Latest / The Retail Podcast / Five stories: John Lewis’ vinyl‑driven ad; CBRE’s MAPIC signals; MINISO on Bond Street; retail parks rising; athleisure’s staying power.

Transcript

Five stories: John Lewis’ vinyl‑driven ad; CBRE’s MAPIC signals; MINISO on Bond Street; retail parks rising; athleisure’s staying power. · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another edition of Five Things Friday
• 0:03
  with my fabulous host. Hello Simone, How are you doing?
• 0:18
  I'm good happy it's Friday. Happy, happy Friday.
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  Anyway, it's been it's been a fabulous week.
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  I'm in the South of France since I'm in a hotel room still at the
• 0:30
  beautiful, beautiful little town of Cairns, where I'll talk a
• 0:35
  little bit more about some of the stuff I learned.
• 0:38
  So for those who don't know me, my name's Alex.
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  I'm an NRF retail voice of 2026. Love it.
• 0:49
  I help people who sell to retailers maintain their
• 0:52
  relevance and I'm joined by my wonderful Co host Simone Ollivan
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  from Need It for Tonight and Dave.
• 0:58
  Simone what what's Needed for Tonight and Dave all about.
• 1:01
  Need it for tonight also as NIFT is I always say easiest way to
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  describe is it's kind of like delivery but for quality
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  fashion. So we work with lots of
• 1:08
  different stores and brands, mainly in London to do 90
• 1:12
  minutes and survey a delivery. We also have a lovely plug in
• 1:16
  called Dave which isn't quite as sexy as NIFT, but we also plug
• 1:22
  into retailers checkouts to give them rapid and localised
• 1:26
  delivery as well. Fantastic.
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  So listen, why don't we start with you and get straight into
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  it? What?
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  What's top of mind for you this week?
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  You know what's top of mind? And I have to say it made me
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  cry. Is everybody's talking about it.
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  You know what I'm going to say, It's the John Lewis Christmas
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  advert. Honestly, I teared off and I was
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  like, am I OK? It's a global heart adventure.
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  For anyone that hasn't seen it. The ad follows a father and son
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  who've clearly may be grown apart a bit until the Sun's gift
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  to his dad, which was a vinyl record.
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  And it kind of shows like the connection and shared memory.
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  It does a flashback. There's no like, dramatic speech
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  or anything. But then it ends with if you
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  can't find the words, find the gift, which I thought, yeah, I.
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  Don't know, no. It's so good, but we have all
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  those times at those moments like sometimes, like, I don't
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  know, it's just thoughtful, meaningful gifts are great, but
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  I just thought John Lewis, they know what they're doing.
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  You know, this isn't just about selling products.
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  It's really about selling the sentiment.
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  And it's funny as I, we've been doing a lot of yapping and
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  debating over the past week with various retailers, particularly
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  on the topic of relevance in retail.
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  And a lot of the time it's about what tech, you know, what are we
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  doing? It's an AI like, what are we
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  doing to stay relevant? And actually, this is a lovely
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  reminder that sometimes the most powerful thing a brand can do is
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  just really make the customer feel something, which isn't
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  super easy to do. But John Lewis reminded everyone
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  of that. And it's not the first time that
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  the adverts have made me cry. So kudos to John I.
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  Don't mind, I don't mind saying I I cried to them as well.
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  And Limerick, I think Alison Limerick's the the song that
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  they play, they managed to play the original, which people like
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  myself can relate to. Then they had a newer version
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  with just the. So I think the music was
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  phenomenal. And then on LinkedIn, a bunch of
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  men were like, Oh my God, it's about time we were represented
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  on, you know, because it's normally we don't get
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  represented. Yeah.
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  So that was really interesting. And then one of the guys
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  actually when I was reading the comments, he said, you know, my
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  relationship with my son is exactly the same.
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  I'm, I'm willing up as I talk because Jesus Christ, because
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  his son always has his headphones on.
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  And so I don't know why I'm willing up.
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  But yeah, anyway, he was just relating to the fact that he had
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  this sort of fractured relationship with teenage boys
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  because they sort of withdraw. And that's what that advert did
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  really well. It's, you know, a little boy,
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  sorry, a teenage boy. And then how you you father see
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  their parents in general, they see their as as you know, as in
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  the advert with the baby and stuff.
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  So phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal.
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  Maybe one for Christmas, Alison Limerick, who knows, right.
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  I don't know what other songs are out there, but it's genius.
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  And I think just just sort of today the five things is going
• 4:24
  to be a little bit because I want to talk about what's been
• 4:27
  here. But the three I will put out a
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  report on, you know, after doing over 100 interviews, travel to
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  13 conferences, being around the world, in my mind, there are
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  three transformation elements that are impacting retailers.
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  That's transformation. Retail at the speed of culture,
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  retail at the speed of intelligence and retail at the
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  speed of experience. All three elements have their
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  own little buckets of things underneath.
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  And as you rightly said, Simone, it's not just technology and AI
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  that's just been a distraction. And what this brings me to is a
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  fabulous. So the conference that I'm at is
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  basically for the people that build, build shopping centres,
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  build shopping malls around the world, right?
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  So we're talking about people with assets in the billions and
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  they've had a really, really tough time over the last, umm,
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  four or five years. Assets have been declining, high
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  streets have been shrinking property commercial development
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  has not been where people are investing their billions and
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  it's back baby retail property is back.
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  And this was from Wakeman and Cushman and a big commercial
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  property agent in the UK and research from this is a CBRE and
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  Chris Gardner, it was his words. He said retail's back.
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  We're more relevant again than ever.
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  And from a financial perspective, if you follow the
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  money, the capital is flowing back into physical.
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  And so the investors are returning.
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  And what I'm going to do is just do a quick headline.
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  I've got about 8 little bullets. I'm just going to give you the
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  headlines. If you want more, I'll probably
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  do a LinkedIn post, come back and watch this podcast again or
• 6:07
  subscribe or something. But investors are coming back.
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  Obviously, there's a massive, depending on the geography, but
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  #1 they're coming back. The Middle East is just
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  exploding. And that's because places like
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  Saudi Arabia, something like don't quote on the numbers, 60%
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  of the population are under 30. Their population is around 36
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  million because you know, why are people investing in in
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  Saudi, that population is ain't probably going to grow by
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  another 10 million over the next 15 years.
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  So shopping malls and retail brands, what a fantastic
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  opportunity for expansion on expansion, Simone, I think
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  you're when you talk about your thing, we'll talk about how 1
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  brand is, you know, doing it so well.
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  They were also here telling all of these developers to, you
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  know, have them come into to their things prime cities across
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  Europe, Madrid, London, Berlin, all hotspots.
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  Now when you look at London and where capital is flowing, it's
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  and you see an Oxford St, it's micro property expansion.
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  So it's not necessarily the whole of Oxford Street, but
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  there's areas and throughout the whole of London there'll be that
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  one part of the street that people like to go in that has
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  that community that has that engagement that developers are
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  now developing for specifically retail and FMB.
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  FMB within retail. So food and beverage, we're
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  learning from the Asia where FMB tends to be a bigger part of
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  retail. So you're more likely to go and
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  eat and have a customer meeting in a shopping centre than you
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  would do in the UK. You're not really going to go to
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  a shopping centre to have a business meeting.
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  But in some of these regions they are.
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  But what they're mixing these mixed-use developments like
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  Battersea as an example, which you know, has has that sort of
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  mixed-use. We're going to just continue to
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  see more of that. And I think given so, so much
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  negative negativity that there is today, the fact that the
• 8:02
  capital, the money, when you follow the money is coming back
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  into retail commercial. I I think that's really good.
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  Some some like other variances, vacancy rates are tight.
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  So bidding wars are beginning stuff because we've seen so many
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  empty. And if you're watching this in a
• 8:19
  small town somewhere in the UK and you're getting here, but my
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  High Street isn't like that. You're absolutely right.
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  I'm that that's, I'm not saying that that's going to change.
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  What I'm saying is cosmopolitan metropolitan areas are going to
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  continue to to grow. Retail parks are quietly winning
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  where they've sort of found their footwear for a while, you
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  know, people didn't want to go to a retail park.
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  But again, because of the value conversation, rental growth for
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  retail parks is have been up 14% since 2018.
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  So again, when you think about, you know, where do retailers
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  want to be? You are you do have these retail
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  parks, but you do have these sort of, you know, smaller
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  format stores or flagship stores or locations where they're more
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  experiential culture, cultural. I don't know what they think for
• 9:09
  cultural proof, but anyway, that's it.
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  And then the final one, a premier in luxury streets.
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  They have climbed 4% in the past year, beating most other asset
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  classes. So although luxury brands are
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  having a tough time expanding in their traditional markets as
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  Asia and the US, they're still doing well.
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  And, and here's the other, you know, forgetting your politics,
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  US brands coming into Europe is the driving growth.
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  Expect to see more. We've spoken about on this show
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  about how Chinese brands are coming in, but expect to see
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  more US brands coming in because it's becoming quite a hot
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  environment for them to grow within the US.
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  And so you've got brands like Skins who will, you know,
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  continue to grow. And I've got, again, I'm not
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  going to, for the, for the purposes of this, I'm not going
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  to get into it. But yeah, so they're the major
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  key takeaways. I don't know if anything stood
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  out for you, Simone, as I was with.
• 10:03
  No, it's really interesting, really is.
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  And yeah, I think as you said, we'll continue to really see the
• 10:08
  the rise of those brands coming into the into the UK What did
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  surprise me is about the retail parks.
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  It's something that I've just never really thought of really
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  interesting. Yeah.
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  Yeah, I, I, I felt that they've sort of lost their purpose for a
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  while because are they value, are they convenience?
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  Where do they live? And I think what's been proven
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  is the fact that, yes, there's been vacancies in some of the
• 10:31
  retail parks, but they're fact, you know, people are driving to
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  them because they, they prefer to go in their cars.
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  Yeah. Our final one, What what what's,
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  what are you going to close us with?
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  Yes. Big retail news this week.
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  Minnesota is opening a new store on Once is again as we speak
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  about you know, I love to speak about bricks and martyrs, but
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  this is meant to be a full blown experience.
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  I will say I'm not the mini sore customer what I'm but I think
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  you know it flushed toys and Disney.
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  Pokémon maybe people love it. They do.
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  I don't know the. Expo, they were here and there
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  was a queue for the freebies that they were giving out,
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  right? And I'm thinking.
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  I don't get it really lead into pop culture and that kind of
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  collectibility and it's, I guess quite affordable design as well.
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  It's not like the cheap stuff, but but it's pretty affordable.
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  I think I was, I, I guess one thing that I kind of questioned
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  is them popping up on Bond Street, you know, which is
• 11:38
  obviously a. Fairly.
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  Absolutely. Location and and will that align
• 11:44
  with Minnesota's guess quite full of value price ethos.
• 11:49
  Yeah, you know, you're gonna go into, I don't know, Louis
• 11:52
  Vuitton or Gucci and then go into Minnesota, but maybe that's
• 11:56
  that speaks to the power of their brand.
• 11:58
  Yeah. I think big.
• 11:59
  Collectibles is is one thing that is gonna grow in 26 as is
• 12:03
  fanatics, another US brand that's got retail expansion.
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  So they're coming over and they're they are all that
• 12:10
  they're all about collectibles, right?
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  You know, trading things so. I guess I'm also just intrigued
• 12:16
  to see who their customers going to be.
• 12:18
  Is it going to be the tourists you know?
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  Will the store be able to drive repeat customers?
• 12:22
  I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how
• 12:24
  it rolls out. Yeah, yeah.
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  I think in, especially in Bond Street and Oxford St, there is
• 12:29
  that like, you know, who is it the is it an anchor tenant?
• 12:32
  Are people going to make their way to Bond Street just to get
• 12:36
  their get their Libooboo plushy toy?
• 12:38
  But then say again. I think they will, sadly.
• 12:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much growth?
• 12:46
  Another interesting one, the you and I have spoken about the
• 12:48
  biggest growth area over the last year has been athleisure
• 12:52
  and and fashion, right. So I know we've spoken about JD
• 12:56
  Sports, but that whole athleisure area is still
• 12:59
  continuing to grow. And I and I, you know, I took
• 13:01
  some picture of the slides, but it's really interesting.
• 13:03
  OK, listen, obviously I, I spoke for a lot because we're at time,
• 13:06
  I don't know, I must have really been speaking a lot.
• 13:10
  Yeah, those room got really fast.
• 13:12
  OK, Simone, until next week, next.
• 13:15
  Week I'll. See you then.