Latest / The Retail Podcast / NRF Europe Preview: Sephora Keynote, Apple + Adyen Payments, Store Tours, 15k Attendees

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NRF Europe Preview: Sephora Keynote, Apple + Adyen Payments, Store Tours, 15k Attendees · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Walking through the right demographic, the right payment
• 0:02
  types, Apple Pay, things like that.
• 0:04
  We have Apple on stage, they know they don't speak a tonne
• 0:07
  and so this, that was really exciting.
• 0:20
  Hello and welcome to a really special edition of the retail
• 0:23
  podcast. And it's a special edition
• 0:25
  because in my opinion, we're going to get a behind the scenes
• 0:28
  idea to what's happening to the first European NRF show.
• 0:34
  And who better to take us through that than my Co host
• 0:39
  Jill Domrak, who's the SVP of Content at NRF.
• 0:42
  Jill, hello. Hi, Alex, great to be back.
• 0:45
  Thank you for having me. Lovely to to have you back and
• 0:48
  I'm really excited. Only a week Wait until we're
• 0:51
  actually hopefully get to do this in person.
• 0:53
  I can't wait. I know next week, September 16th
• 0:56
  to 18th in Paris, that's the Expo Porta Versailles.
• 1:01
  We're taking it over. We're bringing, you know, 15,000
• 1:04
  of our closest friends. We're going to be together at
• 1:07
  NRF Retails Big show over Europe and it's our first show in
• 1:10
  Europe. And you know, Paris Retail Week
• 1:13
  has been there for goodness more than 20 years.
• 1:16
  And really we're partnering with them now because number one, we
• 1:21
  wanted a show to reflect all of Europe, not just one or two
• 1:25
  countries at a time. And there really has not been
• 1:28
  kind of a better time to unite everybody in common challenges
• 1:32
  around the world together. So our theme, it's perfect.
• 1:36
  And you know, we chose it almost a year ago, so so I almost want
• 1:39
  to buy a lottery ticket now. Like it felt like a really good
• 1:42
  theme at the time, like we really were pressing it.
• 1:44
  But it's called retail together. And really it's about bringing,
• 1:48
  is it the store people into the digital fold?
• 1:51
  Is it countries together? Is it bringing sustainability
• 1:55
  into the profit centre world instead of looking at it as a
• 1:58
  cost centre? Like there are all these things
• 2:00
  that we're looking at just from different lenses about how we
• 2:03
  can either partner or do things with them in a more holistic
• 2:06
  way. And so we're really excited.
• 2:08
  So I can't wait. Great to see you there next
• 2:09
  week. I'm I'm curious when, when
• 2:11
  you're curating content, who have you got in mind?
• 2:14
  Who is your muse that you're focused on?
• 2:17
  You of course, no, our, you know, it's, it's hard really we
• 2:23
  wanted to look at global brands first and foremost because if
• 2:26
  they've already gone global, they've done a lot of the work,
• 2:29
  right? One of our opening keynote, one
• 2:31
  of our most really the most excited I am to to see is
• 2:34
  Guillaume Mott. He's the global CEO of Sephora.
• 2:37
  He's going to open this show talking about really the the
• 2:40
  theme is we belong to something beautiful and Sephora's known
• 2:44
  for not only diversity in their suppliers, but bringing together
• 2:48
  diverse brands. You know, even on a face like
• 2:51
  you might have something that is made for somebody you didn't
• 2:54
  think was in your demographic. They're really, really
• 2:57
  incredible at seamless Omni channel.
• 2:59
  They're loyalty like they are, they're amazing and they have a
• 3:02
  customer base of just, I believe it's just shy of about 100
• 3:06
  million. So really impressive and looking
• 3:09
  at what they've done around the world and how they've localised
• 3:12
  but still haven't lost sight of what the brand stands for, that
• 3:15
  is that was a great example. So that's how we're deciding to
• 3:18
  kick off the show. And he's, I've seen him speak
• 3:20
  before, he's a great speaker, very humble, but they definitely
• 3:24
  put the customer at the heart of what they do, similar to how you
• 3:28
  put the location at the heart. And, and I think you're, you're
• 3:31
  obviously treating Paris as almost the classroom, not just
• 3:34
  the venue for NRF. And I know you do this in, in at
• 3:39
  the big show in New York, but you're you're also bringing that
• 3:42
  with you as in the store tours, right?
• 3:44
  Exactly. It's such a popular thing in New
• 3:46
  York. And look, that's in January when
• 3:48
  it's really cold and not always nice and windy and, and hundreds
• 3:53
  and thousands of people queue to go into these retail stores and
• 3:57
  to take these tours where you're, you know, the store is
• 4:00
  closed just for you. You are looking behind the
• 4:02
  scenes. You're talking to, you know,
• 4:04
  general managers about how they implement technology.
• 4:07
  How what do they roll out about? How do they test?
• 4:09
  How do they know something's not working?
• 4:11
  So we're going to take that to Paris.
• 4:12
  And who doesn't want to go to a store in Paris?
• 4:14
  I mean, yeah, certainly every American coming over with us is
• 4:17
  is doing that to her. Just I'm curious, sorry to
• 4:21
  interrupt you. Are you actually expecting a lot
• 4:23
  of Americans to come over? You know, I think it was, it's
• 4:27
  always a hope that people want to travel and come to a global
• 4:30
  show. You know, I know ten of us from
• 4:32
  NRF are coming. We do have a couple.
• 4:35
  American people like us, Europeans, you know,
• 4:37
  religiously, I've been going to NRF for what, 15 years?
• 4:40
  So I don't think twice about it because I see it as such a
• 4:43
  critical part. And, you know, just to call out,
• 4:46
  I met Tesco's, Target, Walmart, all of the execs from all of
• 4:50
  these ones. You know, I've met with them at
• 4:53
  the event because it's like a a good place to huddle around.
• 4:56
  It is, and you know, that's kind of the hope is that we have
• 4:58
  these three touch points around the year from NRF that we'd
• 5:01
  have, you know, in June we're in the APAC region, in September
• 5:04
  we're in the European region, and then January in the
• 5:06
  Americas. You know, so, so we can hope,
• 5:08
  but we have two fantastic kind of more American brands coming
• 5:12
  over. We have Best Buy, Mark Urban is
• 5:14
  the Chief supply chain and sustainability officer there.
• 5:18
  He's held multiple executive roles over there.
• 5:20
  And I know we talked about it last week, but Best Buy, their
• 5:22
  Q2 earnings beat everyone's expectations, including their, I
• 5:26
  mean they are doing incredibly well in a lot of different
• 5:30
  channels, really diversifying their main portfolio.
• 5:33
  And you know people have them on the chopping block a decade ago
• 5:36
  pre COVID and 100% they are not they've really.
• 5:40
  So we're going to hear from Mark about that.
• 5:43
  Another, I mean American brand, but speakers are Canadian
• 5:47
  Authentic Brands Group. So we have Corey Salter, he's
• 5:50
  the Chief Operating Officer. And then we have Henry Stoop,
• 5:53
  who's the President of EMEA in India.
• 5:56
  And amount of brands, every time we talk to them, it's like 3 new
• 5:59
  brands in their portfolio, 5 new brands.
• 6:01
  They just made the announcement they're going to acquire guests.
• 6:04
  We're going to talk about that and some other brands.
• 6:06
  I think now they have, it's more than 100 brands under their
• 6:10
  portfolio and each one is like more popular than the next.
• 6:14
  And so I'm going to ask them about like, at what point are
• 6:16
  you cannibalising your own sales?
• 6:18
  At what point are you is what point is too many?
• 6:21
  How many brands do you keep having and keep buying?
• 6:23
  So they're really interesting model.
• 6:25
  I mean, they're more in the licencing world, but they also
• 6:29
  really kind of breathe life into these brands and especially the
• 6:32
  digital life. They bring them back kind of
• 6:35
  into the zeitgeist of what's cool again.
• 6:37
  So I'm excited to to both of those over in Paris.
• 6:41
  In terms of you mentioned right up front the sort of major theme
• 6:44
  of NRF Europe, what do you see as being the sub theme?
• 6:48
  So, you know, if we imagine the the muse that's they've just
• 6:52
  finished three lovely days in Paris.
• 6:54
  They've been to stores, they've been to the talks.
• 6:57
  What are those themes that you think they're going to be
• 6:59
  leaving the show with? Well.
• 7:01
  I think I'd probably be fired if I didn't say AI because you
• 7:06
  can't, you can't get away from it.
• 7:07
  I mean, number one, for pretty much every show we've ever held,
• 7:11
  it's going to be technology and new technology.
• 7:13
  So we again, we have startup hub, we have an innovator
• 7:16
  showcase. That's where the newest of the
• 7:18
  technology is coming to kind of show and talk through what what
• 7:22
  they're doing. And some of them are even kind
• 7:24
  of in the early stage of seeding and money like, and this is how
• 7:28
  they get a lot of their feedback, right?
• 7:29
  The retailers walking around talking to them about their road
• 7:32
  map. That's the new technology.
• 7:34
  It's definitely a theme. How how AI can help make things
• 7:37
  more efficient and has to be a theme not just in customer
• 7:41
  facing, but really internal operations.
• 7:43
  It's a huge, huge time saver for a lot of operations.
• 7:47
  Do you need a photo shoot? Can you do a lot of these in AI?
• 7:50
  Can you reskin some of your creative using AI rather than a
• 7:54
  reshoot and flying the samples to a place to do it?
• 7:57
  So there are some potential efficiencies to be gained, but
• 8:00
  at the heart of it, I think the end of the day, the main theme
• 8:03
  is always innovating and servicing customer.
• 8:06
  So I think there's a good number of sessions around each part of
• 8:11
  the journey. Our team really did a great job.
• 8:13
  You know, there's a lot on the payments piece and focusing on
• 8:17
  how do people want to pay and not everyone wants to pay the
• 8:19
  same way I want to pay with my credit card to get points.
• 8:23
  But the younger generation might want to do it with Klarna, they
• 8:25
  might want to do it with a firm, they might want to do it with
• 8:27
  PayPal or Venmo or WeChat. You know, there are all these
• 8:30
  other options. So walking through the right
• 8:33
  demographic, the right payment types, Apple Pay, things like
• 8:36
  that. We have Apple on stage, yeah,
• 8:38
  they, they don't speak a tonne. And so this, that was really
• 8:41
  exciting to get dumped. Up What are they covering?
• 8:44
  Payments exactly so duly noted. So Duncan Olby is coming from
• 8:52
  from I'll let. It that be out.
• 8:55
  Now you just really teed it up for me.
• 8:58
  But yeah, I mean, there's some great, you know, we have a
• 9:00
  couple on retail payments. Duncan's title, I'm trying to
• 9:03
  think, I think he's senior director of Apple Wall Commerce.
• 9:07
  So figuring out how and where does Apple show up?
• 9:11
  But they're bringing two of their partners.
• 9:13
  They're bringing on running, which is an unbelievably hot
• 9:16
  brand in the US and in Europe as well.
• 9:20
  And then they're also speaking with Adrian about how do you
• 9:23
  make payments flexible? How are they, how can they kind
• 9:27
  of bring in customers rather than just be a back office
• 9:29
  necessity? And like no one wants payments
• 9:31
  to go wrong. That's the bare minimum.
• 9:33
  But how do you actually bring in customers?
• 9:35
  Customers with offering different types of payment.
• 9:37
  No, that's phenomenal. Phenomenal.
• 9:39
  I think you've got, I was just looking, as you were talking 60
• 9:43
  startups from 17 countries, which actually just focusing on
• 9:47
  the country's element. We've got Spanish, we've got
• 9:50
  Italian, we've got French, we've got German.
• 9:52
  Are you catering to all of these languages?
• 9:54
  It's a phenomenal question. So all of the contents going to
• 9:57
  be in English. However, it will be live
• 9:59
  translating to 7 languages. So while the speakers will speak
• 10:03
  English and bless them because we we all know none of us could
• 10:07
  really do do that justice. And in French they are going to
• 10:11
  be able, we have, you know, live the bottom thirds of some of the
• 10:14
  rooms will have live translation to French.
• 10:16
  And then through the app it'll be Portuguese, German, Polish.
• 10:21
  Oh, there's a whole list. There's about 7 different
• 10:23
  translations, Italian, I know maybe Dutch I think is the 6th.
• 10:27
  So, but you know, we have almost 500 exhibitors all we have, you
• 10:32
  know, 40 countries. So there's going to be all the
• 10:34
  languages on the Expo floor. Then we have 100 different
• 10:37
  sessions, again all in English but translated for everybody if
• 10:40
  need be. And then you know, the guides
• 10:43
  and all of the on site signage that will be really in French
• 10:46
  and English. And then when available, if it's
• 10:49
  digital, it'll also be in those languages.
• 10:52
  OK final question, you're not the head of content NRF, you are
• 10:57
  just a visitor. What are the top 3 tips you
• 11:01
  would give to a visitor of the show?
• 11:05
  Comfortable shoes, number one, that is always you have to have
• 11:10
  comfortable shoes. I honestly, I would say come in
• 11:14
  with somewhat of a plan of what you want to attend from a
• 11:17
  content perspective. Like build a little bit of a
• 11:19
  schedule out, but leave room to walk the Expo floor, to walk the
• 11:23
  innovation hub, do all of the kind of touring because the
• 11:27
  technologies are really new. We have some of the old kind of
• 11:31
  global stalwarts that will always be, you know, have those
• 11:35
  gigantic booths and they always have something new and
• 11:37
  incredible. A lot of new new to you or new
• 11:41
  to me. If I'm the attendee, new to me
• 11:44
  technologies that honestly, this is your time to shop.
• 11:47
  This is your time to walk the floor and figure out you might
• 11:50
  not need it today, but you don't know in six months.
• 11:52
  The board tells you to prioritise something else.
• 11:55
  You already have all the translation vendors names
• 11:57
  because you walked the floor six months ago.
• 11:59
  So take the opportunity to just do do your research.
• 12:04
  You never know what you're going to need and and meet the people
• 12:07
  and eat the food and drink the wine.
• 12:08
  All of the the things that you should be doing in Paris anyway,
• 12:11
  both in and out of the show. But we have awards, we have
• 12:14
  parties. So just take advantage of, you
• 12:17
  know, come eat and drink on us and enjoy, enjoy learning a
• 12:21
  little bit about retail throughout Europe.
• 12:22
  I'm looking forward to it. Well, Jill, only 7, I think 7-8
• 12:26
  days or whatever. I don't.
• 12:28
  I'm just thinking when is this show gonna go out?
• 12:30
  So probably only only four days and four sleeps and yeah, 4
• 12:34
  sleeps. And we get to to share some
• 12:36
  fabulous French wine together. Definitely have a glass.
• 12:42
  Thank you so much for sharing this with us and I look forward
• 12:46
  to hopefully interviewing after the Best Buy keynote.
• 12:50
  Let's do it. Let's do it live.
• 12:51
  Maybe I'll I'll I'll bring Mark over.
• 12:53
  Thank you, Alex. I can't wait to see you there.
• 12:56
  And if anyone has any questions about the show, please go to the
• 13:00
  website. It's NRF big show europe.com.
• 13:03
  And if you want it in English or a different language, toggle it
• 13:06
  down and you will find your language up at the top.
• 13:08
  Right, we'll put them in the show notes.
• 13:10
  So you'll you just whatever platform on you'll find them in
• 13:14
  until next week. Jill, take care.
• 13:16
  Thank you. Thanks, Alex.