In this episode, meet Éric Champagne, CIO for Boutique La vie en Rose, and Olivier Roy, co-founder and CEO of Leav join the podcast together to share insights around the tradecraft of retail technology innovation and implementing frictionless in-store self-checkout solutions.
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.
In this episode, meet Éric Champagne, CIO for Boutique La vie en Rose, and Olivier Roy, co-founder and CEO of Leav join the podcast together to share insights around the tradecraft of retail technology innovation and implementing frictionless in-store self-checkout solutions.
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!
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 Eric
CIO for Boutique La vie en Rose inc., IT leader with over 30 years of experience in IT, IS, Logistics, Distribution, Web development and operations and business processes for retail, wholesale and e-commerce.
About Olivier
Olivier is co-founder and CEO of Leav. After working with a number of organizations in Canada and abroad, he combined his passion for technology with his experience in marketing and created Leav, a solution to a problem faced by most in-store shoppers: long lines in stores.
About Leav
Leav help digitize businesses and offer to their customers a fast and personalized experience. With our web platform, store owners can now rapidly deploy mobile self-checkout and access in-store customer insights. With the rise of ecommerce, retailers need to meet new customer expectations, but not at the cost of sacrificing human interactions. Our technologies free up time for employees to focus on what matters the most.
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. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with the Retail Council of Canada.
Eric Champagne, CIO for Boutique La Vie en Rose and Olivier Roy, Co-founder and CEO of Leav, join the podcast together to share insights around the tradecraft of retail technology innovation, and implementing frictionless in-store self-checkout solutions.
Olivier Roy 00:27
We, measured by the size of the basket. So, usually people who are happier shopping and see you they'll, they'll buy more units. So, that’s, that's one thing, we're looking at average, average invoice, average basket, number of units per, per basket. How many users are actually using it, and we try to aim for a 10% transaction during our, our, our tests, once we (inaudible) a little bit more, and we train the employees to ask the customer or to en-, en-, en-, entice the customer to use the solution. And we asked, we do talk to our employees also.
Michael LeBlanc 01:00
Eric, Olivier, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you both doing this afternoon?
Eric Champagne 01:04
Very good. Thanks very much for asking, how about yourself?
Michael LeBlanc 01:08
Very well and, and Olivier, what's going on?
Olivier Roy 01:11
Great, doing, quite great. Thank you very much for, for, having us.
Michael LeBlanc 01:14
Well, it's great to have you both on the mic. Great to have the opportunity to talk to both, you know, the, the retailer and, and a very interesting technology that has come together. And we're going to talk about some trends that brought the two of you together and, an, Eric a little bit about how you make your choices in the world that you live in, and, and why you do the things you do and all kinds of fun stuff like that. But why don't we, why don't we jump right in? Eric, let me ask you first. So, tell, tell me about a bit of your background, and, and what you do for a living?
Eric Champagne 01:46
Well, I've, I'm a 30-years plus veteran in retail business technology supply chain, and I've been working as a CIO, for La Vie en Rose for the last five years. I've always worked with retailers and try to put the technology that makes everybody's life easier. I am not a techie, as, as we might say, but I'm very interested, and how can the technology tools help the business and help the people using it? That's pretty much my background. I've been doing that for yeah, 30 years plus.
Michael LeBlanc 02:20
I can't imagine many people would not have heard of La Vie en Rose, but they might not know everything about you. They might not know you're also, for example, Bikini Village, and how many stores you've got. Do you go online? And do you trade in Canada and outside? So, give us just an overview of, of the retail business?
Eric Champagne 02:35
Yeah, La Vie en Rose is a Canadian retailer, based in Montreal, privately owned. We operate under two banners in Canada. La Vie en Rose stores, we have about 216 locations and Bikini Village, we operate about 70 locations in this country. We sell eCommerce for La Vie en Rose in Canada and the United States. Very soft in the US, we still don't have much marketing around that we're still testing the entire environment. We also operate in the franchisee model in the Middle East where we have over 100 locations. But the basic, the, the most of the operation is done brick and mortar in this, in Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 03:13
And is it fair to say, from, from what I know about your business that most of your stores are in shopping malls rather than stand alone. Is that, Is that a fair statement?
Eric Champagne 03:22
Yeah, we have, we have a couple of street stores. We have some, about, about 100 locations in, in power centres, as, as we may call them. Yes, absolutely. in, in shopping malls across the country, and still growing very happy about that.
Michael LeBlanc 03:37
Well, I think we're all happy that people are traveling again. And, and that's a very important part of your business, right?
Eric Champagne 03:43
Yeah, it does help a lot, the Nicki Minaj banner. Of course, with bathing suits for men and women, people traveling. People also got pools built in their backyard. So, it's a very good thing. So, we're, we're, we can't complain right now.
Michael LeBlanc 03:57
Olivier, tell the, tell the folks about yourself. Who are you. And, and what do you do?
Olivier Roy 04:03
Well, I'm Olivier. I'm a co-founder of Leav. We are a start-up based in Montreal, looking at anything retailers to give a new and innovative way to shop in-store. We're mainly focusing on apparel, sporting goods and main street retail stores. And really, what we have in mind is giving time to people by enabling just customers to go in-store by, by themself, the item on their cell phone without going to any cashiers. And really the idea came because with my co-founders, we were in a bar a couple of years ago, and we wanted to pay our bill. And at that time, basically there was no obvious way to, to be paid rapid-, rapidly. We had to wait for the waiter to come. And well we started to work on that little startup. And when COVID hit, we decided actually to pivot into retail, because it was one place we were going a lot. We love shopping and as shoppers, we always wanted to find a way to shop faster and on a more well let's say, a millennial approach in a way.
Michael LeBlanc 05:15
Right. So, so, that, so the genesis of the idea was how do I serve myself, and, and so you thought that retail would be a pretty good place for that. Eric let's talk about that in terms of, you know, you know, not just the technology, as you say you're, you're less a technologist and more a strategist. So, let's talk about strategy a little bit as you think about the past couple of years, you know, we've had some trends accelerated some trends, creating, you know, with all your experience, what, what are the things that are going to stick, what are the most pressing things you think of, that are different, or that are kind of rise to the top of your mind as you, as you think about what you do and the partners you look for?
Eric Champagne 05:56
Well, it, it, it, it's not about tectonics it's about the fact that brick and mortar is going to stay. We saw with the closure of many locations, to, to the pandemic, in, in pretty long stretches of 80-90-100 days of store closure malls, being closed down. The web did go up, but it never picked up the entire volume that retailers do with. Do in their stores. So, to me that’s the biggest, most interesting thing is that the retail brick and mortar locations are going to remain in this country and, and across the world. People love going out to shop. But at the same time, people got more impatient, on, on waiting on not being serviced right away. People were on Amazon for two years, and they got their stuff delivered the next day. So, now people expect fast service in stores. And, and fortunately, or unfortunately, the landscape in, in the store for servicing the customers for straight transactions. You know, when I talk about a straight transaction it's just a cash and carry, or, or, or pay and, and get out and there's no exchanges, there's no returns, there's no complication, you're not necessarily buying a gift card or having multiple methods of payments to complete your transaction ,80% of the transaction could be done easily to a, a device. So, that's what we've been looking for. And that's what, this is what is slowly triggering a shift in technology. Customers now shop with their phones in their hands, they pre-shop Because they had plenty of time during the pandemic to pre-shop. And they were able to, to get things done really, really quickly. This is what I think is, is, is staying, fast service, it needs to move quickly. And brick and mortar has kind of remained so strong.
Michael LeBlanc 07:54
Yeah. Now let's talk about the role of the associates and all that. You, you raised many interesting points, you know, often the associates are talking at the top of people's heads, right. As they're kind of staring down into a, into a mobile device. But as, as we think about this intersection of making it easy for them to transact with applications like Leav. And, you know, being something, some kind of personal interaction, I know that when I go into your stores, it's, it's often the experience that I witnessed that they're, that they're talking a lot to the people and people are coming in asking for help. So, how do you merge those two things together, they, a fast checkout and the full service that people love from your brands,
Eric Champagne 08:36
I, I, I think they work very well together. The interaction in the stores, yes, for the type of product we have is, is servicing is some fitting to happen. They need to try the, the product and then to be informed if another product can be worn. A, a, a, and they want to spend less time at the cash. So, we can do both at the same time. And adding more people, more associates helping out the customers outside of just the basic transaction at the cash wrap. This is where we see a huge benefit where people can shop around using their phone, scan the product and at the same time interact with an associate that is not waiting behind the cash wrap or behind the counter. So, that will help definitely increase I think the, the, the, the interaction with the relationship between the customers and the retailers. We will always have and like we do today, like anybody gets customers coming in. They want product ABC, and they just go to the cash wrap, they get out, now they'll be able to do the same thing throughout their phone in a much faster way. And maybe come, come to the store more often because it will be so convenient to shop. But most customers do want to have an interaction with the staff and at least we'll have staff available now. That's very interesting.
Michael LeBlanc 10:01
Yeah, that's a really super interesting point. In other words, let's free up some people to add more value and have more interaction in, in the stores and then free them up. Olivier, is that how you approach usability? And, and like, how did you come to where you are in terms of how the, the app works? So, just give me an overview of you know, from, from a consumer perspective, what I can experience using Leav.
Olivier Roy 10:25
Since the beginning, we, we had this, this philosophy of, of building a platform that was really made for the customer, we wanted to build something that us as a customer we wanted to use, and it makes it as well, we won't, we won't ask customers to go in a store and find an employee, know where a specific item is and know what would, what would fit the, the best on me. And that part was always difficult going on in some locations. And having a, a, a tool in your hand where you can get a recommendation, where you can, well just be faster and just leave the store that's, that brings that part of having, finding an employee easier in the store because they don't have to be behind a register. And in terms of how it works, it's, it's quite simple. We tried to enable the customer at the beginning of the journey. So, when you enter the store, either you're going to be seeing a QR code with a sign saying, hey, scan the QR code, and you can have the shopping experience on your phone. Or an employee can find you and they say, ‘Hey, you're looking for something, in case you, you want to, to buy something, quickly just scan the QR code that I have on me and out you go’. The customer scans it, it opens a web application. So, there's really nothing to download. If it runs on Safari or Chrome, and any other web browser, honestly. And then it's up to you, you scan the barcode of any product in the store, it's going to be able to tell you if there's a promotion on it, it's going to tell you, ‘Hey, you should maybe add one more item to get that discount’. And soon we're going to be reeling out a recommendation feature based on the cart that you have in your cart on your phone. And also based on the most sale, sold product linked with those items and at a specific time for, for that store. And once I have all the product, either I am going to have a bag that I picked up at the entrance of the store, or I can find a bag near their registers, I can bag my items, pay with my credit card, and that's it, I have my receipt, the retailer also has the receipt on the POS directly. So, in case you want to do a return, you simply go see an employee and as you would do the return normally, you can do it. And yeah, it's really that simple. It's really like shopping online, but in the store.
Michael LeBlanc 13:06
So, so, Eric, a question for you. How do you balance off, like how do you know the balance of risk versus opportunity? So, in that scenario that Olivier had just talked about, that's not a conventional retail transaction, right? How, how are you sure, during that transaction, kind of getting into the details that there's no theft happening, like loss prevention controls, which I know are, are important for everyone? Is, is there a sense, is it, that is, that it was built on the processor or how did you approach that?
Eric Champagne 13:35
(Inaudible), there's a couple of ways we can use the system. Right now, we are using the basic barcode on each other's products. And we do ask the customers when they leave for a, a quick bag check and show us your invoice and we do ask, have a bag check. It, It, it’s, it's, it's okay, it works. We're still discovering the, the proper customer journey into the store. And yes, theft is one of, is one of the most complicated aspects of it. So, we do know which shoppers are shopping using that, that, that application because we have, we have, a dashboard on, on one of the screens in, the in the store. So, we know how many people are shopping so we can look, ask for their invoice when they come up. Eventually, we'll try to get some RFID technology on that and, and connect it to the security PODs we could have in the stores and then we'll know exactly with RFID which item has been, has been purchased because it's a unique code. So, it will be easy to, to identify, that the actual transaction occurred, it's paid for and the customer can leave the store and, and, and then security and, and so this is where we're going. With all honesty, our customer journey is evolving,
Michael LeBlanc 14:58
Sure.
Eric Champagne 14:59
Every day. And it's very interesting right now we're, we're, I would say we're educating the customers that do want to use that, that solution. And for all the ones who have used it so far, in a very limited amount of stores, that they all love it and they all like it. And we make sure that we, we refine the technology so that it remains safe from an information standpoint. And that the customer can, can leave and get the and get their product that they want in, in a fast manner.
Michael LeBlanc 15:31
You know, that's a nice segue into my next question, which is, you know, in your role, the difference between being asked to solve a problem, provide a solution and discovering solutions, and then bringing them to the business. So, which, which one was it for, for Leav? And, you know, how do you work? What's your process? What's your trade craft as a leader of the department to say, listen, I was at a trade show, I saw this great technology, do you think this is a, we're solving a problem that we have or, or talk about that for a little bit?
Eric Champagne 16:01
For this particular project, it was something more I've been looking into for almost 10 years now. Again, it started from a technology landscape where I was, I was honestly tired of going into, into shows and seeing the resellers of printers, resellers of scanners, of screens and saying, you know what, the customer has all of that in his hands. And I've been looking for a partner, I've been looking for software out there that could help us and there was nothing. So, I kept looking, I kept asking, I went knocking at the doors of huge corporations, nowadays, yeah, it could be fun. But I had no traction. And I think the customer maybe was not totally ready back then, from a self-checkout, things have evolved it went from the, the, the self-cash at the exit of a Walmart or Canadian Tire, here in Canada through the Amazon Go, (inaudible) it's very expensive, (Inaudible). And my idea was it has to be cheap for the retailers. But it has to be very convenient for the, for the customer. So, in that aspect. Again, I've been looking for this for many years. And when I saw Leav doing their mark-up stores, correct me if I'm wrong, Olivier, I think it was in December of 2019,
Olivier Roy 17:21
20, 2020.
Eric Champagne 17:22
2020, thank you and I said okay, let's, let's, let's check them out. Let's, let's see what this, how this could work. And it, it did where we are today. It's deployed in, in, in a few stores downtown Montreal and we're evolving. And it's super fun. Other types of projects, I'll go to the business and ask okay, what are, what are your main issues, (crossover talk) what are your road blockers right now. The basic, the basic look out for what needs to be improved. From, from every aspect of technology, but definitely at the end, it's really to improve the business process, in order to, to serve the customer better, has always been the case, we need to make sure the customers are pleased with our services. And if our employees have good systems to help the customers, and usually it's a, it's a winning combination.
Michael LeBlanc 18:17
It's funny, right? Then, I don't know where we would be with projects like this without the QR code suddenly coming back. I, I, you know, the QR code, who knew it would have a second life, the way, it's the way it's had, right? It's kind of crazy, (crossover talk).
Olivier Roy 18:30
It's back to providing a service now, which was not necessarily the case, it's not an advertisement like it was in the past. Now we see it in restaurants today to get the QR code on, on the top of a table or,
Michael LeBlanc 18:38
Sure, sure.
Eric Champagne 18:40
On a piece of paper, replacing the menu. So, when you're looking at your screen, you can adjust the, the size of the screen. So, it's the same thing, in, in that with Leav in our stores. Now you, you adapt to your size of your screen, you shop the way you want, you look at it, you can, you, you see immediately your promotion, you see immediately what your basket is going to cost you. So, the QR code now is, is used as a service instead of, of publicity, which makes it very interesting. And it's a very secure way of connecting to a, to a to a web app. So, it makes it very, very interesting.
Michael LeBlanc 19:16
Now, you mentioned I want to follow one thing you said: it's in pilot mode. Is that typical for you? You would pilot things like what's yours, do you, do you have something where you've got a setup internally before it leaves and goes into a store. And then you've got another stage gate, I guess we would call it that it's in a couple of stores. How, how long do you think you're going to test it for and how many stores (inaudible) and again, I'm just, I'm interested in just helping the listeners understand how you approach new technology and, and kind of actually putting it to use without disrupting, alternatively disrupting the customer or the employee experience,
Eric Champagne 19:51
Always in the same, same matter. Now, over the last five years, we've changed, our, our ERP, we've changed our, our order management system, we changed our WMS, we changed pretty much all our systems to get into newer technology, it's always the same approach. Look for the (inaudible) available, do a pilot on it, test it, configure it properly, roll it out slowly in one, five locations, and then everything's OK, we do a massive rollout. And that's true with everything we do from a technology standpoint.
Olivier Roy 20:24
For the Leav project, we went. I went into it more like a research and development project, where we did not put the entire IT team and business group into that project, we started doing it initially with Olivier and myself just talking and getting some things connected, and then being involved with developers. I involved a few people, the (inaudible). And then we grew it more and the R&D approach, but at the end it was, we're going to test it in house before we put it in the stores. We tested it in one store, and it's working. And now we've deployed in the entire downtown Montreal landscape. We have several locations for La Vie en Rose, we have one location for Bikini Village that's going, go live on the solution in the next couple of days. And, and we will deploy in San Marino, next, next month, and (inaudible) also we'll, we'll start going outside of Montreal,
Michael LeBlanc 21:18
Yeah.
Olivier Roy 21:18
Again, because the consumer population is different than in shopping malls, we'll have a different clientele, and we'll have massive traffic during the weekends. So, we'll be able to test the lineups to see if people are interested in using the system instead of waiting in a line for the cash. They'll be able to use the solution. So, we continue testing. We're heading into Christmas, even if the listeners are not too thrilled about going to Christmas, where we're heading there.
Michael LeBlanc 12:24
Yeah.
Eric Champagne 12:25
It's happening. It's in, it's in three months from now. So, (crossover talk) it's kind of,
Michael LeBlanc 21:53
Oh, my goodness, yeah. (Inaudible) It was like a time tunnel. Hey Olivier, it’s like a time tunnel we've all been living through right? Because it's, you know, time seems to have really, has really, picked up now. For the both of you and, and Eric, I'll start with you. How do you know that, like how are you measuring it? Are you asking the employees? Are you, because you don't really have a benchmark to say, well, it's a faster checkout, just from a processing perspective. So, what are those two or three things that you're looking at to say, yes, this is good, it's, it's working? It's, it's, it's achieving what you want, which is a faster, quicker, smoother checkout experience? How's it, how do you measure that?
Olivier Roy 22:32
We measured the size of the basket. So, usually people who are happier shopping and see that they'll buy more units. So that's one thing, we're looking at average, average invoice, average basket, number of units per, per basket. How many users are actually using it, and we try to aim for a 10% transaction during our, our tests. Once we deploy a little bit more, and we train the employees to ask the customer or to en-, en-, en-, entice the customer to use the solution. And we asked if we could talk to our employees also. Did we have anybody leave today with, with, with just leaving their, their, their purchases? Without necessarily closing an abandoned cart? We've got the same, same thing online as we do in the store. So, how many people are just leaving because it's too long and they're just saying no, we’re not there yet, but we have some basic KPIs we're looking for and we do see that the average basket is a little bit higher. So that’s, that that's interesting. We also got something that's very important for retailers. If we do, get the customers information from what they've purchased, we get their emails and we can, we, we can anonymize the information. So, we don’t, we don't start bothering them with the marketing or stuff like that. But we do get the information associated with an, to an email and, and then they can opt in or opt out to our marketing, (crossover talk).
Michael LeBlanc 23:56
Get the receipt, I guess they get the receipt and all those things,
Olivier Roy 23:59
The receipt is all electronic. That, that's good for us, that's good for the customers and they can come back with that receipt, that electronic receipt for a future return or exchange or whatever they can come back with and the receipt will be good. It's all linked to the entire POS and ERP system.
Michael LeBlanc 24:15
Oh, that's great, they could bring it back to theoretically they could bring it back to any of your stores because it's (crossover talk) all linked,
Olivier Roy 24:20
And you have the location,
Michael LeBlanc 24:24
That's so smart,
Olivier Roy 24:27
So, so every, everything is linked up together. Which makes it very interesting for the customer and very interesting for us. So, this is, this is pretty much it.
Michael LeBlanc 24:33
Cool. Now Olivier, one question for you. It's one thing to create a solution, it's another thing to have it in-field and watch a customer like La Vie en Rose use it. Did you learn anything about your tool that surprised you? Did you, are you, making changes or tell me a little bit about this project from that perspective?
Olivier Roy 24:54
Yeah, well, what I can say is we were learning every day when we, we discussed with employees with real customers at the end of the, the checkout journey, there's a rating system to know if people are liking it. But I think where we learned the most was how to, to integrate our, our technology with platforms of large retailers. Before we, we only integrated with a system such as Lightspeed, which is not made for large, large enterprise,
Michael LeBlanc 25:26
Right, right.
Olivier Roy 25:27
And building the technology to have the reconciliation part works well, same thing as inventory, making sure the POS has an exact inventory of their stores, and that we are not sending the, the order afterward. So, we can keep a good level of accuracy. That was a lot of very interesting learning on building solutions made for enterprise retailers, in terms of user experience. Well, I think one of the best learning that we are doing right now is about the user journey, where should we get activated? What is the best way to communicate with the, the customer, and also on the whole UI of the application? What are people touching or tapping on their phone? They are, everyone is a bit different. But we see some way that people are using it as we didn't see before, or we didn't, (crossover talk). And that's all the improvement we're trying to make. And we're, I think we are quite a bit, quite good at being fast on, on making improvements and updates for the, for the system, or team is honestly great on that side. And we're, we're doing it, we're doing updates pretty often, to make it better and faster for the customer, but also a better back-end technology for the retailer. That's the same thing for a dashboard that we, we built. We want to give them the most features that any employee in the store would ask for. One of them was, something we didn't talk about was, how can I add a product to our carts in, in the, in the web application of a customer but from my dashboard? And we didn't know that was something an employee would, would like to do.
Michael LeBlanc 27:20
I could see that outside a changeroom, right? Like, I love this, could you get me a different size? Or could you get in blue? Or could you get me something different, right? That's interesting.
Olivier Roy 27:29
Exactly, yes. So, on the dashboard, you can run on the computer, but also like an iPad, and you can tap on the cart of a customer and just add a product, remove a product if you want. And that's going to be up-, updated in real time on the web application of a customer.
Michael LeBlanc 27:45
So, that's, that's really, that's really clever.
Olivier Roy 27:48
Thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 27:49
I like that. Now, Eric, last question for you. Advice to the fellow retailers listening or CIOs listening about the way forward, many retailers tell me they're keeping or accelerating their investments in technology either to keep up or because they postpone them or, you know, they need to do what you're doing, which is, you know, delight the customers in new ways. Any advice that, how to find great vendors like Leav? Or what's your, what's your top advice for the folks listening?
Eric Champagne 28:17
I think watching what's going on is one of the most important things now. There's, there are shows out there for retailers or, or technology shows. They're interesting but go into malls, look at your kids, if you have kids, see what they do, see how they shop, spend time with the staff in the stores, talk to the customers. When you go to other retailers, ask them on how things are going. So, you can educate yourself on what the actual problems are.
Michael LeBlanc 28:27
Right.
Eric Champagne 28:28
And technology is there, there's no way out. So, my, my, my, I'm a bit of a black sheep in the CIO community. Don't stop spending money on technology. And it's still a very small percentage of the total top, top line.
Michael LeBlanc 28:39
Right, right.
Eric Champagne 28:40
It's still below 2% for most companies in retail. So, you know what, it's, it's, it's not that expensive. And (inaudible), lots in dollars. But don't stop investing. There are good solutions out there that are not that expensive. Or they're good startups that can help you that then come up with you, you, you need to talk to them, you need to choose them. You need to make sure that it's, they're just not, you know, pushing dust around. But don't stop doing it. Keep, keep, keep looking at what's going on.
Michael LeBlanc 29:37
Be curious, I guess, (crossover talk),
Eric Champagne 29:45
Yeah, be curious, stop investing on non-prem systems, the cloud is there. It's convenient, it is faster to grow. Cybersecurity is a challenge, and we have to be very wary about that. It's, it's just, it's growing. But keep listening, keep asking questions and you know what, above all, have fun. It's about fun. And, and retail, retail is fun for the customer. It's supposed to be fun. I'm talking about doing your grocery, even doing grocery can be fun.
Michel LeBlanc 30:11
Yeah.
Eric Champagne 30:12
But keep the smile, keep people smiling, and enjoy and enjoy technology. Without being a techie, I don't have tons of, of gadgets in my house. I don't have tons of gadgets in my office, but I have stuff that makes my life easier, and can help other people whose lives make it easier. But above all, technology is fun. None of our jobs existed 45 years ago in technology. So, you know what it's still growing, enjoy it and, and be a part of it instead of, of, of, of being a prisoner of technology, make it yours, make a change, make it move forward.
Michael LeBlanc 30:52
Thank you so very much for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast, it's a real treat to hear what's going on at La Vie en Rose and what's happening on the very, very front lines. Congratulations, Olivier, over on Leav. And I wish you both continued success and hope to check back in and see how it is a year from today and where you're at.
Eric Champagne 31:11
Well, thank you very much for having us. It's been a pleasure.
Olivier Roy 31:13
Thank you very much, super appreciated.
Michael LeBlanc 31:17
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click and 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, Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
Michael LeBlanc 31:34
I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. 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
customer, store, Olivier, technology, retail, people, inaudible, Leav, retailers, eric, locations, faster, talk, employee, crossover, transaction, solution, podcast, checkout, shop