Latest / The Retail Podcast / Boots’ Fragrance Boutique, Designers @ Debenhams, Søstrene Grene’s UK Surge, NikeSKIMS, Laura Ashley

Transcript

Boots’ Fragrance Boutique, Designers @ Debenhams, Søstrene Grene’s UK Surge, NikeSKIMS, Laura Ashley · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, welcome back to five things Friday.
• 0:03
  It is Friday. We are going to get this episode
• 0:05
  out today. I'm committed to that.
• 0:08
  I'm joined by my wonderful Co host Simone and as they say,
• 0:12
  let's roll the credits. OK, so as I said, we're going to
• 0:28
  jump straight to it. I'm still clapping, I'm still
• 0:30
  passionate. Let's start.
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  I'm going to start with boots in the UK.
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  Boots have done, I think Boots have done a phenomenal job of
• 0:39
  staying relevant to their customers and understanding the
• 0:42
  trends that are coming and more importantly the competitors that
• 0:46
  are coming after their business. And so with that, Boots have
• 0:50
  decided to launch their first ever fragrance only booty at
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  Broadgate, Central London on the 23rd of October, just in time
• 0:59
  for Christmas and the gifting season.
• 1:01
  The 2150 square foot space will stock over 400 a niche sense.
• 1:08
  I've got to call it sense, including twenty own brand to
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  boots and I think Boots again, phenomenal job on their own
• 1:16
  brand getting it right. I've worked with boots and so
• 1:20
  I've spent a lot of time in Nottingham understanding how
• 1:22
  much they put it into understanding their customer.
• 1:26
  So I reckon there's going to be a couple of little sensation
• 1:29
  hits in there. It's a consultantation LED
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  experience. As we all know, that's what
• 1:33
  beauty is about. That's what's made Sephora and
• 1:36
  all the other brands and expand. Is Kiko in in?
• 1:39
  Is it Kiko in the UK? I can't remember anyone.
• 1:41
  In the UK. Beauty is a massive thing,
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  concierge services, gift wrapping, and it follows the
• 1:47
  company's beauty only. You've heard me talk about this
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  because I absolutely love the Battersea Power Station
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  development. I think it's a really beautiful
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  shopping experience and they've got their own beauty or Boots
• 2:00
  beauty only store that was the first one there and this is now
• 2:03
  going to be the the same or so. But it's also a signal, well,
• 2:06
  that boots are now pushing into premium, which I think is
• 2:10
  something that's been lacking because they've been there, you
• 2:12
  know, everyday brand that you can turn to, but now they want
• 2:16
  to sort of push a little bit further and go to that.
• 2:18
  So that's my one, Simone. How about we go to you for the
• 2:22
  next one? Yes.
• 2:23
  Are we going to do dabble? Which one would you like to do?
• 2:27
  Nike or the Devin? Designers Debenhams is back, and
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  as you can see on the video, at the front of this campaign is
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  the iconic Kim Cattrall AKA Samantha from Sex in the City,
• 2:42
  who I have to say I love. I think she's hilarious.
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  I think it's a really great choice.
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  But for those that don't know designers at Debenhams, it
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  originally launched in 1993 and it wasn't really just a range.
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  It was, I guess, the first retailer to really blur the
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  lines between designer fashion and High Street shopping, long
• 3:02
  before the whole collab culture was even a thing.
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  So they partnered with names like Henry Holland, which is
• 3:09
  what I remember them for Jasper Conran, Matthew Williamson, and
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  it made designers accessible. And I thought it was interesting
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  is when you really think about it, I think that Debenhams doing
• 3:20
  that set the playbook for collabs like, you know, H&M and
• 3:24
  Versace, which was a weird and wonderful collabs.
• 3:28
  But now with this this the brand Ashish is taking the lead and
• 3:32
  you saw on the video there, it's very.
• 3:38
  Sequence you Versace. It's very the month of Sex in
• 3:44
  the City. Yeah.
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  But Dan, Dan Finley, who's the CEO of Debenhams, really served.
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  I think I've got the core PO. We said designers at Debenhams
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  was more than a range. It was a retail movement.
• 3:56
  Bringing it back isn't just about nostalgia.
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  It's about reengineering the DNA that made it iconic for how
• 4:02
  people shop and live and dress now.
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  And I think that the High Street obviously needs a bit of jouge.
• 4:10
  We should get down on the show, you know I can.
• 4:12
  I would love to see you interview him.
• 4:14
  I would love that. Yeah, he's a he's a good guy.
• 4:17
  I saw him say again. So and if you're listening,
• 4:21
  yeah, I know Dan. If you he of course he listens.
• 4:24
  He knows me. He used to be head of digital at
• 4:26
  JD Sports and I saw him last year at NRF, like front row, he
• 4:31
  was on a panel talking. So I'd love to see you talk to
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  him because you're, you are the, you know, the type of shopper
• 4:37
  that he wants to bring to Debenhams.
• 4:39
  Absolutely. And I I'm really.
• 4:41
  Interested delivery partner. Laws, you know, while the
• 4:44
  product lands, and I mean, I love that vibrant kind of
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  product. I think it's not natural.
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  But yeah, I love what they're trying to achieve.
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  And yeah, bringing Debenhams really back into the
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  conversation. So excited to see where that
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  goes. Fantastic.
• 4:59
  This is the the upbeat show, right?
• 5:00
  So we're going to keep things upbeat because there's so much
• 5:03
  negativity, but it's coming to the season.
• 5:05
  It's the golden. I mean, we've got Halloween and
• 5:07
  we've got Bonfire Night, but after all of those this
• 5:10
  Christmas and there's actually Prime Day next week or the week
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  after, which statistically globally has become the shopping
• 5:18
  event for Christmas. I'm going to try and say this
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  correctly. Sustra net, grey net, which is
• 5:23
  just pronounced. It's Austra net sauce and green.
• 5:27
  They're having a phenomenal time.
• 5:29
  Let me add them so you can see what I'm chatting about.
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  There you go. So it's it's Christmas, you
• 5:33
  know, you're getting into the season.
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  They're Danish homeware retailer, a little bit like IKEA
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  when you go through the stores, but shoppers absolutely love
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  them and they've had a record year and they've named the UK as
• 5:48
  their standout growth driver for 2425.
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  So they saw their profits rise from 31% to 314 million and UK
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  revenues have jumped 130%. I think this for me signals that
• 6:03
  little bit of indulgence that we like that is affordable.
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  It's affordable indulgence and the UK is lapping it up and
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  they're going to open another 67 stores during the year and I'm
• 6:15
  getting invited to to do something.
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  But anyway, fantastic story going from strength to strength.
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  Expect to see them in your part of the UK if they're not already
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  there and their profits are growing year.
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  And yeah. And remember, this is not
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  financial advice. Back to you, Simone.
• 6:33
  Oh. We've got positive topics today.
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  I'm liking this. That would be next is speaking
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  about the Nike and Skims Drop, which happened this week.
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  I know the out I announced earlier this year.
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  And when they did, I thought, yeah, very smart.
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  We've spoken before, Alex, about how competitive the athletes are
• 6:49
  in sportswear spaces. I think everyone's really
• 6:51
  fighting for attention from legacy giants like Nike to more
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  of the, I guess newer brands like Adenola and Alan.
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  Even, you know, Lululemon is obviously they're all constantly
• 7:03
  fighting for this. Nike, as big as it is, has been
• 7:07
  under a lot of pressure to stay relevant, especially with kind
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  of younger and more, I guess, culturally plugged in audiences.
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  And This is why I think this club is so interesting.
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  And Kim Kardashian had said founder and face of Skims had
• 7:20
  said it's not about it's not just about sales, it's about how
• 7:25
  it's about the cultural impact. And that line really stuck with
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  me and it made me think who gets the most out of this?
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  Is it Nike or is it Skims? Because Nike, that's the
• 7:34
  cultural clout. But I think Skims gets the, I
• 7:39
  don't know, I guess the performance credibility night
• 7:41
  has obviously been around for ages.
• 7:43
  But yeah, I thought it was interesting and it just got me
• 7:47
  thinking, who who do you think comes out stronger from this
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  Obviously 2 very dominant forces?
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  Really interesting. So yeah, yeah, I love it.
• 7:57
  I think, you know, trying to keep up with Adidas or having
• 8:00
  Adidas or Adidas, whichever 1. I think it's, it's really
• 8:04
  interesting and more interesting.
• 8:05
  Is that brown, which I thought was last year's colour?
• 8:08
  Is obviously this year's colour because everything is chocolate
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  brown or dark brown. Love it.
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  Really. OK, I'm on trend.
• 8:17
  I've got a new suede jacket that's chocolate brown
• 8:21
  obviously. So on trend Brown.
• 8:23
  Suede is very in. Laura Ashley has officially
• 8:28
  returned back to bricks and mortar in a lakeside, a 10,000
• 8:32
  square foot flagship. A lake Lakeside that's opened, I
• 8:36
  think opened last week actually on the 26th of September and
• 8:39
  it's a standalone store in five years.
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  The site is operated in partnership with Next.
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  Next traditionally don't fail when they do these types of
• 8:48
  brand activations because it was an acquisition by Marquee Brands
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  in January. And so expect to see, as you can
• 8:55
  see from their Instagram, a full deck or assortment sofa shop and
• 9:00
  a paint leaning hard into labels interiors DNA, right?
• 9:03
  So they're they're sticking to the interiors.
• 9:05
  I don't know if there's actually fashion here, but anyway,
• 9:08
  they've come back. You can go down to lakeside to
• 9:10
  see them. Hopefully we bought you a little
• 9:13
  bit of sugar in a sea of bitterness.
• 9:16
  That's the the news stories. And also, I guess to to sort of
• 9:20
  highlight what we're also seeing is this separation between
• 9:24
  retailers like Tesco's posting profit uplifts, they're going to
• 9:28
  be making more money where in luxury and Selfridges they're
• 9:31
  posting down grading their forecast.
• 9:34
  So again, it's really interesting space to watch ever,
• 9:38
  ever fast and ever moving changing.
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  Simone, any final thoughts? Will we say goodbye for the
• 9:43
  week? It's been a very. +1 this week.
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  I'm loving it and it's been no doom and gloom.
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  You're. Feeling good, right?
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  You're going to leave well that positivity.
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  So thank you so much for being with us and sharing your
• 9:58
  thoughts, and I look forward to seeing you next week.
• 10:01
  See you next. Week.