Dominique Lamb, National Retail Commentator

00:00:00 Dominique Lamb 

It’s all about storytelling. I think at the end of the day, whether you’re telling stories in store because you’ve got somebody that can tell those stories physically, or whether you’re telling those stories online, about who you are, why you do it and why it’s important. At the end of the day, it’s about bringing new demographic along the journey. 

00:00:19 Louise Poole 

That’s retail industry commentator Dominique Lamb, and this is WNA Trailblazers. Amplifying the stories of women in business. Hosted by Women Network Australia CEO Cheryl Grey and Louise Poole, managing partner from podcast and content production business, Welcome Change Media. Proud media partner of Womens Network Australia. 

If any industry has had to roll with the punches over the last couple of years due to the pandemic, it’s the retail sector. But flexibility and innovation have always been key factors in making sure retailers stay relevant and connected to their customers.  

In this episode, Women Network Australia CEO, Cheryl Grey talks to Retail Industry commentator Dominique Lamb, who offers some great insights for retailers relevant for whatever type of business you’re running. 

00:01:06 Louise Poole 

Cheryl let’s talk about being a trailblazer.  

00:01:10 Cheryl Gray 

It’s an interesting term, isn’t it? Because when I think of a trailblazer, I think of someone out there on their own, surrounded by challenges, isolation, whatever it might be, and they’re forging that path forward. In this context our trailblazers weren’t necessarily on their own, but a lot of the things they were doing were new and had to be innovative. Have they had to be risky and take chances and do something different, that in some cases they were alone, and in other cases they brought people along with them? 

00:01:43 Louise Poole 

So, I think it’s a great concept. I think the pandemic has seen a lot of trailblazers emerge as well, because we were forced to adapt. When you’ve got no choice but to change, then innovation really comes out of that. 

00:01:54 Cheryl Gray 

Yeah, and I think we talk about innovation a lot, but we kind of talk about innovation as if there’s sort of a machine behind it, there’s got to be systems that come with it, and it’s an idea. But then it’s got to be fully formed and supported and so forth, while trailblazers are the individuals that really do blaze that path for others to follow. And it is about that sense of: Hey, I’ll go out the front, but you come with me. You can follow this journey as well and that’s what I really like about the trailblazers that we’ll be speaking to. 

00:02:24 Louise Poole 

There’s a lot in the retail sector. I think a lot of women in the retail sector are strong trailblazers. 

00:02:30 Cheryl Gray 

And not just at the shop front, but behind the scenes, everything from fashion design to marketing, to advertising, to the way we go about customer service, to everything about the whole retail experience where trends are so significant and they come and go, and we’re constantly as consumers looking for more that next sparkly shiny thing that’s going to keep our attention and get us spending money.  

It’s a sector that there’s a lot of pressure to keep coming up with something new and different.  So, Trail Blazers in so many parts of that sector. 

00:03:06 Louise Poole 

So, who better to talk to than Dominique Lamb! 

00:03:14 Cheryl Gray 

Yeah, and Dom’s a trailblazer for many reasons, both personally in terms of the role that she has held with National Retail Association and the work that they’ve done. She’s the one who’s up there talking about Boxing Day sales, Christmas Day sales, and how things are going in retail, the good, the bad, and some of the challenges. What I also love about Dominique is that she’s been able to lead some quite significant changes within the retail sector. So, what they’re doing in terms of domestic violence and support for people working in the retail sector, some really exciting things there, but most exciting is probably what the sector itself is doing next, and she gives us some hints and insights. 

00:03:56 Louise Poole 

Let’s have a listen to your chat, then now with Dominique Lamb. 

00:04:02 Cheryl Gray 

You had the World Retail Congress and then last week you had your own national retail conference. 

00:04:09 Dominique Lamb 

Our conference in Sydney last week. 

00:04:11 Cheryl Gray 

So, you’re used to being back in big crowds and big events, and I’m sure there was plenty of sparkle and lots to see. 

00:04:18 Dominique Lamb 

So much sparkle. I mean, not just at the World Retail Congress, but Retail Fest in particular was really lovely to be back in the room with lots of different retailers and lots of different businesses, and I think just getting the lay of the land, especially as we emerge from the COVID period, even though it’s still around and still kicking. It’s just not being reported on quite as much at this time. 

00:04:40 Cheryl Gray 

It is a big issue though. How has it impacted retailers? I think we’re still seeing a number of retailers who are having to close their doors on any particular day, still struggling to get staff. Is that what you’re hearing and how long is It going to go on for? 

00:04:55 Dominique Lamb 

Absolutely. I mean, I think that it’s been a really interesting journey and if we go back a couple of years ago, you know in that first month of March our retailers lost over I think it was $2 billion in the one month. It was looking really grim. Of course, we saw a whole heap of stimulus come into the market with jobkeeper and you know, jobseeker and all of those kinds of things. Of course, the leasing code, which is really helpful in this space, but for some time we’ve known that all of that would end, and as you look at the statistics now that have just come out in the last week, we’ve gone from a growth of 9.4% in the March of last year to about 1.2% this year. 

So, you know quite a significant drop, and certainly quite a significant difference. And we know that for many of our small businesses. But you know, they simply haven’t paid rent in two years, and that that all is being deferred and is about to kind of become due and payable. 

And we also know that there are a lot of other increasing costs within leasing and tenancy, including security and certainly cleaning and hygiene, all associated with COVID. Then of course superannuation, cost of labour, electricity, fuel, even distribution and supply chain issues that have really increased those costs, so we know that right?  

At this time, skills issues are still a problem. We still can’t get enough people in store. And if you are a small business and it’s only you or you and one other person, then yes, those closures are still occurring across the board. In fact, we’re being told that you know it’s very much a shadow peak of COVID at this point in time, it’s not being reported on, but I think we’re well over the 15,000 numbers for COVID and certainly people are coming down with it rapidly. 

00:06:34 Cheryl Gray 

And of course, pretty much all of the financial support from government towards the business sector has dried up or evaporated. So, are we seeing the impacts hungover from last year? Is that what we’re feeling now? And given that that support isn’t there, are you seeing any estimates around the failure rate for businesses? 

00:06:55 Dominique Lamb 

When we look at it, I think that the decline really started in that shadow lock down, January, February of 2022. Where we had Premiers saying ‘don’t leave your homes, but you’re not in a lock down’ and the biggest problem with that of course, is that for traffic numbers dropped off, people weren’t shopping. 

They weren’t going out and they were concerned about their own incomes. So, in terms of spend, we were seeing that fall away, especially after Christmas. And then we had the floods. So, we started with them Impacting SA, and then more floods impacting QLD and New South Wales, and it’s been a bit of a perfect storm in the sense that if they weren’t already struggling with COVID, they’re absolutely struggling now post flooding amongst other things. 

And I guess when we look at the business value rate, what’s interesting about that is the ABS used to produce a report that was really accessible, and you would click a button online and it would give you those reports. You actually now have to write to them and seek it and then pay for it. 

00:07:52 Cheryl Gray 

What what’s the rationale for that? 

00:07:52 Dominique Lamb 

I think that the decline rate is quite significant, and we know that it is a bit of a lag indicator. So, whilst we may not have seen it in the last lot of figures, we’re about to see it. And so, for them it’s a lot of work because they’re collecting a lot of data and it’s got implications in a time like now when we’re in the middle of an election. 

00:08:11 Cheryl Gray 

Have you seen or heard some really innovative ways that retailers, your members, have adapted through not just COVID, but the floods? I heard one retailer speaking recently about the recovery both during the flood in Brisbane and immediately post that in terms of trying to salvage some stock and do something with that stock. Particularly if you’re in a business that has an eco-friendly, or a sort of a green bent to suddenly see stock out on the footpath in mounds must be even beyond heartbreaking. 

00:08:46 Dominique Lamb 

I think that there’s lots of things that have happened in this time. You know that are not only kind of capturing that digital component, or that shift from kind of bricks and mortar stores into online. So, to be clear, before COVID Australians spend about 9.5% annually online, and now it’s escalated to close to 20% and it’s predicted to be about 35% in the next five years. That’s quite a significant escalation.  

We know that that’s led to a lot of capital investment in terms of digitizing what they were doing and some of the innovations that we’ve seen have come out of businesses like MJ Bale, for instance, that realized that there was room for zoom or video type consultations around the fitting of their products. And in fact, that was able to kind of tap into a whole diversity of client. In fact, they started to design a whole heap unclothing to do a disability, for instance, and then now I think the first retailer to be net zero certified in Australia. Not just because of the Zoom type work, but because they knew through the interactions during COVID with their staff and also with their clientele that there was a real push around sustainability and environment and what that looked like for them. So, they really made efforts and inroads to kind of change the way that they look. And I guess on the face of it, you don’t think of that as being an innovation, but when we live in a world that is becoming very much about consumer activism at this time, it’s becoming an essential component.  

Another really good example of that is, we know that where certain retailers supported the marriage equality bill, for instance, that they saw almost 100% increase in their online traffic because of the stance that they were taking on a political level. So there there’s a whole heap of new communications going on, I guess with retailers and the demographic and the people that they’re working with or buying or selling too.  

I think some of the really exciting things that we’ve seen have come out of that ecosystem surrounding retail, including people like Tiger. I don’t know if anyone ever heard of them, but they basically are a Queensland business that now enable you to go in store, make a purchase on your phone by scanning a QR code, and you don’t actually have to interact with anyone if you don’t want to. It talks to all of your systems, takes it off the sku’s, shows proof that you paid and then you leave. 

So, there is this whole of a new concept, I think, around how people want to engage, whether it’s frictionless, some people want to have customer service, some people don’t want to have customer service. But more importantly, where we see retailers be successful, we see them diversify their income streams and this is not something new. We’ve seen it in in the USA for a long time. We’ve certainly seen it in Europe, where if you do have a space that you are leasing, you look at different ways to utilize that. You’re not just looking at selling your wares anymore, it’s about utilizing it for events purposes. It’s about creating subscription models where people can engage with you on a regular basis and subscribe to your products so that you’ve got that constant revenue stream that evens out some of what you’re looking at in terms of profit and loss.  

We also know that there’s been a real interest in that experience level, you know, the implementation of new stylists or different types of one on one interactions, that seem to be incredibly popular and is boding well in terms of the bottom line of many of these retailers. 

00:12:04 Cheryl Gray 

Just makes me think of one of our WNA members Red Hill Gallery. Art is very we’ve got to stand in front of it and look through it and see meaning and so forth. But they use virtual reality technology and allow customers to put the art space into their living room or wherever they might want it to go. So not only experiencing just here it is online, but actually what it might look like in your space. It has actually been a really popular initiative for them and that is part of that extension of the customer experience, isn’t it? 

00:12:37 Dominique Lamb 

I think absolutely, and you know at the end of the day, people do visit locations just simply to engage with something that is new, more technology. 

There’s a sushi store in Indooroopilly that delivers your sushi via robot, and it’s incredibly popular. Simply because you’ve got this robot cruising around who delivers you sushi. It’s not particularly sophisticated, but it’s the only place.  

00:12:59 Cheryl Gray 

‘Cause there’s some guy out the back with a remote control? 

00:13:02 Dominique Lamb 

Kind of. He’s got like trays stacked up on his body and he’s got a robot head, but it’s all governed by iPads that you order off and I think he just knows where to go based on some form of technology. 

00:13:16 Cheryl Gray 

It’s new and different, and I guess that’s what as consumers and customers we continue to seek out, don’t we? 

00:13:22 Dominique Lamb 

I think so, and also what’s really fascinating is the new ways people are trying to kind of create that personalization of mission and impact with their consumers.  

We’ve known for many years that casinos use particular scents in order to bond you to the particular casino that you go into, cause it’s the best trigger for memory. But we know our retailers are doing it now too. 

And even when you look at some of these hundreds of years old retailers, whether it’s Bulgari or whether it’s Fendi, they are implementing this technology designed or based on one of the family members so that experience is triggered by memory and it’s a whole new of bonding your consumer to what you’re doing. 

00:14:02 Cheryl Gray 

So, Rome? What were the highlights and what were the key learnings out of the World Retail Congress? 

00:14:08 Dominique Lamb 

The highlight was definitely the tour of the various retailers, mainly because it confirms all of the things that we know about retail in the sense that it is about personalization. It is about instant gratification. It’s absolutely about experience and is just about, I guess, that attention to detail that we don’t always see.  

If you take a couple of examples, like Bulgari for instance, they were in their store that was built in 1905 It was a $1.00 store. It was very small. He then purchased the next premise next door. This is another key thing about retail. Retailers to succeed, typically own their properties and don’t lease. And then he created a museum. Where despite the fact that they had originally been jewellers that specialised in silver, they moved into jewels, and they moved into geometrically cut jewels with eight points because that is a truly Roman jewel as they say. So, they became very true to their values, and they engage with people like Elizabeth Taylor for instance. When she passed, they tried to buy back seven of their items, but only could afford 5 because they went for too much. They are now periodically on display, and you can go and visit them. But the attention to detail within their store, for instance, they paid a man for seven years to build a mosaic, because that’s the kind of detail they want. 

Another example of that would be the Rinascente. Rinascente is a unique department store that you typically see in Italy. They based all of their builds on the location that they’re in. In Rome in particular, it took 11 years to build because they found artefacts that were nine years before Christ. So, you can imagine how expensive this was, but again, similar in the sense that, whether you were looking at a 3 euro item or whether you were looking at a pair of Dior shoes or whatever, the visual merchandising throughout the store is absolutely consistent. 

The detail was there so that you never felt as if you were in a lower price point product section compared to a higher one. They also had floors where they were selling food as a diversification. Then they had a bar, they had event space and a museum. They were looking at different ways to engage with different types of customers, which meant that their revenue streams were very much diversified in the stories that they were able to tell, for instance, Giorgio Armani was one of their visual merchandisers. 

They have over 1000 staff in the one store. All of these things create this idea, certainly of retail being a profession, and I think that’s something that Australian retailers don’t do particularly well. We don’t share those really incredible stories and encourage people to come and stay, and we don’t do particularly well growing them. 

00:16:49 Cheryl Gray 

Are shoppers and retailers making different choices about location? With Covid and the whole big shopping centre complex, there was a point pre Covid when we really saw those big shopping centres as a lifestyle venue. You go to the cinema, you’d eat there you, you’d have your all weekend experience at the shopping centre. Is there change going on? Is there a return to the old Main Street strip shops? Or are they still continuing to struggle? 

00:17:20 Dominique Lamb 

During COVID, we saw that the centres were booming, those suburban locations. In fact, you could see that people were going to those locations near their homes in the suburbs far more than what they were too a High Street in the CBD or anything like that. We did see the rise of local businesses during that time, where they wanted to support small, and go to strip shops that potentially didn’t have as much crowding. But we are starting to see that fall away now and they are returning. Back to, I guess, normal or what was shopping habits before. CBDs are still absolutely struggling though, just simply because it needs definitely a new way to work, and we still haven’t emerged from that prominence of working from home. People are still certainly staying out of those locations. I think in time, our councils are going to have to look at how they activate those spaces, because they’re just not going to be the same that they were. 

Funnily enough, I was lucky enough to do a retail tour in Rome. Rome has to be the only place in the entire world that is not based around high streets, so no matter how many vacancies, no matter how many alleys, no matter how many locations you would think ‘this is not good spot to put a retailer’ they succeed, and they do particularly well. I think it has a lot to do with that retail working hand in hand with tourism, but also just the nature of Rome itself. 

We do not have the same experience here. Certainly, the UK and the US do not have the same experience at all. But, in certain locations there are places where this works and potentially in regional communities it would work in the right town. But the regions at the moment have huge struggles in getting staff. There’s not enough housing. You can’t attract people there because you can’t house them, and this is something that I think is an all of government issue that we’ll have to grapple with. 

00:19:05 Cheryl Gray 

If you were starting a business tomorrow, what sort of business would it be? 

00:19:09 Dominique Lamb 

I think for me, it would be something that would be based on subscription. Because it’s regular income. I have a low risk appetite and it would be about consistency. It certainly wouldn’t be in the services sector. I wouldn’t be offering consultancy. I would be trying to buy on-mass products offshore that I could probably drop ship, and I would operate primarily online.  I would also be engaging with people like marketplace to do extended aisles, to have an additional range of at least 65 other SKUs and I’d be heavily investing in SEO. 

00:19:43 Cheryl Gray 

Hot tips! What impact though has the supply chain, particularly out of China, had on your business idea, for example? 

00:19:51 Dominique Lamb 

I think it’s dependent upon what vertical you’re in. So, if you look at the moment, Shanghai, Beijing, they’re shutting ports if they’ve got one COVID case. We know that we’ve got tankers ramped off the coast of Long Beach. We’ve got an international palette shortage. If you’re bringing in food or other food products that have to be on certain types of palettes, it’s becoming incredibly difficult. 

We know we’re also moving towards an aluminium shortage. If you’re bringing in cans of drinks, for instance, certainly all the drinks providers are worried, so I think for me it would be about diversifying where you’re purchasing from. 

I think China still has its place and will always have its place. If you can bear with them. But there are other places such as Vietnam that are doing incredible things with manufacturing. India is another good location or even Malaysia to some extent, and depending on the products, you can’t go past Europe. Depending on what you’re buying. I mean, if it was leather goods or if it was shoes and things like that, and you were in that high end market there’d be nowhere else for you to go. 

00:20:54 Cheryl Gray 

How do you capture, or can you capture that same sort of experience if you are a digital or online retailer? 

00:21:02 Dominique Lamb 

I think it is about personalization and how you talk to your demographic and knowing exactly what they want. It can come down to simply personalised notes. A really good example of that is there is a woman that’s operating a retail store, it’s a homewares store in Wagga. She also operates an online store which is powered by Shopify Variable Store, but she has an online community which is called The Huddle and then off the back of that, she’s now running tours for female founders to Wagga that sell out in 25 minutes. And it’s just fascinating. 

00:21:31 Cheryl Gray 

Wow, so she’s really made Wagga a part of that community. 

00:21:36 Dominique Lamb 

Yes, and it’s all about the storytelling. I think at the end of the day, whether you’re telling stories in store because you’ve got somebody that can tell those stories physically, or whether you’re telling those stories online, about who you are, why you do it and why it’s important, it’s about bringing your demographic along the journey.  

People like Julie Mathis from Flora and Fauna have successfully done that. It was the only and 1st vegan beauty store online. Incredible, a large community of followers within Facebook groups and other vegan platforms. And she used those platforms to determine what she would buy, how she would stock, what she would stock and also to promote the fact that they would not tolerate plastics in any of their shipping. In fact, if you sent it to her, she would send it back to you. She would collect all the plastic that you sent as a business, and she would ship it back to you so that you could see how much it was. It was that kind of no negotiating that earned her, I think she’s been ranked the top person in E commerce for about four years in a row. So sometimes it’s about courage as well. And that’s something that came out of Rome in terms of those leadership components. 

00:22:44 Cheryl Gray 

Should you be a generalist? Should you try to be everything to everyone, or do you have a niche? Do you specialise? It’s almost like there’s two messages there. Yes specialise, but diversify at the same time. 

00:22:56 Dominique Lamb 

I think at the end of the day, it’s about value proposition, right? So, you have to be different from your competitors. There’s got to be something different about you. You could all stock the same thing, but people are going to shop with you because you’re either faster or because they like your service. 

Or, in the case of Adore Beauty because you send them Tim tams. It doesn’t matter, what it is, it really does come down to who are you? What’s your brand? Knowing who you are, and I think being really comfortable with what that means and living and breathing it. I think that really does make a difference with a brand. It doesn’t matter what vertical you’re in. 

00:23:27 Cheryl Gray 

How much is technology playing a role in the future retailer space?  

00:23:32 Dominique Lamb 

Yeah, enormously. I mean, I think the thing about Rome was that everything that they were talking about Australian retailers are talking about. The difference is that they’re doing it probably 18 months ahead of us, if not longer. So, they spend a lot of time talking about technology and using technology to cure things that were directly relevant to environment. Whether it was reducing carbon footprint, sustainability, modern slavery, all of the things around supply chain. But they also spend a lot of time talking about people and the people component there, what that looked like and how you could utilise technology to engage change with your staff members you know. Do you have apps? Do you train them online. What components need to be face-to-face? All of those kinds of things. 

So, I think that digital is here to stay. It’s more prominent in the US and certainly more prominent in Europe and the UK than it is here, but it’s coming. 

00:24:26 Cheryl Gray 

How much are visuals and brands still such an important component for retailers, is it about the look? 

00:24:35 Dominique Lamb 

Absolutely. I think is that the look and the feel. Your demographic is always going to gravitate towards something that looks and feels like them and I don’t think you can do that without visuals. I think it’s evolving as well in terms of diversity of visuals. 

I don’t know if anyone else has been seeing the new types of captioning that’s happening on Instagram. Certainly, when you’re selling socials, you need to describe it for those that are visually impaired. It’s about describing imagery, because imagery and video are absolutely killing it, and we saw that increase throughout covid. We saw that people were watching videos longer than that. They went to three minutes because they had the time, and you know that tech is certainly not going anywhere, and people aren’t moving away from it. 

00:25:15 Cheryl Gray 

Women’s Network Australia is now the Australian representative for We Connect International which is the certifying body for women owned businesses and plays a matchmaking role between global buyers and women owned businesses. Having taken on that role, I’m now speaking to some of those buyers and becoming acutely aware of the massive opportunity for women owned businesses where you’ve got the likes of Microsoft, IBM, big global companies with targets wanting to spend their dollars with Australian women owned businesses. 

And the ease of access to find those businesses and be able to do business with them is actually a bit of a challenge. So, the fact that they are starting to collaborate and come together and look at diversity, inclusion and supply as an industry wide issue, and how to solve that, is surely good news for retailers and all women in business. 

00:26:10 Dominique Lamb 

I think it’s great news for women in business. I think that if we look at our retail sector we’re not particularly good at the diversity component, which is actually quite shocking when you think about it. So, we employed 1.2 million people and women are third of them are young people, but we have less than 8% female CEOs in this space. 

So yes, as small businesses will be predominantly female lead, especially our online retailers, this is a great thing for them if they know how to access it. And certainly, if they are in a position to have all their ducks in a row to engage with it, but I think as an industry overall we have a really long way to go in that space. 

00:26:49 Cheryl Gray 

Do you have any data about pre-loved retail gaining in popularity, given sustainability and caring for the environment are growing as themes? 

00:27:00 Dominique Lamb 

You know, it’s interesting, because I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them, but there has been a rise of not only rental market but also kind of a completely circular fashion, and the increase now that we’re seeing is major brands like Universal Store for instance, are stocking preloved items and we know that if you go shopping at Iconic now, you can join up with Air Robe for instance. And you can sell the items that you’re purchasing, so this is something that is the expectation of the consumer. 

00:27:32 Cheryl Gray 

It kind of feels like there’s even going to be disruptors to the disruptors. You know, like eBay in its day was very much seen as a disruptor, and now we’ve got disruptors to the disruptor. 

00:27:42 Dominique Lamb 

Definitely. I mean, I think it’s ever evolving. Every six months we see something interesting coming up. There’s is a focus on sustainability, focus on true circular economy or just giving back to the community. I mean, Designer X is really based on wanting to assist women in supplementing their income because they’re buying fashion anyway. 

00:28:02 Cheryl Gray 

Just going back to what you said in terms of government listening to the retail voice. I mean, when you when you think of the size of the sector, the importance that it has in the economy, and the impacts of those issues, now wage increases are going to be a significant issue. Obviously for retails accessing superannuation and increases in superannuation are all starting to really squish the pipeline in terms of cash flow even further for retailers. When do governments actually listen and see what the impact is on the sector? 

00:28:35 Dominique Lamb 

There’s a lot of buck passing I guess in this industrial space, right? So, I think there’s no doubt about it. We want people to have money to spend on discretionary items which of course, is going to improve the economy. 

And we want to have consumer and business confidence. The biggest issue is if we push wages up too far now, bearing in mind, New Zealand have just legislated an 11% increase then of course, inflation rates also rise, and it is this kind of chicken and egg situation where businesses costs continue to rise. How many of them, particularly small businesses or sole traders will survive who aren’t getting the increases that are just coping the hits. And I think this is something that really needs to be looked at in terms of stimulus and where we invest and how we treat women in business in particular. I think that there’s a few big issues that will come out of this next election. Whoever is in power will appoint the next President of the Fair Work Commission, who has a lot of say in minimum wage and what that looks like. 

I think we need to see reform in the industrial space, and the coalition is showing absolutely no appetite for that. And we know that the Labor Government will 100% criminalise underpayments. Which is something else to be grappled with, but we also know in saying that, the Labour Government will heavily invest in skills, and they’ll heavily invest in subsidising this in order to ensure that they can employ people, they can train people.  

If you look at how that’s played out in states like Queensland, you know, sometimes you can get up to $21,000 to invest in a long term unemployed person which is well over half of a full time wage, right? So, there’s a lot of questions here. The biggest problem with politics is that the politics gets in the way. We really need to see a considered approach around a lot of these decisions because they have flow on effects to so many parts of the community and I don’t think anyone can deny that the coalition has failed to invest human capital of our country for some time. There are investments that need to be made around education around health and around other things that we haven’t seen. We might need to look at re capitalising on a few things to make sure that we get them right, because right now they’re not. 

00:30:50 Cheryl Gray 

So, dare we say interesting times. 

For very small retailers, for sole traders, for those who are classed as micro businesses, I think what you were saying earlier about the customer experience, the diversity of income streams, and some of those experiences from Rome about creating the unique experience, having very clear values, and what makes you different from a similar product offering or a service offering for that matter, are really valuable. Any other hints and tips to survive the rough waters ahead? 

00:31:22 Dominique Lamb 

It’s funny, I watched a presentation yesterday at the jewellery collective, where a presenter talked about the five things that you can do to improve the experience in the store, and I think that they are very simple things that are very telling. 

It came down to things like curating the music that is on and he gave a whole raft statistics around, like you can’t play Christmas music if you’re not a Christmas store, it actually gives you a 19% decline in sales, right? So, curating the music that you’re playing, giving the consumer an addition or some form of value that they weren’t expecting was another one. The scent. 

00:31:55 Cheryl Gray 

I like the Tim Tams I think that’s kinda cool. 

00:31:58 Dominique Lamb 

Well, they got a lot of pushback when they played an April Fool’s joke about not including them anymore. They said they’re going to include sultanas and it was a swift response. The Tim tams were very important. 

He said, offering a refreshment, but not a too high end refreshment and not too low end refreshment. It was around that $5 mark that it seemed to be acceptable, if you wanted to keep them in store. If you were selling things like jewellery for instance, it was a good idea. But alcohol was perceived negatively. 

He also said scenting was really important, so if you picked one scent consistently, sprayed it on a piece of paper and put it inside the box, it had a repeat customer impact. 

Then the last one was creating a show out of wrapping. It didn’t matter what colour the wrapping was. The textures were really important for fingertips, so things like taffeta or rough edges because of the sensitivity of fingertips, it didn’t matter what colours were there. If it was Spiderman wrapping paper. It did not matter. But the process of wrapping and doing this service for the customer, had this impact or value and had them returning. 

00:33:01 Cheryl Gray 

Dom, thank you very much for your time and your generosity. We look forward to sharing and hearing more about what’s in the retail space. 

00:33:08 Dominique Lamb 

Thank you. 

00:33:11 Louise Poole 

What another amazing trailblazer we’ve managed to find Cheryl! 

00:33:14 Cheryl Gray 

I know they just keep coming, don’t they? I think those tips from Dom around, not just what’s happening and what retailers are doing, but how we can actually then use them in whatever business sector we’re in, helps us all blaze that trail. 

00:33:30 More information from Dominique can be found by heading to our website womensnetwork.com.au where you also wrote an article based on those 5 tips. 

00:33:48 Cheryl Gray 

I did indeed, and we can share more information. And they can also go to the National Retail Association website which has some good resources for people in that sector, but people generally as well. 

00:33:53 Louise Poole 

How else can we connect with Women’s Network Australia?  

00:33:55 Cheryl Gray 

We’re on social media. We are on Facebook. We are on Instagram. We are on LinkedIn, and you can find us on any of those platforms. Just have a look for Women’s Network Australia. 

00:33:58 Louise Poole 

Next time on WNA Trailblazers. 

00:34:01 Faith Agugu 

Every woman ages on our own terms, in our own way. It’s great that there’s women that are ageing in a spectacular way. They’ve kept their figures. They look amazing. They’re fit. It’s great. Those women usually were always beautiful anyway, but not everyone has that. So, I think it’s for us to understand that if that’s not us, we still have so much else to contribute. 

00:34:22 Louise Poole 

Therapist, healer and mindfulness coach Faith Agugu, chats about finding our power later in life, combating invisibility for women over 50, and the inspiring work she does through the inclusive community she created called Silver Sirens. 

00:34:36 Louise Poole 

Women’s Network Australia Trail Blazers. Amplifying the stories of women in business.  

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