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The retail clothing chain FatFace has confirmed to Fast Company that it will be closing 23 of its stores in the United States and Canada. Heres what you need to know about the companys shuttering of stores. Whats happened? Retail clothing chain FatFace has confirmed to Fast Company that it will be shuttering 23 stores in the United States and Canada. FatFace is a U.K.-based lifestyle, accessory, and apparel store that was founded in 1988. In 2023, British fashion retail giant Next bought the company for around $140 million. But in the years since the acquisition, physical brick-and-mortar retailers have struggled, leading to numerous high-profile chains shuttering their stores. Major retail chains that have shuttered stores in the past few years have included furnishings retailer At Home, fashion and accessories retailer Claires, and discount retailer Big Lots. The Express says that FatFaces decision to close its North American locations is due to economic uncertainty and increased costs. The company told Fast Company that rising costs made the physical store model unviable at this time. FatFace says the closure of its North American stores will impact 145 jobs. FatFace lives on overseas and online However, while FatFace has confirmed that it is closing its North American locations, the brand will still live on overseas and online. After the North American stores are shuttered, FatFace will continue to sell its wares to Canadian and U.S. customers online. The company will also continue to operate the 175 brick-and-mortar stores it currently has in the United Kingdom. But any future expansion plans the company has in the works seem to be digital only. FatFace says it will expand its online offerings to additional countries beyond the U.S. and the U.K. in the future. North American FatFace store locations FatFace did not provide a list of its closing locations or a date by which they would be permanently shuttered. But all of its 23 existing locations in the United States are scheduled to close for good in 2025. Those seeking a list of where the FatFace stores are in North America should be aware that the company has confirmed to Fast Company that its online store locator tool for North America is not currently accurate. As of the time of this writing, that online store locator tool lists more than 60 locations currently operating in the United States and Canada. But FatFace told Fast Company that the brand only has 23 locations left in North America. Retail store closures could hit 15,000 in 2025 FatFace isnt the only retailer facing store closings this yearand it likely wont be the last. According to a January report from Coresight Research, up to 15,000 retail stores in the United States could close by the end of the year. That would represent a 50% increase from the 10,000 that closed in 2020 as the pandemic depressed in-store shopping. The main driver behind the expected closures, Coresight says, is increased online competition and inflationary pressures.
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E-Commerce
When you consume a book, youre always making compromises. Print means no animation and no outbound links to enhance the reading experience. E-ink often yields potato-quality images and muted colors. An iPads LED-backlit display strains the eyes. Audiobooks, meanwhile, generally rely solely on the theater of the mind. But what if they didnt have to? Blending the audiobook experience with sight and sound might seem like fertile, if not obvious ground for innovationbut its not happening within a traditional publishing house. Rather, its happening at Spotify. While the majority of Spotifys audiobooks are currently just thataudiofor Bruce Holsingers summer hit Culpability and some 100 other books, Spotify has crafted something more. Through its new Follow Along feature, the company is bringing bespoke visuals and music to the mix, and nudges the form of the audiobook forward in the process. Spotify sounds off The feature, currently being tested, follows years of increased focus on the audiobook segment by the music streamer. Spotify launched an la carte audiobook offering in 2022, and then followed it with its Audiobooks in Premium program in 2023, granting premium subscribers 15 hours of books per month. The company currently has some 400,000 books under its belt, and is licensing, producing, and publishing more than 150 titles a year, and just last week launched a new $11.99 per month Audiobooks+ add-on, which grants 15 hours of listening on top of whatever plan one has. (Its a business expansion that perhaps comes at an ideal time for Spotify, which just reported a 12% year-over-year rise in subscribers to 276 millionbut also a Q2 net loss of around $100 million.) [Image: Spotify] ‘No shade on PDFs’ The Follow Along initiative spawned from the supplementary PDF files publishers provide with audiobooks, according to Niamh Parsley, Spotifys director of product design for audiobooks. Now, no shade on PDFs, Parsley says, I love a good PDF, but Spotify users werent engaging with those files much, even though they often contained rich imagery or tools to assist with the retention of complex topics. Follow Along emerged from a thought experiment about how Spotify could get more value out of its existing content. It really stemmed from real experiences, says Parsley. Wouldn’t it be cool if this cookbook that we have the audio for showed us the recipes so I can be inspired by it and be more likely to actually make the recipe? Rather than start with a wireframe filled with dummy text, she says the Spotify team led with the book’s actual content to create solutions organic to each book. When Follow Along first launched as a test last November, users discovered visual assets like photos and diagrams synced to the narration in real time in the Spotify app. But with the launch of the AI techno-thriller family drama Culpability last month, the team has taken the model to new levels. [Image: Spotify] New, custom visuals Even before Culpability became an Oprah’s Book Club pick, the Spotify team knew it’d be a hit, according to Associate Director of Audiobook Publishing Colleen Prendergast. Spotifys producer and casting director worked directly with author Bruce Holsinger to bring the experience to life, and hearing the narrators early recordings prompted the team to consider adding custom visuals to the mix for the first time. Her performance was so multifaceted, it inspired us to explore ways to make the listener experience on Spotify even more dynamic, recalls Prendergast. With publisher Spiegel & Grau on board, the team began identifying moments in the manuscript that lent themselves to visual storytelling. Rodrigo Corral Design Studio had created the books cover, so they brought Corral and his crew into the project as well. Ultimately, the team created more than 100 custom assets for the audiobook, from section headers to chat logs and conceptual images that echo the vibe of the cover. [Image: Spotify] We frequently create interior illustrations for printed books, but seeing these visuals integrated into the digital and audio space is genuinely new and exciting, says Anna Corral, partner at Rodgiro Corral. Of the process itself, she added, We worked to distill the emotional undercurrents into images that guide the listener ithout overexplaining, allowing the reader to reflect and make it their own. Of course, like anything new, you’ve got to figure out the best way to use itand while listening to Culpability, I likely no doubt missed certain visuals by virtue of not staring at my phone for the duration of the book, waiting to see what might pop up. Interfaces like Apple CarPlay also dont generally display visuals like these so as not to distract driversso in lieu of something like an audible chime to check your phone or tablet for a given image, you may need to hop over to the Extras section of the audiobook to find what you missed. The tune of the tomes In May, Spotify partnered with 33 , Bloomsburys cult-favorite line of books about popular albums, to add another Follow Along element that seems like a no-brainer for the streaming service: music. Now, when the audio books are probing an album or discussing a certain song, a link to it will appear in the app so users can save it to their library or listen in the moment. Currently, Follow Along is still a test feature. While Spotify declined to provide more robust usage metrics, Parsley noted that users actively engaging with the initial slate of titles’ supplementary material within the app increased by 245% over their former PDF counterparts. Publishers have been requesting the feature, according to Parsley. Spotify has also observed an increase in listeners per title, with the hypothesis there being that providing more visual-forward experiences can entice more listening, she says. Ultimately, Parsley sees opportunity for not just a new visual spin on an old form, but for the types of books associated with audiobooks at large. For instance, Billie Eilish released an audio component to her eponymous photo book, and Spotify created a Follow Along experience merging both. And therein lies perhaps the next unexpected frontier for audiobooks, which Parsley enthusiastically endorses: the humble coffee table tome. There’s a lot of untapped potential there [with] content that is visually based, and how we can create this multimodal experience around it, she says. The door is wide open right now because it is so earlyso it’s very exciting.
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E-Commerce
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Longtime Modern CEO readers know I love lists, from subjective packages such as Fast Companys Best Dressed in Business to the just-released Inc. 5000, which annually ranks Americas fastest-growing private companies. In December, Inc. will unveil the winners of its Best in Business Awards, which aim to recognize the years standout projects and initiatives across more than a dozen categories. If the Inc. 5000 is a snapshot of fast growth, Inc.s Best in Business is a view into business excellence, says Mike Hofman, Inc.s editor-in-chief. Any CEO or executive trying to navigate the ever-changing business landscape will find inspirationand more than a few good insightsin the winning entries: startups outmaneuvering corporate competitors with bold marketing or cheeky social media campaigns; unexpected partners collaborating on groundbreaking new products; and leaders transforming their companies by applying generative artificial intelligence (AI) in wholly inventive and creative ways. Inc.s editors are looking for companies that are doing something new and different, Hofman says. Financial results and other success metrics are table stakes, he says, but his journalists also are looking for projects that are cutting edge, forward-looking, and impactful. For awardees, being named to the Best in Business list is more than a stamp of approval. The recognition boosted our national brand awareness, which is crucial for a company like ours operating in an emerging category, says Jing Gao, founder of condiment maker Fly by Jing, a 2024 awardee in the consumer products category. This honor from Inc. not only helps our business, but it uplifts the entire category and shines a light on Asian American Pacific Islander-owned businesses across the country. If your company has achieved greatness this year, apply for Best in Business via this link. And if youre a fan of a business that has done outstanding work we should know about, send your recommendations to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Reader mailbag A few weeks ago I wrote about the need to reframe conscious capitalism in response to the backlash to business for good. Now comes the backlash to the backlash. Some readers of Modern CEO feel reports of the death of stakeholder capitalism are greatly exaggerated. Its always tempting to announce the death of X when the pendulum swings in a new direction, says Susan Lyne, cofounder and managing partner of BBG Ventures. But stakeholder capitalism isnt a woke concept. It simply recognizes that the long-term success of a company is based on multiple factors: customers who love your product [or] service enough to be advocates; a work environment that draws more people than it churns through; and shareholders who trust your guidance. Yes, there were companies that jumped on the bandwagon without conviction, but the underlying management philosophy is neither radical nor new. As investors in early-stage companies, we look for founders who recognize that its still the best way to build a lasting company. Susan McPherson, founder and CEO of social impact and communications consultancy McPherson Strategies, notes that younger consumers continue to believe in business as a force for good. She cites a Deloitte study which found that 60% of younger millennials and Gen Z consumers believe companies have the opportunity to influence social equality, environmental protection, and responsible technology. Corporate leaders who remain independent and committed to their stakeholders and long-term value creation, rather than preemptively genuflecting to power, will see the most meaningful gains [over time], she writes. Alan Fleischmann, founder and CEO of Laurel Strategies, a global CEO advisory firm, concurs: The ideal that business and markets are forces for good will endurebecause key stakeholders will insist on it, he writes. The challenge, and the opportunity, is to embed purpose and action so deeply into operations that they deliver positive outcomes alongside greater efficiency, meaningful innovation, and genuine trust. There is simply too much at stake to do otherwise. Kate Williams, CEO of environmental nonprofit 1% for the Planet, also believes businesses can effect positive change, especially when they work together. She cites the work of a coalition of companies and other groups that successfully lobbied earlier this year to strike a measure calling for the sale of public lands from a U.S. Senate reconciliation bill. The challenges we face today are too big for any one business to solve alonebut when companies unite around a shared commitment, such as protecting our planet, our collective impact can be game-changing, she writes. Read more: The best of the best AI avatars powered this startup to become Americas fastest-growing company How Ryan Reynolds became a Best in Business winner for helping small companies deliver ads Best in Business honoree Fly by Jing just repackaged for a post-DTC world
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E-Commerce
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