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The Case Against Luxury Slowdown
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00:00Thank you for joining us. It is a great pleasure for us to be here.
00:06My name is Harley Finkelstein, I'm the president of Shopify.
00:09And we are the platform that powers many, many of your favorite brands.
00:15Now most of you will know Shopify from powering brands like Gymshark and Mattel and Skims and Lounge.
00:22But what you may not know is that we also power Totem, Pucci, The Row, Isabel Marant,
00:28Dover Street Market, Pauline.
00:31And I'm very, very honored today to have you join me on the stage, my friend of many years.
00:37We met actually at BOF Voices, I think, so shout out to Imran and BOF.
00:42But Nicola and I have been friends for quite some time.
00:44It is one of my favorite brands on the planet.
00:47And as you just heard, they are coming to Shopify very, very soon.
00:52Nicola, thank you for joining me.
00:54Hello, everyone. Thank you, Harley, for your invitation.
00:57I'm very pleased to be here to share some part of our common experience
01:02and tell you a little bit about what we're building because it's still building.
01:06It's still building.
01:07Just a show of hands here, how many of you in the room own a piece of clothing from Ami
01:12Paris?
01:14Next time we're on stage, we're going to double that number.
01:18I want to get right into it because I think this topic is really, really important.
01:21It seems like everyone right now is talking about the slowdown in luxury retail.
01:28And that a lot of luxury brands, luxury houses are in a bit of a precarious situation financially.
01:35It's always been hard to grab consumers' attention.
01:38It feels like right now it's kind of harder than ever before.
01:41But I actually disagree with the headlines.
01:44I actually think that right now it is probably one of the biggest opportunities
01:48in the history of retail and fashion for great brands to innovate and to build.
01:54And amongst all the doom and gloom stories that are out there,
01:58there are a couple glimmers of hope.
02:01And one of those glimmers of hope is Nicola and what Ami is doing.
02:05And so I want to start a little bit with the Ami story.
02:08Ami was founded in 2011, you joined in 2013, I believe.
02:14At the time you had about eight flagships in Paris, London, Asia.
02:18But you were also sort of pioneering this idea that luxury can not just be offline,
02:22it can also be online.
02:23So maybe, Nicola, let's start with the story of Ami and we'll go from there.
02:28Okay, so yeah. Ami was founded by a creative guy called Alexandre Matussi.
02:33He made his way, he started at about 11 years at LVMH,
02:38being a stylist for Dior, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs.
02:42But at one point he felt a little bit disconnected with the real life.
02:46He said, I'm spending my whole day designing garments
02:49that are not real garments in the street,
02:53that some of my friends cannot afford,
02:54and I want to come back to reality.
02:57What is very precious with Alexandre,
02:59is that that he's both, I mean, he's got his head in the cloud,
03:04but he's foot grounded on the floor.
03:06And he said, now I want to create my own brand,
03:09I want to make something that makes sense for me.
03:12And the final goal wouldn't be to be on the cover of Fashion Magazine,
03:16wouldn't be to be on the Fashion Walk,
03:18but my final goal would be to see my garments worn on the streets,
03:22on terrace of cafe, in movie theater, etc.
03:25In real life.
03:26In real life.
03:27And that's why he called it Ami,
03:29because Ami first is the letters of his name,
03:31A for Alexandre, M, I for Matussi.
03:34But it's also his goal.
03:36His goal was to dress his friend,
03:37and like he liked to say, to build a family,
03:40with Ami in the middle of family,
03:42but a family that you choose, an inclusive family.
03:45And that was really his goal when he created this brand.
03:47And when he told me this,
03:49he told me how much friendship is his key value.
03:52For sure, it brought a common sense,
03:54and it excites me to join him.
03:55And that was, actually I met with him in 2012.
03:59It's an incredible story.
04:01First of all, I didn't know that Ami,
04:03obviously I know it means friend,
04:04but I didn't realize that it was about accessibility.
04:07Let's get right into it.
04:08Let's talk about this tension that I think we all feel a little bit
04:13between high-end brands, luxury, fashion,
04:17but also digital technology.
04:20Something that I find is particularly interesting is that
04:23right now the trend in retail and fashion is direct to consumer.
04:28And my hypothesis is that it's not just a trend or a fad,
04:33but rather a steady state.
04:35And it strikes me as somewhat ironic
04:37that some of these brands that have always been direct to consumer
04:41are the ones that are most hesitant to embrace new technology,
04:45even though luxury brands, I mean, you guys are the OGs of DTC.
04:50You've been doing direct to consumer for so long.
04:54And so part of what I think is missing is
04:56there's a bit of a fear of the unknown,
04:57there's a fear of how do I replicate a beautiful offline experience
05:01in an online kind of technology world,
05:05and yet you have been doing it now for quite some time.
05:07So the question I really have for you is,
05:10if there are brands in the crowd right now
05:12who are thinking about innovating
05:14and moving from more traditional retail
05:16to actually more innovative, thoughtful, modern retail,
05:20what's the advice you'd give to them
05:22that you have yourself applied at Amir Paris?
05:26I'll try to make it quite simple.
05:28I think sometimes the mistake we might do
05:31is to consider online on one side and offline on the other side.
05:35As if they're competing a little bit.
05:36Yeah, exactly. And sometimes different, even different teams,
05:39total different teams in the fashion brands.
05:42Sorry for my voice.
05:44I'm just back from Cannes
05:45and I left part of it over there.
05:47But, and with the noise, it's not that easy,
05:48but I think the idea when you want to go D2C,
05:52there is no boundary between online and offline.
05:55As we discussed together,
05:58I think online is the best way
05:59to do a proper offline development.
06:02Because with all the tools you have,
06:04with all the KPI, the metrics,
06:06you can find which city, which country,
06:08which city really is in desire of your brand.
06:11And then when you decide to go abroad,
06:14I think that if you want to succeed online,
06:17the best way is to open a store over there.
06:19because when you talk about the US,
06:21when you talk about China,
06:23those markets being so big,
06:25so huge.
06:26You know that even if you open a store,
06:27maybe 90% of the people of this country,
06:30they won't come to your store.
06:32But when they go,
06:33they will go and they will visit your online shop.
06:35If they see that you open a store in the country,
06:38it will be the key factor of reassurance
06:40to let them say,
06:42okay, this run is serious.
06:43They really address my market.
06:45They hear if I have any trouble,
06:47if I have any customer service issue,
06:49I can call them,
06:50I can visit the store, whatever.
06:52So it's totally,
06:53you cannot think one without thinking of the other one.
06:56Online helps you fine tune and locate your stores,
06:59and stores give security to potential new clients.
07:03So this is where I think it's difficult to split,
07:06and you have to use both.
07:08And this is where for us coming on Shopify
07:10is a key marker for the development of AMI.
07:14We used to partner with Farfetch for 11 years,
07:16they've been helping us a lot.
07:18They really build our,
07:21like, international online footprint.
07:23But now it's about time for us,
07:25as we've been developing a lot.
07:27And you know we've been,
07:29we have part of our amazing team,
07:31AMI teams here in the room.
07:33Shout out to the AMI team.
07:33And I would like to thank all of them,
07:35because this story,
07:36and when we call,
07:37the brand is called AMI,
07:38this has to make sense.
07:39We have amazing people in the room.
07:42And for the past four years,
07:44there's been COVID,
07:45then there's been the war.
07:47And I mean,
07:47I don't want to insist on those dark fights,
07:49but they do exist.
07:50But despite all of this,
07:52we went from 30 to more than 300 million euros.
07:55We multiply by 10 in four years.
07:57Why?
07:58Because we believe so much in what we do.
08:00We believe in being kind,
08:03in being honest,
08:03in being not crazy about the prices,
08:05but crazy about the quality.
08:07And last but not least,
08:09to do this with people we like,
08:11to trust people like we trust you.
08:13I remember this talk, you know,
08:15when we're on stage at Voices,
08:16and you say,
08:17Nicholas, I want to address luxury.
08:19I want to address French market.
08:21And today here we're on stage.
08:23Yeah.
08:23So just so you know,
08:24we've been working on this partnership for years.
08:26I've been pitching Nikolai to come to Shopify,
08:29and in about a week's time,
08:32it finally happens.
08:33And I told them backstage
08:33that I want to be the first person
08:35to buy off the new Ami website online store.
08:38But just before we move on,
08:41Nikola just revealed something
08:42that I want to double down on,
08:44because it's very important.
08:45At a time where every headline you read
08:49specifically talks about
08:51the challenge of the consumer,
08:53the macro economy,
08:55Ami Paris went from 30 million
08:58to 300 million.
09:00They 10X their business.
09:01There is something special
09:03about particular brands right now
09:05that see opportunity when others see fear.
09:08And you talk a little bit about
09:09online and offline being different.
09:12One of the things that I find infuriating
09:15is that a lot of people in commerce and retail
09:18talk about channel conflict.
09:19That one channel is hurting another channel.
09:22that if I sell too much online,
09:24my offline channel is going to be affected.
09:28I think that's complete BS.
09:30And I think the brands,
09:31we have millions of stores on Shopify,
09:33we've sold almost a trillion dollars
09:36on our platform.
09:37Almost a trillion.
09:39I find the brands that are most successful,
09:42most thoughtful,
09:43are the ones that don't view them
09:44as different channels,
09:45but view the entire experience
09:47in itself as a unified single experience.
09:51I want to talk a bit about the consumer
09:53because there's a stat that I read
09:55in doing research for this talk,
09:57which is this.
09:58This is unbelievable.
10:00The top 2% of luxury customers
10:03drive 40% of luxury sales.
10:08The top 2% drop 40%.
10:11Now in most retail,
10:13you have what they call the Pareto principle.
10:15Many of you have heard of this.
10:1680-20.
10:17So 20% drives 80% or vice versa.
10:21But luxury is its own category of things.
10:24And there's a category within luxury
10:26called VICs,
10:27very important customers.
10:29It strikes me that that 2%
10:33expects an elevated experience.
10:35Personalization is really, really important.
10:37You guys did something holiday 2023
10:41where you did a mystery box.
10:43I want you to explain a little bit about the mystery box
10:46because that to me was one of the best examples
10:48on the planet of personalization
10:50and how you think about personalization in general,
10:53where it's going.
10:54Okay.
10:55I will do two parts in answering your question.
10:59First, I would just like to come back on your part
11:01about the crisis and the way
11:03what we can build in crisis.
11:04When I told you the figures about turnover,
11:08it's not to be proud.
11:09It's just to show that it's totally possible.
11:11It's feasible.
11:12I think in France,
11:13in France,
11:14sometimes we're a little bit worried.
11:16We question ourselves.
11:17Can we do it?
11:18Should we do it?
11:19Et cetera.
11:20And in a crisis period,
11:21with all the bad news,
11:22you know,
11:22I cannot do it.
11:23I cannot finance my brand.
11:24Yes, we can.
11:25We can.
11:26We can find partners.
11:27And I think at AMI,
11:29we consider crisis as big opportunity.
11:33Opportunity to get market share that you wouldn't get.
11:37Opportunity to get location in luxury malls
11:40that would go only to the big groups that you couldn't do.
11:43But to do so,
11:44we created our own architect department in-house.
11:47Today, we have five full-time architects.
11:50Building at your stores.
11:51Yes.
11:51Wow.
11:51Building the stores, the pop-up,
11:53the new head office.
11:54So not relying on a third party to do it.
11:56Too long.
11:57Too long.
11:57We have now,
11:58we hired first,
12:00like a talented architect called Loic.
12:02And I told him when we hire him,
12:04I hope we'll be able to hire a second one within two years.
12:08And within two years,
12:09we were seven.
12:09So,
12:10my idea on this point is just to say,
12:12be dairy,
12:13be creative.
12:14Consider crisis as opportunity to build things,
12:17as long as you work,
12:18as long as you make your dream come true,
12:20but move yourself.
12:23Accept the idea that,
12:25failure can be part of the journey.
12:27I mean,
12:28you, American,
12:29Anglo-Saxon entrepreneurs,
12:30you have this into your guts.
12:32In France,
12:32we talk a lot,
12:33we read a lot,
12:34we question a lot,
12:35but we don't move a lot.
12:36So,
12:37let's make it happen.
12:38We're not the only brand.
12:39There are other amazing brands,
12:41younger,
12:42smaller,
12:42bigger.
12:43I just would like,
12:44you know,
12:44to be an example.
12:45I just would like to say,
12:46people,
12:47it's feasible.
12:48Let's make it happen.
12:49Then,
12:49to come back on your question about the mystery box,
12:53we like to have fun.
12:54You know,
12:55Alexandre is the same.
12:56We like to challenge ourselves.
12:57We like each day to be different from the other one.
13:00And this idea was to come back on this playful idea,
13:04you know,
13:04when you went to grocery in France,
13:06and you go to buy a croissant or pain au chocolat,
13:10and you had this huge,
13:11you know,
13:12blue or pink mystery boxes.
13:14You never knew what was inside.
13:15Maybe you spent five years before asking to your parents,
13:18can I buy one?
13:19Anyone saving money to buy one?
13:20And then five years later,
13:22say, what is inside?
13:22I don't know.
13:23We did the exact same story online.
13:25So,
13:26people could buy.
13:27We did a limited edition with 999 boxes,
13:30mystery boxes,
13:32nine being Alex's lucky number.
13:34And they knew that they would have access to certain private sales,
13:39but the final gift was only released on the day of Christmas.
13:44on December 20 years.
13:45And it went from having a full day of shopping,
13:48free shopping in a flagship store in Saint-Honoré in Paris,
13:51to having a coffee with Alexandre,
13:54to getting the full winter capsule collection.
13:58We wanted to have fun.
13:59So, this was a little bit headache
14:01because our IT and digital team
14:04was already working on the replatforming,
14:06which is a huge amount of work,
14:08but we have a cool and a very innovative creative team,
14:11and we say, let's make it happen,
14:13and we did it.
14:14And it was fun.
14:14It's an amazing thing because, in particular,
14:17you don't have barriers or there are no limits
14:20to where the Amie Paris brand starts and stops.
14:24It's all fully integrated.
14:25It's in your store.
14:26It's online.
14:27It's having coffee with Alexandre.
14:29It's meeting you.
14:30I mean,
14:31this idea that commerce being everywhere
14:33is exactly what we believe also.
14:35You know, often I get asked these questions.
14:38I just did CNBC 20 minutes ago outside,
14:41and they said,
14:42do you believe the future of retail is online only?
14:46And I said, no way.
14:47I think the future of retail is on every single surface area
14:50where consumers spend time.
14:52And I think the biggest shift in retail that people are not realizing
14:54is that it's all about the consumer choice.
14:57If you go back 20 years ago,
14:59the retailer dictated to the consumer how to buy.
15:02Wait in line.
15:03Store hours.
15:04Use this credit card.
15:05Go here.
15:06Return policy like this.
15:08And I think what's changing is now,
15:10consumers are dictating to the retailer,
15:12I love your brand.
15:13I want to be a participant.
15:15I want to be a supporter, a customer,
15:17an influencer of your brand,
15:19but I want to buy it in the most convenient way possible.
15:22And every surface area where we as consumers spend time,
15:25that should be transactable.
15:27And I think that's what you're talking about,
15:29whether it's the mystery box, the online, the offline.
15:32I mean, the fact that you've hired architects.
15:34You're a fashion brand.
15:35You've hired architects internally to build out your spaces,
15:38I think is incredible.
15:40I have a final question.
15:42You and I have these discussions by phone fairly often.
15:45You and I had a call three weeks ago,
15:47and you shared something with me that I'm,
15:49I didn't ask your permission,
15:50but I'm going to share it with the crowd anyway.
15:52You said, and I quote,
15:55I want to make the experience at Ami Paris luxurious
15:58and great for every single customer,
16:01including the 17-year-old coming in for the first time
16:05just to buy an Ami hat.
16:09Why?
16:11I think it's very...
16:13Because those are not your VVIP customers.
16:16That's just a 17-year-old kid who just made some money.
16:18We think we have...
16:19I think many fashion brands, luxury brands, during COVID,
16:22they just increased crazily the price, you know?
16:24Yeah.
16:25And for us, it's like they went from luxury to super luxury.
16:29And we, in that time, like, improved many of our process,
16:33IT, quality, et cetera, communication, everything.
16:37And we question ourselves.
16:39You know, we work with the philosophies, with sociologists,
16:42with a consultant, et cetera, et cetera,
16:44to find the...
16:45To redefine the value and the positioning of Ami.
16:49And we were hesitating with the word luxury.
16:51We say, are we really luxury?
16:53Yes, because we use the same factory.
16:55We don't give the same final retail price,
16:57but it's the same factory.
16:58But, at the same time, we don't want to be exclusive,
17:02because luxury means exclusive.
17:03It's too expensive, you cannot get it.
17:05With Ami, we say, we want to be very demanding
17:07for the quality of fabrics, the making, the service.
17:12And it turned out that someone from our team
17:14has an excellent idea to say,
17:16guys, let's add a word that will make luxury compatible with Ami.
17:22We call it the friendly luxury.
17:23And what does it mean?
17:24It means you take care of your client.
17:26No matter, it's the VVVIP that can buy your whole store in 10 minutes,
17:31or it's this cool kid that just stepped in,
17:33he's so happy because he saved money.
17:35He could finally afford, like, to have this great piece.
17:38And you want him to feel comfortable,
17:39because you don't know.
17:40He may be an amazing entrepreneur
17:42and be a billionaire in two years.
17:43You never know.
17:44And if, what we told to our team, the training is,
17:47if you cannot make him a client, make him a friend.
17:49So he must have a good experience.
17:52Wow. If you cannot make him a client, make him a friend.
17:54Because if he's a friend, even if he buys one product,
17:56the next time he wants to go shopping somewhere,
17:58he'll go to his friend.
17:59Yeah, and it will be, you know, that's the idea.
18:01Like, Alexandre says himself,
18:03we're not changing the world.
18:04We're not doing, like, a three-legs pants.
18:06But we want people to be happy, you know,
18:08when they look in the mirror when they arrive to work.
18:10If you like your clothes, you have a smile on your face.
18:12If you have a smile on your face,
18:14you will share it to your team.
18:15And look at the team.
18:16We have a smiling team.
18:17And for us, it's the most important thing.
18:19I can tell you a little story, like,
18:21about two weeks ago, we decided to gather all the team
18:24because it grew so much.
18:26We went from 200% to 600% in two years.
18:29So you have to follow this.
18:31You have to make sure that the people from the beginning
18:33are still assured that we go on the same value.
18:37But you need the new ones to know those values.
18:40So we gather all of them in a movie theater.
18:42We don't want a big conference room to tell them the story,
18:45to remind them the value of the brand.
18:48And at the end of the day, you know,
18:50we brought them out just to have a few drinks just to gather
18:53and to mix up.
18:54But the last point I would like to insist on is be consistent,
18:58be respectful.
19:00Sometimes we have, I don't give name,
19:02but we have high strategy about those VAC,
19:04and we don't apply the same philosophy to our teams.
19:07Or we have amazing things about our teams,
19:09putting them on stage,
19:11but we don't do the same with our factory and our supplier.
19:13Believe me, I've seen really bad things during COVID.
19:16People or brands taking the excuse of COVID,
19:19of crisis, of hard lockdown,
19:21to cut orders, to cut staff.
19:24So I think this idea of consistency only works if you mean it.
19:28If you mean it, you have to do it in your own country.
19:30You have to do it abroad.
19:32And this is what we did with China.
19:34First, it's an amazing market.
19:36They are totally crazy about the brand.
19:39Today, globally, we have 800 point of sales.
19:42We can be luxury department store, concept store,
19:45and we have 63 stores.
19:47We have more than 20 in China.
19:49We have amazing stores the size of Apple store.
19:51Why?
19:52Because we love China.
19:53It's not only sourcing or production.
19:55It's only amazing emerging clients.
19:58And I see time going by.
20:00I would like to share with you,
20:02and for all those who didn't raise their hand,
20:04a small video about a fashion show we did about a month ago in China.
20:09We didn't go to Beijing.
20:11We didn't go to Shanghai or Hong Kong.
20:13We went to Suzhou, as you can see on the screen,
20:15and with this fashion show on an ancient wall by the canal
20:19in this amazing street, which is the heart of, like,
20:22there was many UNESCO garden over there.
20:25And for us, it was one of the most beautiful show we ever did.
20:28Maybe I like the video talk for yourself.
20:31Yeah.
20:33It's quite amazing because as you sort of think about all this talk of doom and gloom
20:37and luxury struggles and brands not really understanding how to embrace modern, you know,
20:52online and offline are different, embraces new technology, partners with, you know,
20:57it's an honor, truly, that you've decided to partner with Shopify for this as well.
21:01But if you want to see the future of retail for all of you,
21:04I think look no further than Nikolai and his team at Ami Paris.
21:08And frankly, if you want to see real optimism in the world of retail and commerce and fashion,
21:13look no further than our partnership and what we're doing together.
21:18We are 9,000 of us at Shopify.
21:20We power about 11% of the internet in the US, about 5% of all e-commerce here in
21:26Europe.
21:27But the reason that we're spending so much time right here with these incredible, iconic brands
21:31is because we think this is probably the greatest time of retail of the last 100 years.
21:36And it's going to be powered by companies like Shopify,
21:39but it's going to be driven by brands like Ami Paris and leaders like Nikola.
21:43Thank you so much for joining me.
21:44As you are in Paris, I'd just like to tell you merci mon ami for your invitation.
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