Beyond the Basket - 15/08/25

Friday 15th August | Join Free

Hello, this is your Beyond the Basket daily brief.

In today’s issue:
🌏 Asia’s ecommerce giants surge sales
🎉 Card Factory seals £24m Funky Pigeon acquisition
👗 Topshop relaunches standalone site ahead of runway return
🇫🇷 Kaufland launches French marketplace, eyes 140m-customer reach
🏃‍♂️ Björn Borg Leans Into Sportswear as Online Sales Surge in Q2

+ plus five deep reads and analysis, along with two tools to help you streamline checkout and automate your social media presence.

TL;DR: Shein’s UK sales jumped 32.3% to £2.05bn in 2024, while JD.com posted its fastest revenue growth since 2021, up 22.4% in Q2, both signalling strong consumer demand amid shifting market pressures.

Why It Matters: Shein continues to dominate fast fashion with ultra-low pricing, expanded product lines, and aggressive UK marketing (pop-ups, tours, new offices), even as it faces regulatory challenges over low-value import duty exemptions. It is pushing ahead with a Hong Kong IPO after abandoning a London listing, highlighting its global capital ambitions. Meanwhile, JD.com’s growth is being powered by both core retail and new ventures like food delivery, supported by Chinese government subsidies to boost spending. JD’s strong traffic and order frequency gains contrast with a 49% YoY drop in adjusted profit, as heavy investment in delivery squeezes margins. Together, these results underline Asia’s ecommerce heavyweights’ ability to grow share in key markets despite regulatory, cost, and profitability headwinds.

Your Move: Keep a close eye on Asian ecommerce entrants in your market, low-cost strategies, rapid category expansion, and cross-border logistics capabilities are eroding domestic players’ pricing power. Benchmark your delivery speeds, assortment breadth, and promotional agility against these challengers to protect share.

TL;DR: Card Factory has completed its £24m acquisition of Funkypigeon.com from WH Smith, aiming to accelerate its digital and omnichannel growth in the £13.4bn UK celebrations market.

Why It Matters: WH Smith is exiting non-travel retail, selling Funky Pigeon to focus on its travel stores. For Card Factory, the deal combines its 1,000+ UK & Ireland store network with Funky Pigeon’s established digital platform, bolstering its direct-to-recipient gifting and card delivery capabilities. Card Factory’s recent push includes improved online performance, click & collect orders with 55% higher AOV than online-only, and upcoming omnichannel upgrades such as same-day collection and “endless aisle” POS features. This acquisition positions Card Factory to challenge online competitors like Moonpig while deepening integration between stores and ecommerce.

Your Move: If you operate in the gifting or occasions space, now’s the time to strengthen your digital fulfilment speed and omnichannel experience. Explore “endless aisle” capabilities to merge in-store and online inventory, so customers can access your full range anywhere, closing the gap between physical retail’s immediacy and ecommerce’s breadth.

TL;DR: Topshop has reactivated its own ecommerce site after four years, teaming up with Cara Delevingne for its Autumn/Winter 2025 collection and hosting its first runway show since 2018.

Why It Matters: The relaunch signals a major revival under joint venture owners Asos and Heartland, with Topshop moving beyond its Asos-only sales channel. The brand is leaning on high-profile marketing, Cara Delevingne’s curated 40-piece edit and a Trafalgar Square “See Now, Buy Now” runway show, to re-establish direct consumer relationships. The site adds flexible delivery options, including “Instant AM” pre-noon service, while a physical retail comeback is planned, starting with a semi-permanent high street presence this month and permanent stores later this year. This hybrid approach mirrors a broader trend in fashion where digital-first brands re-enter brick-and-mortar to deepen engagement and boost brand equity.

Your Move: If you’re in fashion or DTC retail, assess whether your sales channel mix is helping or limiting brand control. Direct ecommerce combined with selective physical retail, especially tied to live, shoppable events, can strengthen margins and loyalty while reducing reliance on third-party platforms.

TL;DR: Kaufland has launched its online marketplace in France, offering 3m+ products across 6,400 categories and opening cross-border selling to six other European countries.

Why It Matters: The German retailer, part of the Schwarz Group (owner of Lidl), is positioning its platform as a European alternative to global ecommerce giants. With 2,800 sellers already onboard in France and 13,000 across its existing markets, Kaufland enables merchants to reach up to 140m online shoppers when France and soon-to-launch Italy are included. Free services like product translation and legal support lower barriers for cross-border selling, while compliance with EU data and consumer rules helps build trust. The move could challenge Amazon and eBay’s dominance in continental Europe by offering retailers a more localised, seller-friendly marketplace.

Your Move: If you’re selling into Europe, consider listing on regional marketplaces like Kaufland to diversify away from reliance on global platforms. Their built-in cross-border tools and lower competitive intensity in some markets could help you gain early-mover advantage.

TL;DR: Björn Borg grew Q2 2025 sales 6% YoY to SEK 226m, with ecommerce surging 26% and sports apparel up 45%, even as gross margins slipped and UK sales plunged 60%.

Why It Matters: Björn Borg is deep into a strategic channel shift, ecommerce now represents 43% of revenue, more than double its 2021 levels, while physical retail dropped 20%. The brand has successfully expanded beyond underwear, with sports apparel becoming its largest online category. However, the growth story is geographically uneven: strong double-digit gains in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany are being offset by steep declines in the UK and Belgium. This mixed performance highlights a critical challenge for international brands, what works in one market doesn't automatically translate. The company's rising brand metrics in Germany and Sweden suggest the strategy is working where they've invested, but currency headwinds masked underlying profitability pressures that could limit expansion speed.

Your Move: Use quarterly market-by-market profitability reviews to identify where growth potential outweighs cost pressures. Prioritise investment in high-growth, brand-positive regions with tailored campaigns, while exiting, downsizing, or restructuring chronically underperforming markets to free up capital for stronger geographies.

Bolt - Bolt is an all-in-one checkout experience platform offering fast, single-click checkout, subscriptions, and loyalty integrations across web and mobile. With tools like Bolt Charge, Checkout OS, and the Bolt SuperApp, it helps ecommerce brands reduce cart abandonment, improve repeat purchase rates, and create a unified customer account across channels.

PersonaRoll - PersonaRoll uses AI to generate authentic, on-trend content by combining your photos with real knowledge from your feeds and sources. It automatically creates multiple “personas” in distinct voices, aligned with trending topics, to help you scale social reach without manual content creation.

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