Please note this transcript has been generated by AI - apologies for any mistakes!

Pippa Goulden (00:43)
Nicole Higgins aka the buyer and retail coach is a leading retail expert and fairy godmother to product businesses from startups to seven-figure powerhouses. With 20 years experience in the retail world working in places like ⁓ &S and Primark Nicole helps product businesses to drive sales and profits.

She's joining me today to talk about key retail trends that every product business should be aware of, how those trends can translate into your PR, and how she's built her own profile as a go-to expert across print and TV.

Pippa Goulden (01:13)
So welcome Nicole to PR Made Simple. How are you?

Nicole Higgins (01:16)
I am very good. Thank you very much for having me Pippa. It's very nice to be on the other side of the mic.

Pippa Goulden (01:21)
we are going to be deep diving into consumer trends, retail trends, and looking at why they're so important for product businesses through so many elements from staying connected to your customers, to helping you evolve your business. And also there are actually opportunities from a PR perspective as well to show.

kind of how you're doing things differently, how you're standing out from competitors. So you've got some great insight into 2025 retail trends and how small business owners can be using them in their business. So let's dive in. Firstly, Nicole, I think the word trend can feel quite intimidating to small business owners, can't it? What do we mean by trend and why is it important for small business owners to take notice of them?

Nicole Higgins (02:03)
A put simply, is either a pattern or a behavior for what's happening. And that can be fashion, it can be economic, it can be social. And it's important to take note of what's going on in those different elements because they affect how customers buy. It affects how our customers behave and it affects how they spend their money and what they're doing in their life as well. And a trend can be, it could be short-lived.

It can be something like, you know, when all the kids went crazy for prime, or it can be something that becomes more of a movement, or it can be something that started off as a trend. If you say, I'm talking about leopard print, say for example, starts off as a trend, but now is like almost a neutral and is a staple in people's wardrobe. So trends can vary, but simply put a pattern or a preference for what's happening.

Pippa Goulden (02:52)
And so your insight around this, let's talk about that in a bit more detail. Where's that come from? And then how can small business owners apply that to their own businesses?

Nicole Higgins (03:01)
I mean, trends can come from lots of different ways. And like I said, because it's the pattern of the preference and it can come from either fashion, the economic or the social. know, if you think, say, from cost of living, that's an economic situation at the moment. And that then may affect how people are spending. So they might not now be buying those bigger ticket items. They might be still want to treat themselves.

but they might be looking for items that are cheaper now, or they might, maybe they used to shop at Reese, but now they're shopping at Next because that's where they can afford and they still wanna buy something new. And it's really important to think how those trends and what's going on affect the other. So how, from an economic point of view, that then affects a fashion point of view. Like I said, in terms of either the price of products or how often we're buying.

And also what's happening socially, how that affects how we're buying. So if we think back to, see from a big social point of view, when we were all working from home and we were buying athleisure and wearing our joggers, or we were going on more walks. So what we were buying and what we were doing was very different to when we were in a normal working environment.

Pippa Goulden (04:07)
Yeah, absolutely. And everything I teach from a PR perspective comes back to the end audience. So you're looking at the end reader or listener or event attendee. And I think it's similar for trends, isn't it? It's helping business owners understand their consumer more. And I think that's where you have so much insight that you can share with the listeners.

Nicole Higgins (04:26)
Yeah, it's thinking, like you say, about what's happening in the world and how does it affect my business in a positive or negative way? And how can I ride that trend or adjust my messaging to be relevant? And then back to that PR point of view, it's kind of like, what story can I tell that's potentially related to this trend or what's going on from a fashion, social, economic point of view?

Pippa Goulden (04:47)
And so from a consumer of 2025, what are those trends that you're seeing? What do they want from the businesses that they're buying from?

Nicole Higgins (04:55)
So they want to align themselves with brands that reflect their values. So they want, I mean, I know it's a banded about word, but authenticity and storytelling, that's still very relevant in 2025. it's down to how brands can connect with their consumer and how they can make things more personal.

I think we've become more impatient as consumers as well. So we want a very seamless experience. We don't want to wait for things to load. There's a stat that basically 40 % of consumers abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. We want to be able to buy where we are. And that's why mobile shopping has increased so much and like 75 % of purchases are made on our mobile.

so they are looking for a seamless experience, easy ways for them to buy. They also want more in-person experiences as well. more, experiential marketing, combining that physical and digital and bringing those experiences together where they can connect with the brand more. And, you know, they want to be able to connect with

a brand owner's story that will help them build trust as well. And one of the things that we're, seeing in terms of how people find brands or how people find products is not, necessarily through Google as much anymore. People are using social media as a search engine. And, you know, I've recently just done it myself. I was looking for where we're going to Morocco on holiday. I was looking for where, where were we going to stay? And I went to social media first to...

you know, in search by hashtags, Morocco, desert camp, I think it was, and looked at that first, then went to Google. So how we are finding information and connecting with brands is different.

Pippa Goulden (06:35)
Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? think there's a couple of things that you mentioned there that I think are really relevant from a PR perspective because the authenticity piece and

the connection with your consumer, PR is a really great tool for you to be able to do that because you can do it from your side of things, can't you? Through your socials, through your website and telling people about yourself, but actually using PR as a tool to get yourself out there and share your stories and show what you've done and get yourself on other platforms is a really great way to then come back to your existing audience and say, look at my story, I'm telling it in more detail on this podcast or in this magazine.

it's a great way of just bringing that full circle.

Nicole Higgins (07:15)
Yeah. And building then I think as well that trust in you and that confidence like, they were on such and such, or it's the kudos, isn't it as well. it's that just affirmation of this is the right brand I want to spend my money in. This is an interesting founder that I want to pay more attention to because it is so competitive out there. And there are so many businesses that will be doing, or, you know, there are so many businesses, whether it's product or service, that will be offering something that you do. You know, so

as a small business founder, that is your superpower in terms of showing up yourself because you are the differentiator, you know, and how your approach to something, your opinion of something, and, you know, your story and your background is something that's going to connect a lot more with your audience.

Pippa Goulden (07:58)
Absolutely, and I always say to the people that I work with, you you can do that so much more easily than a big corp like John Lewis they can't really have faces who can talk passionately about products and design and where you've got the ideas from and the manufacturing process and all of that kind of thing. So there's lots of ways that actually you can come to the front of your business and not just hide behind it. And I think often small business owners feel quite intimidated by that, don't they?

I want it to be about my products not about me but I feel like that is a much easier way to build a brand that isn't just reliant on kind of tactical sales and products it's actually looking at the whole story that goes towards it. Do you find that with the people you work with it so it's a good tactic?

Nicole Higgins (08:42)
Yeah, and I think they will always say to me themselves, some of them are very reticent or don't really like showing off as much in front of the camera, but they're like, oh, you know, I did that and we had sales from it because I talked about it. And I'm like, well, you know, that's, there's the proof, there's the proof in the pudding or yeah, that reel that I did and, you know, reintroducing myself, it's now got 65,000 likes or, you know, it's been seen 65,000 times or whatever it is. So when there is a face.

to a business, and you're able to use that to your advantage. it's a tool in your toolbox that you're doing yourself and your business a disservice if you don't use it.

Pippa Goulden (09:20)
Absolutely. And I think the power that small business owners have that the bigger brands don't have is that individual, whereas the bigger brands have to, you know, the reason that...

their marketing and their PR and their advertising cost so much is because they need to bring in the celebrities to endorse them or to be a mouthpiece for them or they have to create campaigns that as a small business owner you just don't have to have because you've got the stories that are innate to your business they're inextricably linked and so therefore actually for you from a PR perspective and a storytelling throughout all of your marketing it's actually much easier for you because it's so linked to who you are and why you're doing what you do.

Nicole Higgins (09:57)
you can react a lot quicker to something that's going on in the market or the surrounding trend in terms of what's happening. So whether if a trend comes on social or if something is happening in the news, then you can react a lot quicker to that as well. And, know, by, by being that face of your business and by kind of just being more reactive, I think as well.

Pippa Goulden (10:15)
Yeah, you don't have to have like 27 people to sign off a reel or whatever. You can try it, see if it works. If it doesn't, doesn't matter, does it? You you can keep going and try the next thing.

So experiential marketing, that word in itself, it's such an industry word, isn't it? But it basically means kind of doing something in person with your customers to create an experience for them. I'm seeing that from a PR perspective working really well, especially for online brands that...

that don't have a bricks and mortar, there's ways that you can pop up in different places, but also for bricks and mortar places to drive people to drive footfall in store to encourage collaborations with other businesses and that kind of thing. Can we talk about that in a bit more detail?

Nicole Higgins (10:58)
Yeah, mean, experiential marketing is something that's immersive. It's helping a customer touch and feel to be immersed in, know, deep in your brand and your values and to really get that sense of what you're about and to have fun and to connect. You know, it's about, you know, entertaining those customers, getting them involved. so yes, like you said, bricks and mortar can run events. They can do pop-ups. You know, if you don't have that space, you can.

collaborate with other brands and do pop-ups in their premises and their places.

some are for driving footfalls, some are for brand awareness

So it's deciding what you want to do and what you want to do it for

Pippa Goulden (11:35)
Yeah, understanding why you would do it in the first place is probably key to then planning the events around it. But even as small businesses, there are lots of opportunities with this. I've got some DIY PR of my DIY PR members. Sorry, who's got a candle brand called Ambustam. She does candle workshops and that's a really nice way. Ticketed, so they're paid for. So it's not like it's not a cost to her business. She makes money from them, but it's a really nice way of immersing people into her brand and getting people understanding what they're

about and giving them that really, lovely experience that really reflects her brand values. Priya, who is Pri Pri, who does products out of pre-loved saris. She does wreath workshops now. So she's again thought of another way of bringing people to her business in the real world, rather than just being online or in other people's stores. So there's lots of...

creative ways that you can do things for your business that bring you offline.

Nicole Higgins (12:31)
Yeah, and I think it's going back to your customer and who are they, where are they in their life, what might they be experiencing and what would they benefit from that ties into what your brand does. So there's a skincare brand called IAM and it's very much about aligning mind, body and skin.

So it was January, and they ran a, ticketed, so it wasn't a cost to them, vision board and gold setting workshop, which is very in line with what their brand was about.

Pippa Goulden (13:00)
Yeah, this is just lovely ideas. And also if you have got a bricks and mortar, thinking of ways that you can, you know, expand your hours and your footfall at different times. So one of my accelerator clients was an interior designer and she teamed up with a local kitchen company and she would do like styling events and talks in the evenings so that obviously they're not open in the evening normally, but it's creating opportunities with the space that they had. And then it's

what my friend Lucy calls dancing on other people's dance floors, it's tapping into each other's audiences to curate really interesting events that allows you to cross-pollinate and it's just such an effective tool.

Nicole Higgins (13:38)
Yeah, and if you're, you're stopped in, you know, looking at your stockists and you know, who you could collaborate with there and what you could do and there, you know, they'll be open to ideas because they want to do the same thing. They know that the connection with their customers work, that they want to run more events And so, you know, it's about asking and thinking, right, who can, who can I do this with and who can I collaborate with to, make this happen?

Pippa Goulden (14:00)
Yeah, there's some lovely ideas there and I think part of it is just putting on your big girl pants, isn't it? And sending those emails and thinking strategically about what would work for you. But you have got to reach out to people if you do want to do those collaborations and work with people in different ways. What would your advice be to the...

Nicole Higgins (14:05)
yeah.

Pippa Goulden (14:19)
to the small business owners who are sitting here going, I've got too much to do, I'm a finance director, I'm the sales director, I'm the marketing director, I'm the PR director, I can't possibly add any of these extra things into my business. What's your advice around that?

Nicole Higgins (14:32)
I think acknowledging, okay, you're in that space, okay, when you're in that situation where you might be early days that you're not able to outsource as much as you want to. spend some time go out of your normal working environment that you normally work in and whether that's a quiet coffee shop, whether that's book yourself into a hotel or whatever it might and.

really kind of look at what you want from your business. What are the strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats of your business? what's the potentially low hanging fruit that is going to generate some money for you? And when you've done that SWOT in terms of that strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, what are the things that from a financial point of view are going to bring you money if you do them? And what are the things that are going to cost you money if you don't do them?

And there some of the things in terms of from a prioritizing point of view that I would look at. I would also look at things in terms of what you want to achieve short term, midterm and longer term. Cause you're not, you're not able to do everything all in one go and you just bloody killed yourself if you try and do it and you end up doing nothing. You'll be in that paralysis of, right, I can't do anything. But then also kind of, and looking at what are the things that potentially I could delegate and putting a...

monetary value beside that in terms of like what's a low cost thing, but maybe a very time consuming thing that I could delegate and, and seeing what position you were in to, to delegate that, or when you could possibly delegate it to get more things off the plate. Cause if you don't start thinking of things objectively and a bit more birds eye, you'll just always be on the hamster wheel and you'll always be wearing all of the hats, you know, so it's trying to extract yourself a little bit from the business for half a day and think, what are my goals?

and what's the low hanging fruit and what's my strengths and weaknesses and then splitting those goals in short term, medium, long term and what are the actions you need to do to achieve those goals.

Pippa Goulden (16:22)
Yeah, I think that's really good advice because we often spend so much time thinking about this stuff and overthinking and panicking that actually we don't, the time that we've done all that thinking could have actually be time that we were taking the action. So yeah, I think that's really good advice. And something that I know you'd mentioned to me was communities as well. What about that in terms of trends? What are you seeing there from a community perspective?

Nicole Higgins (16:45)
think it gets, goes back to what people want to be involved in and, you know, they, the brands they want to be more, more involved with. And I think the ways that people and brands can do that from a community point of view is having conversations in the DMs. It's creating broadcast channels. So people are more involved and that you can show them more of the behind the scenes process that you might not want to put on your full grid, private Facebook groups. It's about though, as well.

what can you manage as a business founder? It's kind of back to all those hats you're wearing. It's thinking about, right, what are the ways I can build community? Part of that is the experiential side of things and the events. Another part is maybe the broadcast channels on your social media. And some of it might just be actually, do you know what? I'm just gonna show up more and I'm gonna put my face more on the brand so that people can connect more with it.

and I can start to build that community that way, you know.

Pippa Goulden (17:37)
Yeah,

yeah, I think there's a key thing and I hate the word visibility because I think it implies that you can just like show your face and be seen and that's it but actually there's a lot more to it but stepping forward and being present and connecting with your target audience and not maybe expecting them to do all the work like actually being a bit more proactive and stepping up into that makes a real difference doesn't it?

Nicole Higgins (18:03)
Yeah, and asking the questions, know, using, from a social media point of view, using engagement, using the polls, using the quizzes, using the question boxes and getting them involved with things. to ask their opinion as well.

Pippa Goulden (18:15)
Yeah, and something you mentioned earlier, which really resonated with me is having fun with it. I think often we think there's a way that you have to be as a small business owner. And actually the ones who are doing it really well are the ones that are showing a little bit of personality there, you know, being authentic to who they actually are. You know, if you are a bit sweary, then be a bit sweary. it's, you know, if it's about things that you're really passionate about, talk about them and show people who you are. And, know, you want to keep it a line, don't you?

who you are and what your business is about and not go off on too many tangents but I think showing people the genuine you is really important.

Nicole Higgins (18:50)
Yeah, and I think as well, it's, showing people the genuine you, but what you're comfortable with sharing, you know, in being, because you want to be authentic to them, but you need to also be true to yourself, you know, so that you don't feel that you're giving, that you've got nothing left for yourself by the time you've given everything, you know.

Pippa Goulden (18:55)
Yeah, yes, yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. mean, I, you know, I'm a mum of two boys, but I don't really talk about them at all on my socials. And, I don't think it's that interesting anyway. But, you know, I've kind of put those boundaries in place. I don't have to keep going on about my family life in order for you to get to know who I am. Like, there's definitely boundaries. And I actually say that from a PR perspective, there's no story worth telling for a bit of press.

coverage or a PR opportunity, you want to really stick to what you want to talk about. But I think there's ways that you can get your personality across and who you are without needing to tell them everything that's happened to you in your whole life.

Nicole Higgins (19:44)
Yeah, exactly. what you've everything that you've had for breakfast or whatever it might be, unless you're a food editor or a food, you know, unless you're a food page.

Pippa Goulden (19:53)
And what's the best way to

keep an eye on emerging trends? Because I imagine, it's another thing, isn't it, that people have to think, God, now I've got to be up to date with what's going on. Like, what's your advice? Where do people get this insight from?

Nicole Higgins (20:05)
There's a lot of things that you can look at. And I think kind of from a research point of view, if you want to hear the conversations that are going on, the conversations that your customer might be thinking of. So there's website called Answer the Public and it's free to use. You can only ask it three questions a day, you can put in a question

And you can see what kind of conversations are potentially being you can see what people are asking You can use things like Reddit and Quora and you can see the conversations that people are having around certain topics. Using social media as a search engine and you know, like what are the hashtags that are being searched the most, know, using Google search trends as well.

Other things like Pinterest for business from a macro level in terms of what people are looking at. They're all, they're all free things to use. And then also things like WGSN, which is a trend platform, particularly for fashion businesses, but they do a great free newsletter. So signing up for those kinds of things. Also the business of fashion. there's elements that you can get for free and obviously elements that that need to be paid for.

and search, just search engines in AI and with how AI has come on, you know, they're looking and mining information all the time from such a variety of sources.

if you literally just put in into Google white papers plus X, Y, Z, whatever your topic or area is, you'd be surprised on what comes back. So it does take a little bit of time, but I think, you know, making sure that you're just really being aware. that if you're scrolling on Instagram for things, look at what is,

what people are talking about, what the sentiment might be, and then how does that relate maybe to what you're doing or what you want to sell? And then particularly I would imagine from the PR point of view.

that then that's going to help you pitch into journalists or wherever you want to be because it's something that's relevant and new that's happening or bubbling away onto the surface.

Pippa Goulden (21:52)
Yeah, I mean, I think this.

definitely PR opportunities in the brands that are doing interesting things from a retail perspective, often within newspapers, within the trade press, even some consumer titles will be looking for insight on businesses. And obviously they come to people like you as retail experts, but they're also looking for case studies of the brands and the businesses that are doing it themselves or have adopted a trend that they've spotted and it's taken off. So yeah, keep an eye out for it from a PR perspective.

especially,

Nicole Higgins (22:24)
just back to magazines as well, know people often forget magazines, but magazines, newspapers, just keeping up to date with those sometimes buying the papers that you wouldn't normally buy. So it might be the Financial Times and looking at the fashion section in the Financial Times, because there might be more ahead

Pippa Goulden (22:40)
Yeah, absolutely. It's still there. They've been saying, I mean, I've worked in PR for 20 years and they've been saying that whole time, print is dead. It's absolutely not. There are so many places to get inspiration from and it's a really good way to see what else is going on out there. Outside, I think it's so important to come off socials and see what's going on in the wider world.

Nicole Higgins (23:01)
Yeah, and looking at what your competition are doing as well and what would potentially be your angle on that. And they might not even be direct competition, they might be your aspirational competition or an aspirational brand, because they'll have the resources that you don't have to be looking into trends and looking into marketing side of things. So, you know, use them as inspiration as well.

Pippa Goulden (23:20)
Absolutely. And can we just talk about you and your own PR? Obviously this is PR made simple because you're a really great example of a B2B service business owner who's done a great job for getting known for what she does. So you've been featured in so many places like Channel 4, BBC, you speak on stages, podcasts. What have been your tips? How have you done that for anyone listening from that side of things?

Nicole Higgins (23:44)
Well, it's funny because I used to really think of PR just as written press. And I was like, I really need to focus on that. I haven't really been in any of that. And whereas now I think of it more as visibility and brand awareness. So in terms of how I've done it, I've asked and I've pitched and the first thing is the ask, you know, and I've shown up. So I think that there are some of the things

that I think showing up is definitely a key one. And the TV work came about, they got in touch with me for that. So for people listening, I've been on a couple of shows with Channel 4, BBC and Channel 5. And the production company phoned me and I asked them, where did you find me or how did you come across me? And she's like, I can't remember. So there's obviously, was like, I really wanted her to be able to tell me so I could mine that piece of knowledge.

But, you know, that was obviously just from showing up, but the stages and the talks, it's essentially finding out who you need to speak to and speaking to them and saying, I can talk about X, Y, Z and making it easy for them to say yes about, what they might need from you or, you know, helping them give the ideas and talking something through, whether it's a talk that you might do or...

moderating a panel. And I think things like don't be, if they say no, you know, absolutely fine, but being, making sure that you're adaptable and flexible. Because one of the recent ones that I did, which was for spring fair, I reached out to them. Normally I'll do say at this stage now, because I've been doing it a while. I'll do a couple of talks like January, February, and a couple of talks in like August, September or September time. And

The one with Spring Fair initially was a no because they had planned it quite far in advance and they didn't need any more speakers. So I said, well, look, if you need anyone to moderate anything, I'd be happy to do that. And they didn't need anyone. Fine. But then she got back in touch with me because they were like, actually, we've realized this isn't going to work without a moderator. Can you do it? It was quite last minute. the panel was going to be in three or four days. But I was just like, yeah, flexible, being flexible, being adaptable.

Knowing where you want to be and what you want to do and where your audience is going to be. Finding out who are the people that make the decisions with that and then approaching it and asking them whether that's an email or a phone call or both. Having your bio ready and good photography, so good headshots, because they're always going to ask from that. And like I said, being flexible and adaptable and then thinking, right, I've made that contact now, how can I get more out of that contact or more out of that experience?

So back to the spring fair side of things, I was moderating the panel, but now we've made that contact and we're going to talk about me doing a blog on their website, which is, which is visited by thousands. So there are some of the ways that I manage it and that I do it. But one of my focuses that I want to look at this year is, being on more podcasts. Cause even though I have my own podcast, I hardly ever pitched to go on other podcasts and, and doing more TV.

work and print. So they're kind of my focuses from a visibility point of view for this year.

Pippa Goulden (26:38)
Amazing. Literally you can have a gold star for that answer because it was perfect. it's putting yourself out there isn't it? I think there's something really interesting what you said there because I talk about this quite a lot about making yourself discoverable and it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about you know putting yourself at the front of your business, having opinions about what's going on out there.

that is how you get found by the TV production people. It's not just sitting on Instagram posting pictures of your products or of your, breakfast.

Nicole Higgins (27:06)
Yeah,

it really isn't. there's something I'm going to be doing in September, which I can't really talk about yet. I don't actually know if I'm ever going to be able to share what it is. And they found me through social media and through just showing up. Whereas if I was hiding, obviously if I was hiding, I wouldn't have a business. But I think the opportunities that come your way when you do show up and you put yourself forward.

you know, they help them generate more money in your business.

Pippa Goulden (27:31)
Absolutely, they certainly do. And can you tell people the way that you work with businesses and brands and how do they find you? Give us a bit more info about you.

Nicole Higgins (27:39)
I help female founders start and grow their product businesses. So I've got about 20 years experience working in buying for the companies like Primark, Marks and Suspenses. And they can work with me one-to-one, a variety of ways with special kind of VIP days, power hours.

but I will also have coming later this year, more workshops that I'm going to be doing, master classes and a membership. Hopefully that is some of the things that I'm looking at. So there's a variety of different ways, but you can find me on Instagram, the buyer and retail coach. That's my kind of most active channel, but also to listen to the podcast Start Scale Succeed, which has over 170 episodes now where I chat with entrepreneurs and experts.

And it's all geared to helping people start and scale their product businesses.

Pippa Goulden (28:22)
amazing and yeah it's a brilliant podcast so much insight and just yeah I really recommend it it's a goodie and thank you so much for coming on PR Made Simple it's been lovely chatting to you so much insight there and I'm excited to see how the listeners can yeah take this and and take it into their own businesses

Nicole Higgins (28:40)
Thank you very much.

Pippa Goulden (28:42)
I hope you found that conversation with Nicole useful and if you want to find out more about her work then you can find her at thebuyerandretailcoach.com on Insta at the same name and Nicole Higgins on LinkedIn and her Start Scale Succeed podcast is a brilliant listen. And if you want to find out more about how PR can help you to grow your business then you can find me Pippa the PR Set on Instagram or Pippa Goulden on LinkedIn and you can find out more about my DIY PR membership, my one-to-one acceleration

and other things at the prset.com and I will be back again soon with another episode of PR Made Simple.