Implementation of Digital Strategies is Helping Smaller Retailers Finally Compete Against Big Box Stores

Well, to bring this to a smaller business or or, because we're talking big box, but, to loop this around to smaller, more niche stores, considering the growth that we're seeing, across the board of the big box, I mean, what lessons could maybe the smaller retailers or even, boutique brands opposite end of that, are there areas where smaller entities are leading the way that the big players, could learn from? I think one of the interesting the retailers who are doing this really well and harnessing the digital connection, they're doing it because they know that a digital connection with their customers is incredibly valuable. And a customer who shops as an omnichannel customer tends to be significantly more valuable than a customer who is a single channel shopper only. Some of the brands that we're working with interest in the art, like, high street food and beverage chains. So we work with the likes of Pret a Monge in the UK. They've got about four hundred and fifty coffee sandwich shops. And they, a few years ago, actually, in the middle of the pandemic, because we were coming out of the first wave of lockdown, launched a coffee subscription program that's through digital. And now three years later, they're seeing about forty two percent of their total sales come through digital channels, which for business that is one hundred percent brick and mortar mortar was kind of unimaginable a few years ago. And I think the learning really for them has been that they've put digital at the heart of how they run their physical store business, and they're using that connection with the customer to deliver a better customer experience, a better employee experience because things are happening in the store much more quickly because consumers prepaid for their coffee, etcetera. So that's like a barrier to, to speed taken away. And they're using then all of the data that they're harnessing on their customers to run the rest of the business better. So in terms of where should they open new stores, what product or fridge should they have, what day part should they be focusing on. They've got the connection and that customer data to be able to answer those questions that previously would have been impossible to answer on anything other than kind of gut feel.