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NewsThe Black Friday aftermathWe cover the sales, the backlash and the dangers for retailers. p3

FeatureDeciem’s plan to disruptHow the big beauty company is bucking retail trends and succeeding. p14

From the sourceBeyond boringUltra: A store, footy field, barber and restaurant under one roof. p10

In this issue

The future is nowStep inside some of Asia’s coolest stores fusing technology with human experiences, including Nike, Aldi and Samsung.

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E thical and sustainable label Outland Denim is spreading its wings and expanding into the US through Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s in New York and California. The brand’s

State of Being collection will be available in the department stores and their respective online stores from February next year.

“The likes of Bloomingdale’s have the ability to expand our impact by utilising their customer base, and their sales reflect the impact that we’re able to have. The more we can sell, the more people we can employ to offer this opportunity. Just going direct-to-consumer doesn’t make sense to us when our bottom line is people, because we’d be limited in our ability to reach a wider group of people,” founder James Bartle told Inside Retail Weekly.

“There’s a big market over there as well, people want to know who we are and it’s an epic way to into the market and align ourselves with premium retailers. It [gives us] credibility straight away – we’re on a shelf straight away and consumers trust [those retailers]. The impact of that goes beyond just the region we’re in, it goes into other regions and other retailers that might take the risk [on us]. Usually they watch you for however many seasons before taking that risk.”

Local label Outland Denim launched in 2011 with the aim to offer employment, training and career progression for former victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia. Now, the business has more than 100 staff from varying backgrounds of vulnerability. The B Corp business also focuses on sustainable manufacturing that has a minimal impact on the environment, while also using water- and energy-reducing technology.

According to Bartle, compared to the conversations he had with retailers last year, it’s become clear that all around the world, sustainability and ethical manufacturing are now top-of-mind for large businesses. Last year, the business shifted into Canada and is now sold at department stores Harry Rosen and Holt Renfrew.

“[Big businesses] have a responsibility to look deeper into their supply chain so they need brands to lead the way in that sense and we are that [brand] for a lot of those retailers. We tick all of those boxes in that space and it’s important to offer that to the modern- day consumer who is now driven by other motivators than previous generations,” he said.

“Australian brands have some favour in the US as well, and we’ve got meaning, purpose and a story behind us, which is important. It’s an advantage that we have. We didn’t start the brand just to start a brand, we started it to make an impact, whereas brands today are moving to attach a story to themselves. There’s a big difference in both those approaches and that’s playing into our success at the moment.”

Bartle added that he is particularly sympathetic to those smaller retailers that have just discovered the atrocities behind their supply chains and are struggling to work out how to solve the problems

and know where to even start.“But I don’t think it’s the same for big brands; they are most

definitely aware of the conditions of their workers around the world and it’s very obvious by some of the decisions they’ve made that they’re not so concerned about that. I’d say [customers are making] a slow progression away from those brands,” he said.

“There are enough options out there to make decisions around the brands you put on your shelf and that you personally endorse as a director of a company so you can start to make some big changes. This is how the industry will change, and if it does change, we’re in an exciting time in history.

“Fashion could be one of the greatest changemakers in the social deficit that exists in regions like where we are in Cambodia and Southeast Asia.”

Spreading the messageLocally, Bartle is focused on supporting independent boutiques to help tell customers about the purpose and story behind the brand. According to Bartle, it’s often the small owner/operator retailers that buy into brands that they believe in and are best placed to share the stories behind those products.

“We find that telling our story digitally can be quite difficult. We have quite a complex story with a lot of layers. There are a lot of brands with a simple call-to-action, like Toms’ ‘buy one, give one’. Our message is that the byproduct of buying our jeans is somebody is given living wages, training and education and all the tools they need to be successful. There’s a lot that goes into the infrastructure and it’s a difficult message to communicate. That is the business model. It’s different in that it’s designed just as the byproduct of selling a beautiful product – things can change socially for the people that make [our jeans], their families and communities. You’re also buying the most environmentally friendly product that you can buy in this space.”

The premium label plans to create more opportunities for those in need through its US partnerships. By Jo-Anne Hui-Miller

Outland Denim sets sights on US expansion

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NEWS

We didn’t start the brand just to start a brand, we started it to make an impact.

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B y all accounts, Black Friday 2019 seems to have delivered a bumper weekend for retailers, physical and online alike. In fact, while the event is still largely viewed as an online sales

event in Australia, bricks-and-mortar retailers potentially stand to gain more by participating.

While official industry-wide figures aren’t yet finalised, the National Retail Association predicted $1.3 billion would be spent online over the four days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday – and a total of $5 billion expected across all of retail.

According to NRA deputy chief executive Lindsay Carroll, feedback received from retailers over the weekend points to packed shopping centres and high footfall.

“At a number of precincts, there were so many shoppers that people couldn’t hear the Christmas carols, and simply finding a car park was difficult,” Carroll told Inside Retail Weekly.

“This further highlights the growing trend where consumers are doing Christmas shopping earlier than usual. Events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are providing the opportunity to knock off present shopping prior to the last-minute rush – and at bargain prices.”

According to Carroll, the NRA is optimistic that the festive season will deliver a solid start to retail trade in 2020, having predicted a $3.6 billion holiday period – 22.5 per cent up on 2018.

Better than Boxing DayDespite the growth, according to Strandbags managing director Felicity MacGahan, Australian retail is only just beginning to understand the potential of Black Friday.

“I’ve been doing Black Friday for 20 years because I spent so much time in the US [at Gap Inc]. Every year it gets a little bit different, because it’s been such a secondary, ‘nothing’ thing here, whereas in the northern hemisphere, it is a macro event,” MacGahan told IRW.

“All the effort we put into Boxing Day here, it’s their version of that.”

However, MacGahan notes the burgeoning Black Friday is a more attractive offer for consumers as it allows them to shop early for Christmas presents, rather than waiting for Boxing Day sales.

Strandbags saw “incredible” double-digit comparable growth across online and bricks-and-mortar over the prior year, largely due to the brand steering into the holiday.

“I think any retailer that planned into it this year, versus reacting to it, would have seen strong growth this year, as we did,” MacGahan said.

“It will make November a really strong month for a lot of retailers, but there’s still a business to be had in December and you’ve got to keep your foot on it. The holiday season is not just about having one good month.”

It’s not about stock clearanceWhile the improved trading was certainly felt in shopping centres, Black Friday also made an impact online. TinyMe also saw a significant lift on Friday, which chief operating officer Ben Hare said was largely driven by increased customer awareness.

“There was a lot more buzz around Black Friday in the market this year,” Hare told IRW.

“Black Friday is an interesting phenomenon in that it is not at all driven by stock clearance, compared with other major sales periods like the Boxing Day sales.

“Customers are looking for substantial discounts on retailers’ best sellers. This is likely to have a significant margin impact for retailers as they incur increased costs scrambling to fulfil the sharp peak in orders on products that are offered at substantial discounts.

“[It’s] certainly cemented its position as a fixture in the retail calendar.”

However, Black Friday’s popularity is likely to be self-perpetuating, according to Hare. Customers see it as the best time to shop pre-Christmas and retailers can’t afford to not be involved due to the volumes while offering their best discounts.

“It will be interesting to look back on the whole pre-Christmas season and see how the profile has shifted,” Hare said.

Dissenting brands speak up While many consumers were more than ready to snag a bargain over the weekend, others decided to stand up against the environmental and social impact of shopping events.

Consumers across Europe protested against Amazon’s impact on the environment and formed human chains to block delivery trucks outside Amazon depots.

However, it wasn’t only consumers standing up against the sales event.

Patagonia urged customers to avoid buying new products, and to instead donate to grassroots organisations working to preserve and restore nature – with the business offering to match donations up to $10 million.

Other global retailers, such as Ikea, Next, Asda, and Marks & Spencer didn’t offer discounts over the Black Friday period at all.

Flora & Fauna founder Julie Mathers said that while many retailers weren’t taking part in the event, the vegan-friendly retailer would offer discounts – but that it was renaming the event “Green Weekend”, and would plant a tree for every order on top of any carbon-offsetting the business already does.

“The reality is that people are spending money, so if they’re not buying from you, they’re buying from someone else,” ‘Mathers’ said.

“My view is give them great things to buy that make a difference... We believe this weekend is the perfect opportunity to encourage people to make kinder choices.”

Customers were ready to shop during Black Friday this year, and for the retailers that were prepared, it paid off. By Dean Blake

Diving into the Black (Friday)

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NEWS

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B lack Friday has an ominous ring to it and for bricks-and-mortar retailers that ring could well forewarn of a serious threat to their survival. Retail associations and industry

commentators have been quick to rejoice the bonanza of last week’s Black Friday sales, which are expected to have generated more than $5 billion for what is effectively a four-day event.

But when the accountants for the bricks-and-mortar retailers sit down to assess the event, the reaction is likely to be more sober, confirming a boost to sales and traffic but at a deep cut to margins and the bottom line.

The excitement of the event may also be tempered post-Christmas when total sales and, more importantly, earnings for the period are analysed.

The Black Friday sale is a clever invention of online vendors that has teased – arguably forced – bricks-and-mortar retailers to join the party in a bid to protect market share, harmonise their online and store promotional offers and to lift sales in a vital trading period.

Make no mistake, Christmas 2019 is crucial to many retailers that are struggling to generate sales growth and a solid profit.

The Black Friday sale is the biggest pre-Christmas event and is looming as a bigger trading event than the Boxing Day and New Year sales. In 2018, the Black Friday event drove November sales past December, a result likely to be repeated in 2019.

November sales this year appeared to be ahead of last year and were gaining momentum in shopping centres ahead of the Black Friday event. The big question is whether or not the Black Friday event will drive that momentum further or suck the oxygen out of December sales.

The answer may well hinge on consumer price perceptions shaped by the deep discounts of the Black Friday sales – if you can sell an item at that price for the sale, why can’t you sell it at this price all the time?

This is one of the dangers for bricks-and-mortar retailers – it’s not a new danger in regard to promotional activity but a significant challenge in pricing strategies.

Matching online vendors in a major deep discount promotional event makes sense on one level, but the cost to bricks-and-mortar retailers is much higher and the potential brand damage much greater.

Bricks-and-mortar retailers have higher costs in staffing and customer service, rent and occupancy costs, inventory management and often in marketing spend than online retailers.

The sales boost is no doubt a shot of adrenalin, but the after-effects could be painful in terms of reduced profits and customers adopting a view of what is the worth or value of merchandise and regular pricepoints.

There is also a sting in the tail for retailers on percentage rent

leases. These lift their sales for a lower profit return in an event like Black Friday only to face an increased rent commitment to landlords.

Cyber Monday didn’t seem to maintain the surge in shopping centres as retailers turned into the home stretch for Christmas trading, which the Australian Retailers Association expects should yield a 2.6 per cent increase in sales on 2018 to $51.4 billion.

However, a Christmas survey by Deloitte indicates only 62 per cent of retailers expect higher sales this Christmas and just under 40 per cent anticipate a decrease in margins.

While it may not be the preferred approach for the peak trading period, Deloitte found 39 per cent of retailers will be discounting pre-Christmas to drive sales.

Confidence about Christmas trading and the outlook for 2020 from bricks-and-mortar retailers is significantly lower than at this time last year, according to Deloitte.

The importance of this Christmas trading period is emphasised by the fact that 47 per cent of retailers in the Deloitte survey reported flat or negative sales growth over the past 12 months.

Promotional events like Black Friday sales may add some cheer to flagging revenue growth, but the bottom line must be the real focus if the bills are to be paid and a Christmas hangover avoided.

Getting crowds in-store ready to buy sounds like a dream for retailers, but the hit to profits – and reputation – may not be worth it. By Jared Dickson

Black Friday’s sugar hit may do long-term damage

IRW

ANALYSIS

Deep discounts can distort customers’ price perceptions.

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NEWS

Woolworths CEO forgoes $2.6 million bonus over underpayments scandal

Bardot seeks sale, appoints administrator

Harvey Norman hit with second strike, but avoids board spill

Vicinity Centres unveils $685 million Chadstone expansion

Co-Op enters voluntary administration on collapsing textbook sales

JB Hi-Fi launches small-format store in Melbourne CBD

“It’s about educating and engaging customers”: Inside Bunnings’ YouTube series

Louis Vuitton reopens art-filled store in Sydney

Woolworths to “fully defend” class action over underpayments

Bunnings coughs up over $3.8 million to underpaid team members

This week’s top 10Our most read stories from the past week at insideretail.com.au.

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Comment of the week

“Every year the same predictions, and every year, predictions not met.”

Noelle - Christmas retail to be impacted by catastrophic bushfires

Co-op Bookshop enters administration

Woolworths CEO waives $2.6m bonus

The Co-Operative Bookshop has entered voluntary administration, appointing PricewaterhouseCoopers as administrators, largely due to over-the-counter textbook sales falling 40 per cent on last year.

The group consists of 34 Co-Op Bookshop stores across university campuses, as well as 63 Curious Planet stores – formerly known as Australian Geographic – which also have an online presence.

Co-op Bookshop still owes more than $15 million to toy sellers and publishers, with in many cases payments long overdue, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported, with chairman Joe Merhi saying weak sales had left the board with no option but to bring in an administrator.

Suppliers owed significant sums include textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons, toy seller Independence Studios, Australia Post, the University of Western Australia and the Sydney University.

The administrators, PwC’s Phil Carter, Andrew Scott and Daniel Walley, said the group intends to undertake an urgent review of the business to ensure a strong Christmas period, and that they intend to keep all stores operating on a business-as-usual basis.

According to the SMH, Carter said there were still hopes of selling the company, which employs more than 180 people, and is Australia’s largest co-operative with more than two million members.

Additionally, Australian Geographic Holdings ended its licensing agreement with The Co-Op in October, forcing the rebrand to Curious Planet.

Four weeks after supermarket giant Woolworths admitted underpaying its staff up to $300 million, CEO Brad Banducci has accepted responsibility and announced he will forgo his $2.6 million bonus this year, as it was “the right thing to do”.

Woolworths Group chairman Gordon Cairns also accepted responsibility for the salary blunder and has taken a 20 per cent cut to his $790,531 board fee.

Banducci and Gordon admitted that they had let team members down and said the priority now was to ensure employees receive the money owed as soon as possible.

On October 30, the retailer admitted underpaying around 5700 staff up to $300 million in a salary blunder that could date back as far as 2010. The underpayment affected store team members at Woolworths supermarkets and Metro stores.

The Fair Work Ombudsman said it will be conducting an investigation in relation to Woolworths’ self-disclosure and that it will hold them to account for breaching workplace laws.

Woolworths Group will provide further updates of the issue at the half year results in February.

IRW

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SPONSORED

Best Buy tips bumper ChristmasBest Buy, the biggest US consumer electronics company, has forecast fourth-quarter profit of up to US$2.75 a share, well above Wall Street estimates, and predicted strong sales for the holiday season.

The crucial period between Thanksgiving and Christmas can account for as much as 40 per cent of annual sales for US retailers. Target and Walmart have already predicted robust Christmas sales despite a general slowing of US consumer spending.

Sales in electrical appliances in particular have been weak across the board. However, Best Buy’s investment in subscription-based repair and tech support services has been a drawcard for customers.

CEO Corie Barry said the company was well prepared for the holidays with new products, strong inventory levels and faster delivery for online purchases.

“The typical Best Buy customer is at or slightly above medianincome, and this group is currently thriving,” Wedbush analystMichael Pachter told Reuters.

“At the same time, there are an increasing number of new consumer electronics products that have captured interest – including items in the mobile, smart home and wearables categories – all of which Best Buy excels at.”

LVMH buys Tiffany for $24 billionFrench luxury goods purveyor LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, Moët Chandon, Hennessy and Givenchy, among many others, has agreed to buy US jewellery icon Tiffany for US$16.2 billion ($24 billion) in its biggest acquisition to date. According to Forbes magazine, the purchase is one of the largest acquisitions ever in the luxury retail business.

The US$135-per-share cash deal will boost LVMH’s smallestbusiness – the jewellery and watch division that is already home toBulgari and Tag Heuer – and greatly expand its US presence.

And the US jeweller is still in turnaround mode as it tries torejuvenate its image and lure shoppers online. It has suffered, too,from the effects of the Washington-Beijing trade war, as Chineseshoppers avoid the US and spend more money at home.

But the New York-based brand, founded in 1837 and known for itssignature robin’s egg blue boxes, still has a resonance as the go-topurveyor of engagement rings only a handful of rivals can match,such as Richemont-owned Cartier.

“It’s an American icon, which is now going to become a little French too,” LVMH’s chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault told Reuters in an interview.

Sports Direct to change its nameBritain’s Sports Direct International, the sporting goods retailerfounded and controlled by Mike Ashley, is to rebrand as FrasersGroup.

Sports Direct said the rebranding, which is subject to shareholderapproval at a December 16 meeting, is being undertaken “to reflectthe changing profile and consumer proposition of the group”.

Sports Direct was formed in 1982 and has become the UK’s largest sporting goods retailer with some 670 stores worldwide, including Australia. Revenue in 2018 was more than £4 billion ($7.6 billion).

In August 2018, the company acquired the UK department store chain the House of Fraser, which had entered into administration. It bought the more than 50 House of Fraser UK stores, the House of Fraser brand and all of the stock in the business for £90 million in cash. Prior to the company entering administration, Ashley held an 11 per cent stake.

Ikea backs renewable energyIkea, the world’s biggest furniture group, has announced that it willspend around €100 million ($163 million) to support its directsuppliers as they switch over to renewable energy use.

It also plans to invest around €100 million in projects to removecarbon from the atmosphere through reforestation and forestprotection.

It said the investments would be part of its work towards making Ikea climate positive – cutting more greenhouse gas emissions than the chain emits – by 2030.

The target, announced in 2018, encompasses the entire value chain from raw material production to customer purchase – including Ikea’s around 1000 direct suppliers.

“Our suppliers have worked on this agenda for quite some time so we know where there are critical areas,” chief sustainability officer Lena Pripp-Kovac told Reuters, adding that the focus would be on textile, ceramics, glass and metal producers.

The money earmarked for forestry management would be spent in partnerships with organisations and forest owners, she said.

Around the globe

The retailer aims to be climate positive by 2030, cutting more greenhouse gas

emissions than it emits.

IRW

NEWS

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W e talk a lot about the purpose of stores in the industry. The words “experience”, “convenience”, “friction”, “speed” and “sustainability” are all part of the language

of our lives.“Experience” is the buzzword that just keeps on buzzing and used

with wild abandon to describe just about anything at all. But what does it really mean when it comes to retail right now?

Well I’m going to show you. Here were some of my highlights from a recent trip to Shanghai and Tokyo.

1. Samsung Galaxy Flagship, TokyoThis Samsung Galaxy flagship takes you into another world. The store is made up of 1000 Galaxy smartphones on a series of rotating shelves, catching and throwing the light, and this impressive facade is only the beginning. As soon as you step into this store, what first strikes you is the atmosphere, which feels like a glimmering portal into the future, helped by the conscious design of light and shade. The black colour palette on each level of the store guides your vision intentionally “into the light” of each display.

As you wander through the seven levels, you travel through the past, present and future of Samsung Galaxy. A science museum of sorts greets you on level two, where you discover phones deconstructed in artful ways with technology at the focus in both product and presentation in the displays. The walls are lined with digital screens and content that again focuses your eye on each storytelling moment.

Digital is everything in this store. There isn’t one display that doesn’t utilise some form of digital technology but, surprisingly, it isn’t overdone. There is a lot going on, but the design of the store guides you effortlessly from one display to the next. Be prepared to engage with this store because it’s made for play. There are so many activities and interactive moments in this store – and it’s how they convert you into a Samsung fanatic.

A picture is worth a thousand words. This store is an Instagrammer’s dream, so that speaks for 99.9 per cent of the population. Super-friendly hosts guide you into multiple different experiences that all involve taking selfies.

When you step into the first room, you enter your own Instagram handle. It’s pitch black until suddenly the entire room lights up, immersing you in a digital world of your own Instagram posts, plastering the screens from floor to ceiling with music and movement. And in a particularly meta moment, you can post a photo of yourself among your Instagram posts.

On level five you are invited to get a little interactive in a room that has been set up with theatre-style seating. But this isn’t just any seat. Once you strap yourself in place and put on the goggles

(Samsung, of course), you are launched into a four-dimensional and intensely realistic movie experience, kayaking off waterfalls and finding yourself ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ with zero self-control.

There is no question that customers will walk away from this store impressed and with memories to share on social media and beyond.

2. Hi-Panda TokyoIf you’ve been to Tokyo, you’ll know that cute animals and mythical-looking cartoon characters are a big deal here. Hi-Panda represents an entire brand derived from a cute yet grumpy-looking panda anime, but boy, does this panda know how to put on a show.

It all began with an iPad, handed to us at the entrance of the store. This iPad opens up another dimension in which you can experience the brand. As you walk into the space looking through the screen and around you, Hi-Panda is flipping, swirling and bouncing along the store, entertaining and interacting with the environment and even the product. Next level.

The interior of the store is stripped back. It’s minimal and almost like a museum in the way that it presents the clothing and merchandise, with effortless touches of movement and again, superb use of light. If it’s possible, this store is both subtle and brazen at the same time.

And once you think that you’ve seen it all, you reach the top level and it’s so bright you think perhaps you’ve entered panda heaven. With a welcoming host on each level, we were invited to get our cameras ready, as the glass tank with a giant Hi-Panda inside began to fill with smoke.

But the experience doesn’t have to end with the store. If you take

AROUND THE GLOBE

To infinity and beyondFrom immersive digital experiences at Samsung to simple and nuanced grocery shopping at Aldi, here are some of the coolest retailers in Tokyo and Shanghai. By Jemma Caprioli

Customers walk away with a feeling of satisfaction that they not only got what they paid for, but also a little bonus or two in the basket.

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home a Hi-Panda T-shirt or any other product, you can continue to experience the animated panda from the app on your phone. One of the most seamless and interesting offline-to-online integrations I’ve witnessed so far.

3. Innisfree, TokyoBreathe in the calm and breathe out the stress. These stores are awash with a feeling of freshness, bright and softly lit with beautiful touches of lime oak and well-placed greenery. You can’t help but linger.

The Innisfree stores are full of subtle customer moments that create convenience and ease of store navigation for the shopper. Each product has a thoughtfully created display that deconstructs the ingredients, presenting the natural elements that bring these simple beauty products together. But among these visual moments, digital and interactive experience certainly has a presence, particularly in the Hangzhou store, where customers are invited to engage with the Innisfree brand through education, games, and personalised offerings.

One of the digital moments was the smart skin analyser, bringing a “spa treatment” quality into the store experience. Analysing the skin, the smart device generates an instant report of your skin condition, recommends the best Innisfree products and with a simple scan of a QR code, it allows the customer to keep the report handy in their Taobao account.

These stores are bustling with people of all ages filling their baskets, and why not? With $2 face masks, their pricepoints are undoubtedly setting Innisfree apart from competitors such as Aesop, Sephora and Mecca. And even with very attractive product prices, this brand hasn’t scrimped on the nice-to-haves that mean a lot to customers.

It seems that many brands have stepped it up in their gift-with-purchase pursuit, and Innisfree has dedicated an entire wall to it in their Tokyo store in Shibuya. Customers walk away with a feeling of satisfaction that they not only got what they paid for, but also a little bonus or two in the basket.

Innisfree perfectly aligns with today’s customer who aspires to consume with care and naturally. Even the Christmas campaign was suitably named “Happy Green Christmas”. This brand is fast becoming recognised for its creativity and conscious recognition of how customers wish to shop both on- and offline, and where possible, marrying the two to create the ultimate beauty shopping experience.

4. Nike House of Innovation, ShanghaiEarlier this year, I visited the NYC House of Innovation, where I gushed at every inch of the supercharged store. But then, there was Shanghai.

Take a Nike shoe and simply add water. As soon as you wander into this space, you are met with shoes in glass boxes, which invite the customer to make it rain, splash a puddle, or light it up. Each mini-experience was as thrilling as the last and just about every customer that we saw took part in the activity.

It did make me wonder if those people are buying into the features of the shoe or the novelty of the display. I guess it doesn’t really matter if they are indeed buying.

It’s no secret that gaming is a rapidly growing space, so I expected to see more of it integrated into stores. Of course, Nike presented not just any in-store game, but a supersized interactive experience that shows up on a screen travelling from floor to ceiling, all the way up to level four. The Nike worshippers are invited to play

this game of speed and agility, consequently increasing their time in-store.

Customers are welcomed to either slow down and enjoy the experience, or speed through it with convenient pick-up and purchase. The option here is key. Some of us want to get in-store, buy the tights we want to wear to run club in the morning and bounce out with our fancy House of Innovation bag. But there are

AROUND THE GLOBE

Aldi: The subtle nuances make all the difference for the in-store customer experience.

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others that like to take their time and need to be further encouraged to explore, sit and take in the experience at their leisure.

5. Aldi, ShanghaiWe all know and love Aldi – its German logo heart, special buys and clever marketing campaigns. Now take that Aldi and imagine it in the bustling centre of Shanghai.

Bringing urban convenience to the locals of this residential community, Aldi in Jing’an, Shanghai, is a welcome change of scene among the traditional no-thrills supermarket and grocery landscape of China. They’re all servicing a consumer who desires fresh food fast and quality international options, as the spending power of China’s middle-class continues to climb.

At a glance, this Aldi store appears quite normal, but it is the subtleties and simplicities that make this a store for everything. So it was no surprise to see at the entrance of this store, that customers were invited to scan and let Aldi know that they had arrived and were ready to shop. But the smarts of this store don’t

stop there – they go beyond what the customer can see, presenting subtle nuances in an energetic fitout with lighting and music that changes throughout the day to suit the shoppers’ moods.

Once the bottle of French wine from the region of Burgundy has been scanned, you can pay through WeChat and leave without saying a word to anyone at all. There’s no conversation about a bag, a receipt or the weather – it’s like online shopping with instant gratification. And as our Chinese shopper is far more au fait with online shopping and convenience, this is a must-have.

We arrived at 4pm, and the warm glow and vibrant interior welcomed us in. At the front of the store, locals sat, drinking a barista coffee and waiting for their upmarket express meal to be prepared, while others handpicked their beautifully presented oranges and Australian fresh milk. The Australian store design team at Landini has created a place where people want to spend their time and linger.

This store brings the locals international products such as the German confectionary Knoppers, but in a very accessible and unpretentious way. The personality of Aldi is strong in this store, grounding it in its heritage, but the layer of technology gives this version of Aldi a futuristic sheen.

This aspirational urban store welcomes a community – and there appears to be something for everyone.

Jemma Caprioli is the chief customer officer at Dashing Group. She works with a multitude of retailers across several categories to produce customer-led retail experiences.

AROUND THE GLOBE

The Nike House of Innovation in Shanghai.

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Each mini-experience was as thrilling as the last.

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Q&A

Inside Retail Weekly: How did you come up with the concept for the business?Matt Adams: It’s actually a funny story. It was started by two 60-70-year-old guys – they’re the furthest thing you can think of from athletes. We’ve got a wholesale distribution business for Nike and Adidas soccer kits and back then, they were bringing the product in and selling it to retailers. They were looking at Sydney and thinking that it just wasn’t turning like the other markets, like Melbourne and Brisbane. So they thought, ‘Why don’t we create a retail concept?’

At first, the idea was to have a store at Westfield and sell football boots. Then the concept just grew over time. Nike really wanted us to go out and see the global players in the world and they linked us up with a whole host of connections. They really helped us to get to this place.

So Chris and Nick went around the world, had a look around, then sat down with Antony [Hoffman], the architect at ACRD, and this was created over time. It started off with wanting to do something large scale, then they added FIFA, a restaurant – and it started to get legs from there.

IRW: Walk me through the different areas of this space.MA: The whole idea is that we focus on experience. There are so many different retail stores, especially online – and if you don’t provide an experience, why would customers come to you? Even we

have that trouble. Why come into our store if we’ve got ultra.com? There’s a football pitch, so if you’re part of an academy, you’re

probably training down here. If you want to try boots on, you’re testing the boots out there. There have been one-on-one training sessions and birthday parties – it’s very popular.

We then have the FIFA lounge, where the FIFA Playstation is connected to the real game. It’s a social thing. FIFA’s massive but I think for most players, it’s pretty cool that they can come down here and play FIFA with their mates at the same time as picking up new boots.

There’s our restaurant. When you come here, you want to stay, you don’t want to leave after five minutes. You can sit down, try the beautiful food but at the same time, it’s obviously football-focused. When there are major games on at midnight in Europe, it’s crowded in there, people are watching games. It’s a really good atmosphere. We’ve got a barber here too.

Then we’ve got a customisation station. Whenever you’re buying a Real Madrid jersey or a jersey off-the-shelf, you want to put your own touch on it. That’s where the world is heading, everything’s got to be personal.

We’ve got an in-store studio. It’s called Ultra Football TV which is run by our staff on the floor. They’re football fanatics. We’ve got a really tight following of people through our social channels, so you don’t want to just upload product posts because eventually that gets

The mecca for all soccer fanatics, Ultra is more than just a store in Sydney – it features a restaurant, barber, footy field and more all under one roof. Now a second concept store will be rolling out interstate in 2020. Here, general manager Matt Adams shares his expansion plans and discusses how retail needs to move beyond ‘boring’. Interview by Jo-Anne Hui-Miller

From the source: Matt Adams, Ultra

11

boring and you become like every other retailer. Football’s one of the few sports in the world where you could talk for hours about it.

The boys, Tom and Steve, are prominent in the football circles. Twice a week, they’re on the couch just talking football. They’re reviewing products, talking to athletes, talking about the A-League. Brandon O’Neal from Sydney FC came in and sat with them last week.

The best part is the in-store atmosphere around it. On the weekend, a young kid will walk past and watch it right here, in the centre of the store.

IRW: What are your plans for the e-commerce side of the business? MA: You walk in here and think it’s amazing and a lot of time and energy has gone into it, but we put just as much, if not more, time and effort into e-commerce. There are so many online businesses now, so how you stand out? You could buy a pair of the same

football boots at 10 different retailers, so why would you buy from Ultra?

We put a lot of emphasis on the loyalty behind our customers. The other big focus for us is the teams that we kit out in Nike or Adidas where we build them a club online store. So if you’re Alexandria Football Club and buy your jersey shorts and socks for your players, we’ll create you an online store for your jackets, pants, bags, all with your club logo and initials. That way, members can go online and clubs don’t have to worry about it. They receive a 10 per cent rebate from it and for us, it means we get the consumer onto our platform and they have a reason to spend.

We also do express shipping. The biggest thing with online is your site speed has to be quick, which a lot of retailers aren’t thinking about these days. Customers just don’t have a lot of patience these days.

Tacked onto the site are our blogs and YouTube TV. We want to turn Ultra into an ecosystem where people live, so every day they wake up, swipe into Ultra and see what’s happening. Ultra is very much built for the football fanatic.

IRW: How would you describe your online customer experience?MA: The customer experience has to be super-quick, very premium and accessible. If I’m a consumer and I’ve just watched the game at 6am and Paul Pogba has scored a goal, straight away on our social, we’ll post something saying, ‘Paul has scored!’ with photos of him. Then we link everything he’s wearing straight into a ‘swipe up’. In the photos, he might be wearing a Manchester United jersey, or you see him in the street wearing Adidas socks and boots and automatically, a customer can swipe up and there’s ‘Buy That Look’ from us. You can buy just one part of the look or the whole thing.

Ultra was created to focus on offering customers an

exceptional in-store experience.

Q&A

►

You could buy a pair of the same football boots at 10 different retailers, so why would you buy from Ultra?

12 insideretail.com.au

From a retail point of view, it’s about creating quick, accessible ways for customers to shop, because they don’t want to search through the site looking for a boot.

Once they purchase, it has to be an easy, seamless experience. It has to be super-quick with express post. That’s something we take a hit on, but we want to get it to the consumer quickly. The EDMs, messaging and communication are super-simple.

Then the experience has to connect with you, so when a boot launches, we’ll write up blogs on what the boot is and the inspiration behind it.

IRW: Tell me about your loyalty program.MA: We have two things. We have a loyalty point system called Ultra Rewards – you get points back on each purchase, and we have some fun with it. We’ll have certain stages where we’ll throw double

points out there. It’s not necessarily revenue-driving – it’s just about surprising consumers. We launched double rewards for 48 hours the other night. We brought it in three months ago and it’s working really well.

The other thing we do is if you’re a club zone member, where we kit out the team, those team members get VIP pricing.

Every retailer is different, some will say you can have 20 per cent off. We don’t really need to do that much – if you provide a good enough connection, they’ll buy it anyway.

IRW: What do retailers need to think about when catering to passionate sports fans?MA: The biggest thing we find is to cater to them, you have to stop and think what they want and listen to them. It’s a hard thing. So often, we get caught up in the day-to-day. My week is flat-out busy. But quite often, you have to stop and look at your strategy – it’s surprising how many people don’t even have a strategy. Everyone here – like Tom, our casual employee – is aware of his role within our strategy. You have to stop and think about what the consumer wants, and it’s tough because you sometimes might have to go against what you think versus what they’re telling you.

Data plays a role in that, but at the same time, we just stay connected with our consumers. Our marketing guys are always talking to key consumers, listening to what they’re saying, what’s happening around the world, what they want. A lot of people have lost connection with that, they’ve almost adapted to this data world and forgotten to just talk to people. Data plays a role, but you need to actually talk to the consumer.

I think in the next five to 10 years, what we saw happen to bricks-and-mortar – where it stagnated and dropped off – you’ll see the same thing happen online. It’s such a crowded space. A lot of people are doing the generic thing, so I think you’ll see it flip around.

The way we look at it is our revenue comes from our team kits, but online is bigger no doubt. This space currently breaks even, but it’s the face of our brand. We’ll find that if someone buys their boots online and understands this space is here, we’ll start getting purchases we never thought we’d get from that person. And because they love us so much, they’ll stay with us online. So I think that’s the one thing retailers need to look at – what’s the identity and face of the brand.

For us, this space is very much around product activations. We have an Adidas limited drop coming up next week and we’ll bring 100 people in here. It’ll be a massive activation and only 40 or 50 of them with walk away with pairs, but they will all say, ‘How amazing was that? You entertained me and I got to create a jersey’. You have to entertain your consumer.

IRW: Tell me about the product side of the business.MA: It’s all premium and new. Nike, Adidas and Puma have been amazing to work with. We’ve been so hard on them to get the best product from around the world here, which never used to come to Australia. The limited products are the cool products. If something is launching around the world tonight at midnight, we have such a big emphasis that we’re launching tonight as well. None of this ‘We’ll get it in two weeks and see how we go.’

We’re about everything football. From football boots to sneakers and team jerseys. It’s head-to-toe football. I like to say it’s football head-to-toe, stadium-to-the-street, so everything on the field and then everything off-the-field in a nutshell.

We really pride ourselves on the limited lanches. We’ll probably spend as much money that we make from them in the activation just to make the noise about them.

Customers can have their kit personalised, and get their hair cut too.

Q&A

13

IRW: What was the traditional retail experience like for your customers before you launched?MA: There’s always the idea that Rebel is our main competitor, but they’re your traditional, family-friendly store selling everything sports-related. But our consumer was going overseas to Pro Direct Soccer in the UK or Nike.com. They just couldn’t get the product because it wouldn’t come to Australia.

A lot of consumers say they wish they had Ultra growing up because all they used to do was go online. Now they come here and they know we’re devoted to soccer. We don’t have a competitor here from a commercial sense, although Rebel does have serious dollars going through the tills.

IRW: What are your plans for the future of the business?MA: The main thing we focus on is always updating the store, it has to always evolve, so if you walk in in six months’ time, you see something new. We brought in the custom lab a month ago because we were listening to the customer who wanted to personalise, so we built them something.

The idea is we’ll expand interstate by July 2020. We’re working to get that underway. Overall, the concept is that we will go down the personalisation route as heavily as we can. Eventually, I want customers to be able to walk in, customise their boots, customise their T-shirts – everything. That’s where I see it heading.

The next store will probably replicate what we have here, but it’ll be a little bit more planned out because obviously we’ve learned a lot from Sydney. It will be similar in terms of the premium focus and experience. We’ll focus on the street football side of things, too.

IRW: Where would you like to see the business go in the next few years?MA: There are plans to take it international, so that’ll be good. If we do that, it has to be franchised out to the right partner. For me, I’d really like to see the store concept evolve into that true football ecosystem, so media publications, YouTube, digital marketing –

more than just a retail business. Some ideas we’re working on for the clubs are that they’ll order their kits from us, but rather than us being a supplier, we want to be their solution provider – we’d budget for them, communicate for them, execute the kit for them.

You look at guys like Google and Amazon, they started off doing one thing and now they’re an ecosystem of things. It’s got to go that way, or they’ll be superseded by something else.

IRW: How would you describe the current sports retail landscape?MA: It’s going through an interesting change at the moment. There’s a lot of boring. I’d say 90 per cent of people in the sports retail industry don’t understand how quick it’s moving, hence why it’s become boring. There are some really good players in there and there are some unique opportunities popping up, like Sneakerboy and The Iconic – they understand what the consumer wants and they’re going there.

There are some serious challenges ahead for a lot of people. Global players are coming in too, so there are a lot of things happening at once. A lot of people don’t understand what Amazon is and how it’ll affect them. It’ll get to a point where there will be global players and smaller players that absolutely master the category and are specialists. I think the industry is going through some pretty drastic changes.

A lot of businesses are probably looking at their business and going, ‘This is my retail space, I’m getting revenue from all these categories, so which one do I cut off?’ So they don’t know where to start.

Then the second part is a lot of people say they’re consumer-focused, but they’re not actually dialled into them. If your consumer is a 40-year-old mum, there’s nothing wrong with it and if you do it well, you’ll clean up. A lot of people don’t understand who their consumer is and for me, there’s no good or bad consumer. If you build a business for a 70-year-old grandpa, if you’re dialled into it, you’ll do well.

Q&A

IRW

Shoppers can visit Ultra to buy their boots then play

FIFA with their mates.

14 insideretail.com.au

D eciem, the Canadian company behind cult beauty brand The Ordinary, made headlines last weekend for its decision to close its stores and website on Black Friday, one of the

biggest shopping days of the year globally, in protest of the rise of hyper-consumerism. Instead, the company offered 23 per cent off every product in its portfolio for the entire month of November in a bid to encourage customers to make more considered purchases rather than impulse buys.

This isn’t the first time Deciem has bucked the trend in retail. The company, whose tagline is “The Abnormal Beauty Company”, was founded by Brandon Truaxe in 2013 to disrupt the beauty industry. Truaxe favoured transparency – about ingredients and their efficacy, as well as prices – over marketing-speak, and kept every aspect of the business – from manufacturing to PR – in-house.

This approach has proved to be lucrative. The New York Times reported in April that Deciem was set to sell US$300 million worth of product across its brands this year. In addition to The Ordinary, Deciem’s range of ultra-affordable skincare products containing clinical ingredients, such as Vitamin C and salicylic acid, the company also offers professional-level, anti-aging and multi-purpose skincare products under the Niod, The Chemistry Brand and Hylamide brands, as well as professional hair products under the Hif brand.

And it continues to expand its portfolio. Last year, it launched two new brands – Loopha, a shower gel line, and Abnomaly, a lip balm line – and is working on a babycare range under the Hippooh brand.

At the same time, Deciem has been expanding globally through retail partnerships and its own standalone stores. The company launched The Ordinary counters into Farmers department stores in New Zealand in August and entered Hong Kong through Deciem counters in Harvey Nichols and standalone stores in October. And it’s set to enter Singapore before the end of the year.

In Australia, where Deciem has had a presence through Priceline since 2015, the company opened five new counters in Myer stores in November, bringing its total number of counters to 12. This is in addition to its three standalone stores in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, and partnership with local online retailer Adore Beauty.

“Myer is a great partner for us,” Cheryl Poon, director of Deciem Asia and Australasia, tells Inside Retail Weekly. “It allows us to expand really quickly and reach customers of a wider demographic.”

According to Poon, the customers who shop Deciem products at Myer tend to be new to the company’s brands, while those who seek out a Deciem store are more likely to be skincare fanatics.

“They know a lot about the ingredients and know about Deciem already,” she says.

At the same time, the company’s presence in Myer – both

The global beauty industry is jam-packed with rising and established brands, but here’s how this Canadian brand is staying ahead of the pack. By Heather McIlvaine

How Deciem plans to rule the world

FEATURE

15

How Deciem plans to rule the world

through its counters as well as the much larger number of stores where select SKUs are stocked – allows it to test out expansion opportunities.

“At the moment we are focusing on expanding through Myer […] but we definitely would like to have more Deciem stores in Australia,” Poon says, noting that Australia is one of the company’s top five markets globally, alongside the US, UK, Canada and China.

“We will first enter [new cities] with Myer and review the market and see where the demand is before we look into having more stores of our own.”

Feeling the brandWhen it comes to opening stores, Deciem isn’t just looking for strong demand, it’s also looking for unique locations, according to Nicola Kilner, the company’s CEO.

“We’re opening a store in Edinburgh that wasn’t on our roadmap, but Brandon, our founder, was in Scotland and saw the most amazing store that had so much character in an incredible location. And that’s what led us to open that store,” she tells IRW.

“The main thing we want to create in our stores is we want people to be able to feel the brand. We’ve always been very strict that no staff are on any commission fees – no-one has any targets – because we truly want to deliver what’s right for the consumer. We

want people to feel comfortable and not like they’re being pushed or sold something they don’t need.”

Deciem as a retail business is hard to pigeon-hole. It’s often discussed in the same breath as direct-to-consumer businesses, such as Everlane and Glossier, though it has sold through retail partners from the early days. And while it started out online, it was quick to open bricks-and-mortar stores.

Today, most of the company’s sales – 55 per cent – come through physical stores, either its own or those of its retail partners. This is up from 37 per cent last year.

“The human connection still matters,” Kilner says. “While online we can create a knowledge-heavy experience, it can be a very monologue experience, which is why having real world presence is so important to us.”

A tight-knit teamSuch a rapid pace of growth as Deciem has experienced over the past year would be remarkable for any business, but it’s especially noteworthy given the fact that Deciem manages every aspect of the business, including manufacturing, logistics and branding, in-house. Poon calls Deciem “a very special company” for this reason.

“This is a great advantage of ours. When it comes to inventory management, for example, our team in Toronto can look at the demand at the start of every week and produce just enough inventory to meet it. Overstock isn’t really an issue because we always have been able to be very agile and flexible,” she says.

On top of this, the tight-knit staff suffered a tragedy when Truaxe died unexpectedly in January, after a fall from a Toronto condominium. The founder was forced out of the business at the end of 2018 through a lawsuit by the Estée Lauder Companies, an investor, over concerns about his mental health. Kilner, a close friend of Truaxe, who had been part of Deciem since its founding, was named CEO.

“We have a fiercely loyal, strong and resilient team,” Kilner says about leading the business through such a difficult period.

“Brandon was our founder, and someone so many of us loved and cared for deeply, we truly miss him and his creative genius every day. He founded us on so many strong principles and values, it helps defining our path forward that bit easier. We will continue his legacy of bringing integrity to the beauty industry, while having fun along the way.” IRW

FEATURE

No staff are on any commission fees – no- one has any targets – because we truly want to deliver what’s right for the consumer.

Deciem’s store in The Rocks in Sydney embodies its strategy to seek out

unique bricks-and-mortar locations.

16 insideretail.com.au

RetalesWe’ve always known that looking after customers is important. And that things like being put on hold for too long were a pain.

But how much of a pain? It seems a significant number of people say they would give up sex for a week rather than being put on hold when they have an issue with a company.

How do we know this? Well, an international study commissioned by LogMeIn of 3000 people, of which 200 were Australians, has found out that 17 per cent of people preferred good service to sex. In all, 60 per cent of respondents say they have experienced poor customer service in recent years.

So be warned, customer service departments: As well as being willing to give up sex, people also said they’d rather stare at a kettle waiting for water to boil – or sit in a traffic jam – than be put on hold.

The bonus that Woolies CEO Brad Banducci will forgo to make up for the company’s latest underpayment scandal.

How much Bunnings plans to cough up to

underpaid staff.

The current and former employees lodging a class action against Woolworths for underpaying staff.

The size of the new ASICS Oceania headquarters in Marsden Park, Sydney.

The decline in textbook sales which led to the demise of The Co-Op Bookshop.

The amount small businesses are losing from avoiding cross-border trade.

$2.6 million

7000

57,000sqm

$3.8 million

40%

$8.4 billion

Source: Woolworths

Source: The Co-Op

Source: OFX Cross-Border Confidence Index

Source: Bunnings

Source: Adero Law

Source: Sydney Business Park

FIGURES

17

Home Consortium (HomeCo) opened its doors to two new centres in Hawthorn East and Keysborough Victoria last Wednesday, following eight months of redevelopment, welcoming more than 10,000 people across both sites, Shopping Centre News has reported.

HomeCo is a wholly Australian-owned property group, backed bysome of Australia’s most successful retail organisations.

In 2016, the company acquired the property assets formerly occupied by Masters Hardware and began creating value- and convenience-based shopping in regional and outer-metro areas across the country.

It now holds a portfolio of some 30 centres in five states under theHomeCo brand, with many anchored by national supermarkets andsome of Australia’s most successful retail brands.

The new Hawthorn East centre has a prime location just eightkilometres east of the Melbourne CBD, bounded by two major arterial roads – Toorak Road and the Monash Freeway. It’s the newest HomeCo centre with a total GLA of 11,310sqm.

The centre features latest concept stores from Woolworths and Dan Murphy’s plus Anaconda, Chemist Warehouse and Costi’s seafoods.

More retailers will join the line-up in the coming months.HomeCo Keysborough is anchored by Aldi, Michael’s IGA FreshFood Market, Petstock, BCF and a range of speciality stores. Thereare more than 400 car parks at each location.

Mainbrace, as principal contractor at Keysborough, was responsible for rebuilding a former Masters store to accommodate the two new supermarkets and speciality tenancies.

Primewest Diversified Income Trust No 4 has purchased MooneeMarket Shopping Centre for $30.5 million from Gowing Bros.Limited (Gowings), Shopping Centre News has reported.

Located on the Pacific Highway north of the Coffs Harbour CBD,Moonee Market is a 10,142sqm neighbourhood shopping centreanchored by a Coles supermarket. The centre has a fully leased netannual income return of approximately $2.3 million.

As a diversified listed investment company, Gowings commenced a process to receive expressions of interest for the sale of the shopping centre earlier this year, with the process being conducted by CBRE.

The centre was originally purchased by Gowings in April 2010 for$13.2 million. During Gowings’ period of ownership, capitalexpenditure was invested to upgrade the common areas, improvetenancy mix and reposition the centre.

Moonee Market has a diverse range of retailers including childcare, a swim school, a dog grooming centre, a medical centre and a dining precinct which services the local community as well as passing tourism traffic through the Pacific Coast corridor.

A first-entrant offshore buyer has purchased a 74sqm strata retail unit on the ground floor arcade of 265 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, trading as 265 Cafe, from Kok Hoa Teow for $1.37 million.

The property is occupied by the established cafe operator who has just signed a new six-year lease. The yield achieved was circa 5 per cent.

The cafe is located in a busy commercial and retail precinct in theCBD, with a number of local landmarks including World Square,Chinatown, Darling Square and Darling Harbour nearby.

The deal was negotiated by Jordan Lee and Andy Hu of Savills Asia Markets who said the buyer has been looking to invest in the Sydney market for some time.

HomeCo opens two Vic centres

Moonee Market changes hands

Offshore buyer for Sydney cafe

IRW

Moonee Market has a diverse range of retailers including

childcare and a medical centre.

The newest HomeCo centre has a total GLA

of 11,310sqm.

PROPERTY

18 insideretail.com.au

Contact us

M&S hire to revive clothing salesMarks and Spencer has hired a senior Tesco executive to lead its latest attempt to reinvigorate sales in its troubled clothing business. Richard Price, described by one observer as “a safe pair of hands”, is now CEO of Tesco’s F&F clothing and homewares label.

Price has worked at M&S before. He spent seven years with the chain, rising to become menswear director, but left in 2012 after becoming disillusioned with the then M&S strategy.

“I left the business because I felt it was drifting in the wrong direction but now feel we have a real chance to make it special again. The new team has already started to improve product and value and I am looking forward to working with them,” he told The Guardian.

Between his previous stint and Tesco he was managing director of BHS and also spent six years at Next earlier in his career.

Price is a more orthodox choice for the role than his predecessor Jill McDonald, a former boss of Halfords and McDonald’s, who was sacked in July. McDonald had no experience in clothing retail.

ASOS creates role to spark growthUK online fashion and cosmetics retailer ASOS has appointed Robert Birge to the newly created role of chief growth officer, marking the first in a series of appointments to strengthen its executive team, Retail Gazette reports.

Birge joined ASOS this week and reports to CEO Nick Beighton. He will be responsible for driving profitable growth and integrating the fashion retailer’s marketing efforts with strategic planning, analytics and customer experience.

He will also lead a marketing function of 170 people and a customer care operation of more than 1200.

Birge recently served as an executive and adviser for various consumer e-commerce, content and ad tech firms including US online health startup Blink Health, and online travel startup Lola.

Prior to that he held chief marketing officer positions in international businesses including travel metasearch site Kayak, and sports, fashion and media agency IMG.

ASOS said it was also seeking three other executives to oversee product, HR and strategy.

Asics picks new EMEA chiefAsics has appointed Carsten Unbehaun as the new chief executive of the EMEA region, replacing Alistair Cameron, who has been in charge of the region for the past 10 years. The Japanese sportswear retailer aims to bolster its leadership team and grow its business with the new appointment, Retail Gazette reports.

In May, Asics recorded a drop in consolidated net sales across the European market during its first quarter despite an uptick in sales from its retail and online channels.

Unbehaun has held senior management roles at Asics since 2002 including managing director of central Europe and marketing director of EMEA. Most recently he has been the chief executive of Swedish outdoor retailer Haglöfs, which is owned by Asics.

While holding the new position, he will also remain as chief executive of Haglöfs until a successor is found.

Asics has also drafted in Masashi Abe as new executive vice-president at Asics EMEA. He has worked with Asics since 2001.

EDITOR Jo-Anne Hui-Millerjo-anne.h@octomedia.com.au

ONLINE EDITORHeather McIlvaineheather.m@octomedia.com.au

JOURNALIST Dean Blake dean.blake@octomedia.com.au

CONTRIBUTORSJoyce Abaño, Jared Dickson,Norrelle Goldring

SUB-EDITOR Margaret MacNabb

GRAPHIC DESIGN Pablo Colombi

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