Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - May/June 2020

CAPRICE WINS BEST WOMEN’S SHOE BRAND IN POLAND FOR SECOND TIME IN A ROW For the second year in a row, the Pirmasens-based shoe manufacturer Caprice has won one of the prestigious prizes of the consumer platform Dobra Marka, receiving the award Best women’s shoe brand. This award is a nationwide programme that has been organised for eleven years. Over a period of one year, the platform, in cooperation with the Polish business magazine Forum Biznesu and the Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita, identifies the brands with the best reputation among Polish consumers. By means of online and telephone surveys, randomly selected participants were asked to name companies and brands that they associate with the respective industry in various categories. These results were evaluated in terms of product quality, prestige and trust in the brand. Caprice received an excellent rating in the women’s footwear category and achieved the highest number of mentions. Caprice managing director Jürgen Cölsch was delighted about the renewed award. The company said, “This underlines the successful path taken in Poland, but at the same time serves as an incentive and obligation to continue this way consistently and to further intensify the commitment to customers and the development of the Pirmasens shoe brand in Poland.” Visit www.caprice.de 76 SMAAK LAUNCHES INTO THE UK Smaak has announced its launch into the UK. Here, the company tells us about its journey. “Andre Grundmann used to run his own fashion boutique in Amsterdam. Constantly struggling to find good bags that were of superior quality, but at affordable prices, he decided to create his own collection and, ten years later, Smaak Amsterdam is an international brand selling across Europe, in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and, now, the UK. “A chance phone call from the L&M Agency in London to Andre in Amsterdam started the ball rolling. Lynn and Mandy from L&M had seen a couple of bags that friends had bought on a recent trip and were completely bowled over by their gorgeousness. Until this point Andre had been busy establishing his business nearer to home, but L&M made a convincing case for launching onto the UK market. They felt a fresh, new handbag brand was way overdue. “L&M is now Smaak’s UK agent with the brand launching at Scoop International in February. Causing quite a stir, retailers have been loving the bags, their designs and great colours. Retailers are also encouraged by the ‘live’ B2B system that Andre introduced to the brand a couple of years ago. This gives businesses the freedom to react to customer’s shopping habits without committing large chunks of budget, many months in advance.” Visit www.smaakamsterdam.com RETAILERS AND BUSINESSES FACED WITH NEW PLASTIC PACKAGING TAX The Chancellor has announced that UK’s retailers and businesses will be faced with a new plastic packaging tax, in an effort to increase usage of recyclable plastic and reduce carbon emissions. Retailers will pay an excess £200 per tonne of plastic packaging made up of less than 30% of recycled plastic. Sunak also declared that this tax is projected to increase usage of recyclable plastic by 40% in the coming years. The plastic packaging tax is in keeping with the trend towards sustainability in the retail sector as of late. A recent study by TetraPak showed that 97% of retailers are working to change their processes to improve sustainability and reduce plastic waste due to consumer demand, whilst many of the UK’s biggest grocers and retailers; including Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, M&S and Waitrose; have all introduced new sustainability initiatives to dramatically cut plastic waste. These initiatives include self-packing and refill stations, ban on plastic wrapping for tins, and the introduction of “sustainability stores”. Will Broome, CEO and Founder of retail tech pioneers Ubamarket, is one of the UK’s retail professionals working to help retailers and consumers alike to reduce their plastic waste, having created an app which provides plastic alerts and a sustainability score for all shoppers, helping them to shop in a more environmentally aware manner and providing retailers with much greater access to consumer behaviour data. Will Broome discusses the introduction of the plastic packaging tax and provides insight on the role of technology in reducing the plastic waste produced by retailers: “It’s extremely encouraging to see that the government is responding to the growing concerns surrounding the quantity of plastic waste and resulting carbon emissions in the retail sector. Consumers and retailers alike are already aware of the issue, and 97% of retailers have already announced their efforts to make tangible, sustainable changes to their business to meet consumer demand. However, now that the government is introducing a tax for businesses and retailers, dedicated to creating a sustainable future, it is clear that sustainability is no longer just a passing trend or a hashtag – it is now the future of retail, and must become one of the cornerstones of every retailer’s plans for development in the UK. “One way that retailers can reduce plastic waste is to implement tech solutions. Ubamarket’s Plastic Alerts feature is an example of one such solution, which allows customers to shop according to the recyclability and environmental footprint of different products, by providing information on the recyclability of every product and providing overall sustainability scores for each shop. I for one am excited to see how retailers respond to this tax, and Ubamarket is committed to providing further solutions to help the UK’s retailers grow and prosper in the coming months and years.”