Squad Shopping

 

An intriguing phrase has been popping up on retail feeds. “Squad Shopping”. It would be easy  to imagine a pack of women roaming a shopping centre, however Squad Shopping refers to online shopping with your friends. It’s a shopping party, sharing your cart with facetime.  Imagine everyone watching their phone/ computer as friends look thru various websites and discuss products they are thinking of purchasing. Everyone is watching the same screen images and able to talk to each other. It’s a relatively new concept. The biggest uptake demographic is Gen Z females, with China heavily embracing this technology due to their strong culture of peer purchasing pressure. This demographic have grown up more comfortable with visual phone calls than audio.

In 2020 ex L’Oreal brand manager Elysa Kahn and her father invented a program called Squadded. Chrome partnered with Squadded and so the fun began. Squad shopping could be seen as riding the wave of group participation digital activities. You can remotely join with your friends for a streamed movie night or if music is your thing Spotify have group listening control Jam. Online gaming apps have options to bet with your mates. Squadded promotes applications such as Bridal party shopping or long distance shopping from your holiday location.

It would be easy to dismiss this shopping behavior if you don’t fall into this specific demographic. As a concept and existing product it has potential to evolve into a lot more. In time poor society it provides an avenue to consult with your most trusted panel of “influencers”- the ones you know best- your friends. The opinion of your besties holds much more weight than influencers you don’t personally know. Currently there are options to text or facetime your friends. But this speeds up the process by allowing you to move quickly between other sites and consider more products. Not all brands or products will be compatible with this platform but it will be interesting to watch the entity morph.

 

The Lipstick Effect

 

You can’t get it, but you may already unknowingly be part of it.

The Lipstick Effect

You’ve probably heard it mentioned but wondered exactly what it is. It’s being used more frequently at the moment, especially when the household spending is discussed.

It’s a subtle, but unofficial economic indicator. While the term was only coined in the past few decades, it can be traced back to the depression in the 1930’s. The Lipstick effect is the purchase of a luxury beauty item that gives a feel good effect to a woman. It refers only to cosmetics, not clothing or any other discretionary item. The psychology behind this is the in tight economic times women want a product that quickly and easily makes them attractive to a potential mate with good earning capacity. Whilst in this day and age that may seem very antiquated and most modern women would strongly argue this, we are still seeing it in action.

It was reported that Estee Lauder saw significant increases in lipstick sales after the 9/11 stock market crash and also the 2008 crash. The one significant variant to the Lipstick Effect was during Covid and the economic roller coaster of those couple of years. Women swayed from purchasing lipstick that would be concealed by a mask and instead perfume purchases increased.

The Lipstick Effect relies on regular sales figures from major cosmetics brands- which are not always forthcoming. It’s also a bit ambiguous because some women may be sticking to their regular cosmetics brands, whist others are still purchasing lipstick but have downgraded to cheaper brands.

Silicosis

 

This subject has been in the news a lot lately. It’s an issue which greatly affects my industry from the initial product specification stage to the end manufacturing- which is where the disease is occurring.

It relates to the silica content in the dust of quartz, sand, stone, soil, granite, brick, cement, grout, mortar and bitumen. But it’s the engineered stone benchtops that have been causing the most problems. I don’t see the demand for stone benchtops declining at any stage in the future.

However the past couple of years has seen the trend swing back to the natural stone for benchtops as opposed to the engineered stone. The reason for the resurgence of natural is riding on the 70’s design trend going through, which heavily features stone but also celebrates the uniqueness of each stone slab.

Engineered stone was invented for numerous reasons. It enabled a consistent finish to be guaranteed. If you wanted a particular colour or pattern heaviness in the stone slab you could specify it and know you would get that. If you are using real stone slabs you need to go to the actual stone mason and reserve your specific slab if you wish to ensure you get that exact pattern appearance.  The natural stone could not guarantee exact colours and patterning. The natural was also limited by the amount found in nature. Some stones are very expensive because they are rare and found in one off locations in the world.

Manufactured stone enabled the creation of a similar look to the real but could be provided as an endless supply.

The manufactured stone is a much stronger product than some types of natural stone, which may have cracks and fissures resulting in higher breakage and therefore replacement costs.

Silica does occur in natural stone, however it’s usually around 30% silica. The manufactured stone is has approx. 80%  or higher silica due to the formula.

How does the building industry keep up with the demand for a product while eliminating the dangers of manufacturing the product?

For a while now the major engineered stone companies have been creating new products with a lower silica content. Smartstone have a range with the stone image printed onto the top surface and allowing them to decrease the silica in the substrate. Caesarstone  are also working on new products which will have at least 40% or lower silica content. That is the percentage they are expecting the governments to regulate.

The other initiative which has been implemented for a while is safer handling procedures to manufacture with this product. I must say that any stone masons I’ve worked with over the years have been very professional and run wet cutting procedures. This is a proper way to cut as it eliminates the deadly dust. However there have been some manufactures who have not wanted the expense of setting up a wet factory and cut dry.

I’m keen to see how this all develops as I know we can’t simply outlaw stone benchtops.