Latest / The Retail Podcast / Retail’s Experience Era: Longchamp, Claire’s Comeback & AI’s Reddit Problem | 5 Things Friday UK

Transcript

Retail’s Experience Era: Longchamp, Claire’s Comeback & AI’s Reddit Problem | 5 Things Friday UK · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday, the 1st of May. Welcome to Five Things Friday UK
• 0:05
  edition. Good morning.
• 0:19
  Good. Morning.
• 0:21
  I'm good. How are you?
• 0:23
  Yeah, really good. I've, I've been around the world
• 0:25
  and I, I, I've found my baby now I've been to person.
• 0:28
  I'm back in Madrid. It's been a fantastic week.
• 0:31
  We're short on time. For those who don't know you,
• 0:34
  Simone, who are you and what do you do?
• 0:37
  Hi everybody. I'm Simone Lee, Co Founder and
• 0:39
  CEO of Meet Up for Tonight, Also has nerfed.
• 0:41
  We've built the infrastructure that is powering instant
• 0:44
  delivery for retail in two ways. One is our marketplace app,
• 0:48
  think delivery for fashion. And 2nd, we also plug into
• 0:52
  retailers checkouts to give them a rapid delivery.
• 0:56
  Fantastic. Thank you.
• 0:57
  We're going to jump straight in. If we start with you, Simone,
• 1:01
  what's top of mind? What are the top, well, top 2
• 1:03
  three things on your radar this week?
• 1:06
  Yeah, I wanted to do a bit of a shout out this week.
• 1:08
  This one's a bit of a different one.
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  I went to an events at a store in Hackney in East London called
• 1:17
  Positive Retail. It was Dalby Events.
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  It's got a fashion community called Bread Tomorrow and the
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  founder, Anna of Positive Retail was being interviewed.
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  And honestly, it was one of those conversations that reminds
• 1:31
  you that retail can evolve in a better direction.
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  So I just wanted to talk through what positive retail actually
• 1:36
  do. So I think it's really
• 1:38
  interesting from a retailer side, but also customers.
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  So Anya, and she was working for mainstream fashion for years.
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  Brands like Top Shot, Whistles, LK Bennett comes from a buying
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  background. And all the time she saw two
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  things. One is the huge problem of mass
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  overproduction, which we've all spoken about.
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  And then the other is the obsession with discounting.
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  And the two are obviously connected because we're
• 2:06
  producing far too much stock. And then customers con
• 2:09
  constantly want markdowns on sales and endless promotions.
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  And retail became this race to the bottom, more product, low
• 2:16
  prices and more waste. And So what Anna does is she has
• 2:20
  created positive retail. So she's got 5 stores, one in
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  London, one in market. I can't remember the other
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  areas, a lot of seaside towns. And she works with brands like
• 2:30
  Danny Dance, Madder Whistles Wax, which had Gucci in there as
• 2:36
  well. And she but the stock that they
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  can't sell, she gives it another life instead of having this
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  discount culture. And she describes herself as a
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  posh TK Maxx, which I absolutely loved.
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  And it feels like that because I do love TK Maxx.
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  I do like going in there and finding a bargain, but it is
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  quite chaotic. You kind of feel like you're
• 2:59
  finding a diamond in the rough. Whereas her stores are
• 3:02
  beautifully curated and, you know, because, yeah, consumers
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  still want fashion and discovery and curation.
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  So, yeah, really, really loved what she was doing.
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  So I just wanted to give it a little shout out the posh TK
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  Maxx. Yeah, OK, cool.
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  And it's here. I mean, obviously TK Maxx, TK
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  Maxx is all around discovery. I think that's your first entry.
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  And the way you're describing it, it's curated discovery.
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  So yeah, go find something new. But it's beautifully curated
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  where, you know, we all at points look at TTK Maxx at like
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  530 on a on a Saturday evening and I'm not going through that
• 3:42
  anyway. Another retail moment that
• 3:44
  caught my eye this week was the Long Champ pop in Sloan Square
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  in London. And it's another example of
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  something I feel like I've talked about a lot of them here
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  is that retail is becoming more experienced than just
• 4:01
  transactional. But as you can see here, Long
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  Champ have basically turned this space in small square into this
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  kind of beach club style activation with DJs, drinks,
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  games, workshops. He knows everything.
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  But yeah, it's giving that summer holiday energy really
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  built around the brand. And you know, the reason why I
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  love stuff like this and I really think that it matters is
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  because physical retail has to give the something that the
• 4:30
  Internet can't. You know, you can buy a bag
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  online in about 10 seconds. But what you can't replicate
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  online is the atmosphere, the discovery or just just stumbling
• 4:39
  in into something that actually feels memorable.
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  So I wanted to give a little shout out to Lamp.
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  Oh, fantastic. I mean, emotion, feeling,
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  connection. It's there until the 12th of
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  May, and I think it's really cool.
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  So OK. And then you said something
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  about Claire's. What's happening with Claire's?
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  Yeah, I just wanted to briefly mention Claire's because I know
• 5:02
  we've chatted before about Claire's and the closure and
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  this whole feeling of, you know, nostalgia isn't going to
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  necessarily get the the customers in.
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  But what I have been reading is Claire's is set to return to the
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  UK high streets from next month and they are anticipating to
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  open 50. Stalls.
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  Oh, fantastic. All right, yeah, yeah.
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  I mean, look, anyone who works in retail and has had to go
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  through the the the stress of stores closing and then do I
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  have a job? Do I not have a job?
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  And then it opening up is, is good news.
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  Obviously. I I think, yeah, it's, it's a
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  good thing. It's not a bad thing.
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  So I will jump in and talk about my week.
• 5:47
  Brilliant. So this week I was at World
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  Retail Congress. That's Alex Alcock from Curry's,
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  who I didn't realise he's stepping down.
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  What do we tell Congress if you don't know it?
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  Every year it's in a different city.
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  So Paris, London last year and this year was in Berlin,
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  absolutely knocked out of the park.
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  Fantastic conference. It's basically where CEOs go to
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  learn and hang out with their mates, right?
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  So it was really interesting listening to CEO's from their
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  perspective talk about the future of retail from an AI
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  perspective, about customer experience, about engagement.
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  Absolutely loved it. Obviously made a new best
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  friend. And for those who know, that's
• 6:29
  the wonderful Jose from ASOS. He's the CEO of ASOS.
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  You know, we obviously got to hang out, like didn't get a
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  chance of saying, hey man, lovely stuff, lovely to come on
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  the show. He says, well, I don't really do
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  shows, but here's my contact and I said that we talk about you
• 6:43
  guys literally every week. And he mentioned his whole Asos
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  and Adidas, how that just sold out, right?
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  That collaboration and how they're doing more collaboration
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  and how they're just building from strength to strength.
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  And you know, maybe another time I'll talk about his talk or you
• 7:00
  can go to retail news dot AI for the full transfer for the full
• 7:03
  talk. But you know, that was it one
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  thing I had for you that a lot of people spoke about this and I
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  don't know how I feel. So a lot of people kept saying
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  Reddit is the place where all the AI engines are being taught
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  on Reddit, but I don't actually like the platform, you know, I
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  think it's just the bloody like, who has time to go and do
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  community connection so. You'd be surprised.
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  You'd be surprised. Go to Reddit.
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  No, but I know a lot of people do.
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  I think, yeah, it's, I still haven't figured out what the
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  Reddit demographic is, but I'm not.
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  It's strange, I know, but people are using it.
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  People are going there for advice, be it fashion or where
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  do I go for food or my next holiday or advice on my
• 8:00
  girlfriend. People are using it.
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  Men are using it. It's fascinating.
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  Yeah, and and and basically the reason why this kept coming up
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  is all of the AI models are training their dancer on Reddit.
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  But then I was thinking, are you training your and maybe I've got
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  this completely wrong on a demographic that is 18 to 25.
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  Nope, doesn't know a lot and hence why it's going to
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  community right now. I think demographic.
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  Is different from that. I think the Reddit demographic
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  is very wide. Yeah, OK.
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  It's really interesting, but enough, I was at an AI talk this
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  week with the Business of Fashion and they mentioned just
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  that. Yeah, really, really interesting
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  you. Know what it feels like because
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  no one's on Reddit, sorry, no one who works is on Reddit.
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  Then everyone says everyone's on Reddit or on sub stack and I'm
• 8:57
  like, I know like. Sub stack but like I might need
• 9:00
  to do a little Bolton poll on my LinkedIn.
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  Who here is using Reddit? I need to know.
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  Seriously. Using it, Google.
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  Yeah, it's like John. And then here's my frustration
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  with it. Every time I search the content
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  Google gives me the the if Sarah thinks this then I go to the
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  thread and there's like 4 bloody things and there's you know, I
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  end up going back to Google and then searching for whatever I
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  want. I don't know it and maybe it's
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  AUS thing where in the US everyone uses it but I don't, I
• 9:32
  can be completely wrong. I don't believe so.
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  But anyway it's the matter. While I was there they took us
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  to two stores over at England one time.
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  One of them was action. Do you know action?
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  I don't. So Action is like BM, they're
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  not going to come into the UK market.
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  They are European. They've got, I can't remember
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  thousands of stores. But the most interesting thing
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  about Action is they are like a central hub, old school Excel
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  spreadsheet keep everything so frugal.
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  Like they are the most frugal company in the world when it
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  comes to to retail and they're not shy about it.
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  Why? Because all of the savings
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  they're put into the product for the customers, right?
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  So the other thing that was really interesting, something
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  like between 90 and 95% of their skews are the same across the
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  whole of Europe, right? And so there, and what was
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  really interesting for me, someone in the audience said,
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  what about AI? And they were like, well, what
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  about AI? They're like, well, how is AI
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  going to help your business? You know, look in Germany, they
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  have three people in finance. They are already optimised to
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  the NTH degree, which made me think is like is all AI is going
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  to do is get rid of that fluff that has been created.
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  And we're just going to go back to like, you know, as, as, as
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  the guy from Action who runs Germany was saying, you know,
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  one of our stores serves 40,000 people.
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  We don't need more technology, right?
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  We know the skews that are working because they're selling
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  and we get that back. Yeah.
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  And it was just like a, it wasn't anti technology, anti AI,
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  but they the other really incredible thing, they are
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  opening 1 store a day, right. So everyday 1 store is being
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  opened somewhere in Europe. And it's just like, so it's not
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  like this small company saying this is really large general
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  merchandise, saying, you know, frugality is fantastic.
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  Keeping everything in central store operations is really key.
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  And is that the model of the future?
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  Yeah, it it feels like their operating model is what people
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  are working towards. Right.
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  OK, sorry. The other one that took us on
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  was Obi, which is like B&Q. This is every mascot, but the
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  thing I really loved about German and in the sense like
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  this is grow your own garden, right?
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  So cucumbers, herbs, everything. But that was causes own last
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  one. This was live shopping there
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  that they were sure QVC were there and I thought QVC has gone
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  through some transformation. But anyway, they were there
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  showing their live stream capabilities, which is where
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  they're moving into coming away from traditional media.
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  Again, an interesting play on that.
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  I have no idea if we've covered 5 things, but I'm going to keep
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  us to. We've covered enough.
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  We covered enough. Yeah, keep it to our thing.
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  What you got planned for next week?
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  Next week, next week, is it pulse Next week or is that the
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  week after are you going to pulse?
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  No, no, I've got, I'm going to be NRF.
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  So NRF Europe. We've got a partnership.
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  I'm going to be, we've just done Madrid yesterday.
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  We're going to be in London on May 19th.
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  If you're a retailer and want to come along, let me know.
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  We're going to then go to Milan and then we're going to do
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  Amsterdam. And at each one we're looking at
• 13:01
  the store of the future, meeting retailers, associations and
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  basically creating a path to September where they will be in
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  Paris, NRF Europe. So I had a, I've had a fantastic
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  week. He's been busy, but it's been
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  brilliant. And Hoff, which was the store of
• 13:19
  the future for Madrid. Do you know Hoff the football
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  brand? Yes.
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  They have a phenomenal flagship store in Madrid, Cheesecake
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  Coffee shop at the front, DJ Music installation headquarters
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  off. It was just like amazing,
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  amazing store. So there'll be more of that to
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  come. And I interrupted you.
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  Sorry. You're going to be at Pulse, you
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  said. No, I've realised that's the
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  week after. I'll be in London that week, I
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  think all. The brilliant ones.
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  Yeah, so who knows? And you've got new social media
• 13:53
  content, so if you're on Instagram, go over it's a.
• 13:57
  Nib Back to some exciting new content.
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  Lots of space from what I saw. I already love it.
• 14:03
  Anyway, Simone, thank you so much.
• 14:05
  Thank you. See you next week.
• 14:07
  Bye.