Anne 0:08
Hello, you’re listening to the Omni talk fast five brought to you in partnership with Microsoft, the a&m consumer and retail group, takeoff, sezzle and silk. The OMNI talk Fast Five podcast is the podcast that we hope makes you feel a little smarter. But most importantly, a little happier each week too. Today is September 22 2022. I’m your host, Anne Mezzenga.
Chris 0:28
And I’m Chris Walton.
Anne 0:29
And we’re here once again to discuss all the top headlines making waves in the world of omni channel retailing, right from the couch of our hotel in Las Vegas under some lady’s bum.
Chris 0:38
Yeah, at grocery shop. Yeah, all right, this is great Anne I feel like we’re like what I actually feel like we looked at the beginning of When Harry Met Sally when they like interviewing all the old couples, which is very fitting for us. Yeah, if you’re watching on video, there’s a picture of like a guy body the bottom half of a guy and a woman swimming behind us, but it’s the only place we have to record right now because we’re under time pressure. We’re at a grocery shop. It’s
Anne 0:58
I don’t think it’s the only place that we have to record but Chris really likes this backdrop. So I mean, what Chris wants Chris gets so if you are listening online, it might be worth giving the YouTube video just a quick
Chris 0:58
Just a quick look
Anne 0:59
to get some context of just how ridiculous this looks. But anyway, Chris, we’re done with grocery shop.
Chris 1:18
We are
Anne 1:18
We wrapped it up. It was such a fun conference.
Chris 1:20
It’s a great conference.
Anne 1:21
I know so much fun.
Chris 1:23
My favourite conference I think of that we’ve been to
Anne 1:25
Yeah
Chris 1:25
In reality, like my favourite conference I’ve been to. Learned a lot talked about a lot lot of good discussions, although one thing still remains unsolved Anne
Anne 1:32
Yeah
Chris 1:33
And that is, and this is going to surprise a lot of viewers. We’re going to talk a lot about grocery related stuff in the podcast, but just have a little fun the beginning. What is the correct way to order an extra dirty martini? Is it extra dirty? Or is it filthy? What is your take on it?
Anne 1:45
I am. Well when I was a bartender it was called a filthy Martini. But you just say extra dirty.
Chris 1:51
I say extra dirty. Yeah. Now for those watching, listening, let us know the answer. I’m dying to know because I don’t want to make a fool of myself when I’m, you know, in front of the barkeep.
Anne 2:00
That might be impossible. So let’s just hope maybe this will help one up you a little bit less. But
Chris 2:06
So I’ve got a long way to go.
Anne 2:07
You’ve got a long way to go. You’ve got a long way to go. Okay
Chris 2:11
You’re staying in town all weekend.
Anne 2:12
Oh Yeah
Chris 2:13
I’m leaving. I’m leaving on a jet plane. I’m doing my Peter Paul and Mary. But you’re you’re Mr. Omni talk’s coming in?
Anne 2:19
Yeah
Chris 2:19
You guys are gonna do the weekend up right, right?
Anne 2:21
I mean, if by doing the weekend up right means sleeping and reading a book all weekend and trying to like decompress after the extraordinary amount of content we just put out over the course of the last three weeks.
Chris 2:33
Omg yeah content funnel was high
Anne 2:36
So much to check out. Yeah, make sure that if you didn’t, if you especially if you weren’t here, but we have live streams from every day of the show, thanks to our partners, they’re upshop, upside and firework. We also have a bunch of podcasts we put out throughout this week from Microsoft. And a lot of the Microsoft partners that were that showed up at grocery shop this week. Really great insight in those podcasts. So make sure to check those out as well.
Chris 3:02
Yeah, and then Ten Ten did its report on Instacart, too. I’m gonna put all this in the newsletter tomorrow, too, for you guys to see those get our newsletter. But uh, yeah Anne I think we should get to the headlines.
Anne 3:02
Let’s do it.
Chris 3:05
All right. Well, today’s Fast Five headlines are brought to you with the help and support of manifest. Where can you get unprecedented access to the people and technology is changing the way the world moves Anne?
Anne 3:21
Ah, I don’t know. Where?
Chris 3:23
Only at manifests, of course, but that’s not all. What else can you expect? How about thought leadership networking?
Anne 3:29
Yes.
Chris 3:29
And also Anne, my favourite part a little fun. And Rumour has it the show the show at the end there the concert entertainment at the end of the show is going to be off the hook. We’re just waiting to find out what it’s going to be. But register now to join Anne & Me at the show January 31. To February 2, a special discount link will be available in our show notes. And you can also learn more at MANIFE.ST I’m going to read that again. Because it’s it’s important to hear it MANIFEST. In today’s Fast Five we’ve got news on Walmart going big into last stream commerce with our friends at fireworks
Anne 4:03
Oh yes
Chris 4:04
Instacart ‘s new connected stores platform, Lowe’s and NVIDIA piloting digital twins to help with store operations. Walmart giving their customers checking accounts. Whoa, hold the phone.
Anne 4:14
Big news there.
Chris 4:15
But first, we take off with what we think is even bigger news out of Amazon this week, Anne
Anne 4:19
oh, that’s correct, Chris. According to an Amazon memo, Thursday night football drew a record number of prime signups for a three hour period. The company is paying about $1 billion a year for the exclusive Thursday night writes from the NFL, and Nielsen had yet to release the actual viewership numbers for the game as of Tuesday morning. But
Chris 4:41
Which is Key
Anne 4:42
Huey Yes,
Chris 4:43
Amazon already knows.
Anne 4:44
Yes, exactly. Exactly. But Chris, tell me a little bit about what your thoughts are here because you and I were both like, oh, wow, this is yeah, big deal.
Chris 4:51
Yeah, for sure. When Yeah, we we think we’re I think we were like we were just getting up on Wednesday morning or whatever we saw. It’s really Oh my god. But anyway, I think it’s my Acid. I mean, I kind of talked about it, you can probably tell from the way I said that statement about Nielsen. But I think for me, there’s a few important points. One, the NFL is a great get, you’re getting new customers, new subscribers. It goes right at Walmart, too, which is all over the NFL. Every Sunday, Walmart’s ads are all over the NFL, which I’m gonna talk about in a second, too.
But secondly, I think it shows the power of the data that Amazon will have for its immediate network via streaming service. And that puts Nielsen on notice, which is what I alluded to. And long term I think it puts a tonne of pressure on Nielsen service platform, depending on how this like cert this streaming, landscape evolves.
Anne 5:33
Yeah,
Chris 5:33
Like, do we start watching this all of our television through all of our live events through streaming services?
Anne 5:38
Yeah
Chris 5:38
That day could come very soon.
Anne 5:39
Yeah.
Chris 5:41
And Amazon knows who’s watching. And that’s key, and they know what items are purchasing. And they could trace it all back. You know, they know how long they’ve watched, what they’re watching what products he saw during the broadcast. But lastly, the other point I make grocery is huge as an advertising vehicle for the sunday NFL
Anne 5:56
I don’t watch a lot of live football. So I don’t know that. But yeah, that was enlightening.
Chris 6:01
Most of the ads are all grocery. I mean, a grocery and car commercials and like insurance commercials to or whatever. But like, grocery is heavily heavily part of the Sunday experience. And so it’s a great way for Amazon to help hopefully buoy Amazon Fresh as it gets going here in the coming years as well. That’s the last point I’d make.
Anne 6:19
Yeah, I think I said this jokingly, but this is like one plus one equals Amazon like not only are is Amazon getting consumers to pay for Prime memberships now to get access to these Thursday night football games, but then they’re also getting brands who will pay more money to them for their data, or who will prioritize the Amazon media network over others, because like you said, they know who’s watching, they know where they’re watching, they know how long they’re watching which ads they saw, like information that has never been available to this level of detail. Now then you start to add in to that customers can purchase within the app directly from Amazon with one click like that’s huge.
Chris 7:07
Oh Katie Carlin
Anne 7:07
Katie Carlin Yes. The only thing growing faster than retail media networks is connected TV and I thought that was a that I mean that that took me took me it was I was taken aback by that a little bit because that shocked me. And now you think about Amazon having control of all this and being able to offer this like just another major revenue stream
Chris 7:26
Anne I said this to you during that presentation too. I was like, Oh my God, because we were watching Albertsons talk about the retail meeting at Pepsi talking about retail media networks on stage at one time as Amazon is playing like the graduate level game on this already
Anne 7:38
Oh my god yeah.
Chris 7:39
And they have been for the past five years where the industry is just now catching up. So lots of watch their kudos to Amazon for continuing to kick some butt in this space. All right, headline number two firework announced a strategic partnership with Walmart connect to test livestream and immersive shoppable video experiences for the retailer. According to a press release, the firework and Walmart partnership aims to bring shoppable short form social media style videos to Walmart’s own digital properties, while also making them available to advertisers creating a premium video commerce experience by bringing product discovery and final transactions together under a single immersive experience.
Walmart Connect is supporting the entire customer continuum, much in the same way we just discussed in the last story. Anne I know you gotta love this, you got to take a lot of pride on the firework fine too man, you are on that soil.
Anne 8:23
I mean, I think that it’s not just, I mean, it was intriguing to both of us as an idea of just kind of how to elevate and really do content, right. I mean, I come from advertising where you know, you are spending hundreds of 1000s of dollars on, you know, creating a 32nd video and it just doesn’t have to be that way. And I think that that’s the been the real unlock here. In addition, I mean, uh, we talked to we interviewed Vincent Yang, the CEO of firework a couple days ago. And we were talking to him and he said that, you know, Walmart is actually the first of the Walmart Connect is the first of the retail media networks to be able to offer this content opportunity to their brands, like no one’s been able to do this before.
So you think about what we just talked about in the last story, the power of the the retail Media Network, and now being able to have unique custom content created as a part of that entire process. Like, so wonderful. I’m so excited for the firework team. The process is slick. I could not say more exciting things about this. I’m excited to see what the further adoption looks like as more retailers are like holy crap, Walmart’s doing this. We better get on it.
Chris 9:34
Yeah, I mean, it’s super slick like Vincent Yang, who we interviewed which he could not stop showing you all the ad placements he had like Walmart and other retailers. The thing is so slick. It’s so easy to shop for from and dudes on fire man Vincent Yang and like we and I was joking on the show floor. I call them retailers Nostradamus talking about how this was going to play out like it’s not going to play out in China. It’s going to play out like they’ve said you know, shoppable video lashing comment too. act on a retailer’s website because that’s where your traffic goes.
And it’s it’s awesome and I gotta give kudos to walmart i mean the kudos to Walmart lately Anne have not been very hot and heavy of late on our show.
Anne 10:12
No, way to plaster Walmart connect all over grocery shop
Chris 10:15
right
Anne 10:16
I mean avoidable it was all over the place. Yeah
Chris 10:19
I liked this move. I mean, you know, I think I want to make sure people know that we are very we try to be as on the levels we can be like, you know and and we call it like we see it when we don’t like something we call it like we see it when we love something. I love this move. I think it’s great.
Anne 10:32
Yeah, I mean, and just for the listeners, like if you want to see this live just to get a sense of what’s going on. We just saw Vincent Yang again this morning. They’re launching with Old Navy today today.
Chris 10:42
Yeah
Anne 10:42
So go to old navy.com You can see this happening right in front of your very eyes. It’s it’s fantastic. Fresh Market is another retailer that they work with in the grocery space. If you want to go check it out, but had to there there won’t own websites, not tick tock, not Instagram, not Facebook. You go to the brand’s website and see just how how great this this can be in action.
Chris 11:04
Yeah, it’s pretty slick.
Anne 11:05
All right, Chris. Let’s go to headline number three. So Instacart unveiled connected stores on Monday, there was quite The Buzzaround grocery shop for that, which is a bundle of new and existing Instacart platform technologies that are intended to help grocers build a unified, seamless and personalised experience both online and in store.
Chris 11:26
Sounds so cool,
Anne 11:27
Yes. Now, let me break it down for you. Thankfully, thankfully, chain storage has has bulleted this out for all of us.
Chris 11:33
Right.
Anne 11:33
So the connected store platform includes the newest model of the caper cart and AI powered Smart Cart. One
Chris 11:40
which I can’t wait for you to talk about
Anne 11:42
a scan and pay feature, which lets customers scan items as they shop and then pay for them using their mobile phone. Carrot tags which enable retailers to connect electronic shelf labels to the Instacart platform and add functionality like pick to light and other things make sense? Food Stores order management system, which helps retailers manage Grab and Go unprepared food orders in the store. And then out of stock insights API’s, or an out of stock insights API that helps the retailers provide automatic real time alerts to associates when items are running low or out of stock. Chris
Chris 12:13
Tell them what they want Anne Jesus.
Anne 12:15
Well, I wish that this was the only time that had like 15 bullets to it. But we have another one. That’s very complex.
Chris 12:21
Right no It’s tough
Anne 12:23
Make sense of this for us? Like what do you what do you think of Instacart announcement?
Chris 12:27
I don’t like I don’t get it at all.
Anne 12:29
Yeah
Chris 12:29
Like and the funny thing about that that list seems really long. But when you actually it’s great that you read through it Because it’s only five things and running a store today. I don’t know how many was five or six these don’t don’t quote me on that listeners. But like it, when you run a store, there’s so much more involved in it than those five things, especially connected store.
Anne 12:48
Right.
Chris 12:49
And for some reason, Bristol Farms on California appears to be all in on this. And my question for Neil Stern is like, what are you thinking? Like? I what I don’t get most of all is, it’s just like I said, it’s not enough to create a connected store. It shows me that Instacart doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to actually run a grocery store.
Anne 13:05
Right
Chris 13:05
The fact that they’re thinking they can pitch this makes no sense to me. I’m going on a rant here again. But I think that’s an another indictment of their CEO trying to juice the stock trying to juice everything for the IPO.
Anne 13:15
Yeah
Chris 13:15
Somebody told us never trust somebody who’s trying to raise money, which I think this is totally apropos to that. And the other thing is the way they’re putting the tech together via acquisitions and partnering with companies like on the pricing tags, which, in essence, I’ve talked about pricing things I love pricing tags, but that makes them appear headed down the road of being like a service integrator,
Anne 13:33
Yeah
Chris 13:34
Like and there’s tonnes of those out there. It’s a crowded landscape. And why is Instacart any better at doing the integration on in store technologies than anyone else. And so net net, the big guys are never gonna go for this
Anne 13:45
Right
Chris 13:46
The big guys will never do is the middle guys probably won’t do this either. To this extent letting Instacart into their store. So that means fighting for the little opportunities like a Bristol Farms that might go with this because Instacart is likely paying them to do it to be their petri dish. But playing in that market is it’s a patchwork, you’re gonna be fighting it’s a patchwork of random stuff, trying to do the same thing. And it’s a slow growth dogfight at best. So I don’t understand how this makes any difference in the long run. Okay, rant over. What do you think?
Anne 14:14
Yeah, it was, it was totally bizarre, because people were very divided about this announcement. Like, some people were coming up to us, like, Did you see the Instacart booth? Like look at all these things they can do? And it’s like, yeah I guess. But like, again, to your point, Chris, I think like, how are you going to I just don’t understand how you’re going to make money if it’s just the smaller players who are who are working with you. And just from a resource perspective, like how you still have to onboard like 100 of these individual stores versus like taking one giant retailer and working with them to implement this.
Chris 14:49
Great point.
Anne 14:50
I know Publix is like there they talk so much about Publix and how they’re doing all this work with them but I mean is is that it like Who else are you? Are we gonna really see adopt this
Chris 14:59
right and why haven’t we seen the cart in more places? And like, seriously, why haven’t we seen the cart in more places?
Anne 15:04
I don’t know, that still doesn’t make sense to me. I asked the Instacart team at the booth about the cart, because one of the questions that I have too is like the smart carts. Super cool from a technology standpoint, when you think about usability and like a mom going into shop, and now there’s, you’ve removed the child seats, there’s no child seat. Now, like, I don’t know, as a mom, are you going to feel comfortable putting your kid in like some sort of radioactive cart that you’re not sure? Like? Do you just put them in the basket with all the stuff like your story?
Chris 15:32
Like you asked them?
Anne 15:32
I asked them and the response from Instacart when I said, Are you thinking about putting a child seat back into this at any point in time? The response was, we hadn’t even thought of that, which I don’t know if they were like, that’s messing around with me, because it seems so strange that you wouldn’t even consider that so far. But But yeah, I mean, I guess I just, I have so many questions around this, I don’t understand who’s going to use it. I still think that there’s a lot of work to do. Even with the integrations like the other one, I’ll just say real quickly is the food ordering the order management system that you have to still go in if you don’t want to use the kiosk in store or you want to order ahead of time, you have to go to a separate sites, download an app, then place your order form the retailer it’s not even integrating with the retailers app at this point in time.
So it still just feels so disjointed and like it’s going to take so much hands on work that the Bristol Farms example is going to be a tell all I think
Chris 16:28
Yeah, and the scan and go too, like that. That one’s almost laughable to me like oh, okay, yeah, you know how to you know how to coordinate with an online POS that’s much easier than coordinating with an in store POS Oh, and like, light years difference and what that means and it’s not an easy thing to do.
Anne 16:43
And then like you said, well, and but then then there’s the other point of what we’ve talked about before is like so you’re just gonna deploy scan and go and look at what had just happened with Wegmans like you there’s no change to the footprint of the grocery store.
Chris 16:55
And you have no experience doing it
Anne 16:57
Right.
Chris 16:57
Right. And you’re buying all these companies you have no experience doing it. So I learned that we hate this right? I think we hate it like I mean
Anne 17:04
I just don’t I don’t
Chris 17:05
I am trying to keep an open mind. I don’t understand it at all
Anne 17:07
I don’t understand how this is going to get you like people more I don’t know. I don’t know how this supports the IPO because if I’m looking at this as a as a logistics minded investor, I’m like how?
Chris 17:20
Yeah, and as soon as as soon as this panoply of stuff is live at Bristol Farms in Irvine, California. I’m on a plane like legitimately on a plane like I want to see how Bristol Farms which is like a very like beautiful store
Anne 17:33
Yes.
Chris 17:33
Is going to adapt to all this crazy new technology you’re gonna throw into it but maybe maybe I’m maybe I’m not maybe I’m wrong. All right, let’s keep going Anne. headline for Lowe’s has unveiled an interactive virtual model or quote unquote digital twin of two of its stores. According to chain storage. The Home Improvement giant is leveraging technology from Nvidia to create photorealistic digital replicas of the stores to enable store employees to visualise and interact with nearly all of the stores digital data. The retailer is currently piloting several features with its digital twin solution including including AR resets and restocking support. AR X ray vision AR collaboration to update existing digital twins and store visualisation and optimization. There’s also a cool video online that they put out with Sumanth and the CIO and our former friend at Target and now CIO at Lowe’s. It’s with it’s worth the watch. I put it on social media earlier this morning. But Anne, what do you think here?
Anne 18:27
You know, I was really excited to see a pretty big retailer like Lowe’s giving this a go.
Chris 18:32
Yeah for sure.
Anne 18:33
I think it’s fun to see like, so much of the talk at grocery shop again, I had Zippity on my panel, it was another shelf scanning robot like people are trying Dave Stax team at Schnucks is looking or is has been using the robots in IO for years. Yeah, I think it’s it’s definitely creating a lot of benefits for retailers. And I think this is another example of the theme of grocery shop for me, which was a bettering store operations, like how do you use this data not to just say what’s out of stock not to say like, you know, assign tasks, but really, like use this to to create another, this digital twin of your store to be able to learn things from, you know, utilizng this technology and what I believe is a very smart way.
Chris 19:18
Yeah, absolutely. 100%.
Anne 19:20
Chris, before you respond.
Chris 19:22
Oh yeah. All right. I was just about to respond there Anne
Anne 19:25
So, this is also where a&m is going to, a&m CRG is going to put you on the spot.
Chris 19:30
Oh, yeah. Bring it I’m ready. I’m grocery shop.I got lady swing behind me, Anne I’m ready.
Anne 19:37
All right, this is gonna sound weird if people didn’t hear the beginning of this podcast. All right, Chris. So a&m CRG want to know, if you return to your days in store management like doo doo doo like, imagine
Chris 19:50
okay,
Anne 19:51
If you were told you’d be receiving this technology in your stores, what problems will you first use this tech to solve and which use cases would excite you the most in terms of bringing new efficiency to your operations?
Chris 20:03
Oh, great question.
Anne 20:04
I know I liked that one a lot.
Chris 20:05
Really good question. So to set the stage, there’s really two applications I see with this technology. One is like the headquarters application where they get a digital twin of the store.
Anne 20:13
Yep.
Chris 20:13
And they can try things move things around without the capex expenditures that you normally would have, right?
Anne 20:18
Or the store is being like, what the hell we have more important things, right.
Chris 20:22
Yeah. So it gives you significant simulation capabilities that don’t exist otherwise. And then the other part is the store operations side of this. And so what I love about it when I when I watched the video and read the article was, I think about it from the perspective of a store walk, like you have a store walk in the morning, we do it at Target before the store opens, I could literally have this headset on walk around with my team, my team could have it on to you. I could potentially even be piped into headquarters.
Anne 20:46
Yeah
Chris 20:46
And we could look and see, okay, this planogram looks like it’s in the right shape. Hey, I don’t have inventory here. I need to make sure this a big hole. I don’t have inventory here. I need to get that correct. I need to shoot that up to HQ. Get them to send me what they can or at least understand what’s going on there. Or even like pricing to like I can walk in and see big red signs in my purview all in my field of view through the through the visual tool that I’m using to say, hey, prices, we got lots of prices that are right on the side. Let’s go work this out today. Let’s get ready. That is an immediate applicable use case I think for this
Anne 21:18
Yeah.
Chris 21:18
And it’s so no brainer to me in a lot of ways. And so I just think it’s great kudos to them for doing it.
Anne 21:24
I also love the angle too Chris it made me think of, you know, we talked about you being a district manager and having to drive around to all your stores. While that’s still very important, but like you think about improving improving the lives of the district managers a little bit and maybe like they’re visiting one less time per month and they’re able to collaborate on some of these things like it’s simpler for the stores teams it’s simpler for the district managers it’s simpler for the HQ employees to all kind of have the same connection and visibility into what’s going on in the stores without like that travel and just wear on people that they just don’t need you know, it’s
Chris 22:01
No that’s an awesome point. I never thought about Yeah, I could literally do a store walk with all 12 of my stores. I could like go Mondays this store Tuesday’s that store.
Anne 22:03
Yeah
Chris 22:03
You know and I wouldn’t even have to necessarily go there.
Anne 22:11
Yeah
Chris 22:11
It’d be amazing.
Anne 22:12
Yeah.
Chris 22:12
Like it’d be a great auditing tool as well.
Anne 22:14
All right. Well, let’s get to the last headline, Chris headline number five, according to an article in Bloomberg coming soon, from the world’s largest retailer, which is Walmart checking accounts.
Chris 22:25
You went Vegas on me there.
Anne 22:26
Oh, yeah.
Chris 22:27
Cool buffer, huh?
Anne 22:27
I don’t know who that is.
Chris 22:28
Yeah. Okay.
Anne 22:29
Okay, so here’s some key notes on the Walmart checking account. So one, which is the name of the venture that’s majority backed by Walmart, Inc, is poised to emerge from the shadows this month. Bloomberg has got some kick ass riding Bloomberg, I’m intrigued. Okay, they’re going to emerge from the shadows this month month with digital bank accounts meant for the retail Giants 1.6 million US employees and legions of weekly shoppers. So in the coming weeks, Walmart will start offering the accounts to 1000s of workers and a small percentage of its online customers as part of an initial beta test of the new service. According to people with knowledge of the matter. One of my favourite things like knowledge of the matter Yes. Inside insider sources report people, according to people with knowledge of the matter. checking accounts are coming
Chris 23:18
Now you’re doing like The Simpsons. You’re like on fire tonight.
Anne 23:21
I don’t know. I don’t know.
Chris 23:22
I love you at the end of a grocery shop. This is great.
Anne 23:24
Yeah, I’m, you can tell I’m at my best. Chris, what are your thoughts on this headline?
Chris 23:30
I lovethis one too. I mean, I gotta get kudos to Walmart again. I love this one, too.
Anne 23:34
Yeah.
Chris 23:34
I mean, I think it’s great. It’s, it’s going in a direction that I think the industry is going to eventually go down. You know, there’s only so many places we want to spend our mindshare as consumers and having a checking account or debit account that you can use with the retailer like we do with a Starbucks.
Anne 23:51
Yeah
Chris 23:51
It’s just, it’s just a kind of a no brainer. Again, to me.
Anne 23:54
Yes.
Chris 23:54
And it brings light to a podcast that we had, about a month ago with Alviere and their CEO,Yuval Brisker where they’re enabling this for other retailers to do as well, similar to what Walmart is trying to do here. Walmart is the first mover on this really in the retail landscape in a lot of ways. So it’s, it’s cool to see again, but it just gives gives kudos, I think to, to all the air, what they’re trying to do give kudos to us for being in front of this to try to bring it to our audience too. So I’m proud of that. But net net I like it a lot.
Anne 24:23
Yeah, I, I was had all the same ideas. I mean, that that example of the Starbucks, you know, putting preloading money into an account just makes so much sense. And I think especially when you’re talking about Walmart, for the grocery use case, the essential stock apps, like all the things you’re going to Walmart for like you’re going to that’s that’s just one place that you’re going to go you know, multiple times per month, so it just makes sense to have some sort of connection to be getting more benefit. And ultimately, I think pays off the EDLP promise that you know millions of what making the lives of millions of Walmart consumers better, making their dollar stretch further and giving them A reason to stay connected to Walmart. So I love it.
Chris 25:03
Yeah. You know what else you made me think of as you were talking about, like, I didn’t think about this before. We heard John Ferner on stage and he, for the first time said Walmart’s flywheel, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard Walmart use the word flywheel before. And so that was a big catch for me. And this is that, like, you know, you get the checking account and makes your media network more powerful, makes your loyalty programme more powerful because you can provide discounts and incentives in a greater way and a greater scale. So it’s awesome.
Anne 25:27
All right, Chris, let’s get to the lightning round. My firtst question.
Chris 25:30
I’m scared to get to the lightning round with you today.
Anne 25:32
It’s like the running joke of grocery shop. So Chris Beyond Meat COO was arrested for biting a man’s nose during a fight at an Arkansas football game. Chris, have you ever been to a sporting event where you were very concerned for the safety of one part of your body or multiple parts of your body?
Chris 25:50
That’s a funny question. I didn’t think about this before. But generally, whenever I go to a sporting event, now I’m concerned for the safety of my body because they’re just that nuts anymore. Like when I go yeah, I don’t really enjoy it.
Anne 26:00
What kind of gamer are you going to see
Chris 26:00
I’m just like, your average football game or whatever. People just get crazy. You know, so like, I don’t know, spray way like I’m not a huge, like live sporting event guy anymore. But back in the day, I loved it. And so for me, it was the Oakland A’s in the early 2000s. I thought I was gonna get a beat down because my buddy nerds was at the game with me Big White Sox fan. Shout and cheer for the White Sox like like crazy and let’s just say the Oakland A’s face. They’re a little they’re little they’re a little different. And they didn’t they didn’t take too much pleasure in that one Anne it was kind of scary.
Anne 26:27
He told me that story this week. Just I had some of you I kind of like gave you a little like
Chris 26:32
Not sure you’re going this way,
Anne 26:34
But I can’t believe that I’ve never been in that scenario. So
Chris 26:37
Oh, yeah, and it’s happened multiple times at Oakland Coliseum too. That’s not the only time that’s a crazy place. All right. The FDA felt it necessary to issue a warning against choosing NyQuil as a chicken marinade. Anne, which NyQuil flavour Do you prefer grape or cherry flavour?
Anne 26:52
I hate Nyquil. But if I have to take it grape 100 times over I hate cherry flavoured everything.
Chris 26:58
You hate cherry flavoured everything.
Anne 26:59
Oh I think it’s because NyQuil may ruin cherry flavouring
Chris 27:03
What about maraschino cherries? You like maraschino cherries?
Anne 27:05
That’s yeah, I guess like an actual eat an actual cherry. I just don’t like the cherry flavouring. Like a Slurpee,
Chris 27:11
So you could go with a Bing Bing Bing
Anne 27:13
Oh, I like Reniere I am partial to Reniere cherry. Okay, Chris. Yay, told Gap this week that he’s pulling the plug on their partnership, and will be instead opening his own stores. Given your deep merchandising history, who do you think will be Longer Better, Faster, Stronger? That’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. Gap stores or yay stores who survives out of this?
Chris 27:43
Oh my god it actually makes me want to actually the the option to this question is who has a better chance of running their own stores? Yay. Or Instacart? You know, that’s actually what I was started thinking.
Anne 27:51
Oh, my God,
Chris 27:52
I’d want to say gap. But I think I’d actually have to go yay. Because like it’s but this is kind of like picking between broccoli and brussel sprouts. I don’t like either option for longevity at this point.
Anne 28:00
Yeah. I mean I hope gap But yeah. I mean, I don’t know. It’s you’re in a you’re in a rough spot. Chris, last question.
Chris 28:11
All right. Total Halloween spending is expected to reach an all time high of 10.6 billion this year off of I think 10.1 billion last year Anne. The most popular costume items for kids are Spider Man and princesses. And for adults. Yeah I know Right. And for adults, surprisingly to me it was a witch and a vampire.
Anne 28:28
Yeah, that’s easy. I mean, most people have that
Chris 28:32
But I mean those just to purchase right and so yeah, so. Anne have you ever dressed as either one of those a vampire or a witch? And if not, what is your most memorable Halloween costume? Or maybe you can answer both of those if you have.
Anne 28:45
I think I’ve definitely dressed as a witch. I mean, that’s like the easiest thing to do.
Chris 28:49
Meant for Halloween, right?
Anne 28:53
Ah, good luck.
Chris 28:56
Good Halloween.
Anne 28:58
My most memorable Halloween costume is when I when I went out with some girlfriends and we dressed as hashtag your mom. So we so we dressed up as like moms and like complete with like soccer button picture buttons and everything. And believe it or not, that was the night that I met my husband.
Chris 29:16
Oh my god. That’s right. Yeah, that’s a hashtag.
Anne 29:19
My husband saw me first dressed as a as a suburban mom. And that’s how and I was like, this is perfect. You’ve seen me for what my life will look like for the next 25 years. So I’m just giving you a teaser of here’s what it will look like and if you’re good with me here then you know the next few years should work out.
Chris 29:36
This might be my favourite podcast of all time. I think seriously like this week. This has been great. All right, that wraps us up. Happy Birthday today to Bonnie Hunt. Ashley Asoka Tano Eckstein
Anne 29:47
Sorry what?
Chris 29:48
She’s a Star Wars person she’s an actress she’s a voice of a star wars character
Anne 29:51
Chris asked me if he was a dork last night and I’m just going to just like remind you of this, like this might be a moment where you need to check yourself.
Chris 29:59
Star wars clone fans have started we’ll know who Ashley Eckstein is. So I’m playing,
Anne 30:04
But she has four name’s Ashley Asoka Tano Eckstein
Chris 30:07
She plays Asoka Tano. Or she actually does the voice of Asoka Tano.
Anne 30:11
Please continue.
Chris 30:12
Okay. Rosario Dawson actually plays the live action character. But anyway,
Anne 30:16
Oh, I love her.
Chris 30:17
Yeah, right. All right. All right. And of course, the man who I would never, for any amount of money in the world ever, ever put in charge of my kids for one second, Skype bail.
Anne 30:30
He is always in charge.
Chris 30:32
No, not in my life. And remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business make it omni talk. Our Fast Five podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the week’s top news. And our twice weekly newsletter tells you the top five things you need to know each day, and also features special content exclusive to us and just for you, and we try really hard to make it all fit within the preview pane of your inbox. You can sign up today at http://www.omnitalk.blog. Thanks so much for listening in. Please remember to like and leave us a review wherever you happen to listen to your podcasts or on YouTube. And as always,
Anne 31:01
Can I add one thing as we’re closing?
Chris 31:03
Sure
Anne 31:03
Thanks to everybody who came up to us at grocery shop to ever all of you who are have been listening, who told us that you love the podcast like it really made the conference for us. And we hope that you feel like you can come up to us anytime and give us feedback on the show. We want to continue to make it better for you. So thank you.
Chris 31:20
Yeah, absolutely. And there were a tonne of people and almost too many people that name you like the Oscars if we tried to name them all but thank you to everyone for that because it really did mean a lot. And so, on behalf of all of us here at Omni talk a big thank you to everyone out there. And of course, as always Be careful out there.
Anne 31:36
The OMNI talk fast five is a Microsoft sponsored podcast. Microsoft pub for retail connects your customers, your people and your data across the shopper journey delivering personalised experiences and operational excellence. And is also brought to you in association with the a&m consumer and retail group, a&m consumer and retail group is a management consulting firm that tackles the most complex challenges and advances its clients people and communities toward their maximum potential. CRG brings the experience tools and operator like pragmatism to help retailers and consumer products companies be on the right side of disruption. And takeoff, takeoff is transforming grocery by empowering grocers to thrive online. The key is micro fulfilment. Small robotic fulfilment centres that can be leveraged at a hyperlocal scale. Takeoff also offers a robust software suite. So grocers can seamlessly integrate their robotic solution into their existing businesses. To learn more visit takeoff.com And Sezzle, Sezzle is an innovative Buy now pay later solution that allows shoppers to split purchases into four interest repayments over six weeks. To learn more, visit sezzle.com. Finally silk. The silk cloud DB virtualization platform is a virtualization layer between your workloads and the cloud. It helps you scale your cloud without scaling your costs. Visit silk.us to learn more
Omni Talk is the retail blog for retailers, written by retailers. Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga founded Omni Talk in 2017 and have quickly turned it into one of the fastest growing blogs in retail. 