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Driving Marketplace Innovation at Kingfisher · The Retail Podcast

0:00
So I'd say yeah, for the offering perspective is the way
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that we we're going to play with it is how do you how do you make
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sure that you're driving choice and that you're there, that
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you're the player. And now I would say the the
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biggest change that I've seen in the last couple of years is that
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customers are the ones that are telling what they need and not
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the other way around. Hello, and welcome to the Retail
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Podcast. Now today we're in the studio
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and we're joined by David Gomez Cardona from Kingfisher, who is
0:37
Group Marketplace Director. And David, I'll have those
0:41
straight to you. Yeah.
0:43
I mean, thank you. Thank you, Alex and thanks,
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thanks for the interest of I mean, I've always been
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fascinated by how digital platforms connect people and
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businesses. I started my career in logistics
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in the USA while ago, but quickly and felt the need to
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actually pivot to e-commerce. I was really attracted by the
1:01
how by how fast-paced this industry was, right.
1:05
So my journey has taken me from Colombia to France and now the
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UK by helping building retailers build and scale their
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marketplace business. So from driving digital
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transformation and TV scan to launching the warmer lands
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marketplace business, well, I've been deeply involved in
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marketplace expansion, expansion at those different markets.
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Now I can feature a focus on well from 1:00 by expanding our
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online marketplace, driving digital growth and helping our
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banners innovate in e-commerce overall.
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And as you were saying, I mean, people may ask who we are, who's
1:36
Can Fisher so well? Can Fisher is a leading home
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improvement retailer in Europe. We're present in around 8
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markets with five different brands from B&Q, Castrama,
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Bricodepo, Screwfix and Costas. And we have our nine 1900 stores
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with around 80,000 colleagues in these eight markets, each of
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them the different business, different approach and quite a
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strong local expertise. And of course, at the heart of
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our strategy behind it, we have what we call the power biking
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feature philosophy, which in a nutshell, it's we really, we are
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quite keen to actually, let's say, use the differences that we
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have in each of our banners. And the difference that we have
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actually makes us stronger. So we use this to scale and to
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drive synergies, innovation and efficiency, while empowering
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banners to still agile and, and actually locally relevant.
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And when it comes to my work, well, it's, it's all, it's a
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blend between strategy, digital transformation and leadership,
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helping our businesses scale their own own presence well for
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string trust, functional collaboration.
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And I would say like, what really energises me behind all
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of this is seeing how technology and e-commerce come together,
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right? And to solve real customer
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issues for retailers, how to scale in this, in this, in this
2:48
world today. And I would say, yeah, I mean,
2:50
outside world, I would describe myself as I love a good
2:53
conversation around travelling, geopolitics, cuisine and stuff
2:56
like this, right? So yeah, this is what I can tell
2:58
you. OK, no, fantastic.
3:00
I mean, it's really interesting that the journey that I can
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imagine you have gone and your industry has gone from the times
3:07
of when we were all in our houses thinking about what, you
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know, what home improvements we're going to do then you know,
3:14
lockdown opens up and stuff. I'm curious, how is that?
3:18
You know, when you look at the Kingfisher strategic priorities,
3:22
obviously marketplace says I I can definitely see e-commerce
3:25
digital marketplaces at the heart of growth.
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But is that right? Is that is, I mean what would,
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what would the strategic prior, what would you see being the
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strategic priorities? Yeah, totally.
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I mean that's, that's a great question.
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I mean, I think today team features e-commerce strategy is
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about meeting those customer needs on this customer needs
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growing expectations around speed, convenience and choice,
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right. When you tell me, David, this is
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not new. This is something that I mean
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it's not, I mean really maintain anything revolutionary here,
3:58
right. But we're seeing like different
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demographics behaving in different way.
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So from young consumers, young generations to those that are in
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more urban areas. Well, expectations are actually
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changing quite rapidly, whether it comes from rapid delivery to
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convenience and click and collect, returning a product in
4:15
store to the rise of social commerce that is actually
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shifting the market itself. Yeah.
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And usually this goes beyond like retailers natural
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capabilities. So I think that as part of our
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holistic e-commerce strategy, we're seeking on actually
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leveraging the strength and the number of our store assets to
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meet our customers demanding needs.
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And what I can tell you is that so far, if you look into our 1P
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to retail e-commerce business, around 93% of these orders
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actually peaked in store and click and collect represents
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around 87% of our first party e-commerce sales.
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And well now so it's, it's, yeah, it's the way that we're
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leveraging on this. And well, when it comes to to
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marketplace, the market role and how do we play a role into it,
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into this, well, we're really leveraging marketplace to
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accelerate both speed and choice, but as well convenience.
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So there is a great opportunity for us in the marketplace to, to
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drive this acceleration. And I think you were mentioning
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it before, but we, we're targeting to, to, I mean, we
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have a huge ambition actually representing 1/3 of the Group
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e-commerce sells to our marketplace in a medium term.
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Yeah. OK.
5:29
Wow. So just curious on one of the
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trends, if you have seen a trend in terms of how quickly people
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want things because it used to. I'm just, this is just, I'm, I'm
5:40
your general opinion, not necessarily what King
5:42
Kingfisher's focus is on. But are you seeing is there, is
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there a need? Do people want things in four
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hours or one hour? Or are they happy with the 30
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minute, 24 hour window? That's that's.
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I mean, personal opinion, I think it depends on what is the
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product behind when you're looking to retail as a whole.
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I can tell you that consumer, I mean consumer goods, grocery,
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grocery was one of the industry that's fastest.
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Like, I mean, that shifted the fastest into e-commerce and then
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to marketplace, while home improvement DIY as a whole take
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a little bit longer. And when seeing, I mean, taking
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this way will be commercial related to plate and everyone
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else. And the reason why you say this
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is because it's directly linked with speed of, of delivery from
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customers. If we focus on home improvement
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DIY, well, a customer that is building a kitchen or that is
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building, I don't know, like a bigger project wouldn't mind
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probably to wait like even more than two days or 2-3 days to
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reach your product. While if you're fixing something
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urgently where you will need to have it, I would say in 30
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minutes, and this is specifically what I mean, what
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we've done, I mean with Screwfix, with the Screwfix
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Sprint, but actually delivers anywhere in the UK in less than
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one hour to the customer. You go into the app and you can
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you can get everything in less than one hour, whether you want
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it delivered in or collected in the store.
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So specifically for Screwfix, that's any of the products on
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their e-commerce website you can get within that time frame?
7:09
Yes, that's right. And then how does that go into
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when you look at marketplace and the banners that your
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marketplaces serve? So how does, how do you then
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decide when you're going into new markets, what does that look
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like? To say the way they were looking
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at it, it's, I mean, at the end, marketplace is not like the end
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goal, but it's more around how do we serve those 3 principles
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of speed on convenience and choice.
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Truly, we truly believe that marketplace is a great tool to
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get right. So if you look at it, take a
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step back and think about where do we stand when, how we done
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and how we're serving this. We open the UK change first home
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improvement marketplace with indiawhite.com B&Q, right?
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This was in 2022 and at the time we're targeting how to go and I
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would say improve our choice for customers in the UK.
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We went from circa, I would say 50,000 SKUs back in February 22
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to today more than 1.5 million products that are available for
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customers. And this now we're presenting
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around 40% of B and QS all Excel.
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So which is huge acceleration both in terms of chones but as
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well today in terms of capabilities for I mean
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possibilities for our customers. But this design not only develop
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doesn't allow us to, to, to, to accelerate and strengthen on
8:27
improvement our choice of customers, but as well enable
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our banners to reach new customers to when we look at the
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retrospectively, well, we know that in DIY that come around 50%
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of our customers actually need customers to be in queue and
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around 25% of them have never been to the store.
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So in the in the country which is the UK, you may say, hey,
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BNQ, everyone knows be in queue, yes, but we're actually
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accepting, actually accepting new customers to to a
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marketplace, right? Yeah.
8:57
And this is not the case only for I mean for, for B&Q in the
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UK, but actually as well for our other marketplaces.
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And now that we're live with the marketplace in, in all key
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markets. So basically in B&Q in the UK
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with Bricordeco in Spain and Portugal, Castro in France since
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March 2024. We most recently launched our
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our marketplace in Castrama, Poland, a market that I mean,
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it's really a market where we're strong and we're really looking
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forward to using this power of marketplaces to accelerate our
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our digital growth. And yeah, that's that's what I
9:31
can tell you. So I assume there's still a big,
9:34
because your expansion has been phenomenal.
9:36
You still see that expansion across the regions basically.
9:41
Yes. So we continuously like that is
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that expansion for sure. And we, we totally today then
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this growth that was going to have in the market were already
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established is going to be fully accelerated by our capacity to
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to grow our digital business. And all of that, as we were
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saying, underpinned by our strengths within within
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classical retail stores and that connection that we can make
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between between both the e-commerce world and our stores.
10:07
You mentioned about people shopping online that aren't
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necessarily physical shoppers, but is there a conversion number
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to that or is that part of the strategy to get those people to
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convert to become physical visitors or not really?
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I mean, is that or is the other way round?
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I'm just confused. How would you look at that?
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Do you look at that as positive? Yeah, sorry.
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I mean, I guess this is, this is something classical within I
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mean when you're a retailer and you're developing a main overall
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detail business beyond marketplaces this So it's
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something that it's, it's natural, but I would say it's
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not the end goal. I mean our end goal today is
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really to say, hey, we're strong in, in retail, classical stores,
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retail. How can we leverage that to
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continue delivering and actually developing a new business and
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serving these new customer needs, right.
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So we'll have the customers here that are only buying online and
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we need to serve those customers.
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And in the same time, we have customers that are going to be
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continuously looking to shopping offline while we have that kind
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of a mix. And this is what we're trying to
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address with with this approach, right?
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I mean, if you're looking to, I would say one of the, the
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biggest value propositions that we have to in the marketplace
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in, in B&Q is actually the capacity of accepting returns in
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stores. So as a customer, you can easily
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and without any worries go and buy in the
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marketplaceindia1.com, get a product delivered to your house
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and if there's an issue you're not satisfying, you change your
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mind or you can actually bring it back to the store.
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And this is something that is quite a need for, for the
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marketplace business. So, and we see it as really,
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really value added for, for customers in, in different polls
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and, and service that we've had with them.
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But the next step is really into our Omni channel connectivity is
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to develop the click and collect capabilities as well to fully
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engage all of this to happen and to really drive customers wine
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purchasing, converting it online, go in and pick it up the
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product in store. And then the, the the growl is
12:02
here because we'll manage to drive customers from the web to
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store, but actually from store to web as well.
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So this is where we want to really connect both of these
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worlds. It's not one way and we think
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it's both ways that things are going to happen.
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When you look at the wider market and you know there's some
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of the challenges and trends that you see within obviously
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within your space, what do you see those?
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What are they as as you continue to grow?
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It's a great question. I think there is there's
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something that it's that we see more and more when when what
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you're in our detail offering is AI mean stores working hand on
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hand with with our marketplace on e-commerce offering.
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So I think there's no huge opportunity for for retailers
12:45
out there. I mean, there have this kind of
12:47
setup, which is if you're a store member, store staff and
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you have the capacity to not only answer your customer needs
12:54
because what they have in front of you with just the stock that
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they have in your store, but actually with a wider offer.
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This is this is one of the, this is a huge opportunity.
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So today's stores are of course, are having their own main role,
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but as well-being more of a showroom and a place for us to
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physically show offering to customers, but actually drive
13:15
them and agnostically convert them, whether it's in store,
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whether it's online, whether it's delivery.
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So this is this is one of the one of the challenges, but as
13:24
well trends that we're seeing in this space.
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I could talk as well about probably how do you innovate
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continuously draw on speed and convenience.
13:33
What I was mentioning just earlier, while we have the case
13:36
of screw fix with, with the delivering in in one hour, but
13:39
not only as I think as well. There is there's something
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around depending on on your city's landscape and how you're
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located. Well, actually, there isn't a
13:50
challenge to actually deliver inside like the main, the the
13:54
the downtown of the city as fast as possible.
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And this goes as well through different store models that we
14:00
that we can develop. Now it's a last but not least,
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there is something around how do we how do we continue adapting
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or how do you continue basically leveraging on a footprint that
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is international today to be able to serve customers around
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markets. And it is something that with
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the marketplace we are fully addressing which is key for us
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is all the partners that we work with today, let's say in B&Q.
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It is a key outer valley for us to to enable them to access
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other markets where we're pressing as well to do something
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that it's not only a trend within marketplace and
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e-commerce at home, but it's it's something that it's that is
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keen. There's an opportunity when you
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have this kind of set up. I'm too.
14:37
Curious on your thoughts because there'd be things that you may
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have had to to combat. I mean, if, if, if, if we take
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that from a, from an offering perspective, yeah, I would say
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one of the main challenges that you would have as a retailer is,
14:49
is to be able to, to stay. I mean, to, to be there for your
14:53
customer needs, your customer request while remaining, I would
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say loyal to what your brand represents.
14:59
So if I, if I take example, let's say of, of B&Q or I mean
15:03
of Castrama today we're, I mean, these brands actually are all
15:07
within home and improvement as a whole, right.
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So we need to stay loyal to what this brand represents and to
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what we are, I mean, we were known for.
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So of course you would like to, I mean, as a brand, you would
15:18
like to be to be there and to be there when a customer is looking
15:21
for something to related with home improvement, right?
15:26
And he can go, I mean, it's, this is quite, this is quite, I
15:28
mean, it can be quite fast at some point.
15:30
I mean, the lines are quite blurry and do what we're trying
15:33
to do with let's say in the case of B&Q is like focusing on this.
15:36
So we are expanding our our scope of of, of territory of
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actually really where what is our play field, but remaining
15:44
loyal to this, right? So whenever a customer is is
15:47
buying today, looking for, let's say everything related with
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kitchen, kitchen material, kitchen appliances, well,
15:54
probably in the past we wouldn't sell this, but well, today we're
15:57
actually fully covering this need.
15:58
So where are you looking for the last airfryer?
16:00
We're looking for the last oven when we really need to make sure
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that we're playing there and we want that piece of a cake,
16:06
right? And we want the customers to
16:07
actually feel that they can find everything for the homework
16:10
being here. So I'd say yeah, for the
16:12
offering perspective is the way that we we're going to play with
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it is how do you how do you make sure that you're driving choice
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and that you're there, that you're the player.
16:20
And now I would say the, the biggest, the biggest change that
16:24
I've seen in the last couple of years is that customers are the
16:26
one that are telling what they need and not the other way
16:29
around. And there's no longer a store
16:31
saying, Hey, this is the product that you need is what I have to
16:33
rub to proport to you. It's not like it's like it's me
16:35
that is driving. It's me that is comparing.
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It's me that defines as a customer.
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What is the price that I'm willing to pay?
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What are the conditions that I that I have as a customer?
16:44
So, so the role has changed in the last couple of years.
16:46
That's fantastic. Look, David, I won't keep any
16:49
more of your time. I will take any more of your
16:51
time. I want to say thank you for
16:53
coming on the show and I look forward to maybe seeing you in
16:57
the UK sometime. No, thank you.
16:59
Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, Alex.
17:00
And it was great being here and the people for next time.