Retail Lessons from China - Sarah Chessis

Somebody was talking the other day about how, you know, internationally, particularly in the US, we really dominated retail. And right now there's so many exciting things going on in China. And, you know, somebody was explaining to me how real retail, which is, you know, the Alibaba model, is really taking hold. And that's It's completely kind of fusing online, offline, so bricks and mortar with any kind of technology. So an example would be you went on to an online platform in China and you looked at a product. So you looked at that product, then a few, a little while later, you're going to start seeing those products coming through on your WeChat. So there they go, the products that are either the same the same product you've looked at or something that looks really similar. So they're all there coming through. You then drive and you're going to a bricks-and-mortar shopping mall, or you're driving past a bricks-and-mortar shopping mall, and it will pop up on your phone and advise you that the jumper that you've been looking at, or any jumper that you've clicked on, that garment is available in that store and it's on sale. And if you drive into the shopping mall, this is the first place to park that is closest to where you can actually buy that garment. And it's, you know, that is a real— it's a demand-led model. This is what that customer wants, and let's give them every opportunity to buy that product that they want, as opposed to, you know, hopefully that's, you know, let's just throw out random messages to customers hoping that there might be something in there they like. So that whole real retail that's being led by China, and that I think they are so far advanced, I think is going to dominate and will push through the rest of the world.