This week on the Syndic8 Series, Chris talks to Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, CSO at Publicis Groupe, about how Shein and Temu have had record growth from listening to consumer data, the digital beginning of the modern purchase cycle, why telling people what products to want doesn't work anymore, and more.
Here is one takeaway from the conversation:
Top retailers are going to lose the race if they don't start doing what their competitors are doing.
Listen to the data.
I feel a lot of western brands are underestimating the wave of direct-to-consumer brands coming from China.
We've got Temu, Shein, and even TikTok making a huge impact on retail.
According to Jason Goldberg, Walmart is growing at 8%, Amazon's growing at 11%, so retail is sort of stagnant right now.
But Temu is growing at 900% with a $20 or $30 billion a year run rate. And Shein is hitting almost a $40 billion run rate.
Shein is the largest apparel reseller in the US, Temu is the fastest growing retailer in the history of mankind, and TikTok is a cultural phenomenon.
Many people think that these companies are selling cheap junk, that consumers will buy it once and then abandon the brand.
But that's not true.
These companies don't guess what Americans want. They don't try to tell Americans what to want.
Instead, they listen to Instagram and TikTok and find out what Americans want. And then they make it really fast and Americans buy it.
This is all to say that data is so important. As much as you might think you know what your consumers want, you have to follow the numbers.
There are other companies out there who are listening to the market and making products consumers really want.
What do you think? Can big brands continue directing the market, or are we in a shift toward being more data-driven?
Watch the full conversation: