Recorded live at RCC's Retail West conference in Vancouver, Christine Day, former CEO of lululemon and international executive at Starbucks, joins me on the main stage to talk about her latest and perhaps most important venture, The House of L, R & C. We talk about the apparel industry's social impact and the retail sector's changing structure. We end with a fun rapid-fire round of questions to glean Christine's perspective on the hottest topics in Retail.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Recorded live at RCC's Retail West conference in Vancouver, Christine Day, former CEO of lululemon and international executive at Starbucks, joins me on the main stage to talk about her latest and perhaps most important venture, The House of L, R & C.
We talk about the apparel industry's social impact and the retail sector's changing structure. We end with a fun rapid-fire round of questions to glean Christine's perspective on the hottest topics in Retail.
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven’t already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast. Last but not least, if you are into BBQ, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co! Have a safe week everyone!
About Christine
Christine Day is a Co-Founder and President of The House of LR&C where she brings 30 years of experience in scaling global retail brands to this new concept in fashion. Christine is known for bringing her whole self to work combining warmth and joy with vision and operational excellence. She is widely recognized as one of the greats in the evolving world of retail.
Christine brings her executive leadership experience to The House of LR&C from lululemon athletica, where she served as CEO for six years, as well as Starbucks, serving in various executive positions over a 20-year period. Concurrently, she is the CEO of Performance Kitchen, a forward-thinking food company creating the next generation of frozen food with a focus on great taste, convenience and nutrition. She earned her BA degree from Central Washington University and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. Christine and her husband enjoy a full life in Vancouver surrounded by her loving family of 3 children and 4 grandchildren.About Christine:
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide. Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail’s prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in 2022.
Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms. Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.
Michael LeBlanc 00:05
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with the Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:09
Recorded live at RCCs Retail West conference in Vancouver. Christine Day, former CEO of Lululemon and International Executive at Starbucks, joins me on the main stage talking about her latest and perhaps most important venture. The House of LR&C We talk about the apparel industry, social impact, and the retail sectors changing structure. We enter the fun, rapid fire round of questions to glean Christine's perspective on the hottest topics in retail.
Michael LeBlanc 00:20
Let's listen in now. I am now honored to (inaudible) wrap up to do a deep dive on retail strategy with a leader who knows about growth and experience. Christine Day, Co-founder CEO of The House of LR&C background, leading a couple of global brands, you may or may not have heard of Starbucks, Starbucks, anyone and Lululemon. Christine, please join me on the stage. (Crossover talk), I think you're on yeah, I think you're on for sure. Alright, listen let's jump right in. Let's talk about the house of LR&C. So, let's talk about the origin story, what it is, scope and scale, what makes it remarkable. The other brands would be very familiar, but perhaps a little less. So, for the house of LR&C.
Christine Day 01:27
Okay, so it stands for The House of Love, Respect and Care. We formed about three years ago. So, it's a fashion apparel house. But everything we do is based on sustainable fabrics. Going back to fabrics first. The fashion industry, as you probably know, is the third dirtiest industry in the world. And so there's lots of room for improvement. So, taking, you know, an experienced team, everything that we know about great fabrics, about great factories that raise really the level of compliance in this world of ESG and sustainability, and building what we call building the type of company the future needs now. So, how do we, so we formed as a public benefit Corp in the States, which means the triple bottom line, and we designed into the UN sustainability goals, the textile exchanges, top box, because they've evaluated every fabric, their top box fabrics, I really started designing clothing with fashion first because if we don't give the consumer what they want, which is fashion, we really can't change the industry. And what you've seen is the rise of brands, which I have deep respect for, like Patagonia and Everlane, etcetera but they really aren't in the fashion business. So, until we take fashion all the way to the consumer with sustainability, making it the effortless choice, we can't change behavior. So, I also believe in being in an omni-channel. So, in three years, we built three brands and three channels and hit those sustainability objectives.
Michael LeBlanc 02:58
And did you talk about who your partners were in this little venture?
Christine Day 03:01
No, my partners are the singer Ciara and her husband Russell Wilson.
Michael LeBlanc 03:06
Fantastic. Now I want to get to how you got connected with them. And why you chose this specifically, because you could have done a lot of different things. Before that you threw out a couple of quick terms, what did you say top box?
Christine Day 03:16
Yeah, top box.
Michael LeBlanc 03:19
What does that, what does that mean?
Christine Day 03:21
So, everything we do is the textile exchange has rated every fabric and so they have them graded into better, best, good, et cetera. So, 70% of everything we make comes from those top box scores. And then if we make anything from the good category, we kind of call it vintage now. So, it has to be a statement piece that has to last at least 10 years. And so, it's the future thrift shop item that you would have.
Michael LeBlanc 03:43
Interesting. All right, so let's talk about why you jumped in with this. I mean you; you've got a background that many would envy. It's a remarkable background of experience, you probably could have had a lot of choices to do a lot of different things,
Christine Day 03:54
I could be making a million dollars, millions of dollars a year being a CEO of a big company.
Michael LeBlanc 03:57
You could be on a yacht outside in the harbor, (crossover talk) if you wanted,
Christine Day 04:01
That's true I could do that too.
Michael LeBlanc 04:06
What, what compelled you to get into this line of work. I mean, you came from you know you got Lululemon in the background. So, clearly you are connected to the connected fashion but talk a little bit about that and then talk about how it came together with Ciara and Russell.
Christine Day 04:17
So, I also created a Food is Medicine company in between doing Lululemon and this and I met Russell through that because his dad died of diabetes. And so the company that I created does food for diabetes, hypertension, etcetera. It's sold through qualified now as Food is Medicine sold through insurance companies in the states for Medicare Medicaid. He wanted to be an ambassador so he came to me and through his agent and so we became friendly through that. And then he had run his brand Good Man Brand from with 3X Nordstroms employees, but it was only sold to Nordstroms, and it wasn't much of a brand and it didn't have any sustainability. So, he was about to invest more money in it and he said off to the side of your desk, will you help me with this? And I said yes. And next thing I knew I was creating a whole fashion house and three brands and changing the fashion industry. So,
Michael LeBlanc 05:09
Well, it's interesting. Let's talk about that. I mean, I've worked with celebrities in terms of designing and some, you know, generally attach their name to it, others really get involved. So, you know, you're talking about, you know, an ex pro NFL football player and an entertainer. So, talk about your relationship with them and what role they play, I see them on the site. I mean, they're, they're very inspiring, talented individuals. What role do they play in the, in the business,
Christine Day 05:32
They're both on the board. But we only talked to Russell really between March and July, and then, then he's gone, right? Because he is in football. And so, it doesn't look good if he's doing anything besides football. But Ciara is very involved as creative director. So, she, all those photoshoots and things that you see she actually schedules, does, creates all the themes behind it, reviews the line with us, but she trusts us as the you know, the experts in the space. What's more commercial, you know, we're not dressing Ciara, the singer. You know, we certainly don't do her Grammy outfits and things like that. But it's the everyday aspect of more capturing her fashion essence, in what we do.
Michael LeBlanc 06:12
Talk about the creative process that drives that. I mean, Ciara as an entertainer would be super creative, just as part of her DNA. And Russell in the same way would be creative in a different way talking about the creative process,
Christine Day 06:15
They both, they definitely have points of view. So, for instance, in this last season, our collection that we just did for Ciara. She was inspired as a young girl by the movie stars of the 70s, which was the time particularly when there were a lot of great, you know, black African American women. So, like Pam Grier, we chose a 70s theme for that. Then she wanted to for the spring collection, go back to kind of her roots. So, when she started, which was the 90s. And so, you know, we take kind of her bigger ideas, but then put them into a cohesive line, that's scalable, repeatable. So, you know, you're just changing the details on a suit, for instance, to hit that theme, but you're still doing a suit, right, which is a commercial product.
Michael LeBlanc 07:07
Right, right. So, interesting. All right let's jump ahead. Let's, let's change (inaudible) a little bit, let's talk about the state of retail, the state of business. And, you know, listen, coming out of the COVID era, the quasi-post-COVID era or whatever we're in today. There were some categories of apparel that did actually pretty well. Others that, you know, that just demand collapsed. It's coming back now, as people start to travel. As you think about the current state running, as being an operator, how are you feeling about, about your business, about holiday, about demand from consumers? I see at the higher end demand continues. I mean, there's several companies that continue to do well, others are doing well, year-over-year, because it was not a great year. But how are you feeling about holiday and the prospects for the, for the industry and, and the business?
Christine Day 07:52
You know, we're growing at 150%, right? So, the consumer is still there. So, if you look at the consumer who is 150 income and above, they're responsible for 40% of purchases, 75 and above, you get to 80, that consumers so far has been relatively unaffected and is still very healthy. So, if your product is targeted to that consumer, brands have been typically still been doing very well,
Michael LeBlanc 08:18
What's your average price point? Do you have such a thing?
Christine Day 08:21
Well, we're as low as $88 on some of the pieces and as high as $600 on some of the faux fur coats.
Michael LeBlanc 08:24
The statement piece, (crossover talk).
Christine Day 08:28
Yeah, the statement pieces. And so, everything kind of in between, we'd be comparable on the women's brand and the men's brand to like fence theory, rag and bone type pricing for that. And then our brand that targets Gen Z, which is called Human Nation. That's like $78 for a hoodie. And so it's very comparable with, like a Nike, you know, price point.
Michael LeBlanc 08:49
Yeah. So, we saw some data from Leger around consumers that were starting to shop earlier for holidays.
Christine Day 08:52
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 08:53
And I think, I think the logic in their minds, I've heard articulated is, I want to shop now before prices go up later. And then there's the countervailing, which is, I think I'm going to wait because I hear there's lots of inventory at different retailers. Where do you sit on thinking about consumers taking all that in?
Christine Day 09:16
Well, I think there's a couple of different trends going on there. I'm not actually worried about inventory levels in most retail stores, I've got to remember that in the global supply chain meltdown, a lot of people's Christmas products came in, in February or March. So, it missed the season, they packed and held that's why inventory has been high all year.
Michael LeBlanc 09:29
Right.
Christine Day 09:30
And so that's what they're selling now. So, they have the pack at hold costs, but at last year's prices, they bought light. So, I think you're gonna see a big correction back from a lot of retailers at the end of q4, with inventory coming down pretty substantially. The second thing that you saw happening, particularly if you're going across North America was there, was a big concern about the West Coast port strike because all the contracts are up at once. Now. It didn't happen but retailers brought some inventory in early for that. So, I don't think it's just inventory and discount game at the lower end of the market, where there's an abundance of kind of the cheap product in the discount because remember, during the pandemic, a lot of people like the TJ Maxx, etcetera, bought up a ton of really great inventory from that there was 22 weeks of excess inventory. So, that's now still playing out.
Michael LeBlanc 10:03
Wow.
Christine Day 10:04
And it's in season inventory that they're putting out now. And normally, they're counter seasonal. So, there's a big stock of inventory there. So, it gets a little harder to compete at that discount level of the marketplace today. And so, I think that's where you're going to see the most discounts. But that's good news for the consumer today who's feeling the price pressure from maybe oil, housing, food on you know, it's still hard to get and the supply chain still somewhat broken for technology, for cars,
Michael LeBlanc 10:23
Microchips, (crossover talk),
Christine Day 10:25
Microchip, home, still, you can't get a couch, but your basic housewares apparel, etcetera What we are seeing is trends for back to work, clothing, entertainment clothing, and so dressing up and personal expression. So, I think a lot of the brands that have focused and stayed on quality, have stayed on design and fashion are going to do really well this holiday season. And people have been spending their money on travel, you know, getting back out, (crossover talk),
Michael LeBlanc 10:42
Experiences.
Christine Day 10:43
Seeing family experiences. So, refreshing the wardrobe, I think will actually be a good trend for holiday and, and maybe not as much because everybody you know, redid their kitchens during the pandemic. So, I think we still will be a little long on housewares for a while.
Michael LeBlanc 11:37
Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic, right? I mean, if you think about a lot of those goods, they're really bought for a year and a half. You know, as one retailer said to me, people don't need another big screen TV. They bought them, they bought three of them or whatever during, during the event. How are you feeling on a scale of one to five about your supply chain, one being comfortable everything is fine. Five being you know, it's a trash bit fire? Where do you sit on a one to five scale?
Christine Day 12:00
Well, we are just finishing up a NetSuite implementation. So, you know, you couldn't get a product in a while ago, right. So, now getting product out and invoicing it are my current challenges. But that's a little self-inflicted with a NetSuite implementation. I feel very good about it. I never built a supply chain that was overly dependent on Vietnam, Indonesia, etcetera Because what you see in the industry today is where the exciting innovation on B Corp factories that's happening is actually in little markets, some segments of Vietnam, but more interesting to me in Peru and Guatemala, because I think this ties to how the capital markets work with us as retailers.
Christine Day 12:26
What you're seeing is, kind of a breakdown of globalization and a rise of regionalization. And, you know, in order to reduce your carbon footprint, you need to produce regionally. So, where it's happening now is capital is being reinvested in factories in North America. So, an example would be, say, Saitex jeans’ factory that produces jeans in the LA region, with only eight gallons of water, the dye sludge that comes out gets made into bricks, that gets sold into low-income housing. So, that kind of capital reinvestment in the North American markets is long overdue. The capital markets have not supported asset investment, you see that in people costs, we haven't been investing in our people at the expense of giving bigger dividends and shareholder returns.
Christine Day 12:48
So, I think what you're going to see is a redo of that value chain, which is why you're seeing a little rise of unionization right now and what's the interesting thing, if you think about it, in public markets, your biggest shareholders are pension funds, whose pension funds, their unions. For the first time you're actually seeing the unions using that power, then the investor base is telling the companies don't fight the unions, you need to pay your people more. Why are they vested in that because if less people are unionized, the pay is less, that's less money into them, less money to manage and to invest. So, there's this very interesting cycle that's happening right now between the breakdown of globalization and really the lack of investment in capital, meaning both people and assets. And so that's going to have to change in this world that we're seeing as we move into regionalization. So, the good news is us as leaders who have had to live in the world of managing people and assets and, (crossover talk) capital and lots of it, know how to do that, but the capital markets are going to have to adjust to, to re-sorting that value chain of where investment goes.
Michael LeBlanc 14:35
Retailers have told me that the talent challenges have supplemented supply chain challenges around the boardroom table is the top issue. You know, listen, talent acquiring and keeping was never a non-issue it was probably a top issue pre-COVID. But it was supplemented for a while in different ways. Where do you, where do you sit with and how do you (inaudible). How do you recruit, I mean, your, your unique brand with a purpose. So, right away there's a subset of people who are going to be attracted to work in your environment. But how are you, (crossover talk),
Christine Day 15:02
And we pay well, right? I mean, so we're starting our sales associates out at, you know, $22 an hour. And then we pay for, you know, it's more important in the States here, but their benefits and we pay 80% of the individual, 50% of the family and guarantee them the 30 hours. So, you know, really that investment, (crossover talk), with people.
Michael LeBlanc 15:19
Say that last part, again, you guarantee them a number of, because that's always the hook, the shoe that falls is, we pay you well, but the hours are inconsistent, you guarantee them,
Christine Day 15:28
If they want that on the schedule, we let them you know, schedule and basically bid into that. So, I think it's a really important thing that we have to realize that people need stable lives and stable incomes. And that's our responsibility when we hire into this space. What I am seeing, which is I think, really interesting, as a people leader, we're seeing young people come into the market that even you know, they maybe started university, and two years, still from home, not working or being, not working, because there weren't the jobs because the restaurant industry, the hotel industry, everything shut down, and then not also being live in class.
Christine Day 16:09
So, what I'm seeing with a lot of the young workers is a real setback in social skills, and almost being shocked by the work of work, and work. And it's like they think it's, it's hard or an injustice, and I'm kind of like you served 30 people today, I don't think that's hard. But you know, I've always been a people leader. And so, I'm you know, it's really interesting to, to watch this and see. The, the re-acclamation is what I would call it,
Michael LeBlanc 16:30
Yeah, yeah.
Christine Day 16:32
And having to be sensitive to that, as a leader, bring everybody along, you know, really teach a lot more work skills, and customer service skills than I really had anticipated in the young people in the market. And I think as leaders, we have to be sensitive to the trauma that these young people are there's, there's certain emotional social behaviors that they're catching up quickly. But it's a shock to the system. And that's been very interesting for me to deal with.
Michael LeBlanc 17:02
Yeah, so interesting. And, you know, we spent a fair bit of today talking about how not to be channel specific, but I'm going to ask you a channel specific question, eCommerce when I chat with retailers, many of them are surprised by the quick deceleration of eCommerce at least year-over-year. And as an industry and you, how have you been experiencing eCommerce versus store sales, and that kind of dynamic,
Christine Day 17:26
We haven't seen any slowdown in our DTC, it's still growing. You know, we just started the retail and pop-up stores. And what I would say is, it's exciting to see malls full of people again, or streets full of people, people eager to be out shopping, the personal experiences, retail is always still a social experience. And that's, you know, I think the more social you make it online, the more that's going to attract customers. But I think stores will be smaller going forward, you're not going to see as many of these big flagship big stores because of an omni-channel, and you're going to see more integration of wholesale, retail and DTC and a lot of small brands rising.
Michael LeBlanc 18:11
You talk about capital structures, and so not to dwell on that. But you know, advice to the mid, large, small, mid and large that are in the room, how are you feeling about capital structure investments in business? How are you feeling about approaching that?
Christine Day 18:24
That's kind of like a measure twice cut, you know, measure 10 times cut once it used to not be, it used to be a little more aggressive than that. Right? You know, there's, so I'm always talking to different funds, and it was really interesting. So, I won't mention names, but two of the ones I talked to last week. One did nine deals last year, and some of them significantly here in Canada, they did one deal. The other one, did 12 deals last year and did zero this year. So, pretty much everybody saying capital is going to sit on the market until they see what happens with inventory, with prices with a consumer is till about q2 of next year. Well, I think it's a lot more aggressive. So, I think the other thing that you're seeing is there was a lot of investment in kind of mono brand DTC, so Harry's razors type models, and
Michael LeBlanc 19:10
I call them the wobbly unicorn.
Christine Day 19:11
Yeah. So, a lot of burnt people in the capital markets around investing in that. So, they're waiting to see how the business model evolves right now, because we're in one of the greatest times of transition in retail. And you know, and I want to just give a big shout out to everybody who's sitting in this room if you survived a pandemic, a global supply chain meltdown, and now a pending recession. Bless you, you are great leaders.
Michael LeBlanc 19:36
Congratulate yourself, you're here. How do you feel about the industry in terms of resilience? We, as you said, we just went through a tremendous time. You know, if you and I were sitting here and just before pre-pandemic, we'd be talking about the retail apocalypse, right, which was a media myth or a canard but really, the transformation isn't real. The transformation is already happening.
Christine Day 19:48
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 19:49
How are you feeling about the industry, you know, better off through the, through the fire. And what we survived in COVID,
Christine Day 20:05
I think it's kind of similar to, you know, the 2008-2009, it cleans out a lot of probably the less solid business models, and maybe ones that were more purpose but less profitable. I think it's coming to terms with the kind of ESG model and sustainability, but it has to be practical, you can't do good unless you're making money. So, you know, I think it's bringing those forces together right now. And what gives me great hope is, so many of the young retail leaders that I had dinner with and some last night or, or earlier today, all these young entrepreneurs who come into it with ESG already in their mindset, right? It's not a department, it's not, it's not a filter of their business, it's a way of being, it's how they look at the world, the businesses, that they're starting the innovation, they're bringing, you know, the ability to leverage technology.
Christine Day 20:39
You know, I've spent a lot of time in China. And you know, people don't hear, but they are really far ahead. As you saw if you were here in the earlier presentation in using technology and innovation, because they weren't saddled with the baggage of the past. So, they're kind of inventing into the future, we need to take that same big leap forward here. And, and I see a lot of the young, smaller businesses, young, smaller businesses become medium sized businesses, which become, you know, consumed by maybe the big businesses to transform them, and change. And I think we're in a big change cycle where the small companies will force the big ones to change, not unlike we saw in the food industry 20 years ago, right? So, you couldn't, you would really only buy organic food at your Whole Foods. And now the largest producer and seller of Whole Food is Walmart,
Michael LeBlanc 21:06
Right.
Christine Day 21:07
Right. So, it takes small companies creating mid companies, changing the supply chain, and transforming the big companies. So, getting back to I never really answered your question. Why did I come back and do this? It's because I know it's small and medium sized companies that change the supply chain that changed the big companies. So yes, I could have gone to a big company to do that. But the disruption to the capital forces. That'd be like Ron Johnson going into JCPenney and changing it right, you know, it didn't work. So, I think you have to start where, you know, the point of the arrow is going to make the biggest difference.
Michael LeBlanc 22:18
For the time we have remaining, I wanted to ask a rapid-fire kind of question. Now, you know, typically in these things, we get together for a pre meeting, and we generally talk about the roadmap. So, you don't know what I'm going to ask you,
Christine Day 22:34
No,
Michael LeBlanc 22:35
So, these are going to kind of be okay, what do you think about, what do you think about? And you mentioned, Ron Johnson, his latest venture just wrapped up, it did not, it did not wrap up successfully? How are you feeling about changes of delivery in general? So, you know, the Fast, the Gopuffs of the world, the same day delivery, the one-hour delivery, how important is that to retail or is it a niche?
Christine Day 22:55
You know, I think it will have a role. But I don't think it will become a big dominant player.
Michael LeBlanc 23:02
Okay. Retail media networks, every conference I go to, more in the US but and more in grocery are talking about these retail media networks where you can, you know, really the brands are taking the money away from the social platforms and putting them into retailers who have the audiences. How you feeling about retail media networks,
Christine Day 23:20
I don't like them. And the reason I would say that is as a brand who sells to grocery stores, because I've done that in my career. If you use social media, you can control your spend up and down based on your cash flow. When you sign up with the grocery store for those. You've made a commitment and it's taken right off your cash flow and your billing cycle right there. And it's often now a part of your margin conversations with the grocer. And it's just one more compression on that food manufacturer at a time when prices are rising, etcetera. And it's no longer optional, versus if I'm spending into paid social media channels, which are getting more expensive, because it's kind of an oligopoly. You know, so I think it's putting a squeeze on me. And I've never seen them be very successful. The only one that I've seen be successful, is actually somebody like Nordstroms, where 67% of their loyal customers spend the most with them. So, when you tap into that customer, they're successful, unless a grocery store can convince me they had that kind of customer. And I've tried them, I've spent money on them. I've never seen the return at the level that I would need to see for the money I'm being asked to spend.
Michael LeBlanc 24:28
How are you feeling about the metaverse?
Christine Day 24:31
That's a tough one. I'm probably too old. I think when it's a, I do see the kids using that as a status, I think the person, the group that I think's done the most with it, is one of the American retailers and Brianna, (crossover talk),
Michael LeBlanc 24:50
A&E has done a lot. Yeah,
Christine Day 24:53
A&E has done a lot with it. PacSun, Brieane Olson, who runs that. She's probably the leader in the space and (inaudible) that I'm watching what she's doing for (inaudible) I think that's something I have to watch and learn as opposed to be an expert on right now.
Michael LeBlanc 25:04
We heard Kostia talking about live stream retail. It was supposed to be the big thing in North America, it really hasn't taken off quite yet. What do you, how are you feeling about live stream retail?
Christine Day 25:14
I like it. And I think it will be good for the business. And I think we're just not at the stage of engaging customers. I mean, like you think about, like we think TikTok is a big deal. Honestly, like, you know, when I was in Starbucks in Korea, we were tapping on phones, paying for coffee drinks in 2001. So, you know, their use of QR codes and everything else is so much more sophisticated than ours.
Michael LeBlanc 25:38
You have $1 Left, $1 Left in your marketing budget, where would you spend it?
Christine Day 25:44
On Ciara. She's got 81 million followers. I think I'm good.
Michael LeBlanc 25:50
Okay, not everybody has that. But okay. You're hiring your next social media team person? Do you go for a performance marketer or a storyteller?
Christine Day 26:02
Well, I think it would depend on if I was in China or here.
Michael LeBlanc 26:05
Oh, okay, that's interesting. You're hiring your next director of marketing? Would they be based? Where are you based? Where's the headquarters? Do you have a headquarters? (inaudible), virtual?
Christine Day 26:15
We have some teams here in Vancouver and some teams in Seattle and my head of marketing is in Vancouver.
Michael LeBlanc 26:21
So would you hire anybody anywhere? Culturally, how are you feeling about that?
Christine Day 26:28
You know, I do believe in you know, I've run global teams, I ran 10 countries in Asia out of Hong Kong, right. So, I had teams everywhere that I had to do virtually so I do believe in that model. And I don't think everybody needs to be together, but I also think that there's, you have to have a very tight executive team when you're forming a company. So, I do think proximity matters a little bit more then
Michael LeBlanc 26:50
Buy now, pay later.
Christine Day 26:52
Do it.
Michael LeBlanc 26:53
Okay, cryptocurrency.
Christine Day 26:56
I mean, I think all the mobile technologies and pay and everything you know you got 11 of those. I do think there's a little bit of room for cryptocurrency, but I'm not sold on the cryptocurrency model and the server time and impact to the environment. So, I have some other hurdles to get over on that one.
Michael LeBlanc 27:13
In your stores, eliminating cash.
Christine Day 27:16
That's done, we don't take it.
Michael LeBlanc 27:19
You don't take cash. Not worried about that. You don't take cash, (crossover talk). Not looking back.
Christine Day 27:22
Not looking back.
Michael LeBlanc 27:25
This has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you for being such a good sport, and taking questions that, (inaudible). Thanks so much everyone, Christine Day.
Michael LeBlanc 27:29
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click on subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week. And check out my other retail industry media properties, the Remarkable Retail podcast, Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and The Food Professor podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my all-new YouTube barbecue show, the Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, President of ME LeBlanc & Company and Maven Media. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Have a safe week everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
retail, people, brand, big, Ciara, retailers, consumer, feeling, spend, inventory, capital, industry, happening, sustainability, capital markets, supply chain, Christine