Latest / The Retail Podcast / Retail Crime Surge, Marketplace Power, and APAC’s AI-Driven Retail Revolution

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Retail Crime Surge, Marketplace Power, and APAC’s AI-Driven Retail Revolution · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to Five Hi guys, I'm Laura.
• 0:17
  I'm a tech and retail advisor and consultant and the
• 0:20
  Australian ecosystem and I work with brands and retailers.
• 0:23
  I'm Alex, one of the Co hosts 5 Things Friday show.
• 0:27
  I help retailers build their thought leadership and authority
• 0:31
  in retail across the globe and also the founder of the retail
• 0:35
  podcast. As you will see, Reef is
• 0:37
  missing. We recorded reef sessions so
• 0:39
  we'll go to him. Now thanks Alex.
• 0:41
  Today I've got 2 rippers, 1's positive and 1 not so positive.
• 0:45
  So let's start with a not so positive and I think this is a
• 0:48
  trend that's being seen in Western countries all round the
• 0:51
  world and that is retail crime. I know that the NREF and the
• 0:55
  states have done numerous reports in Australia and New
• 0:58
  Zealand. There are numerous discussions.
• 1:00
  And what really brought this home to light this year was the
• 1:07
  the fact that Mayor Anderson, who was the GM of Retail and
• 1:09
  Channels for two degrees from New Zealand, they're at New
• 1:11
  Zealand telco talked about employer satisfaction, employer
• 1:16
  NPS. And one of the big elements
• 1:19
  underpinning their real dissatisfaction with their
• 1:23
  workforce was the employer or the sales staff on the shop
• 1:26
  floor, their sense of Safety at Work.
• 1:31
  And, and what was fascinating was that, you know, some of
• 1:36
  these, some of these stores had to have safe rooms that we're
• 1:39
  talking about a telco retail outlet.
• 1:42
  Wow. What, what the anger and abuse
• 1:45
  towards. And, and they would do, what do
• 1:47
  you call it? A employee NPS, right.
• 1:50
  Employee NPS, that sort of stuff.
• 1:52
  And they're getting feedback. Like some days I feel unsafe at
• 1:54
  work. Some days I feel I might die at
• 1:56
  work. Yeah, now.
• 1:59
  Is your job worth dying for? So that's pretty full on.
• 2:02
  So they went through a whole transformation of their business
• 2:06
  and and it LED to huge uplifting profitability and performance.
• 2:10
  Yeah, you know, based on addressing this issue, which is
• 2:13
  retail crime and violence and threats and abuse.
• 2:16
  And, and So what that sort of made me think about, because it
• 2:20
  wasn't the topic we were leading for, but it was the underpinned
• 2:23
  dissatisfaction for the workforce was really.
• 2:26
  And then all this stuff happening around with, well,
• 2:27
  let's have a little dig a little bit deeper into retail crime.
• 2:30
  And really when I look at it, retail crime in terms of that
• 2:34
  abuse, violence, intimidation is really a western thing.
• 2:39
  So you're seeing in the states, you're seeing in, you're seeing
• 2:41
  in the UK, you're seeing in Australia seeing it New Zealand,
• 2:44
  but Asia not so much. And so, you know, if I put
• 2:48
  Australia and New Zealand into context, in 2024, Australia
• 2:51
  witnessed 60 percent, 66% year on year growth in weapons
• 2:56
  related incidents in retail bar and serious events rose 30% with
• 3:01
  threatening incidents climbing 39% year on year from 20/20/24.
• 3:06
  In New Zealand, you know, the, the, the, the increases were
• 3:09
  smaller, but you know, weapon, weapons related crime in retail
• 3:14
  rose by 10% and threats by 14%. And that's according to Retail
• 3:19
  Asia. So there's some really big lifts
• 3:22
  here. You know, we're talking about
• 3:24
  organised and then things like organised, like organised
• 3:28
  shoplifting, external theft, you know, aggressiveness from
• 3:33
  shoplifters, all those things are off the are really going off
• 3:36
  the scale. So that's really, but it is, it
• 3:39
  is when we talk about retail crime, it's not an Asian thing,
• 3:41
  it's a western thing. But if you look at retail crime
• 3:44
  in Asia, Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia, you know, the
• 3:48
  historic roots of large scale cyber scam operations is
• 3:51
  Southeast Asia. So syndicates operating in, you
• 3:54
  know, from Thailand, Myanmar, you know, more remote zones like
• 3:57
  Las Cambodia, you know, are often sitting in the Southeast
• 4:03
  Asian region. So it's a really different type
• 4:05
  of crime, you know. Yeah, this is a technology and
• 4:08
  and a scam and a skimming type activity.
• 4:12
  Yeah. Whereas, you know, when in those
• 4:14
  Western countries there's actually face to face
• 4:16
  confrontation. Yeah.
• 4:17
  So really diff really culturally different markets.
• 4:20
  You really what's countering that is you're seeing some
• 4:22
  really, really intensified crime enforcement in financial and
• 4:27
  organised crime. Yeah.
• 4:29
  And so anti money laundering and and counterterrorism financials
• 4:33
  in some places like Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
• 4:36
  Malaysia, India and China, amongst others are really
• 4:40
  working to counter. That's a lot of that cybercrime
• 4:43
  and that and that anti money. And so it's on 2.
• 4:46
  Fronts then as we have like 2 fright crime as well as physical
• 4:50
  in store. Install, install.
• 4:52
  Yeah. So that's, so that's, that's
• 4:54
  really interesting because everyone's been talking about
• 4:56
  talking about retail crime, but it manifests differently in
• 4:59
  different parts of the world. The second.
• 5:02
  So that's that's the negative. And we always, you know, you
• 5:04
  don't, no one comes to work to be threatened so or to be ripped
• 5:07
  off. On the other side is retail
• 5:10
  media. Yeah.
• 5:11
  And I wanted to talk about retail media in the context of
• 5:15
  the region. Yeah.
• 5:17
  So in terms of maturity, retail media really is is further down
• 5:25
  the maturity curve in an AIPAC versus other parts North America
• 5:29
  and Europe. But.
• 5:31
  The retail media networks like Shoppi, Lizada, Carousel, Grab
• 5:36
  in Asia, eBay in Australia, they're they're really starting
• 5:40
  to push that growth and they're the ones that's that's they're
• 5:44
  the centres of the growth for retail media.
• 5:47
  And we're looking at, you know, you know, probably growth of
• 5:51
  between 8 and 11% year on year from now 2024.
• 5:55
  And they reckon retail media network spend will in surge by
• 5:58
  about 73% over the next seven years to 2030.
• 6:02
  So that's a lot, right? That's a lot.
• 6:05
  What's what, what some of the outcomes of this is retail media
• 6:08
  is, is moving from being a tactical tool in the region do a
• 6:12
  strategic growth driver. And what that means is it's it's
• 6:15
  transforming physical stores into measurable, scalable
• 6:19
  advertising channels. Yeah.
• 6:21
  OK, according to according to Moving Walls, and this is the
• 6:24
  reason why it's important is and it's been recognised that 87% of
• 6:28
  people who are making purchase decisions are making it in store
• 6:31
  in that last small environment. Yeah.
• 6:33
  So retail media in store is more powerful than probably any other
• 6:40
  decision making media. Yeah.
• 6:42
  Yeah, I think is it, is it the ultimate conversion tool, right?
• 6:46
  Is it the ultimate uplift cross sell tool from what?
• 6:50
  From what you're saying, maybe it is one of those strong tools
• 6:53
  I think. I think it's very category
• 6:55
  specific. I think that, you know, I mean,
• 6:58
  if you're walking in the store and you're buying a car versus
• 7:01
  buying a bottle of booze, it varies dramatically.
• 7:04
  But this is about influence at point of say, because that's we,
• 7:09
  we are creatures that, you know, what we're taking in is
• 7:12
  influencing how we psychologically how we think.
• 7:15
  So I think I I can see how retail media definitely or cash
• 7:20
  strapped or margin stricken retailers is such an important.
• 7:27
  And 100% it's, it's, it's a, it's a revenue driver that
• 7:30
  really wasn't formally understood and it's coming,
• 7:34
  yeah. And I think we talk about retail
• 7:37
  media in terms of the state of Asia Pacific, Australia
• 7:39
  definitely leads the way in terms of maturity and deployment
• 7:44
  and analytics. And that's I think, I believe
• 7:47
  primarily led by the technology that's plumbing it together.
• 7:50
  Yeah, that North American or European plumbing is very much
• 7:53
  come to Australia. So I think your tech vendors
• 7:56
  have driven that. Yeah, Southeast Asia, as I said
• 7:58
  before is catching up really rapidly and that's driven by
• 8:01
  those retail media networks, Lazada, Shopee, Carousel,
• 8:04
  Graham, etcetera. Japan, Japan is, is, is a real
• 8:08
  infrastructure first expansion. So it starts with transit and
• 8:12
  and utilities integration. But the key thing here is that
• 8:16
  is one what we go back to the big, the big gorilla in the
• 8:19
  corner, which is China. Yeah, and just China, just while
• 8:23
  it hasn't made. Such a nice way, right?
• 8:25
  Yeah, they, they're, I mean, it's for currently, you know,
• 8:29
  according to, according to Axios, 44% of global retail
• 8:34
  media ad spending is in China, which is, you know, that's
• 8:39
  enormous because I mean, and they are, they are China as you,
• 8:42
  as we know through the through JD and Alibaba and those
• 8:47
  platforms, they have incredible retail media networks in their
• 8:51
  own right. But that that there's, there's a
• 8:55
  level of maturity in China, which means that probably that
• 8:58
  share will probably drop back a bit as other retail region,
• 9:02
  other regions sort of catch up. Yeah, because I think we're
• 9:05
  just, we're running in a multiple speed mark at the
• 9:07
  moment. So that's a little bit about
• 9:08
  retail media. Yeah, OK.
• 9:10
  It's, I mean, in terms of Southeast Asia, there's still
• 9:13
  plenty of new opportunity. Australia is is at the front of
• 9:16
  it but really doesn't have the scale of someone like China
• 9:19
  does. No, it's brilliant.
• 9:21
  OK, buddy. Thank you so much.
• 9:22
  I know you're a busy man, so I'll let you crack on.
• 9:25
  Thank you my friend. Good.
• 9:26
  Always good to chat. Great, forward to speaking to
• 9:28
  you next week when we speak. Fantastic.
• 9:31
  Cheers. Laura, I know you're, we're
• 9:33
  talking to you live in Sydney from your is it, what's the
• 9:36
  retail event that you're? Chairing yes so this is the
• 9:40
  online retailer it's called it's the biggest retail conference in
• 9:44
  Australia we've got about 4000 people at it and I cheer I cheer
• 9:49
  the event matured it last year and I cheered it this year it's
• 9:52
  pretty full on and across the road from the event and my hotel
• 9:55
  room and then I have to run back over I.
• 9:58
  Want to be super respectful to your time?
• 9:59
  Why don't you kick yourself off, take us into your top.
• 10:03
  We didn't even discuss. Do you have one?
• 10:05
  Do you have two? How many do you have for?
• 10:06
  US this week I have two. I want to start with the one
• 10:09
  which I'll I'll talk to you about the, I guess the five key
• 10:13
  themes coming out of the Australian conference, right,
• 10:16
  very straight. Brilliant, brilliant.
• 10:18
  So, and they're not dissimilar to what we're seeing globally.
• 10:21
  Maybe I'll give a little bit of viewpoint in each of them #1
• 10:25
  marketplaces, I mean, we're second saying it, but it's just
• 10:28
  such a big, massive topic that I'll, I'll come back to that.
• 10:32
  So marketplaces really dominate and we've had consolidation in
• 10:35
  marketplaces, but the big ones are really going full pelt.
• 10:38
  So I think it's like the ones who are marketplaces and are
• 10:41
  really strong are going deeper into being a bigger, better
• 10:45
  marketplace. So that's number one really
• 10:48
  about that speed operation and delivery.
• 10:51
  That's that's, you know, we know that that more operationalizing
• 10:55
  customer expectations coming across really important resale
• 10:59
  or re commerce or whatever. You know, I feel like that come
• 11:03
  up a couple of years ago, it died down, everyone kind of and
• 11:05
  it's back up, but really still a massive opportunity and
• 11:10
  something that I think has been ignored and shouldn't be
• 11:13
  ignored. Social commerce.
• 11:15
  We know you, you know, but Alex, one thing here, TikTok hasn't
• 11:19
  arrived here and it's going to arrive here at some point.
• 11:23
  Don't. Find it.
• 11:24
  It's like a TikTok shop. Or any other?
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  TikTok shop has not arrived here.
• 11:28
  So we still get TikTok and you can still I guess do social
• 11:31
  commerce. Let's be honest, you can you can
• 11:33
  sell through content and just I guess make out it's different.
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  But TikTok shop is not here yet. Personalization and the
• 11:40
  explosion agenda AI very, very similar to what we're seeing
• 11:44
  across the board. I think one thing I want to
• 11:46
  mention on it, but the one, the one area as I've went through
• 11:49
  the tracks that is starting to be a bit of a red flag.
• 11:52
  And it's actually more for me to position what I do.
• 11:55
  I work with boards and C suites need to be more not startups.
• 11:59
  They tend to be more established business models.
• 12:01
  And I think that what I'm seeing as the divide is pretty wide
• 12:05
  between the content creator businesses and the more
• 12:08
  traditional business models. So it was yeah, yeah.
• 12:11
  And I'm almost going, guys, you're luck.
• 12:14
  It's almost the lucky that TikTok shop hasn't arrived yet
• 12:16
  because I've still got to be about.
• 12:18
  We decimated, yeah. Got to get their content, their
• 12:22
  content strategy sorted. They've got to get social
• 12:24
  commerce, they've got to you know, I'm, I was listening to
• 12:27
  some more of that direct consumer brand that does global
• 12:30
  and it's like test, fail, test scale and then that strategy on
• 12:34
  a page and almost allowing people to experiment, but having
• 12:39
  that strategy on a page so that we have some kind of guiding
• 12:42
  principles. So they are the five key areas
• 12:46
  that are really coming across strong from this week at the
• 12:50
  conference. I got you.
• 12:51
  Now the next one I thought might be good.
• 12:53
  You want me going to .2? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 12:55
  Far away, I'll be able to get back to the show.
• 12:58
  As yeah, so .2 I thought it would be interesting to one of
• 13:02
  the IT was Roy Morgan did a report.
• 13:05
  I love when it's going to be back more focused in this
• 13:07
  market, but that I'll tell you the top ten businesses that are
• 13:11
  dominating retail. So number one is Amazon.
• 13:14
  I know that's you almost go do, but Amazon took a wee bit longer
• 13:18
  to scale here. They've been around before COVID
• 13:20
  and this might be the first or the second year of the number
• 13:24
  one. So we've got Amazon, we've got
• 13:26
  eBay, we've got Team news #3 Alco, JB hi-fi is number 5, Big
• 13:32
  W #6 Kmart #7 Maya #8 the good guys number 9 and Sheen.
• 13:40
  She, I call it Sheen. I don't know how you pronounce
• 13:43
  it, Sheen, right. So 33 marketplaces there and
• 13:49
  then some of the big guys and obviously, you know, Apple
• 13:52
  massive. So Amazon continues to be the
• 13:55
  biggest share of online sales, but TMU and Sheen have the
• 13:58
  biggest share gains year on year.
• 14:00
  That to me was a bit of an interesting one.
• 14:03
  What did I, what else have I got to tell you?
• 14:05
  Yeah, in the last 12 months, Amazon's dominances went to,
• 14:09
  they've got in revenue in Australia, it's 3.8 billion.
• 14:13
  Yeah, and the Prime members have went up by 1.1 million in one
• 14:17
  year. So they're making a lot more
• 14:19
  traction Sheen and team you 3 billion in sales.
• 14:23
  It was actually, I wonder if they're only this was an
• 14:26
  Australia ghost report that they've just released.
• 14:29
  And one of the things that they said is that customers are
• 14:32
  discovering products, 47% of shoppers are discovering
• 14:36
  products on marketplaces. I'm wondering it might not just
• 14:40
  be the three, it might be generalised across that, but it
• 14:43
  got me thinking. It's like, we know that
• 14:45
  marketplaces are dominant, but are we?
• 14:47
  It feels like we're almost moving into a place where can't
• 14:49
  even avoid being on them. Yeah, it's really, really
• 14:53
  difficult. I think it's a really difficult
• 14:55
  choice for retailers because it's like I'm I'm damned if I do
• 15:00
  and I'm damned if I don't because it affects my margin, it
• 15:02
  affects the data that I got if it affects.
• 15:05
  But then if I'm not there, yeah, exactly my competitors.
• 15:10
  And I think this brings it back to why retailers really need
• 15:12
  community, really need their own brand, really need their own
• 15:16
  content to be able to stand out from, from, from the the
• 15:20
  plethora of choices. You know, obviously, if you're
• 15:24
  going to Timia and Sheen, it's like Amazon in the old days,
• 15:27
  you're going for price and convenience.
• 15:29
  You want that low price, you want it quick or within, you
• 15:32
  know, within whatever. And so delivery becomes a real
• 15:35
  thing. But if you don't need those two,
• 15:38
  then what else is going to make you stand out?
• 15:40
  Like I've always said, it's it's they're a frenemy.
• 15:43
  You know, they can be great if you use them the right way.
• 15:45
  But now when I'm seeing that number of 47% of search results
• 15:49
  are starting on a marketplace, you're almost going, it's not
• 15:51
  even a should you, shouldn't you as are we becoming a need to?
• 15:55
  The choice isn't there. And one of the interesting
• 15:57
  things as well, like retail media, as we know is a big
• 16:00
  topic. We know that the reality is it's
• 16:03
  only the big players that can do retail media effectively at the
• 16:06
  moment. And how do you do retail media
• 16:09
  on these platforms? You have to be a seller, it's
• 16:12
  locked. You have to play with these
• 16:14
  platforms. On the flip of that, on the flip
• 16:17
  of that, I think that as a way you can always twist it any way
• 16:20
  you want, right? When I think about it, on the
• 16:22
  flip, these guys have a really, they know best practises in the
• 16:25
  core. They know how to do fulfilment.
• 16:26
  They really challenge a business to be better and do better and
• 16:30
  potentially leveraging these platforms excellence.
• 16:33
  You can focus on what we spoke about brand, brand content,
• 16:37
  better products, sustainability, what you're doing with your
• 16:40
  resale market. But I'm I'm letting it land
• 16:43
  that. It's not new, but it's just
• 16:45
  landing a little bit different when I think about the numbers
• 16:48
  coming through. I think that you know what the
• 16:50
  challenge for me is now becoming because like on Monday I
• 16:53
  recorded the Middle East show, yesterday I recorded the US show
• 16:57
  with Jill, who's the SVP of Content.
• 17:00
  NRF is the maturity of the consumer and sometimes we we
• 17:06
  forget that. And so you you're talking about
• 17:09
  marketplaces, we're talking about AI search.
• 17:13
  When people's discovery starts on an AI browser, then it ends
• 17:18
  up sorry or an AI app then ends up on the e-commerce buy page.
• 17:23
  Shopify, for example, when I interviewed Bobby, the CRO, he
• 17:27
  was talking about how people have just got to get used to
• 17:30
  that. I think that's the wonderful
• 17:32
  thing of doing this show and working with people like
• 17:34
  yourself. There is a lot of hand holding
• 17:36
  that needs to happen. And sometimes when we talk about
• 17:39
  these themes, we talk in them, we talk about them as absolutes
• 17:42
  and it's not an absolute, it's a journey.
• 17:45
  And I think what people need is that sort of beacon of light and
• 17:49
  that and I guess that's what what you are and what will
• 17:51
  become in terms. Of well, you know, you try you
• 17:55
  try to break it down into what where should you go first?
• 17:58
  Because actually on that AI, the search, it is a topic here as
• 18:02
  well. And it actually makes me lean
• 18:04
  into that search piece because I'm thinking about AI as well.
• 18:07
  But one in three customers here are starting their search
• 18:10
  journey on on like ChatGPT. It's all.
• 18:14
  Right, so it is the same thing then?
• 18:16
  It's we've seen it as well. So yeah, like that, that that
• 18:19
  was one of the stats that I had read.
• 18:21
  I can't remember the source. One or three people are are
• 18:26
  starting their search, whether it be they're looking for outfit
• 18:28
  inspirations, that's it. Yeah, they're there already.
• 18:32
  And then? You go to the buy page.
• 18:33
  So what what that means and the implication there is that
• 18:36
  retailers need to be spending more time and energy on their
• 18:39
  product pages, making sure that those product pages absolute and
• 18:44
  you can almost. Not that I'm.
• 18:46
  Suggesting you can almost forget the UI or CX and so forget that
• 18:50
  because we know that search is no longer going to this sorry,
• 18:54
  discovery is not going to start with us.
• 18:56
  But then that's why the beautiful thing that I I try and
• 18:59
  highlight in the UK show is the amount of content creators or
• 19:04
  the amount of brands that are content creators because that
• 19:07
  that's how they stand out in the noise.
• 19:09
  And again, it cans that Jill was at, they were talking about or
• 19:14
  Jill was telling me that for the first time in all the times that
• 19:17
  she's been there, you've seen these small content creators be
• 19:21
  as big as a voice as these big powerhouses.
• 19:25
  And I think that's the shift that we're seeing.
• 19:27
  You know Alex, what I said in this stage when I was finishing,
• 19:30
  I had been around, I had been with the big guys doing a panel,
• 19:33
  I was with the Country Rd group, who else was on it, a Freedom
• 19:36
  Furniture, very big retail groups.
• 19:39
  And the next presentation, it was a brand called Babyboo that
• 19:42
  is a direct to consumer brand, 120 countries and Australia's
• 19:46
  probably becoming their smallest, one of the smaller
• 19:49
  markets. And I actually went up and went,
• 19:51
  can we do secondments because. They wish right, The big guys
• 19:57
  wish. They're making these guys in.
• 19:58
  I know and I'm trying to flip it because I do think some of the
• 20:01
  leadership and the more grounding business model is
• 20:04
  where the DTC brands become unstuck.
• 20:06
  So I'm going, well, let's implant a couple of CIOs, the
• 20:09
  CIOs in to them, help them kind of maybe get a wee bit more
• 20:13
  foundations really strong and then let's get some of these
• 20:16
  really great digital marketing people that that.
• 20:20
  Test, fail test scale like that have done it and know how to do
• 20:25
  content at at scale and to the retailers.
• 20:28
  So maybe that's my next, my next project is how do we, how do we
• 20:32
  do secondments between and really, you know?
• 20:34
  I'm sure people will bite your hand off for it.
• 20:36
  You know, in terms of getting that, it's, it's a culture thing
• 20:39
  as well. And again, I've done enough
• 20:41
  projects to know that if you can't change the culture of the
• 20:44
  company, getting one leader in, maybe that one leader will start
• 20:47
  the changing culture, but you need to have that culture.
• 20:50
  And I think D2C brands, I hate this phrase, but obviously it's
• 20:54
  what the kids say. It just hits different, right?
• 20:57
  I don't, I would never use that language, but that's what the
• 21:00
  language I, I hear people saying, right?
• 21:04
  It is different and I think it's really interesting.
• 21:06
  So listen, I said, I'll be really quick.
• 21:08
  We're running over. I love talking to you.
• 21:10
  So have a wonderful time and I'll see you next.
• 21:12
  Week. Thank you.
• 21:13
  I'll see you next week, Alex. Bye everyone.
• 21:15
  See you.