Latest / The Retail Podcast / Retail’s Next Frontier: Leadership, Agility & Digital Influence with Ben Miller of Shoptalk
Transcript
- 0:00And this is where it also comes back to the mindset.
- 0:01So it's it'd be very easy to be very Britishly cynical about it.
- 0:07Yeah. And say, oh, voice commerce
- 0:09never really took off and the metaverse didn't take off.
- 0:12So they say I can use them going to take off.
- 0:14Great. OK, have have that mindset, but
- 0:17you know it there is going to be shifting the volume.
- 0:19But that's the mindset that makes you lose track of the fact
- 0:22that one of the fastest growing areas for search at the moment
- 0:24is visual. Hello and welcome to a special
- 0:38episode of the retail podcast. I know I always say they're
- 0:41special, but for me it's like a crescendo.
- 0:43They just keep going better and better.
- 0:45And it's special because I'm in the hive offices with none other
- 0:49with world famous Ben Reeler, VP of content at shop talk.
- 0:54And, you know, for me, it's like crazy because I'm always in the
- 0:57stage watching you, Ben, right? And I'm just lapping up, you
- 1:01know, the speakers that you find, the content that you
- 1:03produce and put there. But for the people that maybe
- 1:06haven't had a chance to come along to shop, talk around the
- 1:09world, Yeah. Do you mind just giving us who
- 1:11you are and what you do? Yeah, of course.
- 1:13And, and welcome to the office. Thank you.
- 1:15Thank you for coming in, Alex. It's pleasure.
- 1:16It's great to see you. And so, yeah, Ben Miller, my,
- 1:19my, my role. I'm, I'm VP of what we call
- 1:21original contents and strategy at the shop talk and grocery
- 1:24shop group. So what, what does that really
- 1:26mean? It means I've the privilege of
- 1:29working at a global role across the global portfolio.
- 1:32We now have 5 shows under the shop talk and grocery shop
- 1:36banners in the US, in Europe and Barcelona can really soon and,
- 1:41and in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi for, for our new shop talk
- 1:44blocks. And, and my role is to pull
- 1:47together research insights, coordinate the talking points
- 1:52and really to bring new original thinking to all of our shows.
- 1:56And also to make sure that we weave a common narrative of how
- 2:00we're seeing the retail market emerge and develop and what's
- 2:04next and how we weave it throughout our full portfolio.
- 2:08And because job talk is all about the future of retail, it's
- 2:11all about digital transformation, it's all about
- 2:14retail innovation. So if we want to make sure that
- 2:18all of our shows are looking forward-looking to the future,
- 2:21we need to spend a lot of time really looking at the market,
- 2:23really thinking about what's going on in retail.
- 2:25And then we position our content and our show propositions
- 2:29accordingly. Wow.
- 2:31OK. I mean, thank you for giving up
- 2:33the time because we're only three weeks away from Shop Talk
- 2:36Europe. So you must be it's getting very
- 2:40close to the baby being delivered, right.
- 2:42In terms of you're, you're almost there.
- 2:44It is. You must.
- 2:46Speak to so many people in the industry around the world about
- 2:50insights. What's coming up?
- 2:52What's top of mind for you? What's the one thing that you're
- 2:55hearing people talk about? And I, I have a very privileged
- 2:59position. So my, my, my background is
- 3:01retail as, as an operator, yeah. And then I did a long sting
- 3:04consultancy side in global retail focusing on on on
- 3:09groceries. So I kind of bring that and I'm
- 3:11now sitting this incredible seat where I get to, as you say, talk
- 3:15to literally hundreds of senior leaders through the year where
- 3:21because we we select and we prep every single speaker in every
- 3:25single conversation and we get to work with incredible
- 3:28moderators who lead our conversations on stage.
- 3:31So what are we hearing at the moment?
- 3:32Uncertainty and agility and the requirements of that.
- 3:35Yeah, we talk a bit about that. We look a lot about how
- 3:39customers and their online behaviours are changing.
- 3:43OK, some around transaction, but a lot at the moment about
- 3:46searching discovery. Yeah.
- 3:47And how search is changing and how how you get your products
- 3:51found and, and, and the overlap into to to digital marketing,
- 3:54lots and lots of conversations about how that then blurs into
- 3:57media and how that blurs into retail media.
- 3:59So retail media is, you know, exploding in terms of the money
- 4:01flowing into it, while kind of that a lot of that community sit
- 4:04within the shop talk world. So lots of conversations about
- 4:07how you balance adjacent revenue streams to the core business.
- 4:10And then there's a lot at the moment that comes up in
- 4:13conversations around operational efficiency, so particularly
- 4:17around stores. So one of the things we do is we
- 4:19keep a very close eye on where funding, particularly VC and PE
- 4:25money goes into got you because that helps to give you an idea
- 4:28of still being invested in about what's going to hit, you know,
- 4:31trying to talk about the future of retail sounds very
- 4:33pretentious. I would never claim to be a
- 4:36futurology, you know, I'm, I'm a grocer from Yorkshire.
- 4:39But one of the things that we did try and do is to understand,
- 4:42well, OK, if we see a lot of money being invested into a into
- 4:46an area of technology now that what what does that mean?
- 4:49What does that look like? And yeah, who are the people
- 4:51investing and why are they doing that and that sort of thing.
- 4:53And one of the areas that we've seen a lot of investment into at
- 4:55the moment is in store technologies to drive
- 4:57efficiency. Good.
- 4:59Because those wafer thin margins that retailers work on are are
- 5:02getting squeezed yeah, more than ever.
- 5:04And we and we all know why. So a lot around operational
- 5:08efficiency, how you find that next leap and how technology can
- 5:12help continue to take cost out of stores.
- 5:16And at the same time how you make those stores and mostly
- 5:20physical, but yeah as well how make them more engaging.
- 5:23Yeah. Because yeah, we've all been
- 5:25into beautiful engaging showcase stores and you've been to really
- 5:30efficient effective stores. But how, how did you both?
- 5:34Yeah, because that's kind of where the game is.
- 5:37Got your moment. And that's huge in retail's
- 5:39mind. Yeah, we had lots of
- 5:40conversations around that as well.
- 5:41Investments that we're seeing, you know, whether it's some of
- 5:45the investments in robotics, Yeah, a lot of the work on
- 5:48inventory management and the income continued on that that
- 5:51grocery line and lots of investment going into inventory
- 5:53management, stock management, more and more retailers buying
- 5:56into ESL's what all of which are there to try to drive the
- 5:59efficiency and how you plug AI, Gintic AI into all that to make
- 6:03all that more efficient whilst also to drive that front end
- 6:06experience driving the CX because we've seen so much
- 6:09investment into loyalty mechanics.
- 6:11Yeah, into kind of gamification into and just beautiful
- 6:17retailing. I was in an al behind store a
- 6:19fortnight to go and just reminded me how great and they
- 6:23are a really efficient and effective retailer, but doing
- 6:25some fantastic things in merchandising.
- 6:27How you save here, where you need to invest, how you get the
- 6:30product and range, I don't know. That's kind of core retailing,
- 6:34but it's it's not an either or and there's a whole series of
- 6:37retailers. And I think you know, Mercadon
- 6:39is a great example of of being able to do both.
- 6:42One, I think the most profitable grosser right now globally from
- 6:46a margin perspective, right, because the margins are, it's
- 6:48incredible when you look at it. Are there any examples of like
- 6:50bold leadership that you can share with us in terms of things
- 6:54that you've seen that have really stood out for you?
- 6:56Yeah, I, I think it's a great question.
- 7:00And that topic of leadership has can never be more important at
- 7:04the moment. Yeah.
- 7:05Because, you know, I mean, one of the first things that's open
- 7:07everybody's mind doesn't is uncertainty.
- 7:09And, you know, the conversations that we have is less about what
- 7:13are the concrete actions I need to take now.
- 7:15And of course there are some of that.
- 7:17And you know, I feel we don't don't have enough time to talk
- 7:20about tariffs and the implications, but you're one of
- 7:23the big implications is around, you know, leadership and
- 7:26managing through uncertainty and bold leadership.
- 7:29So ensuring that everybody's really clear on the direction is
- 7:32going in. That is really clear on the
- 7:34investments that's being made. These things are incredibly
- 7:37important at the moment. Now there is some I mean,
- 7:38there's some tactical things that need to be done around kind
- 7:41of pricing, price elasticity, price visibility.
- 7:45But your biggest, yeah, you can invest a lot into great AI to
- 7:48understand if I at least the price they'll be here.
- 7:50What's it mean to somebody over here in the store?
- 7:52I mean, the most important thing, the best leave you've got
- 7:54on price electricity is brand building.
- 7:56And that's really interesting because we've been so focused on
- 7:59performance marketing for so long.
- 8:01Some brands have taken their eye of building that the the brand
- 8:05and the top of the funnel work. And so we kind of really admire
- 8:09leaders who have got really clear, really bold visions, are
- 8:14able to get their organisation behind it because they will help
- 8:18navigate some of the change that this mentioned.
- 8:20So, you know, whether it is, I mean, we had Richard Dixon from
- 8:24Gap. He has one about keynotes.
- 8:25It's all kind of great. Loved it.
- 8:27Loved it. Yeah, it's great.
- 8:28It's all support. And if someone who's bringing
- 8:31the momentum back to Gap to say we know what the Gap brand has
- 8:36stood for, how do we make it that again?
- 8:38How do we line up behind it? Yeah, I think in the retail
- 8:42space, you know, it's impossible not to admire a phenomenal word.
- 8:46Doug Mcmillon has done and continues to do at Walmart.
- 8:50And again, having taken that organisation and made it tech
- 8:55first, but enabled by people, that's a huge change from where
- 8:58our business has been to to see the leadership he's brought.
- 9:01You know, you mentioned like here, that's that's a great IKEA
- 9:04in Oxford Street is a great example of a store built by a
- 9:08confident retailer. Yeah, I know it's his customers
- 9:11who knows his value, value proposition and is prepared to
- 9:14invest. And then has in the Inca group
- 9:17have got a really interesting structure where they can buy the
- 9:19building and the property play. So there's a there's a yeah.
- 9:23And those those are those are the bold moves to come back to
- 9:27what they were saying. There's, there's, there's really
- 9:29Admiral at the moment. Yeah, I think it's really
- 9:31interesting because if if you, if you look at the maturity of
- 9:35regions, you know, like ESL in the UK, in my mind, there's
- 9:39always been lacking compared to a medium of Saturn in Germany or
- 9:43in Europe where they can do elastic pricing, where they can
- 9:47do dynamic pricing or even own brand, right, own label, whether
- 9:51you're Sax and you've just done this massive merger with the
- 9:54brand company and in luxury they want to do more own brand.
- 9:58It feels like there's these regional nuances that, again,
- 10:01you must be tapped into because you see it from a Sharp Talk
- 10:04Europe perspective, you see it from a Sharp Talk Las Vegas.
- 10:08Or 4. I'm just.
- 10:10Curious, what are those regional nuances that you're seeing that
- 10:14in your mind really sort of, you know, they, they stand out.
- 10:18Great question. And yeah, I think we're at a
- 10:20time now where there is so much uncertainty into the economic
- 10:26and consumer position, particularly in the US.
- 10:29So we are we're AUS company and and, and shuttle start in the US
- 10:34and consumer behaviour spending has been really strong, yeah,
- 10:39for a number of years now in the US and that's been questioned at
- 10:43the moment. So that is a huge regional watch
- 10:46out for us. I think one of the things that
- 10:49we find fascinating in Europe, we we talk about shuttle Europe.
- 10:52One of the fun, the journeys that we've been on is you're
- 10:56creating a, a community for a environment that doesn't exist.
- 11:01So there is no European retail market?
- 11:04Absolutely. They're all 30 plus different
- 11:07new ones, special, unique and different real markets.
- 11:11So one of the things that we've done in in Shopton, Europe is
- 11:14say, OK, step back, you, you could be Ricky Mark Saturn.
- 11:18Yeah, great business. Yeah, you'd be Curry's Dixons.
- 11:21Yeah, great business. You're, you're trying to solve
- 11:24some of the same problems in geographies that don't overlap.
- 11:27Yeah. So let's find an environment
- 11:28where you can come together and learn to see.
- 11:30So you're. Sharing that sort of yeah,
- 11:32diversity of. Yeah, the the the guys now
- 11:35behind are trying to solve the same problems as the guys at
- 11:37Sainsbury's. But if you create an environment
- 11:40where they can come together and share and learn and share from
- 11:42each other, yeah, never mind the guys at Sainsbury's then
- 11:45learning from Mini Mart or Decathlon, Yeah, you create a
- 11:49whole whole new dynamic dynamic. And that's there are some
- 11:53incredible similarities. But you're, I mean, you're
- 11:55absolutely right. In Europe, there's much more
- 11:57conversations about sustainability.
- 11:59There is a lot more conversations about the whole
- 12:02fulfilment models because the population density, yeah, across
- 12:05Europe is so different to the population entity in the state.
- 12:08So your, your approaches to supply chain, yeah, come to
- 12:11e-commerce very different, yeah. When we have our grocery
- 12:14conversations, private label, the penetration is much higher,
- 12:18stores a smaller range, changes are smaller and SKU counts for,
- 12:22for the brand of manufacturers are lower.
- 12:24So it's a different relationship.
- 12:26And then more recently, retail media that's exploded in the US
- 12:31and Europe is playing catch up. And it's really interesting to,
- 12:35to watch that dynamic play out. And I I was playing out in a
- 12:38different way with you being quite so fragmented.
- 12:41I love the the whole new markets.
- 12:43That stage that you had this share at Shop Talk was
- 12:46interesting in terms of bringing the best of what retail media is
- 12:49like. Mentioned grocery and I don't
- 12:53want to be biassed, but there's BM who I think it's BM in again
- 12:57in Spain. They're a Basque, a grocer who
- 13:01have created these beautiful stores that for me sort of made
- 13:06me understand that there there's this sort of price war going on
- 13:09between all of the grocers. But then what happened to the
- 13:12experience war, right? What what are they doing to
- 13:15create better experiences? What's the path to grocery shop
- 13:18for you? Yeah.
- 13:19So grocery shop is our grocery and CPG FMCG show.
- 13:24This takes place in in Las Vegas at the end of September, early
- 13:27October. Yeah.
- 13:28And, and has historically, we started as the US showbiz become
- 13:32increasingly global. Yes.
- 13:33And, and I think right now actually it's, it's quite an
- 13:36easy proposition. There is that there's two big
- 13:39questions in town in the grocery world.
- 13:41Yeah. If you are a branded food
- 13:44manufacturer, standard grocery, CPG, FM, CG, there's one
- 13:48question and that's how do you grow volume?
- 13:50Yeah, because volume of branded CPG products has been
- 13:54challenged. So a lot of the growth has come
- 13:55from inflation. So how do you drive that volume
- 13:59and how do you trigger and inspire and get your shoppers
- 14:02interested in your brand? And how do you learn from
- 14:05fashion and apparel where the digital influencing is much more
- 14:09developed? Yeah, in in, in a categories
- 14:11where you're still buying physically for the retailers.
- 14:14It's absolutely that question of how do you kind of create the
- 14:16environment that people want to go out prepared to take the
- 14:19effort in to go to and, and how do you then inspire?
- 14:22How do you interrupt shoppers? And then you layer it's grocery
- 14:27in CPGS where retail media at this peak, you layer that over
- 14:30and actually stand back and you say how is retail media being
- 14:33value additive to the value chain go?
- 14:36Yeah, So how is it helping me solve my problem?
- 14:39I shift volume or create inspiring environments and
- 14:43ultimately, you know, you do that if it's additive to the
- 14:46customer journey. Yeah.
- 14:47So, so much of the conversations about adjacent revenue streams
- 14:50focus on the P&L of the retailer, for example, or the
- 14:55media reach actually. How do you take the conversation
- 14:58to be, you know, back to JBPS? We actually where retailers and
- 15:02consumer brands have traditionally been great.
- 15:04Yeah. How do you create joint value
- 15:05for the end shopper? And that's the conversation that
- 15:08we're looking forward to having in grocery because the bits, the
- 15:12bits, the jigsaw are all there. Yeah, but we just need to build
- 15:15that jigsaw a bit differently to how we've done it before.
- 15:18Yeah, it just feels like we need to have a grocery shop talk
- 15:22because there's so many questions I've got around, for
- 15:25example, the maturity of ESL as a technology innovation AI,
- 15:29Yeah, I mean, I think we should get an award.
- 15:30We've not mentioned AI or attend once right through through the
- 15:34conversation, but it just feels like there's so many moving
- 15:37pieces like own brand and and how you sort of, I don't know,
- 15:42provide insights and and bring those to life.
- 15:45Yeah, yeah. And that and that's what and
- 15:47that's why we have a grocery specific show because it's
- 15:50sufficiently different than nuance to to rely on all that.
- 15:53But look, we're we're our view on AI.
- 15:57So AI there is no doubt it is an incredibly transformational
- 16:00technology, a gentique AI. It's it's really exciting where
- 16:05that can go. Yeah, because, yeah, retail, you
- 16:09know, your listeners know this retail's a scale game.
- 16:12Yeah, it's about scale and process.
- 16:13That's how you build profit. You build profit in tiny
- 16:17increments by doing things over and over and over and over
- 16:20again. That that's the business of
- 16:21retail. And if a ginger Ki can make that
- 16:23more efficient, which is the whole principle of a ginger Ki,
- 16:25that becomes exciting. But in reality, the technology
- 16:29is an exciting bit. The, the, the, the, the exciting
- 16:32bit is the what the technology does.
- 16:34So what we're really interested in is what's the outcome?
- 16:37So how is it? How helping to drive
- 16:38availability? How's it helping to drive
- 16:41inventory visibility? How's it helping you communicate
- 16:46to your customers in a better way?
- 16:47Yeah. And the answer to that might be
- 16:49an AI session or maybe something else.
- 16:50But the AI is just in all the technology, it's what's the
- 16:53business outcome. Yeah, that is the interesting
- 16:56bit. And that's where that's where
- 16:57kind of we like to focus the conversation.
- 16:59One, 100% you, I mean, if, if we had your, I don't know, top ten
- 17:04CE OS sat here, I think they would automatically just switch
- 17:09off if the outcome for the business wasn't there, right?
- 17:13And we're talking about technology for technology's sake
- 17:16because that that's not going to get the hearts and minds of
- 17:18customers. It's not going to get the hearts
- 17:20and minds of employees. And and I think one of the
- 17:22things that is really interesting within that it comes
- 17:24back to our bold leadership yeah is is there is definitely
- 17:28cultural and mindset unlocks required to take advantage of it
- 17:31100%. I I was I was reading some
- 17:34Outland CEO of open AII was founder of open AIII was he made
- 17:39a really interesting observation this week yeah, where he said
- 17:43there he the day of seeing a generational difference in how
- 17:46generations are utilising check TPT.
- 17:49He was talking about older generations, and I don't know
- 17:52what that means. Are using ChatGPT as a search
- 18:01engine. Yes, we're younger generations
- 18:05using ChatGPT as an operating system.
- 18:08Got you. And I think that's fantastic
- 18:11insight into the change that these tools can provide, but can
- 18:17only provide if we've got the culture, the people, really
- 18:21inquisitive people with space to be able to explore, to unlock
- 18:25the benefits. So, you know, technology on its
- 18:27own is meaningless. It's all about the people and
- 18:29the execution of that. And I thought that was a really
- 18:31interesting insight. So, you know, one of the things
- 18:33that we try and do is, yeah, OK, we focus on the business
- 18:35benefit, but we also try and help create an environment in a
- 18:38culture where people can learn to and be ready to walk away
- 18:43from any of our shows or any of our interventions wanting to try
- 18:46something different and want to make a bit of a change.
- 18:49I think you've sort of answered this.
- 18:50So I feel a bit unfair going back.
- 18:52But if we just think about, you know, you've got your CE OS or
- 18:55your execs here and they, they've just been to one of the
- 19:00shows, what's that sort of top five things or what are the top
- 19:05things you want them to be leaving from?
- 19:07And we've got Shop Talk Europe imminently, Yeah.
- 19:10What should be on their radar for the next 12 months?
- 19:13Yeah, 18 months, Five years, yeah.
- 19:16I mean. Great question.
- 19:17So I think there is this pretty one narrative that I think is
- 19:22the core narrative that runs through everything.
- 19:26And that is I don't want to hear.
- 19:28I don't want to hear, I don't want to read.
- 19:30Anybody ever taught again? Talk about, ohh, physical
- 19:36retail. Isn't that.
- 19:37Yeah, we all know. So can we just acknowledge that
- 19:43people still say that? Yeah.
- 19:45So look, what is it, 80% of retail is still physical and
- 19:51there is, there is so many reasons why that continues.
- 19:53Now we think it varies in category and that sort of thing.
- 19:56So the point of transaction for the majority of retail is still
- 20:00physical and will remain, yeah. But for many retailers the
- 20:04growth that they're unlocking is for their e-commerce business,
- 20:07Yes. So you've got a balance and
- 20:10you've got to resource accordingly the volume.
- 20:14That physical is giving you but also the growth opportunity that
- 20:17ecommerce is still providing Walmart generating all their
- 20:20growth through ecom. So interesting, yeah, when you
- 20:22break, when you break down, look at it.
- 20:24So understanding that dynamic. And the second dynamic is that
- 20:28whilst the majority of actual transaction continues to happen
- 20:31physically, the point of influence and inspiration is
- 20:36increasingly digital, right? So even if you've got great
- 20:39physical stores or great physical points of distribution,
- 20:42great physical products, yeah, you've got to make sure that
- 20:45within your team you've got that digital mindset because that's
- 20:48where the that is where the inspiration and that's where the
- 20:52influencing the shoppers is taking place.
- 20:54So let let me give you an example of that.
- 20:57So globally, search, how people find out about things like 89%
- 21:02of searches on through Google, Retail's always been slightly
- 21:05different because you've got this dynamic where that's been
- 21:07great. There's a search engine.
- 21:09So digital search is having, you've also got what happens in
- 21:11store and in retail it kind of split evenly.
- 21:14So either in store or increasingly within digital
- 21:17stores, that's where you find out about it.
- 21:19And then you've got social growing and that this model, if
- 21:22you're a digital marketer, you'd be familiar with, OK, I need to
- 21:26help make sure my products are found on search engines, on
- 21:30retail owned assets and in social.
- 21:34And actually, again, if you follow the money, yeah, that's
- 21:38been relatively easy. Go ahead, Google, Amazon and
- 21:41Meta. Yeah.
- 21:42And there's a reason why those three have built huge
- 21:43businesses. And.
- 21:46That model is, is really being challenged by the growth of AI
- 21:51based search. And these AI agents Perplexity
- 21:56was on our keynote page. I thought, yeah.
- 21:59And they talked about they do not have an advertising
- 22:02proposition because they want their results to be as organic
- 22:05as possible. So how do you influence that?
- 22:07If you've traditionally sat back and said, well, that's OK, I'm
- 22:09just going to, I'm just going to put the vast majority of my
- 22:12digital marketing budget into Amazon, Google and Meta.
- 22:16Yeah. Well, how, how do you deal with
- 22:17the and, and these exponential growth that's happening these
- 22:20agents at the moment? So I said as an example, because
- 22:23that's the digital mindset that leaders have got to have to, to
- 22:27make sure that they've got the right people in their businesses
- 22:30who are trying to solve those problems.
- 22:32Because I can't sit here and tell you how you influence
- 22:35search resort complexity. It's an unknown.
- 22:37But what we can see is the direction of travel.
- 22:39So we're going to be super close though, we're going to get
- 22:41people who are curious in using it.
- 22:42So you know, this balance of we are growing through digital, but
- 22:48actually the vast majority of volume is physical, but our
- 22:52influencing is increasingly digital and that digital is
- 22:55crossing onto the physical store environment.
- 22:58Yes, in in an increasing way as well.
- 23:00Yeah. And we put out a lot of contents
- 23:02on that at the moment unlocking success in that area.
- 23:06And it's not always going to be measurable because we need, you
- 23:08know, a lot of it is going to be great businesses of putting into
- 23:11brand and putting to the top of the funnel and recognising that
- 23:14that's the mindset. If I was ACEO and I wasn't
- 23:17confident I had that mindset in my organisation, I that would be
- 23:22the thing that was making me lose sleep at night.
- 23:24I can keep going. I've got so many more questions,
- 23:26but I have to be sensitive to your time.
- 23:28Ben, thank you so much for giving up your time.
- 23:31I really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you at
- 23:33Shop Talk Europe and the other shows.
- 23:36Yeah, no, a great conversation. So 2nd of June in Barcelona for
- 23:40Europe on Monday and I will look forward to seeing you then very
- 23:43much.