Retail Rundown – October 07, 2019

Justin White:
In an effort to diversity beyond its online retail and having to build its own physical stores, Amazon is looking to bring its cashier-less Go technology to OTG’s CIBO Express stores at airports, Cineworld’s Regal theaters, and concession stands in baseball stadiums. This will expand Amazon’s retail presence at a faster pace and lower cost overall as well as foster relationships with companies that consider Amazon the competition.

Justin White:
The cashier-less Go technology, currently in place at Amazon’s 16 branded Go stores, allows customers to scan their phones, grab products off of shelves and walk out while receiving a receipt for their purchase on their digital device.

Justin White:
Ricardo, as Amazon is exploring different business models for its third-party Go strategy, including asking for a percentage of sales or charging retailers up-front and then taking a monthly fee, do you think this will be a successful venture for Amazon?

Ricardo Belmar:
Yeah. You know, I think first of all, I would say we really shouldn’t be surprised I think by this move. One of the challenges for me that Amazon has in opening more of these Go stores is finding the right real estate to find new store locations. So despite the reports we’ve heard in the past of them wanting to have thousands of these so quickly, I think that’s actually become a challenge for them now. Partly because you got to figure, what’s the best kind of location for them? It’s got to be somewhere where convenience isn’t just a desirable factor, it’s an absolute imperative, right? To want to get something that it goes through. So I think airports really make a lot of sense here, to go beyond the locations they’ve got. It’s definitely an area where all of your shoppers are absolutely on the go.

Ricardo Belmar:
No, no pun intended there. But, you know, again, airports a logical extension to that. I think even there though the challenge is, how is Amazon going to find available retail space at some of the larger, busiest airports where they want to be? So I think that these cheapo stores present a really good opportunity for that. I want to say they have, I think it’s somewhere around a hundred stores or so, and they’re in at least 10 major airports now. So it may not be the 3,000 number that we once heard about in other reports. I think it makes a lot of sense. And likewise, you know, for locations like movie theaters, stadiums, they’ve been mentioned in news reports here at other areas where people really want to grab and go and get something quickly to where they’re at because it’s entertainment involved.

Ricardo Belmar:
And there’s probably also an element of not being as aware of how much you’re spending that makes it interesting. So the business models are, I think they’re pretty intriguing. This isn’t just Amazon wanting to sell the go, just walk out technology. This is really Amazon trying to have a stake in that retail operation. So whether it’s this percentage of sales model that’s been proposed here, or whether it’s an upfront and maybe a fixed monthly fee, although honestly I think that one maybe isn’t quite as interesting to them. I think this shows they’re willing to have different models and approaches and how they work with other retailers. And also how they can make the retail operations more profitable for themselves. Now, I did note there was a CNBC article that talked about how the original Go store, the one in Amazon’s HQ is reportedly the only profitable one to date.

Ricardo Belmar:
Of course not that, at least I’m not aware that we’ve seen any real numbers reported by Amazon, but that’s for sake of argument, assume that’s true. You kind of have to ask yourself, why is that? I would argue it’s probably the one with the highest traffic. Now I’ve been to that store myself. I know that the times that I’ve been there it’s been extremely busy. So I don’t think they’re lacking for foot traffic there, but we’ve also seen plenty of reports about how expensive the technology is. I’m actually impressed in the one report I saw on this cheapo arrangement that Amazon, if true, is saying they can get the technology installed within just a couple of weeks. I think that’s pretty impressive because most of the reports we’ve seen and stories that have been done about the Go store, this was not an easy task to outfit these locations with all the right technology. So it does make me wonder if what we’re going to see here will be a subset of what we see at the Go, or is it going to be exactly the same experience?

Ricardo Belmar:
I hope that this means they’ve really improved upon the implementation. Maybe on some of the costs down. I certainly don’t think they want to risk any tarnish of the go experience if it doesn’t go smoothly at these new locations. And I think we also want to pay attention to see how branded is it going to be? I would be shocked personally if we don’t see an Amazon logo all over this once it goes in. And I still have one open question, what’s the app going to be? Is it going to be an extension to the existing Amazon Go app? Will there be a new app that is unique to the cheapo stores? I am curious to see how they’re going to do that. Because I think that also has an impact on the overall customer experience for it.

Ricardo Belmar:
But overall, I think this solves a cost problem for them to get more of these cell stores out there, it gives them a new source, or new revenue source in working with other retailers. We’ve seen to a lot of recent agreements with other brands to try to get Amazon’s footprint expanded beyond just their own stores, to really get them everywhere. You know, this kind of puts them on a pace where everywhere you turn you’re going to see Amazon. So it’s not just going to be what you think of when you first want to go shop, it’s just going to be what you think of every time you turn around. So what does that tell you about the branding opportunity I think here? I think it’s a big win for them in that perspective as well. And it wouldn’t surprise me if once this goes through we see other co-branded locations like that.

Carl Boutet:
Well I think Ricardo did a good job covering why this could be good for Amazon and why Amazon is pushing forward in this. Maybe I’ll twist the question around slightly and ask it differently. Will this be successful for the partners that Amazon is doing this with? And I have a very different outlook in this case because I think it’s a very dangerous path to go down for a couple of different reasons. I can appreciate why they’re doing it. It’s sort of like, you’re the taxi company right now, you’re competing against Uber, and your clients are always complaining at how bad your credit card processing system is on the back seat of the car when they just walk out. Uber technology is around and Uber comes to you and say, hey, we’ll process that for you.

Carl Boutet:
I think that could be really interesting. The downside, or the clear one that jumps out at me right away, is this data, and all the data they’re going to get on all these transactions. They probably won’t get skew level though, there’ll be some sort of agreement, but they’ll get some aggregated information letting them know, which categories, which locations, which times of day. I mean, this is not information that’s lost on a company like Amazon. So I’m always a bit concerned, and more and more it goes the more concerned I become now with how Amazon, quote unquote, “partners” with these brands to help them become more efficient, more effective, more profitable. And absolutely, I mean, the costs for any one of these brands to develop their own Go-like technology is a stop.

Carl Boutet:
So that’s not going to be the opportunity. But I mean, should it encourage them to maybe look at other vendors? Because Amazon Go is not the only one out there with this kind of technology. And I’m also very curious, like Ricardo, as to how efficient this technology is going to be in new footprints. Because they did some work in computer vision a couple years ago with some of the top researchers in the field. And I mean, things like lighting and floor plan, I mean, have huge impacts on implementation and accuracy, and the costs of getting those rights. So I’m sure there’s a lot of lessons learned now that it goes up to 16 locations, and I’m sure they have many, many other iterations out there that we don’t even know of where they’re testing these things before they go and offer it to their partners. But it’s substantial. And I come back to that first point is the data, and are you just feeding the beast? So that’s my big concern on that story.

Ricardo Belmar:
You bring up a good point with that, Carl. That’s kind of what makes me wonder, what’s the user interface side of this? If it’s going to be powered through an Amazon Go app, you almost have to assume that’s going to give Amazon access to a lot more of the data then you might want to share with them.

Carl Boutet:
Well even if it’s not the app, I mean the back-end of the app. I would be shocked if this is powered on Microsoft Azure. You know, I think the chances are the servers are going to be spun up on this, on the backend will be AWS. Which, you know, again, they don’t necessarily have the level or are even that interested in the C-level data, but they’ll know which airports have the best, you know, the highest velocity. They’ll know what time of day the theaters are the busiest at. They’ll know what the overall sort of metrics are of these business units and saying, don’t forget, let’s just for argument’s sake take theaters. Let’s really get out of the box here for a second. You know, you say, well what does Amazon have to do with theater?

Carl Boutet:
Well what Amazon owns some huge movie production companies and there has been talk of Amazon theaters. So is this their market research that their competitors are basically bankrolling for them? So these are all questions I think that, you know, it’s quick to say yes and want to partner with a successful partner like Amazon. I’m not blaming the executives of these companies to want to do it, and you know what I’m actually giving them kudos for thinking outside of the box on their side and recognizing that this is, this payment friction point is an important one to address. But again, Amazon Go is not the only one to offer the solution. There are other technologies being developed, some that claim to be very cost effective. I can maybe question that as well, but not thinking this is the only game in town. It would be interesting for them to at least consider the others and learn as much, if not more hopefully from the experience and than Amazon will.

Ricardo Belmar:
And you know, it also kind of makes you wonder if, going back to the data again on that point you made, you know that there are other alternatives. You have to wonder, what is Amazon offering in exchange back to the retailer for this? Maybe they’re giving them some analysis on that data as part of the whole package here. And maybe that’s the differentiator for them for why they wouldn’t go to an alternative provider.

Carl Boutet:
I don’t know a single analytics or digital technology that doesn’t come with like an analytic suite of some sort. I mean no vendor out there right now wants to go out and sell something that has data points tied to it that doesn’t have some sort of dashboard. I mean, so maybe theirs is better. I think they can put it in much better context because Amazon has way more data than anybody else. How much of that they’re going to share? I don’t know. But I think that could be the value added. Say, we’ll give you a bit of a peek behind our curtain and let you know how the typical store in your area does, that could be different. Or how it compares to our own Go store for instance, maybe.

Carl Boutet:
But again, I’d be surprised. The first people that know how much this data is worth is them. So I think they’re just saying this, and you want the cutting edge. Everybody knows our technology, they don’t know our competitor’s technology. This is a branding move. This is almost like Kohl’s taking the returns from Amazon because we just want our brand associated to Amazon, and by doing that we get a 20% lift in our stock price. Possible. But I don’t think that Amazon has to really put too much more into it. Or they just say, listen, here’s our R & D budget on this. If you guys are ready to put $600 million into developing this, go ahead. You know, but we’ve done it for you. So it’s up to you. Negotiations with Amazon tend to go one way.

Justin White:
So fast fashion apparel retailer Forever 21 announced its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with plans to close most of its stores in Asia and Europe along with 178 stores in the US. And it’s obtained a total of 350 million in financing to help support its operations through bankruptcy. And the retailer currently has 815 stores and is the seventh largest tenant of mall owner, Simon Property Group. And it’s aggressive real estate expansion is weighed on its finances and is now joining other retailers like Mattress Firm trying to downsize with bankruptcy protection. So Carl, what’s your take on this recent news? Do you think this could have been prevented? And was this Forever 21, and/or is this fast fashion’s fate as shopping trends are shifting towards sustainability and used fashion?

Carl Boutet:
Yeah. So this is another one of those sort of perfect storms of some business miscalculations, market timing, trends all kind of converging to make your life miserable. And especially in Forever 21’s case where they seem to have hit all those points on the downside. So to your question, is this all about sort of the fast fashion model falling apart? It definitely plays into it. There are shifts in consumer, you know, in some consumer behavior towards some of the newer models around like the rent the runway, or the sharing economy type of things. But I still think that’s quite minor. I think that’s really nascent right now. And it’s early adopter phase. So I don’t think that’s really the key piece yet. I hope it is going to become.

Carl Boutet:
I mean, I think there’s a larger message there that should resonate and create a bit of a sense of urgency for the other retailers out there still, depending on this more fast fashion, low price business model. But I think the bigger issue here was the rapid expansion. You know, it’s always very, very tempting as a business person, forget just a retailer. If you have a formula that’s making money, you just want to replicate it. And you’ll have tons of investors and banks ready to bankroll that. And to say, well listen, if each one of these is profitable, why don’t we open a thousand of them? And they had some pretty big objectives. Unfortunately their timing of doing that was a bit late in the sense that they were mall based.

Carl Boutet:
As you pointed out with there being one of Simon’s bigger clients. So they were surfing, they got onto a wave that was about to crash. And that really is more the timing piece, and the fact that they were very hungry and wanting to scale, scale, scale, and not realizing that this party wasn’t going to last forever. And that the model, not just because of the economics, but it just didn’t necessarily scale the same way. So to the previous part of the question, is this mainly a way to get out of leases? I think that’s probably the biggest part of this strategy. And unfortunately the common one for a lot of these retailers that over stored. Because it’s a lot easier to get out of your lease agreements through the bankruptcy protection and not have to pay the substantial fines to end those leases early, and just say, listen, sorry guys.

Carl Boutet:
Now in their defense, I mean the family put in a lot of money, they’re down substantially too. So it’s not like they’re walking away with all the profits and the big bank accounts, they’re taking their lumps on this too from some accounts having lost three and a half billion. So why didn’t they move more quickly, could be another question. But I think the bankruptcy protection is foremost for this to renegotiate these leases. Get out of a ton of them, well, the over stored ones, and then figure out from there how they can pivot their business model, and maybe bring it back to what it once was. I’ve never been a big Forever 21 shopper, but what I’ve understood through listening to others is they sort of lost their way on their merchandising side to where they used to have a pretty distinctive style that people appreciated.

Carl Boutet:
And because of the fast and the massive scale expansion, they sort of lost a bit of that edge and became kind of everybody’s, you know, everybody’s favor. Meaning, they didn’t really have any typical fashion edge to them anymore. So you could think about Target, that went through something like that a couple of years back as well. They lost a bit of that merchandising appeal. So will this restructuring allow them do that? Hopefully. I mean I hope for the mall operators that they don’t lose everything in this, but it’s going to hurt. And I think it’s going to be a warning call for many others.

Ricardo Belmar:
You know, I think in some ways I agree with a lot of what Carl said. I think this is a case of get big fast gone wrong, in that they maybe grew a little too quickly then what they could handle. And I don’t know that this is as much a statement on the fast fashion business model, as much as it is a statement on how you execute it. I think Carl mentioned, and I agree with this too, on the merchandise side they’re not the only apparel retailer who’s had issues with styling and desirability in getting customers to want to shop with them. And where as a fast fashion brand, like Forever 21, I think when they came around originally there was a lot of interest. They were different, they had something unique, they had a point of view in that space.

Ricardo Belmar:
And they seem to have kind of lost that. You do see a lot of reports from customers just not thinking that the style speaks to them. And again, they’re not the only ones. We saw a Gap go through this not too long ago, and in fact maybe even still struggling a bit on the styling sides in their stores. So I don’t think this is unique to fast fashion, it may be is just yet another version of a typical commentary on how fickle fashion and fashion shoppers are. And because they had so many stores, it just compounded the issues for them. So I do think there is an element here in the bankruptcy in helping them get out of or renegotiate these leases, and help them try to emerge with a lower cost basis. I think that’s definitely a component here, but I think ultimately they failed to adapt over the years and sort of where customers were going.

Ricardo Belmar:
I don’t know if we could put a finger on what uniquely differentiates their in store experience versus any other fast fashion retailer. I think you also had, you know, retailers like the other off price discounters coming in and maybe sharing in some of the merchandising and styles for this area. So I think it became so popular it’s almost a victim of its own popularity. And I think Carl mentioned this as well, but it just you, once you lose the uniqueness because everybody knows about it and everybody has it, you’ve got to find something else to differentiate on. You’ve got to find something else that’s new. And I think that’s what they haven’t done. And I think that’s what has caused this downward spiral for them and led to where they are now.

Carl Boutet:
And one of the… I think the H & M example, which obviously another substantial fast fashion retailer. One thing I’ll recognize for them doing is they diversified their brand offering having developed some brands that were not necessarily as fast fashion oriented or as price oriented, I guess would be the better way to say it. But developing brands like COS, which were more, you know, higher fashion, and it targets in with higher price points as well. And were very well designed stores, very well merchandised at that higher price point. So maybe something Forever 21 should have maybe considered instead of replicating something that they thought was successful. And I’d be interested in, you know what, I believe there is some research out on this as well.

Carl Boutet:
But I believe Forever 21 still had their, you know, the gas pedal to the floor, knowing even still they were bleeding money. And that’s a bigger issue, one around governance and in wondering where the board was when this was all happening. But were they really thinking about, you know, sometimes people want to outgrow the problems. They figure if we just get bigger then this profit problem is going to go away because the efficiencies of scale will make up for that, those lacks. But as we know now, that doesn’t work anymore in this, in retail environment. You can’t grow your way out of a loss. So it just compounds it and that’s possibly what’s happened in this case.

Justin White:
That’s great and focusing on this term get big fast gone wrong, I think that totally encapsulate what you guys have been speaking about and that’s wonderful. And I recently actually visited a couple different Forever 21s that were pretty disheveled, which is obviously a function of cost and employee training, and you know, brand expression, right? All of those things. So get big fast gone wrong is definitely a way to encapsulate everything here. Awesome. So we’re going to move on to the Marshalls rundown at this point.

Justin White:
Off-price retailer Marshalls recently launched its first eCommerce store, joining its parent companies, TJX companies, other online stores for a TJ Maxx and Sierra. Marshalls site features a unique assortment of products within the same categories found in its physical stores. And most items sold online can be returned in stores or through mail, but several designer items such as Christian Louboutin and Fendi are not returnable in store. So Ricardo, what do you think led Marshalls to expand in the eCommerce? And how will it go moving forward?

Ricardo Belmar:
Well, I think if you’re not a regular Marshalls shopper this has to be one of those announcements that you say to yourself, what, you mean there’s still a major retailer that doesn’t have eCommerce? What is this, 2005? Are we in the Twilight Zone? It has a little bit of a shock value in that sense, but honestly I think this was inevitable. I think considering that TJ Maxx has two of their other brands with an eCommerce presence already, I’m sure they used the TJ Maxx store as a learning experience to help them come up with some other differentiators for the Marshalls brand. I mean, I certainly remember the time when none of their brands had any eCommerce and they relied exclusively on that treasure hunt mentality of customers visiting the store just to see what could they discover, what would they find? What was that next great a piece that they would come up with that they just couldn’t find anywhere else that would really give them that good warm feeling that they had a nice shopping experience from it?

Ricardo Belmar:
And that’s one of those things that I think alludes a lot of online experiences, particularly in the discovery phase where, yes, it’s great to go to an online everything store like an Amazon, but you search for something and it tells you there’s 600,000 results. How are you supposed to sift through those in a meaningful way that is similar to an experience of just looking through merchandise on a rack or on a shelf in the store? So I think they’ve wisely looked at trying to be unique in how they’re doing their online store. You know, they’ve mentioned that it’s a highly curated experience, products will change all the time. It’s not simply an extension of the store. It’s really, it’s a unique store in its own right that they implemented here. They’ve added some interesting features I think, you know, maybe for the mobile app or you can swipe left or right and save things for later, versus a buy now, choose a favorite.

Ricardo Belmar:
They’re leveraging influencers to try to identify trendy items. You know, you mentioned the ability to return things in store, even if there are a few brands that maybe they won’t allow you to do that. I’m sure they’ve looked at the numbers from their TJ Maxx experience and have a sense of what kind of cross selling they can expect from people who come to the store to return an online purchase, and then hopefully buy something else as part of that visit. I think it’s a great move overall. I’m going to lean towards the sign that it’s going to be successful for them, it should get them some incremental growth. I’m sure there’s a little bit of a risk of cannibalization of that in store experience given that the brand is really strongly positioned on the treasure hunt mentality.

Ricardo Belmar:
But if they’re careful in how they curate, how they present that online experience, I think it comes down to if the user experience both in the mobile app as well as the online website, if they get that right then I think they will see uplift in sales. And it’ll just strengthen the relationship with customers. I don’t expect there’ll be a lot of customers who are going to become online only customers for them if they already shop at Marshalls. I don’t think it’s a shift, it’ll be incremental. But it does stand to gain them some new customers who maybe haven’t been to the store and might try this out just because of the newsworthiness and the idea of, wow, this is a brand new online store that hasn’t been around before. And I’m sure some element at TJX companies is asking themselves and hoping that they’ll have customers who are going to turn around and ask them, well when will the other brands, like home goods get their online store? And kind of build some additional anticipation there.

Ricardo Belmar:
But I think again, it’s something that can help them fuel new growth. I think we’ve seen a little bit of a slow down in this off price segment where the explosive sales quarter to quarter haven’t necessarily been there. I’m not sure that’s as much reflective of, you know, in this case apparel industry general and maybe changing tastes in how people buy apparel, versus just the format itself. But I think it’s got a lot of positives for it. And I do think it was one of these, it’s about time moments.

Carl Boutet:
One thing with their business model that I always find interesting is, how do you bring the treasure hunt to the web? And the fact that they’re doing it with stock that’s in stores is sort of perplexing to me because I think it just makes things a lot more complicated. There’s a couple of retailers that have tried it before and haven’t had that much success. Just because of the velocity of, and what makes the treasure hunt experience in their first place is this high turnover, so that it makes it very complicated to managing inventory and mostly the key online catalog. So that they don’t usually, most would go and have a discrete inventory grouping for their online that doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s in store. In the early two thousands I was part of the launch of Costco’s eCommerce in Canada, and that was definitely the mentality, it was just too messy.

Carl Boutet:
Now they have visibility into the store inventory, it’s a little more seamless. And that we know as an industry is something we’re all going towards is trying to take away these barriers between the physical and digital. But when it comes to treasure hunt, I don’t know, I’m struggling a bit with it. And I’d be curious to see how they really activate on it. And good for them, if the technology and their backend systems are strong enough to really allow them to properly populate their eCom with product that’s actually in store, with the right information and at a price point that attracts new new buyers online that they wouldn’t have found elsewhere. Because it is a category that hasn’t really done that well yet. So let’s see where this experience lands.

Carl Boutet:
But, I mean again, I’m always up for anybody trying something new so I’m happy to see that. Maybe a little parallel, an interesting one that’s not [inaudible 00:27:14] doesn’t speak directly to TJX, but here in Canada, another category that Ricardo would say is back in still in 2005 are the dollar stores. And we’re starting to see them trying to get online too. And I see some parallels between these two just because of the way the margin business works and how do you cover the cost of shipping and all these sort of intrinsic costs tied to eCommerce and returns. So something a dollar store has stayed away from. And we, last year, had a Canadian dollar store concept launch with a very different approach to maybe people like TJX will pay attention to with the high minimum shipping cost.

Carl Boutet:
So imagine buying online for a dollar store or a discount retailer knowing that you have up front of $20 shipping cost. So what does that do? Well, first of all it takes away the people that were just maybe curious. And I’ll try that $7.99 item and have it shipped almost free to me. Or have it shipped to. Versus you know, it’s going to cost me minimal $20 to have anything shipped to me, so you know what, if I’m that interested in the price point, it’s because I want to buy in bulk and I’m going to go out and fill the basket to a point that justifies the $20 shipping fee. So I don’t know if that’s something eventually they’ll take a look at. But again, I’m happy to see retailers just trying new things and iterating and learning from them.

Ricardo Belmar:
Yeah, and definitely. Do you think this is one of those areas where they’ve had to look at their customers, and while they’ve obviously got a good base of the treasure hunt seekers. At the end of the day, I still like to think that just every shopper is inherently an Omni Channel shopper and that they just want to be able to shop however, wherever they want. It’s not something, you know, you can’t stop any shopper off the street randomly and ask them about these questions that we all talk about in the industry that your shoppers don’t. Right? They don’t know any of these terms, they don’t understand any of these things. They just know they’re going to buy something and they just want options in how to do it. So I think in some ways there’s a decision factor here that said, we’ve got to start presenting more options if we’re going to grow the sales from that customer base.

Ricardo Belmar:
And then you also have to ask, but what do I need to do to get other people who aren’t shopping here yet? You know, maybe that one’s not as strong, maybe it will work. I’m not sure. I haven’t, for example, really seeing any notes on, you know, are they doing free shipping? Is there a minimum required for free shipping? I haven’t seen any any notes on that, so I’m not sure where that sits. I do think this is one of those areas where if you’re looking for that one particular piece of treasure, do you get one item and you’re done? Or are you looking for one item that you happen to see, which you would do if you went into the store, right? You would notice three or four other things and maybe get enticed in that impulse buy. Certainly that works not just in this format, but for other formats like Costco that Carl mentioned. Obviously relies a lot on that impulse buy.

Ricardo Belmar:
That’s also kind of hard to replicate online is that a impulse buy. So I’m curious to see how they’re attacking that in terms of the user interface. You know, I think it’s a little bit more than just a basic recommendation engine or anything that’s going to say, oh, people who like this item might like this other item. I know I did see some notes about how they’re going to use influencers to try to highlight trends and similar items, so maybe that’s the angle they’re going to take to try to help promote that impulse buying, get people to order multiple things in one basket. But I’m with Carl on the one point that it’s good in that they’re finally trying it. It’s not 2005 anymore, it’s 2019. You would expect a lot of these popular retailers who aren’t online yet and don’t focus on eCommerce to really add that as another channel.

Justin White:
Well, Carl and Ricardo, thank you guys so much for being on the Retail Rundown, and we hope to have you back soon.

Ricardo Belmar:
Thank you.

Justin White:
And to our listeners, thank you guys so much for tuning in this week, and we’ll see you next Monday.