The Great Reset

Consumers never stopped loving multi-brand shopping. They stopped loving the soulless spaces that made them feel invisible.

So before we get into this, yes, the economic climate always plays a role in collapse during challenging times. Rising debt, shifts in trade policy, inflationary pressure, and the ongoing retreat of luxury brands from wholesale has definitely added weight to the downfall of some multi-brand players. If you aren't fully across it, here's a snapshot for you. We have seen Ssense file for bankruptcy protection,

MatchesFashion shuttered altogether, and Farfetch narrowly escape closure through a last-minute bailout only to re-emerge as a shadow of its former self. Saks, once a pillar of American luxury retail, was forced into refinancing billions in bonds, a move that analysts read as a near-default.

These financial realities matter. I get it and they explain part of the turbulence. But what they don’t do is tell the whole story. If economics were the sole explanation, then every retailer in this category would be struggling equally. Yet at the same time that global platforms and department store giants struggle, independent boutiques and a handful of disciplined department stores are quietly succeeding. Something deeper is happening here, let's jump in and go through it.

Beyond Economics: The Collapse of Presence

There's one thing that stripped out more than anything when it comes to multi-brand retail, no its not margin, its meaning. For years, the strategy has been the same and pretty simple, scale is the answer. Much broader assortments, bigger footprints and faster customer acquisition. The more brands we can get under one roof, the better. Now on paper, this promised efficiency. However in practice, it eroded the very thing that made multi-brand retail compelling, the human presence that transforms shopping from transaction into memory.

Some retailers then cut staff to preserve profits. They standardised assortments until one store almost looked identical to the next. They built endless aisles online, so large and so undifferentiated that browsing became more of a labour than a leisure. Discovery was flattened into filters and storytelling was replaced by algorithmic recommendations. Therefore, what began as an attempt to chase relevance at scale ended up erasing the very soul of the experience.

Consumers didn't start walking away from multi-brand shopping itself, they just walked away from soulless environments that made them feel invisible. It's why brands like Mecca continue to stand out as best in class and continue to prove that when you invest in presence, storytelling, and human energy, scale can be achieved without sacrificing soul at all.

Why Presence Matters

At IGU Global we often remind brands that people do not remember transactions, they remember how they felt and that this is the nervous system of retail. When presence disappears, when the sales associates who knew your name are replaced by self-checkout, when the edit is designed for volume rather than perspective, when the store feels like a warehouse rather than a host its simple, emotional memory dissolves. And with it goes loyalty.

The generational truth is that younger consumers are not rejecting multi-brand shopping at all. They are just rejecting undifferentiated spaces and I get it. Gen Z and Millennials, and even the emerging Gen Alpha cohort, want community, belonging, and identity curation. They expect the places they shop to reflect their values and contribute to their sense of self. They are willing to spend time and money in those environments that feel intentional, maybe intimate, and human.

This is why we see more independent boutiques doing so well. Stores like ByGeorge in Austin, McMullen in San Francisco, Hirshleifers in New York, Dover Street Market in London and Tokyo, Dongliang in China or United Arrows in Japan are all growing not because they are small, but because they are present. They reset or change their floors fortnightly and they curate with conviction. They introduce new designers with the passion of a host introducing a friend and they hire staff who know their clientele personally, who can tell the story behind each garment, and who treat every visit as part of an ongoing relationship.

Presence is what protects them.

Attention, Not Assortment

The industry has framed the crisis as one of assortment, too many brands leaving wholesale, too few hero products to draw traffic, too much overlap between platforms. But the real crisis is not assortment, the real crisis is just attention.

Retailers spent the past decade optimising for efficiency, which has often come at the expense of intentionality. Attention was fragmented across thousands of SKUs, diluted by discounting strategies, and squandered on acquisition over retention. In the pursuit of being everything to everyone, many became nothing to anyone.

Independent boutiques, in contrast, know who they are and more importantly who they are not. That discipline of curation commands attention so that customers return not just because of what’s stocked, but because of the absolute clarity of the edit. When you walk into a store like Dover Street Market, you understand immediately that someone has made some choices here. Choices anchored in perspective. Choices that allow you to stumble across the unexpected while still feeling that little bit guided.

This balance between efficiency and serendipity is really the essence of modern discovery because shoppers do want to find what they came for quickly, but they also want to be surprised by something they did not know they needed. Is there anything better than that feeling of “Oh I didn't expect to see that, but it totally makes sense to me” Boutiques deliver this because they understand attention as a limited human resource, not just some marketing KPI.

The Generational Reset

The behaviour shift is biggest among younger cohorts. Millennials like me grew up during the mall era, where variety always equaled value. For us, multi-brand was all about access. But Gen Z and Gen Alpha have come of age in an environment of overwhelming access and don’t want infinite choice. They want filtered choice, edited, contextualised, and most importantly tied to community.

Shopping for these generations is way less about acquiring product and much more about participating in identity. A boutique becomes a mirror for their values and a place where they can both discover and be discovered. A department store that feels like a hotel lobby, with café corners and concierge-style service, invites them not just to buy but to belong. The mistake of large-scale multi-brand players was assuming that more volume and more reach would always be the answer but for today’s consumers, more meaning is the answer.

So What’s Needed Now

If multi-brand retail is to survive this reset for lack of a better word, it has to rediscover the fundamentals of presence. That means re-investing not only in product, but in people, space, and story. The path forward requires a focus on these simple things:

1. Curation as Conviction

The future’s going to belong to the retailers who have a point of view and opinion, which means clarity of edit matters more than quantity of stock. Saying no is going to be more important than yes and it's because consumers are drawn to environments where they feel someone has done the work of distilling culture into a selection worth their time.

2. Stores as Hosts, Not Halls

Successful stores have to operate more like boutique hotels than supermarkets. They will invite people in, make them comfortable, and encourage them to stay. It's going to be amenities such as cafés, lounges, or even simply well-designed spaces with seating and service that aren’t extras but essentials. They allow the easy signal of care which extends to presence.

3. Investment in People

Cutting staff was unfortunately the quickest way to erode loyalty. Bringing them back, trained, empowered, and really valued is the quickest way to restore it in my opinion. Sales associates must be more than salespeople and seen as storytellers, concierges, and community connectors.

4. Balancing Efficiency with Serendipity

Technology will continue to play a role in streamlining discovery, but it should be used to enhance, not replace, the human experience. AI can help customers articulate what they are seeking, but it simply cannot replicate the joy of stumbling across something you did not know you wanted.

We are already seeing this play out with platforms like Shopify, which is integrating AI into the core of how consumers discover and purchase. Pair that with conversational tools like ChatGPT, and the act of “shopping” shifts again: people will increasingly search by intent, emotion, or occasion rather than by product category. That again changes the rules for multi-brand retail. If algorithms can deliver a “black dress for my best friend’s engagement party” in seconds, the role of physical or multi-brand environments becomes less about efficiency and more about creating meaning, memory, and serendipity.

It's pretty simple really, you cannot compete with AI on convenience, you can only compete on presence.

5. Point of View as Differentiation

Multi-brand retail succeeds when it has a clear direction. Independent boutiques demonstrate that loyalty comes from perspective and department stores like Bloomingdale’s are showing that a sharpened vision, coupled with strong brand partnerships and service, can still win. The lesson is that without a clear identity, scale is meaningless.

Why This Matters

Multi-brand retail is not dead and far from it. What is dying though is that old hollowed-out version that forgot why people shop across brands in the first place. The great reset is not going to be about fewer stores or more e-commerce. It’s about re-centring retail on the human psychology of attention, memory, presence and belonging.

For brands, the implications are very clear in my opinion. Choosing where to distribute is no longer a simple question of volume or visibility. It is a question of alignment with environments that really honour presence and for retailers, the challenge is to resist the temptation of endless expansion and instead double down on clarity and intimacy. For customers, the outcome is simple: they will continue to vote with their wallets, feet and their hearts and for the spaces that make them feel seen.

The erosion of human presence is what's killing multi-brand retail as we know it. The protection of presence will be what saves it.

By Nick Gray, Founder | IGU Global