Latest / The Retail Podcast / 5 Retail Moves You Need to Know: Gap, Morrisons, AllSaints, DFS x Pinterest, Gen Beta

Transcript

5 Retail Moves You Need to Know: Gap, Morrisons, AllSaints, DFS x Pinterest, Gen Beta · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's the 24th of October. It's Friday.
• 0:02
  Welcome to five things. Friday.
• 0:17
  Yeah, what Simone and I have got on is called your dad or uncle
• 0:20
  dance at the wedding where they're bopping a play.
• 0:23
  It's the dad dance. Your.
• 0:26
  Thank you for tuning this. I'm not calling you Dad, Dad,
• 0:31
  but it's definitely that. It's in that Dad and uncle.
• 0:34
  Yeah, exactly. You can just imagine them on the
• 0:37
  side of the dance floor. Not enough courage to come in,
• 0:40
  but they're popping away. My name's Alex.
• 0:43
  I help retailers maintain their retail fortune by going to 13
• 0:48
  conferences in 2026, bringing those insights and helping them
• 0:52
  stay relevant in this beautiful world of retail.
• 0:55
  And I'm joined by my fabulous Co host, Simone.
• 0:59
  Hi I'm. Simone, the Co founder and CEO
• 1:02
  of Need It for Tonight, also known as Nerfed.
• 1:04
  I always say easiest way to describe it.
• 1:06
  It's kind of like delivery but for quality fashion.
• 1:09
  So all about localised and very speedy delivery.
• 1:14
  I have no idea but I keep wanting to sway and Bob like
• 1:17
  there's no music now, but now it's in my head.
• 1:19
  How are you feeling? OK, let's get so 5 things
• 1:25
  Friday, we're going to focus on five interesting newsworthy
• 1:28
  stories that we feel that needs to be a conversation on.
• 1:31
  And hopefully we'll start the conversation, you continue it
• 1:34
  and obviously you're more than welcome to continue it with us
• 1:37
  on LinkedIn or any other platforms that you choose.
• 1:40
  And we're almost 100,000 views on TikTok.
• 1:43
  Sorry, on YouTube with almost 20,000 subscribers, which is
• 1:49
  considering the conferences I go to, range between 5 to 7000.
• 1:54
  That's enough people to fill Wembley Stadium.
• 1:56
  That's enough people to deck out one of these conferences.
• 2:01
  And with that, let's go straight in with you.
• 2:04
  Simone, what's your story? And that's also amazing, very
• 2:08
  amazing news. My story today is Gap is back.
• 2:13
  It's a name that I haven't heard in a while, but it is one of
• 2:17
  those brands that does make me feel very nostalgic.
• 2:22
  I think of the there it is the Gap hoodies that I used to wear
• 2:26
  when I was younger. I used to love the stars as well
• 2:30
  but, and I guess I'm going to put a bit of a negative spin on
• 2:35
  that is we something that we've just discussed before, Alex, is
• 2:41
  nostalgia alone doesn't tend to keep the lights on in retail.
• 2:45
  I think it's a plough and we've talked about it with brands like
• 2:49
  Class where people remember them fondly but they're not
• 2:53
  necessarily shopping them out. Me being one of them, loved
• 2:56
  Class when I was younger, but not enough to continue shopping
• 3:00
  that now. But that is they're bringing
• 3:03
  back three London stores, one in Covent Garden, one in White City
• 3:07
  and one in Wembley. And they're making a physical
• 3:11
  return after pulling back from the UK completely in 2021.
• 3:16
  At that point they'd closed all the stores and they shifted to a
• 3:19
  digital only strategy. But now they're coming back and
• 3:22
  this time it's powered by Next, which I think that part is key
• 3:26
  because, well, next to obviously thriving, really strong retail
• 3:32
  footprint, good logistics backbone and obviously a deep
• 3:36
  understanding of the UK consumer behaviour.
• 3:39
  So Gap gets to plug into that ecosystem and test out physical
• 3:44
  retail again without taking the full risk alone.
• 3:48
  Yeah. I think I'm intrigued to see,
• 3:50
  you know, what are they going to be doing different?
• 3:52
  And I'm excited to see what they're going to be doing
• 3:54
  different. So yeah, it's something that
• 3:56
  I'll be watching closely on. Welcome back.
• 3:59
  Yeah, I think. Yeah, I saw the CEO speaking at
• 4:03
  one of the conferences and it was like they do want to bring
• 4:06
  that nostalgia and it's just listening to you how you know
• 4:10
  Next has and Next does so well because it has so much data.
• 4:14
  But there would have been a point in time where gap price
• 4:18
  range was sort of a little bit higher than the next price
• 4:22
  range. And so I don't know if they're
• 4:23
  aiming to be premium in, in, in the next ecosystem.
• 4:28
  But I, you know, from a store's perspective, I think this is
• 4:32
  just a sign of things to come. Brand is not enough.
• 4:35
  And as you keep saying, neither is nostalgia, right?
• 4:40
  So if your brand's not cutting it because you're not creating
• 4:43
  social relevance apart from a marketing campaign and your
• 4:46
  stores aren't cutting it because they're just product and, and,
• 4:50
  and selling, what are you going to do?
• 4:52
  Right? You're going to end up being
• 4:53
  marginalised to being another, another brand in a department
• 4:59
  store or in somewhere like Next or, you know, John Lewis, as we
• 5:02
  keep saying, yeah, super interesting.
• 5:04
  I love it. Staying with technology.
• 5:07
  We have Morrisons like, you know, almost every other week
• 5:12
  we've got a Morrisons neutral. So and we talked about every
• 5:16
  time now I'm about to say kudos. I I think about the meme on the
• 5:20
  LinkedIn or I think kudos to them.
• 5:24
  LinkedIn language. What are people doing shelf at
• 5:27
  dabling? What is shelf at dabling?
• 5:29
  Basically, when you go in, you have digital screens that allows
• 5:32
  you to have price elasticity that allows you to do pricing
• 5:35
  throughout the day. So in the morning, you can do
• 5:38
  offers on whatever sells best in the morning and in the evening
• 5:41
  when people are coming in, I don't know, after work, you can
• 5:44
  promote those things. So it allows a lot of
• 5:46
  flexibility. And, you know, they've just
• 5:49
  announced that their partner Fusion Group, who one of
• 5:52
  France's largest French ESL providers, have been given that
• 5:56
  contract, 497 stores. So it's a major, major roll out.
• 6:00
  And the reason why this is a new story for me, veterans in the
• 6:03
  industry have been pushing for this for decades.
• 6:06
  And grocers have said it's too expensive, we can't do it, it's
• 6:09
  not relevant, We're not going to get an uplift.
• 6:11
  And the majority of the partners in this world in ESL, the
• 6:15
  technology, the little shelf thing comes from China.
• 6:18
  And so finding an integration partner is interesting.
• 6:21
  And I don't know if this is a trend.
• 6:24
  Morrisons have got out ahead. And next we're going to see
• 6:27
  Sainsbury's, Tescos and and the likes all follow.
• 6:31
  So one to watch. Let's see what happens in that
• 6:33
  world. Sticking with me, All Saints,
• 6:37
  there's a story in Fashion United and again, I love All
• 6:41
  Saints. I don't know if it's age
• 6:42
  appropriate for me, but I love it.
• 6:44
  You know, in the, in the fact that yesterday my, my wife
• 6:47
  wearing her leather jacket that I got, you know, years ago and
• 6:50
  she obviously picked it up and wanted to wear which, which
• 6:53
  coincided with this story. They're opening 3 pop ups in
• 6:57
  Bristol in Battersea Power Station and one other location
• 7:02
  and you know, a brand that has its own stores that is sold in
• 7:07
  John Lewis. Now going into pop up to me
• 7:10
  signals that they're either going to experiment with
• 7:13
  different formats. The pop ups apparently do stock
• 7:16
  the their full range and so is this, is this a signal that
• 7:22
  here's a really strong brand that may be losing its relevance
• 7:27
  And so therefore they're trying to create physical relevance
• 7:30
  with pop ups or it could just be a marketing activation.
• 7:33
  But my gut feel is some of these mature brands in the UK have to
• 7:39
  think about how are they going to maintain that relevance to
• 7:42
  this new generation. And we'll talk about generations
• 7:45
  a bit later on. Moving on swiftly DFS now, I did
• 7:50
  have a DFS sofa and it lasted me for years.
• 7:52
  So from my perspective, they've, you know, they've done all right
• 7:55
  by me, so I can't knock them. They they're doing something
• 7:58
  interesting with another brand that I love pin Pinterest,
• 8:01
  although I always want to say pin interest Pinterest.
• 8:04
  They're doing a gamification activation, which is quite
• 8:07
  interesting. Basically you go on, it's if you
• 8:10
  can get it to write, then it's a chance of winning your dream
• 8:13
  sofa. And who doesn't want a free sofa
• 8:15
  or an upgrade to their sofa? And you click in, you go to
• 8:18
  Pinterest and we have to match the things.
• 8:20
  We don't have enough time to play it.
• 8:22
  But you know, you, you put the things in the different things
• 8:25
  and then that allows you to go through.
• 8:28
  But at the same time, if you're looking for a sofa, you're
• 8:31
  probably going to start thinking about getting ideas, getting
• 8:34
  those design ideas. So I love this idea of bringing
• 8:38
  people's creativity into your customer journey and keeping
• 8:42
  that as part of the, you know, the shopping missions that
• 8:44
  people are on. How can you influence it?
• 8:47
  Great job DFS in showing us that you can create a bit of
• 8:51
  gamification to get people sort of, you know, they're going to
• 8:53
  get something for free. But ultimately what you want is
• 8:56
  people creating these boards with things from your catalogue,
• 9:02
  which then sort of we, we spoke about, or sorry we haven't last
• 9:07
  week we spoke about how AI companies like Chachi PT are
• 9:11
  coming out with their own browsers.
• 9:13
  What are you going to do to stay relevant when when all the
• 9:15
  browsers are AI and agent LED? So, yeah, interesting,
• 9:20
  interesting 1 coming on to you for our final one.
• 9:25
  So when I saw this headline from the Business of Fashion.
• 9:31
  This. Isn't the headline by the?
• 9:32
  Way. This is just the ground.
• 9:34
  I'll tell you the headline. When I saw this headline, which
• 9:36
  I'm about to share, it made me chuckle and spiral all at once.
• 9:41
  And the headline was Fashion is already preparing for Gen Beta.
• 9:47
  Ever scary and weird thought. And just for reference, Jen
• 9:50
  Neeta refers to babies born from 2025 and onwards.
• 9:56
  They're not even here yet, all they've just arrived.
• 10:00
  And already brands are starting to wonder what will they wear?
• 10:04
  Where will they shop? How will they be raised?
• 10:08
  So it's obviously a bit of a mix of quite wild speculation.
• 10:14
  I think for me this is about influence.
• 10:16
  Influence is an important, important aspect.
• 10:20
  Influencing the shopper of tomorrow.
• 10:22
  Tomorrow is really important. But then how are you going to
• 10:25
  create? Because I wrote about this in my
• 10:26
  book and I spoke about K Pop demon hunters.
• 10:29
  The missed opportunity of the summer that people are trying to
• 10:32
  get onto now is the fact that all of this influence that
• 10:36
  potentially you could be building relevance with through
• 10:41
  all the things that Simone and I talk about South.
• 10:44
  Do you have interest? Have you heard about the did you
• 10:47
  say or the the term retail at the speed of culture?
• 10:54
  Did I say the term? Have you heard of that term
• 10:57
  before? I.
• 10:58
  I haven't. I don't know.
• 11:00
  If I'm, I don't know if I'm going to point it or not or
• 11:03
  someone else. Yeah.
• 11:04
  So in my mind, that's the era that we're moving into.
• 11:08
  We are moving into this cultural LED retail relevance era.
• 11:14
  And So what that means is if you are targeting and thinking about
• 11:18
  five years from now and what your store looks like or what
• 11:21
  how are you going to appeal to people from is how are you
• 11:24
  culturally going to be relevant to them?
• 11:26
  That's right. Apply that to the Gap
• 11:28
  conversation that we had at the beginning of this talk.
• 11:32
  There is nothing, I mean, they've got Denham, they've
• 11:35
  gone, you know, they're going back for that.
• 11:37
  They, they've got stores. They're a global powerhouse.
• 11:40
  There's so much nostalgia that Simone has said is it enough?
• 11:46
  Right. And so anyway, I think it's,
• 11:50
  it's one that I, I think there's more conversation to be had on
• 11:53
  right, But maybe not on a Friday.
• 11:55
  And you know, we'll let you actually, we're doing fantastic
• 11:57
  for time. Well, we'll be at 10 minutes.
• 11:59
  So that's super awesome. OK.
• 12:03
  Have you got What's your plans for next week?
• 12:04
  I have an event, we have a personal shopping event for men.
• 12:09
  Any. Men.
• 12:10
  I would like to get booked in. It's Auburn and Wills, which is
• 12:16
  a lovely retailer in Soho. We've got that on one day.
• 12:19
  Why? Do you get that so quiet?
• 12:21
  Why is it on my style? Is it like Vera?
• 12:24
  Have I got it wrong? How are you spelling it, Auburn?
• 12:30
  AUBIN. AUBIN.
• 12:34
  Really nice quality. They were, they used to be owned
• 12:36
  by Jack Wills or they were like the parent company and then they
• 12:40
  came back. Really nice brand.
• 12:42
  Just yeah, Lovely. Good quality, reasonable.
• 12:46
  Tell me why does that work? I'm really curious.
• 12:50
  People so we have an in house personal shopper.
• 12:53
  She worked at Farfetch for many years.
• 12:54
  She's brilliant and she prefers styling.
• 12:57
  Men and people can come in, they'll looking for a one-on-one
• 13:03
  slot with her. It's a service that usually
• 13:05
  costs quite a few 100 lbs. For that.
• 13:08
  Day and she'll have a call with you prior to find out your needs
• 13:14
  and then she'll do a one-on-one very educational appointment in
• 13:21
  the store for you. It's do you know what I we
• 13:24
  always get a lot of men and women that will try it for the
• 13:27
  first time and you know I think it's quite daunting to them like
• 13:31
  personal shopping. It's like, oh God, I can't
• 13:33
  relate to that. I love it.
• 13:35
  Yeah, Yeah. And actually, everybody deserves
• 13:38
  to be educated on what they're wearing.
• 13:39
  And so many people walk around feeling really pretty uninspired
• 13:42
  with what they're wearing and shopping at the same brand,
• 13:46
  wearing the same looks to work every day.
• 13:48
  So yeah, she's just there to really educate and also
• 13:52
  democratise personal styling. So I'm excited for that.
• 13:57
  How does that work? So then if someone likes it, is
• 13:59
  is is that where the NIFT promise comes in?
• 14:01
  You'll get it to them within the time frame.
• 14:05
  I mean, we can either deliver it to the house or they'll take it
• 14:09
  home there and then, and then it goes through our lovely little
• 14:12
  nift till. OK, I love it.
• 14:15
  That's are you going to capture like anything on social.
• 14:20
  We've done a little bit yeah, on so I'm not.
• 14:22
  Gonna say I'd love to see like, what that looks like, you know,
• 14:25
  like, Oh yeah. Simone, thank you so much.
• 14:27
  Good luck with the shopping activation.
• 14:30
  I look forward to speaking to you next week.
• 14:32
  Wonderful. See you later, Alex.