Latest / The Retail Podcast / ASOS Live Shopping, Harrods Tech, Asda’s Charity TikTok Shop, and Lidl’s Price Slash — With Simone Oloman

Transcript

ASOS Live Shopping, Harrods Tech, Asda’s Charity TikTok Shop, and Lidl’s Price Slash — With Simone Oloman · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday. I'm saying a hotel lobby room.
• 0:03
  It's pretty embarrassing saying it's Friday.
• 0:05
  Welcome to five things Friday, Simone, how are you?
• 0:20
  I'm. Good.
• 0:22
  How are you? Happy Friday.
• 0:24
  I think Friday and I was just saying I'm in a hotel lobby room
• 0:27
  and every time my voice goes up a little high to But anyway,
• 0:31
  welcome to five things Friday. We are going to be as punctual
• 0:35
  as we always are. So we're going to dive straight
• 0:38
  in. My name's Alex.
• 0:39
  I help brands that sell to retailers maintain their thought
• 0:42
  leadership and increase their LinkedIn presence as we've just
• 0:47
  recently been talking about. And I'm joined by my wonderful,
• 0:50
  fabulous 2 worked, wonderful and fabulous.
• 0:52
  Now, Simone, hello and welcome. Hello hi everybody, I'm the Co
• 0:58
  founder and CEO of need it for tonight.
• 1:00
  Always say easiest way to describe us as highlight
• 1:03
  delivery but for quality passion.
• 1:05
  OK, we're going to start this week story with something that
• 1:08
  you and I both love when we heard it tickled pink it's
• 1:12
  breast cancer awareness in and as there have got this fantastic
• 1:17
  offer. So if you've got a local ads
• 1:18
  there and you want to support breast cancer awareness at a
• 1:21
  £7.17 bundle, which is all about raising awareness for going to
• 1:27
  get checked. I don't know how awkward it is
• 1:29
  having a man talk about this. But anyway, it's don't take it
• 1:33
  from me. Take it from someone who's a
• 1:35
  health professional. We all need to get tested and in
• 1:38
  in all fairness, maybe next week you can do Movember as I'm doing
• 1:42
  sensor awareness. You, you Movember and I will
• 1:45
  talk about them. But anyway, I think it's a it's
• 1:47
  a cracking example of social campaign LED near and dear to a
• 1:53
  lot of people up and down the country.
• 1:55
  So kudos to to as they're well done.
• 1:57
  And obviously that and just I had to double read this.
• 2:01
  My understanding is all of those products add up to £7, which
• 2:05
  seems like a value for money bundle as well.
• 2:09
  And, and they're all in the colour pink.
• 2:10
  So if you like pink and you want your Diet Coke in a pink can get
• 2:14
  yourself off to Asda Simone, over to you.
• 2:17
  Oh. I love that one.
• 2:18
  Also a very good deal and to for a bit cold yes and what I want
• 2:23
  to keep an eye on this week is it's just launched a new live
• 2:28
  shopping feature inside that app.
• 2:30
  It merges short form video content real time shopping, I
• 2:35
  guess aiming to bring in you know, install and discovery and
• 2:38
  I guess purchasing into one seamless experience.
• 2:42
  I guess it's it's a shop, but in done inside their own ecosystem,
• 2:48
  which I think is a really smart move yeah.
• 2:51
  I mean, if you're someone who's wanting styling or something
• 2:55
  lying head there because how it says adding, you know, people
• 3:00
  don't want to scroll endlessly through anymore.
• 3:03
  You know, they want contact personality.
• 3:06
  They think they want to go oh, I like that.
• 3:08
  I own that. But in under 90 seconds, like
• 3:12
  how they've been on on TikTok shop on TikTok shop.
• 3:14
  Obviously early days, but I think SS's live shopping could
• 3:20
  start, especially if they start to lean into creators and drop
• 3:24
  culture. Yeah, it's not just this
• 3:27
  anymore. Really, really expected and
• 3:29
  intrigued to set to see where that goes.
• 3:30
  Yeah, I think. I think it's my one money on it
• 3:33
  to keep us in time. When I was at Microsoft, there's
• 3:36
  there then CEO sort of got up in front of the city end of the
• 3:40
  report saying how they've set up this data platform and how this
• 3:43
  data platform is going to give them loads of insights.
• 3:45
  It's going to give them, you know, all those secret juicy
• 3:48
  things that you can't just get from being on Instagram on Jake
• 3:52
  talk on another social media platform.
• 3:54
  And for me, I've seen Zara experiment with this, some
• 3:57
  people trying to do it by YouTube.
• 3:59
  This is ultimately about trying to capture as much data, but
• 4:03
  your right true data as opposed to coming through Instagram.
• 4:07
  Obviously Instagram works, TikTok works and you you get it
• 4:10
  at at it's like post purchase. You know what per someones
• 4:14
  bought, but you have no idea of the journey through your store.
• 4:18
  And I think we'll see more of these directors of initiatives
• 4:21
  on how retailers are going to do, especially online retailers
• 4:24
  here. They're going to try and capture
• 4:26
  more of that sort of have more of that data capture as they go
• 4:30
  through. Staying with me, Richard Walker,
• 4:33
  the frozen foods would like basic basically Iceland's at AFT
• 4:38
  event highlighted and bought up something that I've spoken about
• 4:42
  for years. I partner with people who work
• 4:46
  in the since from Britain. There is a war continued ongoing
• 4:50
  with shoplifting. Everyone agrees it's not a
• 4:53
  faceless crime. Everyone agrees specifically
• 4:56
  when it comes to harassment or use shopping or work or
• 5:00
  frontline work, it's not acceptable and the level of
• 5:04
  investment to go into tackling it is only going to continue to
• 5:08
  grow and it's a global problem. Well, any of the shares from
• 5:12
  Australia to the US, retailers are still looking at ways to
• 5:17
  invest in preventing or combating one of the biggest
• 5:21
  headache in retail, which is strength prevention.
• 5:24
  And the reason why I'm highlighting this is obviously
• 5:28
  it sometimes people say oh, but this story is like 3 years old.
• 5:31
  This story has not gone away because society and all the
• 5:35
  elements around it. What has changed dramatically is
• 5:40
  the investment in technology. And so there are now lots of new
• 5:45
  shrink prevention or shoplifting prevention solutions that were
• 5:49
  available three years ago. And it's interesting to see that
• 5:53
  given a, a platform such as the F senior executives still have
• 5:58
  this as right. So that was a very serious one.
• 6:03
  Now moving to I think this is your sweet spot.
• 6:06
  Luxury, right? Luxury technology.
• 6:09
  Yeah, this one definitely caught my eye.
• 6:12
  So Aura, which is the Wellness tech brand behind the cult Aura
• 6:17
  ring, which is the thing what it's most known for.
• 6:20
  It's just opened its first ever concept.
• 6:23
  When I say concept space at Harrods, for those that don't
• 6:26
  know, it's wearable, very stylish, sleep and recovery
• 6:32
  tracking. The space is actually already
• 6:34
  opened. It opened the 2nd of October and
• 6:36
  it's a part of Harrods Tech 1 go in obviously about the I think
• 6:42
  they've just released you all rubric guest size and purchase
• 6:46
  on site. But I think it's what's really
• 6:48
  interesting here is that this to me signals just how far well
• 6:54
  this is moved into the luxury spheres.
• 6:56
  Five years ago, wearable tech was either very clinical or, or
• 7:03
  or potty. And now it's been sold next to
• 7:05
  fine jewellery, next to perfume and designer bags.
• 7:09
  And with a price point, you know, it's been positioned as
• 7:13
  both the health tool and the fashion accessory, which I think
• 7:16
  we we've covered before when speaking.
• 7:19
  But yeah, it's also obviously about retail storytelling.
• 7:22
  You know, it's more than a product, as we've very much
• 7:24
  discussed before, it's about an experience sizing, it's
• 7:27
  education, aspiration. But in this very beautiful
• 7:33
  prestige space. So yeah, I really love it.
• 7:37
  I just, it's another example of how tacky is crossing over into
• 7:42
  into lifestyle retail, not just electronics.
• 7:46
  So love it. We'll be going down.
• 7:49
  Yeah, well, I was going to say, if Aura are watching as brands
• 7:52
  sometimes do watch and they need an ambassador, I can't think of
• 7:55
  anyone better than Simone to be wearing your technology to
• 7:59
  demonstrate how a young executive is balancing her
• 8:03
  health data and the real world. So Aura, you know where you need
• 8:07
  to send your. I know what it's called anyway,
• 8:10
  your sample to to to the retail podcast AKA Simone Oliver.
• 8:15
  Anyway, so it's Christmas season.
• 8:17
  I know I said this last week and we got to get through Halloween,
• 8:19
  got to get through Bonfire Night and a few other celebrations.
• 8:23
  But for grocers, they are in full swing.
• 8:26
  Soup. Sorry, Sainsbury's and Argos in
• 8:28
  a recruitment Dr and Lidl is investing 250 million in
• 8:33
  slashing prices for customers during the golden quarter.
• 8:36
  And I think that they'll say this isn't about Christmas.
• 8:39
  It's not about winning the Christmas shop, but it's 100%
• 8:42
  trying to get people into Lidl on the way up into the golden
• 8:47
  quarter or through the golden quarter to get that value to
• 8:50
  keep driving those promotions. So again, a massive investment
• 8:55
  for what is already a a really competitively priced market.
• 9:00
  And again, let's see, we'll we'll be able to see post
• 9:03
  Christmas who the winner is or not in in the in the, in the
• 9:07
  competitive competitive four times in the competitive grocery
• 9:13
  market. We're only going to see more and
• 9:16
  more and more and three weeks back Morrison buyer, the
• 9:21
  starting gun on price reduction and invest leading up onto
• 9:25
  Christmas. Little has now joined.
• 9:27
  And I will definitely expect to see Sainsbury's and Tesco's all
• 9:31
  looking at Christmas shoppers and how they're going to
• 9:34
  incentivize them to commit to them on this path to Christmas.
• 9:39
  With that, we've done it, I think.
• 9:41
  Is it record time or not? Is it record time?
• 9:43
  Almost a record time, 1 1/2 minutes.
• 9:46
  I'm impressed. I think come down to about 10
• 9:48
  once we edit all of my different elements out.
• 9:51
  So anyway, I know you've got a hard stop, so thank you so much.
• 9:54
  Until next week. Thanks, Alex.
• 9:57
  Bye.