Latest / The Retail Podcast / Louis Vuitton Is Opening a Hotel. What Does That Mean for Retail? | 5 Things Friday UK

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Louis Vuitton Is Opening a Hotel. What Does That Mean for Retail? | 5 Things Friday UK · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday the 24th. It's my son's birthday.
• 0:02
  He's 10. Happy birthday.
• 0:06
  Welcome to Five Things Friday. Happy Friday.
• 0:23
  Happy Friday, I was going to say.
• 0:25
  How was you survived the train strike in London?
• 0:28
  Just about, just about. It's been a bit of a nightmare,
• 0:31
  but we're still here. All good.
• 0:33
  That's fantastic. Well, listen, we're on a tight
• 0:35
  schedule as always. Why don't you give us a quick
• 0:38
  one minute on who you are and what do you do?
• 0:40
  Yes, hi everybody. I'm Simone.
• 0:43
  I'm the Co founder and CEO of a business called Need it for
• 0:46
  Tonight, also known as NIF. We've built the infrastructure
• 0:49
  that is powering rapid delivery for retail.
• 0:52
  One is through our marketplace app, I think delivery but for
• 0:55
  fashion. And then second is A B to B plug
• 0:58
  in version of that. Okay, we're gonna, as I said,
• 1:01
  we're gonna repeat myself, jump straight in you.
• 1:04
  I mean, both of these ones that you've got are pretty
• 1:07
  phenomenal. I didn't even know about this,
• 1:09
  but there's a new hotel that's opening up that obviously I'm
• 1:12
  going to be going and staying at.
• 1:13
  I think this hotel might be out my price range but you are right
• 1:19
  there is a new hotel hotels in Mayfair such it's actually not a
• 1:24
  hotels and it's Louis Vuitton. It's a basically a pop up
• 1:29
  experience celebrating their monogram.
• 1:31
  So you walk in expecting. Is there any pictures of it?
• 1:36
  This is their website right? But you can, yeah, expect rooms.
• 1:42
  You've got different spaces themed around their my iconic
• 1:45
  bags. The Louis Vuitton key pole has a
• 1:48
  lobby. There are rooms for the there.
• 1:52
  You go. There it is.
• 1:54
  Oh my. God, that's beautiful.
• 1:56
  It's stunning, it's all very on brand, very immersive and
• 2:00
  honestly, it's something we've been doing for a while now.
• 2:02
  These obviously big theatrical activations.
• 2:06
  I know they did one in, I think it's in places like Shanghai and
• 2:10
  Oh my God. The boat, they did the boat
• 2:12
  there that. Was amazing, but now they're
• 2:15
  bringing it to London and it's called called it Hotel, which is
• 2:19
  kind of genius, you know, and I think we've seen this a lot.
• 2:23
  It's like it's really turning a store into something people will
• 2:26
  actually talk about, really turning it into an experience.
• 2:30
  You know, no one's queuing down Berkeley Square for a shop, but
• 2:35
  they will queue for something that feels like this incredible
• 2:40
  immersive experience. And it's not about selling a
• 2:43
  bag. It's about giving you something
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  to do, something to post, something to talk about.
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  And so, yeah, it's it's interesting because I don't
• 2:52
  really think this is a conversion moment for them
• 2:55
  necessarily. I think that people aren't
• 2:58
  necessarily going in to buy a bag, but it's going to get a lot
• 3:02
  of traction. It's a marketing moment and it's
• 3:04
  really smart. And I will be going but.
• 3:08
  Yeah, sorry, I was going to say if it's FOMO, right, in terms of
• 3:11
  what they're trying to do and they released their annual
• 3:15
  results last week and they're not doing well.
• 3:18
  They're like year on, year down and they're blaming the troubles
• 3:21
  in the Middle East and they've had troubles in Asia Pacific in
• 3:26
  terms of people aren't just buying as much luxury as they
• 3:29
  used to. So I think there's I think
• 3:32
  there's a relationship in luxury that needs to be repaired, but
• 3:35
  we don't have enough time to talk about that.
• 3:37
  I'm going to talk about quickly. It's London Marathon week.
• 3:41
  So if you're running the London Marathon, good luck.
• 3:44
  You've got it. You're Vaseline, those parts
• 3:47
  that need Vaseline, because I always hear horror stories of
• 3:50
  people in there journey through the London Marathon.
• 3:53
  But it is also a a a real sort of look into how traditionally
• 4:00
  London Marathon, all these types of events used to be retailer,
• 4:05
  you know, like a a brand moment. I'm going to talk about my brand
• 4:08
  at this event as opposed to being an event driven brand.
• 4:13
  So for example, Vaseline official nipple shield and I've
• 4:19
  got a few examples here to share here.
• 4:22
  We have TCS managing so so Apple, for example, was an
• 4:26
  interesting one, right? What are you going to buy?
• 4:28
  But they're an official partner of the marathon.
• 4:30
  And I think that each one of these brands has an activation,
• 4:34
  and this one is to check terms and conditions apply, right?
• 4:38
  In Brompton Rd. They're going to do an
• 4:40
  activation with some athletes and stuff, which go, go and go,
• 4:44
  go and find out because we don't have enough time to get into it.
• 4:47
  But what's really interesting is when you go to the the marathon
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  website, there's like 50 or 60 or 100 different sponsors and
• 4:56
  brands. And Simone and I were just
• 5:00
  talking about Coachella. The people that really win, like
• 5:03
  Revolve are the people that don't just turn up to be a
• 5:06
  brand, but turn up to be at the event.
• 5:09
  So they're part of the event and I think that's really a big
• 5:13
  shift that I'm seeing in terms of brands sponsoring an event
• 5:18
  and brands being part of the event, so.
• 5:21
  You know, I think. Yeah, I think beauty companies
• 5:25
  have done quite well in like activations at Glastonbury or,
• 5:29
  or different music festivals. And yeah, and that's it.
• 5:34
  Moving on to you for Clark's. Yeah, so Clark's is no longer
• 5:39
  just a shoe brand. I have been saying for a while
• 5:42
  that Clark's has got really cool.
• 5:43
  I'm like, am I getting older or is Clark's getting cooler?
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  It's like the M&S argument. They sell Mark Jacobs.
• 5:49
  They have just launched their first ever online marketplace,
• 5:53
  bringing up 100 brands, everything from Adidas to Nike
• 5:58
  to Tommy Hilfiger and Hugo Bart. Really smart, Gross strategy.
• 6:03
  And you know, I think as well as the problem with being just a
• 6:06
  shoe brand is people don't buy shoes that often.
• 6:10
  You know, so you get a customer, they buy it once and then they
• 6:13
  disappear for six months. So I think what Clarks is
• 6:16
  basically saying now is while we've got you here, what else
• 6:20
  can we sell you? It's really, have we?
• 6:23
  Seen it's great and really good brand mix as well.
• 6:26
  And look, we've obviously seen a lot of retailers do this as a
• 6:29
  part of their growth strategy next being one of the most
• 6:32
  successful ones. And I'm going to say best
• 6:35
  example in the UK, you know, they've built this massive multi
• 6:39
  brand platform over the last few years and have been killing it.
• 6:42
  So I guess Clarks is kind of playing catch up, but I think it
• 6:46
  makes a lot of sense. And I think it's going to be
• 6:49
  real value now in in owning that customer, you know, not just the
• 6:53
  products. But yeah, I will be intrigued to
• 6:56
  see whether people are actually going to start browsing clocks
• 7:00
  as a proper fashion and and retail destination, not just if
• 7:05
  they need a pair of shoes. And you know, if they can really
• 7:09
  nail that behaviour shift, then it's going to be really
• 7:12
  powerful. Yeah, I I love it.
• 7:14
  I mean, Sauce moving on have released their results, which
• 7:20
  it's a mixed bag, but I know we've spoken about ASOS
• 7:22
  previously, but I just wanted to call that although their group
• 7:26
  revenue is down and it's a whopping £1.16 billion, right.
• 7:32
  So the group is no longer that little online retailer anymore,
• 7:37
  massive brand now. But when you adjust for EBITDA,
• 7:41
  obviously because we are just for EBITDA all the time, it rose
• 7:44
  51%. So what the news story is here
• 7:48
  is people are buying, people are engaging, it's just not
• 7:52
  filtering through because of all the other costs within the
• 7:55
  business. But it's really we love ASOS,
• 7:58
  it's good news story. They're still doing well, but
• 8:02
  they've narrowed their losses as well by 18 million, 18.3
• 8:05
  million, but UKGMV was up 5%. Simone, until next week.
• 8:11
  Thank you. So.
• 8:11
  Much. Thank you so much, Alex.