Latest / The Retail Podcast / Zero-Click Shopping Is Here. Here's What Retail Needs to Do Before It's Too Late

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Zero-Click Shopping Is Here. Here's What Retail Needs to Do Before It's Too Late · The Retail Podcast

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  Hello, I'm Reef Quail, Managing Director of NRF in AIPAC and in
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  the Middle East, and this is five things Friday Asia Pacific
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  style. Hello.
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  Hello. Hello Asia Pacific style.
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  Asia Pacific style. I think we I need to add some
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  accompaniment to. It I love it and you and you've
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  already started the weekend. You're in the bar.
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  Fantastic. It's nice.
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  That's the way to live. Yeah, Retail.
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  Such is life, yes? OK, well listen, since you're
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  such a party mood, why don't you go first?
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  What's top of mind for you this week?
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  OK. I recently spoke at the Asia
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  Retail Summit and I spoke about answer engine optimization, AEO
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  and you know, and only like maybe say 5 people in the crowd
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  of 200, we're like nodding away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard
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  about that. Are you doing something about
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  it? No.
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  And the rest are like what? What?
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  And I say, you've heard of SEO, Yes, search engine optimization.
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  So AEO is answer engine optimization.
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  And they're like, what? So, you know, the, the thing
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  here is with the fact that how we are using GPT so much, right?
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  And never considered how actually that is going to work
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  for our business. So AEO will get us chosen.
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  And so how many businesses in retail are actually winning at
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  this? So marketplaces are clearly
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  marketplaces are leading. So we've got the shoppies and
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  the Lazada because they have very structured data, the price,
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  the reviews, the inventory and then AI pulls them very easily
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  when recommending products. So that's really good.
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  And then strong brands and I wanna be able to say I'm looking
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  at Nike. Nike's looking good, AKI is
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  looking good because AI trust them.
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  These are brands have been around for good and so they
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  don't have the the agents don't have to think twice about taking
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  their recommendations or answers or this kind of stuff that they
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  put out. But then the other retailer like
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  Walmart for example, that can connect like say data and a
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  little bit of intent. I think intent data is something
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  that is still missing from a lot of retailers thinking about what
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  is going to the future of retail as well as transaction.
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  I think that is where we are a little bit more weak.
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  So I think there's a lot of catch up to be done.
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  It is really about figuring out the answers to questions that
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  perhaps you now need to design. And I love it, Yeah.
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  I love it. I mean, sorry, gum Reef.
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  I was going to say I was looking at and this is they call it the
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  online to online barrier where so it's the it's the
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  conversation between I am like it's not the stage before I get
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  to the store and not be paid before I get to the physical
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  store. I do answer brand in store.
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  And so this content piece, it's called the online to online
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  broader. I was reading some and it's the
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  other day and it's all about the content.
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  And so your contact's being indexed if you like it or not,
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  but it's actually it's actually the craft of writing the contact
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  and Prem. And because you see in in
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  markets like the younger markets like the Philippines and
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  Indonesia where it's very Gen Z LED, this is where this sort of
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  behaviour is manifesting like 35 to 40% of all query starts at an
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  agent, all right? And so if you're not a like and
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  the whole world should be watching these two markets,
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  right? Because no one has youth like
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  these like Philippines and Indonesia, no one's got it like
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  these two markets and it's mobile LED.
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  So it's all very digital and it's, it's, it's, it's, yeah,
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  it's, it's, we're talking like up to 40% of the, the beginning
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  of the journey is done this way for this demographic.
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  It's true now, especially now and the way they're asking the
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  questions and especially Philippines because they are
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  using English, right and therefore the the way to
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  understand it, it's way more profound and important.
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  And I think a lot of retailers are looking out.
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  So this is something we want to remind everyone.
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  Start now. Sure, Reef.
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  What's next for you, Sir? Well, I am a little bit
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  underdressed today because I'm a bit tired and emotional.
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  Yesterday I went to China shop. Yeah, always emotional, highly
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  emotional. I went to, I went to Hangzhou
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  yesterday. I got back this morning.
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  I'm in Singapore now. I went to China shop so have a
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  look around as a guest of the Chinese Chain Store Franchise
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  Association. Lovely bunch of people, great
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  friends of NRF, APAC and what I came back with was 11 clear fact
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  that has changed over the last 24 months.
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  Chinese retailers and Chinese exhibitors and tech companies
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  have Southeast Asia fairly and squarely in their So you're a
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  retailer, all right, Expect some Chinese friends to arrive at
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  your doorstep. And if you're, if you're a
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  retailer looking for new tech, expect the Chinese technology
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  companies to be there. I mean, a lot of them are
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  setting up in Singapore, you know, as as, as head OPS in, in
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  Singapore, but they're coming. And, and what I was talking to
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  exhibitors when I was talking to big to leaders of, of big
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  retailers in China. Southeast Asia is the place.
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  It's 700. They see it as 700,000 people in
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  the region in Southeast Asia alone and a tremendous amount of
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  wealth creation. You know, probably we're
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  talking, we're talking the region powering up in terms of
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  wealth, wealth over the next three or four years.
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  I mean that that you're thinking yes, and that's why you need to
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  come to NRFA pack. It was absolutely and there's a
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  lot. Last year we hardly had a
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  handful of retailers. I think we're going to have, I
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  think China will be our biggest market outside of Singapore this
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  year. In in in ref.
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  Amazing, amazing. It's going, it's going mental.
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  And oh, I can't wait to exchange ideas with them.
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  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
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  And then and they are, they are, they want to do business.
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  It's easy to, it's forthright. They're direct.
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  They love to, they love to. No, it's, it's also, I have AI
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  have a great time every what time I go up there.
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  But I think that there's a transformation.
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  I think, you know, the Chinese economy two years ago was
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  probably trucking along pretty well.
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  That slowed. And so they're looking for that
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  next tick up and that's where they're looking at.
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  They're eyeing Southeast Asia as an opportunity.
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  Fantastic. Yeah.
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  So loyalty tag is a different level when it comes to China.
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  It's crazy. And then you and then you, and
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  then you overlay the Super apps of WeChat and Ali and Ali Pay
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  and all of a sudden you're like. Yeah, I, I absolutely, I don't
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  think China has to worry. Any retailing in China has to
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  worry about technology to stand out.
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  But if you're a, if you're a retailer in Shanghai with a
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  market of 22,000,000 consumers, how are you going to stand out?
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  Because it's not technology. Fantastic.
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  OK, you and what's your, what's your second one?
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  So now that we've talked about China, whatever I'm going to say
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  next, I, I feel a little shy, I'm going to talk It's.
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  Not like you. No, no.
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  But it is true. But you know, zero click is a,
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  is a conversation that most marketeers are having right now.
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  We are talking about how to help your customers get to the end
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  goal quicker and faster. So you're removing a lot of
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  anything that creates friction. So if they have to search that
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  you just recommend it. If you have to compare, then you
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  just kind of like build up your trust.
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  If you have to decide, then you know, you you kind of pre decide
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  for them and just give them like, oh, OK, we have
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  streamlined already 3. So why do you choose one?
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  You know, so the lesser the click, the better it is until
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  like, you know, there is as little click as possible.
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  But then the question is also, isn't this creating a lot more
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  questions in the consumers and customers thinking about, oh,
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  can I really trust you? How do we then go towards making
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  sure that the customers actually do feel like, OK, I can trust
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  this brand irregardless of how many clicks to get there or
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  because I trust you already. So whether you have 5 clicks or
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  7 clicks, actually it doesn't matter because I will understand
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  that it's worth my while to do the click.
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  So this is a huge conversation amongst marketeers really.
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  And I thought that while we are, you know, looking at China,
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  coming up with tech that was crazy.
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  And then here we are having such a conversation that's like,
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  we're like a babies. Babies, Yeah.
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  And when and, and, and you for that point if the Chinese
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  retailers are coming in the way they're talking about, we're
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  going to have to get good quickly because they are good,
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  they're very good. And it's also availability of
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  tag, to be really honest. So I think if China's tag is
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  written in English to be to begin with, it's really going to
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  make it so much more accessible for all the other countries
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  around the world. Yeah.
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  I remember talking to you, you and when we first got to know
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  each other and your biggest challenge in Malaysia was
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  finding the tech. Still the same problem, still
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  the same problem. I mean, for me, it's always
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  going to be what kind of tech outside that could come in.
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  And then we talk about security and then we talk about trust and
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  then we talk about can this be done in our environment instead
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  of, you know, needing to follow it back to China.
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  So that's something that we can't do and we won't do.
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  So the trust Lia is quite important.
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  So I think the Chinese need to really look at English, need to
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  look at security, need to look being able to do in other
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  environments aside from their own proprietary ones.
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  Yeah. OK, cool.
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  Fantastic. Moving on to you Ruth for your
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  4th 1. I met some of the leadership
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  from a brand called Chagi. Now Chagi if you live in
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  Southeast Asia, you are well familiar with this brand.
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  OK, so Chagi has was founded in 2017 and in a regional tonic
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  called Yunnan, which is famous for tea.
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  And so so Chagi has now in every Southeast Asian market.
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  This is a their flagship store in in in Indonesia, but they're
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  in Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia
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  and one other one. Many other locations.
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  Malaysia. Malaysia.
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  Well, how could I forget Malaysia?
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  No, no, I was great to see it. I was just looking for a bit.
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  I knew it, but. So this this is these there's a
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  once again. So start let's start from from
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  the top. They're only it's really only,
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  you know, they're really only since founded in 2017.
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  So this company's only been around for what, 7 or 8 years?
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  It's for lovers of tea, it's for lovers of tea and it's obviously
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  very much rooted in China, but it's the next generation and of
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  of tea they have got. So if I look at their their
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  website and I'm going to have a look at it now, actually there's
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  a global growth it's. About real tea, real flavours,
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  real tea. They take it very seriously.
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  They are quite premium, very much.
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  Around very much. The experience in store is
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  pretty special too. They've got over 6000 stores
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  worldwide. You know, they're, they're
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  primarily in, in Asia Pacific and they have, they do have AUS
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  presence as well. But this is a classy example.
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  We talked about brands go east, east to West.
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  So this has gone to the US, but now we're very much in, in the
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  Southeast Asian region. And this is, this is a, a case
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  in point of a Chinese retailer who's decided Asia Pacific is
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  the place to be and this is their home.
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  You can see the lighting, the minimalism, the, the, the, the,
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  the design, the curves, its well-being, its premium.
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  There's a, there's a whole experience and tasting in these
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  places. So they're, they're, they are
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  really special sort of experiences.
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  And you know, you know, the, the, I mean, we talked about
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  experience with baby Bunning, like, wait, you can see this
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  would be paying back really quickly because they're there.
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  They're really tea destination stores.
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  They're for lovers of tea. I love it.
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  OK, so I'll bring us home. I'm actually going to pivot.
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  I was going to talk about 7-11 and how they're withdrawing or
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  putting back by 12 months their their IPO for the North America
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  part of 711. So they've put it back their
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  closing stores anyway. I'm not going to talk about
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  that. Why?
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  It's just, I'm going to build on what you have said you and so
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  let me go here, take this off there and this to stage.
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  I've talked about this before. We tell you AI, we have an AI
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  glossary. But what's really important just
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  to sort of put it into context so people get an, an
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  understanding AEO answer, engine optimization, which is the
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  dominant new discipline. Then you've got GE, which is
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  generative engine optimization, which is an extension to LLMS.
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  And then the ones that's really relevant to retailers is AI
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  generated experiences through Google AI mode mode.
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  I'm not going to get into each one of them's and how you try
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  and rank yourself up. That's a conversation for
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  another one. But what's really important,
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  traditional SCO is not dead. So you need to be thinking about
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  how you maintain SCO and and get that up.
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  And then there's Eat EEA, which in an, in a, in a world where
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  everyone can differentiate between AI and it's thing that
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  I've trademarked, right. So I've trademarked this in the
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  UK, it's called the Human Intelligence platform.
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  So I've not only have I trademarked the retail podcast,
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  that's something else, but and the human differentiator is what
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  the AEOSAGOSAIS look for. So they're not looking for more
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  AI responses, they're looking for more human.
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  And so this is where in recent, it's really important.
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  Don't forget the human in the loop, although you'll be human
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  will come out of the loop in some parts, but for the content
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  and how you rank on all of these different areas, the human in
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  the loop is the 1. So I just want.
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  To approach that. So are you saying the engines
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  are prioritising human generated content in the detective?
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  Absolutely, 100%. And more importantly, going back
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  to what Ewan was saying in terms of trust, it's content created
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  who and and you know, it's like what you've seen with.
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  Trusted. Yeah, trusted content created.
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  Absolutely. So that's the future.
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  I mean, if I'm searching, I would love my engines to tell me
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  what other humans are saying, not what other engines are
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  saying. Correct.
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  Yes. That's what we, that's where the
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  value is, and that's why in my mind, the human intelligence
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  platform is where we're going to get.
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  And on that bombshell, we're going to end it until.
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  Next, No, no, no. I want to ask one question of
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  you on your IR. 3. Now your AI got it, you had
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  something like 99 terms last time.
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  Have you got over the like there was a?
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  100 I'm still at 94. So there's the 94 top AI terms.
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  We just need some of them are we need the top 100, we need 6
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  more. We might have, we might have to
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  have a competition. We might have to release it to
• 15:36
  have a competition. Yeah, no, because what happens
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  is some of them become repeated like in there there's Walmart AI
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  and and stuff like that. But each one has what it means
• 15:46
  underneath it. So I think it's a nice resource
• 15:48
  for people to, if you get AI stuck, go and have a look and it
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  will be there. Fantastic, fantastic.
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  Until next week. Thank you.
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  Thank you. Thank you.
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  Bye.