Reshaping Fashion Retail: Key Insights from Transformation Conference Stockholm 2025
Sep 4, 2025
By [stroem]
Last week I stepped into Stockholm Fashion District for Transformation Conference 2025, where Scandinavian MIND gathered some of the sharpest minds in fashion and tech to talk about the future of retail.
From wholesale blind spots to AI-powered pricing, from Digital Product Passports to resale – the conversations cut straight into the heart of how fashion is being reshaped right now.
The event was hosted by Scandinavian MIND with fabulous Konrad Olsson, Editor-in-Chief, guiding the day. The theme? Data and technology – and how they are reshaping fashion’s entire value chain.
For those of you who are curious but couldn’t attend – here are the insights.
(Full disclosure: I didn’t catch every single session – calls had to be taken, focus had to be split – so not all talks are included here. But the ones that are? They’re the ones that truly stayed with me.)
On Trend with Data-Driven Operations and The Wholesale Drama
Speakers:
Martin Börjesson, Chief Technology & Sustainability Officer, J.Lindeberg
Daniel Di Benedetto, Regional Director Euro North, Centric Software
David Thunmarker, CEO and Co-Founder, Impulso
The opening panel zoomed in on data-driven operations – with a spotlight on wholesale.
Martin Börjesson has a rare double mandate: tech and sustainability. He spoke with passion about the urgency of the sustainability challenge, making it clear there’s still a lot left to do. At J.Lindeberg, tech solutions are already in play – from smarter fabric sourcing to the small but impactful choice of reusing IT equipment.
But Martin also pointed at a critical blind spot: wholesale.
A staggering 75% of J.Lindeberg’s products go into wholesale – and once they leave the brand, it’s a black hole. No visibility on sell-through. No insight into returns or claims. No feedback loop for product development. In practice, that means designers are creating the next season without access to real-world data – making it harder to meet customer needs, hit sustainability goals, or even secure profitability.
David Thunmarker (ex-Tiger, now co-founder of Impulso) built on this point. He reminded us that wholesale was predicted to die back in 2003 – but in 2025, it’s stronger than ever. Nearly 60% of all apparel still flows through wholesale, mostly offline. His solution: Impulso – connecting brands with retailers, enabling real-time sell-through data, taking companies from blind to see, cutting overproduction, and boosting margins.
Daniel Di Benedetto from Centric Software brought in the lifecycle perspective. Their PLM tools give PDs, designers, buyers, and merchandisers structured data at every stage. For some clients, this has meant radical results: SKU counts down, leftovers slashed from 25–30% to closer to 5–10%.
The conversation closed on the hot topic of DPP (Digital Product Passport) and everyone agreed: it’s not just compliance – it’s an opportunity, a well needed transparency that doubles as a business driver.
Curious fact
Martin shared insights from J.Lindeberg’s “Returns Day” project. Over just 15 months, the brand’s returns added up to a mind-blowing 1,314 laps around the world.
Insane? Absolutely. But also a wake-up call. Numbers like these make it crystal clear why returns can’t be treated as business-as-usual – they demand new behaviors, smarter systems, and digital tools to truly turn the tide.
How AI enables sell-through and minimises overstock
Speakers:
Laurent Mainil, Founder, Markmi
Markus Krenn, Head of Commercial Planning & Operations, C&A Europe
This session was a case study in AI-powered pricing – and how one of Europe’s most established retailers is using it to stay relevant.
C&A, with more than 180 years of history and 1,000+ stores across Europe, faces the same challenge every retailer does: how to set the right price, at the right time, at scale.
Markus Krenn shared how, in 2022, C&A explored seven possible AI opportunities. Pricing came out on top – both for its impact and feasibility. Enter Markmi, a Belgian SaaS company laser-focused on AI-driven pricing.
Founder Laurent Mainil explained their model:
AI crunches sales data, margin goals, and business rules to generate multiple scenarios. C&A’s team can then choose the most relevant path – by country, by season, by objective. The results? Faster, smarter markdowns. Clearer alignment between central strategy and local behavior. And most importantly – margins protected in the middle of inflation.
But the real insight came from Markus: implementation wasn’t just about systems. It was about people. AI sparks both enthusiasm and fear – especially when developers see shorts being marked down in June. Legacy processes are hard to change. But in a world of thousands of SKUs, manual pricing is no longer an option.
Looking ahead, both speakers agreed on this development:
Short term (2–3 years): expect micro-solutions – targeted AI tools solving specific consumer pain points quickly.
Long term (5–10 years): an AI-driven operating system for fashion retail, reshaping org charts and roles completely.
Driving Transparency Through Data: Lessons From Leading Fashion Brands
Speakers:
Viktoria Arndt, Global Sales & Business Development Manager, Kappahl
Staffan Olsson, Head of Public Affairs, GS1 Sweden
Karolin Catela, Product Specialist, GS1 Sweden
This one was truly amazing and insightful as it explained one of the hottest topic in the industry now - the Digital Product Passport that is about to change what the brands know – and show – about the product itself.
Staffan Olsson laid the regulatory backdrop: The EU’s EcoDesign for Sustainable Products Regulation will hit fashion hardest. Detailed requirements are expected in 2027, with at least 18 months to implement. That may sound far away, but the clock is ticking.
Viktoria Arndt from Kappahl shared a pioneering pilot project with GS1 and TrusTrace. They built one of the first DPPs, gathering 100+ data points across product info, compliance, climate impact, and circularity. QR codes were added to labels, linking customers directly to the data.
The key insights were sharp:
Change management is key. Employees and suppliers must understand the “why” behind the data.
Suppliers aren’t ready. Many are still on paper. Getting to fiber-level traceability is a huge lift.
Transparency is a business asset. Customers want to know the true content and value of a garment – not just the price.
Staffan pushed the point on digitalisation and standards. If every brand builds their own system, the industry loses. Interoperability is the only way forward.
Karolin concluded with a call to action: start now. Build a DPP team, even if it’s just two people. Don’t see it as compliance – see it as strategy. The brands that move early will gain competitive edge.
The takeaway? DPP isn’t just about proving sustainability.
It’s about building trust (=loyal customers), unlocking new business models (=sales opportunities), and future-proofing your brand.
The opportunities in resell
Speakers:
Christian Kilin, CEO, Brandback
Amanda Thorén, CEO, Bencha
Marcus Hartmann, Regional Head of Sustainability & Public Affairs, H&M North Europe
If one theme dominated the day, it was this: resale is no longer optional.
Marcus Hartmann set the stage with H&M’s journey. Resale is still only 0.6% of turnover – but with H&M’s size, that means 1.5 billion SEK. Big enough to matter, small enough to scale, and the two powers that drive it are business growth and sustainability.
Christian Kilin from Brandback called resale “too big to ignore.” The numbers back him up: online fashion resale has grown 40% year-on-year for five years, doubling every two years. It now makes up 9–10% of the global fashion market. Meanwhile, overall fashion retail is flat.
Brandback’s model is embedded resale – showing resale values already on PDPs and checkout pages. Customers buy more confidently when they know future resale value, and returns drop. Post-sale, Brandback manages resale through marketplaces like eBay or white-label solutions.
Amanda Thorén’s Bencha tackles the pain point of resale operations: manual listing. Today it can take 15 minutes per item. With Bencha’s AI, a photo is enough to identify brand, size, color, material, and suggest a price – listing is done in seconds. Every product gets a unique ID, ready to track across its lifecycle.
The trio concluded the undeniable customer shift:
Gen Z is driving resale. For them, second-hand vs new is a coin toss. 48% prefer second-hand. It’s about sustainability, affordability, and uniqueness.
FOMO is real. One-off pieces drive traffic in-store.
Circular data matters. Second-hand pricing, quality, and demand loops back to inform design and production.
Looking ahead Christian predicted that retail and resale will merge into one seamless channel, and even if It’s a software problem to solve for the time being - it is just a matter of time.
Amanda hoped for hyper-personalized buyer–seller matching, and AI-automated product lifecycles (refurbishing - reselling - relocating).
Marcus saw an omni-future where new and second-hand are indistinguishable, where online recommendations and store assortments are blended.
Final Thoughts
The red thread across all panels was clear: data, tech, AI and circular thinking are no longer side notes – they are the value chain.
Big thanks to Scandinavian MIND and Stockholm Fashion District for curating an event that sparks both urgency and optimism. Transformation is here, and it’s happening in real time.
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