Latest / The Retail Podcast / Stores Are Growing Again — Here's Why Retail Crime Didn't Stop It | World Retail Signals

Transcript

Stores Are Growing Again — Here's Why Retail Crime Didn't Stop It | World Retail Signals · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, it's the 15th of May. This is the second time I'm
• 0:02
  making Jill do this. Welcome to Five Things Friday.
• 0:17
  Jill, as this Take two, we're going to jump straight in.
• 0:20
  Who are you and what do you do? I am Jill Dvorak.
• 0:23
  I'm the senior Vice president of Content at National Retail
• 0:26
  Federation. You might know us through our
• 0:28
  big show in New York. I head up the team that does
• 0:32
  global content for all our shows across the world and I'm so
• 0:36
  happy to be here with you. It's wonderful to have you.
• 0:39
  I was just saying our listener numbers have just keep growing,
• 0:43
  growing and growing. And I figure there's a bunch of
• 0:45
  people who probably don't know who we are and what we do.
• 0:47
  So I just thought we'll do a quick introduction.
• 0:50
  So 5 things Friday, what the top of mind things in the US.
• 0:54
  And right now we have a massive 1, a massive win for the NRF.
• 0:58
  So tell us more. It is a great one.
• 1:00
  So earlier this week, a bill that NRF and all of our members
• 1:05
  have been working on for, gosh, almost two years now called
• 1:07
  Corca Combating Organised Retail Crime Act.
• 1:11
  It passed the House last night, not this earlier this week.
• 1:16
  Not only did it pass, it passed in a bipartisan.
• 1:19
  I'm going to say that word again because it doesn't happen a lot
• 1:21
  in American politics right now. Bipartisan, incredible majority.
• 1:26
  So that is incredible news. What this bill will do, you
• 1:29
  know, it will now move to the Senate and then the president's
• 1:32
  desk, hopefully smooth sailing. Can't imagine anything else.
• 1:35
  It's been really, really popular among everyone.
• 1:38
  Really organised retail crime is more than than just kind of, you
• 1:42
  know, the shoplifters, these are the crime rings, these are the,
• 1:46
  you know, physical crime rings, digital crime rings, and almost
• 1:49
  every retailer has seen an increase in either digital
• 1:51
  fraud, you know, all different types, whether it's phone or,
• 1:55
  you know, text message, e-mail phishing and it's it's time to
• 2:00
  make it actually be crimes. There are so many of these acts
• 2:04
  that have the, the bare minimum of punishment or fines with them
• 2:09
  and people are getting away with, you know, way too much.
• 2:12
  So this this is the first step to kind of have it hit and
• 2:16
  continue going and put it into law.
• 2:18
  Fantastic. Staying with you, Amazon
• 2:20
  Perplexity. Another listening to the
• 2:22
  courtroom drama. It is, and I am certainly not
• 2:25
  the one who should be talking about court cases as as my
• 2:28
  husband and teammates would say, I play a lawyer and a doctor on
• 2:32
  TV. I am not a lawyer, so please
• 2:34
  read this case. Please read this case yourself.
• 2:37
  But really what, what this case is about is so NRF filed an
• 2:41
  amicus brief in support of Amazon against perplexity
• 2:45
  recently. This is the end of April.
• 2:47
  What this means is really, you know, there are the LLMS are out
• 2:51
  there right now and there are quite a few of them.
• 2:53
  And there are quite a lot of ways that retailers could go
• 2:57
  with regards to agentic commerce.
• 2:58
  What the perplexity in Amazon cases.
• 3:01
  It's essentially perplexities coming coming in real hot to all
• 3:05
  all sorts of parts of their site and you know their business this
• 3:10
  we can't even get into it in in an hour conversation.
• 3:13
  But it's just not legal advice. It's not legal opinion.
• 3:16
  This is not NRFS opinion. We're just covering the high
• 3:19
  level. What's coming, But it's
• 3:22
  essentially, you know, the retailer's agentic AI could
• 3:25
  absolutely just intermediate a tonne of what the retailer's
• 3:28
  relationships with customers are, the purchase, the
• 3:31
  personalization, all of the things that they've spent
• 3:34
  millions and millions in, you know, two decades building.
• 3:37
  So really it's just establishing the right guardrails so that you
• 3:41
  know, the the customer has a relationship with who they're
• 3:45
  going to, which is Amazon at that point or Walmart or Target.
• 3:48
  So it's making sure those rules are going to be thought through
• 3:52
  and done the. Retailer, that's what I mean.
• 3:55
  That is just common sense. Yeah, OK, fantastic.
• 3:58
  Moving on Target again, always maintaining their their, their
• 4:03
  themselves in the news. They are they really?
• 4:05
  They've, they've been, they've been in the news quite a lot for
• 4:07
  great things, which is so lovely to see.
• 4:09
  So. My favourite one was every
• 4:12
  Saturday in any Target over 2000 stores having an event that was
• 4:17
  like the, the, I can't remember the CEO sort of objective.
• 4:20
  Every Saturday we're going to have an event and and to stay
• 4:23
  relevant. Yeah, that's in scale.
• 4:25
  So Park is, you know, an influencer in the US, you know,
• 4:30
  TikTok known mostly, you know, both, you know, regular plus
• 4:34
  size, all very, very, very inclusive, very, very popular.
• 4:38
  So they've launched A collab and this is what Target was known
• 4:40
  for for decades. Is there a cool kind of
• 4:43
  innovative way of taking a more expensive product and bringing
• 4:48
  it down to kind of the everyday price?
• 4:49
  Something that Walmart's been really great at for a while.
• 4:52
  And it's great to see that Target can play here now as
• 4:55
  well. The other piece of Target, and I
• 4:57
  think that's your next one. Not only are they doing these
• 5:00
  cool clubs, they're opening a lot of stores and they're one of
• 5:04
  the, you know, maybe 10 listed that are going to make up about
• 5:08
  1000 more stores opened this year, 26th.
• 5:12
  So Target has a bunch of them, ALDI, the grocery store,
• 5:15
  Walmart, BJ's, the warehouse, we have Barnes and Noble.
• 5:19
  They are still continuing to explode and Uniqlo, which is
• 5:24
  just a fan favourite in the US, of course as well.
• 5:27
  So over just about under 1000 stores can be opened this year
• 5:32
  throughout most of those names. So pretty impressive.
• 5:34
  Absolutely. I think, I think it's a, it's a,
• 5:36
  it's a good sign. It's a.
• 5:38
  Good sign. I mean, retailers, look, you can
• 5:40
  see where they follow their money, right?
• 5:43
  If they're investing in stores and in partnerships, that's
• 5:45
  where they think the consumer is going.
• 5:47
  That's where they see the consumer going and it is where
• 5:50
  the consumers going. So it makes sense.
• 5:51
  And coming back to you sort of NRF APAC.
• 5:58
  Oh my goodness, my favourite thing to talk about our shows.
• 6:01
  So for those of you who don't know, June 2nd, June 2nd to June
• 6:06
  4th, we have a phenomenal show happening in the APEC region.
• 6:10
  It takes place in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands.
• 6:12
  And thank you for pulling this page up.
• 6:14
  So I don't have to think we will have over 1011 thousand
• 6:18
  attendees. They're going to be represented
• 6:20
  from over 80 countries. I think last year we were 90
• 6:23
  plus countries. Yeah, it's just gone from
• 6:25
  strength to strength. I mean, I, I was in there in a
• 6:27
  little room. It's amazing.
• 6:29
  It's our current year, right? And Alex will be there.
• 6:31
  You get to see him. And please, if you see either of
• 6:34
  us there, please stop us and say hi.
• 6:37
  But it's going to be incredible. I mean, really, really great
• 6:39
  keynotes, really great agenda. Obviously a lot on AI, obviously
• 6:43
  a lot on regionalization, localization, how these brands
• 6:47
  are doing it at scale. I mean, if you look at the APAC
• 6:50
  region and there's thousands of languages spoken, not hundreds,
• 6:54
  not teens, thousands. How do people localise for that?
• 6:58
  How do they do delivery in 20 or 30 minutes?
• 7:00
  Like now Amazon's doing the in the US, how are they doing that
• 7:04
  in the AIPAC region? And it's really well represented
• 7:07
  from all the different countries, you know, Korea,
• 7:09
  China, Malay, you know, all over.
• 7:11
  So if. China is taking a massive sort
• 7:13
  of like from exhibitors attendees.
• 7:17
  It's just going, I mean it makes sense in terms of some of the
• 7:19
  scale and India as well, the two like major powerhouses in the in
• 7:23
  the region. Exactly.
• 7:25
  So it'll be fantastic. I you know, we'll do we'll
• 7:27
  definitely do some highlights from the show and put it on the
• 7:31
  pod. But yeah, it's it's an
• 7:33
  incredible retailers can walk the floor for free and it we're
• 7:37
  basically are almost sold out. We were on a call last night,
• 7:40
  almost sold out. Which is.
• 7:41
  Really. It's fantastic, right?
• 7:42
  Really, really good. I mean, the whole thing about
• 7:45
  knowing. So on the UK show, I, I said,
• 7:48
  it's my son's communion this Saturday.
• 7:50
  And then I had a meeting and someone said to me, oh, how
• 7:53
  preparing for your son's communion going on.
• 7:55
  How do you know that? You said it on the podcast.
• 7:58
  I was like, it was great. And it's like a digital physical
• 8:02
  divide gets broken down. Fun though, you know who
• 8:06
  actually is listening. That way you can you can prompt
• 8:08
  a question. So yeah, come say hi.
• 8:10
  We'll always have a We could always talk retail.
• 8:14
  We'll always have a hug for a listener.
• 8:15
  Definitely, definitely. And I'd be remiss if I didn't
• 8:18
  mention in the future, in September, we do have a show in
• 8:21
  Europe that's located in Paris at that's September 15th to 17th
• 8:27
  and that's going to be another incredible show there.
• 8:29
  It's our second year and that brings together not just Western
• 8:33
  Europe, but even, you know, Scandinavia, then deluxe, you
• 8:36
  know, northern tip of Africa. So, you know, really growing
• 8:40
  show and I think last year we had over 45 countries.
• 8:44
  So we're hoping to hit the 50 or 60 mark this year.
• 8:47
  Wow, phenomenal. Well, Joe, on that, thank you so
• 8:50
  much. It's been a blast to have you
• 8:52
  back. And until next time, goodbye.
• 8:55
  Goodbye.