Walmart should focus its attention on smaller stores as consumers shift away from out-of-town shopping centres, according to Kantar analyst Bryan Roberts.

Speaking about large out-of-town operators, he says they are "slowly becoming not obsolete, but out-dated, and are increasingly having to "run very fast just to stay still".

Roberts believes the renaissance of town centre and proximity shopping can be attributed to the rising cost of petrol, the fact consumers don't want to be faced with "lots of things I can't afford" in large out-of-town stores, and a rise in the number of online and discount retailers selling non-food products.

"For the first time in 50 years the average size of grocery stores is declining," he explains.

Speaking at the launch of a book he has co-written on ‘Walmart: Key Insights and Practical Lessons from the World's Largest Retailer,' Roberts notes Walmart's most credible long-term competitor is online operator Amazon, which is on target to reach a global turnover of US$100bn by 2015 - a decade faster than it took Walmart to achieve the same.

That said, stores will remain integral to the customer experience. "Amazon's Achilles heel is its lack of a physical store presence. Traditional retailers should be capitalising on their value-added proposition and investing in better training for customer-facing staff, boosting after-sales care and using their stores to make it easier for shoppers to pick-up goods ordered online."

"Home delivery e-commerce is the opposite of a convenience," Roberts emphasised.

While Amazon is a credible threat to Walmart, Roberts is quick to emphasise that suppliers bowing to Amazon's pressure to continually lower prices might not be the best strategy.

"Amazon is amazing at getting prices down, but it's difficult to get them back up again," and offering the online giant preferential rates is likely to irritate suppliers' other customers.

Unlike other retailers, Amazon makes so much money on its Kindle and virtual services that it "doesn't care that much about profit on retail".

As we shift towards a multi-channel future, it will become increasingly important for retailers to differentiate themselves depending on the format they operating in. "Retailers need to stop trying to be all things to all people in all formats," Roberts added.

With all of the hot air surrounding clothing retailers and brands bringing their manufacturing operations back to the UK, today's announcement that Aquascutum's Corby site will close is just another nail in the sector's coffin.

Some 115 staff have been made redundant as a result of the decision, with immediate effect.

When industry pundits talk about successful stories in British clothing, they talk about things like heritage branding, premium pricing and luxury - all of which were central tenets of Aquascutum's positioning. Yet this doesn't seem to extend to the Corby site, which administrators say is "not viable to continue to trade due to loss-making operations and a lack of funding".

Another complaint by those looking to manufacture in the UK is the difficulty getting good staff, and issues around the ageing workforce. But another 115 experienced workers are today without a job.

The M&A rumour mill continued apace last week, with suggestions that department store operator Sears has been in discussions with a number of private-equity firms to sell its Lands' End brand, and speculation that South Korean conglomerate E-Land is preparing a US$1.8bn bid for footwear company Collective Brands.

Meanwhile, there have been reports over the weekend that Liz Claiborne Inc has been in talks with private-equity firms over taking the company private.

A deal that was not mere speculation was Wacoal's acquisition of UK lingerie firm Eveden. Wacoal announced the acquisition of the Northamptonshire-based owner of the Fantasie, Freya, Huit, Fauve, Elomi and Godess brands for GBP148m on Friday.

One company looking to deflect attention last week was H&M. While the retailer plans to launch a new chain during 2013, it remained coy about the details of the new brand, aside from the fact that it will open in a European city, and will sit in a higher price segment than its current labels. The announcement came as the world's second largest clothing retailer reported an increase in net profit and sales over the fourth quarter, but admitted that margins fell as the company maintained its prices despite rising input costs.

Meanwhile, just-style's managing editor, Leonie Barrie, attended the Prime Source Forum in Hong Kong last week. Rising costs, finding capable capacity, new sourcing locations and collaboration across the supply chain were key topics at the event. just-style has pulled together some of the best quotes from Prime Source in two articles, but there will be more on the site from this event later in the week.

In the UK, the government launched the "Portas-Plus" plan, in response to retail guru Mary Portas' high street review. The plan will see a series of funds opened to regenerate high streets. The response to the plan was mixed, with the British Retail Consortium's director of business, Tom Ironside, saying he was concerned the government "hasn't yet matched her level of ambition with its response".

This article was originally published on 2 April. 

The garment industry has one of the highest bankruptcy rates of any commercial sector. What makes the industry different to any other sector is the large number of long-established, previously profitable companies that go broke, argues garment industry consultant David Birnbaum. "We have a pattern: we create innovative companies that rise and prosper, only to decay and die," he says.

The reason, according to Birnbaum, that so many companies fail is their inability to adapt to the changing needs of consumers. He says it is likely that two former giants of the US clothing sector, Sears and Liz Claiborne, will disappear completely over the next five years. He argues that process is already under way with Sears selling off stores and Liz Claiborne selling its eponymous label. 

One company that is looking to avoid joining that list is Perry Ellis, which revealed plans to shutter a number of businesses that have averaged US$30-40m in revenue over the past two years but "have not contributed substantially in profitability" as part of a broader restructuring programme. It expects to close these businesses by the end of this year and will look to cut costs through infrastructure improvements and a reduced headcount. The comments came as the company recorded a decline in fourth-quarter net profit.

Meanwhile, Zara recorded another year of growth, driven largely by international expansion. Over the year, the world's largest clothing retailer put down stores across 49 markets, and entered five, posting a 12% increase in net profit to reach EUR1.9bn.

From the world's largest retailer, to the world's largest sourcing group - Li & Fung also recorded positive full-year results last week, posting a 24% hike in full-year profit. The company attributed the growth to the expansion of its sourcing network and the growth of its Asian business.

Asia remains an important prospect for companies looking internationally, with research released last week highlighting the potential of China as an attractive e-commerce prospect. According to Chinese e-commerce group VIPStore, the country is set to become the world's largest e-commerce market by 2015. It said that China has 485m internet users, more than the US and Japan combined, yet internet penetration is only at 37%.

Neiman Marcus is one retailer to take advantage of this potential, announcing plans to enter China through the launch of an e-commerce site next year. It said it will invest US$28m in Glamour Sales Holding to build the online business, as well as supporting the growth of Glamour Sales' existing flash sales business.

Finally, Leonie Barrie is attending the Prime Source Forum in Hong Kong this week. If you're attending, please drop by the stand to say hello.

Today (22 March) is World Water Day, and reducing the amount of water used by the apparel industry and ensuring that it remains unpolluted remains high on the agenda.

In an attempt to convince consumers to use less water by washing their clothing less regularly, Levi Strauss has challenged its staff to stop washing their jeans this week.

The company's has called upon its employees around the world to wear the same pair of jeans from 19-23 March. Participating employees will receive a Go Water<Less non-removable tag made of sponge on the first day to put on their jeans, which will inflate if placed in water.

The company said that besides the environmental benefits of washing jeans less frequently, it is a "well known denim-enthusiast's secret" that airing the garment instead of washing will help create a bespoke fit over time, shaping the garment to better suit the wearer's frame.

Levi's said that by washing jeans once every two weeks, consumers can reduce the water used in a jean's life cycle by 23%.

Meanwhile, research from Greenpeace suggests there could be additional advantages to cutting back on the number of wash cycles. It has relseased research that suggests that hazardous chemicals in clothing from a number of major brands is being released into public waterways when they are washed by consumers.

The research measured the percentage of nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) which were washed out during simulated standard domestic laundering conditions for 14 clothing items.

The chemicals, used in textile manufacture, enter rivers, lakes and seas where they break down to form nonylphenol, which has hormone-disrupting properties and is harmful to human health.

Greenpeace said the brands, which include Abercrombie & Fitch, G-Star and Calvin Klein, are "unknowingly polluting the public water supplies in regions and countries around the world, including those where there are restrictions or bans on the use of these chemicals."

To say last week was a confusing one on the cotton front would be something of an understatement. In the space of just seven days India, the world's second-biggest cotton producer, imposed and then scrapped a ban on exports amid protests from growers, traders and China, its largest customer.

First of all, India's decision to suddenly and unexpectedly ban all exports of cotton for the second time in nearly two years put the industry in a spin over fears the move would put pressure on global supplies and prices.

The move came just days after the International Cotton Advisory Council projected that cotton prices would continue to stay low, with higher production than consumption leading to a rise in global cotton stocks.

But complaints from groups including the China Cotton Association (CCA) led India's prime minister to call a group of senior ministers to a meeting to review the ban.

An analysis on just-style looked at the reasons behind the ban, which include efforts by China to build up its strategic reserves after being hit by higher cotton prices last year. With Indian textile companies heavily in debt, the government move was aimed at protecting domestic firms from a spike in cotton costs.

But market watchers seemed to shrug off initial concerns about the ban, with the over-riding view that it would be "short term and have little effect, if any, on garment prices."

In other news, factories in Bangladesh producing sportswear for Olympic sponsors Adidas, Nike and Puma have been accused of beating, verbally abusing, underpaying and overworking their staff, according to an investigation by War on Want.

And fashion firm Fenn Wright Mason became the latest UK retailer to enter administration, after struggling with cash flow problems amid the challenging retail environment.

Meanwhile, Asda announced it has acquired the sourcing arm of its major supplier GAAT. The UK's second largest supermarket operator said the move will enable it to continue to develop its "world class supply operation".

Marks and Spencer today announced plans to trial free customer wi-fi in ten of its stores as part of the High Street's inexorable shift towards omnichannel.

The retailer also plans to put QR codes around the store to help them discover more about their product range.

Attending the Future of the High Street event on Tuesday night, it became clear, if it wasn't already, that successful retail futures lie with companies willing to service customers however they want to interact with you.

Indeed, Hash Ladha who is deputy MD of Oasis, a retailer that has already taken great strides in this area said, describing consumer attitudes, that: "Wi-fi is a basic human right".

Ladha sounded a clarion call for multi-channel, arguing that pure-play online retailers like Amazon or Asos, which while recording rapid growth at the moment, may find themselves in a more difficult position in coming years as multi-channel or omnichannel retailers bring the best elements of the online shopping experience into stores. "The next few years for the high street becomes a lot more exciting," he said.

However this shift is also bringing unforeseen challenges. With some 60% of John Lewis customers researching online before coming into store, the department store retailer's head of multi-channel, Simon Russell, highlights how this is changing both how they recruit and the importance of training staff. Retailers need now to ensure their store staff are internet literate, and increasingly knowledgeable about their products - so they can speak to their highly-informed customers.

As the industry scrambles to get to grips with this new way of working, and as the economy remains in its current depressed state, retailers will have to work twice as hard to simply remain in the same spot. But the ones who do will be well positioned for when the economy improves.

Despite the swathe of high profile designer moves happening just now, the improving economy has helped workers in the fashion sector to become more confident about their job stability, according to Celeste Gudas, the founder of fashion industry recruitment company 24 Seven.

However, she tells just-style that soft benefits and professional development remain important for personnel in the sector.

"As the February 2012 retail sales reports have shown, the economy is continuing to turn around, improving consumer confidence and driving customers back into the stores," she says.

"Professionals and prospective candidates are also feeling more confident about job stability and the future of their company's growth, but employers must continue to be sensitive to their employees needs for soft benefits and professional development opportunities in order to maintain job satisfaction."

The comments come as 24 Seven launches its sixth annual Salary and Job Satisfaction Survey, which includes European countries for the first time. The survey provides direct industry insight into how executives, managers and staffers are compensated and the general mood in the job market.

 "As our clients continue to expand their global strategies and reach, the addition of Europe to the cross section of professionals being surveyed will help all of us to better understand today's job market worldwide," says Gudas.

To take the survey, click here.

The fashion world has entered its version of a football transfer window, with Stefano Plilati out at YSL and Raf Simons ending his run at Jil Sander.

And like the football world, the industry finds itelf abuzz with whispers over where Simonds, Pilati, and Pilati's rumoured replacement Hedi Slimane are set to land. And of course speculation continues about who will replace John Galliano at Dior, a post that is still vacant after more than a year.

In an article discussing the current round of musical chairs within the industry, the NYT's Suzy Menkes argues designers are being treated "like commodities, bought and dispensed with as the corporate house pleases".

"No grain of gossip is too small to grow into a mighty story," Menkes says.

"Designers in the past have fought with the "suits" and turned to alcohol and drugs. Why do things seem such a mega-drama today, ending any chance of a sad situation being resolved with dignity?"

Let's hope this transfer window closes soon, and that Dior finally appoints a new head so we can put this speculation to rest.

Triumph launched a virtual Fantasy Mirror alongside a new range of lingerie with brand ambassador Helena Christensen last week.

The mirror gives consumers the illusion of standing in front of a full-sized mirror in a changing room. A motion sensor camera, which looks like a modified Kinect for the Xbox 360 (for the videogamers reading here), creates a an accurate 3D reconstruction, tracks the viewer's body which is then translated onto the screen as a 3D silhouette of a female avatar that moves in real time to the user's motions.

The mirror allows users to virtually try on a range of lingerie from the Triumph Essence collection, selecting from items displayed on a small touch screen.

Playing with the Fantasy Mirror at the launch of the latest Triumph range at Selfridges on Thursday, I was pretty impressed by how well it worked. From a vanity perspective (and in a room full of lithe fashion journalists) I'm pleased with how the device improved my shape and it was a good way of looking through the new range.

This "improvement" also means that I wouldn't wholly rely on it when buying lingerie. Fantasy Fitting room is a neat way of looking quickly through a range, I doubt it will replace the expertise of the fitters in the real changing rooms.