Hello and welcome [music] back to Five Things Friday, USA edition with my fabulous co-host Jill. Jill, hello. Hello Alex, great to see you. Lovely to see you. So, you're probably wondering what's on today's show. Let me tell you what's on today's show. We're going to start with the fantastic world of numbers and what's going on and what's happened in the US with the retail sales figures. Jill's going to take us through that. Then we're going to talk about a wonderful fan warm up moment. Well done Spain, viva la España. Then we're going to talk about Amazon and how they're building a factory of the future in Texas. Moving on to Sephora and some cool things they're doing around the an initiative to basically get closer to their customers by understanding them more and finishing by someone that I think Have you met them? Mark Lore, the story around Mark Lore, he's amazing. Yep.
Okay, fantastic. I look forward to hearing more about that later. But let's start with the retail sales figures. What's going on, Jill? That sounds amazing. Yeah, so looking year-over-year, which you know, hard to believe we're already into July. So, we're already looking at 6 months of the year over year. Total retail sales are up 11% year-over-year. This is on Retail Dive. They They calculate really from the Commerce Department. They're pulling those numbers which can't just came out. So, if you're looking at, you know, the different breakouts, everything was up year-over-year for these first 6 months. Now, I think a good amount of this is probably coming from the World Cup. We know how many people we've been hosting in the US, how many more people are going out. But what was really interesting is not all of these are restaurant, kind of bar, or sporting sales. You know, if you scroll down on the this on this website you're on It's Retail Dive, right? So, again, just a big shout out to Retail Dive fantastic coverage of these figures. So, please go off and read the link in the show notes.
Yeah, look at that. I mean, non-store sales up almost 20%. Sporting goods is obviously up a whole lot. That can maybe be somewhat, if not all, explained by that. But look, I mean, electronics, clothing, general merchandise. Of course, World's Cup fans are buying everything. But it is it is really nice to have positive retail news. So, this was quite exciting to see. So, Lovely. Good to see. We would love to leading into yours for World Cup. Yeah, well, listen. So, there's been lots of fan moments across the two weeks. It's been the longest World Cup ever. And I and I have to be honest, some of the purists were like, "Oh, you know, the hydration breaks." I think a lot of these bits worked out in the end, you know? And one of the un- unexpected outcomes were how international fans, and you were telling me, I didn't know in Australia there are there is a Walmart, but what I've noticed, you know, so the headline is Walmart starts offering tours for World Cup fans around their stores. Like, what they about, what do they do? And I and I think Business Insider broke that. But the real story for me is the cultural elements of YouTube, where people and all these there's thousands and thousands of videos of Walmart and Target, and people doing, you know, stack your trolley, I don't know, Mr.
Beast, everyone is in a Walmart or Target. And I think what happened is all these fans came across and they were like, "Oh my god, there's a Walmart." And here's a takeover, where Australian fans are singing, "We're on our way to Walmart." I mean, you can't pay for enthusiasm and excitement like that. I mean, Walmart happy they are going to a Walmart. It's unbelievable. And you know, I'm sure they've seen Walmart, you know, through media and things like that. But look at this, I mean, they're tailgating outside of Walmart, they're going into a Walmart. I mean, it's it is absolutely bananas, but they don't have Walmart in Australia, but you you I'm going to call my dear friends over at Walmart and just let them make sure that they that that they know how much they'd be loved there. But look, it's not only this international moment, but the whole World Cup had such cool, exciting moments of brands that honestly Americans we take for granted and we just, you know, but it was so exciting to see fans vlogging or talking about some of these brands that we just think are like, you know, everyday US brands. But the excitement, I mean, it's really it's just great for great for the whole world, frankly.
I agree. I agree. Was it perfect? No, but behind the headline here is Walmart was watching social media, understood there were all these fans going to a Walmart and then decided to pivot and create these tours Let's do you tour. Yeah. Honestly, phenomenal. Great. Well done Walmart again. Staying with me and waiting for Amazon and how robotics, we've seen this in Ocado's. So if you're familiar with the Ocado picks where the robots are doing all the picking, then handing off to humans. That's what's opening up in Texas. Whereabouts in Texas is it opening? In Georgetown, Texas. $48 million investment. Fantastic in terms of the construction of this. Hopefully completed by July 2027 and a really big sort of nod to where robotics is going to be driving cost out of Amazon fulfillment center. So interesting story there.
Huge. Huge. Huge. Amazing. Going back to you for Sephora. Yeah, I mean, Sephora is you know, they they do so many things right both in store and you know, online. One thing they're doing now is as you said, trying to get closer to customers. Some customers have very specific kind of sensitivity needs both from kind of an auditory and a visual standpoint and some of that obviously are different, you know, diagnoses and spectrum and you know, autism spectrum etc. But a lot of this also are people who are incredibly overwhelmed or just tired and want to shop in kind of more peace and quiet. So it's music is gone, you know, maybe less, you know, greeting in the beginning, the scents, you know, which are, you know, the perfumes have been reduced. So it's really nice. They're calling them quiet hours and it's just a calmer area and it's going to be in all of their regions, which is a really big, big move. And Sephora is always one of the first on the forefront, whether it's DEI during the pandemic and doing, you know, taking part in a lot of the pledges that were happening. They're really, really impressive and Deborah Yeh, who's their global CMO is is really leading this charge.
I love it. And finishing off, staying with you, Marc Lore. Oh my gosh. So Marc Lore is just he is a retail and e-com retail darling. So for those in the US, you might have heard of Wonder, you might have even seen one. What Wonder is, well, let me talk numbers first. So series D, they just raised 650 million in series D. What did that get them? A nine billion dollar valuation, which is bananas. yeah. Bananas. I mean, I will say right now they have about a a little over 130. They're calling them food halls. So what happened there's only they're only in 10 states. They're in Virginia near me. So each location, they are not that big. They're maybe the size of two or three kind of QSR restaurants put together.
They have they run 30 restaurant concepts out of one location. So it'll be things like Bobby Flay, it'll be, you know, all sorts of high-end brands and potentially like a barbecue joint all out of one location. So they're saving it's like a glorified super ghost kitchen. Not only then you can eat there in some of them or there's delivery. So, if you have a bunch of kids that you're serving and no one can ever agree on one place, you can order and uh you know, the DoorDash, the Uber Eats or any of those delivery services can do it in one pickup. So, it really is kind of a cool notion and you know, this guy this guy has really big aspirations, really really incredible technology, a lot of this is robotics and the back end. So, low cost and it's amazing. So, I I can't wait to see kind of how this, you know, how this shakes out from a potential IPO later this fall or maybe next year.
I love it. It's one of these when when you obviously in retail IP and licensing the brand has happened but in food, you know, licensing it it's interesting. I'll be super curious to see how this goes in terms of food delivery and food experience, right? FMB is a growth category for a lot of mall operators. After they used to having this license and but I having it for delivery, well done. I mean, no wonder you've got a $20 billion valuation. Right? I mean, it's incredible and you know, I I believe Mark himself even has and has come out saying he has celiac disease. So, on on that end as well, you can customize so many of these meals like maybe Bobby Flay's for example wouldn't have something for the celiac but next door at the barbecue restaurant it would and they they tailor it. So, I just it's the personalization piece for me of being able to satisfy four different meals or you know, and and and satisfying everyone in your household or for a party etc. and only having one order and one point of contact. So, simplicity for the customer again is going to win here.
Love it. Well, until next week Joe, thank you so much. Thank you Alex and to all of you out there, thank you for listening.
