Nick Vinckier is the Head of Corporate Innovation at Chalhoub Group. Nick creates competitive advantages and new revenue streams for luxury retail brands. He helped in launching the Group’s first NFT collection, circular business models and subscription programs. Chalhoub Group is the largest luxury retailer and distributor of luxury, fashion and beauty in the Middle East and beyond.
Q. As the Head of Innovation in Chalhoub group, can you tell us about some of the new initiatives that were adopted recently?
Some of the new initiatives that we adopted recently are Pre-Loved, so we believe that second hand in the retail industry will become increasingly important. We even believe that it will represent more than 10% of the total revenue within a couple of years from now. So I’m very proud to announce that we launched Pre-Loved on levelshoes.com. We also launched rental for Tanagra where you as a customer can now rent your favorite luxury tableware for one night. So if you’re hosting your friends and family at home, you can rent a beautiful table setup for four to twelve people instead of buying, which is great in terms of experience, but also in terms of sustainability because we extend the life cycle of the goods this way.
Before that we launched the first NFT collection of Chalhoub Group with Christofle and we made virtual wearables for them. we recently also launched a token gated collection, which means a limited edition collection by Christofle, which is only available for NFT holders. So to sum it up, a lot is going on at Chalhoub Group, and a lot more to come.
Q. What does the Metaverse offer for luxury fashion and the cosmetics industry?
I think that the Metaverse or Web3 in general gives us tremendous opportunities on three levels. On the one hand it gives us new technology for community building by issuing NFTs. We go into a new type of relationship with customers and potential customers, on the other hand It enables us to do storytelling in a completely different way, by issuing NFTs but also after the drop, it gives us so many new areas of experimentation and storytelling, which is way richer in terms of media, for example, by building virtual worlds, 3D assets and by working with avatars and issuing virtual cosmetics, for example, where you could then virtually try it on your avatar and finally we believe that Web3 will help us with authentication and rarity which goes hand-in-hand with the luxury industry. Because you have tokens on the blockchain which are extremely good solutions for authentication, and going back to what we previously mentioned regarding Pre-Loved, it is very hard to do authentication for second-hand luxury bags, watches, and so on, but if you have the product on the blockchain, it becomes fairly easy to do that.
Q. What is the optimal monetary unit to be used in the Metaverse in your opinion?
When it comes to paying in the Metaverse, I believe that we still have some steps to take. I believe that there’s big importance for cryptocurrency obviously to be adopted more widely, but I think that it will be essential for us to build solutions to accept Fiat payments, also in the Metaverse, I simply don’t believe that we will reach the point of mass adoption by only allowing cryptocurrencies in the Metaverse. I agree that crypto will have its place in the Metaverse, but also in the offline world or even on e-commerce, but Fiat will remain the preferred way of payment for a lot of people today. So if we want to be inclusive, if we want to onboard the Web2 audience, it will be necessary also to accept Fiat.
Q. Do you see the future of luxury retail moving towards digital only?
Do I believe in a digital-only future for retail or fashion? The answer is no, absolutely not. I believe in a phygital future where anything you buy physically will be complemented by a virtual experience, but on the other hand, also being able to buy a virtual asset and getting a real-life experience, and that doesn’t per se need to be the virtual garment or the product on its own, because I’m a big believer in virtual assets on their own. But I believe that the future will be phygital, not digital only and not physical only.
Q. How do businesses secure an ultimate environment for innovation and creativity to prosper?
When it comes to innovation in larger companies, it’s very important to set a clear definition of what you want to achieve as a company and what innovation means for you. At Chalhoub Group we have defined a clear definition of what innovation is for us and what we want to achieve with it, and we kind of love the 3 Horizon bubble claimed by McKinsey before. Where we look at the short term actions with technology that is widely accepted already, on the first horizon ranging up to the third horizon, which is very early-stage technology, very experimental to very small audiences and anything in between which is horizon 2 and that’s focusing on new business models. After setting a clear definition of what innovation means for you and what you want to achieve with it, it is essential that you free up means to do it and you have the proper mindset and that you give the people the mandate to do so, basically the mandate to fail, innovation is all about trying and testing and learning and if you’re looking for a perfect record, I don’t think innovation is a good thing for you. To sum it up, innovation at large companies is about defining what it is for you, having clear objectives, and then having the right means, mindset, and the mandate to innovate.
Q. Lastly what message do you have for our readers?
I’d like to share with the readers that you’re doing a good job by keeping your eyes open. A lot of so-called and self-proclaimed gurus out there, try to scare people. Say, if you don’t do X or Y, your company will die and I don’t really believe in that kind of RARA sentences. I don’t believe in predicting the future.
It’s very hard to say that this or that will happen. So what is important, what we can do is make sure that we understand what is happening today, and by reading The Technology Express, you are doing that. You’re already making sure that you stay on top of what is happening today in your industry and outside your industry. And based on that, you can take action and experiment. So don’t be scared by the self-proclaimed gurus that say that you have to jump on trend X or hype Z. Just be mindful of what happens today. Test and learn and stay foolish.
Innovation should be all about trying, testing, and learning as it is different from one person to the other.
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