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Hello you are listening to the Omni talk Fast Five brought to you in partnership with the A & M Consumer and Retail group, Firework, SPS commerce and Sezzle ranked in the top 10 of podcasts globally the Omni talk fast five is the podcast that we hope makes you feel a little smarter but most importantly a little happier each week too.
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Today is March 9th 9th yes 2023. I am your host Anne Mezzenga and I’m Chris Walton and we are here once again to discuss all the headlines Making Waves in the world of omni Channel retailing Chris great recovery there for those hat are listening like I actually write.
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The openings every week and I put the wrong date on there I still had last week’s date on there and knew the date right away I’m impressed all right I knew where to look right right um I’m cheating we’re we are we are coming to you nice and bright and early after returning home last night in a solid burrito dinner um from Miami from the national confectioners Association state of the industry conference yeah it was yeah it was great it was such a good conference I loved it for sure one of my top conferences of all time like the venuous awesome oh yeah crowd was awesome let’s talk about also the candy like we had candy delivered to our rooms every night it was like magical I don’t know I had to bring a whole separate carry-on just for the candy yeah my kids don’t understand just like how amazing this is so I can only imagine the people at that conference like their kids must love them so much more than our kids love us.
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Oh right yeah my dentist wife was not happy when I got home incredible bag of candy I can only imagine yeah she just it was tough it’s tough but you but the one downside of the trip I will say was was there was quite a lot of bugs at the trip and they particularly liked your skin much more than mine terrible Chris I counted so there’s these bugs they’re kind of like mosquitoes they’re called No seems no seems because you don’t see.
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Them you don’t see them and my mom and dad used to live in Florida so I would always get attacked by them like I couldn’t go out after 4 pm because they were especially bad then but this Miami 82 bites I counted 82 bucks and that’s the that’s just the way ones I can see Chris that’s not even the ones that are God knows where you need help to get the Full Count I might start like itching and scratching drains hopefully not but you know that’s insane have you tried the Epsom bath I tried everything so that I could like release the toxins oh my God but in seriousness like we had a great show we got to do our live Fast Five in front of the audience everyone was really receptive to it we also got to interview two Executives from Walmart yes and Target on stage which I don’t think has ever happened in my recollection no and it was amazing Mark Kenny and Seth Malley like we and out they were a blast we got them kind of jabbing each other towards the end awesome it was awesome but yeah if any of you are interested in having Ann and me come to your company to do a live Fast Five in front of your team and tailor to your organization just drop either one of us a message on LinkedIn or email email us at info redarcherytail.com that’s info redarcher retail.com we’d love to do it for you we love taking this format on the road all right Andrew get started let’s do it in today’s Fast Five we’ve got news on.
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The ongoing saga of Amazon go Dollar Trees plans to launch hundreds of private label items as they push into grocery Uber’s new shopping option for drivers the chef to Consumer Marketplace startup that now plans to expand Nationwide yes but we begin today with some big Health Care moves from Walmart and that’s right Chris headline number one is that Walmart plans to double its Health Center format by 2024 that’s next year so according to chain store age it plans to open 28 new Walmart Health Centers next year giving it a total of more than 75 locations by the end of 2024. the expansion will increase Walmart’s Health sorry Walmart Health’s footprint into new two new States Missouri and Arizona and also deep in it in Texas specifically within the Dallas metro area and also in Houston yes the new facilities will be approximately 750 square feet and located beside Walmart Supercenters and will feature a full Suite of Health Services the services will likely vary by location in but include Primary Care Labs X-ray and EKG Behavioral Health dental hearing Select Specialty Services Community Health and Telehealth Walmart debuted its freestanding Health Center Concept in 2019 and currently there are 32 Walmart Health locations open across Arkansas Florida Georgia Illinois and Texas do you know there are that many I I wasn’t aware there was that much I didn’t either but as well as we will discuss in this headline like there’s a lot of things going on at Walmart that I just don’t think we even know about that that contribute to this bigger idea but what are your thoughts on this Chris I’ve been just more growing more and more impressed with Walmart with each and every passing week here and especially Doug McMillan in his.
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Leadership but you know my big takeaway is lots of moves in the retail Healthcare space this weekend so you’ve got this one just to call attention for our listeners you got this one and then you also had Best Buy working with Atrium yes on in-home Hospital insulations which I think is a great move yeah but I love this move by Walmart and there’s two things that stand out to me one how fast they’re growing the concept up right because and I’ve said this before on the show and it got me in trouble once I won’t say why but I think it’s really important the speed at which a retailer rolls out something tells you how much they are behind it right and how big of an impact they think the idea could have that’s very important to keep in mind as it’s going to come up later in the show I think as well the second thing that struck me in what you just read is the size of these operations and where they are okay so they’re only 6 000 square feet right so that’s an easy build and they’re placing them right in the parking lot like it’s similar like a standalone gas station concept at a Walmart it’s no different than that so so they can put these anywhere and they can build them out as quick as they want and it’s telling me that Walmart is doing a great job when you think about it in that context of being that get stuff done in my life place to go yeah absolutely I mean back when we were working on store of the future Chris we you know there was this idea and Walmart was talking about it Target was talking about it like how do you become the Town Center Walmart with almost 5000 locations is uniquely positioned to do this and I was talking to Seth Maley
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Behind stage before we went on just about like I didn’t realize you that Walmart was rolling out its own like Standalone convenience and guest right and they’re doing that some you know a lot of them are again in the Walmart parking lot and I think when you start to think about all those Walmart locations and then just kind of building upon the the parking lot options adding these Healthcare centers is a great great thing for the community to be able to use when they’re going to you know and then picking up any drugs or anything they need afterward or you know food items or grocery like it’s it’s one quick trip and then I think the other hing that I bring in here too is you know talking to Chris Duncan a couple weeks ago at etail from Claire’s about them going into Walmart and they’re just renting space inside the Walmart they’re leasing space just like a mall so I think the more that you’re adding into this I think is is so valuable to the consumer to be that One-Stop shop and to really make Walmart like the center of the community which is a thing that I think they’ve been wanting to do for quite a long time yeah I love this idea right doctor doctor give me the news I got a bad case I don’t know a doctor doctor sorry the other point on make Doan real quick yeah Best Buy let’s go back to that first yeah yeah yeah Best Buy’s move is great because it shows the same Trend here but there’s continue to differentiate in the same way against Walmart that they have traditionally so Walmart going with the the Standalone Health Center idea yep but but Best Buy saying you know what we’re going to win on the services angle right and get these help you get these in-home hospitals set up right similar how you set up your your like man caves you know same idea so brilliant move from them all right headline number two according to retail dive Amazon is permanently closing eight go convenience stores two in Seattle two in New York City and four in San Francisco all around April 1st the closures represent this is this blew my mind and nearly one quarter of.
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Amazon’s current store base and brings the current estimate a total amount of ghost stores down to just 23. is it April Fool’s Day joke no I right that’s kind of funny right yeah I just realized that that April 1st is the thing I hope this is an April Fool’s joke it’s too funny to joke about Anne all right and yet despite these closures an Amazon spokesperson said about the news quote we remain committed to the Amazon go format operate more than 20 Amazon ghost stores across the U.S and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers as we keep evolving our Amazon ghost stores end quote and are you buying that stated commitment you know we talked about we talked about this at the NCAA show we did I’m not ready to give up on these yet like I think that there’s still some like formulation happening the only difference is that Amazon conducts its r d in the real world versus a lot of some of the other retailers that are exploring this concept like it starts internally with the store it’s like Amazon’s doing this and they’re getting real life data and so I think that we’re going to continue to expect to see this like Wax and Wane a little bit but I still think this is this is a good concept for early adopters I’m a little surprised to see San Francisco in in New York closing because that seems like the prime market for these yeah so maybe they’re seeing better results with the Suburban go formats that could be um I stand by my theory though that this is still an early adopter problem that there’s still not enough people that feel comfortable shopping like this and that as soon as these they start to expand stadiums selling booze and you can get a beer in no time at all because you’re using the Amazon just walk out I think it’s just going to be like QR codes during a restaurant during the pandemic like I think that people will catch on to that and then that’s going to start to take this concept by storm I’m actually gonna be a little more pointed on this one okay um you know and I I’m and I’m gonna bring up a couple points here so the retail Dives article they stated something and I don’t remember if I can’t recall if it was you now specifically said by Amazon or something that retail dive was inferring and that was what you said about.
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the New York San Francisco markets being busy places and they’re kind of dead on the weekends and so they don’t really feel like this formats right but I’ve lived in those markets you know during the week and those stores pound right like they are just pound Pounders like the amount of people going in and out of them so this this concept should work very well for that market so to think it’s just gonna work in Suburbia makes me kind of question that but the other reason is okay and it goes back to what I said in the first headline I’m gonna eat what I cook here okay what did I just say I said you can tell how well something is working by how fast a retailer rolls it out Amazon goes been around since 2018. they aren’t speeding up the pace of the format and overall they’re actually pulling it back pretty significantly so my hunch right now if I read the tea leaves is I think just walk out may just be a licensing play at this point to airports to campuses like we heard about this week with the transact campus news because here I’m going to be really pointed here too what evidence do we have Ann that Amazon is good at physical retail I posed that question to everyone and to Amazon too you data driven company what evidence is there that you know how to do physical retail four star right books fresh style like I’ll I’m waiting like it doesn’t appear that anyone is really beating down the doors to shop at any of them but what do you think the only defense I would say here is that I think that we’re seeing a lot of success.
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When you go into the smaller Container Stores which to your point is is in general that’s licensing you’re talking about like the small you know the Hudson News Concepts and we haven’t seen at least I wasn’t able to find what these campus stores look like but I think they’ve got to be small though if you’re doing that that real small format I do think there’s a benefit to continuing to use that technology eventually when you get down to the point of like eventually being able to eliminate Staffing from that being able to be open 24 7 having a small limited number of skus that the cameras will know and identify it’s not like you’re changing stuff up like a grocery store is at that volume all the time so I I have hope for the this still to come I still think that there is going to be use cases for it I think Amazon’s just still figuring it out yeah real quick real quick real quick before I think you’re potentially still on to something where if you look at the history of Amazon how it builds its e-commerce platform right it it really built that on the backs of other people licensing the technology too until it got to be the way people wanted to shop so yeah I could see them still just playing the licensing angle here for the next five to ten years right and then maybe this idea gets more of a play from them or other people in the physical world but I don’t know if Amazon’s gonna be the one to do it and will it be from.
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Amazon or will will other retailers have started taking over by then because I still think like the licensing play for me for Amazon still doesn’t make sense like I think the big retailers are not going to be giving this information over to Amazon so I think it’s a great opportunity for the the trigos the grabangos of the world doesn’t know how to do physical retail right like okay all right we could yeah we have a we get passionate about this just walk out technology all right headline number three so Dollar Tree plans to open a test kitchen until 1 launched hundreds of private label items as it pushes even deeper into grocery in addition according to windsite grocery business Dollar Tree and Family Dollar also said it has begun quote aggressively expanding end quote it’s three dollar four dollar and five dollar Frozen and refrigerated products growing from zero to 3 500 stores last year is that.
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Clocked damn that’s that’s a lot that’s a lot uh CEO Rick dreling told analysts early Wednesday in a call to discuss earnings quote this will consist of three cooler doors one on each price point with an attractive selection of proteins pizza ice cream and more which the consumer is responding positively to end quote quote our goal is to have 30 doors per store end quote driving also said one more quote here uh when a shopper buys something from the multiple price point refrigerated and frozen section at Dollar Tree their basket size is more than double that of someone with no multi-priced items end quote lots of thoughts there from the old CEO Chris really good thoughts um this is also the a m point you have a spot question this week the third headline this week I’m not saving it till the end no I like it I like it bring it all right a m is going to ask you this okay closing my eyes I’m deep in thought all right the dollar discount Channel continues to be a force to be reckoned with in grocery with food comps outpacing the rest of the store given the emphasis on private label if you’re a branded cpg food manufacturer how worried are you about continued margin degradation across channels after reading this headline oh wow yeah uh I think you have to worry about it I think you 100 have to worry because if you’re a cpg um I the the thing I’d say about this strategy I have literally no doubt that.
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It’s going to work I’m going to be that Brazen in my opinion um because and I say that because I’ve seen it work firsthand at Target and right I was leading frozen food at Target when Target expanded its frozen food doors essentially to every store in the country and it it was never that way people can remember like Target didn’t carry food not that long ago it was like 15 years ago they maybe had three doors or something yeah I mean it was very very small but that’s what they did and that was the Playbook it was Go frozen food first refrigerated because that stuff keeps a little bit longer especially the Frozen stuff then you expand into private label right the dry goods the frozen food private label offerings and then ultimately you move into fresh like that’s the Playbook here yep and it’s going to work because now it’s just taking that Playbook adapting it to a different graphic uh demographic and so this has to impact cbgs to some degree in the long run especially as those lower demographic price conscious consumers yes are in play I love this too because I think when I think about the future you’re talking about you know.
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They’ve seen success with the with the Frozen and refrigerated Goods now they’re starting to go into fresh fresh grocery drives trips like end of story and I think when we kind of layer this on top of the Walmart kind of Town Center idea that we were talking about in the first story Dollar Tree also has the ability to do this but at a slightly smaller scale than Walmart you don’t need to offer everything they have how many thousands of locations like they underserved markets underserved markets they also have the opportunity to provide products that is an alternative now to usually the only Grocery Outlet in town like when you go to these small towns it’s like there’s a grocery store there’s a dollar store and a gas station and a bar you know and now when you think about not only can I get these these private label brands from Dollar Tree but I can also get all my shopping done for everything else I need in the Dollar Tree store right so I don’t have to make a trip to the grocery store on a trip to Dollar Tree and it’s cheaper like all of the things are coming together to make this a more opportune time saving convenient shopping experience in all these regions so I think it’s brilliant 100 it’s a One-Stop shop in the dollar environment that’s essentially what.
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We’re going for yeah that just makes fundamental sense yes I mean all right before we get to headline four this is also the part of the podcast where we tell you about another great retail conference Ann and I are heading to this summer and that is home delivery World home delivery delivery World home delivery world is the largest free supply chain Logistics conference and Expo and it is taking place June 14th and 15th in Philly here’s the other thing and it’s also free to attend so I don’t think it costs very much that’s my take I think it’s nothing I think it’s fairly affordable it’s very affordable and affordable we get to hang out with you get to hang out with us yeah you can hang out with us and over 350 other exhibitors all of whom are showcasing Cutting Edge retail Logistics Solutions with 7 000 plus attendees yeah this is a great one this is kind of like NCAA because they all everybody like knows each other there’s like a lot of like fun people are fun at these they’ve known each other for a long time yeah.
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It’s great great time I love it yeah so just head to terrapin.com homedelivery world that’s t-e-r-r-a-p-i-n-n.com slash home delivery world to learn more and register today all right headline number four according to chain store age Uber is introducing shop and pay a new earning opportunity on the Uber driver app in the US that lets delivery Personnel opt into receiving trips to go into retailers primarily grocery stores and and to shop and check out for orders before delivering them to customers as usual now nearly 200 000 U.S delivery Personnel have already been performing shopping trips since the program began being piloted according to Uber and.
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According to Teresa Lim senior director of product management grocery plus new verticals at Uber interesting title quote couriers who use ubereats are increasingly fine grossing shopping to be a reliable and positive addition to their earning opportunities end quote and it feels like uber is trying to turn its normal non-uber each drivers into instacart like drivers do you like this move yeah it’s super smart I mean there’s not a lot to say about it here it’s just like they’re following the doordash Playbook where you just do whatever you can to keep your drivers as utilized as they possibly can be keep them profitable keep them busy and I I think that the upgrades to the app here are like the smart things they like I think that I have to give the product team at Uber kudos for really thinking through like allowing digital payments to be all handled within the app which makes life easier on the drivers especially when this is a new kind of activity and then helping them with substitutions so I haven’t used the app myself but I think that they were smartly addressing like how do we get these people onboarded as quickly as possible so they can start making money and start being more efficient yeah it sounds smart right it totally sounds smart so I I mean yeah I don’t have much.
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And I love it too I think like to your point just to add on to it it’s a scale game at this point we talked about it a lot so whether you’re talking about returns being a taxi service doing restaurant delivery all a doordash all of those bring skill to your operation which is vastly different than trying to provide in-store shopping technology which as we talked about last week is what instacart’s doing we’ve talked about a lot and why we don’t like that idea but you have to I mean the last takeaway I have here Anne is I think if I’m looking and I’ve been thinking about this a lot if I think long term yeah I have to think for those reasons ubereats and doordash become the number one and number two players in the long run in the U.S delivery Marketplace game because they have those scale efficiencies right and instacart at best is going to get gobbled up by either one of them right when I think about how this plays out you agree I agree yeah now I just need them to like cut my hair fix my computer my my cracked phone screen on demand haircuts number five Chef spelled s-h-e-f a chef to Consumer Marketplace is now taking its Marketplace Nationwide Chris.
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According to TechCrunch Chef works with local Cooks making authentic homemade dishes and provides them with business tools like menu formation and pricing photography teaches them how to create their own bios and how to Market and promote themselves thousands of chefs are now using the platform across 11 states and Washington DC 85 percent of whom are women and people of I’m sorry and 80 percent people of color and many are immigrants or refugees cooking homemade dishes representing nearly 100 countries wow in the past four years TechCrunch says that Chef has facilitated the serving of approximately three million dishes and helps chefs bring in tens of millions of dollars in net income Chris what are your thoughts on this one man I like this idea a lot yeah um I think I know you love it so I’m gonna probably see the Florida here to you here to you really quickly uh but I mean I like it because it makes it makes becoming a chef or opening a restaurant even easier because it lowers the cost to get started versus opening a restaurant with all the capital that requires it’s insane it’s even better than buying a food truck for that reason or buying into the BS concept that we called BSN pretty early the cloud kitchens right right same thing but all those I mean whether you want to look at a food truck or clock kitchen all those potentially still become a viable option for you as you learn the value of you as a chef right in in you know in in the marketplace like if and this gives you.
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The ability to test the waters there very simply yeah do people like my food right are they attracted to it let me see and then I can go into those other things open my own restaurant later it’s a smart move from an entrepreneurial perspective yes so I think this thing’s going to be gangbusters yeah I think I know at first when people hear about this they’re kind of like I’m sorry you’re gonna cook food in your kitchen and then I’m gonna pick it up like that sounds creepy but is that the voice they used to I think I think that’s like what is going through people’s heads like who are there’s like kind of Fran Drescher meets like like California snobby sure it’s kind of cool I like that take the 401 yeah right um okay anyway but I’m the wrong person to ask about this because I do I love this you know like I share my house I do home exchanges I share my car I do everything I’ve been ordering food from my neighbor across the street for the last three years like Morgan’s broth and buns like I pick it up every Friday from her kitchen like she runs it out in the kitchen so I love this I think that you know we’ve already seen the success at scale with Chef they’ve served three three million meals or facilitated the serving of three million meals you have a millennial and gen Z audience who I think are in big into the sharing economy and getting like sourced really great food experiences and supporting these communities that again like don’t have access to Capital to open restaurants right away so I think that’s really smart um and also when we’re thinking about.
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The logistics of this too so Chef that application they’re handling all of the delivery and everything like the last mile logistics for getting these products to the consumers so all you have to like as a as an individual that’s another thing that you don’t have to worry about is plugging into like ubereats or whatever right away but then it also made me think of um you know we interviewed Harbor lockers back at um at manifest and they created those lockers for like that you know it’s an open API so anybody can use that so Facebook exchange you know Facebook Marketplace exchanges any retailer can plug into that but now I think this is a really cool opportunity for that too like if you are a person selling on the chef platform to be able to walk up to these lockers and like you know put all 25 of your orders in and you’re done if that’s another use case for this potentially that I think is really cool yeah right but before we get off this I I wanted to make sure I heard you correctly so you order something from a place called broth and buns yes she makes like what’s it called again Morgan’s brother Morgan’s broth yes she’s based in Minneapolis she took her Bubbies like uh matzo ball soup recipe chicken soup recipe so you every Friday you can pick up a quart of chicken noodle soup with egg noodles and then I’m just holla bread the alliteration oh it’s yeah well and cinnamon rolls now they make Hollister you know I ain’t no hollaback guy so you are let’s do this all right let’s get out of here before.
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Chris starts singing Gwen Stefani um all right Chris lightning round time question one A-Rod and Mark Laurie are on their next venture Chris I’m sure they are jump a tickety nap that plans to take on Ticketmaster directly Chris if Mark dialed you for dollars for one of his Ventures which would you Pony up for first jump or wonder the food the Mobile Food Truck concept uh I definitely would pick jump for sure just because I’ve been short on wonder since from the get-go I mean I didn’t talk about that in the last headline but I it’s that that last Chef is such a better idea than Wonder like on it conceptually so yes I would I would pick jump I’m still a little skeptical of that one too for reasons we won’t go into here but yes all right according to Nestle yes 60 of us households now own an air fryer why Ann are you one of the holdout 40 because I have a tiny house and I barely have enough like space counter space issue 100 100 okay so if you had a bigger house you’d have one perhaps all right perhaps right that’s why I’m not I don’t like to keep a lot of things out on my counter you’re a minimalist I’m I’m I try to be a minimalist with my tiny kitchen all right Chris Claire’s opened an immersive store in Paris uh complete with multiple ear piercing stations sorry just piercing stations I shouldn’t be specific to ear piercing oh right multiple piercing stations a Content studio and more do you have any piercings and if not you had to get something pierced right now what would it be oh my God I can’t believe I don’t know this about you but do you have any piercings no I do not have any piercings number one yes yes yeah that’s funny you don’t know that about me um and uh I would this one’s gonna surprise you man I would actually go with my tongue at this stage in life yeah I totally would I think the easy answer is the ear because it’s like less painful but I think I’d go with the tongue if I was gonna do it because I would never do.
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Oh My God imagining you with a tongue piercing is like making me want to vomit in my mouth thank you a tongue piercing yeah because like everyone does the ear but like if I’m which because I’m never gonna do it I’d be like yeah all right let’s go all in let’s go with the tongue yeah oh my God are you would you give like one of those giant ball things I’m not sure oh God all right we gotta move on let your minds wander oh no no all right question number four this is great this is one of my all-time faves Derek Zoolander is set to get his own ad campaign for Pepsi Zero sugar after his brief appearance in the Super Bowl recently because it makes for such great podcast content and give the audience your best Blue Steel impersonation it’s almost as bad as imagining you with The tongue ring that is what the blue steel impression looks like listening and not watching on the video and just whipped her hair and gave her best blue steel impersonation which was all I was hoping for all right that wraps us up today happy birthday to Oscar Isaac Bow Wow appearance and the woman who is the main reason I have watched Pitch Perfect over 30 times the great Britney that’s also somewhat creepy that’s something that a guy with a tongue ring would do oh come on now come on now all right and remember if you can only read or listen to One retail blog in the business make it omnitalk 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 feature special content exclusive to us and it’s all 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 as always for listening in please remember to like and leave us a review wherever you happen to listen to your podcast or on YouTube and so until next week.
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The omnitalk Fast Five is brought to you in association with the a m consumer and Retail Group the 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 Firework firework is the largest video Commerce solution built for the world’s leading Brands they Empower brands with the shoppable and live stream video on their own websites where people like to shop put your Commerce in motion with firework find out more at firework.com and SPS Commerce SPS Commerce is redefining how businesses across the supply chain operate in an omni-channel World their experts Tech and data work together to feel your growth and deliver for your customers to find out more head to SPS commerce.com and finally Sezzle. Sezzle is an Innovative buy now pay later solution that allows Shoppers to split purchases into four interest-free payments over six weeks to learn more visit sezzles.com.
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. 