Latest / The Retail Podcast / 5 Things Friday UK: SHEIN Xcelerator, John Lewis AI, Whole Foods Expansion & Retail Store Trends

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5 Things Friday UK: SHEIN Xcelerator, John Lewis AI, Whole Foods Expansion & Retail Store Trends · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday the 13th of March. Welcome to five Things Friday,
• 0:04
  UK edition. Simone.
• 0:18
  Hello, how are you doing? I'm good.
• 0:21
  I'm very happy. It's Friday, Friday the 13th.
• 0:23
  This is superstitious. It's my brother's birthday, so I
• 0:27
  I love 1313's A Apparently 13 was made to be a bad number
• 0:31
  because it's a good number. So for me, 13 is a super lucky
• 0:34
  number and and share a little bit about myself.
• 0:39
  My mum only told me, I think when I was about 15 or 18 that I
• 0:43
  was actually born on the 13th. No, I was probably a bit older,
• 0:46
  about 20. Apparently I was born on the
• 0:49
  cusp of the 12th and the 13th. But because they were so
• 0:51
  preoccupied about 13 being unlucky, they told me that I was
• 0:55
  born on the 12th. So all of my papers and stuff
• 0:58
  say the 12th, but really I was born on the 13th.
• 1:00
  That's kind. Of wild.
• 1:05
  If that was me, I'd be like, right, I'm going to have two
• 1:08
  birthdays, Yeah. Yeah, I wish I could just
• 1:11
  squeeze one birthday. But anyway, how are you doing in
• 1:15
  this wonderful world? Have you been busy?
• 1:17
  Been travelling? I have been busy.
• 1:20
  I was in Paris early this week. Lots of nice shing, very
• 1:24
  exciting. So the Drapers Awards, it's been
• 1:28
  a busy, busy week. I'm very happy it's Friday.
• 1:32
  And so for those who don't know, you tell us a little bit about
• 1:34
  who you do and what? What?
• 1:35
  What? What?
• 1:35
  What? Yeah.
• 1:36
  Who are you? I'm Simone, I'm the Co founder
• 1:38
  and CEO of a business called Need it for Tonight.
• 1:40
  Also is NIFT. We have built the infrastructure
• 1:44
  that powers instant delivery. We do this in two ways.
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  One is an app, it's like delivery but for quality
• 1:49
  fashion. And the second is a plug in that
• 1:53
  powers instant delivery at checkout.
• 1:55
  Fantastic. We're going to go straight into
• 1:58
  it. 5 things Friday. We're going to keep it
• 1:59
  underneath 15 minutes. We're going to stop you and
• 2:03
  Sheen. Yeah, Sheen.
• 2:06
  Not a brand I love and I'm Yeah, But this is interesting.
• 2:13
  They sit on the. Fence don't like their
• 2:19
  reputation, I'm quite happy to say that, but they are opening
• 2:22
  up a their supply chain to other brands which I did find
• 2:25
  interesting. So they've opened up in a
• 2:28
  programme called Accelerator with an X where they're
• 2:31
  essentially allowing external labels to plug into their on
• 2:35
  demand supply chain, their logistics, e-commerce
• 2:38
  infrastructure. And you know, if you think about
• 2:41
  it, Sheehan's biggest advantage has always been at speed and
• 2:44
  manufacturing capability. You know, they can go from
• 2:46
  design to production to live products incredibly quickly.
• 2:50
  And what they're now saying to brands is you can use our
• 2:53
  machine too. You can do the same for smaller
• 2:59
  brands. Obviously, I can see why this
• 3:01
  would be very tempting. You know, you get fastest, you
• 3:04
  get faster to market, you know you reduce a lot of that.
• 3:11
  You know it's Sheens tapping into Sheens enormous global
• 3:17
  customer base for early stage brand.
• 3:20
  I can see the appeal, but the other issue is it's the brand
• 3:26
  association. Do you really want to be
• 3:28
  associated with SHE in? Let's be honest, they've had a
• 3:31
  pretty controversial reputation when it comes to sustainability
• 3:36
  over production labour practises.
• 3:39
  Need I go on? So for a lot of brands, you
• 3:43
  know, especially when you're trying to build more premium or
• 3:46
  ethical, yeah, do you really want to?
• 3:50
  I think this is a generational one because Sheen and Timu have
• 3:53
  done obviously there is so much negativity about them in certain
• 3:58
  markets, whereas in other markets they're still, it's
• 4:02
  really tough because I think on the one hand people say, Oh my
• 4:05
  God, and then the other hand they're scrolling and buying,
• 4:08
  right? Because they would never get
• 4:10
  that that level of growth unless people were buying Oh.
• 4:14
  Absolutely. And, and I think it's like with
• 4:17
  other value sellers and, and in, in terms of the cost of living
• 4:21
  crisis, I can see why so many people turn to Sheen so or T
• 4:27
  moon. But is that the right thing?
• 4:28
  Is that I, I think it's a, it's a bigger conversation, but
• 4:32
  looking at it globally, for me, it's super interesting how in
• 4:35
  the UK there is that negative elements of it.
• 4:38
  But in mainland Europe, in some of the main countries, they just
• 4:42
  look at it as another Amazon marketplace for value purchases.
• 4:47
  It's interesting. Yeah.
• 4:49
  Yeah, Sorry. Go on.
• 4:51
  No, you go no. No, no, There you go.
• 4:55
  You go, you go. I'll just consider the question
• 4:57
  is for for brands is does the speed and scale outweigh that
• 5:02
  reputational trade off? Yeah, I think in the UK, no, I
• 5:06
  don't think you're going to do it.
• 5:07
  You don't want your brand, you know that you've taken years to
• 5:11
  to build and the quality then just for one element, you need a
• 5:14
  delivery partner that that can do it that upholds your brand
• 5:17
  values. I don't know if you know anyone
• 5:18
  smoke. Moving on John Lewis, honestly,
• 5:25
  we are not sponsored by John Lewis.
• 5:27
  I promise you there is no John Lewis bias.
• 5:30
  It's just that they see doing so much.
• 5:32
  Oh, actually John Lewis, if you're listening by the way,
• 5:34
  bills for free to reach. So I know myself will be more
• 5:38
  than happy to work with you. But earlier this actually,
• 5:42
  what's the date today 13. So earlier this week they
• 5:45
  launched their marketplace, AI marketplace launching on Google
• 5:50
  Gemini, because I think that may be available.
• 5:52
  ChatGPT will be available later this year, which basically means
• 5:56
  that customers can buy while they're searching on their
• 6:00
  favourite AI platform. It's a massive technology
• 6:03
  investment into basically this new world world of AI powered
• 6:09
  shopping. The other thing that they did so
• 6:11
  it wasn't enough that they're just going to go into AI powered
• 6:15
  shopping. They've also launched beauty in
• 6:17
  time for Mother's Day on TikTok, which is what you are looking at
• 6:22
  here where she's saying that beauty box is sold out on in
• 6:25
  store, but you can get it online.
• 6:28
  So another fantastic marketing play leading up to Mother's Day
• 6:32
  on TikTok, TikTok shop moving on Ottenberg, Obviously these
• 6:37
  brands that probably, you know, Simone, I don't know that well,
• 6:40
  but they for me, it's the signals of online brands that
• 6:44
  are doing really well and crushing it, but yet want to go
• 6:47
  into physical and they're launching their their physical
• 6:51
  experience in the month of March from the 12th to the 31st.
• 6:56
  So limited time in, in Marla Bone and near Paddington.
• 6:59
  I put the details again in the show notes on where where they
• 7:02
  are. It's very hip, very happening on
• 7:05
  trend jewellery. There's a bit of a London theme
• 7:07
  coming up and I'll talk about that.
• 7:09
  But before we focus on London, we'll go up to Glasgow for
• 7:12
  Asylum. They're opening a 10,305 square
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  foot store opening in the Silverburn shopping centre in
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  the spring. When you look at, for example,
• 7:25
  what's happened in Manchester with JD Sports opening in
• 7:28
  Manchester, it's like these massive, massive stores opening
• 7:31
  up in shopping centres. And I don't know if shopping
• 7:33
  centres are becoming massive department stores where, you
• 7:37
  know, they, they just double size formats, sticking with
• 7:41
  store formats and the changes that we're seeing as there is
• 7:46
  now, this isn't new in the sense that as they did have a George
• 7:49
  only store a while back, but they're sticking with it because
• 7:52
  I think George is incredible value given the cost of living
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  crisis, given the fact that inflation is going to come back,
• 7:59
  given the fact that costs are going to go up.
• 8:01
  People are going to look for where am I going to get, you
• 8:04
  know, my value clothing for kids, uniforms and everything
• 8:08
  else. So they're going with these
• 8:09
  concept stores in the beginning of this year.
• 8:12
  I think there's one in Peterborough, Leeds and Hull.
• 8:15
  And they're just going to keep expanding the format, which is
• 8:18
  interesting for a grocer to sort of say, we're not going to focus
• 8:21
  on food, we're going to focus on this element and keep growing.
• 8:24
  Maybe they have to who knows sticking with store formats and
• 8:29
  new stores opening and this is what I was saying about London.
• 8:31
  Whole Foods are opening 6 new stores in London only, which I
• 8:37
  don't know for the listeners who are listening outside of London
• 8:40
  who don't have a Whole Foods in the region.
• 8:42
  You know, upmarket, very posh. I get my vitamins and minerals
• 8:45
  from there. Cost an absolute fortune, super
• 8:49
  great value and it feels good when you go in there.
• 8:52
  You, I can't imagine you apart from the, the amount of money
• 8:56
  you've spent in there. But when you come out or you
• 8:59
  feel good, you generally have a great feeling about it because
• 9:02
  it's got that premium fill for grocery and they're opening 6
• 9:05
  more so, so definite need and demand for them.
• 9:08
  Waitrose not wanting to be left behind.
• 9:11
  They've had a multi £1,000,000 transformation.
• 9:14
  So this isn't a new store, but they've changed the format of
• 9:18
  the store and one of the partners who I was working with
• 9:21
  at your shop, I'm pretty sure responsible for this, or if
• 9:25
  they're not apologies. But anyway, upgrading service
• 9:28
  counters, looking at the redesign, looking at bakery, I
• 9:31
  didn't know this. I learned this at Euro shop.
• 9:33
  Bakery is a massive growth area, high margin, looking at how you
• 9:37
  get customers to come into bakery and then using technology
• 9:40
  to make sure that the bread and products are all safe.
• 9:43
  So I love it. It's it's, you know, I think
• 9:45
  this type of format where you've got technology blended into new
• 9:49
  store layouts is something we're going to see more and more.
• 9:53
  And grocery, I agree. Final 10 I've done Whole Foods
• 9:58
  fantastic. They're in six new stores.
• 10:00
  Back to you. Yeah, this is just a bit of a
• 10:02
  fun one. I had EE last week that I was
• 10:05
  talking about and now I've got. Tesla, we love your mobile
• 10:07
  phone. Are you on the market for a new
• 10:08
  mobile phone? It's actually quite good, as you
• 10:12
  can see here. They're doing a very fun pop up
• 10:14
  this weekend at King's Cross Station where people can go and
• 10:17
  get a free froyo. Froyo is a frozen yoghurt for.
• 10:20
  Anything I had to ask? I don't know what a froyo was.
• 10:25
  But yeah, and there is actually a reason behind it.
• 10:28
  They're not just doing this random pop up.
• 10:29
  They're celebrating the freezing, freezing, frozen
• 10:33
  yoghurt of their club card price contract.
• 10:36
  So very clever. Prices are frozen, hence the
• 10:39
  frozen yoghurt. I like it.
• 10:42
  Sometimes I just love really kind of simple, very literal
• 10:46
  marketing. Yeah.
• 10:47
  I think it's smart, clever yoghurt.
• 10:49
  What's there not to love? I Yeah, so if you are in Kings
• 10:53
  Cross this weekend and fancy a spin of that wheel, can you get
• 10:58
  a prize there and want a froyo? Off you.
• 11:02
  Guy, I mean, I will say I don't know if it's the weather for a
• 11:05
  frozen yoghurt. Yeah, in, in, in the, in the
• 11:11
  wonderful rain. Then, just so to give credit,
• 11:13
  where credit's you? This is exploring London TikTok,
• 11:17
  so go find Exploring London TikTok as I don't want to take
• 11:22
  credit for her, but anyway, she's done a wonderful job on
• 11:25
  showing this, which is this weekend you said right?
• 11:29
  Yeah. Yeah, actually, yeah, 21 hours
• 11:32
  ago this was posted. So go and get yourself a mobile
• 11:34
  contract. OK?
• 11:36
  That brings us lovely to the end of the show.
• 11:39
  I have no idea. I've got so many windows open.
• 11:42
  How we've done on time. Fantastic. 13 minutes.
• 11:45
  Beautiful, beautiful. OK, did we talk about next week?
• 11:49
  Simone, what you up to? I'm off to Brussels next week to
• 11:55
  speak at the leaders in logistics event.
• 11:58
  So if anybody is listening and is going come see me speak, I
• 12:03
  don't I love it listening that is going it's a very operations
• 12:08
  logistics. You never know, maybe someone's
• 12:11
  known. You never know are.
• 12:13
  You speaking, you said. Yes, I am.
• 12:16
  And I presume you're speaking about logistics?
• 12:19
  Of course. Wow, very excited.
• 12:23
  My favourite you're. Going to You're going to crush
• 12:25
  it. You're going to crush it.
• 12:27
  OK, Simone, until next week. Thank you so much.
• 12:29
  Bye, Alex. Bye.