John Lewis, Aubin, Joseph, Tumi & M&S: Black Friday, AI & Personal Styling | 5 Things Friday - The Retail Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome back to another fantastic special
edition of Five Things Friday live from the NIFT offices

(00:20):
With my wonderful Co host Smoke and another special guest we've
got is Matt. You would have seen Matt who is
probably is IT founder and manage CEO managing during wars.
Founder and director at the moment, yeah.
Founder and director and all things retail.
If I'm brutally honest, he is MrRetail in the 80s and the the

(00:42):
the host of a very popular podcast show.
So really special show. Without any further delay, we're
going to jump strike the straight in.
Matt, why don't you take us through what's top of mind for
you this week? Well, my inbox is inundated with
Black Friday offers, so it wouldbe remiss not to talk about
that. It just feels like a lot of

(01:04):
retailers I speak to say they'reactually opting out of it and
actually sort of putting in promotions throughout the year.
But from what I'm seeing, I'm still getting an enormous amount
of emails, promotions, my Instagram feed is full of Black
Friday offers, so I don't feel like it's slowing down.
Yeah, I don't know about you. No, it's definitely not.

(01:25):
It's like there's a lot of pressure.
And obviously we work with a lotof different brands and a lot of
them, a lot of our brand partners actually say we don't
want to participate, but we haveto because if we don't, we're
going to miss out. And they're independents as
well. So it's a real struggle, but
it's not really Black Friday, Black Month.
Like it starts really early. I mean, we start early just

(01:48):
because we feel like we have to and everybody just panics.
So yeah, it's it's here. It's very much here.
Devine, did you, I'm curiosity from an e-commerce perspective,
are you, are you expecting a bigsurge on Friday?
Is that like? No, actually we've had this
week. I mean, even the weekend like

(02:08):
our order flow was massively up,which I'm not going to complain
about, but I don't know, we were, we were chatting about
this actually we were like, are we going to see an even bigger
surge on Friday or has everybodyjust become so used to it being
a whole week or two or three weeks?
Isn't that the problem? Isn't that why they started
moving it to a more lengthy weeklong month long event?

(02:29):
Because that one day was we're putting too much pressure on the
supply chain, e-commerce platforms and everything.
We only had to switch this over.But yeah.
Yeah, I was going to say what happens on Cyber Monday?
It's like everyone's forgotten. That's like that.
So I forget Monday, but I guess that's the whole thing in
America. People have just finished
Thanksgiving, they're tired, they want to do some shopping on

(02:51):
the Friday and then too good to compete it on Monday.
OK, moving on swiftly. Simone, what's not providing for
you? I feel like people are sick of
hearing me talk about John Lewis, but I'm a big fan.
John Lewis is becoming my new M&S and I love M&S.
Did you like the Christmas ad? Oh, I thought it's formally my
own swan. How was good calls out?

(03:11):
I think you've got a bit emotional, but John Lewis, which
I haven't spoken about yet is well, they're going through this
800 million renovation and earlier this month they had
released this new, I don't know that a member sphere slash
members lounge of the VIPs, which interestingly really

(03:32):
mirrors what British Airways does.
And I really love it. And I think it's really smart
because a lot of people have theAmex and the points and it's a
really great incentive to be able to sit in that lovely
lounge before flying. So I thought that was really
smart. But I was reading Peter Ruiz,
the managing director this week,was chatting about how they're

(03:55):
putting a lot of this money intorenovating the department
stores. And don't quote this verbatim,
but he did say he wanted to moveaway from the traditional stuffy
kind of department store that it's kind of known as.
And actually, they're becoming alot more experiential.
So I'm really excited. They're also going to be
collabing with like Top Shop carHot.

(04:16):
So it feels like a really exciting and interesting shift.
And I mean, I'm not a John Lewiscustomer right now, but you
think I've also times I speak about it.
I know you're talking, I should be a random absolute, but I
think it's a really smart move and I'm really excited by the
future. I think there's been so much
hypo for the past couple of years, but M&S&M&S starting to

(04:40):
be really cool and I feel like John Lewis is next.
Do you think that's what they do?
They're trying to sort of shift the demographic and little Bill.
100% there want to be a House ofbrowsers and yeah, that's what
we see. Okay, that's super cool on my
one I have to talk about Simoneswonderful experience that she
laid on for me this morning. I had my very first stylist help

(05:05):
me. I don't mind admitting that you
know, shopping make you a littlebit challenging and she had this
awesome lady and meet me at Auburn just off Carnaby St
Auburn is and I'll put you I'll share you'll see some images as
I'm talking now or was this fantastic quintessential British
brand big on Scottish walls and as I was explaining I I normally

(05:30):
would only buy one jumper, one roll neck.
I ended up buying everything almost there.
She said that wouldn't look good.
I was looking for some outfits for NRF because I love you
talking me through. It's a tonne load of filming
during the conference. But what was really lovely and
and they're just mainly, and nowthere was dopamine there and the

(05:51):
dopamine was, Oh my God, here's a colour that I would never
choose. Here's a jacket that I would
never wear. And you put all that stuff.
So you're going to, you know, it's like, Oh my God, I'm not
wearing blue, blue, blue and blue, which is my uniform.
It's my safe space to wear that.And she pushed those boundaries.
And so I definitely feel that why aren't retailers investing

(06:12):
in this more, right? Why aren't they bringing that
personal shopping assistant to people more?
I don't need Simone. You.
This is your service that you provide.
Yeah, I, I love it. And one of the reasons why I do
love it is because I've chatted to so many men and women that
really struggle with what to wear, what to wear for work,
especially when you're working for a corporate company.

(06:33):
And a lot of the time I've heardwomen say this actually really
uninspired and then feeling likethat dressed 20 years older than
what they are because they don'tknow how to shop in the end of
shopping the same and same like shops time and time again.
But I think the interesting thing is I think there's such a
stigma of personal shopping. And This is why I find it really

(06:55):
interesting. I think a lot of people probably
have the money to spend, but they think it's very, very
expensive or they think it's forcelebrities or ultra high net
worths or for red carpet events.And actually it's quite
intimidating for them. I think they associate it with
going into Selfridges, having a private room and spending
£10,000 and actually doesn't have to be like that.

(07:17):
And so my one of my missions with NIFT is being able to embed
about starting experience and doit online, do it in store, do it
at home and really to democratise the service.
And what we have found is particularly with men actually
is they really love the service.It's good to have that
one-on-one with somebody and actually experiment and be

(07:37):
educated and stuff that. You would never.
Think to wear but that feel really good yeah after so I'm a
huge fan, yeah. You'll see I'm endlessly.
Intimating as well. She's top notch.
She. Yeah, fantastic.
I mean, obviously she comes fromluxury and that Marion is the
stylist that I had. And so she she has this heritage
and Prada and all of this sort of fancy stuff.

(07:58):
But I said to her, I'm not goingto be spending, you know, 1000
lbs on a jacket. So we met.
I'm a John Lewis. Sorry.
I'm John Lewis and M&S guy. This is M&S, but as I found, no,
you know, carry on shopping at M&S.
This has got 7% wool in it and will probably last me two,
whereas whereas the stuff that Ibought today should last me at

(08:19):
least six washes. I wouldn't even wash this once
and it's bothering. So I'm like, Oh my God, this is
phenomenal, right? You can give me more.
But anyway, so I, it was a thankyou for saying that.
And just out of curiosity, wouldyou would I have to normally pay
for that service without like isthere because I didn't pay for
it? No shred, no idiot.
We this we do promotions how we offer complimentary and start

(08:40):
but it is a paid for service. But we do a lot of complimentary
services as well. So if anybody does want to try
it out. It's all right.
Fantastic. OK.
Matt, moving on to you, What is your next thing top?
Well, it's really, I've just thought something that was quite
interesting. I've been, I was with the retail

(09:02):
director for Joseph last week. Yes, we were talking a little
bit about technology. And you know, I speak to a lot
of retailers all the time, but this is one of my first time
speaking to a luxury retailer. And I was interested to see if
what they wanted from tech was different to what I suppose a
traditional retailer wants from tech.
And actually, it really isn't. Again, AI is top of the agenda

(09:23):
for so many of these people. And then and Lucy, who I, who I
met there was, was passionate about, we want AI to help our
staff, not replace our staff. And they were very big on the
fact that people come into luxury retail for that service
that you were just speaking about there, about the, the
insight that the sales representatives can give them.

(09:43):
And that's why although there ishas been a larger shift to
online shopping when it comes toall levels of retail, the luxury
retail market is still very, very big on bringing people into
the store to have that time where they can give advice, they
can dress you, they can match you.
And So what they were looking toinvest in around AI and other
areas of technology was to free up their staff so that they

(10:08):
could be more customer facing and having those conversations
and giving that insight. You benefited from this morning.
Yeah. Just listening to you, I don't
know how much of what I went through today was.
It felt like liberation having someone there.
I feel so stressed having to go and look at.
I just have no idea of what goeswith what and, and, and my my

(10:30):
wife doesn't watch this anyway, so I can talk, but she's always
she's Spanish, so she's always putting these colours to go.
You have no idea you're Spanish.You're just so not fashionable.
The British are fashionable And and the holy cow, all the stuff
that my wife's been telling me for years, like wearing seasonal
colours of rust and dark Reds and I just, and I'm not man, so

(10:54):
super excited. You, you, you'll see my threads
anywhere the next couple of weeks.
Moving on. I think we are on our final
ones. Mine.
Yes, just that interesting one that ChatGPT very timely of them
have introduced a personal shopping feature which ties very
nice to say where customers can come in and it will completely

(11:21):
recommend what, what to what to what he got to buy the things
like gift guides, which I thought was really interesting.
Yeah, I just thought it was verytimely.
Yeah, I, I interviewed the head of e-commerce for L shop, which
is the Nordics version of Currys.
Amazing lady, amazing interview.And she is the first e-commerce

(11:44):
director. I've done what, 130 interviews
this year, the first person, first e-commerce director.
That said, I have two customers,one of them is a machine, one of
them is a human and there's actually a Nordics saying that
she's got, she says about human plus machine.
So for agentic AI, she and her team have to build these

(12:05):
products pages for this new shopper, which is Chachi PT.
How do you create? And it's so much beyond what old
e-commerce, which is just like pages and pages of dead product
descriptions. And the example that she gave me
or someone gave me, I can't remember.
This was in another interview actually.
It was a story block. Maybe we'll talk about story

(12:26):
block later. If you want a Toomey bag, that's
their new Formula One bag. It ultimately is a rucksack made
out of some material. And that's what the the product
page will give you. It will not give you any feeling
that it's F1, that it's there. So it's that OK, right.
Because the product page will say it weighs 25 kilogrammes.
It's made of polyester or nylon or whatever else it's got.

(12:47):
So how is is that, how are you going to build that FY knowledge
into that? And I think that's super, super
interesting, and it's the future.
Well, it is that like, you know,you look at John Z's now and I'm
sure John Alf, you know, they don't Google it anymore.
They ChatGPT for everything, everything.
So retailers really need to adapt and not just be looking at

(13:07):
Google search, but how they're optimising their AI search as
well. So, and if they're not, then I
mean, they're going to lose out on, not be able to survive.
So yeah, it's pretty interesting.
That's brilliant. Until next week, thank you so
much.

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John Lewis, Aubin, Joseph, Tumi & M&S: Black Friday, AI & Personal Styling | 5 Things Friday

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