The Trust Gap: Why Retail Experiences Are Failing the Informed, Empowered, Modern Consumer

Steve Usher (00:00): So, Amna, welcome to The Experienced Designers. Amna Khan (00:02): Thank you very much for having me. Steve Usher (00:04): Brilliant, brilliant. Thank you for joining. I know you're fairly fresh off of stage here at the London Experience Week. How have you found it so far? What's been your first impressions entering into this unique space of Ministry of Sound, but also engaging with some of the community here? Amna Khan (00:20): I think it's just incredible. The moment you walk in, you are transformed. We open those doors and you've got the hashtag London Experience Week, the lights low. And I'm here obviously with my system and we were just like, wow, we're just in a different world. I've spoken on so many stages. I've spoken globally, but this hit differently. The whole atmosphere felt as though I was somewhere else and the way that the lightings used, the sounds used, the environment's created. I felt like there was dry ice in there. It just felt like you just stepped somewhere out removed. It just magical, magical. And I think the people, the minute you walk in, it's so warm. You can feel that warmth of everyone. They're very connected. They want to connect with you. And everybody's smiling at you. Everybody wants to speak to you and find out who you are. (01:14): And I just love that. This is my first experience and within the first, say, 10 minutes of being here, I'd already met a few people. 10 minutes. It's just incredible. Steve Usher (01:23): It is. It is. I support that and I think it's only going to get better and better as the years go on. But just for the audience, what was your topic and what's the passion and the knowledge that you've brought to this amazing event? Amna Khan (01:36): So my topic is trust, consumer trust, and how it develops and how fragmented trust is today and how we can shape and evolve trust given that the context has changed. A bit of a background into me. I'm an academic. I have a PhD from Alliance Manchester Business School, so I've been researching consumers for over a decade now and it's my passion, a lot of interest there. My PhD was sponsored by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals. Hence, I did a deep dive into trust. I've really tried to understand the mechanics of how it works. And this was a unique opportunity to bring academic research to the London Experience Week. I know we've got the incredible Joe Pine who is an academic at heart and a great guru in the space of experiences. He's a though leader in that space and it's a complete honour to actually be in the same space as him and to be able to speak as an academic. (02:26): But one of the things that was really unique about this event is that as an audience, you've got so many different types of industries there. So for example, I've walked off the stage and spoke to somebody from EY, then somebody's speaking to me about a challenge or experience event that they've created. And then there's somebody else who's saying that they're also an academic here and it's very eclectic. There's a lot of variety of people that you can meet and there's a lot of passion and energy in the room as well to understand different perspectives. And that's what I really enjoy and like that I can bring something a bit unique and different, which is based on research, science and academic knowledge. And it's just an opportunity to share that. Steve Usher (03:07): Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about the project with AstraZeneca and that funding to go. What was it to go do what? What Amna Khan (03:13): Was Steve Usher (03:14): Kind of the focus for it? Amna Khan (03:16): So the scholarship was for AstraZeneca. It was for a PhD and it was to understand the Chinese market because they wanted to find out more about how to do business in China. And so one of the key constructs in China is trust and that trust is manifested in lots of different networks and the Guanchi relationships. And it's very common in Asian cultures to have these networks, which your personal networks, which filter back into your workplaces. Now, Guanchi has a high level of trust and it has an organisational aspect, but it's primarily an emotional and personal relationship that makes its way there. So the interest came from AstraZeneca to want a PhD done in the trust space, not in the trust space in China and I did trust because I just knew that it was such an important construct. And one of the things about trust is it's contextual. (04:10): So how you develop trust in, say, for example, the West is not the same as you was developing China. They're very, very different. They have very different components in the sense that the value of emotional aspects of it versus the cognitive aspects might be very, very different from the West. And we do know that statistically, and it is quite significant that they are very different. Then trust is different in any context because it's cultural. It's based on the culture. Steve Usher (04:37): Yeah. So with trust and the culture and nuances, have you broken down what trust me is? Are there different kind of levels of trust? Are there different ... What have you discovered through that? Amna Khan (04:50): So trust happens at many different levels. And what my PhD explored is the organisational level, which looks at competence, reputation, your ability to deliver to what consumers expect, performance in those spaces, whether that's how you've delivered your good as a delivery driver or the standard of your good or your service or your experience, what people say about it. But then you've got the emotional side, which is the warmth, the feelings and the energy that you get and how they feel. And that's very much the emotional sides of the relationship. Because sometimes we think that when you have a relationship with an organisation, it's all based on brands, but it's not. The human element is so important. People do business with people. We have always done people business. That's the way that we've been constructed. It's part of the way that we are as humans. And that's been diluted by this idea that we do business with brands and businesses. (05:43): But essentially, even when you go and do business to business interactions, you're actually working with somebody who's a representative of an organisation, but it's still a person. And that's the deeper level of trust because if you think about trust, it's cyclical. It develops slowly and incrementally through exchanges. And you can have the cognitive elements, which I found were very important, the organisational aspects such as are you going to deliver the products? Yeah. That's important. What's your reputation for delivering? It's the first stage almost. And the emotional aspects would always come second because then you would develop that relationship with someone. Because as you were developing the organisational exchanges, you take a little bit more risk, take a bit more trust in that relationship, but then you'd get to know the person too. So you've got these two things that are happening at the same time. (06:29): You're still delivering the products, but I'm getting to know what Steve's like and whether we can have a business relationship or we can develop some sort of connections, interest that make that relationship feel a bit warmer. We've got feelings in those relationships. And then these critical incidents, there'll be times when I need Steve to show up because I've got a crisis, for example, does he show up and does the organisation allow him to show up? Show up. (06:55): And that really matters for trust, especially in a critical incident. What my research established is that you can really accelerate trust at that point because they really need you and they're very vulnerable. And if you show up in that period of time, they will trust you more. Steve Usher (07:12): Is there something like a service paradox related to that where you have this opportunity to recover trust and the service or experience when something really does go wrong, but then you're able to recover it quickly. In that moment, you're actually able to increase that level of, I think, trust or certainly the overall experience between the two. There's something in that, isn't that the two? I believe anyway, there's something around Amna Khan (07:36): That. So I believe there is some research around it. I don't know it exactly, Steve. But what I do know is that that's your moment of truth to determine how important that relationship is and whether you want to recover that relationship, because if you don't, you won't do anything about it. (07:51): So if you realise you've done something wrong, your first instance will be to try and correct that. Service recovery is so important and it's that critical incident that can be the difference between you staying and having a longer relationship and actually building that trust again. And it might actually be more resilient after that. Whereas if you don't look after it, it's quite easy for them to go because there's a message in there, isn't there? Yeah. You're not that important that we don't need to look after you. We don't need to take care of you. And there's a lot more of the benevolence aspect of trust in there, the caring aspect of it, the empathy aspect, understanding aspect. And we sometimes think of organisations like there's no emotion in them. That's not true. Very Steve Usher (08:34): True. Amna Khan (08:34): The more emotion that you have in the relationship, the deeper and more meaningful. In fact, the research shows that the effect-based emotion aspect of the relationship is twice as impactful in the trust development process and in trust, makes it more resilient and is more long-lasting. And that's why it matters because we do piousness between people. Steve Usher (08:56): Yeah. We kind of lost that a little bit, I think. What's happening on a more macro level right now with this kind of organisational trust and what's some of the shifts culturally that you've observed and through your research that you've seen happening out there? What's some of the challenges that have been, I guess, born from the back of that? Amna Khan (09:15): So what we understand by trust is, like you've said, it's contextual, there's macro dynamics that are happening, but they're happening on a very large scale and they're happening globally. As I said, we trusted brands and businesses as consumers because we sort of lost that personal aspect. And if you look at retail, for example, where I've worked for many years, I can only remember one incident when I actually developed a relationship with somebody who I kept seeing because the dynamics of retail and many organisations and experiences that you meet somebody once, you don't see them again. No. So you don't have that repetition to be able to develop that trust because it happens over time. It isn't a time construct just because you've got a length of a relationship. It doesn't build a trust. It's the interactions and the exchanges that build the trust. I agree. (09:59): It's about how many times we've had these iterations between us that help you to build a trust. Now in retail, that would rarely happen. Like I said, I worked as a Sunday supervisor for House of Fraser for about seven years. And I met one customer who you would come in with her daughter every couple of Sundays. They used to come from Liverpool. Look how well I remember them. They used to come from Liverpool just on a Sunday because that was the only day the mom had off work and that was the day that the Liverpool Shopping Centre would be closed and that's when they would shop. And for repeatedly seeing them, they would repeatedly see me because I was a Sunday member of staff too. We built interactions and started to learn more about her daughter's preferences. And she'd be like, "What's coming that's really interesting? (10:44): And my daughter would like. " Or all of a sudden we had this relationship and it's like even if they were walking past my department, they'd come back to just say, "Hey, you're right." And that's important and that's what we didn't used to get, but it's fundamentally changed now because with the explosion of social media, that personal aspect has been able to be distributed massively among consumers and consumers can now connect with people individually. Whether you're a creative founder or influencer or even a member of staff, because your staff can do this for you, you can build these individual emotional relationships with the consumer and that's a fundamental shift here because what we traditionally understood as trust was that trust developed cognitively. I want to know how good your reputation is. I want to know how good you're going to develop this product. It's going to be amazing. (11:39): It's going to be excellent. There are now new ways of developing trust which have fragmented and you can start developing trust with the person and then the brand will follow and then the product will follow. Now the product's still important. Just because you've got an emotional relationship, it's not going to mean that you're going to drop your standards on the product, (12:01): But you might be more forgiven if they make a mistake. So for example, Pillouse, massive Mancunian brand. Steve Usher (12:07): Huge. Amna Khan (12:08): Massive on TikTok (12:10): And they released the Christmas pyjamas and I believe they weren't either a hundred percent cotton or something wasn't right. And oh my God, did social media know about it? The world and his dog knew about it because they were quite happy to be very, very public about the fact that the product hadn't reached the competence that they expected. Did that mean they weren't going to buy a Piluise again? No. What it meant is that they would call out that behaviour and they would not buy the product until everybody else want to buy it by the way as well. So I watched them go, "Don't buy it, don't buy it, don't buy it, waste the money." But I'm still going to buy a lip gloss for my daughter because the product was competent. But what we've seen here is founder-led brand, massive brand, lots of volumes of sales on TikTok, got all that emotional trust, but when you default, they will work away from that product. (12:59): Doesn't mean they're walking away from your brand because they've still got trust in you. Gives you another opportunity to build that trust and make it better. Steve Usher (13:06): Well, that's interesting because it shows the power of the trust of the individual level and the sub-level is each product. So whatever product they're kind of monetizing through. So if one of the product just happens to not be at that level of quality, to your point, this is still so strong that it doesn't affect that. Maybe if it's multi-products, then you get Amna Khan (13:28): Trouble. It's a consistent behaviour. Correct. Then because when you think about distrust, it's a magnitude of violation. So what have you done and how bad is it? How likely are you going to keep doing it again to me? Yeah. If you keep doing it, if we've got pyjamas that are up to scratch and then we've got lip glosses and blushes and everything else, it's like, wait a minute, you're just not up to scratch again. Steve Usher (13:50): Question, how was the response to that on their side? Did they own it? Amna Khan (13:55): She owned it straight away. Really? She was in like a bullet. Steve Usher (13:58): Yeah. Okay. Amna Khan (13:59): She was in, I've done it wrong. I've never been in pyjamas before. I don't understand the market. Maybe I should have done my research better. Perfect response. She showed her vulnerability. She didn't know. She didn't have all her eggs in her basket. She didn't have her ducks in a row. She appreciated she didn't know that craft that well. And she actually stepped out of her comfort zone and she told them the truth. She said, "I've got this wrong and I'll learn from it and I know it's not what you expect from me. You expect amazing products." Magic. Steve Usher (14:29): So I mean, I guess the trust Ometer just goes up that little bit from the back, but Amna Khan (14:33): I love that. She's made herself human. She's made herself human. It's like, you're looking at me and this big brand, P Louise. Yeah, but you know what? It's just me, Paige. And we're more forgiving when we don't think, oh, it's a big massive brand, isn't it? It's just Paige. Steve Usher (14:52): Okay, this is cool. So this is a really lovely example. What's going on with the bigger companies, the bigger organisations right now, because they're now having to compete with this, which is way more authentic, way more reactive, way more nimble if something goes wrong and right to capitalise. And then you've got the big tankers over here from a brand. What's the challenges there? What's the things that are happening over there that day? Amna Khan (15:19): So if we think about our big iconic brands, you've got the brands like Nike. Steve Usher (15:22): They're struggling. Amna Khan (15:23): Yeah. But who do they call in? Kim Kardashian from Skim. They Steve Usher (15:27): Did. Oh God, they did. Amna Khan (15:30): Got a whole range buyer. Yeah. And they traditionally would go to the athletes who were athletes, but still they're not really relatable, right? No. (15:40): You're not going to turn into UC and Baltimore, right? No. It's years of craft and passion and stuff and what they used to sell to consumers as a dream. Many consumers don't tap into that dream as well as they used to anymore because they've got so much fragmentation and you've got so many Athletia brands on the market now. You've got Gymshark who use a complete influencer market. You've got Chrissy Cellar who's a founder again and now she really front faces her brand. You've got Lululemon, you've got all of these brands that have come out and those founder brands. There's so much fragmentation in the market. So these ones are struggling. What do you do? Collaboration. You collaborate with the creators and the influencers. But there's another way to do that because not every brand can bring in a creator and go- No, I'm afraid. No. (16:23): That's why your staf matter because your staff are integral because they're the face of your brand and they're going to tell the truth, well, truth about your brand. But this is why personal branding's taken on because all of a sudden these brands are trying to make their brands human because they understand the value of human connection and the level of trust that you need and the dynamics of the market have fundamentally changed. We don't just want to speak to ... Once upon a time, it was all about having the flashy car, the symbolic consumption, the conspicuous consumption. We still do bits of that. I'm not going to say we don't do bits of that, but we're all about individualising and belonging and personality communities and networks because we've started to see the shift of technological evolution. The more technology you get in your life, the more human you're going to want and need. (17:12): And this is where that balance is coming back. The balance is coming back between having the tech aspects in your life to wanting to have the personal aspects. There was some research done earlier research on technology, which looked at the paradox of having technology in your life. And whilst technology could create chaos, it also allowed you to create control. While it allowed you to assimilate, it also isolated you and they had five different paradoxes in exactly the same way. There's a paradox with technology. You still need that balance. And this is why we've seen literally an explosion of human related trust where everybody is talking about personal connection, personal relationships, personal brand creators, influencers, founders. But what is the basis of that? It is trust. It's how you manifest and build trust that is determining that and the different components. Why? Because it's so deep meaningful and it's what we know and understand as humans. Steve Usher (18:12): Yeah. There's something in this as well around, because from a retail perspective, it's fascinating to watch the industry over the last couple of years, this role of physicality in this as well because yes, there's online, there's the personal brand, there's the challenges, et cetera, but also the big flagship stores and the role of physicality and the physical store in the context of the broader customer journey, but also building trust and engaging customers. (18:44): I have a hypothesis around this that actually the role of the sales assistant hasn't changed that much. It still hasn't changed. Even though stores are investing huge amounts of money in the aesthetics to entice you into a physical space to obviously share information on products and maybe some of their legacy. I'm not seeing a lot going back to your very early point around that interaction between two people. And I'm just wondering if there's something in that to kind of how can retail leverage that more in the physical space we're sitting with in London Experience Week is how do we design much more immersive, engaging, meaningful experiences in store and they have a role to engage consumers on a one-to-one level Amna Khan (19:27): In a way. I genuinely believe you let the tech look after what tech can do and the person looks after where the impact's created. You walk away from many service experiences and experiences and when you've got an individual who literally is having a bad day, you know about it. And when you have somebody who really wants to serve you and you're having a good day, it's brilliant. I'll give you the example of lush. My daughter loves lush. You can smell it a mile away, Steve Usher (19:50): Right? Classic. Amna Khan (19:51): And we walked through the traffic centre and we walked into the store and she's like, "I just want to go into lush." We walked into lush. The moment we walked into lush, somebody walked up and there's a massive base in there and this water and this colours and as soon as she seen my daughter, she walked over and she goes, "Do you want to play that? " Put the taps on, put the colours in. She is immersed in playing with this straightaway. But then there's times when I've walked into a store which are luxury brands and they don't even look at me. They don't acknowledge me. And I've worked in sales for seven years and I knew the first fundamental is you got to look and smile because as soon as you say that, you're saying, "I'm here and you're invited and you're welcome and let's have a chat." And that's the first moment of breaking that. (20:39): And many of them don't look at you. I think there's a lot to do around (20:43): Building this idea of human connection. Because I also think that many of our young staff that work in retail have been through COVID and that has impacted their social skills as well. And I genuinely feel that it's a skill to serve. It's a skill to be in sales. It's a skill that they need to be taught. The thing is, you can't teach it like a standardised protocol. It doesn't work like that. It's got to be you and your individual flavour. When they say that some people are suited to sales, yes, I agree with that, but everybody can be taught how to be better and more approachable and how to connect with consumers. There are many ways to do that. Totally agree. I think that (21:25): In some ways, maybe our training packages for retailers aren't the best or experience-led organisations aren't the best because they're not giving us the staff the tools to do what they need to do. I was trained in House of Fraser on what I had to do. It's a performance in some ways. You have to get through the ropes and you have to do many certain things and you miss your shop to make sure you're doing it. But I also think there's a lot of genuine sort of interest that has to be there. I work for DieselJeans. I liked Diesel Jeans and I think there's a genuine interest that has to be there to want to serve those people and then want to give them the best products and want to give them and know your products and love your products. And I love shopping and I loved serving other people with products that they could walk away with. (22:13): I think there's a lot of things that experience-based retailers could benefit from too, because experience is more performative than retail in many ways. Steve Usher (22:22): Because Amna Khan (22:23): If you think about, for example, Disney, the ultimate performance is everybody has to feel something before they leave. And that's the whole thing. If your consumer feels nothing, you've still lost. And if they feel something really bad, then you've definitely lost. But those moments of joy aren't difficult to give you now because when people walk into shops, it's because they don't get what they used to get because we don't do all the things that we used to do as communities, as networks, as individuals. COVID brought a lot of that back, but we get a lot of interaction there. They come for a purpose. They come for social connection there. And this is so important and this is why the human aspect and what you do as a retailer matter is I was speaking to a senior manager in Holland and Barrett and in Holland and Barrett, everybody is trained to advise. (23:16): Anybody that walks into the store will be able to advise you based on your symptoms. They're trained to do that. One of the things they've got is they've got an AI device with the tech on it. They've got thousands of products. The AI does the bit of finding it and then you use your knowledge, your gut, your intuition, what you're talking to them about to give them something that's a bit more personalised and create the impact where it matters. And I think that's what we need to do. Use the tech where it serves you well. I'm not tech averse. I think tech can give us a lot of efficiency where we need it, but it definitely can't replace an emotional human connection and the ability to serve us in the same way. Yes, you can get it online, but then you want convenience online. When you go into Fortnam and Mason, I was speaking to one of the directors from Fortnum and Mason just last week because I was speaking at the same event as a storytellers. (24:12): It's a story. It's a message, it's a feeling, it's an emotion, it's a journey when you walk through their store and it leaves you with something and they recognise themselves as storytellers and they talk about the people who come into their store just to have a chat. They're not going to buy anything, just come to a chat. That's what our shops used to be about. Your corner shop was about, you knew them by name, you'd go in and it would just be like, "I'm just going to run and get that or I'm just going to go stop and have a chat." I did that. I remember walking home from school and we had the news agent. I knew the news agent, "Oh yeah, you're all right. Yeah, you're fine. Blah, blah, blah, Steve Usher (24:47): Blah." So what are you seeing? There's something else that's ... I mean, if we just look at Coachella this week or last week with PopUp Emerger, if you go to Cannes Lion, there's going to be loads of popups there from a brand perspective. What do you see kind of the role of popups in the sense of engaging consumers and building, creating maybe even a world for them to step into, start to build trust on a different way? Have you seen companies doing some interesting stuff on that or the role of popups? Amna Khan (25:16): Popups are really important. Steve Usher (25:18): Yeah. Amna Khan (25:18): We do loads of research at MMU on popups because we do loads of research on place marketing. But popups are very important because they are novelty. They're spontaneously. They're only there for a limited period of time, but they also allow your brands, especially the online ones to connect with consumers that might not be there, but they also give them different experiences that you might not necessarily replicate in a store forever. And that's the important thing here. Sometimes you want to do something temporarily. It might be a campaign, it might not be. It might be something you just want to give to your consumer. It's a way of giving back. It could be for many different reasons you have that pop-up, but it attracts your audience. It builds a connection. It's only for a temporary period of time. That temporal nature of that pop-up is so important to retail because sometimes retail can get a bit same, same every day, right? (26:11): We don't want that. Consumers don't want that. They don't want every high street to look the same. And in the same way that you've got pop-ups in various different places, it just shows you that brands have got so many more opportunities to connect with their consumers in different ways. It's not always about selling. It is not always about selling. If it was always about selling, where are you going to always build the trust? And that's the important thing here. It's about showing up in places where it matters to them when we're talking about showing up, but leaving them something that they feel, think about and remember because in those moments when they go to those festivals, you want to be the memory that they take away. And guess what? I've seen there there was a pop-up from and they gave me a lotion so I didn't burn my skin. (27:00): Or it might be anything, but you will remember them because you became a memory related to the festival and that's the leverage you're buying on because they won't forget Coachella. They won't. So they won't forget your brand either. Who served me there? Yeah. And this is one of the things that brands like Coca-Cola always did. You always get into the place where they're going to create the memories and then- Steve Usher (27:26): Very well. Amna Khan (27:27): Yeah. And then you keep it safe, right? It's yours. It's that SaaS space where you're going to get Coke. Steve Usher (27:33): Yeah. It's interesting because you see the brands that ... I mean, Lululemon's getting hammered at the moment because of some of the products themselves, I think mislabeled or something or forever chemicals, which is a difficult conversation to have with your customer. But I think that they're an interesting example because if we reference back to Jakano Joe Pines, got a progression of economic value, it's kind of still in the goods economy, but now where they're now meeting their customers, even though it's got nothing to do with selling yoga equipment, they have yoga studios, they have clubs, they have value. So they're giving more value to the customer, even if they're not necessarily trying to sell something in that moment. I think that extension of how they're supporting and building those communities and ultimately I hope trust as part of that. So I think there's definitely ... We're seeing brands do more of that for sure. Amna Khan (28:24): I think the consumer expects that now. They expect you to add value. And many of the founder brands, you can see how they've evolved from just clothes to events- Definitely. ... to cultures. One of the ones I'm very familiar with is Gymshark because I use their products and from being- Steve Usher (28:42): They've been amazing, by the way, in terms of how they've entered the market like that and just gone like, "Excuse me. Amna Khan (28:49): " I Steve Usher (28:49): Mean, it's been stunning work. Amna Khan (28:54): It's genius, literally is genius and everything they've done is innovative. Even from Ben Francis originally just working with the influencers, he did it because he probably didn't have money to commission, but it was also a very good way of connecting with an audience. I wonder if he knew that he'd be able to connect with them in that way or whether he just did it because that's with the circumstances at the time. And it's almost like whatever the touch turns to gold because they've got very good people and those people are passionate about their brands and understand what the brand stands for. I think that's one of the key things about clarity of the brand is really good for everybody in the team. They've done wonderfully at that. And one of the things that they do is they show up in important places so they understand the shifts in the market and where the attention needs to be, whether that's on ethnicities and getting more ethnic representation and I've seen that massively. (29:53): They do. Yeah. Steve Usher (29:54): Big time. Amna Khan (29:55): Or it's on disabilities where people wouldn't focus on disability sports and people Who can't perform the sport in exactly the same way representation, whether it's men's health and wellness or men's loneliness, getting the barbershop, they're just on it. They're just on it. But that's because they understand consumer trends and they understand nuance. I think there's a difference between trends and nuance because it's when you understand what is the actual voice of the consumer. There's lots of noise out there, but what is actually happening? Where is the emotional depth happening? Whether that's Black Lives Matters movements, which some brands used opportunistically. And some people brands use sincerely. Consumer can see depth of sensity and I think people forget that. If you're using us as a fad, and many people came out and said, "If using us as a fad and using this as a moment, it's not going to happen." Want to see genuine sincerity to actually understand our cause and represent. (30:59): And I think this is key. The consumer understands genuine behaviours. You actually genuinely care. I think Jim Shack have done that really well. Steve Usher (31:11): Amazing. Amna Khan (31:11): They really well. Steve Usher (31:12): Yeah, big support of them. Big support of them. Because from a consumer point of view, what has changed generationally from boomers to X to millennials to Gen Z to alphas? Because I saw some stat the other day by 2030, I think it is something like the combined Gen Z and alphas are going to be like 35% of luxury spend. So the demands have changed from them as well, not just like I trust this institutional organisation or this brand, but also they're coming with a different perspective and a different demands on others, companies, brands, et cetera. Have you got any kind of insights on that in terms of those kind of ships? Amna Khan (31:58): Generally, the consumer is more informed, more empowered, and more critical. We vote with our wallets and we ain't afraid to tell you when we're not going to vote with our wallets. (32:09): And we also vote ethically a lot and moraler. I think just look at what's happened in the wider political sphere with a lot of things that happen in the Middle East, such as the Palestinian war. No, it's not even a war, the Palestinian genocide and what's been going on there. And there's lots of founder brands that have come out from there. For example, we've got Slam Cola as fighting back to Coca-Cola. It's making millions. Found a base brand. And there wasn't just one Cola that came out. There's about six Colas that came out. We're empowered. We've got distribution channels. We can make distribution channels. What did retailers have people? Distribution. You had warehouse, brand, intermediary, retailer. Boom. You got distribution now. And the thing that's fundamentally changed here is you can make your distribution. You were at the whim of a retailer. If retailer said, "I'm not going to stop your product. (33:11): I'm not going to stop your product." Well, hello, Shopify. And all the different e-models that you can have. And I'm like, Shopify is just one. There are so many ways that the consumer can create and actually build their own brand. And that's so important because consumers moved from being producers, which is what we used to do. We used to produce our own products and we used to fulfil our own needs from the products we used to make. Then we became consumers. Now we are creators and now we are creating the brands to rival to the brands. If you look at all the founder brands, they're all coming and saying, "We want a share of that pie and we are going to come and we're much more aggressive, but we're all much more human than you are. " And that's what the consumer wants. When you talk about the differences between Gen Z and all the various different generations of consumers, the consumption is fragmented. (34:06): If you look at what was given to, for example, my dad, as you would always say, when we were growing up, we only had three types of cereal. Well, sorry, dad, you only had three. We have got choice, probably far too much choice. Yeah. We've got far too much choice. And that choice has allowed the market to be completely fragmented. The consumer can choose what they want. We're in an era of post-modernism where you can have luxury consumption. And going back to your start about luxury consumption, you could have somebody who's going to go out and spend full whack on luxury consumption, but still going to buy the kicks from Vinid. We're going to do that because nothing is consistent anymore. We're doing a lot more of, "I'll buy this for X amount of pounds because I'm not going to get it from anywhere else or I want to identify with, but I'm quite happy to shop pre-saled, pre-loved, or I'm quite happy." There's complete fragmentation of the market. (34:59): I remember when Aldi and Little set up in Winslow and places like that, back in the day, it was a stigma to go in there. Steve Usher (35:05): Yeah. Not Amna Khan (35:06): Anymore. Not anymore. Not Steve Usher (35:07): Anymore. Amna Khan (35:08): That's what I mean by fragmentation. We pick and choose what works for us, when it works for us and how it works for us. Steve Usher (35:14): Yeah. Stunning. God, we're so complex. Amna Khan (35:19): Really complex. But you know what? The way the market's evolved where mass brands used to control our consumption, they cannot do that anymore. They fundamentally can't do it anymore. The consumer's voice is so strong, so empowered. And it wouldn't have happened without social media and those platforms. It just wasn't possible. If you think about, you only had so many broadcast channels and you only so much airtime. You've got YouTube now. Got your own channel. I Steve Usher (35:47): Don't even have a Amna Khan (35:47): Time. And your own airtime. Steve Usher (35:49): Yeah. Amna Khan (35:49): Yeah? Steve Usher (35:50): A quick question on social from China, because I'm curious because you've studied ... Obviously it might be a different context with China, but social selling like live, Amna Khan (36:02): Whatnot Steve Usher (36:03): And these types of ... So in China that is a multi-billion even of a trillion maybe, don't quote me revenue, a business. And so this is super interesting where an individual then has stock and they are selling live to people who then obviously bid and then they win. Boof. So now even this kind of complete democracization of this level now of all these kind of creators now selling, building channels to engage people directly. It's very transactional, but I'm finding that's really interesting. The big news, Gary Vaynerchuk talks a lot about it. He said," It's going to come to the West. It's coming to the West and it's going to be huge. "But that's also interesting. I'm slightly against it because it's a little bit, for me, it just feels a bit not good for the planet, but it's an interesting, another dynamic that's coming into the retail space as well for me. Amna Khan (36:59): So research conducted on TikTok in 2025 in immersive shopping experiences like live shopping. Identified that when consumers feel as though they have been seen in those environment, it creates a stickiness. A stickiness to connect with the host, a stickiness to connect with the audience is that increasing emotional component makes them trust and increases purchasing intention, makes them much more impulsive. Now what's interesting about that, if you think about it, that environment just being seen, that to me is a personal and emotional, a belonging related thing. It's community. We're looking for community. Research on Gen Z consumers found that 30% of Gen Z consumers will be spending more time in livestream shopping. And that just goes to our idea of building and belonging. That's what we want. And even these high paced TikTok environments where consumers are buying makes them really impulsive, really impulsive, but it also gives them something they want. (38:04): If you're going on there to be seen, that means that somewhere else you're not being seen almost, doesn't it? Steve Usher (38:09): Yeah. Amna Khan (38:09): And it also means a lot about identity and belonging and wanting to connect. I know somebody who runs a TikTok live stream and he was talking to me about his experiences and he said to me, " I'm not. You know what the interesting thing is? "He goes," My consumers become my moderators. "He goes," I'm trying to sell products and I can't answer the questions. "And they go, " Yeah, he's got it in white oriented. "And I'm like, " Are you kidding me? "He goes," No. "He goes," They're moderate. "Ownership. Steve Usher (38:33): They got ownership. Amna Khan (38:33): Yeah. Co-creating the process. Co-creating the experience. And they are, like you said, ownership, owning it and trying to make it happen for that person and they're building connections, building relationships. They build a connection with that host, but they also build a connection with the people in there. This is just screaming, crying out. We want to belong in places and we're going to livestream shopping to do it. They might not even be buying. They might just be doing the work for you. Go creating your service experience. Thanks very much. Well, that's what he said. It's for free. I'm never I could get somebody to moderate, but they step in. If somebody's saying like, " Does he have a pink or do you have a pink? "And they'll go, " Yeah, he does have a pink. Steve Usher (39:14): "So we're here at London Experience Week. I actually think the experience economy which is booming is going to continue to play a huge part in creating belonging, connection, intentional experiences that engage people on a way more meaningful level. I think it's super, super interesting from a retail context perspective to hear your views on just this piece around trust, because I think trust is earned. You have to earn trust. I think as experienced designers, I think we have a huge responsibility to earn that trust by actually staging really meaningful, impactful experiences. I think they're going to play a big part, particularly in retail physical spaces my prediction. I think retail spaces are playing too safe and they're going too much down the aesthetic route. I think they need to relook and rethink about how they can really design and implement much more meaningful experiences, particularly in store that goes beyond the old school kind of standard stuff. (40:15): So that's my view anyway on my soapbox, but that's something to definitely do. I Amna Khan (40:21): Definitely think they could do more (40:23): Than the space. I think they could learn more as well, especially when you come to places like here and you see it's so much wow factor. When you were talking about, I opened that door, it's a wow factor. And I came obviously with my sister who was recording me and doing all the socials for me. She was equally like, " Wow, this is so cool. Where's that wow magical moment? "You don't always get that in stores. And there are some stores that use the experience based thing, but then they're very immersive and they're constantly changing and they're not dedicated to a single brand. No. They are very fluid. And I think if all brands had a temporal nature to them, their permanent nature and a temporal nature, which is constantly changing, they'll invite more people into the store and for that they'll need to have an experience. Steve Usher (41:08): Yeah, agree more so. So in fact, we invite more retail. We would come to London Experience next year because genuinely get out your bubble because when you get into the experience world, there is so much good stuff going on. You go, " Oh yeah, that might work in our context. That might work in our context. That's how we've built what we do. So there's lots of amazing competence and skills that can be transparable, so I highly recommend it. Amna, thank you so much for spending this time with us today. I really appreciate it. Even if we didn't send any questions up front, we haven't done bad, have we? Amna Khan (41:42): I'm glad you didn't send the questions because it was just such a good conversation. Steve Usher (41:46): Yeah, I've really enjoyed it. Amna Khan (41:47): I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.