Latest / The Retail Podcast / UK Retail in 5 Minutes: Amazon Rival, Alexa Upgrade, Tesco Pay Rise, Greggs & The Perfume Shop

Transcript

UK Retail in 5 Minutes: Amazon Rival, Alexa Upgrade, Tesco Pay Rise, Greggs & The Perfume Shop · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday, I'm all alone. Welcome to five things Friday.
• 0:16
  Hello. And I have no no one to talk to
• 0:20
  on that side or that side. Simone has been caught in.
• 0:23
  I think she said Bournemouth. I don't know if she's in
• 0:26
  Bournemouth, if she's been caught in Bournemouth or but
• 0:28
  she's in Bournemouth. But anyway, she can't be on the
• 0:30
  show today. But I didn't want there's so
• 0:32
  much happening this week in the UKI didn't want to not do this
• 0:35
  show. So we're going to hope it'll
• 0:37
  probably be a really 5 minute quick look at top news stories
• 0:42
  of what's happening in the UK right now.
• 0:43
  And we're going to jump straight in with Joy.
• 0:48
  By now, Amazon's going to have some competition. jd.com is
• 0:51
  launching Joy. Sorry has launched Joy by across
• 0:55
  the UK and six other markets, Germany, France, Netherlands,
• 0:59
  Belgium and Luxembourg. 100,000 skews or more dedicated to
• 1:05
  basically brands In my mind it came Costco online, but I'm sure
• 1:11
  it's not Costco online and they will own the last mile delivery,
• 1:15
  which is is a is challenging, but that's how Amazon was able
• 1:21
  to win. And it's interesting to see a
• 1:24
  Chinese competitor come into the market to see if they can take
• 1:28
  on Amazon. They also say, again, I haven't
• 1:32
  been able to to verify this order from them.
• 1:35
  If you order by 11:00 AM, you will get the order by 11:00 PM
• 1:40
  the next day. There's also a subscription
• 1:42
  model for 3/3/99, £3.99 versus the Amazon Prime 89.
• 1:50
  But again, I don't think that's a like for like because
• 1:52
  obviously Amazon Prime you get the movies and music and all
• 1:56
  videos and all the other stuff. Joy by alljd.com bought medium
• 2:00
  Saturn. The way to last year to think
• 2:03
  about them is they are curries of Europe.
• 2:06
  So they're about €5 billion company.
• 2:09
  JD bought them last year and this is an expansion outside of
• 2:13
  China and obviously now into the OK.
• 2:17
  But they've got brands like L'Oreal, Braun, Delonghi,
• 2:20
  Britta, Bodum, all theirs. So there seems to be enough of a
• 2:24
  pull in my mind, given everything that's going on with
• 2:27
  the prices and how crazy the prices are getting.
• 2:31
  They're going to win if they can get their pricing strategy right
• 2:34
  and right. And I've seen so many retailers
• 2:37
  get the pricing strategy wrong right now.
• 2:40
  And this is the second attempt apparently, for them to come
• 2:43
  into Europe. They had Ochima, which trialled
• 2:46
  in the Netherlands, but it didn't take off.
• 2:48
  And so they're now retrenching, going for logistics, first
• 2:53
  marketplace and then subscription.
• 2:56
  But Amazon, not to be outdone, my favourite, your favourite,
• 3:00
  Alexa, Can you believe she's about 13 years old or so?
• 3:04
  I think now she's getting an upgrade and Alexa plus, which
• 3:09
  from all the videos looks with Chris Hemingsway looks
• 3:13
  phenomenal and it's, you know, no longer Alexa switch on the
• 3:17
  lights or Alexa flash briefing, which is my Alexa morning
• 3:21
  routine. There's a whole AI list of
• 3:23
  things to do and it's testing right now.
• 3:28
  It will be available in the UK, and I think if you say Alexa
• 3:34
  upgrade or something, it should upgrade or put you in the queue
• 3:38
  to upgrade. If you've already got an Alexa.
• 3:40
  Let me see if it's here. Yeah.
• 3:42
  And there's a sassy mode, which again, looks like it's going to
• 3:46
  be phenomenal in terms of having Alexa speak back to you in a
• 3:51
  sassy way. And then Chris Hemingsway,
• 3:54
  Hemingsworth is the sort of lead social media staff for this.
• 3:58
  And it's really funny, I haven't go go look there.
• 4:02
  I think they're on TikTok or Instagram.
• 4:03
  And tell me what you think. Next one, we've got Tesco's.
• 4:06
  Tesco's is increasing pay for their frontline workers, people
• 4:11
  who work in stores, 5.1% of which is phenomenal for the
• 4:17
  hourly paid colleagues. But I don't know if this is
• 4:19
  offsetting a problem in the future or creating a problem in
• 4:22
  the future. And again, fantastic.
• 4:25
  I think that they're rewarding their their colleagues.
• 4:28
  Is this going to be a problem down the line for shoppers and
• 4:31
  for store formats and the way that stores will be created?
• 4:34
  Who knows? But anyway, they're giving a pay
• 4:37
  increase. Second one, the perfume shop is
• 4:41
  part of clean up, the great British beauty cleanup.
• 4:44
  They're launching they're or relaunching because I think they
• 4:47
  had one already. They're empty bottles in store
• 4:50
  which is I my understanding is if you get 15% of same thing
• 4:54
  purchases when you return empty bottles in store.
• 4:58
  Bottles recycled up 234% year on year over 7000, collected so far
• 5:05
  this year in 26. And, and this is the one that I
• 5:09
  really, really love is they've got refillable skews which up
• 5:13
  from 113 last in 2024 to 155 this year.
• 5:18
  So what's there not to love? Because I love refill.
• 5:22
  I think that's phenomenal thing to be doing as part of the great
• 5:25
  British beauty cleanup. Rolling on to someone who is
• 5:29
  making a regular appearance on the show and that is Greg's
• 5:34
  Greggs are launching, Sorry, they're sponsoring or part of
• 5:37
  the Saturday Night Live UK edition that's coming to a
• 5:42
  cinema script ATV screen near you.
• 5:44
  But their activation obviously the Today is what, the 20th?
• 5:49
  This will be in London on the 21st and it's the Greggs bus
• 5:54
  where you get free sausage rolls.
• 5:56
  So what's there not to love, right?
• 5:59
  Go along, get you free sausage rolls, have the giggle with
• 6:03
  Greg's, take some photos and maybe get a golden ticket to go
• 6:09
  and see Saturday Night Live UK edition.
• 6:11
  I promised you would be fast. Look at the, as Jill said, a
• 6:15
  fast and furious look at the top five things shaping UK retail
• 6:21
  right now. Until next week, If you're in
• 6:24
  shop talk in Las Vegas this week, next week, come say hi.
• 6:29
  And we actually may not be on next week because I'll be in the
• 6:32
  US, Simone, hopefully we'll be back from Bournemouth.
• 6:35
  And I think we've got a Good Friday.
• 6:36
  So there may be a little bit of a gap in transmission.
• 6:40
  But thank you ever so much for giving up your ears and time or
• 6:44
  your eyes if you're watching us. And I look forward to speaking
• 6:47
  to you very, very soon.