Latest / The Retail Podcast / 5 Things Friday USA: ChatGPT Commerce Pause, Off-Price Retail Boom, Primark Expansion & Uniqlo Strategy

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5 Things Friday USA: ChatGPT Commerce Pause, Off-Price Retail Boom, Primark Expansion & Uniqlo Strategy · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday. We're in the United States of
• 0:02
  America. Welcome to Five
• 0:16
  Jill. Alex, I've missed you.
• 0:19
  I've missed you too. It's been far too long.
• 0:21
  Far. I mean, it's only been two
• 0:23
  weeks, but it's only been two weeks, but it's.
• 0:25
  A lot's been happening, hasn't it?
• 0:27
  Yeah. But yeah, we're not going to
• 0:28
  talk about that. We're going to, we're going to
• 0:30
  keep things retail and we're going to keep things positive.
• 0:33
  That's it. And I think what a what a
• 0:35
  wonderful way to start. How about we start with you
• 0:37
  talking about AI? That sounds perfect.
• 0:40
  So, you know, we this wouldn't be a podcast if we don't mention
• 0:44
  AI and if we don't mention agentic AI every.
• 0:46
  Every year. Every every year or every week.
• 0:49
  So last week ChatGPT made a huge announcement essentially pulling
• 0:54
  back from agentic commerce for now, what what that means is
• 0:58
  they pull back from letting customers complete the purchase
• 1:02
  inside the ChatGPT environment. So that was, you know, what
• 1:05
  everyone is describing as agentic commerce and will be a
• 1:08
  huge, huge tidal wave for retailers because it's really
• 1:11
  disintermediating. People aren't going to websites.
• 1:14
  They would go to a, you know, an AEO or a Geo to do the searching
• 1:18
  and the shopping. So honestly, it could be a
• 1:20
  really, really big impact. But what Chatshi, BT Open AI did
• 1:25
  last week is they essentially took a pause.
• 1:27
  I think it's for two or three reasons.
• 1:29
  You know, this was not official, but I think 2 of it is 2 of the
• 1:33
  reasons are one, it's really hard to scale.
• 1:36
  They cannot, you know, they can enable different protocols, but
• 1:40
  you can't then add in all the thousands of retailers you want
• 1:43
  to be on. That is quite difficult.
• 1:45
  And open AI, you know, last I heard they have less than 10
• 1:49
  full time employees on agentic Commerce specifically.
• 1:52
  That's that's going to be tough. So I think it's a pause.
• 1:55
  I don't know that it's a stop forever.
• 1:57
  What they're not going to process the transactions
• 2:00
  directly. They will still recommend
• 2:01
  products. They will send users to the
• 2:03
  retailers, which obviously is great news for retailers.
• 2:07
  And you know, you know, I think at the end right now, the
• 2:10
  shopping will still happen on the retailer.
• 2:11
  So I don't think it's forever, but it was a it was a nice
• 2:15
  pause. Interesting development.
• 2:17
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 2:18
  Yeah. I've got you look a bit of a
• 2:20
  shameless plug. Do you speak AI or do you speak
• 2:23
  retail? I think what, what, what I've
• 2:26
  tried to do or what we've tried to do is create a glossary, a
• 2:29
  dictionary for if you work in retail and you want to know
• 2:33
  what's going on. We've found 94 terms pretty much
• 2:37
  from all the conferences I've been to because that's the only
• 2:39
  places I've heard these things. And it's all here, retail news
• 2:43
  dot AI or retail dot news and you can, it's underneath
• 2:47
  research elements. If, if we've missed any, let us
• 2:51
  know. Moving on.
• 2:52
  Good call. Any four, I think we should get
• 2:54
  to 100, so please send us 6. Ideally I was going to try
• 2:58
  desperately try to get to 100, but I couldn't find any more.
• 3:02
  So yeah, looking for six more. Please, otherwise AI is going to
• 3:05
  start hallucinating and invent things.
• 3:06
  So let's just do we'll we'll ask the viewers to send us 6 actual
• 3:10
  ones. 6 ones well your your homework is read all 94 Joe.
• 3:14
  Exactly. Oh yes, no problem.
• 3:16
  No problem on it. On it so this next one, you know
• 3:20
  some good news we all love good news off price retail in the US
• 3:24
  is still really, really expanding.
• 3:26
  You know either a bunch of headlines in the past week or so
• 3:28
  Ross stores they're planning 110 new location that is a lot in
• 3:36
  with TJX and Burlington. They're continuing to open new
• 3:40
  stores. Most of them will be smaller
• 3:43
  format, which I think is really, really interesting.
• 3:45
  And they're also going to be slightly, you know, so smaller
• 3:49
  locations, the closing, the really large ones that were
• 3:52
  sometimes the anchors of malls. So it's, it's shifting a little
• 3:56
  bit to where people are shopping more and how they like to shop.
• 3:59
  So that that's a big, big change.
• 4:01
  Same thing BJ's Wholesale, they are opening at least 15 every
• 4:07
  single year and it's been going on and on entering new states.
• 4:10
  It's kind of a a sweep from the Northeast down into the
• 4:13
  Southeast and they're going I think Texas is maybe next month,
• 4:16
  first one in Texas and on, on and on and on.
• 4:18
  So positive growth in off price retail.
• 4:22
  Yeah, I want to add, obviously I always think, you know, value or
• 4:26
  it has had its time, people have had enough of value.
• 4:29
  But you've got new entrants like Primark coming into the US
• 4:32
  market. They did a pop up in New York
• 4:34
  last week. They're huge across the they're
• 4:37
  they're an Irish value retrainer.
• 4:39
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:40
  And and you and you'll see them expand.
• 4:42
  I remember listening to the CEO saying we're gonna do this.
• 4:45
  We're a little bit nervous because we fail or brands have
• 4:48
  always failed when they come into the US math.
• 4:50
  I think Primark's going to go from strength.
• 4:53
  A great example, I think I saw a headline of they were planning
• 4:55
  60 stores this by the end of this year to be live with 60
• 5:00
  stores. Look value, price, retail is
• 5:02
  booming right now. I don't think there's a better
• 5:04
  time for them. And some of the real estate is
• 5:06
  still not that expensive. So again, it's it's kind of all
• 5:09
  wins are pointing in their direction.
• 5:11
  Might even be cheaper. They can be cheaper.
• 5:13
  That wreath is really pretty. Is that a Primark wreath?
• 5:16
  I was going to say it's the they win in the award for the first
• 5:19
  retailer to talk about Easter or the one I've seen right, I don't
• 5:22
  see but this is this is their Easter Easter looks.
• 5:28
  I thought that was quite cute festival season.
• 5:32
  Who's doing this me or you? I've got.
• 5:33
  I think you're. Doing festival.
• 5:35
  Season OK, I'm doing I'm doing the young hip thing obviously
• 5:37
  because right so young in the hip.
• 5:41
  So it's festival season. Coachella has sugar and bronze.
• 5:44
  They're they're self tanning and sugar services.
• 5:48
  I didn't know what I had to look what that was.
• 5:49
  But anyway, what's really interesting is and it's
• 5:53
  something that I actually three years ago we went to one of the
• 5:57
  major music festivals here as to to interview the retailers that
• 6:01
  had chosen to go there and there was a bank fair.
• 6:03
  There was an energy company that was like, why are you here?
• 6:06
  No, amongst the sea of, you know, generation Zeds or, or
• 6:11
  Alphas, Well, not Alphas, but anyway.
• 6:14
  And they were, they were like, look, we have to be where our
• 6:17
  future customers going to be. And in about 5 years, we want to
• 6:21
  be relevant to them. And so, you know, can tell us
• 6:23
  coming up, we're coming this whole season.
• 6:26
  Question to you, Mr Mrs Retailer, you obviously speak
• 6:29
  AI. What, what strategy do you have
• 6:32
  for the festival season? How are you thinking about that?
• 6:35
  And I know actually one of the speakers at NRF, right?
• 6:38
  You had pixels. 3 Olsen, the Pacsun, she's actually going to
• 6:42
  come to Europe in September and kind of continue talking about
• 6:45
  it. What's amazing about Pacsun is
• 6:48
  they don't just do it, but they actually do research about it
• 6:51
  and talk to the customers before they do it.
• 6:53
  They did this whole consumer report in the fall that was in
• 6:57
  incredibly in depth for where their consumers shop, how they
• 7:01
  want to shop, how they want to show up.
• 7:03
  They've been showing up at music festivals for maybe even on 10
• 7:07
  years now, but they don't just show up at the big ones.
• 7:09
  And they don't just show up with like the one or two, you know,
• 7:12
  the Alex Earl or the OR like the big names really find kind of
• 7:16
  the micro influencers, the micro musicians, some of the openers
• 7:20
  and because it's authentic, right?
• 7:22
  And they actually have those relationships with them and they
• 7:26
  do a really good do a job of it. And it just, it's one to watch
• 7:29
  for sure. And they do a lot of events in
• 7:32
  general. That's really their activation.
• 7:34
  But music and festivals are probably their biggest kind of
• 7:39
  acquisition. And then we we'd have to ask
• 7:41
  bereave it. I'm using retention strategy.
• 7:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's, it's where the it's where
• 7:46
  the brand recognition and journey starts.
• 7:49
  I love it. OK, I'm glad you know what
• 7:50
  getting sugar now means. So that's just fun for everyone.
• 7:53
  I. Don't know, I I I thought it was
• 7:56
  like some sort of popsicle or something, but no, it's.
• 7:59
  Basically, it's a different way to remove hair.
• 8:01
  It's like threading or waxing. Well, thank you for now,
• 8:04
  everybody knows. Waxing and moving on to Paris.
• 8:10
  Hilton waxing right to Paris Hilton.
• 8:12
  There's no better transition. So Paris Hilton is a name
• 8:16
  probably everybody knows. Some fun facts about Paris
• 8:19
  Hilton. She has multiple retail lines
• 8:21
  under an umbrella called 1111 Media, tonnes of licencing,
• 8:25
  tonnes of her own products and a lot of entertainment parts.
• 8:29
  So she's really in a lot of different verticals both in
• 8:32
  retail and media. Fun fact, she's actually the
• 8:34
  highest paid female DJ in the world.
• 8:37
  She's a really good DJ too. Anyway, one of the things she's
• 8:40
  done, she's been on Capitol Hill lately talking a lot about, you
• 8:43
  know, child abuse and a essentially putting in stricter
• 8:46
  laws. And it's all mentioned in her
• 8:48
  book. She recently was doing some
• 8:50
  research and found out how underfunded some of these women,
• 8:55
  you know, entrepreneurs and funds are.
• 8:58
  And so put her money where her mouth is donated, you know,
• 9:01
  immediately just threw in $350,000 to start off a GoFundMe
• 9:07
  and then launched it. And I was hoping to get to
• 9:09
  1,000,000. So again, it's just, it's really
• 9:11
  nice, which. Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:13
  Really nice to see. And she lives in the Palisades
• 9:16
  where tonnes of homes were decimated by fires insurance did
• 9:19
  not cover. She actually lost a home in
• 9:21
  those fires. And it's just nice to see.
• 9:24
  Like it started as a local project and now it's gone
• 9:26
  global, so it's lovely to see. Fantastic.
• 9:29
  And if you're listening to the podcast and you're not watching
• 9:31
  this, this article, if you want to learn more, is on AP News.
• 9:35
  We'll put the link in the bio. Moving on, final one with you.
• 9:39
  Oh, I love this story. So this is Uniqlo, you know, run
• 9:42
  by Fast Retailing out of Japan and Uniqlo CLO is really
• 9:47
  incredible in kind of their breath of who they serve, right?
• 9:51
  They have kids lines doing a partnership now with Disney.
• 9:53
  I know they're Disney adults, but obviously Disney typically
• 9:57
  skews a little more youth oriented.
• 9:59
  They're going all the way to F1 now.
• 10:01
  Again, kids love F1 too. But you know what, what man now
• 10:05
  is not watch the F1 movie, but you know, and and gotten kind of
• 10:08
  pumped and into it. I had a friend who told me he
• 10:10
  stayed up till 7:00 AM the other night watching an F1 race in the
• 10:13
  US. Oh my God, that's a thing now.
• 10:16
  And it was just AI don't know. I think it was a regular race,
• 10:19
  like not even like a championship, right.
• 10:21
  Well, it's really it's sweeping here in terms of just the
• 10:24
  fandom. So to buy into that huge.
• 10:26
  What they also have done though, is not just kind of this global
• 10:30
  level, they're looking at this kind of community level.
• 10:33
  So Uniqlo also has partnered with their New York stores with
• 10:37
  specifically the New York Public Library, which is, you know,
• 10:40
  iconic, building iconic just makes you feel something.
• 10:43
  So many movies are filmed there. They've also done this Strand
• 10:46
  Bookstore, which is one of the longest independent owned
• 10:49
  bookstores in the in the US Andy Warhol Foundation.
• 10:53
  So they've gone, you know, they're hitting art, they're
• 10:55
  hitting education, they're hitting different types of of,
• 10:58
  you know, local artists, Lauren Martin and KAWS.
• 11:02
  So all exclusive merch, all really cool things.
• 11:05
  Get it while it's hot and it's sold out.
• 11:07
  So again, just keeping up that kind of quick turn inventory
• 11:11
  that they're so great at, but getting people in the store more
• 11:14
  often. Yeah, no, I mean, look, Uniqlo
• 11:16
  are like the darlings of being able to curate beautiful stores,
• 11:21
  have product that builds relevance, which is what what
• 11:23
  you've been talking about. And I.
• 11:25
  Think Staples. You can always get the same,
• 11:28
  right? The same great staples there
• 11:29
  like that down Jeff and. It's like that sort of, you
• 11:32
  know, value pricing, premium field type thing which which is
• 11:37
  really wonderful. And that nicely brings us to a
• 11:40
  close our fast pace underneath 15 minutes review of five things
• 11:46
  Friday, top things that are happening in the US right now.
• 11:49
  Any plans for next week? You know, I think we have enough
• 11:52
  going on in the world. I think next week I'm I'm
• 11:55
  chilling out, but in a couple weeks is right.
• 11:59
  Take a break from from the news couple weeks spring break.
• 12:02
  We're going to go down to South America for the first time for
• 12:05
  our family and do a little vacation in Peru and see Machu
• 12:09
  Picchu. Oh nice.
• 12:11
  And just be a be. Be away from from from the news
• 12:15
  and away from the headlines. I'm sure you'll love this, where
• 12:19
  you have the Shields of Americans to protect you. 100%.
• 12:25
  Thank you so much. Amazing.
• 12:27
  Great to see you and thanks everyone for listening.