Live at the SIAL Food Innovation show in Montreal in The Food Professor podcast studio, and I welcome back retail educator and global retail strategist Carl Boutet. Together we catch up in person with pants on in a wide-ranging conversation around retail education, the great acceleration two years on, the future of globalization, the role of innovation, and discover whether Carl is a metaverse skeptic or optimist.
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.
Live at the SIAL Food Innovation show in Montreal in The Food Professor podcast studio, and I welcome back retail educator and global retail strategist Carl Boutet. Together we catch up in person with pants on in a wide-ranging conversation around retail education, the great acceleration two years on, the future of globalization, the role of innovation, and discover whether Carl is a metaverse skeptic or optimist.
We also have a special pop-in guest joining us to talk retail innovation in grocery, my partner from The Food Professor #podcast, and a long-time friend and colleague of Carl, Sylvain Charlebois.
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 Carl
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2021 & 2022 Top Expert Global Rethink Retail most influential retail thinkers (2018 & 2019 Vend 100 Retail Influencer).
Author of The Great Acceleration: The Race to Retail Resilience.
https://studiorx.ca/the-great-acceleration/
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carl.boutet@studiorx.ca
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 Retail Council of Canada.
Carl Boutet, welcome back to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you, my friend?
Carl Boutet 00:14
Michael, long, nice seeing you in person like the good old days. This is exciting, at an event not to, not to say and this is quite honestly a little overwhelming, but I, I'll, I'll do my best to adjust.
Michael LeBlanc 00:27
Well thank you for joining me. We're live here at the SIAL Food Innovation show in the food, the, actually we're in The Food Professor podcast studio that we built here, but today we're talking for The Voice of Retail. You look good, man, I mean it's good to see you, it's good to see you in person, not just on the screen.
Carl Boutet 00:44
And I'm wearing pants because most of the time what you don't know when we've had our previous conversations, I was probably in my basement in my underwear but, probably too much information and thank you to Sylvain for making this beautiful space available. Tell him the check is in the mail.
Michael LeBlanc 00:59
Very good. I will do so, will do so. So, it, it's my first time to Montreal since COVID. Not my first conference I was at Shoptalk in Vegas. You and I were talking off-mic about that. 10,000 attendees, one mask, that was me.
Carl Boutet 01:09
10,000 to 1 ratio. I got to like that.
Michael LeBlanc 01:14
It is, it's a bit overwhelming. I mean, we were all saying Steve, I was there with Steve Dennis of course and we were seeing, -
Carl Boutet 01:20
Steve who?
Michael LeBlanc 01:21
Steve Dennis. One of the amigos. One of the three amigos.
Carl Boutet 01:22
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I think I've heard of the guy.
Michael LeBlanc 01:24
He's Mr. Bifurcation I think (crossover talk) Jason and Scott (crossover talk), -
Carl Boutet 01:28
He's always, he's always split in two, I got it. Right.
Michael LeBlanc 01:30
The Jason and Scott show called him Mr. Bifurcation last episode, which we all had a good laugh at.
Carl Boutet 01:35
Sound, sounds like an intestinal disease. But other than that, it's all good. I love Steve.
Michael LeBlanc 01:40
Well, listen, let's jump right in. So, for those who may not have heard our previous discussions, tell us a quick little bit about yourself. And then let's catch up.
Carl Boutet 01:48
Carl Boutet. I am a, a retail strategist who is part time, I can say Professor now I think, I mean, Idon't know the last contract I saw seem to say it was some sort of adjunct something or other, and advisor. And yeah, just somebody who loves to jam with you whenever the opportunity presents.
Michael LeBlanc 02:08
Now you and I met, you were at, we met through Retail Council of Canada. You weren't in the education space yet. So, talk all about that, you're with the McGill school, right?
Carl Boutet 02:19
So, I'm actually with two schools, it did launch with McGill. And I'm still very much with McGill, the original sort of first contact was around the Bensadoun School of Retail Management. When that was announced, a press release came out I was, the next day was in the office of the Academic Director, Professor Saibal Ray and saying how can I support this because our industry desperately needs some, you know, this, this more formal sort of structured, rigorous support. And I'd been looking at that, I've been shopping for a couple of years, quite honestly, to do, to do a retail lab here in Montreal. And in the press release, there was this one sentence that said and eventually there will be an innovation center. So, I offered to Professor Ray I said, Listen, anything I can do, I've been researching the heck out of innovation centers and retail around the world.
Michael LeBlanc 03:05
Right.
Carl Boutet 03:06
They come in many shapes and forms but I'd love to, McGill's would clearly be a really interesting extension of that. So, that's where the relationship started, evolved into becoming an advisor for the, what they call the Retail Innovation Lab now. And,
Michael LeBlanc 03:21
And that's a be-, and is it Couche-Tard who was involved in that?
Carl Boutet 03:25
Yeah. So, so, it evolved into becoming basically a frictionless, well, one portion of it is a frictionless Couche-Tard experience, the first actually frictionless store in Canada, which is like a fully autonomous, you know, Amazon BOPIS, BOPIS sort of experience, scan your app, walk in, grab what you want, walk out. So, it's a good location, and it's open to the public. So, anybody can go on Sherbrooke Street in the Bronfman building and try that experience. All you need is the, is, is to make sure (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 03:54
Is the app? Yeah.
Carl Boutet 03:55
Is the app, which you can, which you can obviously on-site put on. Yeah, so that's how that sort of, that's what it's evolved to. There's a couple of other things happening in and around that as well, and it's still evolving. And I also began teaching at the beginning of the pandemic, marketing at the Executive Institute, and super stoked to be teaching in May, Michael, I think you'll recognize this sort of being my sweet spot. But the first as far as I'm aware, nobody's pushed back yet and I'm pretty familiar with the space, but the first master's level class in emerging technologies and new business models in the retail school. So, for the Masters of Retail program, it's a complimentary course that's being offered as an intensive in May. So, it's going to be kind of a, a rough ride for that, but it's so stimulating, and it's going to give me a chance to you know, sort of share the stuff I'm most passionate about with the, the master students that are going to be a part of it.
Michael LeBlanc 04:44
Well, let's, let's continue down the professorial thing because you also are doing some stuff in Asia, right?
Carl Boutet 04:49
Yeah. So, actually along the lines, so, so, you know, we'll talk about I'm sure come back to the great acceleration later, but so the, the launch of the acceleration for me was January 2020. I was chairing the ASEAN Retail Summit. So, Southeast Asia Retail Summit, I was asked to come and chair that.
Michael LeBlanc 05:06
And you had just, you just got back from Cairo from my recollection, right?
Carl Boutet 05:09
Cairo was actually in 2019. I was in Cairo that summer before, which was, yeah, definitely part of a world tour. But the this, this, this Asian Institute of Technology, or this opportunity to teach in Asia, came from being in Bangkok for this ASEAN Summit in January 2020, early January 2020, and was introduced to the Dean of the business school there. And we'd mentioned that he said, you know, I was talking about the work I was doing with Miguel at that point. And he's like, I'd love to have you come and teach maybe a marketing course, for us. And I'm actually going back in June, this is the first time I'm doing it in person, because I began with them that spring teaching online at their MBA level, and it was amazing, amazing experience. But yeah, that was the reason why I said launch of the great acceleration there is because on the way back from that trip, I stopped in Shanghai, and was literally like t-minus one week in front of one, obviously, without really knowing that's what was going on. But,
Michael LeBlanc 06:07
And then we're, and they're back at it again, Shanghai today, as we speak, we're here in mid April, this zero tolerance policy is just
Carl Boutet 06:14
It's crazy. It's crazy.
Michael LeBlanc 06:15
Causing chaos, both for the people there and, and supply chain. And do you think, you know, I, one retailer said to me, and there's been this kind of narrative going around that, that it's the end of globalization as we knew it. Which always seems to be a pretty extreme position to take in any, as we knew it, but it does feel even talking to retailers here.
Carl Boutet 06:35
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 06:36
You know, they're like, it's so unpredictable. And it's so far away, and we're not out of COVID yet, and maybe we should be sourcing closer to home. And, and what do you think? Are you hearing the same thing?
Carl Boutet 06:48
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm definitely hearing the same thing. I think there's two sort of parallels happening here. The first one is I think it's the idea that we became over optimized. And I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a big fan of data and always trying to find, you know, the optimal sort of outcomes. But the reality is, -
Michael LeBlanc 07:03
Roger Martin talked about that in his book, right? The,
Carl Boutet 07:06
Yeah, he got it all from me. But anyways. Kidding. I think the, the idea that we were just like, we got it down to such a specific way of doing one thing that it had to come from one place, and come here in one specific manner, isn't resilient.
Michael LeBlanc 07:22
At a very specific time. Right, like, right, (crossover talk) right to the day or whatever, yeah.
Carl Boutet 07:25
So, so, every so a boat, you know, my, my analogy on this, a boat goes sideways in the Suez and you're, you're screwed.
Michael LeBlanc 07:31
Right supply chain went sideways. (Crossover talk), -
Carl Boutet 07:33
Yeah, and we seem to not totally have learned from that, because I have friends, or people that I know, that are, you know, in Europe who, and I think this is going to affect us in North America as well. But you know, they rerouted theirs to, to rail over Russia. How much of a good idea is that right now? So, I mean, without getting too geopolitical. So, the idea is, we need resilience, we need to sort of create, you know, plan ABCD and not just be, have empty shelves, because the boat went sideways in the Suez or because our rail car is stuck somewhere between a border with Russia and whatever. So, so, that's the first awakening.
Carl Boutet 08:12
A second thing that I'm hearing about Michael, and I'd be curious to get your feedback if you're hearing as well, is I'm hearing some really big retail names, think the biggest in North America, that are putting a lot of pressure on their suppliers to get out of China.
Michael LeBlanc 08:26
Mhm, yeah.
Carl Boutet 08:27
For several reasons, including the ones we just, we just named and maybe beyond and not to get too, you know, catastrophe scenarios. I think the idea is, again, these large retailers are saying, Listen, we need you to shift your manufacturing away from these areas that we have less control over. And I'm hearing again, that at the highest level in a lot of different segments, and they're saying, so you're seeing a lot of movement towards Latin America, which I have some, some, you know, presence there, and (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 09:00
I thought Mexico would be a big winner. You could, -
Carl Boutet 09:02
Well, that's Galloway's thing. Our friend Scott, right, he he's been he's been very bullish on Mexico. But I can tell you in textile, you're looking at places like Peru and Chile. In tech, you're looking at places like Colombia and Brazil that are, you know, much more advanced than we give them credit for. I was just in Colombia, and my only international travel for the last two years was being in, invited to an event in Colombia in this, in the fall, the startup ecosystem is, is crazy there. So, yes, I think the idea is we need to sort of, we kind of got a little too focused on specific, specific parts of Asia, they're always going to be part. So, I think the end of globalization, I think, is a bit of a push. But I think the idea of being overly dependent on one form of globalization is definitely not a good idea.
Michael LeBlanc 09:45
You've talked about the acceleration. You mentioned it a couple of times, you put a book out about this time last year, if I get the date right.
Carl Boutet 09:51
You're close.
Michael LeBlanc 09:52
So, it's a great book. I think I had you on the podcast, that time talking about the Great Acceleration. So, alright, let's talk about the Great Acceleration. You know, the book was issued a year ago. You probably wrote it a year and a half ago, looking back and this the same question as Scott Galloway, you mentioned Scott, who says Hi, by the way, when I was talking to him, he said, I know Yeah, I know that guy. (crossover talk)
Carl Boutet 10:10
That guy Carl at McGill.
Michael LeBlanc 10:11
That guy Carl at McGill. You know, Steve Dennis, we talk about this, you know, if you had to go back and do it all over again, write a second edition, would you change anything? Times have changed, we've got inflation now, we've got some normalization, we've got the digital, native vertical brands, some of them are just collapsing around our feet.
Carl Boutet 10:30
Yep.
Michael LeBlanc 10:31
Would you, would you, would you, if you did a revised edition what would it look like?
Carl Boutet 10:35
Well, first of all, I've actually already done two revised editions. (Crossover talk) Because the nature of it, the nature of the book is that it's a very digital project. And, and it's rarely printed. I just did another reprint, but it's. So, actually, the addition, re-additions are not so much around the content, the written content is around the data, which is at the second half or second, last third of the book, which is sort of tracking the data points around mostly eCommerce, which is sort of counterintuitive, because I tell people that it's not just about eCommerce. And I think that's the big lesson about the acceleration that it's missed, because people tend to focus and look, I'm guilty of it, obviously, because I, I put these data points in my own book, saying it's not just about eCommerce, it's around digitizing the path to purchase, I think is much more, a better way to look at it than, than just eCommerce versus in-store, which I think is really missing the bigger and more important point.
Michael LeBlanc 11:28
As it, as it always has been. Yeah, I think, I think it's fair though, to say, and, you know, push back on the push back, you know, Steve and I were talking about this that in Canada, we had a, like the, one of the world's biggest growths of eCommerce. 70%, right? 70% year over year growth. And I, I would have to say, you know, when you look at our market, which traditionally has been behind, for example, the US market, the UK market, I do think we had, -
Carl Boutet 11:52
Some catching up.
Michael LeBlanc 11:53
I think we had three to five years of growth. And, and I'm, and I, I'm hearing that the waterline has not receded. So, I think, like many things, you know, the US, perhaps less so by the numbers. But Canada, I think we had a big, a, a great acceleration in eCommerce.
Carl Boutet 12:09
Again, you know, if we're just looking at eCommerce, we can, we can debate out versus you know, the categories, we're here at a food show, we know food had some serious catching up to do. And, and, and the I was actually speaking yesterday at an event that was really very food centric, as well. And if you look at the investments that the people around that table were making, that they were planning, you know, they were already thinking 2025, we need to automate, you know, door, last mile, and we need to think about changing our distribution centers to be able to better accommodate because what did we do with grocery stores? We turned them into distribute, you know, fulfillment centers, which just don't work. I don't know about you, but when I walk around my grocery store, and I'm bumping into pickers all over the place, it's not a good experience. The store wasn't designed for the picker, right? So, so, we're having so, these ideas, these investments, that you know, just to name names you know, Metro with a $400 million project being, going, a distribution center, automated distribution center, that was pushed forward by a couple of years coming up just north of here in, in Laval.
Michael LeBlanc 13:08
You got, you got, you have Voila, so is Voila, IGA (crossover talk)
Carl Boutet 13:12
Voila, IGA, that's my next example here on, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 13:14
Have you tried, have you tried it here? I've, I've tried it at home because it's pretty new. It's pretty recent, right?
Carl Boutet 13:20
Yeah. And here's the thing I tried it not in the beginning, not in the peak of the pandemic because it was three to four weeks to get the grocery delivery when, when I probably wanted it the most, hence, why all the you know, the, the, the resource allocation shifted and, and said, Okay, maybe we don't need to have 30% online grocery right now, but we know we saw what that sort of future looks like and how ill prepared we are for it. For all the right reasons. I mean, I'm not knocking leadership for not having better anticipated, although if you look at a very interesting example in, in Steve's world you know, Wegmans down in the Texas, they, they saw, they saw the numbers, they were preparing for it and they, they obviously benefited from it so, yeah, so, I mean that's indeed. The Great Acceleration I still believe, I think is sort of, we found there's a lot of other greats, I don't know if you noticed that came along and I still, I still claim my fame with the, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 13:24
You are, you are, you, I every time I say it an angel gets its wings, man.
Carl Boutet 13:26
Thank you. I think I do appreciate that and it was thanks to Steve as well because it was at his event. His, his first of, of many book, launches that we coined that with, with Scott and Seth there as well. And, and I'm, I, listen I'm, I'm you know, I'm if anything, I'm doubling down because I think its sort is the master concept. Because over the all the great resignation, the great, not redistribution, but reattribution. All the greats that sort of our, are all extensions of, of what we were able, what we accelerated. Now, your point about the waterline receding or not is, is, is, is absolutely fair. And we can look at the data in many different ways. But I, I, I still come back to this idea of a very primary sort of principle, is, is there anybody out there that thinks that we're going to be less digital five years from now than we are now?
Carl Boutet 15:00
And, and, and the idea that this is going to push us more. Now it doesn't, it doesn't remove the need for physical. It actually, for him, for me, it makes the need for physical that much more important. And that's also the other part that's often missed. They think, you know, the great acceleration is all about eCommerce adoption and, and digital fulfillment, but it's really about how one makes the other stronger. And that is when the subtitle of the book is actually more important, The Race to Retail Resilience, that, that race to resilience is all about building these muscle groups that make you as strong physically as they do digitally. Because we're not I mean, I don't think I'm shocking anybody and definitely not you Michael, when we're saying we're not over with these sorts of major, you know, headwinds that we're going to hit, be them may, may they be public health, may they be geopolitical, may they be climate related, which we,-
Michael LeBlanc 15:47
Yeah, it's funny, we, we, we're a little bit like, you know, the distracted goldfish, right, it's COVID. And then it's
Carl Boutet 15:54
War.
Michael LeBlanc 15:55
Russian. War all of which, both of which are terrible and,
Carl Boutet 15:58
Supply chain in Cai-, a container that went up 10-10 10X, and,
Michael LeBlanc 16:02
10X. But then behind all of it is, there's no vaccine for the environmental catastrophe that's headed our way. I mean, it's already, you know, the next 30 years already planned out, so to speak, right? So, we still have to figure that out. Let's, let's, let's move on, I want to talk about innovation. So, you talked about the innovation lab. And my perception, I wanted to get your perception was there wasn't a ton of innovation happening during COVID. Mostly retailers are either trying to survive, or trying to just get product on the shelf. There's some innovation behind the scenes. So, I'm, I'm hoping, and you know, retailers are telling me they're spending cap, a lot of capital, right? So, that is a nice leading indicator that we're going to see a, a good, long run of a couple of years of investment and innovation. So, bringing you back to the Innovation Center. At what point does that go, get scaled? Like it's now sitting in a, in a building? Yep, (crossover talk). It's a lovely building near McGill. At what point do they say it works, and let's put it in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 wouldn't, where, where, how do retails figure out where to pull that trigger?
Carl Boutet 17:03
Well, so, so, I mean, first of all, they've already sort of scaled it in the US not using the same exact approaches they used at Miguel but Circle K, which is, what Couche-Tard is for the rest of the world outside of Quebec, is, is, you know, in Arizona and elsewhere they're, they're. If you're going to be inconvenienced then frictionless has to be part of convenience in some way, right? So, they're, so they're, they're, thiey're,
Michael LeBlanc 17:25
It's made for it. I mean, the Amazon Go store is made, it's a convenience store with fresh sandwiches, right?
Carl Boutet 17:30
Well, and now even in into grocery and other, and you know, either you
Michael LeBlanc 17:33
Do you think that's a big, like, if you think about, about table stakes versus, differentiators.
Carl Boutet 17:39
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 17:41
So, frictionless more and more becomes a table stake. Well, at some level, but at, at the level of kind of shop, you know, buy and go or one touch go, that becomes, starts to become a differentiator. I think Amazon's bedding in their bigger format grocery stores, that that becomes the thing that makes them successful. I'm not sure I'm on board with that. I'm not sure people would go to a large format store for that purpose, versus a Wegmans or an H-E-B, or, you know. I mean, they got to pull somebody away from where they're shopping today. They got to have all the other things, right? Fresh food and great prices, is it, is it enough?
Carl Boutet 18:15
So, right now, there's a couple, you know, it's cost prohibitive. So, the cost of the tech stack is, is not the ROI is, is unless you use a subsidized one like taking Amazon's, because you could, you can license their tech, which I wouldn't necessarily recommend because who knows how,
Michael LeBlanc 18:33
That, that didn't work out when they were licensed then with a web tech for a few companies. Who was it? Target and Toys R Us. Yeah.
Carl Boutet 18:39
So, if you're going to say, okay, well, I'll just let Amazon handle this part for me, hasn't exactly aged well. And one of the first that they did outside was Hudson News. If you remember they did a couple of Hudson News locations in airports. And lo and behold, they're starting to open up Amazon,
Michael LeBlanc 18:54
Yeah, I think they just didn't learn the, learn the airport business.
Carl Boutet 18:57
So, you know, yeah, and, and, and who knows? Maybe, maybe it's just purely circumstantial.
Michael LeBlanc 19:02
It's just a coincidence. (inaudible)
Carl Boutet 19:03
But, but here's the parallel I bring back whenever we talk about frictionless and the tech stack is think about the, the, the, the way the taxi industry, and this is really where the comparison comes from. I think Amazon Go didn't come from the retail environment it came from the taxi environment the, the just walk-out was created from, from a taxi not from a store. And, and when
Michael LeBlanc 19:29
Such an interesting perspective.
Carl Boutet 19:30
So, when Uber created, you know, when Uber created that experience, yeah at the beginning it was very novel and, and very limited. I remember the first time I took it, it was coming out of, coming out of you know, New York, JFK or, or, or LaGuardia or whatever, I forget which one. But you know, and it's funny because there's the mo-, there's the series right now hey about the, the, the Uber, I forget what it's called on, on one of the, on one of the streaming services, but I lived that experience. We were a bunch of staring at our phone screens in front of an airport for the first time was sort of freaky, right? But then five years down the road, here I am jumping in a regular cab because I don't know the Ubers, the delay was or what, I was in a market where it was an Uber. And then I walk, I just walk out of the cab. And the cab honks at me going, where are you, where are you going, buddy? I don't like, you, and I use, I'm using a nice term and it was probably a little rougher, a little rougher,
Michael LeBlanc 20:18
More colorful.
Carl Boutet 20:19
More colorful, yeah, absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 20:20
Language was more colorful.
Carl Boutet 20:21
Where were you, where are you going? And I just like oh my god, it's true, this isn't an Uber, like I actually got to go back and fiddle with the credit card and, and the terminal that's not getting the signal, because I need a receipt for my expense account. And, and just being why isn't this all like that? Like, how come this industry is, is so, I think, I think convenience retail and beyond. I'm, well there's a company I started pretty much all called (inaudible) that I'm involved with. And you know, they're using a much, a much more accessible tech stack to even use it for like fashion retail and things like that, where you know, you don't necessarily want to have the big, heavy computer vision, a shelf technology that works well in convenience and, and grocery, which doesn't necessarily translate properly to, to fashion, for instance. They have a, they have a beta actually running right now at Eaton Centre at La Vie en Rose. So, it's just using your phone, the phone becomes sort of your, it replaces the whole tech stack. You just use the phone, its, its app lists, whatever and allows you just to walk in, grab whatever La Vie en Rose thing you're interested in and walk out basically.
Michael LeBlanc 21:27
It's a you know, Walmart tried that in their silent store.
Carl Boutet 21:31
Sam's.
Michael LeBlanc 21:33
Sam's has got, it's interesting. I never, it's, I don't generally look for the big box stores for that kind of innovation and digital but I saw the, the woman who’s the leader of Sam's, she's quite impressive.
Carl Boutet 21:42
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 21:43
And Walmart tried to kind of just walk in, and not just walk out, but scan and go, and it wasn't adopted, but they're taking another run at it I think. It may have been too early.
Carl Boutet 21:51
Definitely and there's a lot of runs. Out at my local Metro had the, the guns to the you know, here, here's the scan gun, like why do I need something else? I already have a phone that can do this. And, and it was, it was, -
Michael LeBlanc 22:00
Did you try the Sobeys Smartcard?
Carl Boutet 22:02
No, I haven't tried that, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 22:03
Okay, I here's, here's a quick perspective, if anybody from Sobey's is listening, they know this, but the card works fantastic. Like technically it works fantastic. There's one problem, four, five words that at the end, kill it. Please return cart to store.
Carl Boutet 22:17
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 22:18
Right? So, you get to the back of the parking lot, and you got to walk all the way back to the store to relock your smart card. And you can see why. Yeah, it's, -
Carl Boutet 22:26
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's an expensive piece of hardware. But that sort of takes away, creates a lot of friction around, around the whole experience. So, yeah, I, I agree those, and but, you know what? Hats off to Sobeys, hats off to Walmart and, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 22:38
And swinging the bat, right? They're trying. Target, Target's doing a great job, (crossover talk), -
Carl Boutet 22:41
Yeah, I think the less-, the lesson now and, I know this wasn't in our talk track, but even if you look at things like Metaverse, and all that I mean we, we and we sort of roll our eyes and go oh here we go again on some other sort of you know,
Michael LeBlanc 22:54
Are you a meta skeptic? Are you, are you a meta-advocate? Are you meta indifferent? Where are you on that spectrum?
Carl Boutet 22:58
So, I, I, yeah, well anyways, just to wrap up before we get into the whole meta thing is the idea is you have to, you have to swing, you have to you know, the idea now that, think about Walmart and you're like okay, we're behind the times, we need to make a $6 billion acquisition to pick up a thing called Jet till these bring us 30% closer to the fin-, you know, it's a where we should
Michael LeBlanc 23:19
And the talent that built it.
Carl Boutet 23:20
And definitely the tyrant, talent. Look at yesterday's announcement. Lululemon with MIRROR I think is the same thing. So, to the metaverse question, sort of a, fool I think. Yeah, it's very early days. My, my, you know, you, you and I were around, remember what 1995 internet looked like. Could we have foreseen what 2022 internet would deliver based on a Lycos search of 1995 box? We'd have a, we'd be really, really struggling to understand, understand where this could go. Did it go where we thought it would go? Was there a year 2000 where a bunch of companies got taken to the woodshed? Absolutely. And I think we're going to see a lot of that as well.
Michael LeBlanc 24:02
Be a year 2020-, 2022 when they get taken to, they're being taken to the woodshed now.
Carl Boutet 24:06
We'll see, yeah, I mean, who knows? It's still not, you know, it hasn't fully played out yet. But so, but I again, I think the companies, back to my jet analogy, don't want to be seen you know, they want to least play around. So, I mean, I roll my eyes sometimes when they see me, it's actually a Montreal based company, Sandbox. So, I see Carrefour opening up in Sandbox and like what are, like it, it seems like noth-, it just seems like, I don't know, just a bad, a bad Roblox experience. But it was, at least they're trying. They're there, they're, they're sort of trying to wrap their head around what the possibilities are. What I'm really for Michael, and, and why I think the great, the, coming back to the acceleration as well, and encouraging businesses to you know, I don't think it's a good time to sort of scale back your digital investment.
Michael LeBlanc 24:49
Right.
Carl Boutet 24:50
Because I think you need to sort of step your foot in this, because we're not, Metaverse or not, we're definitely headed towards a more immersive digital path to purchase. I think we're going to have more and more context. You know, it's. it's almost archaic. You know, I'm looking around our CL show here, Michael, and I'm pretty sure the sales show 20 years ago it looked pretty close to this.
Michael LeBlanc 25:10
Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Carpet's the same.
Carl Boutet 25:13
And it's not, it's not. And it's not a knock at CL. I mean, I'm just saying that, think about everything, how everything else has evolved in that time.
Michael LeBlanc 25:19
But it's funny, right? And I, you mean, the chatter on the floor is, I couldn't do what I do here virtually.
Carl Boutet 25:25
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 25:26
Right? Like that. So, so, the, the general, the general (crossover talk)
Carl Boutet 25:29
You still need this, you still need this. And that's my point is, but you, you could have a lot more context. The fact that I, I roamed around here for 20 minutes before I can find you. I mean, these are all things that. And, and, and its things we put up with, you know, but my kids are probably not going to put up with, my kids probably would have peaced-out you know, after five saying this is ridiculous. Like when I'm, when I'm in Fortnite, I'm able to find my way around a lot more, easier than when I'm, when I'm roaming around Palais des Congres. So, why can't I have at least a sort of a layer of that on top of more context, and, and,
Michael LeBlanc 25:59
I found a good one in, a good example, next time you're in Toronto, LCBO just opened up a new flagship 24,000 square feet. And the first impression, I walked in there, it's vast, a sea of bottles. I'm like, I just want to find my,
Carl Boutet 26:12
And the problem is?
Michael LeBlanc 26:14
You're right. So, the problem is finding the one I'm looking for.
Carl Boutet 26:18
I thought you're gonna say try them all. But that's okay.
Michael LeBlanc 26:20
Well, you could work your way through it. God knows I try. So, they had a store finder, where you can actually type it in, and it would actually gray out where in the store, you could find it. And I thought it's a nice simple solution. It's beautiful, (crossover talk). It's, it's it,
Carl Boutet 26:34
Absolutely. And that, you may bring up a really good point, you know, a lot of these technologies, we tend to overcomplicate things till we get them, so, we get them simplified again.
Michael LeBlanc 26:41
I don't need to put an Oculus on to find the line. Just show me on the kios, (crossover talk), -
Carl Boutet 26:44
No, no, no. Yeah, no, we're not walking around with VR headsets any day soon. I mean, that's, that's, that's the. Now, yesterday, the presentation, I actually had a slide like that with a, a person in one of those, sort of drivable carts with a VR headset on it, and there was a big X, saying, This is not it. Having, after having shown them the video that our friend, Dave Mark cut, and I started NRF, to already, I guess two or three years ago, around the store of the future. And we were trying to figure out, we don't know what the hardware is going to look like, we (inaudible). I knew it. I knew, we just have an idea what the software should do. And, and data and all that fun stuff. So, we're heading towards a world that is definitely more of that. But not, it's more that. I mean, here's a, here's a deep thought. It's more of that, but it's not less this. So, in which is really great to say on a podcast because it is only audio and I'm pointing to things. So, it's just to basically say it's, it's not, it's going to be more digital, but it's not going to be less, less physical. So, as I see our, our, our, our room host, I, you know.
Michael LeBlanc 27:43
Okay, we (crossover talk) have to get him in, have to get him in on the mic, (crossover talk). When he gets a chance.
Carl Boutet 27:48
Is there a, a doctor entering the house? Says he said, well, I don't know. Michael said, you're the one paying me to be here, that I should be getting a check in the mail. Or I know. I sorry. I had to send you a check.
Sylvain Charlebois 27:57
Well, Mike hasn't gotten my bill.
Michael LeBlanc 28:01
All right. Well, we're joined by a very special guest, Sylvain Charlebois. Welcome, to our podcast studio. You know, how do you know Carl?
Carl Boutet 28:08
So, Sylvain, this is a very important moment in, in podcast history. We, we're actually French Canadians outnumbering English Canadians on a podcast. I don't think that's ever happened before. (Crossover talk)
Michael LeBlanc 28:18
Very rare, (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 28:19
Yeah, absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 28:20
We're just talking about, catching up talking about in store technology and, and where it's going. And, you know, it was, Carl was saying how, you know, when you look at the Couche-Tard pilot that's going on at Sherbrooke, you know, how do you scale that? And what does that look like in the future? And what are you hearing around technology yourself around the stores? What, you know, that difference between useful technology and just technology for technology's sake, out there in the future, but you still got to do a little bit of, you know, what's your perspective on that in the food business?
Sylvain Charlebois 28:49
Well, I mean, the food industry is known to be very traditional, and, and somewhat seen as anti technology from the outside. Inside, when you talk to people, well we're all about technology, we love technology, well, not really. If it compromises traditions and, and, and traffic, foot traffic forever. I mean, foot traffic was a key metric for retail until Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017. That was a bit of a disruptive transaction. And that led a lot of companies to think about clicks and collect. But there was no full commitment until COVID. I think COVID really just accelerated this conversion. Looking at technology inside and out. So, interacting with consumers, and of course, operationally looking at automation or robotics. You know, making burgers with robots is not that cool anymore. It's a, it's a necessity almost because of labor issues.
Michael LeBlanc 29:52
The labor issues, which is another thing we didn't talk about is that you know, not a short-term labor issue for you know, making your Starbucks coffee, right? You need those robots now more than ever, right?
Sylvain Charlebois 30:01
So, so, that's what I'm hearing and, and, and on. On the Food Professor's podcast, we'll actually be joined by Yannick (inaudible) who was the president of (inaudible). And since a couple of strikes ago, they've been thinking about automation a lot more.
Carl Boutet 30:19
And that's across the board in any industry right now, anything any, any redundant task that can be automated out. I mean, there's the economic arguments to do so are, are,
Michael LeBlanc 30:30
Pretty compelling.
Carl Boutet 30:31
Strong, yes, really strong. I mean, and that's from, an from the first mile to the last mile. That's really what's happening wherever they can automate the, the, the non margin adding experiences like checkout, which rarely add margin, except for maybe some impulse buys, you know, that can happen at the very end.
Sylvain Charlebois 30:48
Yeah.
Carl Boutet 30:49
And they're not it's not, there's a,
Michael LeBlanc 30:50
I guess there's a lot of retailers who just don't want to give up on full checkout. And they think it's part of the experience, which is not untrue. But I don't know.
Carl Boutet 30:58
I know, I was, I was sharing something with my, we're, where the go experience came from was from, you know, Uber. So, how many people thought that pulling out their credit card and dealing with a terminal as they ended their taxi ride was a value added experience?
Sylvain Charlebois 31:12
Yeah.
Carl Boutet 31:13
I think, you know, as we get into environments, where we can shop, and we can, if we could, if we're, if there's, if I, if there's two ways for me to exit the store, one where I have to get in line, and, and, and pay somebody to get out, and there's another one where I don't.
Michael LeBlanc 31:26
Well, if you got 50, (crossover talk), I don't know, if you got 50 things, you might make that different decision.
Carl Boutet 31:30
But, (crossover talk), that's, that's self checkout, that's different. That's different than what I'm talking about. You're talking about scanning, you know, scanning your own stuff. And I agree that's, that's, that's like a stopgap measure right now because the rest of the technology, the business case isn't strong enough. But when it's going to be at a point with the Amazon Fresh is doing, and all that where I'm just walking around with my cart, taking an apple out of a bundle and throwing it in the cart, and it knows that I put an apple in my cart, and I don't have anything else to do. That's, you know, that's gonna be a pretty compelling argument.
Sylvain Charlebois 31:58
And this is, so, I've been in Florida for five months now. (crossover talk) And the self checkouts, (crossover talk) they figured it out. And so, to Carl's point, I got to tell you, flawless, flaw-less. Produce no problems, you just put it in the box. It's everything is done for it. You do not want to see someone, you do not want to talk to someone, because it's even more convenient, saves you time. It gets rid of the worst part of the grocery experience, which is the accent, it really acts and we're talking, we're five people in our family in Tampa Bay, and we're talking 55-60 items, sometimes. No problem.
Michael LeBlanc 32:39
Sure. No problem.
Sylvain Charlebois 32:41
So, and, and I don't think that Canadian grocers have actually made it a priority to create this flawless humanless experience when you exit the grocery store, I don't think.
Michael LeBlanc 32:53
I was at Walmart in Mississauga doing a tour. And they, they actually had two choices when you did self checkout. Lots of stuff. I think they had a number, but they did bigger bunks. So, they had lots of stuff or a few items, (crossover talk). So, they actually routed you to it then, you know, banks and banks of self checkout and lots of associates running around helping people like it just, it was flawless. But they did have that extra space if you had more than, but you still had to scan it yourself, right?
Carl Boutet 33:18
Again, that's, it's a stopgap I mean, the ROI, I was actually, one of the surprising things that happened during the pandemic was the amount of self checkout immune from Dollarama to Costco to Canadian Tire. I mean, they everything was just really hard pivot. But because the business case was so easy, the tech is so cheap to do that, that it pays for itself in six months. And so, you'd be crazy not to do it while you let the, the rest of the technology catch up.
Michael LeBlanc 33:41
And it's also probably the case. I get asked a lot less by media doesn't it take someone else's job? Well, (crossover talk) we don't have the people. So, you're not taking anybody's job. (Crossover talk) You're filling a job.
Carl Boutet 33:52
But it's a very important point, because that was sort of the, the, the public perception of a grocer doing that was like, we're taking away, you know, the 16 or 17 year old job. The reality is the 16-17 year old job has, has a hundred jobs available for them if they want without having to be a cashier in a grocery store.
Sylvain Charlebois 34:10
Yeah, no, absolutely. And of course, the profitability. What's different with food versus other sectors is, is, is
Carl Boutet 34:17
The margins.
Sylvain Charlebois 34:18
This malaise, the margins that does create a malaise with the public. You know, I've, I'm often asked are grocers making too much money? And so, so, my response back to whoever is talking to me, I say, okay, so, if you think that they're making too much money, what is enough? What is the threshold here? Is it 3%? Is it 4%? What are you, what are we talking about here? And that's when you realize they haven't thought things through yet, which goes back to how much you pay your employees, how many employees you need to operate a grocery store, and those are the kinds of conversations we need to have out in the open.
Michael LeBlanc 34:57
I mean, it's such an interesting point because it still makes headlines when grocers executives get bonuses. It's like front like, why is that front page news? Yeah, (crossover talk) but it still is, (crossover talk) Oh yeah, -
Carl Boutet 35:07
And it's also driving diversification. So, in this group I was with yesterday most of them now are acquiring pharmacies and health centers and everything else because they can build the average basket out beyond and, and where I think, where I think the food industry, the grocery sector specifically has its chin out is its, it is the highest velocity and volume channel that you can brick everything on top of so, the Amazons of the world will use the whole categorie as a loss leader if they have to, which (crossover talk), if it just creates an opportunity to pile on the, the higher margin stuff around it, and Walmart's doing that withheld,
Michael LeBlanc 35:37
Spin the flywheel, spin the flu. Spin the flywheel. Well, Carl Boutet, we had a special guest join us thank you Sylvain for popping in we've, (crossover talk), -
Carl Boutet 35:46
Beautiful place you have here Sylvain. Thank you so much for (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 35:49
Actually, Michael will work on the decoration.
Carl Boutet 35:51
Well, next time I'd like it to be in Tampa, though, would be a little bit nicer by the sea where you can see the, (crossover talk), -
Sylvain Charlebois 35:55
Next time.
Michael LeBlanc 35:56
Next time.
Carl Boutet 35:57
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 35:58
And Carl, you're going to be in London. Last words, you're, you're off to low European travel.
Carl Boutet 36:02
Yeah. Next week is the retail technology show in London. So, I'm actually speaking on the Tuesday about the opportunity, the underused opportunity, Dr. Charlebois, to leverage academics to work in, in, in the retail sector, which is something that, especially with my work since with McGill, I've come to really appreciate,
Sylvain Charlebois 36:18
You're well, you're well positioned to talk about that.
Carl Boutet 36:21
The, the depth,, the depths that that can, that that can bring I think is, is more and more necessary. And the second day, we'll talk about supply chain issues, which will, I'm part of a panel. So, that's the retail technology show next week at the Olympia which is the first time I'm going to that venue which I'm excited about.
Michael LeBlanc 36:35
Very nice.
Carl Boutet 36:36
So a lot of, yeah, nice to be back on, on the road. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. And in June, back in Bangkok teaching at the Asian Institute of Technology.
Sylvain Charlebois 36:43
You were in the UK last year, were'nt you?
Carl Boutet 36:45
Two years ago.
Sylvain Charlebois 36:46
Two years ago? (Crossover talk), -
Carl Boutet 36:47
Yeah. So, yeah, it's so nice to be back out. And but thank you for the invitation. Thank you for all, the Food Professor is getting us, who's on my TV seems like every other day, but that's, (inaudible), -
Michael LeBlanc 37:02
Safe travels as you, as you make your way around and, and back to Canada. And thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast. Sylvain, thanks for being the special pop-in guest.
Sylvain Charlebois 37:12
My pleasure.
Carl Boutet 37:13
Literally. Thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 37:14
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.
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 KEYWORD
crossover, retail, talk, store, technology, Carl, podcast, McGill, Sylvain, walk, Michael, Amazon, point, big, Couche, digital, frictionless, self checkout, people, hearing