Latest / The Retail Podcast / Five Things Friday US: Zalando’s Growth, ShopMy, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, Resale Boom, and Martha Stewart’s Global Move

Transcript

Five Things Friday US: Zalando’s Growth, ShopMy, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, Resale Boom, and Martha Stewart’s Global Move · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, I'm Jill Dvorak, the SVP of Content at National Retail
• 0:04
  Federation. And it's Friday.
• 0:07
  Welcome to Five Things Friday, the USA Edition.
• 0:21
  Hey, Jill. Hello.
• 0:23
  Hello, Alex. Great to see you.
• 0:25
  Lovely to see you. I'm thinking if you if you
• 0:27
  weren't awake after that intro, you'll definitely be awake
• 0:29
  because I noticed that it goes up a few decibels.
• 0:32
  So apologies if like it's, it's gone a bit loud for you.
• 0:36
  I love it. Happy Friday morning.
• 0:39
  Happy Friday. So listen, why don't we just
• 0:41
  jump into this as people? You've just done the intro in
• 0:45
  terms of who you are. I'm Alex.
• 0:47
  I hope retailers maintain their thought leadership in retail and
• 0:51
  and the founder of the retail podcast and gives me great
• 0:54
  pleasure to do a show focused on almost the big show.
• 0:59
  But anyway, let's just get straight into it and talk about
• 1:04
  you guys form for a for a little exclusive reveals.
• 1:08
  Exactly, without being too self promotional, one of the things I
• 1:11
  looked at this week is, you know, Zealando, they are doing
• 1:15
  incredibly well and you know, excited for them, but also
• 1:19
  excited for us because we have been speaking at our show in
• 1:22
  Europe in September, The show's in Paris, September 16th to
• 1:26
  18th. And we have the general manager
• 1:30
  of the European region of West in Europe, Laura Tolando, and
• 1:34
  she'll be there talking about just how they're growing, how
• 1:37
  they're doing so well. They just extended their whole
• 1:39
  year guidance to even be higher than it was coming out of Q2.
• 1:43
  And then we'll follow up and in January we're having them again
• 1:46
  at Big Show. So, you know, we're trying to
• 1:48
  kind of chase some of these stories just to really
• 1:51
  understand how they're growing so well, why they're growing so
• 1:54
  well, and obviously have retailers learn from that.
• 1:57
  So if I'm in US right now going who are Zolando?
• 2:01
  What do they do? You know, they're, it's, it's
• 2:03
  interesting. They are the largest fulfilment
• 2:06
  infrastructure for the European market.
• 2:08
  They're out of Germany and they've really just expanded
• 2:12
  really, really quickly and have an incredible breadth of of
• 2:17
  inventory. And they also just bought, I
• 2:20
  believe it was in just that last month, man, it's July, it's
• 2:24
  August already that they call about you.
• 2:26
  So that was another really, really wonderful increase for
• 2:30
  them just going deeper into kind of lounge designer beauty.
• 2:35
  They're really just expanding their portfolio.
• 2:37
  Yeah, I, it's, I mean, it's back to school, right, next week.
• 2:39
  So for a lot of parents, they're, I had some feedback.
• 2:43
  People were listening to those Target offers and really
• 2:45
  grateful. And I was like, it's OK.
• 2:47
  It's, yeah, I know. I mean it's back to school in
• 2:50
  the US is really about a three or four week period of time
• 2:53
  where the children go back. But the shopping period like we
• 2:56
  talked about, you know, I think 2 weeks ago really starts June
• 3:00
  or July and extends all the way through September.
• 3:03
  And just because you're done shopping once doesn't mean that
• 3:05
  everything is bought, especially if you're in those college or
• 3:09
  kind of high school years where you have to keep making some
• 3:12
  electronic purchases, dorm room purchases, etc.
• 3:15
  So it really it extends that that season a bit.
• 3:18
  Yeah, this is just just, this isn't one of our things, but
• 3:20
  Bath and Beyond actually they're going to open up.
• 3:23
  I can't remember exactly how many.
• 3:25
  I think it's like 300 stores in college campuses taking Targets
• 3:29
  lead because I remember Target were one of the first.
• 3:32
  But anyway, that's not one of our things.
• 3:33
  So I'm just going to. It's just when you mentioned I
• 3:35
  was like, I'm sure Bath and Beyond are going.
• 3:36
  From Bath and Beyond, I know they're amazing and they're
• 3:39
  bringing back their baby brand Bye Bye Baby, which I was a new
• 3:43
  mom that was such there were so few places that you could go get
• 3:46
  baby items. So I'm so glad to see that brand
• 3:49
  kind of back and back and you. Know and going after the younger
• 3:53
  shoppers right, they get get them while they're at
• 3:55
  university. So we talked about the creator
• 3:57
  economy. We've talked about influences
• 4:00
  and, you know, in inspiration online in, in commerce is
• 4:04
  really, really difficult. And we've also talked about how
• 4:08
  AI agents like or AI platforms like perplexity will go straight
• 4:15
  to the product page as opposed to taking you through, you know,
• 4:19
  hypothetically A genes e-commerce website, you'll just
• 4:23
  go through. So then in this new era where AI
• 4:26
  is circumventing the e-commerce website, how do you as a brand
• 4:31
  create, inspire, delight and and ultimately provide inspirational
• 4:37
  shopping experiences? Here's a wonderful example for
• 4:41
  me, I see sort of the a glimpse of the future of retail.
• 4:45
  They're called shop My. They're based in the US and the
• 4:49
  curator LED shopping experiences.
• 4:53
  And by that I mean you basically go onto their website, you
• 4:57
  choose and you could extract all of your Instagram people that
• 5:01
  you follow into the website so it can be linked into your
• 5:04
  social media. But more importantly, this is
• 5:06
  for shopping. And so when I was looking for,
• 5:08
  you know, fashion or you know, how do I stay trendy?
• 5:12
  I was looking for the most, you know, trendy people that would
• 5:15
  inspire me and is exactly what I'm doing on TikTok anyway.
• 5:18
  I'm looking for those beautiful people or men who are like me or
• 5:21
  younger that I want to emulate or or be like.
• 5:24
  And then I was super curious of what they're doing.
• 5:26
  And so you basically choose your circle.
• 5:29
  They're called circles and you've got brands on here as
• 5:32
  well. And ultimately it then serves up
• 5:36
  inspiration based on the people that you follow.
• 5:39
  So in my mind, this is human LED inspiration still goes to the by
• 5:45
  page. So I saw the gap.
• 5:47
  For example, one of their Jean shirts was trending as you know,
• 5:52
  a great. Let me see if I can get my Yeah,
• 5:54
  here we go. So here's I'm following four
• 5:57
  curators if I go. Love him.
• 6:02
  I think you wonder who this guy was.
• 6:03
  Is he famous? Oh, he's Justin Anderson.
• 6:06
  He's Kristen Cavallari's stylist hair.
• 6:10
  Maybe not, maybe not. So what a cool dude.
• 6:13
  Oh yeah, he's her hair stylist best friend.
• 6:15
  He's on her show. He's great.
• 6:17
  Well, fantastic. OK, well, yeah, you obviously
• 6:19
  got great taste. And so I can obviously this is
• 6:23
  all the things that he's like. But I could then whistle down,
• 6:26
  say, for example, men's shirt here, and then go further down
• 6:30
  and down and and then get my look right.
• 6:33
  All of a sudden you'll see me appear in Paris and you go, my
• 6:37
  God, Alex, you look fabulous. And I'm like, thank you.
• 6:39
  It's all down to my new curators.
• 6:42
  It's all due to my personal shopper.
• 6:44
  Yeah, I've seen a few ideas like this.
• 6:48
  I saw one, a company called Daydream born out of Julie
• 6:52
  Bornstein. She, you know, serial
• 6:55
  entrepreneur. I think she was chief digital
• 6:57
  chief marketing at Sephora for a while, then was I think chief
• 7:00
  operating at Stitch Fix. She's done lots of these kind of
• 7:03
  AI technology companies. And so she has one.
• 7:06
  It's very similar. It's an AI powered search for
• 7:09
  fashion shopping. I believe they're still in beta,
• 7:12
  but they're backed by, you know, Forerunner, Google Ventures, all
• 7:14
  sort. But it's a really interesting
• 7:17
  inspiration led to get you into a fashion, whether it's a
• 7:21
  circle, things like that. And it's very, it's very
• 7:25
  visually driven, personalised, and again, takes you deeper into
• 7:29
  that journey where you don't have to search.
• 7:31
  So we could do a whole show on Geo on generative engine
• 7:36
  optimization. But again, I mean, it's, it's
• 7:39
  countless inventory for the shopper, right?
• 7:41
  It might be multiple places that I'd be shopping at.
• 7:44
  But again, it's it's bringing together whether a look across
• 7:47
  multiple retailers and, you know, creating something for you
• 7:51
  that's aspirational. I I think so and I think we're
• 7:53
  so I mean, I love the fact that my Instagram feed or my tick of
• 7:57
  TikTok feed is shoppable. But then it becomes a bit, you
• 8:00
  know, if I am looking for something instead of going to
• 8:03
  the store or going on to Amazon or going on to one of the
• 8:06
  marketplaces, where can I go for inspiration?
• 8:09
  So I think. My instincts are not always
• 8:12
  right. I sometimes need help.
• 8:14
  It's like what I need to help a lot of the times.
• 8:16
  And yeah, I love it's like, you know, the old days we used to
• 8:19
  have magazines that you would flick through and get
• 8:22
  inspiration In my mind, what better way bringing your
• 8:26
  Instagram feed and making it more shoppable.
• 8:30
  So the other sticking with the sort of influencer creator LED
• 8:34
  is this phenomenal job that Haley Beaver has done with
• 8:38
  Rogue. They sold it earlier this year
• 8:40
  for a billion dollars. But now this is a fantastic
• 8:43
  example of maybe what we're going to see is the future of
• 8:47
  beauty with Rd coming into so DTC brand coming into physical.
• 8:52
  And obviously Rd have done a phenomenal job by themselves
• 8:56
  anyway with all of their activations.
• 8:58
  And it just feels like this is another brand going from
• 9:01
  strength to strength. Yeah, it is.
• 9:04
  And they were bought obviously by ELF, you know, Islip's face
• 9:08
  and pretty much everything ELF touches turns to gold.
• 9:11
  Or, you know, their marketing campaigns are unbelievable.
• 9:15
  Their activations, their collabs, they really do it well
• 9:19
  and do it right. They've maintained their low
• 9:21
  prices across the board. They really, we've talked about
• 9:24
  that they live their values, you know, as, as executives that
• 9:28
  work there. And seeing this purchase and
• 9:32
  watching them kind of have it still be a standalone brand was
• 9:35
  really interesting to me. I wasn't sure what they were
• 9:37
  going to do with it. But it's just, it's unbelievable
• 9:40
  how well they've done in this market where, you know, there's
• 9:45
  a lipstick index. I don't know if you've heard
• 9:47
  about this, right where, you know, as the economy is, you
• 9:50
  know, up and down in different places, one of the kind of
• 9:53
  final, you know, indicators is are women still buying, you
• 9:58
  know, higher end lipstick? Like that's that's one of the
• 10:00
  things that's like one of the last things to go.
• 10:03
  And it's, you know, I, I'm certainly no economist, so
• 10:06
  please look it up, listeners. I by no means explain anything
• 10:10
  more than that, but it's a really interesting trend.
• 10:13
  And so beauty is always kind of looked at as being one of those,
• 10:16
  you know, whether it's a lagging indicator or leading indicator,
• 10:19
  I think it's lagging I. Think so.
• 10:21
  I think he used to be Big Macs, right?
• 10:22
  In terms of it was the Big Mac index.
• 10:24
  We've gone from burgers to lipstick, which is a, you know,
• 10:28
  fantastic sign. Of the two definitely don't go
• 10:30
  together so you know. Yeah, I know.
• 10:33
  So. But moving on, there's some
• 10:35
  lovely research that I think highlights a trend that you and
• 10:40
  I have both spoken about and that is, and I have to be
• 10:44
  brutally honest in Europe, I feel we're ahead of the game,
• 10:47
  right? I feel we've been leading in
• 10:49
  this, but thank goodness this research by Deloitte now says
• 10:53
  over 153 brands are now looking at the rise of in house resale
• 10:59
  channels, which like, I mean, just the cover of quickly in the
• 11:03
  UK in the show that we covered last week, we were talking about
• 11:06
  how small 55 physical site retailers are now doing their
• 11:12
  own resale, right. But this is a sort of a grand
• 11:16
  scale, which is what's been missing in my mind from the
• 11:19
  industry in the US. Oh, yeah.
• 11:21
  I mean, no doubt we are behind. I mean, both in terms of, you
• 11:25
  know, advancement, but also from a regulation standpoint. the US
• 11:29
  really hasn't had many laws in this.
• 11:32
  We've had very strict kind of recycling laws on certain
• 11:36
  categories like paint, mattresses, electronics, but it
• 11:40
  really hasn't been much broader than a lot of those.
• 11:44
  Now California usually the first with many, many of these laws.
• 11:48
  There's a law called SB seven O 7 that's coming in, in the fall
• 11:53
  and likely other states could quickly follow what SB seven O 7
• 11:58
  is, is it's really about any textile.
• 12:01
  So that's any piece of fabric, furniture, clothing even you
• 12:05
  know, pieces of belts, etcetera. And there is going to be a very,
• 12:09
  very strict recycling and or refurbishing part of the chain
• 12:16
  that now has to occur or they'll be major fines.
• 12:18
  So it doesn't mean that you're headquartered in California.
• 12:22
  It means you sell or distribute or have a store in California.
• 12:26
  So that is a major, major change.
• 12:29
  So NRF is trying to help in a couple of different ways.
• 12:32
  One, there is a PROA producer responsibility organisation that
• 12:37
  we're putting together for the industry for retailers to join
• 12:40
  up. And of course, you can reach out
• 12:43
  to to NRF, reach out to my buddy Scott Case, it's CASES.
• 12:51
  Yeah, that'd be great. And we can kind of help get
• 12:54
  retailers on board because many are just like flummoxed of what
• 12:57
  to do the other, the other pieces, you know, the reverse
• 13:02
  and the reverse logistics and kind of the return process is a
• 13:07
  huge cost centre right now for all retailers and resellers.
• 13:11
  So NRFA couple years ago had bought Reverse Logistics
• 13:15
  association. What we're doing this year at
• 13:17
  the Big show is we're combining the efforts of those two
• 13:20
  organisations and we're having a stand alone at NRF Big Show in
• 13:24
  January called NRF Rev. It's really it's reverse, it's
• 13:28
  revenue, it's all of the things. Once a purchase is completed,
• 13:32
  then what do you do? So it's really it's twofold.
• 13:35
  It's looking at what can you control right now the front end
• 13:39
  with tariffs is crazy and bananas and impossible to, it's
• 13:43
  a moving target. Every day there's a law going
• 13:45
  into effect, you know, any day this week.
• 13:47
  But what you can control is looking at the back end of the
• 13:50
  business and looking at every time somebody at your company
• 13:53
  touches or looks at a product, it's a cost.
• 13:57
  So looking at streamlining those processes, reselling, recycling,
• 14:01
  any of those pieces are a way to turn some of those costs into
• 14:05
  revenue. So we're really kind of doubling
• 14:07
  down on educating retailers about what they can do
• 14:11
  Phenomenal speakers, IKEA, Ralph Lauren, North Face, many more to
• 14:15
  come. But that's a big, big play right
• 14:18
  now in the States, to your point, and something we have to
• 14:21
  get better at. I love that because I think what
• 14:23
  that enables US retailers specifically to do is to sell
• 14:27
  into the European market. Why?
• 14:29
  Because we're launching, I say we, I know the UK is not part of
• 14:33
  Europe, but I, I speak as a European because I'm based in
• 14:35
  Europe. But anyway, we, we are launching
• 14:38
  the, sorry, the European Commission has fast forwarded
• 14:41
  their product passports, which is very similar to what you're
• 14:44
  saying, IE where do the materials come from that you've
• 14:47
  built the product? How do you at the end of life of
• 14:50
  that product, what happens to that product?
• 14:52
  So every product ends up with its own passport that then
• 14:56
  hopefully makes it far more environmentally friendly.
• 14:59
  And more importantly, obviously, what they're combating is the
• 15:03
  massive Chinese influx now that you guys have put the tariffs on
• 15:07
  them. All of those products are now
• 15:09
  coming to Europe. And So what they're trying to do
• 15:11
  to sort of expedite that that product pass, there's three
• 15:16
  other measures, but we're not going to talk.
• 15:17
  About them? Yeah.
• 15:19
  But basically there's three other things that they're doing
• 15:22
  that falls underneath this category.
• 15:23
  But anyway, so super interesting and it's about time that we see
• 15:26
  this in terms of stopping stuff going to landfill and making it
• 15:32
  keep that circle bigger and longer to hopefully distribute
• 15:36
  as many products as possible as we move into our final one.
• 15:40
  I think this is. Yes, so tried and true American
• 15:47
  favourite Martha Stewart. The woman just keeps going.
• 15:53
  She she is in her 80s, She is on, she is on magazine covers,
• 15:58
  you know, still she, she is as so many brands, so many products
• 16:02
  out there. She's now launching her, I
• 16:05
  believe her first stand alone stores.
• 16:09
  You know, she was in Macy's, she was in so many other, you know,
• 16:12
  shop in shops type of situations in with all of her lines.
• 16:17
  I believe this is her first kind of foray into a stand alone
• 16:21
  brand store. Bedding and bath, obviously
• 16:25
  kitchen items and things that you know, people associate with
• 16:29
  her brands, but they're opening, which I think is fascinating
• 16:32
  internationally in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
• 16:36
  So that really this was super, super exciting.
• 16:39
  It's being opened by marquee brands, who is a licensee.
• 16:43
  They have phenomenal relationships globally.
• 16:45
  I, I just thought this was really, really cool and I can't
• 16:48
  wait to see how it translates there and if the designs are the
• 16:52
  same, if the products are the same.
• 16:54
  So we got to get over to one of these stores and and see it.
• 16:57
  That's that's our. I mean, it looks like, yeah,
• 17:00
  maybe in the Middle East sometime next year.
• 17:02
  Anyway, it feels like, you know, an upmarket homeware brand
• 17:06
  that's going from strength to strength.
• 17:08
  And I think especially in growth markets such as the Middle East,
• 17:12
  I mean bug we, we have 5 things Friday Middle East edition, but
• 17:15
  you and that's. That's that's sorry for stealing
• 17:20
  your Thunder that. Looks like it's good to see
• 17:22
  American brands, especially powerhouses like Marfa taking
• 17:26
  their brand equity over to these new markets to expand, which we
• 17:31
  always promote and welcome. So Jill, I know you're a super
• 17:35
  busy lady. Thank you ever so much for
• 17:38
  joining us today and until our next show have.
• 17:41
  A great one, thanks.