Nicole Buisson: Lightspeed Managing Director on the State of the Retail Industry report and the number of Kiwis preferring to shop in person

Many Kiwis still prefer to shop locally and in person. 

A survey of about 500 people by retail management platform Lightspeed has found almost eight in ten prefer shopping in store, rather than online. 

About four in ten shop at independent local stores. 

Lightspeed Managing Director Nicole Buisson told Mike Hosking consumers very much want the convenience of online shopping, but also the human connection or the ability to go and touch and feel a product in real life. 

An example of this, she says, is when people check the availability of a product online before going into the store.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got a new State of Retail Industry report for

(00:02):
you this morning. Forty percent of US are choosing to
shop local, which is encouraging. Bricks and watar still king,
which is even more encouraging because you know how big
a fan of that I am. Seventy six percent of
us are in store for home work, sixty four percent
for the clothing. Sixty one percent of retailers are absorbing
the price rises. That's encouraging. Nicole We'son is the managing
director at light Speed Commerce. They've done the work with us.
Nicole Morning Morning, Massive B and M fan, bricks and

(00:26):
mortar fan. Does the numbers surprise you or not?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Look? I think the number is a number as keiwis.
We like to go and shop in store still, So
look the number I like the most though, is forty
percent of consumers love shopping at local stores.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah. Is that up or down?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Look? It's the very first time we've done this report,
so we don't have any other benchmark. But regardless, I
think it's a nice stat for our economy that we're
putting that money back in.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
What would your guess have been if I'd said to
you how many shop local and local deliberately.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
You know what, I may have guessed more of as
towards online. We do still have quite a large number
of people shopping online though, so thirty four percent still
want to you know, still prefer shopping from Kiwi websites.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, well, how much differentiation is there in this work
that you've done. When we say online versus bricks and
mortar versus local, is local still if it's online online
local versus TMU local whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
So look that the local statistics, the forty percent are
about local and in store online is purchasing from online?
The thirty four percent of New Zealand retailers. Actually when
look when we look off shore, there is there is
some purchasing there as well, but it's less than from
Kiwi websites. So around thirty percent prefer to shop at
kind of the budget overseas platforms t machine, et cetera,

(01:44):
and about fifteen percent from other international websites.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I would have thought this is mature by now. So
in other words, your shopping habits are your shopping habits.
Online isn't new if you like bricks and more, it
is the way it is now. Is that fair? Do
you think or not?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Look? I think it's more nuanced than that. So consumers
very much want the convenience of online, but the human
connection or to be able to go and touch and
feel a product. So an example of how this plays
out is, you know you want to look online to
check that something is in stock before you go into
the store. And let me just share one example of
this Electric Bike team as one of our customers. They're

(02:18):
a beautiful electric bike shop up and Eden Terrace. If
you go to their website, everything you see there you
know they have in stock, which is quite unusual for
bike stores. So that's an example of how it plays
out together.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Is that Well, listen, I've been banging on about this forever.
If your bricks and mortar one have some decent people
with some decent service, have some stock in stock, and
have the people know about your stock, and make the
experience worthwhile. If you do all of that, the chances
are you'll actually be successful.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Look, that's absolutely Look, you've touched on one of the
key things we know makes it successful retailers. So customer
service absolutely eighty two percent of kiwis that's the number
one thing that they're looking for. The other things though,
are you know in this current environment, protecting your margin
and also protecting your time. You know, these are small
businesses that don't have a lot of time often.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
All right, Nicole Lilson, So I appreciate your time Nicole
boss on Who's the Lightspeed Commerce Managing Director. For more
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