Multichannel Success Podcast Season 4 Episode 3 - Transcript

Market Insights - with Richard Lim

Mark pinkerton [00:00:05 - 00:00:40]

Hello and welcome to this episode in season four of the Multi-Channel Success podcast. I'm very pleased to tell you that today we have Richard Lim from Retail Economics. Thank you very much, delighted to be here, and joined with me today is David Worby. Hi. So, Richard, let's just start with a little bit of background about yourself, in case some of our listeners don't know who you are. Many of the people we talk to every day do know who you are, but not everybody does.

Richard Lim [00:00:41 - 00:01:05]

Thank you. So, yeah, I'm Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics. Retail Economics is an independent economics consultancy, but we focus specifically on consumer and retail. So we put economic analysis, econometric modelling, behavioural economics, forecasting, lots of research at the heart of the insights that we offer the industry. Brilliant.

Mark pinkerton [00:01:05 - 00:01:07]

Brilliant. What's going on?

Richard Lim [00:01:09 - 00:01:10]

Broad question.

Mark pinkerton [00:01:10 - 00:01:12]

Yeah, let's start broadening that.

Richard Lim [00:01:10 - 00:01:12]

Yeah, yeah. Start broadening that.

Mark pinkerton [00:01:12 - 00:01:14]

How long have we got? That'll take us hours.

Richard Lim [00:01:12 - 00:02:02]

How long have we got? That'll take us hours. I mean, it's still quite early to tell in terms of the impact of the election, but I think what we're facing into for the second half of the year, I'd characterise how we perceive this as we're cautiously optimistic, so I think, you know, the worst of the cost living crisis is definitely over. Inflation's down to target level, 2%. We've had the initial first interest rate cut that's going to help restore some confidence in consumers and their propensity to spend going into the second half of the year. We're expecting maybe another cut, maybe two, towards by the end of the year, if the market's

Mark pinkerton [00:02:01 - 00:02:02]

Okay.

Richard Lim [00:02:02 - 00:02:03]

expectations.

David Worby [00:02:03 - 00:02:19]

I'm interested in that dynamic between the economics appearing to change and consumer sentiment beginning to change. And in your experience, is there a lag between, I'm sure there is something of a lag between those two things. Does history tell us anything?

Richard Lim [00:02:18 - 00:02:41]

Yeah, no, absolutely. So if you map out consumer confidence against spending, you always have that consumer confidence improving is usually followed by an uptick in spending. So we've had an improvement in consumer confidence, but it's still pretty lacklustre.

Mark pinkerton [00:02:40 - 00:02:43]

Is that just from the relief of...

Richard Lim [00:02:41 - 00:03:23]

Is that just from the relief of change of government? Well, not really since change of government, actually. So again, it's probably still too early to tell from that. But if you look back at a couple of years ago, when we had a brief spell of a trust government, for example, where we had, obviously, market turmoil, at that point, inflation was at double digits and interest rates looked like they were going to continue to rise for a prolonged period of time. We've certainly moved on from there and that was a point where consumer confidence was actually at an all-time low. So we've had an improvement over the last couple of years, but it still remains in negative territory.

David Worby [00:03:23 - 00:03:54]

Yeah, because one thing that struck me from the press at the weekend was whilst some people re-mortgaging their house now are going to say, well, actually, it's a half a percent cut that will save me some money, most people are looking at having fixed it five years ago or two years ago when it was half the price it is now, or a fraction of that. So I think confidence is going to take maybe even longer to filter through this time, simply because the real feel is not as positive as maybe the economic data says it should be.

Mark Pinkerton [00:03:49 - 00:03:51]

It's a real fail.

Richard Lim [00:03:50 - 00:03:56]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'd agree with that.

Mark pinkerton [00:03:56 - 00:04:01]

Yeah, and I think you've got the mixed messages happening as well as you say, because you've

Richard Lim [00:03:56 - 00:03:59]

Yeah, and then I think you've got the mixed messages.

Mark pinkerton [00:04:01 - 00:04:17]

got the fiscal tightening that has, you know, a number of projects, big projects have already been cancelled, so you've got a government that's openly saying it wants to drive growth, and at the same time doing the fiscal tightening, which of course will have exactly the opposite effect.

Richard Lim [00:04:16 - 00:04:21]

Yeah, and it's going to have a kind of a polarised impact as well, I think, as well.

Mark pinkerton [00:04:17 - 00:04:18]

Yeah, yeah, and it's going to have a kind of a...

Richard Lim [00:04:21 - 00:05:56]

So there's going to be pockets of consumers that are going to be hit worse than others. One of the things that we've picked out in our research is that there's a particular group that we call the aspirational millennials. So this is a group of households that have typically bought their first house within the last 10 to 12 years. They've only experienced interest rates at kind of ultra-low levels. They're the ones that are most highly indebted, you know, at the beginning stages or the first kind of period of their mortgage lifetime, and so the repayments are higher. They've maybe got a car on PCP, maybe two cars on PCP. They've got credit card debts. So there's a kind of an aspirational millennial group that we think are going to be particularly hit. But back to your point about if you look at mortgages and fixed rate and before the first recent hike in interest rates, about 80% of mortgages were fixed, and about 80% of those were fixed for more than five years. So we've gone through it. So there has been a lagged impact over the last few years, but if we go back two years ago when interest rates were on the rise and people were renewing their fixed rates then, a lot of people were fixing for two years in the expectation that things were going to be a lot better. Two years later, actually, things haven't really changed that much from a mortgage perspective. So again, it creates a much more complex picture.

David Worby [00:05:53 - 00:06:05]

And there's kind of a, it creates a much. Slightly light-hearted for a moment, I watched an episode of Only Fools and Horses last week in which Dale said inflation didn't affect him because he only ever put £10 of petrol in his tank.

Mark pinkerton [00:06:08 - 00:06:10]

What's that about, three litres now?

Richard Lim [00:06:08 - 00:06:10]

That's about three litres now.

Mark pinkerton [00:06:11 - 00:06:19]

Can you say anything in terms of the sentiment from the market and narrow that down towards the e-commerce and retail perspective?

Richard Lim [00:06:20 - 00:07:11]

Yeah, sure. I think the reality is that it's still tough. These are tough times for retailers and the retail sector. And while there's been a cost of living crisis for consumers, there's been an operating cost crisis for retailers over the last few years. They've had to deal with rising labour costs, national living wage, minimum wage. There's still business rates, the burden of business rates. And we've had retailers that had to deal with all of the increasing costs that go around supply chains and what's happening in the Red Sea. So there's a real... There's real pressure on margins, and all of that's against a backdrop of quite soft consumer demand. So there are still lots of challenges, although we're more positive about the outlook.

Mark pinkerton [00:07:11 - 00:07:19]

Unpredictable weather for some sectors will make a difference and fashion is certainly driven by the weather and that's been, yeah.

Richard Lim [00:07:19 - 00:07:30]

has not been favourable. And amidst all of that, we've still got those long term impacts of COVID Has not been favourable.

Richard Lim [00:07:30 - 00:07:45]

No. still playing out. Some of that is by demand being pulled forwards for some of those big ticket items like furniture, and we're still seeing the kind of longer term impacts of that, but also consumer behaviour as well.

Mark pinkerton [00:07:45 - 00:08:05]

Are we seeing a slowdown in the number of retailers that are actually going into administration? I mean, we've seen some, obviously there's some fairly well-known names that have gone into administration, even having been bought by parents not that long ago, new parent companies not that long ago. So Body Shop and Ted Baker are the two that spring to my mind.

Richard Lim [00:08:04 - 00:08:05]

Yeah, yeah.

Mark pinkerton [00:08:05 - 00:08:08]

But has the overall trend gone down at all?

Richard Lim [00:08:08 - 00:09:00]

I think the latest data for retail administrations actually shows that there's been an uptick over the last few quarters. So whether or not, the data's quite lagged, so we're going to have to see what happens over the next few months as that data becomes available. But I think, going back to the consumer trends bit, I think what's been quite interesting over the last 12 months is that shift back to store, and as we've seen, what's happened post-COVID and people have shifted their spending behaviour, and actually there has been that shift back to store. And I think that's been quite surprising, the impacts of COVID and the shift towards online probably hasn't been as permanent as many people are expecting.

Mark pinkerton [00:08:57 - 00:08:59]

There's many people. Yeah.

Richard Lim [00:09:00 - 00:09:01]

So yes, we've shifted online.

David Worby [00:09:00 - 00:09:10]

But your famous chart that shows we're back to the long-term trend of e-commerce, is that still, that was about a year ago I think I remember seeing that from you, is that still on that track?

Mark pinkerton [00:09:08 - 00:09:10]

Yeah, that's the best conversation we've had.

Richard Lim [00:09:10 - 00:09:55]

Yeah, I mean, if anything, I think we're probably like we're dipping below long-term trend now. So if you look at the proportion of the e-commerce sales as a proportion of total sales, last year, 2023, was 26.6% in 2022, 26.6%. So actually, it's been the first year, bar that kind of disruption by COVID, we've had this long-term growth in the proportion of online sales that's actually been static over the last couple of years. And actually, that's quite an interesting point about have we seen a longer-term slowdown in the growth of online sales.

Mark Pinkerton [00:09:57 - 00:10:25]

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Mark pinkerton [00:10:28 - 00:11:14]

Okay, as a sort of follow-on from that then, you know, to ask a slightly provocative question, are Frasers and Next taking over the high street? Because, you know, we've seen announcements every other month probably from Next in terms of they've absorbed another brand into the, I'd say almost the Borg-like nature of Next, and putting them onto the platform. You know, they're doing Gap distribution in the UK now, they've taken over Reece, and then, you know, Frasers have obviously bought retail estate, which is a very interesting move, especially when it's been secondary rather than primary retail estate. So, what's your view on them?

Richard Lim [00:11:11 - 00:11:32]

So, what's your... Yeah, I mean, it is interesting and I think that at the heart of it, what springs to mind is, especially from a phrasers perspective, is that they are looking at these acquisitions as kind of opportunistic acquisitions.

Mark pinkerton [00:11:30 - 00:11:31]

Hmm.

Richard Lim [00:11:32 - 00:12:39]

And so if a brand is in distress and they've fallen into administration and they can see that there's a good overlap and they can bolt it on to the existing infrastructure that they've created. And I think that's a really important point, that both of these brands have created a great infrastructure in terms of whether that's a physical estate, but also the technological capabilities of both these firms, to be able to bolt on an existing brand. Where they see that kind of opportunistic acquisition, I think that's really at the heart of it, but in particular from a phrasal perspective. I think from an ex-perspective, I think they're probably a bit more selective. And I think that they're probably, well, a bit more selective from an outside perspective, I think they're a bit more selective and actually probably trying to go, creep up towards more of a luxury, more luxury, higher-end brands. I think those are the ones that they're more interested in.

David Worby [00:12:39 - 00:12:59]

I think, I agree with you, I think it feels like Next have a good understanding of who their customer is, and they're requiring brands that fall into that category as well as the category of opportunistic, you know, venture, whereas I think Fraser's just seem to be opportunistic. Yeah, I agree, I agree, Next are acting.

Mark pinkerton [00:12:56 - 00:13:04]

Yeah, I agree, I agree. Next they're acting in a more strategic manner and Fraser's is oh, look, let's go get them.

David Worby [00:13:03 - 00:13:11]

Well, maybe. I mean, Frasers clearly aren't getting everything, so there is some disconnect between some of the things they go for and their success rate. But I think Nex seem to That's right.

David Worby [00:13:11 - 00:13:29]

have a very clear position, namely that they're going to market to their customers these acquisitions and therefore want to have some assurity about success, whereas Frasers is a bit more genuinely opportunistic and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and if it does work, it's great. Yes, and the nature of the opportunity.

Mark pinkerton [00:13:27 - 00:13:37]

Yes, and the nature of being slightly opportunistic is that each brand that you look at buying

David Worby [00:13:29 - 00:13:30]

Whichever way you look at it.

Mark pinkerton [00:13:37 - 00:13:57]

probably has a slightly different flavour to it or is in a different position. I mean you look, they're talking about Fraser's taking over Ted Baker European distribution now, which is a very different proposition from just absorbing them and setting up stores in the UK. It's actually, you know, European pan white.

David Worby [00:13:54 - 00:13:55]

It's actually a...

Mark Pinkerton [00:13:54 - 00:13:59]

We'll be right back.

David Worby [00:13:57 - 00:14:01]

I think they've even been linked somehow in the press, haven't they, to Net-A- Porter and Ukes?

Mark pinkerton [00:14:01 - 00:14:03]

Yes, yes.

David Worby [00:14:01 - 00:14:08]

Yes, yes. So the idea of Mike Ashley owning a part of Laura Piana is kind of weird, but maybe it's going to happen, who knows?

Mark pinkerton [00:14:06 - 00:14:06]

Weird.

Mark Pinkerton [00:14:06 - 00:14:08]

Maybe it's going to happen, who knows?

David Worby [00:14:08 - 00:14:09]

Yeah, who knows?

Mark Pinkerton [00:14:08 - 00:14:09]

Yeah, who knows?

David Worby [00:14:09 - 00:14:14]

I don't think we should bet against anything in the current climate, but where does all this end?

Mark Pinkerton [00:14:09 - 00:14:10]

I don't think we should bet against anything.

David Worby [00:14:14 - 00:14:32]

With brands continuing to exist but changing hands, they're becoming consolidated within fewer and fewer ownership structures. Is there a case for the Monopolies Commission to look at some of this at some point and say you can't own all of these? I don't know.

Mark pinkerton [00:14:32 - 00:14:57]

Well, that's the sort of root behind the question, I guess, is clearly, I've never seen anybody actually considering what percentage of the market either one of Fraser's or Next is actually now controlling, but it's certainly not small. No, oh no. And I would argue that within a given high street and all the different high street brands now, it's probably a significant amount of control that they offer.

Richard Lim [00:14:57 - 00:15:07]

Yeah, I'd agree with that. The CMA definitely put their opinions forward, don't they, and

Mark pinkerton [00:14:57 - 00:15:00]

Yeah, yeah, I'd agree with that.

Richard Lim [00:15:07 - 00:15:14]

stopped certain things. What springs to mind is JD and Foot Asylum, is one example of that. That's one example.

Richard Lim [00:15:14 - 00:15:18]

Yeah. So whether or not they step in in any kind of meaningful way.

David Worby [00:15:17 - 00:15:30]

I think it's a little bit far-fetched, but I don't think I, in 35 years of retailing, have ever seen quite the levels of consolidation we're seeing now.

Mark pinkerton [00:15:20 - 00:15:22]

That's a bad one.

David Worby [00:15:30 - 00:15:36]

And I kind of do wonder where it's going to end, but hey, maybe that's just a watcher.

Richard Lim [00:15:35 - 00:16:14]

Well, I do think the inevitable reality is that we're going to have a more concentrated market and I think that, especially from a fashion perspective as well, it's just going to become more and more difficult for those mid-tier retailers and brands to remain competitive when you've got the likes of Next and Fraser and M&S; who have invested, you know, hundreds of millions of pounds in their infrastructure, especially their digital infrastructure, to be able to just keep up with these guys.

Mark pinkerton [00:16:14 - 00:16:44]

Agreed, agreed. Okay, that sort of segues quite nicely into the next topic which is around marketplaces. I think marketplaces are consolidating as well, but yet new people like Boohoo are now launching their marketplace. Is that about leveraging their existing technology stack and trying to get effectively more revenue through the same tech stack and reduce costs

David Worby [00:16:43 - 00:16:43]

Thank you.

Mark pinkerton [00:16:44 - 00:16:48]

slash increase margins, or actually is there something else behind it?

David Worby [00:16:48 - 00:17:04]

I do wonder whether some of these marketplaces that come out of single brands like Next or like M&S; are almost quite defensive strategies. They're kind of strategies that just ward off the competition.

Mark pinkerton [00:17:04 - 00:17:05]

Yeah.

David Worby [00:17:04 - 00:17:09]

If we don't do it, someone else will do it, so we'd better do it and do it in a way that suits us.

Mark pinkerton [00:17:05 - 00:17:05]

We don't do that.

David Worby [00:17:09 - 00:17:31]

Rather than necessarily believing that it is the future. The ultimate conclusion is that you end up with brand A being represented on everyone's marketplace as well as having their own distribution to their own customers. But ultimately if the balance of power rests with them trading through marketplaces they have no idea who their customer is.

Mark Pinkerton [00:17:31 - 00:17:33]

I have no idea about that.

David Worby [00:17:31 - 00:17:41]

They have no idea about data or the ability to use it. They just become hollowed out brands that trade wherever anyone will have them. I think that's kind of a sad place to be.

Mark pinkerton [00:17:42 - 00:18:00]

It is, because it means a less clear understanding of the consumer in terms of what that brand stands for. And you can't go into a bespoke experience or even experience a bespoke experience online anymore. Which is what's facing Ted Baker now, isn't it, going forward.

Richard Lim [00:18:00 - 00:19:12]

I'd agree with that kind of bespoke experience online and I think the danger here is that when everyone's got a marketplace and you're looking for a particular product and you can buy it off of any number of different websites and marketplaces, it becomes so much more difficult for brands to differentiate themselves and remain that kind of integrity of the brand equity. And I kind of draw this analogy of what we went through from a physical perspective actually. So if you think about what happened to the sector during the 90s and the noughties, it was all about a race for space and increasing market share, it was just more and more stores. And throughout that period of time, we just had clone high streets where, you know, whatever town centre you went to up and down the country, it was the same experience, it was the same brands, it was the same shops and you went into shops with the same product. And actually, many high streets lost the relevance of the local communities that they served and so I kind of draw that analogy of, are we kind of commoditising the online space? Are we going to have like clone websites where actually you go to the same five websites and actually it's exactly the same experience?

David Worby [00:19:13 - 00:19:16]

I think your analogy is brilliant, because at the same time we're walking around saying

Richard Lim [00:19:14 - 00:19:14]

Yeah.

David Worby [00:19:16 - 00:19:39]

that there's this insignificant demand, we're oversupplied and we have been oversupplied for a long time, partly because of that challenge. To what extent is that easier to do online with elastic walls and rubber space and effectively fixed costs of operating, that you can do it in a relatively financially secure way online?

Mark pinkerton [00:19:37 - 00:19:47]

It's much easier to hide behind a URL and a brand name or a trading name online than it is in the retail space.

Richard Lim [00:19:46 - 00:20:27]

To your point though, it's the risk element isn't it? They don't hold the stock, they don't have any of the liability on the balance sheet, and yet they've got these enormous range of products. So if you take Kingfisher as an example, so B&Q;, public knowledge, but they've got a marketplace just like many others. Tesco launched their marketplace, Boohoo launched ASOS next, and many others. But if you just use B&Q; as one example, then they had about 125,000 SKUs last year. Twelve months on, they've got about 1.2 million because of the market price. Wow, ten times what they had.

Mark pinkerton [00:20:28 - 00:20:45]

My personal experience is that I bought from companies that I didn't think were B&Q; related and they ended up being B&Q; related businesses when I actually got the delivery. But for the invoicing, everything was completely separate branches.

David Worby [00:20:45 - 00:21:01]

So the assumption is it becomes financially more acceptable to the retailers to do that because, to your point, no inventory or very low inventory in most cases, and it's just simply an image and some product descriptions and some data, but you end up then being over-represented

Mark Pinkerton [00:20:59 - 00:21:01]

But you end up then being over-represented.

David Worby [00:21:01 - 00:21:21]

in almost every kind of scenario you could possibly imagine being. At what point do you then say as a brand owner, rather like Adidas and Nike did two years ago and are now pulling back from it, which is we're over-subscribed, we're over-represented, we've got too much distribution, you end up in this vicious cycle of too much, too little,

Mark pinkerton [00:21:17 - 00:21:20]

You end up in this vicious cycle of...

David Worby [00:21:21 - 00:21:24]

too much, too little, and I'm not sure where it ends really, but anyway.

Richard Lim [00:21:24 - 00:21:30]

I think the challenge for brands is just to make sure that they've got different types of products on different marketplaces.

David Worby [00:21:24 - 00:21:25]

I think the challenge...

Richard Lim [00:21:30 - 00:21:42]

So it's just trying to maintain whether that's by price point or having exclusive ranges and things like that. So I think that's kind of the challenge for brands.

Mark pinkerton [00:21:42 - 00:21:45]

Yeah, because everything to everybody doesn't really work.

Richard Lim [00:21:42 - 00:21:43]

Yeah, because everything to everybody.

Mark pinkerton [00:21:45 - 00:21:48]

No, no. But if you wind back a few years...

David Worby [00:21:46 - 00:21:52]

But if you wind back a few years, maybe 10 years ago, everybody went on Amazon because

Mark pinkerton [00:21:48 - 00:21:49]

If only 1.2 million.

David Worby [00:21:52 - 00:21:54]

Amazon was the only one with scale.

Mark pinkerton [00:21:53 - 00:21:54]

Yeah.

David Worby [00:21:54 - 00:22:00]

So we all breathed hard and said yes and went on to Amazon, and then obviously regretted

Mark pinkerton [00:21:54 - 00:21:54]

So we all...

David Worby [00:22:00 - 00:22:21]

it for a good while of the last five years. But you at least got scale. You've got no data, you've got no customers, you've got no knowledge of who you'd be. And it just became really difficult. But it was a difficult drug to get off, because it was accounting for 40% of your revenue. We have a client in America who is 90% of their bloody revenues through Amazon. There's no way they can get off that drug.

Richard Lim [00:22:19 - 00:22:20]

I'm waiting.

David Worby [00:22:21 - 00:22:23]

They just have to find a way to suck it up.

Richard Lim [00:22:23 - 00:22:33]

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Because 10 years ago, you'd ask someone, you know, name a marketplace. It would be Amazon and eBay. That was pretty much it. And now there's

Mark pinkerton [00:22:30 - 00:22:30]

Yeah.

Mark Pinkerton [00:22:30 - 00:22:32]

Amazon and Ebay, that was pretty much it.

Richard Lim [00:22:33 - 00:22:40]

just, you know, there's so many of them. I think a connected point to a motivation for I'll see you next time.

Richard Lim [00:22:40 - 00:23:01]

retailers to do this as well is feeding into retail media. And if you look at, you know, if you look at what retailers are looking at this as a way to, as an additional revenue channel. I can't remember the exact figure, so I won't mention it. But if you look at

David Worby [00:22:54 - 00:22:55]

Ciao.

Richard Lim [00:23:01 - 00:23:08]

Sainsbury's latest kind of results, they've got, you know, there's multiple, it's in the

Mark pinkerton [00:23:06 - 00:23:06]

Yeah.

Richard Lim [00:23:08 - 00:23:14]

over £100 million worth of revenue just from retail media.

Mark pinkerton [00:23:14 - 00:23:22]

Wow. I bet you Boots is probably aiming for something similar. I've not seen any numbers for it, but they've certainly tried very hard to push that route.

Richard Lim [00:23:21 - 00:23:32]

Yeah, in that environment of squeezed margins and looking at where they can try to claw back. It's a way of bolstering margins. Yeah, so I think retail media is definitely a big part of that.

Mark pinkerton [00:23:28 - 00:23:29]

Yeah, so.

Richard Lim [00:23:32 - 00:23:42]

And then also just the fact that marketplaces are not reserved just for new products. We've got this explosion of second-hand marketplaces as well. Do you think that's fair to say?

Mark pinkerton [00:23:42 - 00:23:45]

Do you think that's here to stay?

Richard Lim [00:23:44 - 00:24:31]

Yeah, for me, no, I think this is a new evolution within the sector that's going to be really disruptive. I think vintage, from an apparel perspective, is at the heart of that. And I think that there's an enormous amount of demand for second-hand products. Lots of positive tailwinds in this space coming from consumers who just want to shop more sustainably. Cost-of-living crisis that's opened up people's eyes to not necessarily buying new, but buying second-hand for a bit more cost-effectively. But I think one of the big things is just around the technology and platforms. And it's just so easy to buy and sell second-hand products, and there's a huge market for that.

David Worby [00:24:32 - 00:24:59]

I would agree with you, but I've always been a bit surprised that the rental version of that, which is equally sustainable and equally fiscally sensible, never really took off. And we still don't have a lot of it here. The ability to rent an outfit, and there were various attempts to do it by various people, but it never really gained any kind of serious traction in my mind. And I wonder whether that's still an outstanding opportunity, you know?

Richard Lim [00:24:54 - 00:25:19]

I wonder whether that's still an outstanding opportunity. Yeah, it is bubbling along, but I agree, it hasn't really seen any traction. I think the biggest problem with this is just price point. Do the economics work for retailers to have that model? And is this really price competitive for consumers?

Mark pinkerton [00:25:17 - 00:25:27]

Yeah, I think COVID kind of killed it for a while, because obviously everybody stopped going out and therefore they didn't need the outfits, but it hasn't really recovered.

David Worby [00:25:25 - 00:25:29]

Yeah, it hasn't really recovered. I don't think it really does.

Richard Lim [00:25:28 - 00:25:44]

I think the price, every time I look at this in any kind of detail, I just think the price point is just a bit out of kilter of what you can buy brand new. And then if you can buy it brand new, wear it for a few times and then sell it on vintage, then you know...

David Worby [00:25:44 - 00:25:51]

If you've got the finance to be able to do it, that's probably the preferable route, if you haven't, you're a bit stuck.

Mark pinkerton [00:25:45 - 00:25:47]

If you've got...

David Worby [00:25:51 - 00:26:00]

But yeah, if it's 50% of the price of the real thing, then it's just not going to work economically, is it? Yeah. Anyway, one day it may happen, or it's an opportunity for someone out there listening.

Mark pinkerton [00:25:58 - 00:25:59]

One. What?

David Worby [00:26:00 - 00:26:01]

Absolutely.

Mark pinkerton [00:26:01 - 00:26:08]

Absolutely. Okay, I'm actually going to draw a line there because we have well overrun

David Worby [00:26:03 - 00:26:05]

Okay, I'm actually going to draw a line there.

Mark pinkerton [00:26:08 - 00:26:12]

and I'd like to say thank you very much.

Richard Lim [00:26:12 - 00:26:16]

Brilliant. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Really enjoyed that. Richard, thank you very much.