RetailCraft 64: "Little pockets of magic" - in conversation with Paul Porter of Hamleys

0:02Paul Porter: Well, hello lovely listener. We're back in the studio and after a summer of heatwaves, canicules, droughts and wondering if we'd ever see rain again, you will be pleased to know the clouds have broken. And with that magic, I thought we'd look at our wonderful latest guest, Paul Porter of Hamleys because magic is on my mind. There's the magic of the Hamleys store itself, the history, the promise, the joy, the twinkle in the eyes of children from seven months to 70 plus years old. And we wanted to have a chance maybe to look, if you like, open the curtains and understand a bit more about what happens and how, most importantly, we go from ideas and brands to a world-renowned experience in, let's face it, a challenging sector.

0:58Paul Porter: So that was my enthusiasm, but let's now turn the mic over to Paul. Paul, welcome to the studio. Why don't you just give us a thumbnail of Hamley's first off and then your role, which is a fantastic role in a great retailer. Paul. Hi Ian, thank you so much for the invite and hopefully it'll be of interest and a great conversation, really looking forward to it. So Hamley's, Hamley's of London started in 1760, so it's 266 years old. Every August we celebrate the birthday founded by William Hamley who was a Cornishman and he set up a toy store in Holborn and then Hamley's grew and has been on Regent Street the iconic Regent Street store for at least 120 years and in our current building on Regent Street for over 50 years 55 years now I think.

2:04Um, it has in 266 years, um, there's always ups and downs. Um, and it's, it's, I think it's one of the oldest retail brands that, you know, that exists. And in that history, of course, there's, there's been lots of different, um, things that, you know, from wars and all sorts of different history. But we are now part of Reliance, which is an Indian conglomerate, and Reliance Brands, who are the retail arm of that conglomerate. And they've been owned, we've been owned by them since 2019. Multiple owners before that, and all the ups and downs and trials and tribulations that go with multiple different owners.

2:52But we've really settled down and are using and leveraging the strength of this brilliant organization that's behind us. We have over 200 stores in 18 markets around the world now. And my job is the Global Chief Experience Officer, which is one of those terms that covers a lot of sins. It's everything from trying to create the templates and the platforms from which we not only design our stores and the new stores that are opening and refurbishing existing stores around the world, but then also what's happening inside that store from not just the fixtures and fittings, but also thinking about the experiences, the demonstrations, the entertainment, and how that all blends with the Hamleys brand and some of the brilliant partners that we work with to create what we want to be as the best toy store in the world.

4:05Paul Porter: I mean, we'll come back to some of those, but I just want to pick up on the role because it must be the best job ever. It's like a combination of creative brain, retail experience, genuine theatre. Are you responsible for trading as well? Or do you just have all of the fun stuff and someone else has to deliver the profits per square foot? Yes, is the answer. So the second part. So I work hand in hand with the two other pillars of the business. It's the operational side and the buying and merchandising team as well. So you've got the constant product supply and the search for novelty, but also delivering those traditional toys that are evergreens, they're perennials, the monopolies and teddy bears.

5:08And there's always a twist to them, it's something new, but people come back for them time and time again. But then there's the operational side. But how do you run this business? How do you make sure that the visitors that come into store not only have a great entertainment and a great experience, also can bind and buy the things that they want to buy if they've got something in mind, but then also how they're inspired to buy perhaps something that they weren't looking for in the first place. and we give them that inspiration as well. So it's very much we work together and collaborate to make sure that all of those things come together because if it's just about product supply, you lose the sense of fun.

6:09If it's just about the experience, then you perhaps lose the fact that you're a retailer as well. So it's all about achieving balance.

6:19Paul Porter: Look, I think that's a really good point. And before we move back to Hanley's itself, I thought it was just worth pointing out that you've also had another fantastic job most recently with Lego as well. So, you know, these global brands that are loved at all ages, but have maintained that relevance and passion throughout the multiple stages of your customers' lives. So, I mean, you're building quite a portfolio of this connected brand-led experience. Yeah, I feel incredibly lucky, actually, because, you know, before I joined Lego 10 years ago and moved to Hamleys three years ago. Before that, I was on the agency side for 25 years.

7:12I worked for Whitbread, the brewers before that, when they brewed beer back in a different century. So I've worked on some brilliant brands and worked in agencies firstly as an account handler and then moved into strategy and planning. Whitbread trained me as a researcher and always brought research and customer understanding into what I was doing. And I think quite fortuitously, I was approached by Lego. I didn't even know it was Lego at the time that were approaching me. And it was like, wow, I haven't worked in toy retailing at all or on toy brands and just had the, it was the most fantastic opportunity to start to work as a shopper planner, as a director of shopper planning globally for Lego retail or for Lego within their internal agency and then moved into Lego retail to work on the next generation of their retail experience.

8:35Yeah. So, you know, this was just as COVID was kicking off, there were questions about why do we need a retail experience at all? Let's, everything can go online. And actually, you know, a lot of it did go online. But what we discovered and through lots and lots of testing and prototyping and understanding was that actually there's, the retail world changes so much, but there's a sort of almost like a bedrock of people wanting anywhere in the world, a strong global or strong retail experience. people like shopping when it's fun they like going to and they like retail to inspire them and to um perhaps this you know without coming too fluffy transporting them sometimes into a slightly different world and actually the really real sharp end of that is toy retailing because you're you've got you're dealing with kids you're dealing with children who's are so full of imagination and and creativity that if you can harness that and and it and inspire them you you can transport them to a totally different world and they we may come on to this later but what's really really interesting what i've sort of discovered particularly with hanley's is that the people that are coming into the stores with those kids whether it's you know parents or godparents or grandparents or uncles and aunts or you know teachers on school trips we have an opening ceremony every day at 10 a.m and that you know a kid is chosen to ring the bell and invites everyone else into store and you look at the parents you look at the adults and you know there's a bit of trepidation for some you know perhaps yeah it's like oh what do we got ourselves into here but they transform as well they almost become like ways like kids yeah um and they start they start to view the experience through the eyes of the kids that they're with and that trepidation um dissipates very quickly and you can see the mums and dads taking part in the demonstrations the magic tricks the drones that are being thrown around all of the great activities that take place in store the parents are just having just as much fun or nearly as much

11:24Paul Porter: fun as the kids themselves and it's you know there's no way that i could take responsibility that say i've discovered this magic formula it's something that has been built on for two over 200 years in in hamley's case getting you know hands-on hands-on toys and unboxing and get being letting kids play is is the best sales tool that you could I think there's a generosity there, which you don't get in the world of supply and demand. So if everyone knows there's a top toy, you can look online for the cheapest price, you can get the next day delivery. It's a transaction. Whereas I've always seen that if the retailer is generous, by which I mean they give the experience.

12:17Paul Porter: So, you know, one key thing for me is will a toy shop open the box? Will they put in the batteries? Will they fly the drone or show the toy? I mean, examples abound in Lego. You know, on the Fifth Avenue store in New York, you have the incredible people in their white coats in the Lego lab opening boxes and building with you. You have the incredible camp store with a magic door. and just seeing the delight on children's faces they can race in and play in this secret area or they have Disney shows on um or even you know the slightly weird to me American girl where you've got the hair salon for your dolls and the dolls cafe I mean I was very skeptical but it's the actual hands-on playing the play and understanding the toys that retaining generosity and involvement is absolutely transformative compared to a box-shifting transaction.

13:22And I'd almost, well, I'll definitely add to that, that for lots of sectors within retail, it's the key to survival. It's how you differentiate yourself from the competition. and you know within toy retailing the the huge changes that people at amazon have brought around where you know i don't know i don't know what the figure is but 20 30 40 percent of toy retail sales in the uk probably go through amazon um and you have to um you have to work with that you can't battle against that but what you have to do is differentiate yourself So, you know, where Hamleys fits into that is that we, because we have such a long tradition and because we concentrate on the things that set us apart, we almost elevate ourselves beyond purely just the retail to being, and I'm talking about Regent Street store here, which you know with 60 000 square feet is you're able to do this um we elevate ourselves beyond just the retail to becoming a an experience in its own right so that we will figure in the top 10 tourist experiences in london so along with the tower of london and the london eye and buckingham palace and all of these things a visit to hamley's is regularly in those top tens It's not the top 10 shopping experiences.

15:03It's just, it's more, it's an experience. And so, you know, about 70 % of our visitors to Regent Street will be international tourists.

15:12Paul Porter: Right. And it's a phenomenal thing. When Regent Street is quiet at 10am in the morning when we have our opening ceremony, there's often 200 people waiting outside to come into the store. And you can tell which country in the world has its school holidays, because there will be one week, it will be French people and then Americans or whoever, you know, it's just, it attracts and entertains people from truly sort of globally. It's really a phenomenon. So let's get slightly more practical then, which is you mentioned your research background. So how do you read the room? Because as an amateur visitor, then I see people who are task focused, sort out little Freddy's birthday present, or I've got the kids for the morning, so I'm going to take them around as a form of sort of creche activity.

16:17Paul Porter: you've got tourists you've got self-buyers you've got people who know exactly what they want and they're just there for the availability and gain their hands on it so it must be when you're designing an experience how would you know who you're designing for so i think the question is to what extent are you creating something so universal and distinctive it is genuinely for everybody versus you're reading the room and adapting what you do to you know suit those various audiences um if you accept that question where does uh where does the uh reading the room fit in i think you have to be in one sense you have to be very cautious about trying to be all things to all people um because again you start to lose what differentiates you as a brand and as an experience um and you tend to become bland um it's sort of an experience that you can walk past and and and and leave alone um we again in regent street we're fortunate that we have the space and the resource to create multiple experiences so i'd be really surprised if um you know every visitor or even any visitor to regent street actually took part in every experience that is in the store and we know from the footfall numbers per floor that that clearly can't be the case here that they as you go up you know the up to the fifth floor the numbers will start dropping down but we have relevant experiences within store for almost every group that comes in there every visitor that comes in there but i would also caveat that but that you have to be focused on who is it you're talking to and yes you have to you know have make sure that adults the people that are purchasing are happy to pay but really it's about ensuring that you're entertaining the kids that that those adults want to entertain as well they're coming there for an entertaining experience they're coming there for fun so a four year old boy will want something very different from a twelve year old girl put very very simply and so you just have to cater in those larger stores to make sure that there are really super experiences for different groups of people that aren't perhaps even contradict myself now aren't so great that they aren't inclusive.

19:10You know, you want everyone to have a good time. So if it's a family group, the family moves together and moves throughout the store and there are different things for different people along that journey. And what's always great, and we definitely saw this at Lego when I was there, was the dads who had that trepidation before they came in the store tend to linger in the die-cast models and the Lego sections. And they're saying, oh, I think I built that Star Wars set 30 years ago or whatever it is. And it brings out the child in everyone.

19:54Paul Porter: Yes. Or that moment when your kid says to you, look, dad, your only job is to open the packets and arrange them. I'm doing the building. you know there's been that generational shift um but how do you measure that though paul because um everything you're saying is lovely and if i just read it in passing i think of course he would say that experience joy fun blah blah blah but fundamentally it's about you know turnover in the store um however uh in order for you to know whether what you're doing is hitting uh whether it's what you should continue investing in building on how are you measuring the success so you you have your customer view you have your ethos around the fun and the play are there other metrics that you focus on to drive your contribution or does it all come down to sales So it would be churlish and wrong for me to say sales plays a huge part in it.

21:00But also there would be other metrics as well about audience reaction and MPI scores, that sort of thing, to understand what's the warmth of feeling, what's the net promoter scores, those sort of things in terms of our people having that warm, fussy feeling about Hamleys as well. But of course, we are laser focused as well on making sure that we're selling the right products in store and that the toy business and each different category within the toy business has this constant um obsession is perhaps the wrong word but there's a there's a huge focus on novelty and bringing in the latest and the newest versions of you know whether it's board games or arts and crafts or construction or soft toys you know whatever it is there's this wanting this need and focus on driving novelty.

22:09In a store like, again, like Regent Street, but perhaps other big flagship stores in various parts of the world in Mumbai or Dubai or any of those that where we have those big stores. You're looking at perhaps over 20 ,000 different products being sold. It's like on a grocery store on supermarket level, that range of SKUs. And so there's always going to be a churn of products and making sure that we are pivoting to be promoting and demonstrating and pushing the products that resonate with our shoppers and with our visitors. Now that can be quite a long process, or it can be a really short process because you'll go to the toy fairs and there's constant communication between our partners and ourselves to understand what they think will be the latest, greatest, best, newest products that are coming into store.

23:14And whether that is based on new IPs, theatrical launches, who knows. But then also say, okay, but people also come to Hamleys for a traditional set of products as well, the evergreen products. So what we know is that, okay, sorry, I'm rambling a little bit, but you've got the long term sort of pipeline, but also in store on, so perhaps that, and that's driven by our buying teams, but in store as well, when when you're at the coalface, it could be, you know, most of the time, those products are brought to life and they are experienced in a really positive way by our visitors. But sometimes, you catch a crab and it's not working.

24:03So you have to be able to pivot and say, okay, well, that hasn't worked for whatever reasons. It's just not resonating. So let's put something else in its place rather than, you know, and it's a bit ruthless. You know, you have to be ruthless. And if you're a toy store that's selling irrelevant products, it can be a pretty nasty business.

24:28Paul Porter: Oh, I felt a chill go through me. But as well as that stock merchandising, buying discipline, there's also then the animation on top of it. I did a quick search of, you know, some of the things you've been up to recently. So you've had the Namco, Gashapon pop-up, Pokemon Summer, silent disco shopping. My mind was boggling somewhat at that. So as well as the product discipline, there's this sort of impresario aspect as well about bringing things to life in slightly unexpected ways as well. which that must be quite hard to pivot um or research because some of these just sound so you know um non-logical but creative there's quite hard to know in advance whether you know it's going to work or not but you still have to commit to the training the prep the animation in advance so yeah there's there's lots of different scenarios that you you talked about there.

25:37So for example, the Namco install that's in our basement, our sort of adult fan zone area down there, is you take your inspiration from the latest trends that are happening in China and Japan and out there and looking at it and working with the supplier really closely to think is that gonna is that gonna work in store and that has to be a collaborative effort amongst all of the team here um because you know a gray-haired guy like myself will have a very different opinion uh and perhaps a more traditional opinion than some of the sort of the younger guys in the team there and and um and you have to get that understand and listen to what other people are telling you i think you know it's very easy to become a little bit dictatorial and um and again that's i don't think that's the recipe for success um and you know our suppliers our partners put a huge amount of effort into getting their retail experiences right um it's we we get approached by so many different suppliers all the time um but we work very very closely and for a very long time with um with the bit you know the the legos the hasbos the patels of this world but also um some of the smaller teams who have had experiences going on in Hamleys for perhaps 30 years or more.

27:20Marvin's Magic is a great example. These guys are magicians and they invest in their staff to come into our store and some of them have been working in the Hamleys store for decades. And they're doing their card tricks and all of the things that they do brilliant. and that's again that's what what sets the spark so you know a silent disco would leave me scratching my head as well but i know it's you know it's a day's activation so it can you know it comes and goes whereas magicians in store have been there for 30 years yeah now you see that now you don't

28:01Paul Porter: yeah exactly so um let's let's maybe take that a bit further because we've talked about um some of these global toy entertainment brands. We've also mentioned in passing Lego, Camp, but there's also a world of direct-to-consumer toy type things. You know, the Harry Potter stores, one of which is opening on Oxford Street at any moment. There's the Disney Store now relocated to Oxford Street as well. So very capable, immersive experiences, etc, etc, but with incredible global fandom worlds. So how do you balance Hamleys, the brand, with hosting other fandoms within it? How do you make it so that Hamleys retains its identity and isn't just a shopping bag in which other brands and fandoms live?

29:09And so there's, I think there's two key things to, in response to that. One is that we have to be, we have to remember that we actually have our own product as well. So, you know, there's a good percentage of product that's sold within a Hamleys store that is Hamleys branded where you can't get anywhere else so there's an element of actually we have our own offerings we're not just a warehouse full of other people's boxes that when it comes to designing stores and creating our stores and the zones and the layouts that we work to there is and this is something that we've worked on really hard particularly since i've joined is to ensure that we understand the right balance between our product our own brand and and our partners brands how we lay that out and curate that within the store But then also not just give over whole sections of the store to other brands, but weave the Hamleys story and branding and design language throughout that store as well.

30:31so that you could be in Dubai Mall or in Manila in a Hamleys store and you're in the Lego section but you still know you're in a Hamleys store. And that's when you have concessions, when you have shopping shops and supplier areas. Harrods, every department store in the world all have to achieve that right balance as well. And sometimes it can become, you know, if you're too, um, prescriptive about ensuring your brand, your brand language is there, it becomes a little bit sort of clinical and I won't name names, but you, you lose the fun of the, of your partner's brand. Uh, but if it goes to the other extreme, you just become that curator of other people's brands.

31:26And actually that's when, perhaps people go well i could i don't need to go to that so i'm just going online or it's just more convenient to do it in the simplest possible way and i i don't think anyone would say that hamley's is the most convenient but it's definitely the most entertaining great so let me press you a

31:47Paul Porter: bit on that because i nearly just nodded uh and moved on because you sounded very persuasive then But then I also realized I could agree with every word you'd said, but not quite understand how it's done. So let's look at this flagship versus franchise. So at the risk of being a bit London-centric, my experience of the brand has been the flagship, the exemplar store, plus you're online, plus seeing you in airports as I go through. and I maybe have a false recollection of seeing you in Dubai as well. But, you know, you've got, you're in over a dozen countries, nearly 200 stores. So how would you go about this balance you've talked about between the cookie cutter, you know, this is the template for a store, and the we'll just be there, but we're undifferentiated.

32:46Paul Porter: um i could just about understand how a human being can manage everything you do in one store but i'm interested in the conversations you'd have with a very important franchise partner or a big store in mumbai where you're ringing a different time zone you're visiting them what is it you say to them that is either persuasive or mandatory that keeps the hamley's flame alive while neither being a cookie cutter nor undifferentiated just help me understand that because it sounds so good but i don't know what i would do if i had to do your job tomorrow well the first thing that i i did when i joined was actually put down in writing what the brand stood for and what was what was special about the brand because i think everyone had you know the we worked with some brilliant franchisees and our team in India as I said before we're owned by Reliance so they're not franchisees in India it's all part of the Handler's family but nowhere had it been this is our brand manual this is what we stand for and these are the behaviours and the beliefs and the experiences that we wanted to create so that was sort of stage one to sort of, this is a line in the sand, this is how we move forward.

34:17And then from that, you can have the basis of a design language to say, okay, in our stores, this is how, you know, these are the colors that we're going to use, these are the typefaces, this is the imagery and the iconography that we're going to use to just build a consistent field to that. to that Hamleys store. Now, there are so many hurdles because there will be different design teams that you're using in different parts of the world that all have their own interpretation of what Hamleys on Regent Street looks like. And being a London store and being known as a London store, it's like, you know, Saks Fifth Avenue or Harrods in Knightsbridge, Selfridges on Oxford Street and Fortnum & Mason's on Piccadilly.

35:17A London Regent Street store, you have to incorporate a sense of geography within that brand as well. You know, we're, along with tradition and entertainment and all the other things that go with it. But you just start rooting and anchoring the retail experience into some very sort of distinct areas. And, you know, this is sort of, in some ways it's retail marketing 101, isn't it? But just, you know, just say this is our platform. Not everything is right, but this is our line in the sand and this is how we move forward. And as we've developed new stores in all sorts of different parts of the world, that starts to bring it together.

36:03now. And then, you know, perhaps you get challenged at times by, you know, by various partners who will go, well, why should we do it your way? Well, actually, we know that by doing it this way, when you, we've replaced old for new in terms of retail store, and we can do a like for like, that it is more successful, but it does generate, generates greater footfall. the more footfall you get as long as the experience in store is better your ATB is going to increase as well so it works.

36:37Paul Porter: Yes I'm sure that every listener now has gone into automatic MBA mode where as soon as you've said you know we have this you know values and brands plan the DNA literally as they listen with half their brain the other half of the brain is ticking off what they think should be in it based on their own experience and professionalism and so on. So I'm just wondering, as you have taken this brand language and values around the world, is there one thing there that has consistently been that aha moment where people have come together with different views different cultural references and you've said something you go oh my goodness you've just unlocked a part of understanding around the brand is there something within your manual that you think you know this is the ace on the table or this is the one that's been most troubling um i think it's very hard to just put your finger on one thing but if i had to it's and again I try and avoid the marketing MBA because I haven't got a marketing MBA so why would I it's but being really clear about what we stand for and it can become trite and cliched but we're about putting a smile on the face of everyone that comes in store and if you keep focusing on that and that becomes sort of it weaves its way into the process um but then that comes down to skill set as well of the people that are in our family's world and yeah and the um the franchisees that we work with is you know what what makes what's the skills that you need to create a good toy store and perhaps the strongest one and perhaps to be a good marketeer is empathy is being able to put yourself in the shoes of others and and not judging everything by your own sets of standards but actually just transporting yourself a little bit into the shoes of the seven-year-old kid that walks into a store Yeah.

39:07And remember, my kids aren't seven, that's for sure, but understanding what motivates them and what inspires them and what will make them want to come back as well. Because to your question 15 minutes ago, the difference between a flagship store that has a preponderance of international tourists that mainly come to that store once or twice in their lives once when they're a kid and once when they're bringing their own kids in or a mall store in Dubai where that mall is visited once a month, two or three times a month by that local family is a very, very different proposition. And it's something that you have to, you still want the fun, you still want the brand to be communicated in a similar way, but the experience might have to be tailored will definitely have to be tailored to to those audiences because they have different needs well look you've mentioned skills uh so maybe let's

40:11Paul Porter: just finish off on that because um you know from visiting the store uh we're familiar with the incredible frontline staff you have somewhere between actors performers customer service agents and stock wizards. So we've seen that front line. But maybe let's finish off. We've mentioned kids. They all grow up and want jobs. We've mentioned the retail world is changing phenomenally. So if we look forward and think maybe past your tenure and in the future when we're floating around on aluminium levitating space buggies and so on if your job is re-advertised in that future world what do you think are the key skills and attitudes that are going to be necessary for the next phase of success in in your role so we'll give everyone that they're fluent in AI, we'll award them the magic marketing MBA that neither of us have and the experience.

41:26Paul Porter: But is there something else as je ne sais quoi that you're going to tell us what it is that's necessary to make it more than the mundane and more than the operating? So that, as we just mentioned, that's a really tough question, by the way, but that the ability to walk in the shoes of others, that empathy, I think is really important. There's being collaborative and actually understanding and acknowledging that you're surrounded by experts who are, you know, and building on that as well. So there's this also, this need for, but the novelty in store and what's new and what's going to drive the next set of visitors to come into Emily's.

42:22But also remembering that you're building, it's all about balance, you're building that on 266 years or, you know, my successor, hundreds of more years of tradition and what makes us special. And, you know, we have a line that in some ways we've created experiential marketing or experiential retail.

42:43Paul Porter: Yeah. And being true to, you know, from the smallest store, you know, some of our stores in are 500 square feet with a handful of staff, but still having little pockets of unboxing and play makes that a magical experience for the child that comes in. Great. it's so unwaffling but it's a combination of being open-minded being empathetic um being collaborative but also because you have your guidelines and you're almost like the greenhouse in which your creativity can flourish and nurture um you have a roadmap of how you can move forward in the future. Wonderful. Well, look, we've gone from magicians to empathy to greenhouse.

43:37Paul Porter: Paul, you've taken us on a journey. It has been magical. So appreciate your openness and your willingness to investigate these. It's been an enormous pleasure to have you in the studio today. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ian. It's been really good fun. Thank you.