Latest / The Retail Podcast / Target Bets on AI, Amazon Gets Faster, OpenAI Checkout, Clinique & Nuuds Five Things Friday US

Transcript

Target Bets on AI, Amazon Gets Faster, OpenAI Checkout, Clinique & Nuuds Five Things Friday US · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday. Welcome to FIVE things Friday,
• 0:03
  US edition. Jill, Hello.
• 0:16
  Good morning. Hello, great to see you.
• 0:18
  We can. See you.
• 0:20
  We're going to jump straight in Kalano.
• 0:22
  You've got a hard stop at the top of the hour, so.
• 0:25
  That's to hearing. You second, Sir.
• 0:27
  I said Fast and furious US edition.
• 0:30
  Exactly. You know from Apple Store, 5 top
• 0:33
  news stories that are top of mine.
• 0:34
  Maybe they're not new stories, but five top of mine for Jen and
• 0:37
  I. And we'll start with you, Joe.
• 0:39
  Perfect. Let's start off with Target.
• 0:42
  So Target, you know, as of late has been, you know, it's had a
• 0:46
  CEO change and they've they've not been doing as well as they
• 0:50
  used to and they are really leaning in hard.
• 0:53
  They are putting $6 billion towards a turn around push.
• 0:57
  Michael Fidel Key, their new CEO has talked a lot about AI.
• 1:02
  Pratt is their CIO. He posted this on LinkedIn just
• 1:05
  about a day ago and it's really interesting.
• 1:08
  Not only are they leaning into AI, they're calling it the
• 1:10
  target trend brain, but they're doing a lot of things all at
• 1:14
  once, $6 billion in terms of refitting stores.
• 1:18
  They're cutting the prices on more than 3000 items across
• 1:22
  honestly a lot. It's grocery, HomeGoods,
• 1:25
  apparel, everyday essentials, really trying to up that foot
• 1:29
  traffic. And then they're doing other
• 1:30
  things like bringing in, you know, they've had a long
• 1:33
  standing relationship with Levi's, but they are bringing it
• 1:36
  into another 100 and 50 stores. So they're cutting prices.
• 1:40
  They are elevating kind of the higher end items and making them
• 1:44
  more accessible. And they're leaning into AI.
• 1:47
  So they're they're taking trends from all the winning retailers
• 1:50
  right now and they're doing them all at once.
• 1:52
  So I'm hopeful this will really help Target have a turn around.
• 1:56
  They they've been a darling of the US for a long time.
• 1:59
  They just did a really cool collab with roller Rabbit.
• 2:02
  So I'm, you know, they do these really high end collabs and have
• 2:05
  a lower priced line that is more accessible to everybody. 2
• 2:09
  dresses arrived last night. I haven't even tried them on
• 2:11
  yet, but they are, you know, they were really a darling for a
• 2:15
  lot of a lot of shoppers. And hopefully this will kind of
• 2:18
  bring them back into everyone's, you know, not only wallet, but
• 2:22
  their heart. Yeah.
• 2:23
  I, I love the Target. I'll be there in Las Vegas.
• 2:25
  Target, get ready for me. I'll be there, moving on Amazon.
• 2:30
  Yeah, I mean, we all know Amazon is obviously a juggernaut and
• 2:34
  now they're doing a three hour delivery and some as some as
• 2:39
  short as one hour delivery. I actually have seen one hour
• 2:42
  delivery from Amazon where I live in Alexandria, VA, we're
• 2:45
  super close to a lot of their DC's and warehouses, but this is
• 2:49
  going broader. It's going to 2000 cities,
• 2:52
  towns, suburbs, etcetera. So they've had this in a lot of
• 2:56
  their big cities, but they haven't had it in a lot of the
• 2:58
  suburbs. So this is competing with
• 3:00
  Walmart, it's competing with Target.
• 3:01
  It is still paid. So if you're a Prime member, it
• 3:04
  does not come free. However, the prices are pretty
• 3:06
  low 499, you know, on up and it depends if you need something
• 3:10
  for your kids science project same night and you can't run out
• 3:13
  or you don't want to run out or you have a baby and it's too
• 3:15
  much of a pain. This is a great option.
• 3:18
  So look, it also competes with a lot of the things DoorDash and
• 3:21
  Uber eats are doing right. I can go on to I think it's now
• 3:25
  DoorDash and then go on to Michael's and order crafts for
• 3:28
  that science project. So this is competing on a lot of
• 3:32
  those kind of extended last mile players.
• 3:35
  You know, it's just it's just making them stronger.
• 3:38
  So I think it'll be interesting to watch and I'll take one for
• 3:41
  the team and test it out for us. Yeah, OK.
• 3:44
  It sounds like you've got a couple of science projects
• 3:46
  ongoing. Always, always.
• 3:48
  And why don't we hear about them till the night before?
• 3:50
  Why? Why?
• 3:52
  It's always fun. So the next one, so last week we
• 3:55
  talked a lot about open AI and what they were doing and the
• 3:59
  changes they made. Essentially open AI, you know,
• 4:02
  ChatGPT took a pause on letting the consumer check out in their
• 4:07
  app or on their site. What they're doing now is
• 4:10
  they're kind of shifting it and they're saying we're not
• 4:12
  stopping it, but we're kind of we're extending it through our
• 4:16
  partners. So instead of a hard stop, it's
• 4:18
  much more of a it's a pivot. It's it's shifting to a couple
• 4:23
  of their partners. So AI is AI, check out agentic,
• 4:27
  check out whatever you want to call it.
• 4:29
  The ACP. It's it's not going to be gone
• 4:32
  for long with ChatGPT. But they realised they couldn't
• 4:35
  scale to every retailer that wanted to be on.
• 4:37
  So whether they partner with Shopify or with Stripe or with
• 4:40
  one of those that those will be the rails that consumers can can
• 4:44
  check out on rather than Cat GPT integrating with the thousands
• 4:48
  of retailers who want to make their products available on Open
• 4:51
  AI. And read this article, I think
• 5:02
  over to me basically in times we we have a very positive look,
• 5:07
  but we know that there's part of the world that's going through
• 5:09
  all the load of stuff and the news is full, especially if
• 5:12
  you're going to the gas and and and you know, they're saying
• 5:15
  that $5 is in in in the sights. And so I think when things are
• 5:20
  getting tough, brands look for Huber and what's really
• 5:23
  interesting, you look at Kenny, who you were telling me you're
• 5:26
  part of the estate leader group who are quite late from, you
• 5:30
  know, from a social media perspective, have an influence
• 5:33
  to be the face of the brand for a campaign.
• 5:35
  But they've chosen no, no other than and I have to because I'll
• 5:38
  always butcher the name. So Tara Davis Good Hall and
• 5:42
  Hunter Woodall who are Olympians, Paralympian Hunter
• 5:46
  and Tara's along long jumping. So in my mind, 2 humans an
• 5:50
  athlete, so 22 Olympic athletes to be the fate is really
• 5:54
  interesting in my perspective, from my perspective.
• 5:57
  I mean, these, you know, the irony is these people don't need
• 6:00
  makeup. They're both so darn beautiful
• 6:03
  and gorgeous. And they were all, they were all
• 6:06
  over the Olympics two years ago. I mean, I think I remember her
• 6:10
  running into the crowd and like jumping and he like caught her
• 6:14
  over the rail. I mean, it was some like
• 6:16
  superhuman act. They are so supportive of one
• 6:19
  another. They were both competing.
• 6:21
  It was just it was such, you know, those stories they show in
• 6:24
  the Olympics that just make you cry before you've even met these
• 6:26
  people and absolutely gorgeous. You know, Clinique, Clinique is
• 6:30
  such a classic name. I know their hesitancy was
• 6:34
  probably like, do we want to be on TikTok?
• 6:37
  That's maybe that's not our customer or how do we want to
• 6:40
  show up in a way that is still us and not and not what everyone
• 6:46
  else is doing? You know, Estee Lauder owns, I
• 6:48
  mean, probably 60 or 70 of these brands probably at this point,
• 6:52
  you know, they own Mac and Lemare and Estee Lauder their
• 6:56
  own The Ordinary Tom Ford. So they really, I mean, they
• 6:59
  wrap the whole whole like host of beauty products.
• 7:03
  But I think the way they're showing up here, it's it's
• 7:06
  classic, which is Clinique. It's there's a little bit of
• 7:09
  flair, there's something special, something just a little
• 7:12
  extra. But it's not loud and bold and
• 7:15
  in your face like some of their brands.
• 7:16
  So I think they chose really well.
• 7:18
  Yeah. I think so and I don't know.
• 7:20
  So I don't want to, I'm going to connect it, but I don't want to
• 7:23
  say this is the connection. But there is a forgotten middle
• 7:26
  for Millennium millennial women in the US in the in the mid in
• 7:32
  my forgotten middle in between the two coasts where ultimately
• 7:36
  brands haven't gone for them. And so I don't know if this if
• 7:40
  this appeals to them. And how does Clinique stay
• 7:42
  relevant to the new shop? But the reason I talk about that
• 7:46
  is Nuds, which is basic. It it provides basic, basic
• 7:49
  apparels and was founded by influence of Darrell Darrell.
• 7:52
  And then they're doing their first wholesale expansion, which
• 7:56
  you're going beyond D2C with Nordstrom and they're opening in
• 8:01
  Houston, Denver, Austin and Charlotte, plusnordstrom.com.
• 8:05
  So, you know, across the world, I in all of the shows that we
• 8:09
  do, we always talk about how DTC brands have to do with some sort
• 8:12
  of physical activation. But I think this is a beautiful
• 8:15
  one because wherever it's inclusive, you know, you win
• 8:18
  hearts and minds. It's absolutely the right thing
• 8:21
  to do and, and nuts as a brand and seems to be doing the exact
• 8:25
  thing in terms of appealing to, to this forgotten middle
• 8:28
  shopper. And so it's lovely to see.
• 8:31
  I think it's a lovely thing. The article, which is in glossy
• 8:35
  says that they've generated $150 million in lifetime sales since
• 8:40
  launching in October 2022. And roughly, and this is the big
• 8:44
  part, 80% of that is from repeat customers.
• 8:47
  Wow, right. Basics, right.
• 8:49
  And I think, you know, I could see line extensions going into,
• 8:53
  you know, kids and you can see they have obviously women's and
• 8:56
  maternity things like that. But it seems like it's a family
• 9:00
  brand. It, it gives me a little bit of
• 9:02
  like the Primark basic, but the price point is much more of a
• 9:06
  Nordstrom. So it's kind of an elevated
• 9:08
  basic. I I'd go for.
• 9:10
  And what's interesting is I am a die hard Nordstrom shopper, grew
• 9:13
  up in the Pacific. It is like it's, it's actually
• 9:16
  quite embarrassing to stay in my status level there because it's
• 9:19
  all about how much you spend. It doesn't have to do with like
• 9:22
  points or other, it's just how much money I spend.
• 9:25
  But I buy stuff for the family. However, I had not heard of
• 9:29
  nubs. So what they're doing is they're
• 9:32
  introduced. It's a great partnership because
• 9:33
  I'm loyal to Nordstrom and I buy the large majority of my
• 9:37
  wardrobe there. However, now they're what
• 9:39
  they're introducing me to a brand and they're already
• 9:42
  trusted because I'm with Nordstrom.
• 9:43
  So it's it's already working. If now I'm like, oh, let's see
• 9:47
  what they have. I'm going to try one of their
• 9:48
  basic T-shirts now. So I think it's brilliant.
• 9:51
  Great, great partnership and Nordstrom customer service can't
• 9:54
  be beat. So, so many customers go to them
• 9:57
  because they know if they're not happy, Nordstrom will help you
• 9:59
  figure it out. And that's a great way to try
• 10:01
  new brands with no risk. Yeah, and that's a wonderful way
• 10:04
  to end today's show. Jill, thank you so much for
• 10:06
  giving up the to be with us. It's always a pleasure.
• 10:09
  And until next time, see. You guys later.