In this powerhouse episode of The Retail Podcast, Alex sits down with Ben Miller, VP of Content at Shoptalk, to unpack what’s really shaping the future of global retail.
From rising pressure on operational efficiency to the explosive growth of retail media and AI-powered discovery, this conversation goes deep into:
How leaders are navigating uncertainty
Why in-store tech investment is skyrocketing
The mindset shift retailers need to thrive
Key regional differences between the US and Europe
What’s next for grocery, CPG, and digital influence
As Shoptalk expands globally—with shows in the US, Europe, and now Abu Dhabi—Ben shares what he’s hearing from hundreds of retail leaders and why cultural adaptability and digital-first thinking are now non-negotiables.
📍 Recorded inside The Hive offices, just weeks before Shoptalk Europe 2025.
Shoptalk, retail leadership, grocery trends, digital transformation, Ben Miller, retail podcast, retail innovation, retail media, AI in retail, physical vs digital retail, eCommerce strategy, store tech, retail mindset, European retail, CPG insights, retail search behavior, inventory management, loyalty programs, global retail events, Shoptalk Europe, Retail Podcast with Alex
retailpodcast, shoptalkeurope, futureofretail, grocerytrends, digitalretail, retailleadership, retailinnovation, ecommerce2025, instoretech, aiinretail
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Digital Strategy
(June 1, 2025)
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
And this is where it also comes back to the mindset.
So it's it'd be very easy to be very Britishly cynical about it.
Yeah. And say, oh, voice commerce
never really took off and the metaverse didn't take off.
So they say I can use them goingto take off.
Great. OK, have have that mindset, but
you know it there is going to beshifting the volume.
But that's the mindset that makes you lose track of the fact
(00:22):
that one of the fastest growing areas for search at the moment
is visual. Hello and welcome to a special
episode of the retail podcast. I know I always say they're
special, but for me it's like a crescendo.
(00:43):
They just keep going better and better.
And it's special because I'm in the hive offices with none other
with world famous Ben Reeler, VPof content at shop talk.
And, you know, for me, it's likecrazy because I'm always in the
stage watching you, Ben, right? And I'm just lapping up, you
know, the speakers that you find, the content that you
(01:03):
produce and put there. But for the people that maybe
haven't had a chance to come along to shop, talk around the
world, Yeah. Do you mind just giving us who
you are and what you do? Yeah, of course.
And, and welcome to the office. Thank you.
Thank you for coming in, Alex. It's pleasure.
It's great to see you. And so, yeah, Ben Miller, my,
my, my role. I'm, I'm VP of what we call
original contents and strategy at the shop talk and grocery
(01:24):
shop group. So what, what does that really
mean? It means I've the privilege of
working at a global role across the global portfolio.
We now have 5 shows under the shop talk and grocery shop
banners in the US, in Europe andBarcelona can really soon and,
and in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi for, for our new shop talk
(01:44):
blocks. And, and my role is to pull
together research insights, coordinate the talking points
and really to bring new originalthinking to all of our shows.
And also to make sure that we weave a common narrative of how
we're seeing the retail market emerge and develop and what's
(02:04):
next and how we weave it throughout our full portfolio.
And because job talk is all about the future of retail, it's
all about digital transformation, it's all about
retail innovation. So if we want to make sure that
all of our shows are looking forward-looking to the future,
we need to spend a lot of time really looking at the market,
really thinking about what's going on in retail.
(02:25):
And then we position our contentand our show propositions
accordingly. Wow.
OK. I mean, thank you for giving up
the time because we're only three weeks away from Shop Talk
Europe. So you must be it's getting very
close to the baby being delivered, right.
In terms of you're, you're almost there.
It is. You must.
(02:46):
Speak to so many people in the industry around the world about
insights. What's coming up?
What's top of mind for you? What's the one thing that you're
hearing people talk about? And I, I have a very privileged
position. So my, my, my background is
retail as, as an operator, yeah.And then I did a long sting
consultancy side in global retail focusing on on on
(03:09):
groceries. So I kind of bring that and I'm
now sitting this incredible seatwhere I get to, as you say, talk
to literally hundreds of senior leaders through the year where
because we we select and we prepevery single speaker in every
single conversation and we get to work with incredible
moderators who lead our conversations on stage.
(03:31):
So what are we hearing at the moment?
Uncertainty and agility and the requirements of that.
Yeah, we talk a bit about that. We look a lot about how
customers and their online behaviours are changing.
OK, some around transaction, buta lot at the moment about
searching discovery. Yeah.
And how search is changing and how how you get your products
(03:51):
found and, and, and the overlap into to to digital marketing,
lots and lots of conversations about how that then blurs into
media and how that blurs into retail media.
So retail media is, you know, exploding in terms of the money
flowing into it, while kind of that a lot of that community sit
within the shop talk world. So lots of conversations about
how you balance adjacent revenuestreams to the core business.
And then there's a lot at the moment that comes up in
(04:13):
conversations around operationalefficiency, so particularly
around stores. So one of the things we do is we
keep a very close eye on where funding, particularly VC and PE
money goes into got you because that helps to give you an idea
of still being invested in aboutwhat's going to hit, you know,
trying to talk about the future of retail sounds very
(04:33):
pretentious. I would never claim to be a
futurology, you know, I'm, I'm agrocer from Yorkshire.
But one of the things that we did try and do is to understand,
well, OK, if we see a lot of money being invested into a into
an area of technology now that what what does that mean?
What does that look like? And yeah, who are the people
investing and why are they doingthat and that sort of thing.
And one of the areas that we've seen a lot of investment into at
(04:55):
the moment is in store technologies to drive
efficiency. Good.
Because those wafer thin marginsthat retailers work on are are
getting squeezed yeah, more thanever.
And we and we all know why. So a lot around operational
efficiency, how you find that next leap and how technology can
help continue to take cost out of stores.
(05:16):
And at the same time how you make those stores and mostly
physical, but yeah as well how make them more engaging.
Yeah. Because yeah, we've all been
into beautiful engaging showcasestores and you've been to really
efficient effective stores. But how, how did you both?
Yeah, because that's kind of where the game is.
(05:37):
Got your moment. And that's huge in retail's
mind. Yeah, we had lots of
conversations around that as well.
Investments that we're seeing, you know, whether it's some of
the investments in robotics, Yeah, a lot of the work on
inventory management and the income continued on that that
grocery line and lots of investment going into inventory
management, stock management, more and more retailers buying
into ESL's what all of which arethere to try to drive the
(05:59):
efficiency and how you plug AI, Gintic AI into all that to make
all that more efficient whilst also to drive that front end
experience driving the CX because we've seen so much
investment into loyalty mechanics.
Yeah, into kind of gamification into and just beautiful
retailing. I was in an al behind store a
(06:19):
fortnight to go and just reminded me how great and they
are a really efficient and effective retailer, but doing
some fantastic things in merchandising.
How you save here, where you need to invest, how you get the
product and range, I don't know.That's kind of core retailing,
but it's it's not an either or and there's a whole series of
retailers. And I think you know, Mercadon
is a great example of of being able to do both.
(06:42):
One, I think the most profitablegrosser right now globally from
a margin perspective, right, because the margins are, it's
incredible when you look at it. Are there any examples of like
bold leadership that you can share with us in terms of things
that you've seen that have really stood out for you?
Yeah, I, I think it's a great question.
And that topic of leadership hascan never be more important at
(07:04):
the moment. Yeah.
Because, you know, I mean, one of the first things that's open
everybody's mind doesn't is uncertainty.
And, you know, the conversationsthat we have is less about what
are the concrete actions I need to take now.
And of course there are some of that.
And you know, I feel we don't don't have enough time to talk
about tariffs and the implications, but you're one of
the big implications is around, you know, leadership and
(07:26):
managing through uncertainty andbold leadership.
So ensuring that everybody's really clear on the direction is
going in. That is really clear on the
investments that's being made. These things are incredibly
important at the moment. Now there is some I mean,
there's some tactical things that need to be done around kind
of pricing, price elasticity, price visibility.
But your biggest, yeah, you can invest a lot into great AI to
(07:48):
understand if I at least the price they'll be here.
What's it mean to somebody over here in the store?
I mean, the most important thing, the best leave you've got
on price electricity is brand building.
And that's really interesting because we've been so focused on
performance marketing for so long.
Some brands have taken their eyeof building that the the brand
and the top of the funnel work. And so we kind of really admire
(08:09):
leaders who have got really clear, really bold visions, are
able to get their organisation behind it because they will help
navigate some of the change thatthis mentioned.
So, you know, whether it is, I mean, we had Richard Dixon from
Gap. He has one about keynotes.
It's all kind of great. Loved it.
Loved it. Yeah, it's great.
It's all support. And if someone who's bringing
(08:31):
the momentum back to Gap to say we know what the Gap brand has
stood for, how do we make it that again?
How do we line up behind it? Yeah, I think in the retail
space, you know, it's impossiblenot to admire a phenomenal word.
Doug Mcmillon has done and continues to do at Walmart.
And again, having taken that organisation and made it tech
(08:55):
first, but enabled by people, that's a huge change from where
our business has been to to see the leadership he's brought.
You know, you mentioned like here, that's that's a great IKEA
in Oxford Street is a great example of a store built by a
confident retailer. Yeah, I know it's his customers
who knows his value, value proposition and is prepared to
invest. And then has in the Inca group
(09:17):
have got a really interesting structure where they can buy the
building and the property play. So there's a there's a yeah.
And those those are those are the bold moves to come back to
what they were saying. There's, there's, there's really
Admiral at the moment. Yeah, I think it's really
interesting because if if you, if you look at the maturity of
regions, you know, like ESL in the UK, in my mind, there's
(09:39):
always been lacking compared to a medium of Saturn in Germany or
in Europe where they can do elastic pricing, where they can
do dynamic pricing or even own brand, right, own label, whether
you're Sax and you've just done this massive merger with the
brand company and in luxury theywant to do more own brand.
It feels like there's these regional nuances that, again,
(10:01):
you must be tapped into because you see it from a Sharp Talk
Europe perspective, you see it from a Sharp Talk Las Vegas.
Or 4. I'm just.
Curious, what are those regionalnuances that you're seeing that
in your mind really sort of, youknow, they, they stand out.
Great question. And yeah, I think we're at a
time now where there is so much uncertainty into the economic
(10:26):
and consumer position, particularly in the US.
So we are we're AUS company and and, and shuttle start in the US
and consumer behaviour spending has been really strong, yeah,
for a number of years now in theUS and that's been questioned at
the moment. So that is a huge regional watch
(10:46):
out for us. I think one of the things that
we find fascinating in Europe, we we talk about shuttle Europe.
One of the fun, the journeys that we've been on is you're
creating a, a community for a environment that doesn't exist.
So there is no European retail market?
Absolutely. They're all 30 plus different
(11:07):
new ones, special, unique and different real markets.
So one of the things that we've done in in Shopton, Europe is
say, OK, step back, you, you could be Ricky Mark Saturn.
Yeah, great business. Yeah, you'd be Curry's Dixons.
Yeah, great business. You're, you're trying to solve
some of the same problems in geographies that don't overlap.
Yeah. So let's find an environment
(11:28):
where you can come together and learn to see.
So you're. Sharing that sort of yeah,
diversity of. Yeah, the the the guys now
behind are trying to solve the same problems as the guys at
Sainsbury's. But if you create an environment
where they can come together andshare and learn and share from
each other, yeah, never mind theguys at Sainsbury's then
learning from Mini Mart or Decathlon, Yeah, you create a
(11:49):
whole whole new dynamic dynamic.And that's there are some
incredible similarities. But you're, I mean, you're
absolutely right. In Europe, there's much more
conversations about sustainability.
There is a lot more conversations about the whole
fulfilment models because the population density, yeah, across
Europe is so different to the population entity in the state.
So your, your approaches to supply chain, yeah, come to
(12:11):
e-commerce very different, yeah.When we have our grocery
conversations, private label, the penetration is much higher,
stores a smaller range, changes are smaller and SKU counts for,
for the brand of manufacturers are lower.
So it's a different relationship.
And then more recently, retail media that's exploded in the US
(12:31):
and Europe is playing catch up. And it's really interesting to,
to watch that dynamic play out. And I I was playing out in a
different way with you being quite so fragmented.
I love the the whole new markets.
That stage that you had this share at Shop Talk was
interesting in terms of bringingthe best of what retail media is
like. Mentioned grocery and I don't
(12:53):
want to be biassed, but there's BM who I think it's BM in again
in Spain. They're a Basque, a grocer who
have created these beautiful stores that for me sort of made
me understand that there there'sthis sort of price war going on
between all of the grocers. But then what happened to the
experience war, right? What what are they doing to
(13:15):
create better experiences? What's the path to grocery shop
for you? Yeah.
So grocery shop is our grocery and CPG FMCG show.
This takes place in in Las Vegasat the end of September, early
October. Yeah.
And, and has historically, we started as the US showbiz become
increasingly global. Yes.
And, and I think right now actually it's, it's quite an
(13:36):
easy proposition. There is that there's two big
questions in town in the groceryworld.
Yeah. If you are a branded food
manufacturer, standard grocery, CPG, FM, CG, there's one
question and that's how do you grow volume?
Yeah, because volume of branded CPG products has been
challenged. So a lot of the growth has come
from inflation. So how do you drive that volume
(13:59):
and how do you trigger and inspire and get your shoppers
interested in your brand? And how do you learn from
fashion and apparel where the digital influencing is much more
developed? Yeah, in in, in a categories
where you're still buying physically for the retailers.
It's absolutely that question ofhow do you kind of create the
environment that people want to go out prepared to take the
(14:19):
effort in to go to and, and how do you then inspire?
How do you interrupt shoppers? And then you layer it's grocery
in CPGS where retail media at this peak, you layer that over
and actually stand back and you say how is retail media being
value additive to the value chain go?
Yeah, So how is it helping me solve my problem?
I shift volume or create inspiring environments and
(14:43):
ultimately, you know, you do that if it's additive to the
customer journey. Yeah.
So, so much of the conversationsabout adjacent revenue streams
focus on the P&L of the retailer, for example, or the
media reach actually. How do you take the conversation
to be, you know, back to JBPS? We actually where retailers and
consumer brands have traditionally been great.
(15:04):
Yeah. How do you create joint value
for the end shopper? And that's the conversation that
we're looking forward to having in grocery because the bits, the
bits, the jigsaw are all there. Yeah, but we just need to build
that jigsaw a bit differently tohow we've done it before.
Yeah, it just feels like we needto have a grocery shop talk
because there's so many questions I've got around, for
(15:25):
example, the maturity of ESL as a technology innovation AI,
Yeah, I mean, I think we should get an award.
We've not mentioned AI or attendonce right through through the
conversation, but it just feels like there's so many moving
pieces like own brand and and how you sort of, I don't know,
provide insights and and bring those to life.
(15:45):
Yeah, yeah. And that and that's what and
that's why we have a grocery specific show because it's
sufficiently different than nuance to to rely on all that.
But look, we're we're our view on AI.
So AI there is no doubt it is anincredibly transformational
technology, a gentique AI. It's it's really exciting where
(16:05):
that can go. Yeah, because, yeah, retail, you
know, your listeners know this retail's a scale game.
Yeah, it's about scale and process.
That's how you build profit. You build profit in tiny
increments by doing things over and over and over and over
again. That that's the business of
retail. And if a ginger Ki can make that
more efficient, which is the whole principle of a ginger Ki,
that becomes exciting. But in reality, the technology
(16:29):
is an exciting bit. The, the, the, the, the exciting
bit is the what the technology does.
So what we're really interested in is what's the outcome?
So how is it? How helping to drive
availability? How's it helping to drive
inventory visibility? How's it helping you communicate
to your customers in a better way?
Yeah. And the answer to that might be
an AI session or maybe somethingelse.
(16:50):
But the AI is just in all the technology, it's what's the
business outcome. Yeah, that is the interesting
bit. And that's where that's where
kind of we like to focus the conversation.
One, 100% you, I mean, if, if wehad your, I don't know, top ten
CE OS sat here, I think they would automatically just switch
off if the outcome for the business wasn't there, right?
(17:13):
And we're talking about technology for technology's sake
because that that's not going toget the hearts and minds of
customers. It's not going to get the hearts
and minds of employees. And and I think one of the
things that is really interesting within that it comes
back to our bold leadership yeahis is there is definitely
cultural and mindset unlocks required to take advantage of it
100%. I I was I was reading some
(17:34):
Outland CEO of open AII was founder of open AIII was he made
a really interesting observationthis week yeah, where he said
there he the day of seeing a generational difference in how
generations are utilising check TPT.
He was talking about older generations, and I don't know
what that means. Are using ChatGPT as a search
(18:01):
engine. Yes, we're younger generations
using ChatGPT as an operating system.
Got you. And I think that's fantastic
insight into the change that these tools can provide, but can
only provide if we've got the culture, the people, really
inquisitive people with space tobe able to explore, to unlock
(18:25):
the benefits. So, you know, technology on its
own is meaningless. It's all about the people and
the execution of that. And I thought that was a really
interesting insight. So, you know, one of the things
that we try and do is, yeah, OK,we focus on the business
benefit, but we also try and help create an environment in a
culture where people can learn to and be ready to walk away
from any of our shows or any of our interventions wanting to try
(18:46):
something different and want to make a bit of a change.
I think you've sort of answered this.
So I feel a bit unfair going back.
But if we just think about, you know, you've got your CE OS or
your execs here and they, they've just been to one of the
shows, what's that sort of top five things or what are the top
things you want them to be leaving from?
(19:07):
And we've got Shop Talk Europe imminently, Yeah.
What should be on their radar for the next 12 months?
Yeah, 18 months, Five years, yeah.
I mean. Great question.
So I think there is this pretty one narrative that I think is
the core narrative that runs through everything.
And that is I don't want to hear.
(19:28):
I don't want to hear, I don't want to read.
Anybody ever taught again? Talk about, ohh, physical
retail. Isn't that.
Yeah, we all know. So can we just acknowledge that
people still say that? Yeah.
So look, what is it, 80% of retail is still physical and
(19:51):
there is, there is so many reasons why that continues.
Now we think it varies in category and that sort of thing.
So the point of transaction for the majority of retail is still
physical and will remain, yeah. But for many retailers the
growth that they're unlocking isfor their e-commerce business,
Yes. So you've got a balance and
you've got to resource accordingly the volume.
(20:14):
That physical is giving you but also the growth opportunity that
ecommerce is still providing Walmart generating all their
growth through ecom. So interesting, yeah, when you
break, when you break down, lookat it.
So understanding that dynamic. And the second dynamic is that
whilst the majority of actual transaction continues to happen
physically, the point of influence and inspiration is
(20:36):
increasingly digital, right? So even if you've got great
physical stores or great physical points of distribution,
great physical products, yeah, you've got to make sure that
within your team you've got thatdigital mindset because that's
where the that is where the inspiration and that's where the
influencing the shoppers is taking place.
So let let me give you an example of that.
(20:57):
So globally, search, how people find out about things like 89%
of searches on through Google, Retail's always been slightly
different because you've got this dynamic where that's been
great. There's a search engine.
So digital search is having, you've also got what happens in
store and in retail it kind of split evenly.
So either in store or increasingly within digital
stores, that's where you find out about it.
(21:19):
And then you've got social growing and that this model, if
you're a digital marketer, you'dbe familiar with, OK, I need to
help make sure my products are found on search engines, on
retail owned assets and in social.
And actually, again, if you follow the money, yeah, that's
been relatively easy. Go ahead, Google, Amazon and
(21:41):
Meta. Yeah.
And there's a reason why those three have built huge
businesses. And.
That model is, is really being challenged by the growth of AI
based search. And these AI agents Perplexity
was on our keynote page. I thought, yeah.
And they talked about they do not have an advertising
(22:02):
proposition because they want their results to be as organic
as possible. So how do you influence that?
If you've traditionally sat backand said, well, that's OK, I'm
just going to, I'm just going toput the vast majority of my
digital marketing budget into Amazon, Google and Meta.
Yeah. Well, how, how do you deal with
the and, and these exponential growth that's happening these
agents at the moment? So I said as an example, because
(22:23):
that's the digital mindset that leaders have got to have to, to
make sure that they've got the right people in their businesses
who are trying to solve those problems.
Because I can't sit here and tell you how you influence
search resort complexity. It's an unknown.
But what we can see is the direction of travel.
So we're going to be super closethough, we're going to get
people who are curious in using it.
So you know, this balance of we are growing through digital, but
(22:48):
actually the vast majority of volume is physical, but our
influencing is increasingly digital and that digital is
crossing onto the physical storeenvironment.
Yes, in in an increasing way as well.
Yeah. And we put out a lot of contents
on that at the moment unlocking success in that area.
And it's not always going to be measurable because we need, you
know, a lot of it is going to begreat businesses of putting into
(23:11):
brand and putting to the top of the funnel and recognising that
that's the mindset. If I was ACEO and I wasn't
confident I had that mindset in my organisation, I that would be
the thing that was making me lose sleep at night.
I can keep going. I've got so many more questions,
but I have to be sensitive to your time.
Ben, thank you so much for giving up your time.
I really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you at
(23:33):
Shop Talk Europe and the other shows.
Yeah, no, a great conversation. So 2nd of June in Barcelona for
Europe on Monday and I will lookforward to seeing you then very
much.
And this is where it also comes back to the mindset.
So it's it'd be very easy to be very Britishly cynical about it.
Yeah. And say, oh, voice commerce
never really took off and the metaverse didn't take off.
So they say I can use them goingto take off.
Great. OK, have have that mindset, but
you know it there is going to beshifting the volume.
But that's the mindset that makes you lose track of the fact
(00:22):
that one of the fastest growing areas for search at the moment
is visual. Hello and welcome to a special
episode of the retail podcast. I know I always say they're
special, but for me it's like a crescendo.
(00:43):
They just keep going better and better.
And it's special because I'm in the hive offices with none other
with world famous Ben Reeler, VPof content at shop talk.
And, you know, for me, it's likecrazy because I'm always in the
stage watching you, Ben, right? And I'm just lapping up, you
know, the speakers that you find, the content that you
(01:03):
produce and put there. But for the people that maybe
haven't had a chance to come along to shop, talk around the
world, Yeah. Do you mind just giving us who
you are and what you do? Yeah, of course.
And, and welcome to the office. Thank you.
Thank you for coming in, Alex. It's pleasure.
It's great to see you. And so, yeah, Ben Miller, my,
my, my role. I'm, I'm VP of what we call
original contents and strategy at the shop talk and grocery
(01:24):
shop group. So what, what does that really
mean? It means I've the privilege of
working at a global role across the global portfolio.
We now have 5 shows under the shop talk and grocery shop
banners in the US, in Europe andBarcelona can really soon and,
and in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi for, for our new shop talk
(01:44):
blocks. And, and my role is to pull
together research insights, coordinate the talking points
and really to bring new originalthinking to all of our shows.
And also to make sure that we weave a common narrative of how
we're seeing the retail market emerge and develop and what's
(02:04):
next and how we weave it throughout our full portfolio.
And because job talk is all about the future of retail, it's
all about digital transformation, it's all about
retail innovation. So if we want to make sure that
all of our shows are looking forward-looking to the future,
we need to spend a lot of time really looking at the market,
really thinking about what's going on in retail.
(02:25):
And then we position our contentand our show propositions
accordingly. Wow.
OK. I mean, thank you for giving up
the time because we're only three weeks away from Shop Talk
Europe. So you must be it's getting very
close to the baby being delivered, right.
In terms of you're, you're almost there.
It is. You must.
(02:46):
Speak to so many people in the industry around the world about
insights. What's coming up?
What's top of mind for you? What's the one thing that you're
hearing people talk about? And I, I have a very privileged
position. So my, my, my background is
retail as, as an operator, yeah.And then I did a long sting
consultancy side in global retail focusing on on on
(03:09):
groceries. So I kind of bring that and I'm
now sitting this incredible seatwhere I get to, as you say, talk
to literally hundreds of senior leaders through the year where
because we we select and we prepevery single speaker in every
single conversation and we get to work with incredible
moderators who lead our conversations on stage.
(03:31):
So what are we hearing at the moment?
Uncertainty and agility and the requirements of that.
Yeah, we talk a bit about that. We look a lot about how
customers and their online behaviours are changing.
OK, some around transaction, buta lot at the moment about
searching discovery. Yeah.
And how search is changing and how how you get your products
(03:51):
found and, and, and the overlap into to to digital marketing,
lots and lots of conversations about how that then blurs into
media and how that blurs into retail media.
So retail media is, you know, exploding in terms of the money
flowing into it, while kind of that a lot of that community sit
within the shop talk world. So lots of conversations about
how you balance adjacent revenuestreams to the core business.
And then there's a lot at the moment that comes up in
(04:13):
conversations around operationalefficiency, so particularly
around stores. So one of the things we do is we
keep a very close eye on where funding, particularly VC and PE
money goes into got you because that helps to give you an idea
of still being invested in aboutwhat's going to hit, you know,
trying to talk about the future of retail sounds very
(04:33):
pretentious. I would never claim to be a
futurology, you know, I'm, I'm agrocer from Yorkshire.
But one of the things that we did try and do is to understand,
well, OK, if we see a lot of money being invested into a into
an area of technology now that what what does that mean?
What does that look like? And yeah, who are the people
investing and why are they doingthat and that sort of thing.
And one of the areas that we've seen a lot of investment into at
(04:55):
the moment is in store technologies to drive
efficiency. Good.
Because those wafer thin marginsthat retailers work on are are
getting squeezed yeah, more thanever.
And we and we all know why. So a lot around operational
efficiency, how you find that next leap and how technology can
help continue to take cost out of stores.
(05:16):
And at the same time how you make those stores and mostly
physical, but yeah as well how make them more engaging.
Yeah. Because yeah, we've all been
into beautiful engaging showcasestores and you've been to really
efficient effective stores. But how, how did you both?
Yeah, because that's kind of where the game is.
(05:37):
Got your moment. And that's huge in retail's
mind. Yeah, we had lots of
conversations around that as well.
Investments that we're seeing, you know, whether it's some of
the investments in robotics, Yeah, a lot of the work on
inventory management and the income continued on that that
grocery line and lots of investment going into inventory
management, stock management, more and more retailers buying
into ESL's what all of which arethere to try to drive the
(05:59):
efficiency and how you plug AI, Gintic AI into all that to make
all that more efficient whilst also to drive that front end
experience driving the CX because we've seen so much
investment into loyalty mechanics.
Yeah, into kind of gamification into and just beautiful
retailing. I was in an al behind store a
(06:19):
fortnight to go and just reminded me how great and they
are a really efficient and effective retailer, but doing
some fantastic things in merchandising.
How you save here, where you need to invest, how you get the
product and range, I don't know.That's kind of core retailing,
but it's it's not an either or and there's a whole series of
retailers. And I think you know, Mercadon
is a great example of of being able to do both.
(06:42):
One, I think the most profitablegrosser right now globally from
a margin perspective, right, because the margins are, it's
incredible when you look at it. Are there any examples of like
bold leadership that you can share with us in terms of things
that you've seen that have really stood out for you?
Yeah, I, I think it's a great question.
And that topic of leadership hascan never be more important at
(07:04):
the moment. Yeah.
Because, you know, I mean, one of the first things that's open
everybody's mind doesn't is uncertainty.
And, you know, the conversationsthat we have is less about what
are the concrete actions I need to take now.
And of course there are some of that.
And you know, I feel we don't don't have enough time to talk
about tariffs and the implications, but you're one of
the big implications is around, you know, leadership and
(07:26):
managing through uncertainty andbold leadership.
So ensuring that everybody's really clear on the direction is
going in. That is really clear on the
investments that's being made. These things are incredibly
important at the moment. Now there is some I mean,
there's some tactical things that need to be done around kind
of pricing, price elasticity, price visibility.
But your biggest, yeah, you can invest a lot into great AI to
(07:48):
understand if I at least the price they'll be here.
What's it mean to somebody over here in the store?
I mean, the most important thing, the best leave you've got
on price electricity is brand building.
And that's really interesting because we've been so focused on
performance marketing for so long.
Some brands have taken their eyeof building that the the brand
and the top of the funnel work. And so we kind of really admire
(08:09):
leaders who have got really clear, really bold visions, are
able to get their organisation behind it because they will help
navigate some of the change thatthis mentioned.
So, you know, whether it is, I mean, we had Richard Dixon from
Gap. He has one about keynotes.
It's all kind of great. Loved it.
Loved it. Yeah, it's great.
It's all support. And if someone who's bringing
(08:31):
the momentum back to Gap to say we know what the Gap brand has
stood for, how do we make it that again?
How do we line up behind it? Yeah, I think in the retail
space, you know, it's impossiblenot to admire a phenomenal word.
Doug Mcmillon has done and continues to do at Walmart.
And again, having taken that organisation and made it tech
(08:55):
first, but enabled by people, that's a huge change from where
our business has been to to see the leadership he's brought.
You know, you mentioned like here, that's that's a great IKEA
in Oxford Street is a great example of a store built by a
confident retailer. Yeah, I know it's his customers
who knows his value, value proposition and is prepared to
invest. And then has in the Inca group
(09:17):
have got a really interesting structure where they can buy the
building and the property play. So there's a there's a yeah.
And those those are those are the bold moves to come back to
what they were saying. There's, there's, there's really
Admiral at the moment. Yeah, I think it's really
interesting because if if you, if you look at the maturity of
regions, you know, like ESL in the UK, in my mind, there's
(09:39):
always been lacking compared to a medium of Saturn in Germany or
in Europe where they can do elastic pricing, where they can
do dynamic pricing or even own brand, right, own label, whether
you're Sax and you've just done this massive merger with the
brand company and in luxury theywant to do more own brand.
It feels like there's these regional nuances that, again,
(10:01):
you must be tapped into because you see it from a Sharp Talk
Europe perspective, you see it from a Sharp Talk Las Vegas.
Or 4. I'm just.
Curious, what are those regionalnuances that you're seeing that
in your mind really sort of, youknow, they, they stand out.
Great question. And yeah, I think we're at a
time now where there is so much uncertainty into the economic
(10:26):
and consumer position, particularly in the US.
So we are we're AUS company and and, and shuttle start in the US
and consumer behaviour spending has been really strong, yeah,
for a number of years now in theUS and that's been questioned at
the moment. So that is a huge regional watch
(10:46):
out for us. I think one of the things that
we find fascinating in Europe, we we talk about shuttle Europe.
One of the fun, the journeys that we've been on is you're
creating a, a community for a environment that doesn't exist.
So there is no European retail market?
Absolutely. They're all 30 plus different
(11:07):
new ones, special, unique and different real markets.
So one of the things that we've done in in Shopton, Europe is
say, OK, step back, you, you could be Ricky Mark Saturn.
Yeah, great business. Yeah, you'd be Curry's Dixons.
Yeah, great business. You're, you're trying to solve
some of the same problems in geographies that don't overlap.
Yeah. So let's find an environment
(11:28):
where you can come together and learn to see.
So you're. Sharing that sort of yeah,
diversity of. Yeah, the the the guys now
behind are trying to solve the same problems as the guys at
Sainsbury's. But if you create an environment
where they can come together andshare and learn and share from
each other, yeah, never mind theguys at Sainsbury's then
learning from Mini Mart or Decathlon, Yeah, you create a
(11:49):
whole whole new dynamic dynamic.And that's there are some
incredible similarities. But you're, I mean, you're
absolutely right. In Europe, there's much more
conversations about sustainability.
There is a lot more conversations about the whole
fulfilment models because the population density, yeah, across
Europe is so different to the population entity in the state.
So your, your approaches to supply chain, yeah, come to
(12:11):
e-commerce very different, yeah.When we have our grocery
conversations, private label, the penetration is much higher,
stores a smaller range, changes are smaller and SKU counts for,
for the brand of manufacturers are lower.
So it's a different relationship.
And then more recently, retail media that's exploded in the US
(12:31):
and Europe is playing catch up. And it's really interesting to,
to watch that dynamic play out. And I I was playing out in a
different way with you being quite so fragmented.
I love the the whole new markets.
That stage that you had this share at Shop Talk was
interesting in terms of bringingthe best of what retail media is
like. Mentioned grocery and I don't
(12:53):
want to be biassed, but there's BM who I think it's BM in again
in Spain. They're a Basque, a grocer who
have created these beautiful stores that for me sort of made
me understand that there there'sthis sort of price war going on
between all of the grocers. But then what happened to the
experience war, right? What what are they doing to
(13:15):
create better experiences? What's the path to grocery shop
for you? Yeah.
So grocery shop is our grocery and CPG FMCG show.
This takes place in in Las Vegasat the end of September, early
October. Yeah.
And, and has historically, we started as the US showbiz become
increasingly global. Yes.
And, and I think right now actually it's, it's quite an
(13:36):
easy proposition. There is that there's two big
questions in town in the groceryworld.
Yeah. If you are a branded food
manufacturer, standard grocery, CPG, FM, CG, there's one
question and that's how do you grow volume?
Yeah, because volume of branded CPG products has been
challenged. So a lot of the growth has come
from inflation. So how do you drive that volume
(13:59):
and how do you trigger and inspire and get your shoppers
interested in your brand? And how do you learn from
fashion and apparel where the digital influencing is much more
developed? Yeah, in in, in a categories
where you're still buying physically for the retailers.
It's absolutely that question ofhow do you kind of create the
environment that people want to go out prepared to take the
(14:19):
effort in to go to and, and how do you then inspire?
How do you interrupt shoppers? And then you layer it's grocery
in CPGS where retail media at this peak, you layer that over
and actually stand back and you say how is retail media being
value additive to the value chain go?
Yeah, So how is it helping me solve my problem?
I shift volume or create inspiring environments and
(14:43):
ultimately, you know, you do that if it's additive to the
customer journey. Yeah.
So, so much of the conversationsabout adjacent revenue streams
focus on the P&L of the retailer, for example, or the
media reach actually. How do you take the conversation
to be, you know, back to JBPS? We actually where retailers and
consumer brands have traditionally been great.
(15:04):
Yeah. How do you create joint value
for the end shopper? And that's the conversation that
we're looking forward to having in grocery because the bits, the
bits, the jigsaw are all there. Yeah, but we just need to build
that jigsaw a bit differently tohow we've done it before.
Yeah, it just feels like we needto have a grocery shop talk
because there's so many questions I've got around, for
(15:25):
example, the maturity of ESL as a technology innovation AI,
Yeah, I mean, I think we should get an award.
We've not mentioned AI or attendonce right through through the
conversation, but it just feels like there's so many moving
pieces like own brand and and how you sort of, I don't know,
provide insights and and bring those to life.
(15:45):
Yeah, yeah. And that and that's what and
that's why we have a grocery specific show because it's
sufficiently different than nuance to to rely on all that.
But look, we're we're our view on AI.
So AI there is no doubt it is anincredibly transformational
technology, a gentique AI. It's it's really exciting where
(16:05):
that can go. Yeah, because, yeah, retail, you
know, your listeners know this retail's a scale game.
Yeah, it's about scale and process.
That's how you build profit. You build profit in tiny
increments by doing things over and over and over and over
again. That that's the business of
retail. And if a ginger Ki can make that
more efficient, which is the whole principle of a ginger Ki,
that becomes exciting. But in reality, the technology
(16:29):
is an exciting bit. The, the, the, the, the exciting
bit is the what the technology does.
So what we're really interested in is what's the outcome?
So how is it? How helping to drive
availability? How's it helping to drive
inventory visibility? How's it helping you communicate
to your customers in a better way?
Yeah. And the answer to that might be
an AI session or maybe somethingelse.
(16:50):
But the AI is just in all the technology, it's what's the
business outcome. Yeah, that is the interesting
bit. And that's where that's where
kind of we like to focus the conversation.
One, 100% you, I mean, if, if wehad your, I don't know, top ten
CE OS sat here, I think they would automatically just switch
off if the outcome for the business wasn't there, right?
(17:13):
And we're talking about technology for technology's sake
because that that's not going toget the hearts and minds of
customers. It's not going to get the hearts
and minds of employees. And and I think one of the
things that is really interesting within that it comes
back to our bold leadership yeahis is there is definitely
cultural and mindset unlocks required to take advantage of it
100%. I I was I was reading some
(17:34):
Outland CEO of open AII was founder of open AIII was he made
a really interesting observationthis week yeah, where he said
there he the day of seeing a generational difference in how
generations are utilising check TPT.
He was talking about older generations, and I don't know
what that means. Are using ChatGPT as a search
(18:01):
engine. Yes, we're younger generations
using ChatGPT as an operating system.
Got you. And I think that's fantastic
insight into the change that these tools can provide, but can
only provide if we've got the culture, the people, really
inquisitive people with space tobe able to explore, to unlock
(18:25):
the benefits. So, you know, technology on its
own is meaningless. It's all about the people and
the execution of that. And I thought that was a really
interesting insight. So, you know, one of the things
that we try and do is, yeah, OK,we focus on the business
benefit, but we also try and help create an environment in a
culture where people can learn to and be ready to walk away
from any of our shows or any of our interventions wanting to try
(18:46):
something different and want to make a bit of a change.
I think you've sort of answered this.
So I feel a bit unfair going back.
But if we just think about, you know, you've got your CE OS or
your execs here and they, they've just been to one of the
shows, what's that sort of top five things or what are the top
things you want them to be leaving from?
(19:07):
And we've got Shop Talk Europe imminently, Yeah.
What should be on their radar for the next 12 months?
Yeah, 18 months, Five years, yeah.
I mean. Great question.
So I think there is this pretty one narrative that I think is
the core narrative that runs through everything.
And that is I don't want to hear.
(19:28):
I don't want to hear, I don't want to read.
Anybody ever taught again? Talk about, ohh, physical
retail. Isn't that.
Yeah, we all know. So can we just acknowledge that
people still say that? Yeah.
So look, what is it, 80% of retail is still physical and
(19:51):
there is, there is so many reasons why that continues.
Now we think it varies in category and that sort of thing.
So the point of transaction for the majority of retail is still
physical and will remain, yeah. But for many retailers the
growth that they're unlocking isfor their e-commerce business,
Yes. So you've got a balance and
you've got to resource accordingly the volume.
(20:14):
That physical is giving you but also the growth opportunity that
ecommerce is still providing Walmart generating all their
growth through ecom. So interesting, yeah, when you
break, when you break down, lookat it.
So understanding that dynamic. And the second dynamic is that
whilst the majority of actual transaction continues to happen
physically, the point of influence and inspiration is
(20:36):
increasingly digital, right? So even if you've got great
physical stores or great physical points of distribution,
great physical products, yeah, you've got to make sure that
within your team you've got thatdigital mindset because that's
where the that is where the inspiration and that's where the
influencing the shoppers is taking place.
So let let me give you an example of that.
(20:57):
So globally, search, how people find out about things like 89%
of searches on through Google, Retail's always been slightly
different because you've got this dynamic where that's been
great. There's a search engine.
So digital search is having, you've also got what happens in
store and in retail it kind of split evenly.
So either in store or increasingly within digital
stores, that's where you find out about it.
(21:19):
And then you've got social growing and that this model, if
you're a digital marketer, you'dbe familiar with, OK, I need to
help make sure my products are found on search engines, on
retail owned assets and in social.
And actually, again, if you follow the money, yeah, that's
been relatively easy. Go ahead, Google, Amazon and
(21:41):
Meta. Yeah.
And there's a reason why those three have built huge
businesses. And.
That model is, is really being challenged by the growth of AI
based search. And these AI agents Perplexity
was on our keynote page. I thought, yeah.
And they talked about they do not have an advertising
(22:02):
proposition because they want their results to be as organic
as possible. So how do you influence that?
If you've traditionally sat backand said, well, that's OK, I'm
just going to, I'm just going toput the vast majority of my
digital marketing budget into Amazon, Google and Meta.
Yeah. Well, how, how do you deal with
the and, and these exponential growth that's happening these
agents at the moment? So I said as an example, because
(22:23):
that's the digital mindset that leaders have got to have to, to
make sure that they've got the right people in their businesses
who are trying to solve those problems.
Because I can't sit here and tell you how you influence
search resort complexity. It's an unknown.
But what we can see is the direction of travel.
So we're going to be super closethough, we're going to get
people who are curious in using it.
So you know, this balance of we are growing through digital, but
(22:48):
actually the vast majority of volume is physical, but our
influencing is increasingly digital and that digital is
crossing onto the physical storeenvironment.
Yes, in in an increasing way as well.
Yeah. And we put out a lot of contents
on that at the moment unlocking success in that area.
And it's not always going to be measurable because we need, you
know, a lot of it is going to begreat businesses of putting into
(23:11):
brand and putting to the top of the funnel and recognising that
that's the mindset. If I was ACEO and I wasn't
confident I had that mindset in my organisation, I that would be
the thing that was making me lose sleep at night.
I can keep going. I've got so many more questions,
but I have to be sensitive to your time.
Ben, thank you so much for giving up your time.
I really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you at
(23:33):
Shop Talk Europe and the other shows.
Yeah, no, a great conversation. So 2nd of June in Barcelona for
Europe on Monday and I will lookforward to seeing you then very
much.
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