The Future of Luxury Shopping: Platforms, Personalization & AI with Bastian Herr (GLOBUS)

Speaker A: Hello and welcome everybody to our new episode of the Beyond Core podcast. The podcast for business leaders who dare to think beyond today's success and build a future. As you know, in every episode we explore entrepreneurial strategies for unlocking new growth beyond your core business. From platforms, digital ecosystems, AI driven ventures and circular business models, we dive deep with industry pioneers who are shaping what's next. If you are looking to scale innovation, create new markets and future proof your company you are in the right place. And I'm not here alone. I have also my favorite co host with me. Hello Nathalie.

Speaker B: Hi Matthias. Nice to be here.

Speaker A: Yes. And uh, I'm sure you are joining because we have a special topic today. It's all about shopping, especially luxury shopping, of course. And we uh, have also a guest here, Bastian. Bastian here, and he is uh, head of Marketplace at Globus. And how does this relate to luxury shopping? He will explain also to us in a second. So welcome Bastian to our episode.

Speaker C: Hi, uh, great to be there. Hi, Teddy Hamatias.

Speaker A: So please, please start with a short introduction about you and also about Clovos. Many of our listeners maybe think about the, the hardware store, uh, but not knowing about Globus. And how is Clobus related to luxury shopping?

Speaker C: Yes, for sure. So, um, as you said. So I'm Bastian, head of marketplace at Globus, 33 years old, originally from Germany, live near the Swiss border. So um, still in Germany but very close to Switzerland and um, have more of a sales background actually and transitioned into the E commerce and marketplace business about five years ago where I joined Douglas, as probably most of you guys know, as a very large beauty retailer that also started a Marketplace in uh, 2019. And I've been at Globus now since 2023 and I'm leading the curated marketplace there. So to give you some background about Globus as a company, um, as you correctly said, it's uh, a, it's a Swiss company, completely different from the supermarkets that we may know in Germany. Um, it was actually founded in 1892 and it's a premium and luxury department store chain with nine locations in major Swiss cities and then also an online shop and then we're actually owned by the Central Group, which is the largest Thai department store group from uh, Thailand. So they actually own several very well known properties and department stores like the RINO center in Italy, the Ilum in Denmark, the KADV in Germany, Selfridges, uh, in the United Kingdom, um, and also Brown Thomas in Ireland, Bayern Corf in the Netherlands. So I think a lot of those are, you know, very, very big names, uh, in Europe. And all of them are in this premium and luxury retail space. And um, basically my role at Globus is um, uh, making sure that the marketplace, which we launched now about three years ago, you know, keeps throwing thriving. So we're working a lot with um, premium and luxury brands and home, uh, also uh, fashion and accessories. And it's a very curated, uh, environment. So we want to make sure, you know, the brands have the best possible display. And I think we'll go more into the model itself, uh, later on. But I think, yeah, this gives you bit of an overview about uh, the company.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for the intro and also uh, the clarification. Um, for us today, it's all about retail and what is the future of retail. Uh, I mean, um. But before we go into talking about the future, we should try to uh, analyze and think about what is the status quo. I mean a lot of us hear some news about Karsta Galleria, ah, and other maybe retail companies and they struggle with their offline stores. So how do you see the current status quo of retail? Um, how does the omnichannel strategies of those companies really work, uh, with the offline but also online marketplaces and stuff like that? So how does what. What do you think is. Is working good at the moment, but also is where is room for improvement?

Speaker C: Yeah, great question. So talking about, I guess the status quo first. So I think we. We've seen, like you said, a lot of consolidation. We've seen a lot of acquisitions, uh, in. In the retail industry. And um, there's obviously very high pressure in terms of um, being profitable. You know, there's, you know, these high fixed costs that you see as in a lot of these retail locations because, you know, they're located very centrally in some m of the most prominent cities like Globus. We have, you know, Zurich Bar and uh, Berlin. Very centrally located. I think they're. The rent of course, is a big factor. So the status quo that there's a lot of investing actually in the retail locations and making sure they're modern and ah, it's probably also one thing with uh, Galleria. I think that's one of the reasons, uh, there's been a lot of change there as well. And there's been, I think, a move away from um, talking about products and more to brands, I think in general. Right. And there's been this huge, uh, marketing push and we, we are seeing in our locations that, you know, it's very important to have the right brands because they bring in their customers and they bring in uh, the customers that purchase. And it's the same online, really, right there. It's the online traffic. And um, right now I think focus is still on really making sure that there's a seamless experience for customers. So if you're an omnichannel, you want to make sure that if the customer starts their research online, which nowadays is usually the case, that, you know, when they come on Globus ch and they want to go into store and purchase the product there, that there's really a great seamless connection. There's um, yeah, that you don't lose the customer there. And I think that's. That's ongoing. There's some things that are already working well. So there's like a click and reserve program. A lot of premium retailers are doing it. There's um, the idea of being able to return orders that you placed online in store. Um, there's some great usage of, um, loyalty programs, rights that make sure that the customers keep shopping at, um, at your department store versus going somewhere else. And um, I think that's, you know, that's part of what's already going very well going, I guess, into your second part of the question. Um, also, I think the customer service overall, especially in like the premium and luxury department store segment, is, Is conceived very well. We see this also with uh, things like the net promoter score, which we measure. So that's very, very high. Also higher versus, you know, standard retail, so to say. And I think this is also super important because, you know, you have to have some sort of, uh, value that you bring in addition to just having products. Because nowadays we know, you know, you can get products from many, many different locations. And even in luxury, it's. It's not like in 20 years ago maybe, where you only had some selected locations where you could get these items. And um, also I think retailers, um, in the premium segment, like us, like the Cardi Bayancorff, they're doing well, well in curating the assortment, especially offline, because there's limited space. Right. So you can't stock everything. And I think it's. It's um, always an uh, important and difficult choice to, to decide which brands you bring into your store. So that also it's interesting for the customer to come in, you know, make sure, you know, that they don't just come in because they need certain item, but because they want to be inspired. And you know, they, they just Maybe know, okay, I'm, I'm going to a wedding in a month or two and I need a certain outfit, you know, I need a certain dress if I'm a woman, I need a certain suit, etc. And I think it's um, very important that you, that you inspire the customers there. And that also leads to a lot of events I think to make sure customers are interested. You know, we've been focusing a lot in recent years in um, really tailoring events to, to the customers, to our customer needs. And this also goes hand in hand with um, loyalty programs so that you know, let's say you're in a certain level of loyalty program, you get invitations to events that you only get at that level. So I think that also makes it uh, more interesting for customers to keep coming back because then they know there's more benefits with you know, becoming a better customer. Um, so I guess that's you know, what's like the status quo and what's good in terms of what um, you could improve or what should improve. I think there's, especially in um, the offline worlds still a lot of guesswork so to say, because there's not as much numbers, there's not as much, much fact based decision making as in the online world because you know, it's much easier to, to measure with, you know, with all uh, the information you have online. Of course we can track every click you make, right. But um, in the retail stores it's much harder. I mean there's mainly uh, the idea of being able to measure uh, the traffic, how many people are coming in, are coming out. And I think a lot what we're trying is to um, connect this with the online data, with the loyalty program. Right? Because then as soon as you purchase, then we have also the history from the store. But if you don't make a purchase then it's really, really hard to uh, know what customers were in your store. And I think there also, we'll talk about AI later on. I think there's uh, some huge opportunity there. And still also with the seamless connection of online and offline, I think we're already, we've come um, pretty far but there's still room for improvement. I think sometimes we still see, and certain retailers and us included sometimes that the processes could be better for the customer, that it's easier to connect the online and offline. You know, for instance, on the marketplace the issue is that you um, receive packages from a third party that are not uh, they're not shipped directly from our own warehouse. And if you return them, not all locations allow you to return them in store. Right. So I think that's one thing because of a customer perspective. Of course, it needs to be the same regardless of where the product is coming from. So I think that's what's also another area where, where there's still some potential.

Speaker B: So, um, when. When was the platform, the marketplace, founded? Which. When. When was it?

Speaker C: At Globus, we launched a marketplace in 2022.

Speaker A: 22, yes, 22.

Speaker B: And so why did you choose to launch your own instead of maybe going on existing ones?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. So actually, we were also on one other marketplace for a short time period on Galaxies, which is the, uh, largest Swiss marketplace, mainly with our own assortment. So, uh, our own brand, we actually have like a Globus house brand. Um, but we stopped that just because it wasn't. Yeah, we wanted to focus more on our own marketplace. And, and the reason why we thought that was a good idea to, to launch the own marketplace was really because, um, we thought we have a unique value proposition to both the customer or existing customers, as well as potential new customers and to sellers. So, of course, you know, building a marketplace, you need to look at both sides, right? Because you need to be attractive to those that you want to join, that you want to join, uh, the marketplace and are then sellers or partners that are, um, selling the products. So those in our case would be brands, for instance, Hugo Boss, Swarovski, and then of course, the customer. Right. So then you need to think about, you know, what does the customer want? I think, um, those two really, really have to match. And also for anyone considering launching a marketplace, I think it's super important to look at that at the very beginning, because otherwise you may spend a lot of time and effort on, on developing some great idea, but there needs to be a, uh, demand and also supply, so to say. Right? I mean, it's like basic economics. Um, and I think for, for the relevancy, you also have to consider how large is your current online shop, because, you know, we build our marketplace on an online shop that was existing or over 10 years already, and we already have, you know, a large amount of traffic and sales, and you need to have that relevancy to be able to, you know, attract sellers and also make sure that you have enough, um, traffic for, for those new marketplace products. Because otherwise it's going to be very hard to convince a brand like Hugo Boss to join your marketplace. Um, because for them, really, it's you know, about reaching new customers and, and being present, um, on more touch points. So I think if, if those criteria are met, then um, I think it's, it's very important that you choose the right model. And for us it was a very curated model. So, um, you know, we wanted to make sure that we only work with premium and luxury brands. We only um, work with the brands directly and there's no competition on pricing. So that is really like one supplier per item. So if you purchase a suit, uh, from Hugo Boss, for instance, it is only sold by Hugo Boss. There's not another offer by some other competition, uh, which is more like, you know, the Amazon or Galaxy model where you have one product but then you have like 20 sellers in the background and then there's like a price fight. And we, we didn't want that. Right. So, and I think what we're seeing in the marketplace industry in general, there, there's actually a tendency or a move towards a lot of these more focused and curated marketplaces. Also in other areas, you know, there's, there's lots of department stores that have done the same thing, like Boninger in, in Germany, for instance, um, also Galeries Lafayette in France. Ah, Douglas in, uh, in the beauty segments. Um, so we really, we really launched the marketplace then to be able to offer much more and more curated assortment to our customers. Right. So for the customer, they um, have the, have just more brands. They also can, uh, get new products or a new product assortment much faster versus us purchasing them, the items and putting them into our own inventory. Um, because of course, you know, that takes more time. You really need to be ahead like one year to make sure you stock the right products and then you can stock everything. Right? Because especially in fashion, which is our core segment, there's so many sizes, there's so many, uh, color variations. But if you have a marketplace, you know, you can onboard uh, brands and suppliers, um, and then they can basically offer the full, the full breadth. And one great um, strategy we've also done is that we, you know, the top sellers, you stock yourself, you have those, um, but like the line extension we call it. So like everything else, like maybe the odd sizes or the colors that are not the super popular or the most popular, those, you know, can be fulfilled by the brands directly and then the drift's just a great, great choice for the customer. And um, at the end, you know, they don't really care how we do it. It's just that they want to have like the full assortment available.

Speaker B: I have A question on the curation. You said for, uh, example, the um, you know, if you get a huge boss, uh, suit, you wouldn't, you would only have that one suit. Does that mean how do you ensure that Is it per product or per brand? So would you have just like a one brand of men's suit or if it's on the product, how do you ensure that, you know, you got the same, you don't have the same suit or you don't have the same necklace for SW or ah, which level is that?

Speaker C: It's on product level. So for, uh, for some of the brands, like Kuga was, for instance, we, we have like hybrid models. So like, you know, certain items we stock ourselves because we also have them in our stores and those are then always fulfilled by us. And then a larger part of the assortment comes directly from the marketplace partner. And you know, it's basically like an EAN match we do. So we check when we onboard or even in the negotiation phase, you know, we check what's the potential, what do we already have and what can be added with a, uh, marketplace. And then we call it line extension. Um, yeah, so that, so that's how we make sure that there's like no overlap.

Speaker B: So, so that means that the brands cannot just choose, uh, what they have on the platform. They can propose, uh, a portfolio, but then you make sure that out of this portfolio there's not already a similar product, uh, on the platform or something like this.

Speaker C: Yes, correct. I mean, it could be of course, from a different brand. Right. So like you said, I mean, if you have a boss suit and like a Calvin Klein, uh, suit, that, that is fine, but not exactly the same product. Exactly. In which is very different from like traditional marketplace approach. Right. Where it's just like, give us everything and we just make sure we have as much as we possibly can. But for us, you know, it's important to have that curation. And usually like the brands we work with, they, they find this good. Right? Because for them also it's much easier to be found. Right. Because if you have way too much, then it's also much easier for the customer to find the right product. And it can also be overwhelming.

Speaker B: Is this curation done through AI? Uh, which, you know, will lead us onto some further questions on AI.

Speaker C: So, um, currently no, not for, not for Gobis. It's not AI based and it's. Right now it's on purpose, not AI based. But I think there's uh, for like the open marketplaces, it already is sometimes. And Then there's a lot of potential there. Um, for us it's still, you know, mainly a topic to discuss, you know, with, with the buying and with, with our strategy team to make sure that there's the right fit. But I think for us also it's not like in a huge scale. If you're talking about, for us, you know, tens of thousands of products and not millions of products. And I think if you're talking millions of products, of course, uh, doing this creation, uh, with a buying team is like impossible. Right? So I think then there, there's more, much, much more need for more AI. Um, however, what we are using AI for is on the product data side already. So there, I think, you know, I'm making sure, um, we have correct translations because in Switzerland we have three national languages, right? So that's sometimes a challenge for, challenge for brands we work with because it's not just German, it's also French and Italian. And um, actually also now we're working on English, um, which usually is not an issue, but it is another language also making sure the product images are right. So there's been a lot of progress, like the past two to three years. Um, just every year we're checking with what's available in the market and it's like the, at the pace it's moving, it's quite incredible. Like the uh, much gets much, much better super quickly. So of course, as you know now there's already so many options for generative AI where you don't even need to take model pictures anymore. So we're, we also am looking into that, investing in that. Um, and I think this part is probably in the short term to midterm, what we'll see in marketplaces in general. So I think there is going to be a lot more investment on optimizing product onboarding, product data, uh, enrichments. Um, of course, the larger the marketplace, the more relevant it becomes. And also on the brand side, like some of the larger brands, they're doing the same thing because they're on, on Globus, on Zalando, on Amazon, and they want to um, make sure that they're displayed the right way on every of these channels. So they're also investing on their side to make sure that they're able to automate this.

Speaker A: Um, and what you said before reminds me maybe a bit on what is the advantage of combining retail and the marketplace. So you said the downside or the missing part of the retail of the offline world is the data. Data tracking. Yeah, this is the Advantage of the marketplace so you can collect tons of data points and whatever.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker A: The advantage on the retail side is the personal experience, the talking to the customer, um, talking to them, understanding their needs, what they value and stuff like that. And this could help you to curate better the products for your marketplace. So this is maybe the win win situation between retail and online world. So one, the data you collect with the marketplace you can provide to your retail stores and help them because they are missing them. And on the other side you bring in the personal understanding of what customers value from the retail world to the marketplace to do better curation of products and therefore then increasing maybe the conversion rate.

Speaker C: Uh,

Speaker A: on the online side, is this something where you also see the kind of the best win win together?

Speaker C: That's a great point for sure. I think there's the huge benefit that omnichannel retailers like Globus, um, have is that they also have this personal touch and then they have a lot of information that they get from their customers that they have in the stores. Right. And I think if you're like an online pure player, you're missing that part. Um, and I think taking it one step further, I, um, think also it is super difficult as an online only, uh, retailer to create that same level of engagement which, you know, you were also mentioning like the customer experience and also trust and loyalty. Right. I think if you have physical locations you can walk into, you can speak to, uh, sales representatives and especially then if you have a great experience, you know, where they help you with an issue that may have been online, where they place an order and they're not happy with the product they received, maybe they can do, you know, a return right there in the store to a different product. I think this is like a, uh, key element and this is something that we're leveraging and I think everyone retail really has to leverage because, um, that's what really creates happy customers. And you know, it's super difficult to have that same connection, um, with just online shopping.

Speaker A: And um, so you said you say this is about personalization. So I have a personal contact and the customer has the personal experience. Um, how can we transfer this into the retail world? So I mean this is, yes, you see the product, but it's just pictures or maybe videos. But how can you make it also more personal in a way that it's kind of equal or close to what you experience in the offline world?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's probably where, you know, we're seeing um, personalization move online the next couple of years is that um, there's still I think a gap that, that needs to be filled. Right. And I think now with uh, with all of these new possibilities in AI, it's much more um, there's many more opportunities than, than in the past. I think also that's you know, where we're, we're going to be seeing a lot of improvements. So there's already certain personalization that you see if you go on Globus today or on other retailers.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: So there's, there's product recommendations, there's um, you know, of course we know what brand, brands you purchased previously and what products and based on that we can uh, send you um, a specific newsletter or a specific um, recommendations on what to purchase next. But I think it's, it's not the same as talking to um, a sales person in the store and then they walking you to, you know, certain product and showing you.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: So, and I think there is still a huge um, opportunity for the online retail to be less transactional and probably more relationship based. And I think what we're already seeing now is some of these um, uh, chat bots that are now much more advanced and they can actually be like a shopping assistant, like a virtual shopping assistant. Still not there I think. But I think that's where it's probably going to be uh, moving. And uh, I think if this catches on, I think it will really, really help um, online, online shopping and it will be able to do much better creation. And also we don't have this, this problem anymore of having too large of an assortment because you know, like if you go on Amazon right now, I think you probably don't go there and feel super inspired to purchase like certain items because it's more like okay, I need this. Yes, there's recommendations but you would never scroll through hundreds of pages of products to find you know, something. I think you need some sort of assistance and, and um, you know this especially in the, in the premium luxury segment, it's super important. So I think that's you know, one, one topic we're seeing. So with these chat bots or personal shopping assistants. And then in addition to that I think uh, going back to like the generative AI so I said right now there's already emails, etc. Being targeted, but I think it's not yet uh, that, not yet at this point the complete emails are uh, generated from AI so you could do this much faster. Right. Instead of having like a marketing team creating the content, uh, individually you could really have almost like live Creation of uh, marketing communications and then be it email, social media and etc, push this to the customer or even on the actual web shop, right? I mean if the customer is locked in, you can already know a lot about them and actually change the entire webshop. Right. You could only show relevant categories, you could only show brands that are um, interesting for that particular customer. And that of course makes it highly, highly personalized and um, probably that the conversion will also be a lot better then.

Speaker A: Yeah. Or maybe the topic of how do you say, try ons also. So this is what you value when you go offline shopping. You can put on the suit, you can feel it, uh, does it really fit to my body or whatever. And in the now with maybe more and more AI you can also do a kind of a uh, body scan or whatever and then a virtual try on and I mean it's not the same, you cannot really feel. But at the end you can at least see more like uh, oh, this is me wearing the suit, is it, does it fit or not or uh, something like that. Uh, but this would also require that you collect more data about the product. So right now you have a lot of data, just about or just the pictures and the description. But to do this more personalized uh, try on thing or whatever, you need to also scan the product, you need to measure it by yourself. You need to create a kind of a digital version of this pseudo product, uh, and to feed it into the AI. Is this also something you work on or do you see this? Does it make sense the customer would value this? Or do you see, uh, this is maybe something uh, coming from a visionary but it's not really something a uh, customer really wants or no, I think it's.

Speaker C: No actually I think it's definitely something a customer wants and it's actually something both the customer and also us as retailers want. Because the end of the day, you know, one of the biggest issues so to say in online retail are returns, right? And of course especially in fashion, uh, returns are very high. Just because of the topic you just mentioned, right? You don't need know if the size you're ordering is actually going to fit the way you want it to fit. And that's huge advantage of going into the store, right? Because then you just try the sizes and you're done with it. And right now I think we're at the point where there's a lot of size recommendations. There's um, also AI based tools actually already available that can, you know, recommend you a certain size. But I Think the next step would probably be that you almost have like, like an avatar, so to say of yourself. And based on this avatar it will exactly be able to tell you, you know, this shirt will fit maybe a little loose on the shoulders or it will fit you know, very tight around the neck etc. And actually give you a very clear understanding of um, of this. And I don't think actually we're that far away from that point. Um, because we already, to answer your question, we are really looking into this right now. So we have our own photo studio where we take um, pictures and uh, we have model pictures and we're working with several um, AI agencies to go into direction of actually just having a picture um, of a product and a lot of the measurements you can actually get from the manufacturer directly. You know, what's the length of the um, arms for instance, um, or what's the color, width, etc. And combining this then with uh, maybe the information from the customer, we can actually already tailor the uh, fit very, very well. Um, next to the. Again probably would be that you can also see this maybe like you said with a virtual try on. Right. So very popular already with maybe like sunglasses and watches. But this could also move at some point to, to fashion. Uh, actually like maybe wearing a shirt, um, virtually.

Speaker B: I guess it can get even more complex also with the fabrics like uh, you can see the fitting in theory, but then maybe this fabric is very tight or this fabric is very elastic. M. I mean, yeah, you could get a lot of complexity in um, in the clothing elements that you don't get with glasses or makeup or haircut.

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And even just you know, the feeling like you said of the material, you know, is it more of like a softer material? Is it.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Or like a little more rugged, you know. And that's, you could probably write um, it. But I think it's. That part is right now is still hard, I think to anything or you touch, smell, feel. Right. It's harder to um, do in a digital world.

Speaker A: So we now talk about luxury segment, let's say this way. So we have your luxury offline, um departments or stores, you have the marketplace. Um, but when it comes to retail shopping you have also the middle segment and also the low price segment. Do you think there's anything the middle segment or the lower price segment can learn from your luxury or higher price uh segment? Because as I said in the intro, a lot of those mid, middle segment uh, retailers, they are kind of struggling at least here in Germany. And you Hear in the news they need to lay off people, they need to close their retail stores. Maybe the same is also in the case in, in France, but here in Germany they, they struggle and uh, they try everything. I mean they are also smart people but it seems to be they not all figured out the solution to this problem. Maybe there's not a solution. There's something else happening. So is, is there from your point of view, something they could also learn from, from, from your segment?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I think it's, it's a very great question and um, you're right. I mean we see this also in Switzerland so actually just uh, fairly recently Yelmoli, ah, which is uh, also a very um, well known Swiss retailer just down the street from, from our um, location here on Vstrass. So they had to close their store and it was online and offline. So it was with also a omnichannel player. And I think you know we're seeing this all over Europe, um, that there's you know, more and more retailers closing down. Um, so I think first of all, I mean I would say we're not just luxury or premium and luxury. And I think that's part of also the answer to your question maybe. So the, we see a lot of the expectations that um, luxury customers have so to say dripping down to, to the premium segment. And you know, premium segment is sometimes also mid price segment. So it's also very individual and based on the customer. What's premium? What's luxury? Right. So and I think the customer expectations, they've just gotten much higher because um, because of this and at the end of the day really when everyone expects a, a great customer experience and I don't think it matters if you, you know, go into a Galleria or um, a car. I um, think it's actually fairly similar in terms of what the customer wants, in terms of you know, how they treat it that, that they feel like you know, um, they're taken care of. Well. So big part is that that customer relationship still. And I think and maybe this is you know, one of, one of the pieces of the puzzle also for like the mid price, um, mid price point. And I think um, in addition like I said, these uh, loyalty programs, I think they do very well in the, in the luxury segments. And I think you know, maybe there's also an opportunity there on, in the mid price segment because like for instance Galleria, I know they have um, a, they have a program but I'm not sure you know, how much it is used, how much they Actually capitalize on this and then also personalize they're offering to their customers based on this. Right. So in, in the future I would imagine you know, with, with the technological abilities that you would be able to maybe walk into a store, um, log in uh, with like a QR code on your phone and then immediately maybe one of the sales person gets notified, hey, there's a new customer, Bastian. Uh, he bought this and this brand the past few months. You know it's uh, probably he was looking for this and that and then someone approaches you and uh, maybe has like a little tablet or phone and can show you or uh. I recommend you new products that came in recently. I think if you get this um, you kind of really wow effect. So to say you are also going to have more traffic uh, in stores. And of course you know, more traffic is uh, is going to lead to, to better or more sales.

Speaker A: Yeah. And as you said also it depends a bit on the um, on the brands itself. So you, the brand attracts the users or the customers or uh, the shoppers. So maybe you need to not classify the brands by price or luxury or whatever but more like in how attract, how do, how, how is the attractiveness to bring people to the stores. So uh, maybe boss is not bringing customers to the stores but Calvin Klein, I don't know, uh, just some examples uh, or others or maybe low price brands, whatever. But maybe they are attractors. How do they attract people to the stores? This is something you can rank and then uh, it's maybe more related to the uh, to the, the shopping experience itself. Right. So you go shopping offline, shopping more for the experience. So it creates an experience. In online you value a bit more like the selection and then maybe the price or, or whatever just to. Not the experience because you can do it by yourself but when you go offline then you have more, more the, the whole surrounding and the, the experience.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, for sure. And I think you're exactly right. And um, also you know, to be fair, I think that's why um luxury brands, that's, that is one thing they do very well is I think they, there's a lot of interest.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And I don't think everyone who works and walks into one of our stores, um, and we actually we have you know like the top tier luxury brands in two of our stores which is the New Geneva and Zurich. Probably most of those people don't actually purchase the products. They just come in because they know oh they have all these great brands but then they go up to Another floor and then they have more of like the mainstream or mid tier brands. Right. I think kind of going to your point, what you were saying is that if you're able to get these um, luxury brands in your locations, people are going to come maybe for them, but then leave for something else potentially.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: And maybe at a later stage they'll move up to one of these luxury brands. But for sure you have to have like the right assortment and then once you have the customers in store, I think like you said, what, what brings people back is the experience. And online is more like the convenience factor. Right. So I think that's less of why people are going to the stores. Um, and it's more of the, the experience that's important.

Speaker A: So. Sounds very interesting. And um, so it means uh, also that what my takeaway is from our conversation that uh, retail is not dead and there is, there is a way moving forward. And um, the combination of online and offline is key here. Um, we need to continue to invest into Omnichannel and further explore. And there are different ways and AI is not only bringing um, cost savings and more efficient processes on your side, but also on the experience side is helping the customers to maybe better select the right product and lowering the return rates and stuff like that. So a very fascinating topic and I'm sure we can, we could continue uh, some, some more hours talking about that one. Um, you also mentioned you, you worked at Douglas, um, and you learned a lot about marketplaces from your point of view. Are there any books, podcasts or other sources you would like to recommend to other people interested in the whole topic of maybe retail or marketplaces, AI or something else? What shaped you as a leader? Um, so is there anything you would like to recommend or you can recommend?

Speaker C: Of course, yeah, of course. In addition to your great podcast. Right. So I think the, the Beyond Core podcast, but I think there's um, two ones I would recommend in addition. So one, if you really, really want to get focused on like marketplace business and either you're a brand and you're looking into, you know, what marketplaces should I join? Because actually there's a lot, there's a lot that also came up during the last five to ten years. And um, there's a. So called, let's, let's talk Marketplace podcasts by Ingr and Valerie D. So they focus mainly on fashion, home and living, but they've also incorporated some of the other segments like electronics and um, diy. I think that's a great one. I always listen to that, because, you know, of course I'm in the industry. And then for a more general business podcast, actually, um, I like to listen fast and curious. It's by leazofikrama, uh, and Verena Pauseda. Actually my girlfriend listened to that once we were driving in the car. And I really thought it was a great podcast. It also has some touches of politics and current other topics. So that's also a great one. And also, um, talks a lot about retail and the, uh, economy in general. And then for books, I mean, I think maybe it's an obvious one, but, uh, ah, Nexus by Yuva Noah Hariri. Uh, just. It was released I think last year. But you, um, know, I actually didn't finish it yet. But it's uh, that's a great one because of course it deals with, uh, what he calls information networks, but also greatly deals with AI. And you know what, that may, uh, change for us, uh, and humanity in general. So I think those would be my recommendations.

Speaker A: Perfect selection. So we will also put your recommendations in the show note together with the link to your marketplace Globus and uh, also to your LinkedIn profile, uh, so that people, if they are interested, they can reach out to you and maybe connect with you. And if they have questions, then maybe you are answering.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, so thank you very much from our side for joining the podcast and answering our questions, but also shaping your picture of the, of the retail market. And also this, the future, it looks promising and also interesting, especially with the whole AI bubble, uh, approaching. So maybe in, uh, one or two years we can have another conversation here on the podcast and then let's see what, um, how the future turned out as we talk today.

Speaker C: Yeah, sounds great. Thanks a lot also for having me. It was great.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Boston.

Speaker A: All right.