M&Ake-up
This week Walmart purchased Bare Necessities the “largest online specialty retailer of intimate apparel”. This continues the trend of buying digitally-native brands, such as Bonobos and ModCloth, with ELOQUII — a plus-size retailer — the next target. As with those companies, Walmart has zeroed-in on a burgeoning market category that has scalability across Walmart.com and Jet.com (itself an acquisition). More than this, they provide the opportunity to buy talent — in this instance Noah Wrubel, who, like Andy Dunn before him, will soon be repurposed into a role covering the wider Walmart business. It is a smart tactic, sales and innovative-thinking. What price Glossier, Inc. (which saw 300% growth in 2017 within an industry expected to reach $805bn by 2023) and the visionary Emily Weiss being next?
