Latest / The Retail Podcast / Asda’s Adaptive Line, JLP’s H1, AI Carts at Morrisons, 5 Things Friday UK with Simone Oloman

Transcript

Asda’s Adaptive Line, JLP’s H1, AI Carts at Morrisons, 5 Things Friday UK with Simone Oloman · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday. Welcome to five things Friday
• 0:03
  with myself and the fabulous Simone.
• 0:17
  Hello Simone, How are you doing? I'm good.
• 0:20
  I always find myself dancing to that music.
• 0:22
  I've. Got to apologise to like the
• 0:26
  listeners because I've listened to a couple of shows during the
• 0:29
  summer where we've had different editors edit them and so we're
• 0:33
  literally blowing. People are having to take their
• 0:35
  headphones out because it comes in so loud.
• 0:38
  But anyway, we will correct that.
• 0:40
  My name's Alex, I help organisations that sell to the
• 0:43
  beautiful retail industry across the globe stay relevant with
• 0:47
  their thought leadership and I'm joined by my wonderful Co host
• 0:50
  Simone. Hi, my name's Simone, I'm the Co
• 0:53
  founder and CEO of Need it for Tonight, also known as Nerf.
• 0:56
  They always say the easiest way to describe us is kind of like
• 1:00
  delivery, but for fashion. Fantastic.
• 1:02
  So for those of you who it's your first time maybe listening
• 1:06
  and we've appeared on your Spotify or Apple podcast feed,
• 1:09
  we look at the top five news stories in the UK, specifically
• 1:14
  focused on the UK. And today, we're going to start
• 1:16
  off with a phenomenal story with you, Simone.
• 1:20
  We are today I wanted to shine a light on something actually
• 1:24
  really genuinely meaningful happening in retail.
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  So Georgia Asda is launching a new 28 piece collection of
• 1:32
  adaptive clothing for adults designed specifically for people
• 1:35
  with additional needs. As you can see, and it's
• 1:39
  properly considered it's function first design that
• 1:42
  includes things like clothing that works around feeding or
• 1:46
  treatment tubes, metal free zips for MRI use, they've got
• 1:51
  discrete pockets for Stormer bags, and lots of other
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  thoughtful details that I guess should have existed years ago.
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  But what makes this launch so powerful is who it's inspired
• 2:02
  by. And so the range honours the
• 2:04
  legacy of Nicky Newman, who was a breast cancer campaigner who
• 2:08
  sadly passed away in 2023. Before she died, she posted on
• 2:12
  Instagram asking if any brand would work with her to create
• 2:16
  adaptive clothing that was actually stylish and also
• 2:19
  affordable because prior to that, she'd spent £90 in a
• 2:23
  jumper that had met her needs. And yeah, she knew that her
• 2:27
  community couldn't keep doing that.
• 2:29
  So she wasn't just advocating for herself, you know, she was
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  listening to thousands of others in treatment who couldn't find
• 2:34
  anything that fit their bodies and their budgets.
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  So George, as does delivered on that ask.
• 2:40
  So yeah, kudos. I love it.
• 2:41
  Listen, mainstream media, sorry, mainstream supermarkets, grocers
• 2:46
  need to be doing more of this. And fantastic Asda is leading
• 2:52
  the way in that. And apologies if the others have
• 2:55
  done it and we just missed it because I, I have to say that
• 2:57
  because maybe they, they did do a line and we and we and we just
• 3:00
  missed it. So fantastic.
• 3:01
  A really lovely way to start off.
• 3:03
  Now we've spoken about John Lewis for so many different
• 3:07
  reasons. They've just released their half
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  year results and interestingly enough, or if you remember, I
• 3:12
  mentioned that something like 40% of their revenue will come
• 3:16
  from property. And on their website, I didn't
• 3:18
  realise there's a John Lewis Partnerships property website
• 3:22
  where it talks about what they're going to do.
• 3:23
  But anyway, they've just posted their half year results.
• 3:26
  Fascinating if you like picture of the British retail landscape.
• 3:30
  Despite reporting a loss of £34 million before tax, the company
• 3:36
  but Waitrose and John Lewis are projecting full year profit
• 3:40
  growth. And it actually makes sense
• 3:42
  because when you think about it, the numbers, the sales hit 6.2
• 3:47
  billion, which is up 4% year on year.
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  Both Waitrose and John Lewis outperformed their markets with
• 3:54
  satisfaction, hitting record highs again, fantastic.
• 3:57
  I can understand that. And the thing that really caught
• 4:00
  my attention with this is the fact that they're front loading
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  their investment and putting 191,000,000 lbs into store
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  upgrade. Really welcome.
• 4:11
  And technology, I'm sorry. That's what they've done in just
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  the first half with even more plan before the golden quarter,
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  which I think again will lend because people love, you know,
• 4:22
  go to do a little Christmas shopping, JLP or Waitrose.
• 4:25
  In Waitrose, it's specifically strong because their sales
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  topped £4 billion for the first time in the half year and that's
• 4:33
  a 6% increase. So it when you think about it
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  and given all the stuff that we talk about doom and gloom,
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  they're seeing 9% more customers than they were two years ago,
• 4:45
  which again, kudos to them for doing that.
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  And they've become the first UK supermarket because we all love
• 4:52
  our chicken to have a better chicken commitment.
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  And they won the Grocer of the year gold award for customer
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  service. So it feels like, you know, this
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  is a retailer, they're getting the brands to come in, they're
• 5:03
  going through the transformation of the store.
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  They've got a £53 million operating loss, but that's the
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  investment that they're putting into their business because
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  they're still growing, they're still selling, customers are
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  still coming in, but they're rebuilding, if you like, from a
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  lot of their stores. And they obviously bought back
• 5:23
  that famous never knowingly undersold promise, which I think
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  has lent itself to the customer sentiment stores.
• 5:31
  So yeah, that's it. That's John Lewis for me.
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  And I think we're going to, well, no, I don't think I know
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  we're going to stay with me and we're actually planned focused
• 5:41
  on grocery. But this is a really, I mean,
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  obviously Morrison's have watched the retail podcast, the
• 5:46
  NRF, because I interviewed actually it was Chop talk or
• 5:51
  NRF. It was NRF, the first UK grocer
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  to go with Insta guy. And you were saying, well, what
• 5:58
  is Instacart? Instacart is a trolley with
• 6:03
  technology built in for you to be able to scan the items that
• 6:06
  you're putting into your trolley that comes with it with an LED
• 6:09
  screen at the front. That sort of it can be used for
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  lots of different use cases, but it's a really clever way to
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  deploy retail media if you don't want to put screens around your
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  score in the US. Instacart is a media company,
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  not necessarily a retail tech for grocers.
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  Because what they're focusing and what they're saying is, is
• 6:29
  they've created an ecosystem of advertisers who want to
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  advertise in retailers, but they don't necessarily just want to
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  advertise in one retailer. They want to advertise in all of
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  them. And so Instacart promises, take
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  out trolleys. They've all got digital screens.
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  Yes, the customer gets some benefit because they can do
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  things like wayfinding, they can do things like product price,
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  look up, look at promotions, but it becomes this little hub as
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  you walk around. Now, I don't know if that's what
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  Morrison's shoppers want, having AI, AI powered shopping
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  trolleys, but from an industry perspective, it's the shape of
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  things to come. So super interesting.
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  I think moving on to yourself with another fabulous story.
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  Very excited to see how that pans up with Morrison's.
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  But yes, so I wanted to talk about Barber.
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  Barber is making moves and what they do very well is collapse.
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  As you can see. One of them is incredible, is
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  farm real, very unexpected. It's a 24 piece collection.
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  I have to say that it's available.
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  I need it for tonight. Can't not say it.
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  I love it if I if I, I don't know if there's a man farm Rio,
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  but it's so cool. But it is like you can see that
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  it's, you know, obviously it's Brazilian meats, British.
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  Quintessential countryside. Yeah.
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  But what I love is that, you know, it's still, they still
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  respect the DNA. You can still see that kind of
• 7:56
  wax cotton with, with the jacket, with the jackets and
• 8:00
  those kind of like tartan linings, but with the twist.
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  You know, they've got some of the pieces are reversible.
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  You know, it's nice. Like when you, I mean, there's
• 8:07
  one of them that I'm obsessed with and it's like a nice wax
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  jacket, but then it has this collar.
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  I don't know where it is, but even this one here on the left
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  is really nice because you've got this one, the nice deep
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  burgundy kind of standard to extract it.
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  Then you've got this beautiful farm wheel print on the pocket.
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  Then I think the back of that is really nice.
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  But why I think it works is that it's it's relevance through
• 8:30
  through difference. And Barbara have been very good
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  at choosing really carefully who they've partnered with.
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  I know they did one with Ghani before, but I think what's great
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  is suddenly someone who never saw themselves in a Barbara.
• 8:42
  It's like, wait, hang on a minute.
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  Which is kind of me. I'm not really a I'm.
• 8:47
  Well, I do like Barbara, but I don't really.
• 8:49
  Yeah, but. You're not going to go out and
• 8:51
  buy. One right.
• 8:52
  This is in my wish list. I love that also as well.
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  I think doing limited pieces has that kind of drop culture.
• 9:00
  Get it before it's gone high. But yeah, I love it.
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  I just like that it's still Barbara under the hood, you
• 9:06
  know, still really great quality, built to last.
• 9:09
  The craft doesn't change. Yeah, I just thought it was that
• 9:12
  high hybrid identity done right. I really love it and I think
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  it's just a really great way for traditional brands to stay
• 9:20
  relevant and tap into new audiences.
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  So yeah, I. Love it.
• 9:24
  Yeah, I agree. Look, timeless British heritage
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  meets Brazilian tropical vibrance.
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  And I think, you know, what a great example of the
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  multicultural world that we live in and this need for people to
• 9:36
  have this sort of, you know, vibrance from, from this new
• 9:39
  age, which family are doing phenomenally well, right?
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  Going from strength to strength, meeting this whole world.
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  So I, I totally what a what a really cool yeah, collaboration.
• 9:49
  OK, moving on last minute Oxford St shutting down Sunday 21st.
• 9:54
  Whether or not you like the Mayor of London, that's totally
• 9:57
  irrelevant. I think it's, it's, it's great
• 10:00
  for Oxford St. We're all I'm I'm a fan of
• 10:02
  Oxford Street and Reading St. I think it's a fantastic
• 10:05
  shopping destination and the fact that they're going to make
• 10:08
  it traffic free for the day, I mean, it's a shame.
• 10:11
  It's a Sunday. I'd love to, you know, do a week
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  kind of people. They put the licence in.
• 10:15
  And so it's especially this week when I'm trying to get from
• 10:20
  Oxford St up to Houston, the traffic's there anyway because
• 10:23
  people say, Oh my God, it's going to cause chaos with
• 10:25
  traffic. It's there anyway.
• 10:27
  And especially with the train strike, it was anyway, but I
• 10:30
  think they're going to it's a mini festival, right.
• 10:32
  So they're just wanting to people to come out to hang out
• 10:36
  and and enjoy the experience to see what Oxford Street will be
• 10:39
  like. So Sunday 21st between 12:00 and
• 10:42
  8:00, get yourself down to Oxford Street.
• 10:45
  So Simone, with that, have you got a busy week planned?
• 10:49
  Yes, well, busy week. We're at the end of the week.
• 10:52
  It's been a busy week. Next week is also going to be a
• 10:55
  busy week. It's relentless coming back from
• 10:58
  the summer. It feels like, Oh my God,
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  September is going to be a big month.
• 11:01
  We've got a couple of major conferences coming up, which we
• 11:05
  will see if we'll be there or not.
• 11:06
  Yeah. Well, with that, thank you so
• 11:08
  much. Until next week, have a lovely
• 11:10
  week. Wonderful.
• 11:12
  Thanks, Alec. Take.
• 11:12
  Care bye.