Latest / The Retail Podcast / Five Things Friday UK: Retail Tech, Reformation Stores, UAE Malls & What’s Next for UK Retail

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Five Things Friday UK: Retail Tech, Reformation Stores, UAE Malls & What’s Next for UK Retail · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, welcome back to another fantastic edition of Five Things
• 0:04
  Friday UK, and I'm joined by my fabulous
• 0:18
  host Simone. Hello, hello.
• 0:21
  We were both in the same place at the same time.
• 0:23
  How wonderful, now I'm asking Sunny.
• 0:26
  Yeah. Oh, actually, how's the weather?
• 0:28
  For you, Don't get me started. It's been raining non-stop here
• 0:32
  for like since I've got back. It's been raining.
• 0:34
  So anyway, have a little bit of sunshine.
• 0:37
  It was very, very beautiful. For those who don't know, I'm
• 0:40
  Alex. I help retailers maintain their
• 0:43
  relevance within their industries and also the people
• 0:45
  who sell to them. And Simone, what about you?
• 0:49
  Hi I'm Simone, I'm the Co founder of Need it for tonight
• 0:52
  NIFT where we work with retailers to help them have 90
• 0:56
  minute delivery. Fantastic.
• 0:58
  So why don't we just dive straight in and look at one?
• 1:04
  Actually, this is one of your talks from Shop Talk Lux.
• 1:07
  I know I just can't get enough of it so I'm still rambling on
• 1:10
  about it. I feel like people are sick of
• 1:12
  hearing me talk about the shop talk looks, but I went to a
• 1:16
  really good session and it was all about how we empower store
• 1:21
  employees with technology. And you know the common theme
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  really was technology really has to be woven into the experience,
• 1:27
  not bolted on. And an example that I loved was
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  the Allison, the chief innovation officer of
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  Reformation had basically created this.
• 1:36
  She described it as like a technology menu.
• 1:39
  Yes, stores. So if you want and it's really
• 1:41
  designed for all kinds of customers.
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  So if you want lots of help from a sales associate, fantastic.
• 1:47
  Got it. If you don't want to talk to
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  anyone and you want to put your earphones in, also great.
• 1:51
  And if you also want in between that, you've also got that
• 1:53
  option and you can browse on wall touch screens, you can scan
• 1:57
  QR codes to get items into your fitting room.
• 2:00
  You can build a basket digitally, or you can just shop
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  the old fashioned way. And I like it because it's it's
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  tech as a an option, not a requirement.
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  And it's built in so well like that.
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  The tech gets the most incredible data.
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  You know, it's most tried on items, best converting, product
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  fitting, roof behaviour. It really is like this Google
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  Analytics for physical health. I really loved it and I just
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  think it's a really good example of great customer experience
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  being built on top of great tech obviously, and operational
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  excellence. That's the kind of thing I want
• 2:36
  to see more of, and I really want to try it out as well.
• 2:39
  Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think this is the
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  wonderful thing of you and I because I'm the old timer who's
• 2:44
  sort of been there, seen there, done that.
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  And when I'm when people talk about data points from I
• 2:49
  remember Amazon did something and I was incredible, but I just
• 2:53
  never saw it come out like it never took off.
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  And so I love, you know, the the sort of enthusiasm and passion
• 2:59
  for what reformation have done. And back of mine went going.
• 3:03
  Have they cracked it? Have they have been being able
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  to push this? But it's interesting because in
• 3:07
  the stores they were saying they only have one skew out of
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  everything. They only have one product out,
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  so that they actually have this tech and it's very many in their
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  stores. But I just liked it because this
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  is, it's quite obviously it's smart, but it's quiet tech,
• 3:22
  yeah. I love it.
• 3:24
  Listen, I think the whole changing room experience has
• 3:28
  been so long in an update that makeover a glow up, you know,
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  and I've seen Ms try everyone S experimented, but the fact that
• 3:37
  reformation absorbed they're quite from looking at the the
• 3:41
  brand, they're quite young and it well feels like they're going
• 3:43
  on the right track anyway, from my perspective.
• 3:45
  I've spoken about this on the retail podcast and other
• 3:49
  regional shows where I've been talking about how various growth
• 3:54
  opportunities still exist and specifically, obviously, for the
• 3:58
  UK. This is like been banging the
• 4:01
  drum for a while now about a year and a bit saying, look,
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  you've got an influx of Chinese brands coming in because they
• 4:07
  see that as a growth opportunity in a stepping stone into Europe.
• 4:11
  And also you've got American brands coming in, which means
• 4:14
  good old blighties, for example, in this case, coffee producers,
• 4:19
  be be on, be on the lookout because you've now got they've
• 4:23
  opened up on living, they've opened up in Camden.
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  And I only expect to see the growth of these types of brands.
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  So interesting move. It's only two stores at the
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  moment, but they are a large chain in Asia and I can only
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  expect them to grow. And when I'm in London, I will
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  go and have a coffee and do a taste test to see actually if
• 4:42
  it's any good, which I think is really important.
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  Staying on with new things, moving on, on to on have done a
• 4:49
  collaboration with Sky high farm goods.
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  It's apparel as as well as ONS famous Cloud, I think they're
• 4:56
  called Cloud runners. Yeah, they are cloud runner 6
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  and it's footwear for the whole family, but inspired.
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  And this is a New York based farming community that obviously
• 5:07
  do fashion and clothing, but a sustainable and mission driven.
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  So again, you got to love anything that's highlighting
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  getting back and growing things and doing things naturally.
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  But I find it interesting that it's the second year I think on
• 5:21
  have done this. Yeah, So I'm like, I get it on
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  wants to maintain their sort of connection with core purpose
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  driven retail collaborations, which is great.
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  What's giving them meaning, you know?
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  Yeah, taking it away from where Nike sort of ended up being,
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  which really interesting. The other fine one for me is a
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  final one for me. Yeah, I know I've got two more.
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  The UK shoppers, you're all being really healthy, which is
• 5:47
  fantastic. But again, if you're a retailer,
• 5:50
  how are you tapping on into that?
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  This is we've got the World Cup coming up in the US.
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  People are now actively choosing and this is research from Nelson
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  IQ. There's shopping baskets in
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  January, February, which you would expect, right?
• 6:04
  Start the air knew me knew you, but I'm pretty sure we've spoken
• 6:07
  about this in terms of the the glow UPS that people are
• 6:11
  chasing. And then you can't get your glow
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  up unless you've got good food coming into you.
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  And so protein Iber have have really sort of taken off in
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  sales, which I thought was super interesting.
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  Final one for me and then we'll come back to you is Scoot, where
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  supposedly the fashion buyers go to meet fashion sellers or young
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  brands or designers or or not young.
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  So young people have been in the industry a long time, but it's
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  happening this weekend. It's happening at Olympia.
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  And again, if you can, if you're if you're in the fashion world,
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  then want to go and have a look. They've always got apparently
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  from Simone, tell them because I've not been.
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  They've always got some good talks on.
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  So it's always good to go and get some insights from the
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  fashion industry. Usually very well attended.
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  They're usually packed every time I've been.
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  And Simone, what's top of mind fee for this week then final
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  one? So yeah, one thing I have been,
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  I'm gonna stick to the topic of the UAE because that's where
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  shop talk was and that's where my head still at.
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  And one thing that I was thinking about is I love the UK.
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  I just want to say that before I start, I love the UK.
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  But I will say when it comes to shopping I and retail, I do
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  think the UK still has some, some things to learn from UAEA
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  lot is designed around how do we make things faster, easier,
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  smoother, more entertaining for the customer and I really love
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  it. Usually shopping malls for me,
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  it can be quite overwhelming. I don't spend much time there,
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  but when I was in the shopping malls in the UAE and I was in
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  one in Dubai, I, I just wanted to be there all day.
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  I wanted to come back the next day like it was, it was amazing.
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  It was really a destination that I wanted to hang out in.
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  And I saw this, which was a brilliant pop up from YSL and
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  very unexpected and I just couldn't help but stop by.
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  But as you can see, they've really gamified this experience
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  and there's actually a child playing it, which I cut out.
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  I don't really know what it was. Out of the way.
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  Push her out the way so I could flip oh round the back is well
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  was obviously this beautiful pop up with lots of different YSL
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  products and then some really educational assistants there as
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  well. But it was packed and actually
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  when I was I was like the the variety of ages is what really
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  got me like from the seven-year old or however old she was
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  playing the game to Gen Z, the adults.
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  It was just full of people and it was really busy.
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  And I think luxury brands are always trying to work out how
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  can we connect with younger audiences without keeping the
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  brand. And I thought this was a really
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  cool example of how to do it because it still is.
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  I mean, it's unexpected, but it's still very wise.
• 8:51
  Sell its premium. It's slick, but they've done it
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  in this very playful and Instagram way.
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  And with it being gamified, it gives people a reason to come
• 9:00
  in, take photos, spend time with the brand and learn.
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  So I really liked it. I.
• 9:06
  Was yeah, I look, listen, I think that the challenge we've
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  got here is that in the UAE shopping mall shopping and in
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  general, it's like the 80s, right?
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  And, and I don't mean that in a, in the disrespectful, I mean
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  just in terms of where they've arrived, it's the, it's the
• 9:22
  golden hour, right? They've had a beautiful new
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  shopping malls. They've got these new, beautiful
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  and over here in, in good old Blighty, we're a little bit
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  grated. And, and the culture and, you
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  know, look, they, I think shopping malls need to do better
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  job of who they're allowing in to pay because you do want to,
• 9:40
  you do want to feel safe. You do and you know, things that
• 9:44
  have happened in London recently various.
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  So it's not just one place. It's a cult book phenomenon.
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  Culturally, we're going through a bit of a blip.
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  So and and the UAE, you don't get that.
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  You go there and you feel safe. You feel like you can enjoy, you
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  know, 1S gonna come and rob your phone or something, right?
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  And sorry, gone. Gone.
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  No, I was just gonna say what I liked.
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  And it's kind of tying in what I said with Reformation as well as
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  I liked it because sometimes we don't need more product.
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  There's a lot of product and sometimes it's just more fun
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  that we need. And I really liked it.
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  But yeah, I, I completely agree with you.
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  It's, it's a cultural thing. And yeah, we are going through a
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  bit of a a blip. Yeah, I mean, look, we, we've
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  I've avoided like when I whenever I look at the research
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  for the week's thing. The good news is, yes, there are
• 10:34
  still a tonne of stores closing, but there is growth.
• 10:37
  People are coming back in. So I think say again.
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  Oh, I said absolutely. Yeah, and and and I think retail
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  is still a a massive section of the the High Street and GDP and
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  we just got to keep keep supporting it, keep keep growing
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  it. But anyway, get off the soapbox.
• 10:55
  Fantastic, Simone. Thank you so much until thank
• 10:58
  you. Until next week.