Latest / The Retail Podcast / Marketplace Reset, Mosaic Collapse, Shanghai Community Stores, Brompton’s China Play, OR Sydney

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Marketplace Reset, Mosaic Collapse, Shanghai Community Stores, Brompton’s China Play, OR Sydney · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to another fantastic episode of
• 0:03
  Five Things Friday, AIPAC Edition.
• 0:06
  Now you may be seeing that we are missing one person.
• 0:10
  Yes, Reefer is on holiday, which is cool.
• 0:12
  He's gone skiing in New Zealand or OK for some.
• 0:16
  Have you ever been skiing in New Zealand, Laura?
• 0:19
  No, I haven't. I should because it's Queenstown
• 0:22
  is lovely. It's like the the cool place to
• 0:24
  go skiing. OK.
• 0:26
  So he's he's hanging with the cool kids.
• 0:28
  Yeah. So why don't we jump into it,
• 0:30
  Laura? You start, you give us your free
• 0:33
  today, and then I'll take it from there.
• 0:36
  OK, hello. My first thing we've been
• 0:39
  talking a lot Alex about marketplaces and I want to talk
• 0:43
  about it because I feel like what what would actually end as
• 0:47
  we're in death of old style marketplaces.
• 0:50
  I'm over here because of eBay Australia, they sponsored me,
• 0:53
  they brought me to Australia. I'm always a big fan of
• 0:56
  marketplaces. I like to talk about them.
• 0:57
  We've had we've I think we've over indexed in marketplaces in
• 1:01
  Australia. We've had a lot of them and
• 1:04
  interestingly the reason why this has kept my attention this
• 1:07
  week as one of our long standing marketplaces which was is called
• 1:12
  my deal. It was acquired by the
• 1:14
  Woolworths Group for 243,000,000 and they've just announced that
• 1:20
  they're going to, it's going to be no more at the end of this
• 1:23
  quarter. It will be gone.
• 1:25
  It's very familiar to West Farmers, which isn't one of the
• 1:29
  biggest businesses that owns one's Bunnings and lots of
• 1:33
  different retail businesses within that arm.
• 1:36
  The acquired catch of the day, which is very similar to my deal
• 1:41
  for similar price point and that is no longer from the start of
• 1:45
  the year. So in this year we've seen two
• 1:48
  of the long standing marketplaces go go.
• 1:51
  Now when I look at it interestingly, I was on a call
• 1:54
  to the iconic. So the iconic is our equivalent
• 1:57
  of I guess Esos to for for anyone in the UKA Pureplay
• 2:01
  fashion business. They've been building a
• 2:04
  marketplace for eight years and they're really doubling.
• 2:08
  They're doubling down on it. It's a massive part of the
• 2:10
  strategy now and going forward. And what we're seeing as the
• 2:14
  traditional type of marketplaces, which you know was
• 2:18
  almost like that commodity search, everything is kind of
• 2:21
  going and or it's maybe more being pivoted to Amazon and
• 2:26
  eBay. Do that and potentially Sheen
• 2:30
  some of the team you're kind of taking on that side of things.
• 2:34
  But the retailers who are having these kind of hybrid approaches
• 2:38
  to marketplaces are really thriving.
• 2:41
  So what I mean by that is they have their own products.
• 2:44
  You know, they've got their own products, they're buying their
• 2:46
  own brands, but then they're supporting this, you know, these
• 2:48
  direct to consumer brands to grow there.
• 2:50
  There's another business called Kogan.
• 2:52
  They sell a lot electrical electronic goods.
• 2:55
  They do their own products and they've got to be quite happy
• 2:59
  with this situation. I think it's a really what we're
• 3:02
  seeing here. I don't know if we're seeing it
• 3:04
  and other side of the world, but quite heavily saturated in
• 3:07
  marketplaces. 2 of the longest standing marketplaces who have
• 3:10
  been around. I mean I don't even want to say,
• 3:12
  but probably 15 plus years they're gone.
• 3:17
  They were acquired by massive companies and I don't actually
• 3:20
  believe the massive, it's a big loss to the massive companies
• 3:24
  have probably hold some of the some things they want to keep
• 3:28
  from the tech to really bring bring that marketplace model
• 3:32
  back to their own. So Willie's, Willie's is
• 3:34
  actually building out. They've got their own kind of
• 3:36
  version of marketplaces. So potentially, you know, you
• 3:40
  could almost go, was it strategic to buy them and then
• 3:43
  run them down? I don't think that was a plan,
• 3:46
  but I I definitely feel it maybe just didn't really add the right
• 3:50
  value depth of marketplaces in terms of that old fashioned, but
• 3:55
  a resurgent, a new resurgence of new type marketplace is really
• 4:00
  strong. And that is my first point.
• 4:03
  My second point is I've I've put in a link to a news article
• 4:08
  about the sad liquidation of the Mosaic Group which has a has a
• 4:14
  portfolio of brands in it. It has been a bit of a loss to
• 4:17
  the retail landscape in Australia with 2800 jobs going.
• 4:22
  They had a debt of about over 300 million in debt and it went
• 4:28
  any voluntary administration last year and then it just went
• 4:32
  any liquidation this month. I think what's interesting about
• 4:36
  this, the this was acquired by private equity in 2014 and it's
• 4:41
  actually going through a bit of an investigation.
• 4:43
  So there's going to be a two-part documentary on SBS
• 4:48
  around not necessarily this, but potentially the, the company
• 4:53
  that owned it and maybe some of the, the dealings with their
• 4:56
  suppliers. So it's, it's a bit of a
• 4:58
  cautionary tale. Private equity's got a really
• 5:01
  bit of a name in this side of the world, maybe that's global,
• 5:05
  but yet that's. And they're actually saying that
• 5:08
  Mosaic brands the the portfolio been in it have probably been
• 5:11
  trading insolvent for about four years.
• 5:15
  Yeah. So the so The thing is with us
• 5:17
  as well, the company the P that owns it actually own another
• 5:21
  group, group called Alchemy and they have a blue of brands under
• 5:26
  it actually an arm of that that company has when and to
• 5:31
  receivership as well. It sounds like it's pretty bad
• 5:34
  news for the supply chain, the workers, the anyone who's in
• 5:39
  that ecosystem. I have to we're we're sharing
• 5:43
  because just I don't get a copyright infringement.
• 5:45
  We're sharing images from Sky News on their website.
• 5:50
  See, this is national news locally.
• 5:52
  This is quite a a big a collapse of a of a major organisation.
• 5:58
  As and it's, and I think as well would it, you know, with the
• 6:00
  fact that, you know, you're talking about it going deeper,
• 6:03
  right? Like you're, it's like
• 6:06
  everyone's getting looked at a bit closer from private equity
• 6:09
  to the C-Suite. And it kind of hits home because
• 6:12
  I'm looking at getting on a board this year.
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  There's a non executive and at that board level, you're, you're
• 6:17
  kind of responsible and accountable.
• 6:19
  And what we're seeing now is potentially, you know, there's,
• 6:23
  there's an investigation on underway and we're going to see
• 6:27
  something on SBS about it. So it's, it's a really
• 6:32
  interesting time and a bit of a cautionary tale, a little bit of
• 6:35
  a sad story because these are some of the sweetheart brands of
• 6:38
  Australian, the Australian like landscape, you know, from.
• 6:43
  Yeah, from the two businesses. So that's I'll keep you updated
• 6:47
  on what happens with that. Sure.
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  Yes, so so that one is my second one.
• 6:52
  So my 2 are going to be my favourite stores in China.
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  I'm going to just jump straight in.
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  This was a report that we created for client looking at 4
• 7:01
  specific areas, digital integration, human centric
• 7:04
  spaces, sustainability and cultural relevance.
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  And then as part of that, we took it sort of deep dive into
• 7:12
  the the retail landscape in Shanghai.
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  And one of my favourite stores in Shanghai is Deja Vu.
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  They're a bookstore, they're a fashion store.
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  But the most important thing, they're an online marketplace as
• 7:23
  well with 12 million users selling over 36 million books.
• 7:29
  And it's all either upcycled, recycled in that sort of
• 7:35
  sustainable ecosystem. But the one thing I really
• 7:38
  number one is super cool because obviously now we're getting into
• 7:41
  upcycle and recycle, but there's digital integration as well.
• 7:45
  Why I love this store so much. When you used to go to the
• 7:49
  library, you used to be able to see all the dates this book has
• 7:53
  been checked out because these books are recycled.
• 7:56
  So you can see the profile of the people that have take.
• 8:00
  Obviously if they opt in that, but you will this that's the
• 8:03
  reason you do this because you then start following the types
• 8:07
  of people that read the types of books that you like.
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  You can reach out to them and say, hey, what was your view of
• 8:13
  the book? You can also see what what they
• 8:15
  do and what they do is to sort of keep the community involved
• 8:19
  and engaged. It's something called fish
• 8:22
  points and fake points aren't necessarily discounts, but
• 8:27
  they're more interactions. So for example, there's a latest
• 8:32
  version one or edition one of a book coming out.
• 8:36
  You can use your fish points to get that book.
• 8:40
  But the whole ecosystem and the store, I can't remember if they
• 8:43
  ever got another photo here. This is the fashion bit, which
• 8:47
  basically you, you, you have an Instagram moment on the ground
• 8:50
  floor and you go in, you go upstairs, it's the bookstore and
• 8:54
  then on the store above it's the fashion again, which is all up
• 8:57
  cycled, recycled. The on these you don't get to
• 9:00
  see who had the clothes before, but it's just digital
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  integration with the app, the fish points, which has led to it
• 9:07
  being so of fresh credits for rare things.
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  And then the books, they restore the books, they clean them, they
• 9:14
  restore them, they put them back together.
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  So there's this sort of whole love affair with books that has
• 9:20
  been digitised and put online and they've just moved into
• 9:23
  fashion and you can see the numbers are fairly large there.
• 9:26
  That's one of my favourite stores in the Shanghai.
• 9:29
  The second favourite store in Shanghai is this one not gentle
• 9:34
  monster. Let me get to it is Brompton.
• 9:37
  Now Brompton's a good old bicycle firm based in London who
• 9:42
  sort of expanded out into the world.
• 9:45
  The story behind it, if I, if you and I were having a
• 9:47
  conversation about fold up bikes, you're like, OK, fold up
• 9:50
  bikes. Not, you know, not that
• 9:52
  engaging, not, not that that, not not that interesting.
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  But what Bronson in Shanghai specifically have done is they
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  looked at the profile of the types of people that ride bikes.
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  And here's AI met this lady just by coincident in in Shanghai at
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  Brompton. And her Instagram profile, you
• 10:14
  can see she loves cycling, but she loves traditional Rd bikes
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  and she loves her cat. So she loves personalisation.
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  And what Brompton have effectively been able to do is
• 10:25
  open a beautiful shop. But in Shanghai, retail is not
• 10:29
  just about product, it's about community and engagement.
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  I've said this many times where what's the point of having a
• 10:36
  beautiful product if your customers can't come and hang
• 10:40
  out with you, have a coffee or get there, you know, have the
• 10:44
  workshop visible to sort of create that movement.
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  And now you can see the lady on the on the right hand side with
• 10:52
  her customised Brompton and her hat figurine on the front of her
• 10:56
  bike again. She likes to go to the store,
• 10:59
  hang out, get her bike serviced, have a coffee and be part of
• 11:04
  that sort of community. But that's not where it stops.
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  These guys have created a whole movement of taking Bromptons
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  around the world. There's a large community of
• 11:15
  them and they go to various cities around Asia and they
• 11:18
  cycle the city together from Japan to, obviously, Beijing.
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  What a master class in how you move as an international brand
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  into a new territory and then you focus on building the
• 11:32
  community rather than this just beautiful retail stores.
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  And some of these stories that you're sharing about the
• 11:38
  collapse of retail, in my mind are these old retailers that are
• 11:42
  still transactional based, not community based.
• 11:46
  I love, I love Alex, like the the Bookstore 1.
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  You know, I was in Westfield talking about that retailer.
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  The experience, like a lot of the mainstream stores not doing
• 11:56
  anything different. Nobody's in them.
• 11:59
  The busiest shop was a bookstore called Harry Hartock, which is a
• 12:05
  beautiful bookstore. And when you go in up the back,
• 12:08
  there's like some seats so you can actually sit.
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  You could sit there for two hours and read a book.
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  So not quite it's not quite like the Shanghai, but it's, it was
• 12:17
  the most it was the busiest place.
• 12:19
  It's books. We can get books anywhere and
• 12:21
  get them online. That, that nostalgia and that
• 12:24
  the, the love and the almost what you know, who's reading it?
• 12:28
  It's it's pretty amazing. And I love, I love even like
• 12:32
  that, you know, how the way they can fold the bikes away and then
• 12:34
  they're, they're super cool. I think, I think as well, it's
• 12:38
  like moving from that just, you know, these kind of vital
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  moments. I feel like in Asia, a lot of
• 12:45
  the businesses of the past that now they're actually building
• 12:48
  real integration between that community and retail.
• 12:54
  Whereas what we are still seeing in Australia is a wee bit more
• 12:57
  of that pop up viral. Try to get that viral.
• 12:59
  Try to get the, the Instagram, the, you know, the TikTok, the
• 13:03
  the little bitty content. The Asian countries are they're
• 13:06
  five steps ahead. Yeah.
• 13:08
  Well, my last one is related to a conference that I chair in
• 13:12
  Sydney. It's in two weeks.
• 13:14
  It's called the online retailer. I've pinged you the link.
• 13:18
  Yeah, give me. One second I'll get this up.
• 13:21
  But this is the largest e-commerce conference in Expo in
• 13:24
  Australia, probably, yeah, there'll be about 4000 people
• 13:29
  coming to it. We've got the usual, the Expo
• 13:31
  floor with all the vendors, all the Shopify's, the Clivio, the,
• 13:37
  you know, the who's who of tech will be there.
• 13:39
  And that will be like the, the conference, the, the mainstage
• 13:43
  and then the breakout stage with lots of lots of content.
• 13:46
  It's shaping up to be a really good one this year.
• 13:49
  I think there's a definite need for businesses that are looking
• 13:52
  a wee bit more. We're kind of over the noise of
• 13:55
  best and breed tech and now we're going back like people
• 13:58
  being quite focused on what they need to do within their
• 14:00
  business. So shaping up to be a really
• 14:03
  good conference. This is probably Alex, I mean,
• 14:06
  you spoke about I would say for any like tech businesses that
• 14:10
  are, you know, Australia's, but what we 28 million people were
• 14:13
  small, right? Like if you were coming over and
• 14:16
  needed a go to market, this is probably probably one of the
• 14:19
  good ones to come to. There's a couple of businesses
• 14:22
  and tech companies that are like that I work with that actually
• 14:25
  they will come over, one of them will have a little stand, the
• 14:28
  other one will just be connected to fuel the market.
• 14:31
  So, and again, I think there's we've spoke about this a wee
• 14:34
  bit. There's ways to do go to market
• 14:38
  smart, you know, budgets. We were seeing a lot over just
• 14:43
  after that COVID boom, the tech boom.
• 14:46
  We had a lot of companies, tech companies, we're setting up
• 14:50
  teams here that's been pulled back.
• 14:52
  So we're seeing these more satellite teams more having one
• 14:55
  or two people who do the roles of four or five.
• 14:58
  This, this conference is ideal for you to come and meet
• 15:02
  everyone. There's a group of two guys that
• 15:05
  I'm really friendly with have set up a little, a little say a
• 15:08
  little WhatsApp community. I think they've got like about
• 15:10
  1000 people on a WhatsApp chat. Yeah.
• 15:14
  Just just showing you the engagement level where a lot of
• 15:17
  very jealous. Yeah, I know I'd love Alex next
• 15:21
  year. You definitely need to get get
• 15:22
  over to this one. Sure.
• 15:24
  Yeah. Always up for a trip to Sydney,
• 15:27
  I ain't to lie. It's your win, right?
• 15:30
  What's the weather like? Like, listen, I mean, you're
• 15:33
  asking a Scottish lassie about the weather.
• 15:35
  It's I think it's, I think it's pretty beautiful.
• 15:37
  Like today was today was a little bit chilly, but I'll tell
• 15:41
  you. Like, like you're talking about
• 15:44
  17° is where we're at. Another one.
• 15:47
  Oh yeah. Yeah, I got you.
• 15:49
  Yeah, exactly. We're all of our tops off, all
• 15:51
  the British people outside tops off Sun, Yeah.
• 15:56
  Then, OK, that looks super cool. And coincidentally, another
• 15:59
  plug, but the Shopify interview that we did all approved will be
• 16:03
  out next week with Bobby, their CRO on, which will be exciting.
• 16:08
  So hopefully we'll, we'll put that out and maybe we can talk
• 16:11
  about it next week. OK, Laura, I want to be super
• 16:14
  sensitive to your time. Thank you so much for joining us
• 16:17
  today and I look forward to seeing you next week And Reef
• 16:21
  will be back. I'll see you soon.
• 16:23
  Take care, bye. Bye.