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Magnum Ice‑Cream Trend, Primark Home, Retail Cybersecurity & More · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another fabulous edition of Five Things
• 0:03
  Friday UK Edition. I'm Alex, the founder of the
• 0:19
  retail podcast and I'm joined by my wonderful for I'll diversify
• 0:24
  from fabulous, Let fabulous breathe this week and go for
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  wonderful Co host Simone Allman, the founder Co founder of Need
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  it for tonight. Simone, how are you?
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  Good. Thank you.
• 0:35
  How are you? Yeah, good.
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  I, I guess I have to ask the logistics business that you were
• 0:39
  thinking about that's not called need it for tonight.
• 0:42
  We call it Dave. I'm sorry for anybody out there
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  that is called Dave. We we needed to separate.
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  Product name or is that like a code secret name?
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  Well, it started off as just like, OK, like how do we
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  separate the two? You know, one's a marketplace
• 0:55
  app and then one's a rapid delivery plug in, check out,
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  plug in. We were getting a bit confused
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  and someone said just call it Dave for now.
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  And sadly, Dave is stuck so. OK, well, so yeah, that was the
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  other thing I was mentioning the one other thing, Dave, anyway,
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  why don't we get straight into this and over to you for some
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  interesting observation. Yes, and we do have awesome.
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  So I actually laughed when I read this.
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  I read it on Vogue business this week.
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  That Magnum, the ice cream which I do love is being, I want to
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  say styled is the IT Girl accessory this summer.
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  The ice cream is. Is that a part of the statement?
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  I laughed as I was like, imagine saying this five years ago, but
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  now apparently magnums are everywhere.
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  It's been spotted at Haley Bieber's Road Beach Club in
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  Majorca and also at Charlie XCX's Rave and Can.
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  And it's no random. That's, that's a CMO remarketing
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  director saying we're going to have fun with this, right?
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  We're just going to go to all the.
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  But suddenly it's not just a snack, you know, They've turned
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  it into this whole vibe. This is a really weird thing for
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  me to say, but these aesthetic and how it's come across is this
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  is very weird. But I guess it's almost like
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  affordable luxury. I know what we're talking about
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  and I know. I know exactly what you.
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  Mean I found mad saying it's. It's indulgence.
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  It is. And like, I think it's genius
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  because Gen Z is kind of obsessed with little luxuries,
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  but they're not going to spend 3 grand on a handbag because most
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  Genz can't afford that. But they will spend 150 on an
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  ice cream that looks really iconic in a photo.
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  You know, they've turned it into this like lifestyle choice and
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  it really just taps into this like pleasure play design, but
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  in a way that's really accessible to that age group.
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  But I just think they've done really well is they've really
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  leaned into that cultural storytelling.
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  You know, they haven't just launched like a new flavour and
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  put it on a shelf in Tesco. You know, they've really made
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  ice cream it's but I thought their collab with Rd, which is
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  obviously just been like the skin care brand, which every
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  bloody everyone's obsessed with. I thought that was really clever
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  and it kind of, it was a really weird crossover between like
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  food, beauty and fashion. And you know what, for me, I, I
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  just think that this is a really good reminder to retailers out
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  there that your product doesn't have to change.
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  But if you shift how people experience it and how they
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  encounter it, you know, you can totally reframe the story.
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  And you know, that's exactly what they've done here.
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  Now, I've never been on Magnum's Instagram.
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  And obviously, like, after reading this article, I was
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  like, I wonder what their Instagram's like on their
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  Instagram, you know, it's an ice cream.
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  And as you can see here it well, they've got over 800,000
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  followers like. And then like it Primavera sound
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  like all the cool festivals. Pretty smart, yes?
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  It's super smart. And I think we always talk about
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  how brands and, and I'll give you an example, I was just
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  recording the, the AIPAC edition this morning and we were talking
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  about how Chinese shoppers are not shopping at Gucci or
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  Burberry anymore because it's just not relevant, right?
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  And here, here is maybe Gucci needs to come over to Magnum and
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  say, hey, guys, we're struggling a little bit with maintaining
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  our relevance in our core market.
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  Can you help us? Because I think this is this is
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  what they've done beautifully. It is and it's it's memorable
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  and like. And they were at Cannes.
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  Yeah, can as well. I'm.
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  Super curious to see. OK, so they had an activation at
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  Cannes, a Charlie XCS Magnum take their core product, but now
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  put it in between a croissant and all of a sudden it's an and
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  I'm sure that's pretty delicious, but it just becomes a
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  a totally new product. Yeah, what?
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  We can. Learn from this.
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  I just thought it was really memorable.
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  Very random. Love it, I love it.
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  It's super cool. Thank you for that one.
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  Right, my one, let's go. So this one I'm going to be a
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  little bit over the place, but I've ran it out so I'm just
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  going to go what I've written basically what I find in the UK
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  retailers experimenting with smaller, faster and more
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  targeted stores. And I've got a couple of
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  examples of each. For example, the Co-op has now a
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  new 1500 square foot on the Go store in Solihull, which she's
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  sort of setting the tone. And if you think about a
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  footprint with an expanded hot food zone, they have a plan to
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  roll out 15 more sites within the month over the next couple
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  of months. And the mission is super, super
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  clear for them. They want to capture that
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  commuter spend and lunchtime shopping missions within last
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  mile proximity. That makes so much sense.
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  It'll be really interesting to see how that goes out.
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  Big box retailers such as Primark following suit at the
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  other the end of the size chart and opening their second
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  standalone Primark home store, roughly about 12,000 square feet
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  inside the Trafford Centre in late August where apparel
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  players are ring fencing space for higher margin homeware
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  giving landlords who are desperate for getting a refresh
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  of their estate fresh retail asset.
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  And then the final bit about the mainstream part you and I have
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  discussed pop ups. Pop ups now inject an estimated
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  2.3 billion into to the UK economy, with half of shoppers
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  saying that they visited one in the past year.
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  The biggest thing that retailers and brands and DTCS and CPGS
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  need to understand that temporary doesn't mean
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  experimental. It's just the proven format now
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  for creating that buzz, testing the market and getting your
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  products out there. So what's the key takeaway?
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  And it's like 3 elements, but they're all in my mind
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  underneath one element, which is the store format.
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  The store format is changing for this new generation.
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  And that's the biggest thing. And it's like one of the
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  elements. One of the other things I'll
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  talk about assortment discipline.
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  Expect tighter, higher velocity ranges.
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  Retailers need to prep for smaller case packs and faster
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  replenishment cycles because out of stock is just horrible for
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  everyone when they go in. And it's not that fixture
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  agility, modular shelving, plug and pay technology, electric
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  shelf labels that forever people have been saying we can't deploy
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  this now that's coming back in at the checkout.
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  A win for investors in in retail tech because they can see that
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  now UK retail is now beginning to experiment with technologies
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  that they've traditionally not been able to do.
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  And then real estate. This is an an area that's really
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  needed some some a breath of fresh air to come in to the UK
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  High Street because as we all know, it's been dying over the
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  years. Boring formats, boring stores,
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  and now we're seeing traditional names breakdown and go into new
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  categories. So that's my next one.
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  Although I didn't change the slides because I can't talk and
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  click at the same time. But I think, oh, actually this
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  is my next one after we go to you.
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  So why don't we go to you for cybersecurity?
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  Yeah, doesn't sound like a very interesting topic, does it?
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  Cybersecurity. Let's see how interesting.
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  But what is interesting is Magnums.
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  But one of the stories that really stood out to me this
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  week, it was reading about an independent retailer called
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  Anderson. I think I was reading on
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  Drapers. They had to shut their website
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  down due to a cyber attack. Obviously, we've seen it with
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  Harrods, with COP, and of course the biggie being M&S.
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  We all know that retail has become a huge target for, for
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  cyber, for cybercrime, but it's not just a tech issue, it's it's
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  a trust issue. And I'm not a cybersecurity
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  expert. I'm not about to sit here and
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  talk through firewall protocols. But what I do think about a lot
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  is consumer confidence and I guess the, I guess the emotional
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  side of of retail, you know, when customers know that the
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  personal data, even if it's just your name or your address have
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  been accessed it, it does really change how they feel about the
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  brand. And the M&S breach alone cost
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  had overall close to 300 million and sadly a lot of reputational
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  damage as well. I, after reading this, started
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  to do some digging. It was reading a survey that
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  showed a percentage of consumers who would usually recommend an S
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  that's dropped by 21% since the start of the year, and a third
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  of their shoppers now say that the intent to shop elsewhere.
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  I was quite shocked by that. I was shocked by those numbers.
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  I was shocked at how high they were.
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  You know, for me that's really big shift in perception, even
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  for a brand like M&S. How we were talking about about
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  them last week, right, In terms of how they're doing well,
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  they've got these new brands coming out and we're singing
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  their praises now that we've lost little confidence in them.
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  Well, I mean, I haven't. I love and I've always gonna be
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  there for this fans so. But those numbers did shock me.
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  I then started to, I mean this I do sound really boring now, but
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  I started to do some, you know, digging on just cybersecurity in
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  general and just doing some research and what I did found
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  why I didn't describe. The security press.
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  I'm a sado, but it did say that only 11% of retailers have cyber
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  insurance, even though like half of said they've been targeted in
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  some kind of way. Yeah, it's to me.
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  I think that to me is a sign that the retail industry, it's
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  not fully facing the scale of the risk.
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  I don't know, but you know, for me, you know, the bigger
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  question that I was just thinking about with all of this
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  is can brands, you know, really bounce back from this?
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  You know, will we forgive them? Apparently, yes, or just not as
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  easy as before. So I, I think that just the
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  reality is, is that trust in retail is really fragile.
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  And while we're used to talking about things like price and the
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  product and like the customer experience and you know, that
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  are usually like the big topics, I think we'll see that data
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  protection and cyber transparency that's going to
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  really become a a new part of this brand trust equation, which
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  I think is really interesting. So that was my thoughts.
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  Right, I'm going to have to step up on how fast I am talking to
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  get through the next two, I think, or three depending on how
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  we look at it. So Omni Channel fulfilment, a
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  John Lewis Partnership has paired up with Uber Eats in
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  Leeds and in Stratford for rapid delivery, over 150 curated
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  skews, things like candles, cushions, gifting items, all
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  within half an hour. Get on to Dave and let Dave
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  deliver that for you. If you're listening from, you
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  know, because you know they were traditionally and I so
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  understand this because you're in that sort of Amazon catalogue
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  and you just sort of blend into the background.
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  I think retailers are tired as as our consumers, so they want
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  new environments to shop. And then the bit and then the
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  bit about B&Q that I've had up here for about 10 minutes is
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  marketplaces for B&Q they're now piloting next they click and
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  collect for 3rd party marketplace scaling to 300
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  stores, basically being able to have micro fulfilment hubs even
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  if they don't stock the product that they're selling from their
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  marketplace. And my final one, I came across
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  this app and I'm always looking for places to go that have got
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  art, fashion, music. I'll let it play and you can you
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  can hear. It some cool events to go to in
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  the next month across music, art and fashion.
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  Here's a few that I would recommend.
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  First one is called Genesis and they basically host these like
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  MMA style fights and play music in the background, kind of like
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  a rave. Last one looked insane.
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  The next one gigs and friends and that is basically rapper
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  gigs, bringing along some of his music friends and performing at
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  Somerset House in central London.
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  That's on the expensive side but I think that'll be definitely
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  worth it. I think this Saturday is Victory
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  Lap and Air Jordan so they're doing like a basketball star
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  event. It's free to go, you just have
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  to RSVP and that's in West London.
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  Final one, happening on Thursday, is Crash Magazine
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  hosting a free party. So rather than listen to him, I
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  want to actually show you the app.
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  Here we go. So you've got all of all of the,
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  the different events going in the the reason I'm showing you
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  this is this is the the ability for D to C and brands such as
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  Knight to collaborate in this new world of culture.
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  And again, you and I have spoken about how culture is so
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  important. And here is a young, young guy
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  who's created his own app to sort of address that for
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  budding. Oh, look, an associate with
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  Magnum. See these This is why I think
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  like when you when it's like when you think I don't know you,
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  you think about red cars and all of a sudden you see 10 cars that
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  everything we see is going to have magnum on there.
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  It's like, you know, this is this fashion shows, there's
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  music shows and then there's cross collaboration.
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  There's Nike. Go and explore for yourself.
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  But another, another example of how if you want to bring as
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  Magnum have done and influence people, you need to be thinking
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  about culture and you need to be thinking about community and you
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  need to be thinking about how you become an active participant
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  in that rather than just an observer or commentator.
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  And I think that's the biggest thing that I, I see so many
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  retailers are just commentators, not active participants.
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  And again, Magnum has done a phenomenal job with that.
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  Simone, thank you so much. Look forward to speaking to you
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  next week. Wonderful.
• 14:38
  Thanks, Alex. Catch you next week.