to show how its products are designed to be worn for life.

At their best, stores can be platforms for brand building and circularity

For Nudie Jeans, its 30-plus retail locations around the world are spaces to share its values and build community around circularity services. Alongside resale and takeback programmes, Nudie offers free repairs for life on all of its denim.

“Nudie Jeans wouldn’t be the company it is today without our repair shops,” says Matthew Stone, regional general manager commerce for the Nordics. “They create a sense of community because we build this trust with our customers. We see customers that have had our jeans for many, many years, with different generations of repairs or patches inside their jeans.”

Our repair shops create a sense of community because we build this trust with our customers.

Matthew Stone – Nudie’s regional general manager for the Nordics

Customers looking for jeans in-store can browse Nudie’s resale section, even if just to see what their new pair might look like in a few years’ time. “Our products increase in value,” says Stone. “They start off as a blank canvas, and after many years of use, create such a beautiful product that we can showcase in the reuse section of our stores. It creates the full experience for a customer, whether or not they’re looking for reused jeans.”

Rebecca Morter, founder and chief executive of Lone Design Club, stands in a pop-up storefront. 

Of course, both LDC and Nudie Jeans have e-commerce stores, creating an omnichannel shopping experience that connects the physical and the digital. For Nudie, this has helped to streamline operations and reduce the carbon footprint of online purchases. “If you buy a product online but you’re closer to a store, the product can be shipped from the store, instead of our warehouse,” says Stone. “Or you can pick the product up in the store and try it on with the help of staff.”

At LDC, data captured in stores gives brands a 360-degree understanding of their customer’s purchasing habits—everything from which products sell and what customers spend to how e-commerce and social engagement are impacted by their presence in an LDC store. “It’s about combining what’s happening inside the physical space and how that marries back to the digital space, then using those metrics to better inform their growth strategy,” says Morter. At Nudie, information about every pair of jeans that comes in for repair is logged, giving design and buying teams insights into how their products wear and tear over time.

Forward-thinking brands and retail landlords are seizing the moment

For risk-averse landlords, property partners, and investors, data provides crucial evidence to drive sustainable brands into retail spaces. Not only can it demonstrate consumer appetite for these types of businesses, but decision-makers can use data to measure the sustainability credentials, risks, and progress of their overall brand mix. “Shopping centres are increasingly setting sustainability agendas, and they intend to use sustainability information to drive decision-making,” says Sandra Capponi, Good On You’s own co-founder. “This is a very powerful piece of the puzzle towards the change that needs to happen in the industry.”

Shopping centres are increasingly setting sustainability agendas, and they intend to use sustainability information to drive decision-making.

Sandra Capponi – Good On You’s co-founder

In 2023, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW, the group behind Westfield shopping centres) and Good On You developed the Sustainable Retail Index (SRI) to measure and track brand performance on key sustainability metrics. “The SRI looks at company-wide performance all the way down the supply chain, plus store-level indicators that elevate, highlight, and reward important in-store experiences that can make a big impact on sustainability performance.” This includes repair services, second-hand offerings, and takeback programmes like those at Nudie Jeans. “We can see huge value in raising consumer awareness at all different points of their shopping experience and engaging with their consumers in different ways,” says Capponi.

Since its inception, LDC has engaged its community in a wide range of educational activities, drawing crowds to its pop-ups through workshops, networking events, and panel discussions on a variety of sustainability topics. “They’re not traditional stores, they’re meeting places to have conversations, to engage, and to learn in,” says Morter. “They foster a sense that we’re in this together, and we’re all looking for change and driving forward, and I think that’s really special and exciting.”

Repair is, obviously, a big part of the repair shop services that keep Nudie Jeans loyalists coming back for years.

Fashion, like most industries, is going into 2025 with increasing pressure to meet its sustainability commitments. Some brands are ghosting on prior pledges and targets—in certain cases, it’s a reset in light of tightening green claims regulations; in others it’s more examples of short-term backtracking that won’t play well in the long run.

Ultimately, responsible brands that explore innovative and creative retail strategies will be well placed to connect with conscious shoppers. Retail stores, at their best, make circularity convenient and even aspirational. By tapping into consumer psychology, physical retail can help more sustainable brands can appeal to shoppers on a deeper level. And they give an experience that e-commerce can’t quite match: the enduring value of an expert shopkeeper helping you get the right fit and pick out the pair of jeans you’re really going to want to repair.

Stone, for one, feels optimistic about Nudie’s role in retail’s evolution: “We’re walking our own path, and creating our own future when it comes to who we want to be and what we feel is important.” And, equally important, Stone underscores: ​​“It’s quite fun to be in retail right now.”

The post Reimagining Physical Retail: Where the Future of Shopping Actually Happens appeared first on Good On You.

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Taking the electronic pulse of the circular economy

Taking the electronic pulse of the circular economy

In June, I had the privilege of attending the 2025 E-Waste World, Battery Recycling, Metal Recycling, and ITAD & Circular Electronics Conference & Expo events in Frankfurt, Germany.

Speaking in the ITAD & Circular Electronics track on a panel with global Circular Economy leaders from Foxway Group, ERI and HP, we explored the evolving role of IT asset disposition (ITAD) and opportunities in the circular electronics economy.

The event’s focus on advancing circular economy goals and reducing environmental impact delivered a series of insights and learnings. From this assembly of international expertise across 75+ countries, here are some points from the presentations that stood out for me:

1. Environmental impact of the digital economy

Digitalisation has a heavy material footprint in the production phase, and lifecycle thinking needs to guide every product decision. Consider that 81% of the energy a laptop uses in its lifetime is consumed during manufacture (1 tonne in manufacture is equal to 10,000 tonnes of CO2) and laptops are typically refreshed or replaced by companies every 3–4 years.

From 2018 to 2023, the average number of devices and connections per capita in the world increased by 50% (2.4 to 3.6). In North America (8.2 to 13.4) and Western Europe (5.6 to 9.4), this almost doubled. In 1960, only 10 periodic table elements were used to make phones. In 1990, 27 elements were used and now over 60 elements are used to build the smartphones that we have become so reliant on.

A key challenge is that low-carbon and digital technologies largely compete for the same minerals. Material resource extraction could increase 60% between 2020 and 2060, while demand for lithium, cobalt and graphite is expected to rise by 500% until 2050.

High growth in ICT demand and Internet requires more attention to the environmental footprint of the digital economy. Energy consumption of data centres is expected to more than double by 2026. The electronics industry accounts for over 4% of global GHG — and digitalisation-related waste is growing, with skewed impacts on developing countries.

E-waste is rising five times faster than recycling — 1 tonne of e-waste has a carbon footprint of 2 tonnes. Today’s solution? ‘Bury it or burn it.’ In terms of spent emissions, waste and the costs associated with end-of-life liabilities, PCBAs (printed circuit board assembly) cost us enormously — they generally achieve 3–5% recyclability (75% of CO2 in PCBAs is from components).

2. Regulating circularity in electronics

There is good momentum across jurisdictions in right-to-repair, design and labelling regulations; recycling targets; and voluntary frameworks on circularity and eco-design.

The EU is at the forefront. EU legislation is lifting the ICT aftermarket, providing new opportunities for IT asset disposition (ITAD) businesses. To get a sense, the global market for electronics recycling is estimated to grow from $37 billion to $108 billion (2022–2030). The value of refurbished electronics is estimated to increase from $85.9 billion to $262.2 billion (2022–2032). Strikingly, 40% of companies do not have a formal ITAD strategy in place.

Significantly, the EU is rethinking its Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) management targets, aligned with upcoming circularity and WEEE legislation, as part of efforts to foster the circular economy. A more robust and realistic circularity-driven approach to setting collection targets would better reflect various factors including long lifespans of electronic products and market fluctuations.

Australia and New Zealand lag the EU’s comprehensive e-waste mandated frameworks. The lack of a systematic approach results in environmental degradation and missed positioning opportunities for businesses in the circular economy. While Australia’s Senate inquiry into waste reduction and recycling recommended legislating a full circular economy framework — including for imported and local product design, financial incentives and regulatory enforcement, New Zealand remains the only OECD country without a national scheme to manage e-waste.

3. Extending product lifecycles

Along with data security and digital tools, reuse was a key theme in the ITAD & Circular Electronics track of the conference. The sustainable tech company that I lead, Greenbox, recognises that reuse is the simplest circular strategy. Devices that are still functional undergo refurbishment and are reintroduced into the market, reducing new production need and conserving valuable resources.

Conference presenters highlighted how repair over replacement is being legislated as a right in jurisdictions around the world. Resources are saved, costs are lowered, product life is extended, and people and organisations are empowered to support a greener future. It was pointed out that just 43% of countries have recycling policies, 17% of global waste is formally recycled, and less than 1% of global e-waste is formally repaired and reused.

Right to repair is a rising wave in the circular economy, and legislation is one way that civil society is pushing back on programmed obsolescence. Its global momentum continues at different speeds for different product categories — from the recent EU mandates to multiple US state bills (and some laws) through to repair and reuse steps in India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The European Commission’s Joint Research Commission has done a scoping study to identify product groups under the Ecodesign framework that would be most relevant for implementing an EU-wide product reparability scoring system.

Attending this event with the entire electronic waste recycling supply chain — from peers and partners to suppliers and customers — underscored the importance of sharing best practices to address the environmental challenges that increased hardware proliferation and complex related issues are having on the world.

Ross Thompson is Group CEO of sustainability, data management and technology asset lifecycle management market leader Greenbox. With facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, Greenbox Group provides customers all over the world a carbon-neutral supply chain for IT equipment to reduce their carbon footprint by actively managing their environmental, social and governance obligations.

Image credit: iStock.com/Mustafa Ovec

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