Episode 43: What It Means to Walk Into Tryano Now

Hello, Marhaba! Thank you for joining the podcast by Shalhoop Group. My name is Lyn Al-Khatib, I'm the Vice President of Communication, and I'll be your host. Today, we're shifting our focus from corporate conversations to brand conversations, one of Shalhoop Group's own brands. Triano has built itself a distinctive retail presence by bringing together international brands, homegrown and regional talents, and, most importantly, a community, which is at the heart of everything that they do. We will explore what it means for a retail brand to rebrand and to evolve with intention, what customer expectations are today, and what experiences and how these experiences are curated to deliver to these expectations. With me, the General Manager of Triano, Rida Kiddaji, hi Rida, thank you for joining and for your time. Thank you for having me, Lyn, and thank you very much for the introduction about Triano. It's nice for a change to talk about brand and consumer and not corporate conversations, but before we start, I would like to ask you, who are you, Rida? So professionally, I have the opportunity to lead Triano as a General Manager outside of work. I'm a proud husband and dad of two young kids. I was born and bred in the south of France, originally from Morocco. I had the privilege to live in different countries, different cultures, and from this, I take the notion of identity very deep at heart and working in retail. This is very important for me to bring this emotion to our customers, how they can see the space, more personalize, more belonging to them, and from my perspective, this is for identity and culture. It's beautiful when you bring your own personal experience to your brand as well, and when the brand also represents that and culture, we're going to talk about that feeling and culture a lot on this podcast. From your professional experience, how long have you been a childhood group and tell me a bit more about your journey? So I've been in the group for the past 10 years, mostly in the multi-brand background, in different markets, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, but also Bahrain, coming from a buying background. So curation is also something that is very important to me and how we can create not only the international brands, but also the services that we provide to our customers. Triano has a very unique positioning. A) it is located in Abu Dhabi, locals love the store, but also the relationship you have with the brand, and B) it's undergone recently birthday, but also a rebrand. So tell me a bit more about that and why did you do it? We celebrated 10 years last year in November. We took the opportunity to rebrand. More than a rebrand, I would say, it's an evolution, and why are we doing this evolution because our customers are evolving. And the same way that luxury retail evolves, so are the expectations. So we wanted just to make sure that at Triano, we are using this to re-adapt, reaffirm what makes us so unique. And what makes us so unique today is what you said, the lean about curation, but discovery, but also, you know, like a strong sense of local and culturally relevance. Nice. All the brands that are around the world are trying to rebrand, even in the region. You know, rebranding is beyond logo and color palette and all of these things. Today with retail, it's different. So for Triano specifically, which is, yes, the regular brand changes, then retail, but then there's the additional touch of experiences. How do all these fit and the new Triano brand? So the new essence of Triano is really this curated discovery place, where we really wanted to embedded the notion of culture and local relevance. So from product assortment, so curation, till customer journey, customer checkout, this is very important for us to have this kind of emotion triggered throughout the whole customer journey to sell more than products and to really create those memories, moments that will make our customers come again to try. Beautiful. And I know you always say, and I know you from our office, obviously, we work together, that we have gone beyond the transaction. It's a very important point, which is like that pressure of sell, sell, sell. And, you know, the numbers are very important. But what does it mean for that store experience when you redesign the store, be it the style or do you have more seating or do you know what is it that you've done to go beyond the transaction? So moving from this transaction on mindset to this experiential one is really key and a strong pillar of our new rebrand. How do we do it? Again, there is the curation, but there are all those hints that customer will feel valued and you know, like, understood when they come to store. So the pearls, for instance, that refer to the Dalmat pearls that can only be found in the UAE, the color code that is green, which baits tribute to the mangroves in Abu Dhabi. So this is, again, this experience that we are selling. We're not only selling products at Triano, we are here to give this 360 customer journey from the smell, the ceiling, the VM props, to the products, to the customer check out. The whole experience needs to be, you know, like a whole. Nice. So you've really used the five senses and your rebranding journey. That's perfect. Yes. And again, this is to trigger this emotion. Of course. And we think in retail, this is how we will manage to succeed. Well, I'm sure you are succeeding. So 10 years of Triano, new brand, new experience, all of that. And what I like and what I'm hearing you say is while everyone is scaling and going big and global and a bit more generic, you're getting more and more rooted to serve the community. So before we go into brand curation, tell me more about this community. Who is it? If you were to describe your daily customers, what is special about them? Let me just remind to to the audience, so just to let them know that when we did the rebrand, the first exercise was to analyze our customers. So we really went deep into this exercise and we have concluded in five different personas, those five different personas or the foundations of everything we do in Triano. On the top of it, we have our category strategy and, you know, like the install experience, the VM. So to know the customer is, you know, like the key. And this is how we have integrated the changes in store. For instance, they're looking for services. We have implemented services. They're looking to enhance the customer experience with a cafe concept, a flower shop. We are bringing these to our community. So to build the community is really, you know, like to understand what are the needs to be able. Also, you know, like to have an open discussion to get the feedbacks and to evolve constantly also with the needs. That's beautiful. And I think this also shows you the power of insights, knowing the people themselves as people and also having the data that helps you enhance and evolve. And this is part of everything that luxury is about. So you know very well your community and your customer. And now tell me how do you then think of the brands that you bring into the store? The beauty of Triano, at least from my personal opinion, is how you mix the international brands in a nice and unique way as well, multi-category, and then the homegrown brands and then you cater to men, women and children. So tell me how do you do that and your buyer. So what goes through your mind? So I think this is really this exciting formula between data because obviously we're looking at data, what sells, what doesn't sell, customer insights. And for us, it's becoming more and more important. So a good American, a good buyer for me is really someone who masters this great combination between the data that we are seeing on the Excel lines, but also how many times do we spend in store to get to know the customers to discuss with our team and to be able to give more context, more perspective. And this is how we manage actually to scout new emerging brands, super exciting for customers. And Triano is a place where our customers want to come and to discover new brands. So obviously we have all the internal discovery is something you keep repeating. It's important. Yes, discovery and I think this intention, you know, like to really feel that the brand has been brought for our customers is key for them. Okay, so if for international brand, I think it's a bit easier or more straightforward, I would say for your business or the way you do it, for regional brand. If our audience now as someone who's a local designer, regional brand, what is the criteria you look for so they can maybe get excited about positioning themselves with you? I take this opportunity to really say that as someone who's been in the UE for the past 10 years, I'm very proud to see the evolution of the scene of the local and regional brands. I think 10 years ago, and there were very few, now we have very good qualitative brands that definitely are true. I know we are very proud to represent and to give them this visibility along with international brands. And this is even our responsibility as a home-grown brand and because we don't only operate here, but we really belong to the UAE. So again, based on our category strategy, based on our knowledge about the customers, we have a checklist and if the brand ticks the boxes, then you know, like, we'll be able to introduce the brand. Amazing. Do you have any specific programs that you do or do like, do the brands rescore your website? What is the, what's the process here? So we have a partner with our amazing sustainability team here in Shalhoop to launch the Weakum project. Weakum means with you in the Emirati dialect, I'm going back to the notion of culture. We have also embedded a lot of Emirati words and dialects, you know, like in everything we do in the campaigns, but also in such projects like Weakum. Weakum is an initiative and a responsibility that we have to give exposure to local brands original. So over the past month, brands have been able to apply into Weakum application and the brand, our team, sorry, our team were able to rate the brands following the brand's identity, the customer's needs to also give them a space to be able to be with the customers to test the products with our market. So we'll be launching this project for a couple of weeks where brands will be there with the founders, the team, be able to interact with the customers and for us to also understand how we can scale the best brands. Amazing. Top two things you look for in a regional brand that would be top of your criteria as well. So definitely relevance, how the brand is relevant to our customers and second is about craftmanship. So triano and customers know triano about the fact that we are bringing you know, like the most qualitative brands. So craftsmanship is something also very important to us when we look at the brand, the quality, the production, how flexible the brand is to personalize the products or to even have something quite exclusive. I love that. So even beyond being already homegrown with craftsmanship, flexibility to do something to spoke for the customers. Beautiful. I was hoping to be publishing this on the podcast, but it seems you're already on your way with it. So I hope by the time we publish this podcast, there's still the opportunity for some brands to apply. If not, next round. And then we'll be different. Exactly. You can come and experience and talk to the team that's and this time I think community is very important supporting local, supporting their young and up and coming designers to be honest. This is this is very heartwarming. And actually so we ended up talking about sustainability, which was our previous episode. So there you go, brand and corporate are always hand in hand. We have maybe two sections or questions for you before our time runs up. The first one is you talk a lot about the feeling, the experience, the curation that consumers have, our store consultants and team members who are connecting with our customers are really our superstars. So I wouldn't say give me the secrets, no, but what are top three things you would tell them to do differently than any other store they would work out. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to highlight our superstars. They have been amazing and a massive shout out, especially during these times. So three things I would strongly recommend to the team, you know, like to do on a daily basis. Again, I might be too customer centric, but this is how we are in a triano to know the customers really, you know, like to start the day by checking, you know, like on the customer that we that are entering in store for us, this data is key to be able to adapt the customer journey because each visit a triano is unique. That's the first one. Second one, I think it's to have more patience. And you know, yes, we are looking at the numbers and financial performance is important. But we really think that experience will drive results. So instead of looking at static KPI's like cells and cell through, we are introducing more experiential KPI's at triano, looking at the dwell time of our customers, for instance, how we can keep them from 30 minutes to one hour and a half, looking at the conversion, not only, you know, like for the basket, but the conversion for people that they're bringing in store because this is a community and the amount to the world to mouth is very important. So this experiential KPI's are starting, you know, like to get really embedded in our store teams mind. And the third one, obviously, you know, like is to ensure that we are building a loyal database customer because we are here to stay. And this is a community, as you say, we believe that community is medicine, you know, like during hard times or you know, like when your mind is down, you will always go back to your community. And this is what happened in triano also. So sometimes we have customers who don't come to shop, but just because they want to feel at ease, they want to feel, you know, like valued and the stood. And this is one of the strongest feedback we might have from customers today. That's beautiful. And I mean, I know when we go into the store, whether it's a beauty or fashion or footwear leather goods, all the categories are there, but more so is just to go and sit and even speak to, you know, the people you know. And what I love is the follow-up after as well, like how did it look like? Did you enjoy it? How was the party? Or if you wore it for an occasion, that follow-up is key. And that's the relation you build as a brand, which is beautiful. So thank you for telling us some of your secrets. Before we close, we talk usually we have some rapid fire questions. Are you ready? Let's do it. Yeah. So you have said so many sentences and words, but I want you to choose one word for the new triano experience. Intentional. Intentional. Okay. I'll take that. The future of experiential retail and the region in three words. We're very generous here. So cultural, human, and curated. Cultural, human, and curated. Beautiful. You've been ten years at the group with different rules that you played connected to a multi-brand and triano. There must be a moment that you feel super proud of. What is it? So I'll take one of the most recent moments I had with the team. And so the last year we have done the rebrand. We also had the opportunity to get new talents in the team. And when I realized that today the sparkle, you know, like in the eyes and the way they speak about triano and the share, the story is better than I do. I feel that the transformation is real. And I will take this as a proud moment not only for myself, but for triano how we manage to build this strong brand identity. Congratulations on all the hard work and also for the team who's doing amazing. Is there any last question you would like me to ask you that I still don't? Maybe where do I see triano in the next decade? Okay. Good. Yes. Do we have like one sentence or a lot of words. So definitely we're here to stay. And we have built this rebrand based on an identity and not on trends. And I'm very confident about the fact that the foundations are very strong. Trends come and go, but the day the identity will always keep you anchored. Right. So definitely you know like to be a cultural destination and not only retail and still you know like to be the speeding heart of the community where our customers, you know, like can go spend some time, leave socialize and shop. And this is our motor triano place to leave to socialize and to shop. So having this kind of mindset will definitely help us in being here, you know like for the next decades beautifully said. I think with that let's leave it on a high beautiful note. Thank you for being here and sharing your story with us. Thank you all for listening or watching. All you have to do is visit triano, I guess. So we're all having a nice trip to our Adobe very soon and to have that experience and feel that feeling. Thank you very much. Stay tuned. And until next time. (upbeat music)