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Retail vs Netflix: Why Stores Are Fighting for Attention · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, welcome to the ITAB Group podcast sessions live from the
• 0:04
  Euro shop floor on the immense and You've heard Me say it time
• 0:09
  and time again, the ITAB Group Experience Centre.
• 0:13
  This is not a stand and I'm joined by retail royalty, the
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  wonderful Richard Fisher, who had the pleasure of interviewing
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  before Fresh off stage from speakers Corner.
• 0:30
  Richard is the head of design at Holland and Barrett's.
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  Well, I'm really curious because I've been sat here, Richard and
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  I had the pleasure of listening to you previously on the
• 0:41
  podcast. Well, how did the talk go from
• 0:44
  your perspective? He's.
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  Good. He's he's always going to be a
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  friendly proud. It's it's fun and you get to say
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  slightly more controversial fun things.
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  So the, the arc of the the talk was all about we aren't really
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  fighting for wallets anymore. What we're actually spending is
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  time and attention. And it's a really crowded
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  marketplace. So you have billion dollar
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  industries like Netflix, DS, Nil, the Premier League, all
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  these things fighting for our attention list.
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  And so when they weren't around, right for the 80s on a Saturday
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  afternoon, you just went to the shows and now we're not
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  competing for wallets, we're competing for attention.
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  I love that and I've taken for granted that obviously because I
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  know and love Holland and Barrett for so long that our,
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  our watchers and listeners may not actually know who Holland
• 1:36
  and Barrett are just because it's a global community.
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  Apologies for asking him to go back.
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  Could you just give us a an overview of Holland and Barrett?
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  So Holland Barrett is a health and Wellness retailer.
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  We have about 800 stores in the UK, about 65 in the Rundle of
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  Islands, 200 in Benelux and we're expanding out into the
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  Middle East. So it's really growing with a,
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  there's a big global brand. So we are 150 years old.
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  We're a company steeped in scientific proof.
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  You don't get to hang around for 150 years if you are backed by
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  science. And so our mission is to add
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  quality years to life. And so we do that through a
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  range of products. Great advice from Store and
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  where we're looking to now is how do we evolve?
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  We've got a really good base. We have a really good knowledge.
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  People like 85% of the people in the UK know who hold on both
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  are. So now it's about how do we get
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  to a place where we can really get people into their Wellness
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  missions and help them achieve their Wellness missions?
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  I notice I, I don't know if this is a youth thing or AH and B
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  thing, but I noticed you've been experimenting and you've
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  actually gone in a new direction as a store within store, which
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  was super fascinating. And it's not store within store,
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  like 2, like 1 little counter, right?
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  Store within store and on a whole sort of aisle.
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  What is, is that a new direction?
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  Like is that the evolution of retail?
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  Because interestingly, in the news right now, you've got IKEA
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  and Decathlon doing store within store.
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  What's driven that from your perspective?
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  So it's not a new thing for us. We already have 80 concessions
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  in Tesco's, sure, but we wanted to be able to start showing up
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  in different ways for our customers.
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  And obviously the great thing about groceries, the cadence is
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  a lot higher. So we have the ability and the
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  opportunity working really closely with Tesco's.
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  They were amazing partners to work with.
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  Start putting in single aisles. How do we show up in a single
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  aisle so that when you're just on your weekly shop, you can
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  then go and, and, and fix your your Wellness needs?
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  So we've also started working with Morrisons and the results
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  already are really, really positive.
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  And that's a symbiotic benefit. We know that was the Holland
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  ballot into one of those stores, especially single aisle drives
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  additionally fit for for the host and also adds another
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  dimension to their offer. So gets more eyes for us, and
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  you're also the grateful food driver for our hosts.
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  I love that because going where the customer is is obviously a
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  theme that I talk about. And you, you are doing that.
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  And So what I didn't know, you actually say it doesn't matter
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  about the grocer in terms of whether it's a a Tesco's or
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  Morrisons, you'll get the same H&B experience.
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  Yeah. Do you think you have to be
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  quite bold to do that? Absolutely.
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  You know, look in a in a in a grosser mission compared to a a
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  Holland Barrett traditional mixture when you're in a grocer.
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  It is the art of deselection, right?
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  What can I not or not pay attention to because it's your?
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  Oh very. Much.
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  So it's a much different mindset where there's probably been a
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  consideration with going to Holland ballots and going, I
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  need some vitamin CI should probably go to Holland Ballard.
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  They're really good at that. Yeah.
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  Whereas if you're just wandering around Tesco's and you're going,
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  I've got 6 things on my list, we've got to be really clear to
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  make sure that I haven't got a headspace for that.
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  So I'm not going to go down there.
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  We've got to create that environment where people go, Oh
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  yeah, no, I didn't have a look at that.
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  So whilst, you know, stand alone stores, we really turn the the
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  punk and showbiz, I talk about that, yeah, just a little bit
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  more nuance, a little bit more focus in a in a gross of how we
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  do, how we achieve that. I love that bringing you back to
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  your talk and in terms of the outcomes, can you just sort of
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  take me through the journey of, of your talk because you, I, I
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  remember you were saying there was some sort of focus areas in
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  terms of how you connected the dots between then and now type
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  thing. So look, the, the, the, the arc
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  of the story was always the 80s. I apologise to people that I
• 5:54
  have and but I'm going to swear because eating me and I can't
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  help it. I swear like shames.
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  The 80s were shit. I don't think TV.
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  TV was shit, football was shit, clubs were shit.
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  And so boy, the only thing we need to do on Saturday afternoon
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  was to go to the shops. Now you have a billion dollar
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  industries. I've been fighting for
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  attention. And so you are, you're not
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  fighting for a wallet, you're fighting for a Saturday
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  afternoon attention. And so we've been on that
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  journey with Holland Barris. We've done, we did an amazing
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  store about five years ago in Chelmsford.
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  We then worked out how we can get to scale.
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  I know we've talked about scale before.
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  And for me, Daddy. No, you manage that, my God.
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  Yeah. Because if you do one good
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  store, yeah. So what I mean you want to get
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  brand reappraisal from old and dusty through a new modern
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  retailer, you've got to get to 8 and old stores.
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  So we did that. We did that to a very clever
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  allocation of of capital and where we spent the capital very
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  surgical, where we spent it both geographically and physically
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  within store. Yeah.
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  And then we got to, to, to bloom Autumn, which was our big store
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  a couple of years ago. We opened and it was amazing.
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  I was standing there and I've got the CEO and I've got a
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  property director and a new chairman.
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  And it's got that anticipation of a new store, All the bottles
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  faced by the way that beauty and I stood there and I just felt
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  completely empty. Oh my God, I know it was that
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  we'd we'd done a good shot, but we we're not acquiring new
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  customers. We're not really at the racing.
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  This is a good shot. I'm not, but are we competing
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  with Netflix? And that's what I wanted to get
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  to. And we came up with this idea of
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  Punkin showbiz and we we talked about first time we talked about
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  that. I, I could see you going.
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  That makes no sense. And this was just before we
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  opened and I knew what was coming.
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  So and so punk and showbiz with attention, those two words don't
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  really work. And the punk is getting
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  somebody's attention, it's getting drawn them in.
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  And the showbiz is it still needs to make money, it still
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  needs to be a commercial entity, it still needs to be beautiful.
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  And within that tension, I think you get great shops and part of
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  this show. We're grateful for you.
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  Like one in six people. We've passed that shop.
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  We'll go earlier. We've got 49% of our customers
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  are now 18 to 35. Oh well.
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  So we've, so we've got. Quite a young cohort of shopper.
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  Is that because there's a movement for the young, young
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  generations to look after themselves in sports?
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  Actually, to be fair, I know the answer to this because I was in
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  Oxford Street and we did go downstairs to your new what do
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  you call new categories or new? Yeah, it's where we, we, we, we
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  gave a whole floor to sports. Is that something that you're
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  going to see expand across other stores or is that an
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  experimentation? We will evolve.
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  We've learned. So with all these things, they,
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  some things work, some things don't, but we'll always learn
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  and we'll always evolve out of that.
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  So what you saw in Hartford St and we took learnings from that
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  into Cardiff. So things about range, layout,
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  messaging, it all evolves and, and buildings, they say, you
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  know, we, we always, never stand still, always.
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  There are, I mean, no, I think in retail there is very, very
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  few hard and fast rules. I think one of those hard and
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  fast rules is evolve or die. Yeah, absolutely, to keep
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  evolving. It's right or die with that
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  theme. And obviously I know you you
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  said sort of the attention economy is driving behaviour for
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  retailers to change formats. It's a big question.
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  But when you sort of look over the next five years, do you have
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  a gut feel of the type of design implications because of what
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  you're seeing that you may have to think about, not listen
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  Fallen Barrett just use as if someone who loves design and is
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  a punk rocker. What do you think those things
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  are? We sorry when all this I'm a bit
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  of a geek, so we if we go back to in the late 70s with
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  Sainsbury's and Croydon, the first self-serve shop, we've
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  been brutally honest. We haven't moved on since that.
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  We've created prettier and prettier warehouses and I think
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  the role of retail now will be about creating a symbiotic
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  relationship in digital. Ben over at Gym Shark tells his
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  amazing story of when he was first setting up events around
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  the world, he would see a physical payload of online
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  orders with people who'd been gave it the brand, gone home,
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  thought about it and then purchase.
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  And so I think a lot of the big things we will probably say the
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  next period of time is also rethinking of how we finance
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  stores at the moment. They also have to have a profit
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  loss, you know, each individual store.
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  Do we start seeing that this is a brand, look convivial drive,
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  it becomes extension of marketing.
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  So people go in, learn about the brand, learn about bras you
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  maybe not buy there, go home, sit on the sober and go maybe.
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  I will. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  absolutely. That's why I think I think
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  retail will get sold. OK.
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  Final couple of questions. I'm just curious again, not
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  necessarily Holland and Barrett, but when you look at the makeup
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  of the store, lighting, security fixtures, all of the multiple
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  levels, what do you think is going to be the biggest sort of
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  transformational area over this period?
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  Or what do you personally, what's your sort of like secret
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  pleasures being that you really love to learn more about?
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  I think, I think the brands that do it the best, yeah, Have the
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  clearest consistency of their brand message.
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  I'm a huge fanboy of The Ordinary.
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  Right. And it's really.
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  The cosmetic company, right? Beautiful white products, white
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  boxes, white. They've got experience centre in
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  Clark and well, I was talking about it anyway.
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  I agree. Sorry, go ahead.
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  Singularity of that man and I you know, the the other really
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  good brands are like Asian pockets are really well yes,
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  those I think other stores I I think are the best, but it's
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  just such a clear every touch point is consistent within the
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  brand. I think he's so, so powerful as
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  a basic design and then consideration.
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  That's fantastic. I could carry on asking you
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  questions as you know, like we have a time limit.
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  Richard, thank you so much. I.
• 12:47
  Really enjoyed that, Thank you.