Shownotes
In this Omni Talk Retail episode, recorded live at World Retail Congress 2026 in Berlin, Chris Walton sits down with David Boynton, Managing Director of Northern Europe at Pandora, for a conversation on the evolving intersection of AI, physical retail, and emotional commerce.
Drawing from leadership roles across brands including The Body Shop, L'Occitane, and Charles Tyrwhitt, David shares why stores still play a critical role in building emotional connection, even as AI begins reshaping how customers discover and shop brands.
The conversation explores Pandora’s omnichannel strategy across Northern Europe, why more than 30% of sales now happen online, and how physical stores continue to drive customer acquisition and loyalty. David also shares a fascinating personal story about using AI to purchase a premium rain jacket, highlighting how conversational AI could fundamentally change retail discovery and decision-making in the years ahead.
Key Topics Covered:
• Why emotional storytelling remains central to jewelry retail
• How Pandora blends stores, ecommerce, and marketplaces
• The role physical retail still plays in customer acquisition
• Why engraving and personalization are driving deeper connection
• How AI is changing product discovery and purchase confidence
• The difference between AI efficiency tools and revenue-driving applications
• Why conversational commerce may reshape retail behavior
• How retailers can combine digital intelligence with human service
• Why leadership, team building, and “winning” still drive great retail operators
Thank you to Vusion for supporting Omni Talk Retail’s live coverage from Berlin.
#WorldRetailCongress #WRC2026 #OmniTalkRetail #Pandora #RetailInnovation #AIinRetail #Omnichannel #CustomerExperience #LuxuryRetail #FutureOfRetail
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Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcripts
Hello, everyone.
Speaker A:This is omnitalk Retail.
Speaker A:I'm Chris Walton and we're coming to you from the World Retail Congress in Berlin.
Speaker A:Yes, folks, this week I am in Berlin and I'm once again standing in the exclusive Fusion podcast studio.
Speaker A:Now joining me is David Boynton, the managing director of Northern Europe for Pandora.
Speaker A:David, welcome.
Speaker B:Hey, Chris.
Speaker B:Great to be here.
Speaker B:Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker A:Yeah, thanks for kicking off our coverage here of World Retail Congress.
Speaker A:Let's start off.
Speaker A:Tell the audience about yourself and what brings you to wrc.
Speaker B:Well, just in terms of, you know, as you mentioned, I'm at Pandora these days.
Speaker B:I've done a whole bunch of different things.
Speaker B:I've been the chief executive of the body shop of l', Occitane, of Charles Tyrwhitt.
Speaker B:Some of your business dress wearers might.
Speaker B:Might have used those shirts over the years.
Speaker B:It's a great brand.
Speaker B:So I've done a whole bunch of things.
Speaker B:I started off in grocery many, many years ago.
Speaker B:I'm one of those rare people who went from the shop floor to the boardroom and then back again to the shop floor.
Speaker B:That's what I'm doing now.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker B:It's been a fun journey.
Speaker B:So why am I here at wrc?
Speaker B:There's so much new stuff going on, right?
Speaker B:I mean, in terms of everything around AI, We've been hearing about this for ages, but what does it really mean?
Speaker B:Agentic.
Speaker B:People keep talking to me about agentic.
Speaker B:I have no idea what that meant until I started a session with the McKinsey folks yesterday.
Speaker B:So there's super interesting things going on at the intersection of digital and human in stores.
Speaker B:I love stores and I want to understand more about the digital component.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, no, that's great.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I was looking at your resume the other day.
Speaker A:You started in Safeway, right?
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker A:Started in grocery.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I actually asked a buddy of mine, I was like, did you know him from your time back in Safeway?
Speaker A:And yeah, now you're leading a jewelry company.
Speaker B:It's funny how that plays out.
Speaker A:It's amazing how it works.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Amazing how it works.
Speaker B:And I even went to Oakland once to meet Safeway.
Speaker B:We'd separated the UK Safeway.
Speaker B:It wasn't the same, but I did once go to HQ of Safeway.
Speaker B:I did the pilgrimage to Oakland.
Speaker B:It was a great brand back in the day.
Speaker A:It's funny how retail works.
Speaker A:Retail is a very business where you tend to cross paths with very similar people throughout the course of your career.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:All right, so I got to ask you, you know, you're in an interesting white space in Pandora.
Speaker A:You know, the economy's under pressure.
Speaker A:Do you think that given where you where Pandora's position, do you think the macroeconomic pressures are more of a hindrance for what you're trying to do, or are they more of a benefit for what you're trying to do?
Speaker B:Look, we're definitely seeing evidence in some markets of trading down.
Speaker B:You know, the folks who used to shop at Tiffany are shopping at Pandora somewhat.
Speaker B:Okay, right.
Speaker B:So that, that's good, that's good news.
Speaker B:And we're tracking that and it's something that we're really paying attention to.
Speaker B:But when the consumer is squeezed and there's less disposable income in the economy, it's harder for everyone.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So you've really got to focus on the core competencies of the business, what makes your brand unique and differentiated, and really make sure you're getting those things done to the highest possible standard.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker A:All right, so Northern Europe, that's the area you oversee.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:What does that all entail?
Speaker A:What is northern Europe technically on the geography map of Pandora?
Speaker B:It's one of those great questions.
Speaker B:I mean, people keep writing to me from the UK and say, hey, can we meet to talk about stores?
Speaker B:So now, sorry, but the UK is not in Northern Europe.
Speaker B:No way.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:How about France?
Speaker B:How about France?
Speaker B:I mean, can you come and see me in France?
Speaker B:We've got some sorts of.
Speaker B:No, France is not in Northern Europe.
Speaker B:So we have a very specific definition in Northern Europe.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:So it's Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:We call that the Dach, to get the correct German pronunciation, the Dach cluster.
Speaker B:Then we have Benelux, so Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, of course.
Speaker B:And then we have the whole of the Nordics.
Speaker B:So geographically it's, it's enormous.
Speaker B:The central market, of course, is Germany.
Speaker B:You know, 80 plus million people, third biggest economy in the world, richest economy in Europe.
Speaker B:So, you know, it's a battleground where Pandora really has to win.
Speaker A:So are you based in Germany then?
Speaker B:I just moved to Hamburg.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah, I just moved to Hamburg about five or six weeks ago.
Speaker B:I'm super new in the role.
Speaker B:Hamburg, oh my goodness, if you've never been, what a beautiful city.
Speaker B:It's all built around a lake.
Speaker B:You know, I had this image of Hamburg from the Beatles.
Speaker B:I thought it was all bars and all of that stuff.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I'm not going to go into that, but it's not like that.
Speaker B:At all.
Speaker B:It's absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker B:The only negative about Hamburg is they have this thing called Scheetvetter.
Speaker B:That's the German.
Speaker B:There's actually a ruder version than that.
Speaker B:But Scheetvetter is just terrible weather.
Speaker B:It rains all the time and it's gray.
Speaker B:And I always swore that I would never live in a place where it rained all the time.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, somehow I got stuck there.
Speaker B:So anyway, that's life, right?
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:All right, great.
Speaker A:I love doing this job because you never know what you're going to talk about.
Speaker A:All right, so.
Speaker A:So the reason I asked that question is because northern Europe, generally speaking, depending almost regardless of how you want to define it, it's a very competitive digitally forward market.
Speaker A:So where do you think you're under penetrated at Pandora and what do you think is the single biggest growth lever that you want to pull here in the next few years?
Speaker B:Yeah, sure, look, we have lots of shops, right?
Speaker B:So we're very well distributed from a shop point of view.
Speaker B:I think what's interesting for us is pretty much every city in Germany, if we focus on that as the main market, we are present to some extent.
Speaker B:So the question for us is, can there be a second store?
Speaker B:Quite often because of the decentralization of Germany, you have a lot of smaller but very affluent cities.
Speaker B:So Dusseldorf, we have one store.
Speaker B:That doesn't make sense.
Speaker B:Dusseldorf, such a great city, we can have a second store.
Speaker B:So there's no question that part of the future expansion and penetration is going to come from opening our own stores.
Speaker B:We have a great website already, so we have a big share Pandora generally around the world, but specifically in my cluster, we're more than 30% of sales, which is kind of surprising, right?
Speaker B:For a very emotional jewelry purchase.
Speaker B:More than 30% of our transactions are happening online.
Speaker B:Now we're pretty clear that the majority of those folks have been recruited through the stores.
Speaker B:So the omnichannel aspect of it is incredibly important to us.
Speaker B:But we're also on marketplaces, we have a presence on Amazon through a partner and we work with other multi brand jewelry brands not in all of their stores.
Speaker B:So there's almost certainly an opportunity to be in more of their stores going forward.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So although we're relatively mature, we still see a lot of opportunities for growth in the, in the region.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker A:And so it's going to come through physical sources.
Speaker A:70% Of the volume still coming through physical retail.
Speaker A:So what role.
Speaker A:So you mentioned, you mentioned kind of the, the branding or the initial maybe impression that the consumer has with the Pandora brand, what role does the store play as you define it from your position of leadership?
Speaker B:Yeah, look really, for me it's where the stories can come to life, right?
Speaker B:I mean Pandora is an extremely emotional brand.
Speaker B:It's not like other jewelry brands.
Speaker B:We like to talk about it as being kind of the apple of jewelry.
Speaker B:We have a system, we have an ecosystem that once you're in it, you really want to stay in it.
Speaker B:Super interesting.
Speaker B:It's honestly one of the most fascinating brands that I've worked for.
Speaker B:But I mean, I'll give you an example of, you know, the human element of it.
Speaker B:So we're really doubling down on engraving.
Speaker B:We see, you know, aside from the pre made charms that are made by hand in our factories in Southeast Asia, with amazing artisans.
Speaker B:Outside of that, we have a big opportunity, we believe, around using engraving to tell stories.
Speaker B:I was in a store in Dusseldorf two weeks ago.
Speaker B:Two grandparents came in with their granddaughter.
Speaker B:They were in their late 70s.
Speaker B:They were talking to us about how they wanted to have something that marked their relationship with their granddaughter.
Speaker B:They went to the engraving machine and the grandmother on one side, because you can do this in your own handwriting on an iPad.
Speaker B:The grandmother wrote a message about how much she loved her granddaughter and how precious she was to her.
Speaker B:And then the grandfather wrote his own message on the other side of the charm.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, honestly I was watching this and I was like sobbing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And it was so beautiful, it was so emotional.
Speaker B:And then the granddaughter had something for the rest of their life with their grandparents handwriting.
Speaker B:I mean it was beautiful.
Speaker B:We can do that in a store.
Speaker B:You can't do that so easily online.
Speaker B:And of course it's helping people through the process and understanding the opportunity.
Speaker B:That's what the stores do in terms of bringing real experience to life experience that adds value for customers.
Speaker B:So just one example, but there are many others.
Speaker A:Well, so David, you and I just got.
Speaker A:That's a really interesting point too because you and I just got through the opening World Retail Congress where it was definitely very AI heavy in terms of what they were saying that the conference is going to be about.
Speaker A:So I'm curious.
Speaker A:You just mentioned that there's.
Speaker A:There's still certain experiences in the store that you can't replicate as well online.
Speaker A:How are you thinking AI is going to impact you at Pandora both in the physical and the digital realm.
Speaker B:Yeah, so.
Speaker B:So AI, obviously, you know, the thing for me is there's the efficiency play with AI and then there's the, let's call it effectiveness.
Speaker B:But the sales and revenue driving opportunities.
Speaker B:So efficiency, I think everybody's playing pretty well in that is how you recruit.
Speaker B:Saving time for store managers through sifting resumes, scheduling hours, all of those tools, which we're all used to.
Speaker B:And AI is just another development of what we've experienced over multiple decades.
Speaker B:I think it gets really much more interesting in the revenue driving component and I think that's where we're really starting to think about where it could play.
Speaker B:I'll give you a little example of something that happened to me, not in Pandora, but in Hamburg.
Speaker B:So, you know, I mentioned this thing about Sheepvetter earlier on in Hamburg.
Speaker B:I got fed up of getting soaked cycling to work every morning.
Speaker B:So I asked my good friend chatgpt.
Speaker B:I'm sure he or she is your good friend also.
Speaker A:Or Claude.
Speaker B:Or Claude.
Speaker B:Yeah, personify it.
Speaker B:Other brands are available.
Speaker A:Yeah, personify it.
Speaker B:So, and I asked him what's the best rain jacket I could use to commute to stuff?
Speaker B:Like, I'd never used AI agentic AI for that before.
Speaker B:It always been done for shopping.
Speaker B:I always use Google or whatever.
Speaker B:So I'd never shopped in arc directs before.
Speaker B:I'd always been a loyal Pandora guy for about 27 years.
Speaker B:But ChatGPT told me Arc'dyx was exactly what I needed.
Speaker B:And we had a back and forth where it told me everything that I needed to know about why that was the right thing for me.
Speaker B:So I made the trip to the store entirely driven by digital, entirely driven by AI going to a brand that I'd never purchased before.
Speaker B:But then when I was in the store, I had a fantastic experience with a real human.
Speaker B:So the human engaged me, walked through the different opportunities.
Speaker B:We had the back and forth about whether the beta jacket was right or the beta SL jacket was right.
Speaker B:And then he said to me there was another product that I wanted.
Speaker B:They didn't have the right size and color.
Speaker B:He said, look, let me take your details, I'll write to you, don't worry, it's not spam, it's not CRM, it's not all of that stuff that you used to.
Speaker B:I will write to you directly.
Speaker B:My name is Johan.
Speaker B:I'm going to write to you and tell you when this comes in, let me have your details.
Speaker B:There's some non disclosure form, gdpr, whatever.
Speaker B:And it was the best of both worlds.
Speaker B:We had the digital recommendation, we had the human interaction Added value services in store.
Speaker B:It was a win win, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So I'm curious too, David, did you feel like coming out of that experience with ChatGPT, did you feel really confident in your purchase?
Speaker A:You know, to more so to a degree than you've made in other.
Speaker A:You felt when you've made other purchases in the past?
Speaker B:I mean, I'm a brand guy.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I'm crazy about product.
Speaker B:I've spent a lifetime in retail.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Product, product, product.
Speaker B:That's my thing.
Speaker B:So I'm picky.
Speaker B:I change brands very infrequently.
Speaker B:I mentioned I was a Patagonia for a long time.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So going to a new brand's a really big deal for me.
Speaker B:But there was a level of information and back and forth that my trusted friend, the AI agent, was.
Speaker B:Was really making good recommendations.
Speaker B:I walked out of that store super happy with what I ended up buying.
Speaker B:And it was a new brand that I'd never purchased before and I'd never considered before.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:How fascinating is that?
Speaker B:And it was the most expensive rain jacket I'd ever bought in my Life.
Speaker B:Which actually ChatGPT was able to explain why, with all the features and benefits of the product at a level of detail you just never see on Google.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So something really big is starting to happen here.
Speaker A:There's something psychological about it.
Speaker A:Whether right or wrong, it makes you feel really darn smart when you're done doing whatever it is you're doing at the end of the day, which is important for us as retailers, for sure.
Speaker A:All right, I'll get you out of here on this last question.
Speaker A:This has been really fun.
Speaker A:You said on a recent LinkedIn post that you could never stay semi retired.
Speaker A:So I'm curious, what is it about operating that really draws your mind versus, say, continuing in an advisory role, as most people do?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:The advisory stuff has been super interesting and rewarding.
Speaker B:I've worked with some lovely brands and some amazing people, but ultimately, you're not actually making the thing happen.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You're giving them choices.
Speaker B:You're playing back.
Speaker B:You're kind of acting like a coach, but ultimately you're not the athlete who's going to get on track and win the gold medal.
Speaker B:So ultimately, I'd spent my whole career doing that stuff.
Speaker B:It was frustrating not to do it.
Speaker B:I did a couple of board rolls, you know, every month, getting 250 pages to read, trying to figure out the two intelligent questions I could ask so that the chairman would feel I was a worthwhile addition to the board.
Speaker B:You know, all of that stuff, Honestly, I just didn't find it rewarding.
Speaker B:The thing that I've loved right.
Speaker B:The way through my career Which I think is so key in retail.
Speaker B:Team leadership, team building, people development, helping people be the best that they can.
Speaker B:And winning.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, you've got to have that drive to win, to be successful in retail as well.
Speaker B:You can't do that so easily in an advisory role.
Speaker B:So I missed it too much.
Speaker B:I was semi retired for a while.
Speaker B:My wife got sick of having me around the house.
Speaker B:She said, you've got to get back out there, David.
Speaker B:So here I am, I'm back out there with Pandora.
Speaker A:See, like rolling up the sleeves.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:So I think.
Speaker A:So you're a guy that gets jazzed up by the future of AI and that whole discussion we just had in terms of what does it mean for the future and how are people going to shop five to ten years out?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, look, it's, you know, I don't know whether I'm an early adopter or a late adopter, whatever, but, you know, this idea about the, you know, AI knowing what you need before you need it, before you know you need it, and all of a sudden making a recommendation.
Speaker B:Hey, you know what?
Speaker B:I've noticed that the weather forecast is going to be so great for the next few months.
Speaker B:If I were you this weekend, I'd pop out and buy this jacket or even I get this jacket delivered to you unless you tell me not so.
Speaker B:I think it's fascinating and it's sort of beyond my limited imagination what could come.
Speaker B:But it's going to be a fascinating few years for sure.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:What a great start to World Retail Congress.
Speaker A:David Boyne, thanks for joining me this morning.
Speaker B:Absolute pleasure.
Speaker A:Thanks to Vuzion for making our coverage possible.
Speaker A:And as always, on behalf of David and myself and all of us at Omnitalk Retail, as always, be careful out there.