Unknown Origins

Gary Burt on Future of Retail

January 25, 2021 Attitude. Imagination. Execution. Season 1 Episode 44
Unknown Origins
Gary Burt on Future of Retail
Show Notes Transcript

Retail is no longer about just transacting goods. It's about creating unforgettable experiences. 

Technology has enabled new ways of shopping on e-commerce, immersive digital experiences, and algorithms to detect what consumers are likely to buy based on their purchase patterns, social media behavior, and demographic data to deliver connected and personalized experiences virtually and physically. 

Amazon has disrupted the market by provided more convenient, accessible, and affordable options to consumers through their relentless customer focus, diversity of brands to provide compelling products and services at scale through their immense distribution channels and supply chain networks.

Gary Burt provides perspective on where retail goes from here.


Creativity Without Frontiers available at all relevant book retailers

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Music by Iain Mutch 

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Roy Sharples:

Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, and welcome to the unknown origins podcast. Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you an industry expert, looking for insights growing your career? Or are you a dear friend, helping sponsor your old pal on, I created the unknown origins podcast, to have the most inspiring conversations with creative industry personalities and experts about entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Retail is no longer just about transacting goods. It's about creating unforgettable experiences. Technology has enabled new ways of shopping on e commerce, immersive digital experiences, and algorithms to detect what consumers are likely to buy, based on their purchase patterns, social media behavior, and demographic data to deliver connected and personalized experiences, virtually and physically. Amazon has disrupted the market by providing more convenient, accessible, and affordable options to consumers through their relentless customer focus, diversity of brands to provide compelling products and services at scale, through that immense distribution channels and supply chain networks. But where does it go from here? a continuation of the virtual? Or is it time to reimagine the physical, through experiential, and it is what retail could become. I'm joined with Gary Burt to discuss what the future of the retail industry could be, and the implications for making that happen. Hello, and welcome, Gary, what's your current take on the retail industry? And where do you see it go next, the

Gary Burt:

COVID is clear. I mean, in the UK at the moment, unless you're any central store, you're closed. So you know, most of the retail shops and virtually all of the independent shops are closed, you know, we're seeing the supermarkets open. We're seeing the large organizations, often because they've got multiple lines, they can they can open. And the food stores are open. But a lot of the smaller businesses, they're getting killed. You know, I mean, we can will avoid the ethics of which shops were allowed to open, we won't go into the the COVID thing. But the reality is, today is tough, the future is not going to get much, much easier. And I think you mentioned it earlier on that what we've seen over the last year is we've seen a lot of work, a lot of businesses, a lot of services increasingly shift online, they were there, what we've seen is a massive acceleration in the customer base using those, you know, Amazon has seen phenomenal growth, but solve a lot of other online retailers. And this isn't simply about buying whiteboards, or you know, buying the books or CDs that the extra some Amazon, Amazon's massively boosted its product line. But also we've seen a lot of people now default to buying, you know, their weekly shop their monthly shop online, people who necessarily wouldn't have done before. So I think we've got a couple of things. One, we've had a massive shift towards online selling. And then we've also got this continual dynamic of the shops being closed, but a lot of them were not in a great place before. So I think that it's going to be tough going forward. And we're gonna see some really major shifts in the market. as we as we start to come out on this, we're gonna see some major shifts.

Roy Sharples:

As great as they once were. Company companies like HMV, Virgin Records, our price could and should have transformed itself. When record and CD sales were disrupted by iTunes, and online downloading and became the musical experience store, physical stored, I mean, but the field to see it and do anything about it. There were once cultural markers in any town and city that hosted a virgin HMV or even your local independent stores at the time. But anyone who was anyone would congregate to learn the ideas of the day, and what was hip and cool in music, film, literature, fashion and pop culture. All that's evaporated now. But that could have been what those places that I mentioned, could have became, and they could have reinvented themselves into like a modern musical experience or pop culture experience in a high street retail setting. I recently did a podcast with Dave Cronin, who is a music industry expert. He spent the last four, four decades working in retail label management and no artist management. And we spoke about growing up in the era that we did Gary, people were judged Fairly and squarely on their musical tastes. And going to my local independent record store each Saturday was a religious pilgrimage. And as an ardent record collector, it was a magical experience to immerse myself and the romance and the vein, the luxury of the sight, touch and smell of the vinyl of records. And the people who work there were obsessive music fans and experts, they had an encyclopedia knowledge of music, and they wore it with pride, with a badge on their heart, and modern life a bit like the Genius Bar at the Apple Store to some extent, and that they are modern day monks, and Evangelists carrying the news, while being people and converting them to the religion of Apple, and creating a tribe of raving fans,

Gary Burt:

a colleague of mine in a recent job actually was a was working with one of those companies, I won't name which one, I'm really stay clear of naming him the company or the company advising him at the time. But a colleague of mine was was was working with one of them on essentially the evolution of their retail experience. And we met up and I'm talking to him on like, this was so this was mid 2005, to sort of 2007 eight time is around the time the, you know, we saw the the iPod was out, the iPhone appeared, I think 2007. And I'm having the conversations like, when is this company going to really wake up And see, not this shift in the market that that's, that's really underplaying it, you know, seeing that they are a dead man walking, this is a zombie business. Whenever they get when you How are you able to? Let's call him, john, are you able to have a serious conversation with them? And he's like, I get what you're saying, Gary, you know, I get it, we're seeing what Apple was doing with the ability to buy and purchase music, Napster had clearly been there, we were seeing the shift to for many people free music. So the changes were there, the signs are absolutely there. So you'd think that you had a customer that was willing to hear this, that really understood these shifts, and was looking for ideas of how to innovate out of this, the truth couldn't be more different. This was, and we see this again, and again, across industries, where the signs are not just subtle, they're absolutely in your face changes. These are big, red flashing, warning lights of indicators of significant market shifts. But the company was just immune to these at the top level. You know, they were just, they weren't scared, they weren't worried. They saw the change, they thought they could bite back, they had the heritage of yours. They had the distribution network of shops, they had their relationship with the suppliers. And they completely missed the fact that their core model of what they were was was wrong on two parts. One, it was technically technologically going to get massively disrupted, because the way people bought and how they bought was going to change, making them completely redundant. And secondly, you mentioned this perfectly before, they saw themselves as retailers, not as owners of an experience. It was

Unknown:

exactly the

Gary Burt:

Kodak moment. You know, people did not care about buying Kodak film, they knew it was good film, they knew it was reliable, it had a great reputation. But actually we know I mean, there's a lot of research. And there's some great books around this around technology destruction. But we know that the majority of photos that were taken were never viewed. Because the experience was actually the taking of the photo. It wasn't the experience of getting it developed. That was part of it. But it wasn't the physical object of the film that was important. It was the taking of the photo. Yeah. And when you started to understand that if you cared about the taking of the photo, the fact that you wanted to be part of that experience, it didn't matter whether it was film, or whether it was digital. And this was something that the record companies missed by a mile. It didn't matter whether it was a physical record, a physical CD, or a T shirt, what mattered was the fact that there was a community that saw them as an experience hub for having that connection. And they instead of evolving to embrace those shifts, you know, they didn't they fought back against it, you know, in many cases we saw before they tumbled, prices went up, you know, in many cases, instead of actually embracing diversity. They focused on a smaller number of records and more focus on bestsellers, completely the opposite of what they needed to do. So, you know, what shocked me and continues to shock me in retail is the failure of many businesses to really have these connections to their customers and to their markets, and to be willing to, to recognize and to say how Do we spot when our core market is changing? And how do we start to embrace those changes rather than fight them? Because I think as we look at you know, going back to your first point, this is the key point that we are seeing these massive changes now. And one of the things that I really fear is the organization's are thinking, when we come out of COVID, you know, it's going to go back to how it was, it's going to go back to, you know, let's not use the word the new normal, it's going to be different, you know, some people are going to want to go back, but their behaviors have already changed. If organizations aren't going to very, very quickly adapt, they're going to be, they're going to suddenly find that they open up and their customers are simply not there. And they're going to struggle, unless they really get deep into understanding what are they about as a business? How are they going to provide value? How are they going to provide something worth buying, particularly when the online experience or there's a different route to do that, which is massively more efficient, not just in terms of price, but impacts in terms of quality, in terms of choice in terms of returns in terms of availability. So I think a lot of organizations should be using this time to really think hard about how they're kind of come out of this. And be prepared to embrace those changes that are going to be forced on them because you're not going to be able to defend this shift to online and to a very different way of working in a very different way of shopping.

Roy Sharples:

To adapt, grow and flourish. You need to keep your finger on the pulse of your markets ever evolving needs and preferences, so that you can make changes to your approach. The golden rule is to avoid the deadly sin of complacency and greed, kicking in like a bad debt that you can't pay. And don't take the easy way in Cavan instead, stand on shakingly aware and resilient by constantly evolving and innovating. Why? Because greed and complacency are deadly sins. In general, people can be immoral, shiftless and self gratifying. And as a result, the future will leave them behind, they can destroy themselves, through abusing their very own successes, and through the excessive cultivation of destructive passions, getting permanently drunk on your kool aid, and surrounding yourself with B and C players getting lazy and fat, where you can't see the wood for the trees, and all the beast of prey and making ego based decisions. blockbuster as one example, monopolize the video rental space for years, until it lost sight of what business it was really in. And instead of focusing on delivering more effective and affordable entertainment to its customers, which is the route that Netflix took blockbuster, put more stock in the model, it had become comfortable using. Netflix was able to disrupt blockbuster, because of its ability to adapt to customer needs, and the changes in technology that disrupted the market.

Gary Burt:

No, I agree. I think there's a couple of points you've mentioned, which are really worth pulling out. The first one is you said BNC players, I think the other one is you might have an A player, but make sure all of the A players are not thinking the same thing. You want diversity of opinion in there. So if you if you're a retail organization, you'll know you're going into a tough time is your as your top tier. And I don't just mean that the exam what I mean, the operational level, has that got diversity of voices, it got diversity of opinion. Because if everybody in that room is saying, we're going to be great, it's all going to be fine, we're gonna go back to normal. Or it might be the other way, oh, we're all doing we're all screwed, there's nothing good can come? Yes, you've got a really weak board, either of those is equally weak. Because, you know, the the the one that believes it's positive when the world is, you know, we know there's going to be some challenges is going to be blindsided, the organization that thinks they're doomed is going to be locked in, you know, is going to miss those opportunities to actually come out of this and to innovate. So, I think one of the core things is, you know, boards and organizations should be looking for diversity of views, and people who are going to positively and, you know, effectively challenge, you know, the goal is not to, is not to simply have the single right answer is to understand your options, and to be able to make the best decision you can for understanding how you're going to rank and respond to those options. It's not to say, you know, to discount those, you know, I mean, let's, let's come to an absolute classic here, you know, you know, you look at you look at destruction, retail disruption, and failure, and absolute failure to really embrace the bleeding, obvious. blockbuster, you know, so for those, I guess, for those of a certain age, they'll don't know who it was for your younger podcast audience. This is an organization that was a global organization, really a world leader in providing local Access to VHS cassettes and then later DVDs, and was essentially wiped out completely by netflix in the face, you know. And, you know, the irony, of course, is that Netflix tried to sell itself to blockbuster and blockbuster turned it down. You know, this is amazing, you look at what Netflix is now, they've not just destroyed the the rental market, or they've owned the rental market, they've owned the streaming market. But they, they've now evolved into having production studios, and they're going after the major studios, they're going after the cable networks, they're going off to a lot of traditional TV companies. You know, this is real innovation. And, you know, I think there's a there's a very simple core lesson here. Which is, which is and I'm trying to make this as simple as I can, which is, don't ever think you are smarter than your customers. And don't ever think that you have the right to decide what they should be buying or how they should be buying it. Your job is to support what they want to do not to argue against them. And I think one of the things you'll see is, you'll see when you look at failure, you'll see this consistent trend of an organization arguing against its customers. So usually blockbuster, well, we want we want to have, you know, the thing with blockbuster that they were famous for is late fees. So if you didn't take your DVD back or CD, but the next day, you'd start to incur these big fees. And Netflix came along initially Don't forget with mail order DVDs, yeah, mail, they came along initially said no late fees. Now, clearly, you had the downside of you had to wait for the DVD to be sent back and another one to be sent. But actually, they completely undermined the model. And one of the big revenue models for blockbuster by, you know, removing the late fee. So what they did was they took a real pain point and a competitor, which was late 40s. late fees, completely flipped it on its head, you know. So it took it took blockbuster way too long to recognize this shift. And instead, you know, when we see this again, it dismisses the competition it you know, you know, it's it's a small upstart, it doesn't have anything, they do it differently. That's the thing that you should be scared off. And what matters is not really what you think it's what your customers think. So when you start to see customers using it, when you start to see that growth, even in the early stages, if you're not understanding why the customer is using that, why they're prepared to have what you think is a is a lesser experience, but they're still willing to go for it, then you really should be very, very worried. Because at that point, your radars completely turned off. You're blindsided. And you've you've essentially given your market away to the to the incumbent to the innovator that's coming into your market. And we can see this in so many industries, you know, you know, for anyone who's not read it and you want to understand this go read Clayton Christensen's the innovator's dilemma. This is a Bible of innovation. And we still see business leaders, even if they've read it, they've not understood it, it's not rocket science, pay attention to the new entrance, look at what they're doing. And, you know, be very careful of them, very wary of them if they're doing if they're fundamentally attending your market by working in a different way or a significantly lower price point, and having success with customers. So ultimately, the failure, maybe it's not that complex, it's really simple. You simply are failing to listen to your customers. And I think you know, the point you mentioned about ego, it's really simple. But I think it's probably really accurate. You know, you've become disconnected, you no longer understand what your customers want. And the ego comes in. Because if you're not listening, you clearly don't care. You've got to the point where you don't care what your customers think. So, you know, as organizations start to come out of this, and if you're, you know, maybe you're an exec or you're in a decision making position, you should be really starting to get your feelers into the customer base and start to understand start to communicate with your customers understand what they're going to want. And for many businesses, this is not going to be what they had before. So I think, you know, there's a lot of lessons we can learn from the past. But you know, put real simple I love your point about ego. Assume, you know, nothing.

Roy Sharples:

Amazon are a serial innovator across multiple markets. What do you think modern retailers and upstarts within the retail space can learn from Amazon

Gary Burt:

Amazon's trajectory, certainly for the for the immediate future, that it that it's going to grow. And the reality is that the take of although it dominates in some markets, the take its overall take of retail spend is still relatively low. Some areas it completely dominates. But in others, it's it's it's very mine and particularly outside of the US. So when we look in the US, it has Whole Foods, and it has a much bigger portfolio of goods and services that it does compared to, you know, for example, the UK or France. And so in a lot of those other areas, there's still huge potential. The other two other things is, you know, Amazon has still stayed largely online. You know, we've seen in the US we've seen Whole Foods, we've started to see the ghost stores and concept stores trialed. But this is, you know, there is a lot of opportunity, and a lot of fear for traditional retailers, if Amazon starts to go into the, into the high street, but I think also, you know, for Amazon, it needs to, and I think it is treading really carefully because I think there are two factors which which will, if it doesn't handle them, well will really start to burn. The first one is being seen to be too big. And we've seen this with many monopoly industries. Now, the problem with those is, you know, not only do you start to flag up in the eyes of consumers who see you as to just yeah, your service is great, but you just a bit too big, and you're just a bit too frightening. But also you start to flag up on the radar of legislators, you know, we've seen a shift in the US around the government. So one of the things that I would certainly be, you know, concerned about if I was Amazon was whether we're going to see some messages start to come out around, you know, watching that monopoly position, if I was making a prediction, and we don't, I think there will be a lot of pressure on Amazon to start to reduce that. The irony here, of course, is that I think the most likely thing is it will spin off AWS, its web services business. And the effect of that being separated will not be to inhibit it, it will be just to have a separate company that can grow even faster. So I think there will be pressure on it to do a few things. One is to start to separate out. The second one is to be much more transparent about his practices. A third one will be to be much more open about its ability to be used as a marketplace without that huge insight that it has over what is ordered, and the you know the amount of analysis that it can do. Without that information being used against the companies on its own marketplace. I think the final one is much more of it is a software issue, which is once you start to get once you start to become a huge company, anything you do becomes a huge number. Now, shipping parcels. But I think you know, one of the challenges here is that starts to become a huge number around sustainability as well. So I think one of the challenges, and I certainly see Amazon making some moves here, but I think it will need to get much more aggressive, is around becoming a much more sustainable organization, you know, when you start to see the amount of boxes that are going out, and yet cardboard is recyclable, most of the stuff in them isn't, I think there's going to be a lot more pressure on seeing a sustainable approach to the whole supply chain. So we've seen adverts in the UK around electric cars, I think it's going to go deeper, I think we're going to see much more drive around Amazon being asked to take more positive role in terms of workers rights in terms of conditions in terms of building an ecosystem. And this isn't I actually I'm not, I'm not being an Amazon fanboy here probably sounds like it. But I think this is a real opportunity for Amazon to show some leadership and say, you know, what we're going to do is we are going to bring in a much better gig economy model, which starts to push back on a lot of the challenge that Amazon and Uber have had around exploitation start to rebalance that because because they're certainly that the revenues within their business models able to do that. And to say, we do need to take more responsibility, we do need to support, you know, a more balanced employment contract, we do need to allow people who are going to become drivers and going to become part of our organization to be able to do that at a level which becomes able to sustain them as a you know, as a serious career. So I think there's, there's the future is good for them. There are some changes, there are pressures that if I think they ignore them will will really start to bite. But, you know, they're not in a position that they are unchallengeable. And I think, you know, there's a lot of things that businesses can do to be successful with Amazon still there. What they do need to do though, is they need to recognize no one back in a second. This I've spoke for a long time, but I think they do need to recognize what Amazon's strengths are. Also where there's the opportunity to innovate. Now, I think, you know, the biggest mistake that any company could make with Amazon, is to think that their success is about the website. And it's about the logistics. That's absolutely critical. But I think the biggest differentiator that if you ignore it, you will not be successful against Amazon is customer service, and customer centricity. One of the things that Amazon tops, and this is probably the scariest fact for any competitor, Amazon continually tops, customer satisfaction in terms of customer service, customer responsibility. And any company wanting to compete cannot waver from that it has to look for an equal standard. So your logistics might be a bit slower. Your website might not be as rich. But if you are not able to match those service conditions and guarantees, I think, then you're going to be in real, real trouble.

Unknown:

Yeah. And I guess

Gary Burt:

building it out, you know, thinking about how we move this forward? how, you know, let's let's, I guess, move it forward to how you think we have, you're advising a company that's, you know, Amazon's there, whether it's a small business, medium sized business, how do you start to think about how you come up with COVID how you start to position yourself to be successful. You know, in a world with Amazon, when

Roy Sharples:

the Apple Store first landed, it was like it came from the future with all of the answers. And apart from how they've made the economics work, with incredible business acumen, architecturally, and experientially, they are like high street art galleries, beacons of landmark, architectural beauty, and redefined retail, especially in terms of store design, and shopper experience. Things like not having cash, tolls, and lanes was a genius move. Take Apple Grand Central in New York City as one striking example, or the store itself is immersed within the structure of the train station, with no separation between the station and the store. And no product boxes on shelves, just wide aisles, large wooden tables, all evenly spaced, with Apple products strategically situated on them exhibited, like works of art, in an art gallery. All employees are knowledgeable, product savvy, they're happy to work them on the dress the park, and they're connected to the brand experience. Apple is

Gary Burt:

amazing in the sense of not only did it spend, you know, I think the investment per store is one of the highest of any retail organization, but the amount of revenue per square foot is the highest without a doubt of a retail company. So he he spends a lot of money on building the stores, and they are beautiful pieces of architecture and design. And but at the business level, it works. Yeah, this is real, this is successful. You know, it absolutely generates the Benjamins at the end of the day. But I think one of the things just to just to mention, as you we I guess we both towards continuing to buy experience, experience means experiences about the relevance and the authenticity. I love that word, but the authenticity and the connection to the customer. And that, you know, Apple is almost at one extreme of that. But it's not necessary for every company to become an apple. But it isn't necessary, I think, for every company to understand what the best experience that it could, that it could deliver. And I'll give you a couple of different examples. One of my favorite stores, I used to spend a lot of time in Seattle, one of my favorite stores in Seattle, Rei, and for those who've not been there, it's a huge outdoor store. It's like a big warehouse. But, you know, you go in the store, and you're seeing you know, it's because of the space they have, you know, by the entrance, they've got the massive climbing wall, and you go in and there's it's big enough that they can have, you know, canoes on sale, they can have hundreds of rucksacks on sale, they can show all of the outdoor gear. So there's a context to this, you start to feel, you know, connected to the outdoors, you start to feel connected to travel when you go in there, you know, you have very friendly staff in there, not in formal uniforms, but in much more, you know, they're functional, but they're played down. So that connection with having the right kind of staff who know what they're talking about, able to make that connection with the customer customer and keep it a really positive one is another great experience. Tiny little store in a small town at the north of the Lake District in Kazakh, so a small town, a small shop called needle sports. Now they've got a website, not the most pretty, but if you go in there, it's a small store. It's not a big chain. It's an independent store that's online, but you go in there, it is Packed to the Rafters with kit. There's no rubbish in there. This is kit that's picked by the people who work there are all climbers, all walkers. So if you want to have a great experience, you want to understand something you want to be kitted out, you don't need to be an expert, because going back to the HMV thing, you can go in there and they will help you connect. Now, you cannot do that on Amazon, you know, there's there's no way you can, you can look at reviews. And we all know reviews are slightly problematic that Amazon cannot sit down with you talk about what you want to do understand which of the boots are gonna fit, and then help fit them. So there's a real way for shops and organizations to be able to make these connections. Also, Amazon, and a lot of their suppliers are not necessarily going to be matched up where Amazon is bothered about finding the small supplier from Spain that really makes these great claiming shores, yeah, but needle sports can do that. And they can start to bring those in. So you see a way that big is, you know, it's often good. But it isn't necessarily the way to, you know, sustainability in terms of this great customer relationship. Now, you've got people who want to go in, you've got people who want to walk and want to climb, they find the connection, the, the next step is for the organization to then start to build and keep that connection. So it starts adding additional value. Now, if you're having a connection with the customer, they can start to make sure that they follow up on that. And I think this is where the best small stores are really knocking out the park, they should know their customers now have an incredible AI, personalization and analytics. But smaller shops have the benefit of people who know their stuff. Now, there's nothing to stop them buying a lot of those technology tools. And you can buy CRM systems and new system purchasing management systems and, you know, social media tools that are going to help with that. But don't miss the fact that that knowledge and that personal connection is something that actually the Amazons can't come anywhere near. So when you start to compete, organizations need to understand, you know, going back to what you've said, what is it that our customers want is a brilliant experience, and how do we not that experience out of the park. Now, that doesn't mean to say you need to have, you know, you might go to Amazon go boots, you go 5000 brands, that, you know, that isn't what customers want, customers want a selection, that's going to give them a choice of the brands that are going to be relevant to what they want to do. And you know, you look at needle sports, you're not going to be able to buy a bad garment, a bad boot, a bad shoe, a bad carabiner, there's no second rate stuff in there. Because the shop knows that one bad experience can cost them that customer. So they spend the time into the sourcing into the testing. They have staff who know what they're doing. And now that's not unique to them. Many other you know, stores around the UK are doing it. But I think one of the things is, you know, to look at retail and say this small retailer is doomed? Absolutely not. The small retailer who then tries to copy Amazon at their own game is doomed. You know, if you want to say we're only going to be a an online retailer, and we're probably going to be more expensive than Amazon. The outlook for that is not good. And less, you're going to think, how do we do what we do better? How do we out serve Amazon, you know, and a really simple one is just allowing people to ring up and ask for advice, which is not an easy thing to manage, it's time consuming, there's no guarantee they're going to buy. But if you don't do that you get you're then lowering yourself to essentially be price comparison out of this. And you know, that's not a way to win a business. So I think, you know, to make to start to make this practical, the way out of this for all businesses is to go back to what mattered. When you were a kid, make it a place that you want to go make the story evolve, have stuff that people want not, you know, cheap crap that's going to fulfill a function, but have stuff that's gonna differentiate you have staff who care, you know, I will absolutely put, you know, this relationship between stores that are failing and staff that don't care. Now, that's that's probably a complete truism. But now, that's not to say you don't have staff that that care in businesses that are failing, but you're not going to have businesses that are very successful with staff that don't care. So having good staff doesn't guarantee you're gonna succeed. But having bad staff is pretty much guarantee that you're not going to succeed and may not guarantee failure, but it's not going to guarantee is going to guarantee that you not hugely successful. So when you start to look at the future, when you start to look at what type of business you are, have some hard conversations with yourself and look hard. Is this, are we doing the best we can do for our customers in the experience? And, you know, it's really easy to think that that equates with designer lighting or the top tables. If that's what your customers need in their market, then that's what you need to do, but it's not Not necessarily in all areas, what matters? Is you understanding what your customers value and knocking that attribute out of the park. So I think there is a there is a way to do this. But you know, as we've said,

Roy Sharples:

it's all about experience, bringing it all home. Now, Gary, based on what we sense today, what are your top five predictions for the retail industry,

Gary Burt:

if your supply chain is rubbish, people are not going to buy from you. Now you go, Well, of course. And this is where it matters. It doesn't matter whether you're a big company or a small company, if I order, and it takes you four or five days to get that stuff to my house, I'm not going to order from you again. Now, you know, companies, you know, there is no excuse in terms of most geographies, for sorting your logistics and your shipping out. This is a case of you know, knuckling down and building those systems, whether you're a small company, or a bigger company, but that delay and gratification is not going to be respected. So if you're late, you know, you're not going to have customers coming back. Now, clearly, accelerating, that starts become much harder, it starts to become much more expensive, starts to become harder. And it becomes really difficult to scale. And you know, one of the areas where the bigger companies can do this, is start to have much more complex supply chains where they can do, you know, next day guaranteed, but even same day delivery, or, you know, late in the day delivery, it's absolutely possible. So medium size and large companies that needs to be the goal, smaller companies, and make sure your logistics are working. If you're getting an ordering, get it out, you know, make sure you're working suppliers who are bound to the same values as you are, there is a huge choice of ways to distribute product in the UK, you've got a lot of choice of delivery companies. So make sure you're you're you're fast. So there's the first one and sort your supply chain and get the stuff out the door quickly. Every company is able to do that. And let's bless back this forward and back

Roy Sharples:

fan engagement. Fans are not the same as customers, customers tend to be transactional. But when someone becomes a fan, they become lifelong loyalists, who end up spending more with you throughout their lifetime than a typical customer. So show up where your audience is and make the difference. inspiring them to be healthily obsessive funds. When you connect emotionally to people by providing personalized, unique experiences, the alchemy happens and your audience becomes loyal. Make what you provide matter to people by creating trust, and making people feel good and connected to something bigger. When you put your audience authentically at your brand's heart and show up where they are, you make a difference by truly understanding and synthesizing their desires. And to provide an unforgettable experiences. This is how you create a deeply committed culture that lasts and inspiring sustainable growth and positive societal impact.

Gary Burt:

Just been thinking I was thinking of a couple and I think one of the things is, you know what, what I'm looking at. And we talk about all you know, we've talked about experiences, and, you know, one of the most important things in this and, you know, I grew up with a family that we're we're retailers very not certainly not high end. We were the family was fancy. Good. So you know, rockin Yeah, toys and beach stuff in seaside resorts. But I think you know, there's a real basic here, and this amazes me today, how many companies get this wrong, which is get the basics, right. So first one is when I come in smile and say hello, if you there, don't ignore me. The second one is clean up, you know, if you want me to walk out of your store have a dirty changing room, you know, we've clearly not even swept or vacuumed it for a week, you know, now they generate a lot of dust. Yeah, so clean it. I mean, particularly post COVID if you're not clean in anywhere, you're going to see desertion, because people are gonna think I'm going to get you know, I'm going to be picking things up here, not to buy but infections. So I think you know, one of the basic things is, companies need to really get back to the basics and go look, what do we expect is an absolute minimum, we expect smiling staff, happy, well dressed, clean stores and stuff where it should be no rocket science, but a lot of companies get it wrong. I think, you know, to really start to think about something a bit different and an evolution here in terms of what we've seen in the past. Particularly for smaller businesses, but I think bigger ones as well. have a voice and what I mean is that is be authentic, live your cause have a voice and play an active part in your community. Now, some of the big companies have done this really well. So you know, I'm a huge fan of Patagonia, it's done things which have really got some bad press, but what it's doing in terms of doing that, and some people will turn off and go, you know, I don't agree what they're doing. Or, you know, you shouldn't be saying this thing. So I don't want to buy from you. But what they and also, like northface have done to a lesser extent, but certainly Nike and Patagonia standout is doing is being very clear about what they stand for is brands having a stand. And you know, there's a commercial and marketing twist to this, but be prepared to have that position and don't back down. And once that will alienate some people, what it will do is deliver you a much deeper connection with those funds. So you talked about the funds in Indonesia? How do you start to become deeper with the people who are using it? Will you start to care about what they care about? So we go back to the, you know, my little climbing shop in, in Kazakh, you know, are you vocal in local causes, if there's changes locally, that are going to be either positive or negative, you know, we're gonna see some closing down of paths, we're going to see some restriction of rights to climbing, are you all over there? So you have Do you have the courage as a business, to have the voice, because what you will do is, if you, as long as you're not being completely stupid, if you're aligned to your customers, you're going to deepen the connection with those customers. And instead of them coming to you, when they want something, they will flip, they will look for reasons to come to support you. Now, this isn't about a just giving page, this is about them going well, you know, I'm seeing the company do the right thing. And I'm going to go in there, I'm going to give him a bit of feedback that I support that, and then that starts to it might just be a coffee that you buy in there, it might be a T shirt, but it building that connection. So and I think again, this is a huge area to differentiate, no one is going to come on the call on any call and go. Yeah, you know, Amazon's orderings, great, but I really connect with their clothing company and believe what they care about, you know, Amazon has hundreds of brands. So you're not going to go Yeah, anchor charges, I really believe in what they're doing. But smaller stores can absolutely do that. And a whole range of areas. And just to just to build on that, you know, we talked about be authentic, live your cause. Be part of the community. The final one for this, and this is this is part of the jigsaw. These are not disconnected these go together. Live, breathe sustainability. Oh, that was the next trend of an excellent apostolic. Yes, you have this is not a fad. It really isn't. I mean, we should we can we can not this about sustainability is not a fad. You know, you might, you know, if you're over 30, or 40, or 50, you may be thinking that it's a political football, it isn't. It's a belief system. And this is equally going to be one of you can use both ways. If you're not there, this is going to harm you. If you are there, you're living this and you're authentic. This is a massive attractor, you know, I'll give you a really simple example of this. So near near where I live about a half an hour away, in, in a little industrial estate, and it is sort of a little local industrial estates, not a mega one, it's a really old area. there's a there's a small company on there. And what they do is, this is this is one of the UK leading repair companies. So they repair outdoor gear. So if you have a pair of boots, you know, if they have the soul and they can do it, they'll refit that if you buy from a number of companies, they This is either where they will resend the stuff to or they will point you to and you know, it's easy, you might point to, you know, Patagonia and go well, it's easy for them because they have the money, or one of the things we've seen is the evolution of existing business in retrofitting their promises. And what I mean by that is there's one of the one of the outdoor companies in the UK Burke house. They had, they've always had the ability, they will connect you to this company. If you had a repair needed, they would give you the details and say they're authorized, they can get the zips, so they can repair your stuff. What they did was they changed their policy, and retrofitted it to say if you've got one of our products, we're going to give you lifetime repairs. Now that takes in a big cost. But that makes a very clear statement about what they're about as a company. Now they know that zips are going to fail. They know that buttons are going to come off, garments get torn, and in many cases it might be because they're being used. The commitment of that company and many other companies in the UK who use this was to go we care about UK Not government, as long as you can keep it, we're going to keep you using it as long as you want to use it. And when you don't, we're going to work with you to reuse that sustainably, whether we can recycle it, whether we can repurpose it, or whether we can gift it, we're going to work with you to keep a part of that ecosystem. Now, that isn't open to just big companies, small companies can do this as well, they can start to, you know, I know, again, another small shop, that actually will give you a discount on our boots, they might be naked, you know, your boots might be completely worn out, they can't be resold. But if you come in with your boots, they will give you a discount on new boots. Now clearly, that's a bit of a lost leader. But the company is then using those boots and recycling them and working with a local company to recycle them sustainably, if they can be repaired, they will do if they can be reused, they will do. And if they if they can't, and, you know, they've got to be, you know, ultimately go to some form of tip doing everything they can to recycle. So this is a benefit to the user. And so I think, you know, I'll pass over to you, but I think you know, any company that is ignoring sustainability, and not as a set of functions, but as a belief system is really making a big mistake. And in the last 10 seconds, you know, if we look at a lot of the companies in retail and fashion, that are that I will predict are going to be in trouble, they are going to be the companies that are not taking a stand in this. Because interestingly, you would expect as we come out of a tough time that it's the companies with expensive, you know, they're expensive, they're gonna find things tough, and those cheap products are going to find it easy. I, you know, one of the things we're seeing is actually the opposite, which is companies that are building things to to last, they're supporting repairs, they're trying to avoid waste on the ones that have been successful.

Roy Sharples:

My friend Jonathan burns, recently launched his new venture style crate to provide eco friendly clothes delivered to your door every month. This is part of his big bold idea. To counter the staggering facts about the fashion industry to CT fashion produces more carbon emissions than all international flights. And maritime shipping combined. 20% of global wastewater comes from textile production, more than three fifths of clothing ends up and incinerators or landfill within a year of being produced. That's insane,

Gary Burt:

those figures are shocking, and only we're starting to say is, you know, we're starting to see a lot of the pollution is microfibers from from washing products that are, you know, that discard those fibers in the first few washes. Now, over time, they don't lose anywhere near those amount. So we see a lot of the pollution coming from that industry as well. So not only is it bad, because it's getting dumped, it's bad for the environment, even when you're using it, you have a choice of whether you're buying from these or whether you're going to buy from a local company, or whether you're going to buy from a company that puts its, you know, its hand on its heart and says this is what we care about. Yeah, we're a little bit dearer. But actually if you have a problem, we're going to help you repair it, we're going to make sure people are paid well. So maybe the closing point of this is to look at go, this is only going to work if both of the sides work together. If you if you say you care about the environment, and then you buy a fast fashion and throw it in the bin after a couple of ways. You know, that's what you're going to be fed from the industry. If you start to make those changes as a consumer, that's what their business is, we'll adapt it. And we'll talk about, you know, businesses listening, maybe we need to finalize it with something that everyone who listens can play a part of, you know, you're going to determine which of those organizations and which of those values survive. So let's make it the right ones.

Roy Sharples:

Absolutely. I think the other thing as well, Gary, is looking at ways where, you know, with what's happened with a pandemic, is that trend is going to be towards more localization of goods and services produced locally. And I'm not seeing going back to the pre Industrial Revolution, where people were living in rural areas and making local goods and crafts. Might there be a trend towards more of that,

Gary Burt:

you know, when we talk about predictions and the challenge with predictions, you start to, if you're not careful blur, what you think will happen with what you hope will happen. But I think this is this is one that's right down the middle for me. I think. I do think people are going to care a lot more as we come out of this. I think they are going to look a lot more local. And this is something we said before, which is why I think Amazon needs to be mindful of supporting that. And it's also one thing you know, we look at in the UK and globally, we've seen it, but in the UK we've seen organizations and websites to just not The High Street which is essentially a you know, a portal for at type organizations is a portal for see lots of really small boutique manufacturers. This is absolutely a trend that's going to

Unknown:

be huge.

Roy Sharples:

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