In this episode of Retaili$tic, the Coresight Research team who attended Shoptalk Spring 2025 discuss their experiences at the conference, offering insights on notable themes that emerged during panel sessions and on the show floor. Hear from John Harmon (Managing Director of Technology Research), Anna Beller, (Director of Special Projects) and Stephan Deemer (Research Team) on the evolution of retail, the importance of personalization and the return of Gen Z to malls. They also highlight innovative trends in experiential retail, the significance of customer experience and the integration of technology in retail strategies.
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Coresight Research is a research partner of Shoptalk Spring 2025. Read all our coverage of the event here.
Speaker 4 (00:00.398)
Welcome to Retaili$tic, the official podcast of Coresight Research for April 8th, 2025.
So have a nice rounded group to talk about all the things you wouldn't normally learn about Shoptalk as they were behind the scenes and running into interesting people. we're going to have a nice conversation today about what it was like to be in Vegas for Shoptalk Spring. Any troubles with your travel getting to Vegas?
Well, my flight was delayed slightly, but it wasn't too bad. And I think that the Mandalay was sold out by the time we booked our hotel. So we were at the Luxor. So you can make the assumptions you want from that hotel stay.
Whatever your feelings about the Luxor, apply those now.
The Luxor is a pyramid and Mandalay is not.
Speaker 3 (01:11.48)
Though we didn't stay in the pyramid. I have stayed in the pyramid before and it is very striking to have your room like half of or I guess a quarter of your walls at a slant. That is it's very striking when you actually see it like that. To be fair, I mean, I don't know, John, I didn't spend that much time. I feel like this is most people's Vegas story, right? You don't end up spending that much time in your hotel room. It's really just a base of operations where you can throw your
Sleep, yeah, charge the phone, which is constantly dying at events like this. I can't say that I actually spent that much time there to give it a good review or a bad review.
You got to ride the diagonal elevator up and down a few times, I'm sure. That's always fun.
I don't own any Luxor stock, you know, it is interconnected to the Mandelope. We got to walk to our meetings. It wasn't so bad in late March, but you know, in the summer it is 100 degrees outside. I mean, that is a plus.
So you mentioned the weather. What was it like? Was it nice?
Speaker 2 (02:13.546)
It seemed nice. I think I made myself stand outside for about five minutes a day. But, know, to John Harmon's point, the fact that the Luxor is connected to the Mandalay means you don't really ever need to go outside, which is, you know, my personal opinion of Vegas is that's definitely one of its downfalls that you're kind of stuck inside a hotel casino with air blasting and,
maybe cigarette smoke from the casino, is why it maybe isn't my favorite. But I will say the Mandalay itself was really nice. There was a lot of space and Shop Talk did a really interesting production. It was all disco themed.
When you got upstairs, there was a fog machine and a live DJ playing in the hallway. People were either moving into the expo or into the rooms where there were the talks happening. So being inside was at least the whole vibe.
The was a little more than that, but some people missed it due to all the disco balls. The secondary theme was the golden age of retail. And in the remarks, Joe Laszlo of Shop Talk talked about the advent of the department stores in the early 20th century. And then you may agree, you may not agree, that the second golden age of retail was the advent of malls in the 80s, where some of us hung out. And the third golden age could be...
the current age where retailers have an enormous amount of data to get closer to their customers and customer centricity was a theme. in the conference rooms and the hallways, they played, they did mixes of like 1920s jazz, jazz age.
Speaker 3 (03:51.776)
Yeah. Music to cheek. heard a remix of cheek to cheek, which I haven't heard that song since I was in film history class.
That's really interesting thinking about experiential retail and how they were trying to demonstrate some creative ideas about things retailers should be thinking about.
Yeah, Shop Talk always does to Anna's point. mean, they always do. John, you know this. And all of their events, I'm not just talking about Shop Talk, but also like Grocery Shop. They always tend to have really great themes that are sort of, and then that theme is then extended into this one. So yeah, this Golden Age of Retail. was kind of like a remix of the 1920s, which was very cool. And then last year at Grocery Shop, they made the whole thing like a grocery store. there were stages were named after foods.
and stuff like that and the theming is always excellent at these events.
What did you see that was really interesting in the Expo Center? You mentioned heading in there. Anything stand out?
Speaker 2 (04:55.27)
multiple dogs. Maybe I was just missing my own pup. But for me, that was definitely a highlight. I thought it was really smart because there were definitely a lot more traffic in the booths where they brought in dogs. One brought in therapy dogs and the other brought in some dogs that were actually up for adoption. And then there was another technology company who didn't have a booth.
but they brought their dog with them and had put a branded shirt or a little jacket on him that really helped spark conversation. He was swarmed by five people at the entrance of the expo, so I'm sure it worked for him.
A lot of booths have freebies, know, boring things like notebooks and pens. Some have candy, but you know, the really good ones have dog toys and treats. And yeah, I brought home a dog cookie, even though I don't have a dog for future use.
That's what we're thinking. like that, John.
That's a good point.
Speaker 2 (05:53.966)
I think that is the only swag I took. It was a dog toy and a lint roller. that was my... Another thing that was interesting is Brother had a booth and they were using some of their sewing machines to do custom embroidery on bandanas and hats. So that was a cool way of being able to leverage some personalization for the swag and being able to show off the technology that they have as well.
Yeah, it's funny you bring that up. That was what I was going to bring up. I saw that booth and then I saw somebody else I doing personalized water bottles or something like that. I didn't stand and get one or spend too much time there. But I saw a couple of booths doing like personalized stuff, which I think is a really good idea because I think a lot of us come home from these things with too much swag that just ends up going.
in a landfill within a couple of weeks, because it's not very well made or something. But something that's personalized, think has a lot longer. Shelf life isn't exactly the right term, but that sort of idea where it's probably going to hang out in your house for a little bit longer rather than, like John said, just some sort of pen that has a company's logo on it that you lose within five days of getting home from the conference. That's not me. yeah, you got a whole drawer full of pens.
Yeah
No, I have a new credo. I've been to so many trade shows and our CEO makes fun of me for this because I won't pick up a single thing. Well, maybe except for dogs, but I've been to so many trade shows and there are people handing you flyers and snacks and candies and you have to lug that stuff around with you the whole day long and by the end of the day in your backpack, it gets really heavy. And like Stephen said, then you take it home and you're like, what do I do with this stuff?
Speaker 1 (07:39.222)
I've got five water bottles already. I don't need a sixth one.
This theme of personalization is one that we've actually reported on. It's interesting that they were doing that in the Expo Center, but we've seen a lot of apparel retail stores adding personalization to their offer,
Yeah, we heard about that a lot at the show. Personalization was a huge thing. definitely. I know, John, you want to talk a little bit about the new market stage, but that was probably where I heard about personalization the most was on the new market stage. But yeah, personalization on a bunch of scales. like
Whether you're talking about personalization for a single product or like a landing page for a single person or just localizing stores to the community. think personalization, sometimes think about it as some sort of AI generated landing page that has just the products that you want. But I think it does go a little bit beyond that. And we certainly heard that a lot at the conference, or at least I did.
offices in Times Square, Levi's has in their store, they can personalize things for you, sew your name on something or put a sign on it. And one of our old offices was a micro factory, which had all the equipment necessary to manufacture a piece of apparel, say like a shirt or pants. They could print on it, whatever you want. They could make any fabric look like jeans, for example, personalize it, cut it, sew it together, and manufacture a customized personalized garment in a few hours.
Speaker 4 (09:03.092)
In doing some research from one of our advisory clients, we were also exploring malls around the world and found some of the malls are opening little shops to do product personalization in case some of their retail tenants can't do it themselves. So if you just go to a store that doesn't allow you to put the bling on your purse or your jacket, there's a little booth in the mall that can do it too.
Yeah, and that has been a huge trend right now, especially on the purse that at least I've been seeing all over social media. People are putting these bad charms on and it's become a huge trend literally all over the world. There are these like ugly little furry monsters that have, I think they became popular in Korea and they've started to really move all over the world and they're really trading at a premium and you're seeing people carry their, I don't know how many.
thousands of dollars their, you know, their Arameds Birkins cost with this little ugly monster plushie on it. So the fact that, you know, they're doing some of the personalization for the Charms is definitely right on the trend.
Did it all start with people putting things on their, on their Crocs? Is that how it all started? Or maybe, I think Levi's was doing maybe personalized jeans before that, but it does seem like the Crocs thing really shot it all up that everybody wanted little things to put on their bags and shoes and other manner of.
In your conversations with the Shop Talk team or any of the speakers, were you surprised by anything you heard?
Speaker 3 (10:35.948)
I know about you guys, but I was definitely surprised to hear that Gen Z, I heard in a few different sessions that kind of going back to that idea of the second golden age being the mall. I heard that Gen Z and Gen Alpha to a lesser extent, they're not really in the purchasing power area, but a lot of them are returning to malls and spending more time there, which multiple people attributed to the being stuck up, know, cooped up during the pandemic and wanting to do more social activities.
I was very surprised to hear that because I used to love going to the mall, but I kind of thought that it was a little bit of an uncool thing to do at this point, but it sounds like not.
So what other trouble did you guys get into in Vegas? Any stories that we shouldn't talk about?
I wasn't at the dinner, but was there anything particularly interesting that was brought up at the dinner?
think it was just really valuable to be able to connect with some of our clients and partners, sitting at a dinner table together, even if I really was only there for about 15, 20 minutes. So much of our time is spent on team and Zoom meetings and really everything's booked back to back. So having the opportunity to sit down and one of our partners was very generous and shared part of his steak with me. To sit down and have a meal together was just wonderful.
Speaker 4 (11:57.938)
And CoreSight does have events. We host dinners, cocktail parties, lunches sometimes. Can you talk a little bit about in general what those are like and why we do it?
There are four side events we really tried to bring all the parties together. Retailers and brands and technology companies, people who are well known in the industry. For example, before our client dinner at Shop Talk, we had a cocktail event, Or cocktails before dinner. And people get to mix and mingle, meet people they might not be sitting next to at dinner. I spoke to a gentleman who runs the Navy Exchange, you know, the retail stores for people in the US Navy around the world.
was a conversation about retail and the Navy. You know, it's really different way that they conduct retail, other than just traditional stores. The Navy is a large retailer. They have significant buying power. Many of the sailors are overseas, but they still want U.S. goods. They have to compete with major U.S. retailers on price and product breadth. But also they have requirements.
There's some products they're not allowed to sell for political and national security reasons. I don't know if you remember reading, there were some US soldiers who they were wearing some kind of fitness device, which had leaky data that was, you know, able to be read by our adversaries. So it's, you know, it's a retail business with more constraints than the traditional retail.
That's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:26.306)
fascinating.
I sat in on a panel at Shop Talk with him discussing that. And I was just going say, they also have to be careful about who they partner with. They specifically sort of asked about, you know, what are you doing on Instagram and TikTok and stuff like that. And it was a question for the whole panel, but he sort of just to reiterate what John said, they even have to be careful about who they're working with on Instagram and who they're working with. You know, they have to be very careful. it's...
It's a very interesting market where there's a lot more constraints and rules than there are in your typical retail outlet, so to speak, which I thought personally was fascinating that they have to think about all of those things for a myriad of reasons that your typical retailer never even has to consider.
Yeah, I have a feeling they're probably not on TikTok, but I could be wrong.
Good point.
Speaker 3 (14:16.084)
think you're probably right about that. Yeah, me neither.
That's okay, I'm not on it either.
Were there any, do you recall any conversations that centered around issues with geography, like certain areas of the country where things are hot or not, or whether suburban locations are different than urban locations?
Two examples from that. So one was from a session I sat in on where a representative from Reformation, is an apparel, mostly apparel brand, really focuses around sustainability. So they have implemented a lot of technology in their store that allows customers to choose their shopping experience. Everything on their racks is almost a sample.
So you either pick up a tablet at the store and scan the item and choose the size that you want in your fitting room, or you can use your own Reformation app, or they'll have a dedicated sales associate kind of mirror you around the store to help. And they had said that this kind of technology is super successful in their boutiques in, New York. But with their shops in Texas, maybe they're not.
Speaker 2 (15:31.534)
really leveraging some of that, you know, self-serve technology as much. And then the other example I mentioned is actually the first session of my first night at ShopTop where there were two executives from Footlocker there. And one of the things they said is they're really focused on localization, both in their technology and the way their stores are being set up and the way they merchandise the products. So they have a newly renovated store in the Bronx.
They view their customer there as being real experts in the hype beast and knowing, you know, what's hot in the sneaker world. So they put in some of their more rare sneaker products in those shops and their stripers, which are their sales associate, are really armed with understanding different styling and what's really hot from social media as well to help customers pick the best new hot product for them.
And then on their Footlocker Kids stores, they said, you you might think it's obvious, but we needed to redesign the store to make sure that a family can run through it without any problems. So if a mom is there with their nine-year-old and has some young kids in strollers, I needed to be able to make sure that the strollers can pass through the infrastructure of the store without any problems.
and they implemented things like activity tables for kids who maybe weren't shopping when their sibling was. And they mentioned, I have vivid memories of going to little shops here in New York when I was a kid to buy my first shoes. You know, when you step on that metal machine and they push it all the way back to your toe, they said, that is no longer the case in their Foot Locker Kids shops. They are not implementing these medieval torture devices for her.
for sizing feet, but they have these technology enabled pads where you can step on the pad. It measures your foot perfectly. And it also gives recommendations on the right style for the kids. That really helps with the insole. I mean, I remember being, you know, a tween and saying, I don't care if it's hitting the top of my toe a little bit or if it kind of hurts because this shoe is cool. But if the store associate just knows ahead of time that that's not going to be the right style for you, you're not like.
Speaker 2 (17:46.016)
negotiating with a tween or a child, which I've heard can be quite difficult. So it really helps with the shopping experience. And they are localizing both based on the type of shop and where the shop is based and really thinking about who their consumer base is.
Have major retailers internalized the idea of customer experience to the point where they have things like Chief Experience Officer or Chief Customer Experience Officer in the C-suite?
see this sitting in like a brand and marketing, but to your point, it should be an experience officer. Because even things like how do your customers experience your website with the technology you have in there? So it's always tricky when you have different departments. And I think that has silos and teams being broken out seems to be the number one reason why.
Our clients are finding friction and implementation in whatever it is that they're looking to do. But it's tough. Not one person can do everything in every role. So it's definitely an interesting suggestion to have an experience officer the same way we talk about having a chief AI officer and how that works across organizations as well.
It could be helpful to focus everything on a chief experience officer, but on the other hand, I think the experience should pervade every part of the shopping journey, right? When you walk in the store, Walmart has greeters. That's, that's kind of nice, right? The experience of are they set up for omni-channel retail? So if they don't have it in the store, can they send it to your home or great salespeople that are knowledgeable? And, know, certainly the experience of checking out or waiting in line, being able to find a sales associate.
Speaker 1 (19:29.548)
There's a lot of the experiences in store, but online and the experience is the whole process, I think. In addition to having a cool store or having events in the store or like free samples in the grocery store.
And in today's retail environment where the brick and mortar store is competing directly with an online option, an online marketplace like Amazon or Tmoo or Shein, or even the website for a high-end brand, you have to give your customer a reason to come into the store.
Absolutely. Exactly. Some of the brands, think, like Gap, we're talking about, it's really about the brand story, the brand identity, but what's our reason for being, right? mean, Gap sells jeans, Levi sells jeans, many retailers sell jeans. Why should the customer come to us? If you just want a transaction, you can do it probably more easily and efficiently online. That was kind of an unspoken theme that giving the customer a reason to come to the store. We talked about Gen Z, liking to go to stores. Best Buy said something interesting that...
30 % of its transactions are online, but of that 30%, 40 % conclude the transaction in the store. So the store has, you know, a real part in the whole journey, even if it's largely digital.
Yeah, you've mentioned that a few times and that fact always blows me away that 40 % of those orders are finished in store. That's just crazy.
Speaker 4 (20:51.596)
Have you ever bought a cell phone?
Yeah, that's yeah. And I feel like there are there definitely are sectors right where it makes more sense. There are sectors that you might want to go and try stuff out in. And those are the sectors where I think the stores really need to step up and differentiate themselves with their in-store experience. Because like John said, you know, even if you're talking about just in stores, there's a million places to buy jeans. You can buy jeans from, you know, mass merchandisers like Walmart retail through to, you know, true religion.
And so when you're talking, mean, obviously price will always be a factor in that, but also the in-store experience is going to be a, is a, is a huge part of it.
processes or products that do have to have an in-person component. So I mentioned cell phones and you can pick your cell phone out online, but the actual process of setting up the account, transferring your numbers, doing all of that. Last time I bought a cell phone, I had the cell phone picked out in 10 minutes and it took an hour to get all of the accounting and the data transfer and all of that stuff done. But then also the idea of personalization.
Like you can go online and order a pair of jeans, if you want your name embroidered on the back pocket, that's something that's going to happen in person.
Speaker 3 (22:05.322)
I did hear about some cool localization stuff going on that I found particularly fascinating. Coach is opening up coffee stores. One of the designers was there that's helping Warner Brothers actually open up Central Perks, the coffee house from Friends. They're going to open like...
replicas across the country that have goods and stuff. I think that idea that physical retail, it hasn't gone, it's just become more experiential. I heard a lot about that. And of course, the technology is just backing that up on the on the back end, right? All that stuff is going to be powered by AI tablets for the store associates and all that stuff. But I personally thought that was very cool. The idea of trying to localize your product selection for the area that you're going into, I thought was was pretty good.
You mentioned Central Perk, Stephen, which I think is fascinating. I remember the first time I shopped at a Disney store. That was probably the first experience I ever had with experiential retail where the shopping wasn't really about the products you were buying. It was about being in the environment. this was a long time ago. This is back when the Disney store was really the first retailer that had adopted that idea. Is everybody else catching up?
It certainly seems that way. know, it's funny, John and I were talking ahead of the dinner about how I'm seeing records in more places than I ever used to see vinyl records in. You I used to see vinyl records. You have to go to a vinyl record shop and now you can get them at Target and stuff like that. So I think there is definitely this idea of adding some value, whether it's through theming or whether it's through
interesting products. know, they, when coach was talking about how they were opening up their coffee stores, they said there was going to be merchandise, coach merchandise that was only going to be available at those coffee shops. Right. So you couldn't get it on coach.com or whatever their website is. You couldn't get it from a normal coach outlet store or something. It was only going to be at those coffee shops. And so I think providing a full experience is quickly becoming a requirement for physical retarder. I don't know if you agree Anna or, and, John, but that was certainly the takeaway I had.
Speaker 1 (24:10.862)
I mean, the news is out on providing an experience in retail, but a photo of a department store in 1920 and a photo of a department store in 2022 look very similar. The department stores do have fashion shows and events and things like that, but I think the bar keeps rising for retailers. And again, it's so easy to buy things online, but you have these platforms now like TikTok that
provide entertainment in addition to shopping. So there's a lot of competition for eyeballs and mindshare out there.
And I don't live in New York, but I heard multiple times print tips. that how you pronounce it? Tron Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was never going to happen. But they just opened a new department store in New York. And I heard about it multiple times throughout the show, think, to John's point, which is that previously, every department store looked the same.
And so the fact that they've opened up a department store that doesn't look like any other department store that you've ever seen, at least maybe in the United States, I'm not quite sure about outside the United States, but at least within the US, that alone got them a ton of word of mouth at this show. I think John's point proven that you really have got to start being different.
Yeah, I've also heard that they view success also not by dollar per square foot, but by time spent per customer in the store. And they've designed the store to be very design focused, to have a lot of experience, to have cool cafes, to really hit the ROI when the ROI made people spend as much time in our store as possible.
Speaker 4 (25:51.016)
Is experiential retail a different topic than retail technology or are they woven together?
I think experiential should almost always include the technology part, but the retail technology isn't always just about the consumer experience. But in today's day and age, any experiential should have some level of technology.
Even if it's as simple as encouraging a customer to download the app to experience something and then you can track them being a part of that or having digital coupons and things of that nature. So that's at least my point of view of it. And before CoreSight,
spent a decade working in experiential marketing, working on strategy and client development. So I'd work with my clients, mostly brands and retailers, some technology companies and CPGs as well, thinking about, what is their goal? Sometimes it was to activate an event. Sometimes it was to create a wild stunt or create a whole experience that people would want to
you know, buy tickets for like, you know, that Seinfeld experience was one of them. Something else was a collaboration with, you know, Bacardi and Swizz Beatz, where they would have a whole art gallery and highlight emerging artists. But they also had a concert and they did that in the South Bronx, because Swizz Beatz is, that's where he's from. And he wanted to, to, you know, bring life into that neighborhood. having had
Speaker 2 (27:18.978)
that experience and seeing how much has changed in the six years since I've been dedicated in that and then how much technology has really played a role in being able to optimize the experience, help with ROI and tracking. It's really changed the game and how much of the experiential piece is really built into the whole overarching retail experience as well.
So what other major takeaways did you have from the show?
I think one thing that I heard quite a few times is this concept of blurred line. Probably somewhat daunting because what they mean by it is you can't just think about physical or online experiences, but to be successful is you need to be everywhere at all times.
It doesn't mean you need to do everything everywhere, but you need to be everywhere that your customers are and show up for them in the way that they want to be served in that instance. So you need to make sure that your experience in your store is reflected in your online experience, both on your website, as well as in your served ads, as well as how you're communicating with your customers on social media.
And it could be a lot, especially for smaller brands and retailers, because it definitely will take a big investment to think about showing up everywhere. But it's true, right? We were talking about the importance of Omni and having experiences in your store, just the same way you're going to have experiences on your website. So that just needs to be it. It's expected at this point from the consumer.
Speaker 3 (28:53.122)
Yeah, I a similar takeaway. I was, I guess not surprised, but it was just heartening to hear how many companies said that you need to be in constant contact with your customers, that you need to be talking with them so you could do all of the things that Anna just talked about, right? The only way you're going to be able to meet the customers where they are is if you know where they are and what they're doing. And so I heard Bass and Coach, and I think a couple of others talk about actually going on store visits, finding some...
customers that they felt reflected their consumer base well on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, inviting them out to a store and then just watching how they shop in stores. And, you know, they talked about how Gen Z, unlike Millennials, often come in with ideas already prepped for what they want. They'll come in with ideas from their phones that they either got from their friends or social media or something like that. And these ongoing conversations, you know, it's no longer just enough to put QR code at the end of your receipt and hope that somebody takes a survey.
You really have to go above and beyond that to keep the communications not only open, but flowing so that you can meet them where they are.
That is customer centricity. That phrase, meet the customer where they are. It's great. It feels like it's getting a little overused, but I mean, like you said, there are customers that want to shop in store or on a web browser or on their phone or in Roblox or on their TV or on their Xbox or a number of other places. And if you want to engage them, you have to go find them. I'll go back again to this concept of mind share that I thought was interesting. Again, we saw the keynote from the CEO of Gap.
And we saw another keynote from an executive at CVS, the drug store, who talked a lot about Mindshare. You know, there are three major drug stores in the US. How do you differentiate them? It's through inventory and product selection, really. The drug stores function as, well, they're a pharmacy and they sell health and wellness products, but they're also a convenience store and a grocery store. So they talked a lot about.
Speaker 1 (30:50.562)
customizing their product portfolio by neighborhood to have what you need because you really can vary neighborhood by neighborhood, neighborhood by store to keep the stores relevant in a sector where there's a lot of competition.
So it sounds like the major takeaway is the store is not just a store anymore. It's a destination.
Man, people were saying the store is dead and that was factually incorrect and untrue. mean, still about 80 % of retail sales happen in a physical store and the store has this unique ability to provide experiences and to let the customer interact with human beings that you don't find online. It's pretty irreplaceable.
And the amount of data that you get from the in-store experiences from when customers are there, you know, I think one of the startups from the startup pitch was about putting cameras in stores that could tell if people looked at a deal and then they decided not to take that deal based on their heart rate and their eye movement and all that kind of stuff. so also the amount of data that you get. yeah, totally agree. store is not dead by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah, I'll talk about the new track at Shop Talk. Spring is called the New Market. It was really characterized as being about retail media, but I was was really pleasantly surprised in that it really talked about all kinds of media. For example, things like connected television. Television is still not dead and connected TVs can display personalized ads. But we also saw other media such as video games, Xboxes. There are communities on Xboxes also.
Speaker 1 (32:23.746)
The metaverse, you know, is still around. Roblox, people have communities. There's a meditation place in Roblox that really is combining virtual experiences and physical experiences.
There was a session on Mastige, so thinking about providing more value for Prada, not necessarily needing to charge an arm and a leg for them. And the brands and retailers who were on stage, there was one representative from Delta Galil who does the licensing work for the Ralph Lauren brand for their undergarments and pajamas. And then the other one was from Kos.
Tauz is a subsidiary of H It's their higher end brand. they were talking about how they're really pointed in where they invest in their real estate. So one of their newer stores after having a successful pop-up is in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York.
And it's directly across the street from a three-story Hermes boutique that's going up. you know, their product ranges from generally up to a few hundred dollars. So they're not, you know, their average price isn't in the multi-thousand. And they said that people might be surprised as to how they can afford that premium, premium real estate. And she said that they have come up with something called an Omni ROI. So that's
They view their investment in real estate as not just the sales per square foot that they're getting in that location, but it's also about the prestige that the brand is able to acquire and the recognition that they're able to get. And they view that as partially marketing as well. So I thought that that was really fascinating.
Speaker 1 (34:10.298)
that's the halo effect. That goes way back. Interestingly, when a retailer closes a physical store, the online sales drop. The two really do feed off each other. This one's a little unusual. I saw a presentation from a company called a startup called Postscript and they do SMS marketing, but in a totally different way. We probably get a lot of, if we sign up for them, a lot of SMS texts that we want that are blast texts and they're boring. We probably get a lot of texts we don't want.
But this uses generative AI to be conversational. the example, I don't know, they send someone a message about a watch, you what kind of watches do you like? And the respondent says, my husband likes military watches. And it takes cues from the conversation and builds off of that so that it's not just a sales pitch that's pushed into your face from your phone.
but it takes what you give it and builds a conversation and really leads the customer to getting more product information or considering a purchase. I thought that was really innovative.
Just want to jump in really quickly and say also if you're looking for cool retail technology every year, our CEO Deborah Weinstein hosts the Startup Pitch event at Shop Talk, which is all early stage innovators that are focused on retail technology. We have a very large write-up of the entire event on our website, including the winners and including innovator profiles for every participating company. So there's lots of amazing retail tech there from personalization, gamification, AI powered video creation, a bunch of
Very cool stuff, so I also want to give that a shout out.
Speaker 4 (35:40.59)
Great. That's been a fascinating conversation. What's next for the team? What's the next event that people that couldn't make it to Shop Talk Spring may want to attend where Corsite will be there?
I know someone from our team is going to be at World Retail Congress in London in May. And then we are also going to be participating at the lead. And then a little sneak peek is we have done as a spinoff from our AI council, we have hosted our own conferences and I am working with Deborah and some of the team to...
So hopefully this June we will also be hosting our own conference. We'll be really excited to have all of you there.
We'll also be putting on a client dinner at the NACDS conference in Palm Beach, Florida on Friday, April 25th, 2025, sponsored by our client, RELAX.
Yep. And we will also be at the ULI spring meeting in mid-May and that's going to be in Denver, Colorado. So lots of ways to interact with the Corsair research team.
Speaker 4 (36:46.188)
Well, Anna, Stephen and John, thanks for being so generous with your time today and thank you for joining us this week on Retailistic. For access to over 6,000 reports, hundreds of webinars and videos, and more information about the CoreSight AI Council and our strategic advisory services, visit us at coresight.com. Have a great day. We'll see you next week.