The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, will boost Farfetch’s resale service by enabling development of technological features such as automated pricing, and will also expand the service’s geographic and category reach, Farfetch said. The company’s chief commercial officer, Giorgio Belloli, pointed to China as among the markets where consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of resale. While Farfetch’s resale service currently only deals in handbags, ready-to-wear is an obvious next category to bring in next, and the company is also looking at watches and jewelry, Belloli told The Wall Street Journal.

The secondhand market is a growing focus for the luxury industry. With environmental concerns more and more important in consumers’ purchasing decisions, resale can serve as a way to maintain revenue growth without relying on indefinitely higher volumes, Bain and Co. said in a report earlier this year produced alongside sustainability-focused trade body Positive Luxury. Resale could by the end of the decade contribute up to 20% of a luxury-goods company’s revenue, while increasing a given garment’s profit margin by 40%, the report said. According to Farfetch’s own figures, more than half of its customers are involved in the secondhand market, whether through buying or selling.

The used-luxury market is set to reach a total 33 billion euros ($37.2 billion) this year, soaring 65% since 2017, Bain said in a separate report with Italian trade association Altagamma. French luxury group Kering, which owns Gucci among other fashion brands, in March this year bought a small stake in another luxury resale platform, Vestiaire Collective. The move indicated a thawing of previously icy attitudes toward the market from luxury players, Deutsche Bank analysts said at the time, noting that the investment would give Kering a seat on Vestiaire’s board and valuable insight into the workings of the secondhand business.

As a luxury-goods platform, Farfetch’s role is to provide brands with sustainability options, said Belloli, who is also chief sustainability officer at the company. Shipping is an environmental problem for e-commerce companies, he said, adding that Farfetch offsets the impact of every package it ships. “We strongly believe that we can be the force that pushes all the actors in the industry to choose and then act positively, he said.

Farfetch has worked with Luxclusif for several years, making the acquisition the latest instance of the company reaching M&A deals with its partners. Farfetch last month agreed to the creation of a 50-50 joint venture with London-listed Clipper Logistics PLC, expected to launch early in the new year. The JV will enable Farfetch to speed up deliveries to customers through access to Clipper’s global warehousing network, Chief Operations Officer Luis Teixeira said at the time.

Farfetch is also currently in talks with Swiss luxury giant Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA about the possibility of becoming a minority investor in Richemont’s own e-commerce business Yoox-Net-A-Porter, which has struggled financially since joining the group. Richemont is looking to divest overall control of YNAP, which it wants to become a “neutral platform” for the luxury-goods industry, with investment from various players.

Farfetch has stressed that there is no guarantee of the talks leading to a deal with Richemont. Nevertheless, a YNAP tie-up wouldn’t be the first time the companies have worked together. Last November, the Cartier owner and Chinese tech group Alibaba Group Holding Inc.
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said they would invest $250 million each in Farfetch, in a deal that entailed the creation of a joint venture covering Farfetch’s operations in China. Analysts at the time said the JV showed the luxury sector’s confidence in Farfetch, and Richemont boss Johann Rupert has himself spoken admiringly of Farfetch’s technological prowess, calling the platform’s tech offer “quite remarkable” in a conference call following first-half results last month.

In December 2020, Scott penned a Medium post announcing more than $4.1 billion in gifts to 384 organizations, many of them grassroots groups serving historically marginalized people. She followed that up with a June 2021 post revealing that she had sent more than $2.7 billion to 286 “high-impact organizations.”

But in her latest letter, Scott, whose current net worth is estimated at $59.2 billion, omitted details and said she hoped media coverage would focus on broadening society’s definition of philanthropy. “How much or how little money changes hands doesn’t make it philanthropy,” Scott wrote. “Intention and effort make it philanthropy. If we acknowledge what it all has in common, there will be more of it.”

That’s why, she explained, she uses the word “giving” instead of “philanthropy” to describe what she’s doing with her money, and that’s also why “I’m not including here any amounts of money I’ve donated since my prior posts,” she said. 

Scott argued for a more generous definition of philanthropy, one that’s not limited to describing how ultra-wealthy people like her use their resources to try to solve society’s problems. Simple acts of kindness between people should count as “philanthropy” too, she wrote, and the amount of money or who’s doing the giving shouldn’t determine whether society pays attention, she said.

“We tend to give more focus to things we can tally, and to rank everything else,” Scott wrote. “Why does one form of compassionate action, one group of beneficiaries, one group of givers have to be more important than the others? Financially valuable versus socially valuable.”

Scott said she’ll leave it up to groups who’ve received her money to “speak for themselves first if they choose to, with the hope that when they do, media focuses on their contributions instead of mine.”

The sheer size and speed of Scott’s philanthropy has indeed won her plenty of media attention, as well as praise from philanthropy observers. She topped Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most powerful women this week, ahead of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

Scott’s latest update is “absolutely remarkable,” and also “inspiring and problematic,” said philanthropy scholar Ben Soskis,  senior research associate at the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Scott is acting as both critic and participant in philanthropy’s top echelons, he noted. In attempting to put the focus on the groups she’s giving money to, she seems to be pursuing a noble goal — but the size and influence of Scott’s fortune demand public scrutiny, Soskis said. Some of the grants she’s made are the largest-ever charitable contributions some organizations have ever received, he added.

“I want to highlight what I think is a problematic element of her post while at the same time recognizing that she has her finger on a really profound issue about the way that society allocates respect and attention in ways that mirror the misallocation of resources as well,” Soskis told MarketWatch. “It’s a bigger issue about who we honor, who we respect, but also who we scrutinize and who we hold to account.”

The Bridgespan Group, a consulting firm that advises Scott on her giving, declined to comment.

Scott was one of the most active and influential individual donors of 2020. Some see her as a trailblazer for handing out money with no strings attached, meaning that nonprofits are generally free to use her gifts as they wish. This style of “trust-based” philanthropy is considered to be a departure from the traditional power dynamic of wealthy donors dictating how recipients of their largesse must use their money.

Scott is also an example of a new breed of philanthropists who set their own terms for disclosing how they disburse their billions. While traditional grantmaking foundations are required to report their grants to the public, individual mega-donors such as Scott, her ex-husband Jeff Bezos, and Twitter
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co-founder Jack Dorsey don’t use foundations to do their giving, which means they can choose when and how to reveal their charitable spending. 

Scott, who signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, does not have a press team or website that lists her giving; she’s made all of her grantmaking announcements via Medium posts and tweets. Bezos has announced some of his grants on Instagram
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and Dorsey lists the donations from his charitable LLC on a public Google
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spreadsheet.

Brian Mittendorf, a professor of nonprofit accounting at The Ohio State University, said that while he understands Scott’s sentiment that too much attention is paid to numbers versus causes, he was disappointed by Scott’s move away from transparency.

“Another aspect that cannot be ignored is that these gifts presumably come with substantial tax deductions, so each gift she gives is effectively made in concert with the general public,” Mittendorf told MarketWatch. “The question is what obligation she has in bringing the general public, which is supporting these gifts, along for the ride. The attention she will get is inescapable, but the accountability provided by disclosing giving choices to the public is one of the few levers we have to influence billionaire philanthropy.”

Especially worrying is the outlook for the Sierra Nevada, the long mountain chain that runs through the eastern part of the state. California’s cities and its farms—which grow over a third of the nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruit and nuts—rely on runoff from the mountains’ snowpack for water.

As an engineer, I have studied California’s water and climate for over 30 years. A closer look at California’s water resources shows the challenge ahead and how climate change is putting the state’s water supply and agriculture at greater risk.

Where California gets its water

Statewide, California averages about 2 feet of precipitation a year, about two-thirds of the global average, giving the state as a whole a semiarid climate.

The majority of California’s rain and snow falls in the mountains, primarily in winter and spring. But agriculture and coastal cities need that water to get through the dry summers. To get water to dry Southern California and help with flood control in the north, California over the past century developed a statewide system of reservoirs, tunnels and canals that brings water from the mountains. The largest of those projects, the State Water Project, delivers water from the higher-precipitation northern Sierra to the southern half of the state.

To track where the water goes, it’s useful to look at the volume in acre-feet. California is about 100 million acres in area, so at 2 feet a year, its annual precipitation averages about 200 million acre-feet.

Of that 200, an average of only about 80 million acre-feet heads downstream. Much of the water returns to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration by plants and trees in the Sierra Nevada or North Coast forests. Of the 80 million acre-feet that does run off, about half remains in the aquatic environment, such as rivers flowing to the ocean. That leaves about 41 million acre-feet for downstream use. About 80% of that goes for agriculture and 20% for urban uses.

In wet years, there may be much more than 80 million acre-feet of water available, but in dry years, it can be much less.

In 2020, for example, California’s precipitation was less than two-thirds of average, and the State Water Project delivered only 5% of the contracted amounts. The state’s other main aqueduct systems that move water around the state also severely reduced their supplies.

The 2021 water year, which ended Sept. 30, was one of the three driest on record for the Sierra Nevada. Precipitation was about 44% of average. With limited precipitation as of December 2021 and the state in extreme drought, the State Water Project cut its preliminary allocations for water agencies to 0% for 2022, with small amounts still flowing for health and safety needs.

While conditions could improve if more storms come in the next three months, the official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration outlook points to below-normal precipitation being more likely than above normal.

Drought and a warming climate

Multiyear dry periods, when annual precipitation is below average, are a feature of California’s climate, but rising global temperatures are also having an impact.

Over the past 1,100 years, there has been at least one dry period lasting four years or longer each century. There have been two in the past 35 years—1987-92 and 2012-15. A warmer climate intensifies the effect of these dry periods, as drier soil and drier air stress both natural vegetation and crops.

Rising global temperatures affect runoff from the Sierra Nevada, which provides over 60% of California’s developed water supply.

Over 80% of the runoff in the central and southern Sierra Nevada comes from the snow zone. In the wetter but lower-elevation northern Sierra, rainfall contributes over one-third of the annual runoff.

The average snowline, the elevation above which most precipitation is snow, goes from about 5,000 feet elevation in the north to 7,000 feet in the south. On average, each 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 Celsius) of warming could push the snowline another 500 feet higher, reducing the snow total.

Shifts from snow to rain and earlier runoff also mean that more of the capacity behind existing dams will be allocated to flood control, further reducing their capacity for seasonal water-supply storage.

A wealth of research has established that the Sierra Nevada could see low- to no-snow winters for years at a time by the late 2040s if greenhouse-gas emissions don’t decline, with conditions worsening beyond that possible.

Warming will also increase water demand from forests as growing seasons lengthen and drive both drought stress leading to tree mortality and increased risk of high-severity wildfires.

Sustainability in a warming climate

Water storage is central to California’s water security.

Communities and farms can pump more groundwater when supplies are low, but the state has been pumping out more water than is replenished in wet years. Parts of the state rely on water from the Colorado River, whose dams provide for several years of water storage, but the basin lacks the runoff to fill the dams.

Public opposition has made it difficult to build new dams, so better use of groundwater for both seasonal and multiyear storage is crucial.

The state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires local agencies to develop sustainability plans. That provides some hope that groundwater pumping and replenishment can be brought into balance, most likely by leaving some cropland unplanted. Managed aquifer recharge south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is gradually expanding, and much more can be done.

If the state doesn’t do more, including tactics such as applying desalination technology to make saltwater usable, urban areas can expect the 25% cuts in water use put in place during the 2012-15 drought to be more common and potentially even deeper.

California’s water resources can provide for a healthy environment, robust economy and sustainable agricultural use. Achieving this will require upgrading both natural infrastructure—headwaters forests, floodplains and groundwater recharge in agricultural areas—and built infrastructure, such as canals, spillways and levees. The information is available; officials now have to follow through.

Roger Bales is a distinguished professor of engineering at the University of California, Merced.

More on climate change

Rocky Mountains winter starts with megadroughts and no snowfall

What California’s fading cotton crop in favor of almonds reveals about premium farmland and a warming planet

Why prices for wheat have climbed to their highest level since 2012

Retailers expect revenue losses between 5% and 20% from the past 18 months because of supply-chain issues, translating into billions of dollars in lost sales, based on a survey of more than 600 supply-chain leaders at retailers in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany conducted in October by Sapio Research on behalf of Coupa.

Read: America’s new export problem: 12.1 million shipping containers left biggest U.S. ports empty

“It’s absolutely the worst situation I’ve seen in 23 years covering the field,” Madhav Durbha, vice president of supply-chain strategy at Coupa, told MarketWatch. “The challenge is, how do you get products from ports to their final destination?”

And there is no relief in sight: Nine of 10 retailers anticipate revenue will continue to be impacted by supply-chain issues for at least the next six months.

Fueling long delays and shortages are issues related to shipping containers, followed by long supply chains and truck-driver shortages. In Europe, the impact of Brexit was also a significant factor.

“To help overcome these omnipresent challenges, retailers are finding value in supply-chain design and planning technology,” Durbha said. “They can stress-test supply chains in real time, tear down silos and eliminate blind spots across their businesses to outsmart disruptions.”

Major retailers Costco Wholesale Corp.
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Walmart Inc.
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Target Corp.
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and others are chartering their own ships and sending them to less-congested ports in Florida and Alabama.

Some 71% of retailers that usually offer Black Friday deals did not offer as many this year, and 67% are encouraging customers to shop early this year.

The company reported third-quarter net income of $184.1 million, or $5.88 a share, compared with $46.4 million, or $1.64 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were $7.03 a share, compared with $6.20 a share in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose to $1.01 billion from $844 million in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of $6.61 a share on revenue of $981.9 million.

“While we believe a conservative view of revenues in the fourth quarter is prudent due to the uncertainties posed by the new virus variant, the postponed opening of our new San Francisco Gallery until the spring, and the continued shipping and port delays, the power of our operating model gives us the confidence to raise our outlook for fiscal 2021 for the third time this year,” the company said in a statement.

RH expects fiscal 2021 revenue growth of between 32% and 33%, or $3.76 billion to $3.79 billion. Previously, RH had forecast a 31% to %33 gain. Analysts expect revenue of $3.76 billion.

Shares of the Rent the Runway, which went public in October, hit an intraday low of $10.88 this week. Their closing price Wednesday was more than 45% lower than their IPO price of $21.

The provider of rented fashion reported that revenue rose to $59 million from $35.5 million in the year-ago quarter, and that it reached a total of 116,833 active subscribers, a 78% increase year over year. That number is 87% of the company’s subscribers at the end of fiscal year 2019, it said.

“We believe these metrics are clear indicators of our ongoing business re-acceleration,” said company co-founder and Chief Executive Jennifer Hyman in a statement.

Rent the Runway’s third-quarter net loss was $87.8 million, or $6.72 a share, compared with a loss of $44.3 million, or $3.98 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted Ebitda loss was $5.6 million, adjusted for rental-product depreciation, stock compensation and other costs.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast a net loss of $64.8 million, or 96 cents a share, on revenue of $53.4 million. They had also expected the company to have reached 125,000 subscribers.

Rent the Runway expects fourth-quarter revenue of $62.8 million to $63.3 million, higher than analysts’ expectation of $62.7 million in sales. The company also said it expects full-year revenue of $202.0 million to $202.5 million, compared with analysts’ expectation of $196.3 million.

The company reported a third-quarter loss of $122.8 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with a loss of $70.8 million, or 41 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings, which exclude stock-based compensation expenses and other items, were break-even a share, compared with a loss of 4 cents a share in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose to $220.8 million from $147.3 million in the year-ago quarter. The company’s annualized renewal run rate, or ARR, rose 58% to $818.4 million from a year ago. ARR is a metric often used by software-as-a-service companies to show how much revenue the company can expect based on subscriptions.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast a loss of 4 cents a share on revenue of $208.3 million and an ARR of $797.9 million, based on UiPath’s forecast revenue of $207 million to $209 million and ARR of $796 million to $798 million for the third quarter.

Read: UiPath IPO: 5 things to know about the ‘software robots’ company valued at nearly $30 billion

UiPath forecast revenue of $281 million to $283 million and ARR of $901 million to $903 million for the fourth quarter, while analysts expect revenue of $281.5 million and ARR of $880.3 million.