ABC Brisbane on the future of retail

Brisbane’s largest shopping mall reopening is an opportunity to examine the future of retail

This morning I’m talking with Steve Austin on ABC Brisbane about the future of retail as the city’s biggest shopping mall opens.

What does such a huge complex mean to the local economy and is it sustainable as the retail industry evolves?

Having had a massive upgrade, we can be sure Westfield Chermside will have plenty of technology to help customers spend money and we covered some of the ways modern retails have to understand consumer behaviour and predict what individuals will spend.

Prior to the segment (which starts around the 60 minute mark), Steve took calls from listeners about how retail has changed in Brisbane over the past fifty years.  The demise of fondly remembered department stores is a reminder of how the sector changed as consumer behaviour changed over the last half of the Twentieth Century.

 

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Retail’s evolving face

The retail industry’s evolution tracks how technology is changing our lives.

On the back of last week’s discussion about Amazon’s Australian expansion, I spoke to Sydney community radio station 2SER-FM this morning about the challenges facing suburban shopping strips.

Like the rest of the world, Australia’s suburban and small town retail strips have been doing it hard for a generation. While technology has a lot to do with this, it’s not online commerce that’s the killer.

The decline, recovery and shift of the suburban retail strip really started in the 1960s as people moved to the suburbs and started shopping at supermarkets – the technology driving that shift was affordable motor cars and refrigerators.

Around the developed world, the removal of tram (or streetcar) systems during the 1950s and 60s also hurt the inner city shops as local foot traffic declined. In Sydney it’s striking that fifty years after the removal of the tram system those suburbs that developed around them are still easily recognisable.

Shifting back to the city

In the 1980s another shift happened. Suddenly in the inner city became fashionable again for affluent and young residents and a new generation of shopkeepers sprung up attracted by relatively cheap rents.

The shift we’re now discussing is that generation of the 1980s and 90s has been dispersed as rents become increased or shops are demolished for apartment blocks that cater for the populations moving back into the inner cities now suburbia isn’t so fashionable.

Like all shifts this has consequences – just as the corner grocery store and local butcher was forced out of business by supermarkets in the 1960s and 70s, today the indy fashion store or old fashioned immigrant run cafe is being displaced by high priced gelato shops and restaurants catering for whatever the current food fad is.

The push against consumerism

With increasing rents, tenants increasingly become upmarket brands although the upper end of the market though is not what it was as the middle classes – particularly in cities like Sydney, San Francisco, Singapore and London – find soaring property prices make it harder to indulge in luxury items.

So high rents are driving shopkeepers out of business and in Australia at least, the perverse incentives in taxation laws and investment regulations means that landlords have a positive disincentive to drop their asking prices, which means vacancies increase.

Renew Newcastle successfully skirted landlords’ reluctance by ‘licensing’ space rather than leasing it from landlords. This allowed land banking property developers and valuation conscious commercial owners to let out space without formal leases that created legal or financial issues.

Regional challenges

It will be interesting to see how Newcastle will perform as that land banked buildings are being developed into apartments and, the developers hope, high rent shops.

For other regional areas the news isn’t as great with technology in everything from mining to agriculture automating more jobs out of existence. Much of the decline in country towns and regions during the Twentieth Century was due to the mechanisation of farming.

Pervasive broadband promises some hope for regional communities but at present both jobs and wealth are being increasingly concentrated into major population centres. This however may be a transition effect exacerbated by governments propping up financial sectors after the 2008 economic crisis.

It’s interesting too that the financial sector now is undergoing an automation revolution not dissimilar to that of the twentieth century agriculture industries, something that’s bad news for cities and governments staking their future on those sectors.

Technology driving change

A lesson from the last hundred years is how technology changes our communities, the arrival of refrigeration and the motor car allowed suburbs and supermarkets to develop. While tractors and trucks radically changed the structure of rural communities.

With the rise of new technologies in everything from agriculture to transport and manufacturing, we’ll see similar changes to our societies and businesses in coming years.

The changes faced by today’s retail business are part of an evolving economy, just as the horse and tram dependent city of hundred years ago looked very different from car dependent suburbias of the late 20th Century, tomorrow’s cities will look very different from today’s.

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Alternatives to the National Broadband Network – ABC Nightlife

What are the alternatives to the National Broadband Network? For the February 2017 Nightlife we explore what to do if you can’t get the National Broadband Network.

If you missed the show, you can listen through the ABC Nightlife website. Sadly we didn’t get to half the topics but our callers, as well as the NBN PR guy, were fabulous.

Paul Wallbank joins Phillip Clark on ABC Nightlife across Australia from 10pm Australian Eastern time on Thursday, February 16 to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

Last week the NBN announced a third of the country was now covered by their services and the company’s CEO, Bill Morrow, said Australians really don’t want super fast internet. A few weeks before, Telstra announced a new service that will deliver gigabit broadband over their mobile network. We can expect their competitors to offer similar products soon.
At the same time we’re seeing a blast from the past as Nokia are rumoured to be soon releasing an updated version of their classic 3310 phone – are we going to see the ‘tradie phone’ making a comeback?
While the old phone is nice, many people need fast broadband so how is the NBN going and, if you can’t get it, what can you do? Some of the questions
  • So how is the NBN going?
  • Wasn’t the government’s revised plan going to mean the whole thing is going to be cheaper and faster than the original project?
  • Who can get it?
  • Is it as good as promised?
  • So what alternatives to the NBN are there?
  • Doing the sums on those mobile plans, using them can be a pretty expensive business?
  • It seems we’re going backwards. How does Australian broadband compare globally?
  • How is this affecting regional communities and businesses?

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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ABC Nightlife – is the smarthome worth the trouble?

This month’s ABC Nightlife show will look at whether the smarthome is really worth the trouble

Is the smart home worth the trouble? We live in an age of connected smoke alarms, kettles and even egg trays. For this month’s ABC Nightlife we’ll ask if these devices add to our lives or just make things more complex.

Earlier this month Google announced it would down their Evolv home automation platform leaving hundreds of users stuck with useless devices. So what happens to smart gadgets when they are disconnected from the Internet? We’ll also look at the new folding phone and just what a dire state the Australian telecoms industry is in.

Some of the questions we’ll cover include;

  • What was Google’s Evolv system?
  • Disabling the devices is a bit dramatic, why have they done that?
  • Do customers have any recourse?
  • Is this a risk with all connected devices?
  • What about connected cars, could they be turned off?
  • My computer needs updating, what about these devices?
  • What happens when the internet is disconnected, will my internet fridge work?
  • Samsung showed off a new folding phone last week. What exactly is it?
  • When will we see it on the market?
  • The Annual CommsDay conference was held last week in Sydney. Is there any good news for Aussie consumers?
  • Is the National Broadband Network looking any better?
  • How is the global telecommunications industry looking, can we expect anything exciting?

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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Smartcars and sports tech – ABC Nightlife April 2015

Sports technology, smart cars and the internet of things is are the topics for the April Nightlife

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife nationally from 10pm Australian Eastern time on Thursday, April2 to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

For the April 2015 program Tony and Paul look at Tesla founder Elon Musk’s prediction that driverless cars could be on US roads by the middle of the year.

Another industry that’s currently being disrupted by technology is sports. On the field, in the stadium and at home how games are played and watched is being changed.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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Your TV is watching you. ABC Nightlife February 2015

For the February 2015 Nightlife we look at spying TVs, the internet of rubbish bins and robot hotels

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife nationally from 10pm Australian Eastern time on Thursday, February 19 to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

If you missed the show, the program is available for download from the ABC site.

For the February 2015 program Tony and Paul look at robot driven hotels, the internet of rubbish bins and how your TV could be listening to you.

Last year a lawyer read the terms and conditions of his new Samsung TV and discovered that the company recommended people don’t discuss sensitive information around it. This has lead to widespread, and justified, concerns that all our smart devices – not just TVs but smartphones and connected homes – could be listening to us. What happens to this data and can we trust the people collecting it?

The internet of rubbish bins

It’s not only your TV or smartphone that could be watching you, in Western Australia Broome Shire Council is looking at tracking rubbish bins to make sure only council issued ones are emptied.

Shire of Broome waste coordinator Jeremy Hall told WA Today  the council’s garbage truck drivers had noticed more bins than usual were getting emptied and a system needed to be put in place to identify “legitimate” bins.

While Australian councils are struggling with rubbish bins a hotel in Japan is looking to replace its staff with robots and room keys with face recognition software. The Hen-na Hotel is due to open later this year in Nagasaki Prefecture, the Japan Times reports.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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Where will the jobs come from? ABC Nightlife radio

The future of work in an age of robots and algorithms is this month’s Nightlife technology radio spot

If you missed the program it’s available from the Soundcloud site.

Paul Wallbank joins Tony Delroy on ABC Nightlife across Australia from 10pm Australian Eastern time on Thursday, November 27 to discuss how technology affects your business and life.

Last week a US company showed off its robotic security guard, with the boast it costs less than half the wages of a human officer. It isn’t just security guards, baristas or taxi drivers, many knowledge based jobs — from call centre workers to lawyers — can be done by computer programs, or algorithms.

Even the building industry isn’t immune from the robots as 3D printing moves into making houses by squeezing concrete out of computer controlled nozzles.

In almost every occupation technology is changing the way we work and reducing the number of workers needed to do a job. So where next for employment in the Twenty-first Century?

Meet the K-5 robot security guard

For this month’s Nightlife we’ll be discussing how the robots and algorithms are taking over the workplace and what this means for our communities and businesses.

Join us

Tune in on your local ABC radio station from 10pm Australian Eastern Summer time or listen online at www.abc.net.au/nightlife.

We’d love to hear your views so join the conversation with your on-air questions, ideas or comments; phone in on 1300 800 222 within Australia or +61 2 8333 1000 from outside Australia.

You can SMS Nightlife’s talkback on 19922702, or through twitter to @paulwallbank using the #abcnightlife hashtag or visit the Nightlife Facebook page.

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