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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 Buenos Dias from Barcelona.
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today is May 11 2023 I’m your host Anne Mezzenga and I’m Chris Walden and we are here once again to discuss all the headlines from the past week two weeks actually two weeks yes that highlight how the physical digital and human elements of retail are evolving to shape the future Chris we’re here in the shop talk speaker Lounge we’ve been in Europe for the last what 10 days now no idea and I’ve lost count I’ve lost count it’s been a while we’re but we’re still here.
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We’re surviving and thriving you’re still bringing the energy too buenos dias Barcelona like to start I mean for you that’s a big that’s a big that’s a big step Big Move big move to shout out to Chris is very excited that like he got that line in um yeah um we as you know we were in Lisbon last week visiting Dan Fawn friends yes and would you like to share with the audience I would correctly pronounce Ann Ann instructed us how to say Lisbon yeah according to our loyal I’m talking Ann fan who showed us around Lisbon all week which was awesome if you’re ever in Lisbon look him up great great person great tour guide.
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Um just a great guy in general but he uh he told us it’s boa yes I think Dan please correct me if I’m wrong the yes is pronounced yes which makes for some very fun words and we like little star of course we do yes the more Zuzu we had quite the adventure happening from Lisbon Chris and I we we ditched uh Mr amitak and Mrs Omni yes and went went from Lisbon to Barcelona and quite possibly had one of the most hilarious Chris and I were laughing so hard we were crying um there’s a young girl behind us who had a whistle yeah a whistle.
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So while waiting to get on the plane yes for a good 40 minutes it was like it was like a recorder Whistle Too right like it was like a musical instrument yeah one of the most painful four-year-old girl that just wanted to play her whistle um but not just her whistle that girl had a whole freaking band in her bag dad brought out drums Mary Poppins of musical instruments like one thing after another and everybody in the line was just like someone silenced this this immediately or we’re all going to go crazy it was like a Saturday Night Live skit in in real life it was really funny but we made it here we did and now we’re sitting here in the shop talk speaker.
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Lounge yes I want to give a big thank you to shoprim who sponsored our work all week long we did a bunch of interviews they’re all on LinkedIn we streamed them live we’ll try to get them out to our fans and our newsletter as well as soon as possible but just really great lineup of interviews from Executives from Coca-Cola Mars Wrigley Morrison’s uh You Name It We were talking to him and uh we were up on stage a couple times as well yeah some really great stuff but and like you said we’ve got we got we got headlines to get through this two weeks weeks Chris what are we going to be talking about well you know it’s tough job he called it down to five like we always do imagine that five headlines after much debate right yes yes this was one of the most highly debated uh weeks in recent memory but all right in today’s Fast Five we’ve got news on shopify’s layoffs firework adding AI to its shoppable video capabilities Lululemon’s.
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Attempt to thwart the dupe Market dupe dupe all right Sephora partnering with a new tech platform someone might all might also say Tech platform to make their products even more accessible to its customers but we can today we begin today with big news out of Walmart and save me um thank God I made it all right.
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Let’s go to headline number one Chris uh Walmart is deploying the fusion platform from partner SCS and magotag within U.S stores as part of its digital shelf strategy I don’t feel like that that headline sells the like magnitude of this of this uh no well tell us what you mean okay so according to the icx association the first phase will include 500 stores over the next year and a half for a total of 60 million digital shelf labels the platform has repeated reportedly been in development for more than 10 years and features innovations that range from Smart rails combining connectivity and energy to battery less digital labels with enhanced performance so Walmart’s vice president Bala prasanna had this to say about the announcement quote changing price shelf labels and stores it’s time sensitive for our Associates.
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We’ve been testing digital solutions that will help us manage these price changes electronically allowing Associates more time to do what matters most helping our customers we’re seeing positive results and are expanding the rollout of these electronic shelf labels and quote Chris this also happens to be okay that put you on the spot question in the first thing in the morning here yes you gotta kick it off so shake off those cobwebs like eight o’clock in the morning here in Barcelona yes all right um Chris they want to know a m has this important question about this big ESL announcement.
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From Walmart yes this marks a huge inflection point for the adoption of esl’s electronic shelf labels uh which we expect to become more prevalent in the next one to two years okay Chris yes do you think retailers like Walmart are thinking about using esls for more sophisticated applications like Dynamic and Day part pricing beyond the obvious labor efficiency benefit that Bala prasanna was talking about in there announcements in their announcement statement about this in the statement um you know candidly I would say I doubt it.
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And I actually I would add to it I hope not okay um I think this announcement is really great it’s a really great for a couple reasons one I mean we’ve been talking about this for years like I’ve been we’ve been on the ESL train on this show for a long time probably four or five years and in in recent years like in the last one to two years I’ve been predicting that something like this was going to happen and so it’s great to see Walmart go after this yeah but particularly it’s great for of course you get the.
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Flexibility in pricing it saves you time it saves you labor helps you get Mark to Market in your pricing with e-commerce much more easily but the really cool thing about the announcement is and we talked about this on stage yesterday with the CEO of SES which coincidentally we’re interviewing yeah and and we should just goes to SCS is a big partner of ours they sponsor a lot of our work they sponsored us at shop talk too but um interviewed him alongside Trigo the CEO of Trigo who’s also been a great sponsor of our work and I asked him I was like what makes the ESL particularly such a complementary piece to computer vision Nai and it really is it’s kind of that linchpin piece of the setup of the foundation of how you can think about a future digitized store or a smart store.
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Mainly because of all the operational benefits it provides right you can correlate it with cameras you know across the shelves in the ceiling however you want to do it to get a real-time picture of your inventory to get a real-time picture of your prices on shelve it can be used with pick to light capabilities to give operational efficiency for your in-store workers your third-party Pickers there’s so much ground or so much gold to be mined just from the operational side of this that I hope retailers or I’d be if I was advising Walmart I would say Walmart stick to that before you even think about the catchy kind of sound bitey things like Dynamic pricing and Day.
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Pricing and changing prices whenever you want at the whim of whatever consumers down the aisle because that’s a Road to Nowhere quite honestly and it’s probably a road fraught with friction from a PR perspective as well so I’m hoping that’s not the case and yeah I don’t I hope that’s not too Chris I think you bring up some really really important points that you know I would just highlight you know I think this shows the years of work that you know SCS and mega tag with the fusion platform esls in general that the company’s creating these esls have put into it like it took a long time to get to this point we you know the value proposition for electronic shelf labels just the ability to remove the work and labor part of it it wasn’t enough for people for a long time and so I think that the big.
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The big announcement here is that we’re finally seeing electronic shelf labels and the capability the work that these companies have put in to make them work as hard as they possibly can and arguably one of the hardest working Technologies in the store right now to be able to do all the things that you talked about and to continue to offer benefits as we go down to more like in-store media efforts and then you know your part is a part of this yeah dwell time in front you know out of stock all these capabilities and I think the the second important Point here is that I think that you look at a retailer like Walmart and I think now is the time when a m asks the good question of you know what are we going to see in the next one to two years but how do we start to see other retailers that don’t have the scale of Walmart start to adopt this what does that look like and I think that’s where retailers need to be focusing on is what are the what are the other benefits that even if I’m not you.
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Know a retailer in the US with 4 000 Plus stores how do I start to you know work my way up to what Walmart is able to roll out the retail media point is great too man because we talked about this with coke with Simon miles of coke yesterday we’re like yeah okay he’s a huge expert on me to Media we’re like how’s this going to play out in the store we talked about the digital screens with ShopRite and as as I was listening to them and I think you were too we were kind of like probably not going to the digital screen activation store is probably not going to be what people are thinking it is right and probably it’s going to be attacked most likely through things like this where you’re just doing it a little bit differently on shelf a little bit easier a little more flexibly being able to react to your customer more in real
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Time but you’re right like at the end of the day the big number in this is Walmart yep 60 million tags right 60 million tags Walmart’s buying and deploying 500 stores yeah that is huge yes and more people are likely going to follow because what Walmart does people tend to follow oh yeah especially in Mass all right headline number two Shopify announce plans to cut 70 Jesus and let me start that one over Shopify announced plans 70 would be a big number 70 would be huge I want to make sure I get that is like freaking out he’s like quivering with his Bagel
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In Montreal or to Toronto whoa I can’t even read a number I’m not tired Shopify announced plans to cut 20 of its Workforce and to sell off it’s shipping delivery service deliverer with two hours and deliver how do you say that I mean you’re in Barcelona do you roll the arms you can roll your hours oh my God you can’t roll your eyes I can’t roll my eyes no oh man that’s maybe one thing I have over you yeah no my one my question though is is it how come it’s not deliver like you know like a pirate deliver our well I think actually that would one don’t require adding another vowel because I think that would be delivered d-e-l-i-v-e or a r g h r o g h do you like the pronunciation of that R even the r and the pirate sound and the liver I think it’s not supposed to be that but.
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If forever is going to be that now on this show delivery oh good thing good thing it’s not a part of Shopify anymore so hopefully we won’t go down this rabbit hole ever yes but according to the Associated Press those affected and this is a serious story actually so as much as I like doing pirate sounds with the liver according to Associated Press those affected will receive 16 weeks of severance pay and medical benefits in regards to the aforementioned deliver our Shopify plans to sell those assets to flexport in an all stock deal and will receive a stake of about 13 in Flex Port bringing.
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Its total ownership in flexport up to the high teens and what do you think this signals you know I think the layoffs are unfortunately something that we’re seeing across all of the tech market right now I think um you know like we’ve heard at this conference quite a bit like you know is required during the pandemic everybody scaled up their Tech teams I think you know unfortunately it’s now you know how do we figure out how to get the balance sheet in line make operations as lean as possible but I think when we start to look at I’m going to focus more here on what shopify’s future is and why they’re making this move and I think we’ve heard Shopify focus on you know during the pandemic like they they’re a great partner for REITs for a lot of retailers not just sums but even larger retailers are using.
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The platform and they were really going after this idea of being you know Amazon being everything trying to get as much of the revenue uh or be as much of a part of the foundation of all these retailers as they could and it’s not working and so I think that if I were Shopify you know my focus would be here I still think they have a huge opportunity in the marketplace space they try to do it with the shop app and some other things I think that’s if I’m Shopify right now that’s where I’d be focusing my efforts is how do I how do I rethink that I think it was just a little bit before its time but how do I rethink the power that I have empowering all of these retailers and really you know having that be a place to search you don’t need to be the Fulfillment arm you don’t need to be all the things but like focus on the the flexibility and ease that you have as a tech provider to get stores up and running and then bring them into your ecosystem so net.
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You think it’s like you’d like to move you think it’s a good it’s good I don’t want them to focus on their core competency I don’t like the layoffs obviously but I think that yeah they’re focusing like everybody has to do right now focus on what your unique proposition is and it’s just it’s not being the Amazon yeah right businesses 100 yeah I think I mean I think it’s a good move it’s a smart move inherently because and we called it I think you said this too but we called it out when they were making this move which is yeah well it sounded good on paper there was an important strategic call out which is Shopify was never Amazon right Amazon was originally a.
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Retailer Amazon understood as a retailer how to get goods from place to place Shopify was in essence a platform that started by helping small people try to sell a lot of stuff yes right people that have no idea how to do e-commerce get them up easily running quickly so that’s a big difference and so when you look at it from that strategic lines I’m like yep smart move sell this off and they’re selling it off to flexport which by the way is coincidentally run by a 24-year Amazon veteran in Dave Clark so he’s going to know how to do.
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This better than they are right and the stock trade makes them take upside in them selling it off and then potentially doing well with this too so give it to the people that know how to do it focus on your core hopefully there’s upside for both parties one plus one potentially equals three I like that setup I think it’s really smart at the end of the day all right Chris let’s move on to headline number three so firework has added AI to its live stream shopping capabilities according to the current fireworks yes recently released a beta version of a live shopping platform assisted by the hottest topic that everybody is talking about every single conference on every single stage here and otherwise is which is generative AI and rightly so yes in my opinion for sure yes um so they launched this with a fresh market and the tool enables customers to use the in-video.
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Chat tool of a live stream long after the initial session is over which means Shoppers will be able to ask questions about the products or Services featured in a live stream after it plays live and is still available for viewing on a Brand’s website and then the AI engine will provide responses in real time for instance yes and give me an example please if you look at the video that we posted on LinkedIn or on our YouTube channel of how this works Shoppers can go they can see a recipe being prepared and they can chat right next to the video and say what’s the recipe for the salad what is that salad dressing that they’re using and then the generative AI tool will immediately provide the ingredients add them to your you can add them to your basket check out go get.
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Your stuff right at your closest Fresh Market it’s uttering in my opinion but Chris what do you think so I can learn how to make an Italian dressing I can just ask how to make Italian dressing get the recipe but whether or not that’s going to be nice quite another the AI is not that good yet get the ingredients but I can’t make the recipe yes well said and all right um what do I think of this uh I love this one too you know and this is one um you know and shot fireworks are sponsor of ours so like you know when we put them in the headlines it’s very thoughtful and very deliberate and it got validated by Royal Army talk van Fredo yesterday as we were talking about the headline she’s like talking to me about this on Twitter about how much she likes it and we’re going on a stream and like because it’s important you know and it gets back I think it’s so smart because it gets back to what we’ve talked about on the show and I will say it till I’m freaking blue in the face.
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The idea here is stoppable video in the United States it’s not about the live streaming element this enables the elements of a live stream to live on long after the actual live production think about this for our webinars if we have this for our webinars where people are engaging with us in real time through text chat right like if we could actually still do that while the content’s living out there in perpetuity right that’s valuable yeah valuable especially if it’s especially if it’s done in a way that is promoting the content that you want to send to people so like our thoughts our feelings what are the aspects of the products as in this case which is probably the most applicable form of expression of using this technology you know to highlight the products in that way so you know ultimately I like that too for a financial reason because when you do that you’re creating better conversion over a longer period of time.
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With the same asset so you’re taking the video and you’re enabling it to convert for a longer period of time which by the way what I just said is the essence of better ROI that is the definition of making your assets work harder for you right so there’s nothing to nothing not to love about this announcement in my opinion Ann yeah I I agree with you I don’t think there’s much to add you’ve kind of covered all the benefits I I wanted to say one thing about I think.
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The challenges that that some retailers May face with this right and the importance of how to overcome those challenges we’ve heard a ton here I mean I would say the most surprising thing that I’ve heard from the retailers that we’ve interviewed on stage or that we’ve talked to in passing is how much retailers are using generative AI already for Content creation and I think that you know as someone coming from an internal creative agency at a large retailer you know that makes your creative teams nervous they’re that you know you’re whether or not their jobs.
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Are going to be around still like what you know what how you maintain that brand voice how you maintain the brand authenticity like you know can you do that using a tool like generative AI and I think the important thing to hear is yes you can like this tool is so powerful this is like I think you know we’re still feeling the how impactful this generative AI is going to be it’s the it’s the new internet like I think the issue is this will still this is able to before this is not the chat bots of old like this is this experience is able to replicate in your brand voice you know with the brand standards in place the experience that you want for your.
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customers and so now it’s about you know restructuring your creative teams to be able to feed this engine to help support this experience it’s not going to be the same but it is going to end up being a tool that will Aid in the creative process yeah 100 and since we’re at shop talk too like the other part for me with AI is these are the these are the like kind of the use cases we all understand because they’re pivots on what we’ve seen before right but my other big takeaway is the AI use cases for what we don’t know yet are just now starting right and when you start thinking about that in the intersection of Commerce then it’s like holy crap.
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What’s next you know is this mobile is this the the dawn of e-commerce in the 90s is this the next big shift my gut is telling me it is but we’ll find out Anne right all right before we get to headline number four this is the part of our podcast where we also tell you about another great retail conference Ann and I are heading to this summer because what would be a weekend Army talk without being at a conference there’s only a few weeks left until the doors open for home delivery world the USA 2023 the largest event for e-commerce retailers Grocers cpgs and 3pls in the US and it’s happening this June 14th and 15th in Philadelphia 5 000 people will be walking the exhibition floor filled with over 350 exhibit and 250 speakers.
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Don’t miss out tickets are limited join Ann and me and get yours before it’s too late you can register for free at terrapin.com home delivery world that’s Terrapin t-e-r-r-a-p-i-n-n.com slash home delivery world [Music] we’re gonna be there in like a month I know dude it’s crazy dude I just dropped a dude for the first time ever in the history of this podcast speaking of dudes let’s now talk about dupes okay all right headline number four Lululemon is going after dupes according to Yahoo finance Lululemon has adopted what some would call an unconventional approach to combating a trend towards cheap knockoffs their words not mine of its products proliferating the market to combat the problem this past weekend Lululemon hosted a quote a line legging dupe swap end quote that say that ten times do you know what even any of those words in that thing mean well I know a line is one of their pants right it’s one of their brands of pants better than I thought yeah that’s weird so actually yes I do I know what all four of those words mean great but they hosted a align legging dupe swap the dupe swap dupe.
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Swap at the Westfield Century City Mall in Los Angeles their store gave away one free pair of black aligned high-rise pant 25 inches I guess that can retail for 118 each to anyone that walked in wearing a dupe of the signature leggings those never go on sale either oh really the black color never goes on black never goes on color no never goes on sale wow stroke moment stroke moment struggler uh at 11 reportedly already has similar dupe swap events planned for London Shanghai and Seoul yes and yeah I’m prefacing this because this could be an all-time epic headline uh discussion you fought with Me Harder on this headline to put this in the Fast Five this week then you have ever before in the history of this show I’m curious after a night’s rest in Barcelona and a great Craig David concert on the beach last night took a full drink on Tuesday this is dangerous now that I’ve got the microphone now I want to like replicate the Craig David I know I’m trying to get.
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You I’m trying to get you going here so my question for you is do you feel do you still feel the same way you did yesterday in arguing vehemently with me about this headline yes because I still feel like this is an important marketing ike initiative okay so my reasons are this it’s importantly aimed at the next generation of Lulu lemon consumer who is going on Tick Tock who is seeing the 180 million posts on Tick Tock with the hashtag Lulu lemon dupe that’s a big audience that you’re looking at a lot of content that is you know talking to this next generation of consumer for Lulu lemon thousands of people look this up on Tick Tock it is impressive thousands of people waited in line to do this dupe swap like people were leaving because there were so many people waiting in line for this to get these pairs of pants it’s a free pair of pants but what Lulu lemon gets from this.
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Is at least a thousand emails and contact information and they’ve acquired a thousand new customers thousand new customers that they get how much are you paying for those customers on all the social platforms with all the targeting that you’re doing and now you have a thousand pairs of pants on people who were not wearing them before and I think marketing tactic are not like whatever you want to say about this Lulu lemon has those two things and I think that they’re that that is worth validating as a marketing tactic I think it works what will they do after this I think you know we’re going to talk a lot about this I think for me the most important thing to focus on is Lulu Lemon we talked about this yesterday Chris is you know now that you’ve got that product on them that product better hold up number one and two you better start reaching out to those people via.
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The email addresses you collected when they got their free pair of pants and start talking to them about your resale program and how you can get them get use that as an entry point to get those lower price Shoppers into the brand and keep them there until they can pay 118 for those leggings whoa all right I 100 disagree I just I know I just I can’t get on board with this this marketing tactic I just don’t like it at all okay um I think there’s a big difference between a customer and a returning customer I think at the end of the day the reason that traffic is there at that store for that event is you’re giving away a free pair of pants essentially and there’s probably tons of people that are buying the dupe to then.
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Just go and exchange it so I wonder how much loyalty you’re gonna get from an effort like this the other point I that I think I’d bring home too based on the following is people think the dupes are pretty interesting and pretty valuable too so you’re kind of playing up the angle of hey why do I need to pay this for a Lulu Lemon pant and probably the people that want to can’t so the Duke Market depending on the level of quality which we’ve talked about we can go from knockoffs to like really you know close quality to you there’s a whole range of probably dupes out there but that’s serving a niche for the people that can’t pay it and that’s going to still be a limiting factor for Lulu Lemon in the long run so what I like a lot better.
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Is what you hinted at here which is why don’t you take this marketing money which this has got to be really expensive per event and why don’t you start putting it towards resale why don’t you start putting it towards your resale efforts and getting people that can’t afford the product at the early stages especially the younger Generations into the brand in a different way and keep them in the brand as well I think that’s a much more effective long-term strategy than single one-off events like this which honestly feel like to me more marketing Sizzle than long-term power and this is nothing new too that’s the other thing like the fact that people are duping or knocking off product has been around in retail since the dawn of time it’s not going to go away there’s so many aspects of this in terms of how Brands compete with each other whether they’re doing private label or not whether they’re high-end Brands like Lulu Lemon or Gucci fighting this knockoff battle so it’s not anything new I don’t love the strategy I’d rather see them go more on the resale but final word because it’s your headline no I think and I think like let’s just see what happens here I think a lot of marketing efforts have been invested in in the past by a lot of Brands and I think this one will bring a large larger return than some of those just doing an event like even doing a Lulu Lemon event where it’s just you know you’re giving away a headband or something of lesser value like I think or even sponsoring another event like I think this is a strategic marketing move.
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And I think there’s some value to it I think we’ll start to see more customer adoption especially in that next Generation audience that doesn’t have the cash yet to uh to be in the Lulu Lemon brand Halo get them in early make them even more make them Aspire for the brand even more all right we’ll see what happens all right um all right let’s go to headline number five so Sephora is partnering with an inventory to any Brand’s d2c website according to a lucky company blog post now when customers shop online on their favorite Beauty Brands websites they’re able to see nearby Sephora stores with the product availability in real time they can then purchase from Sephora for same-day delivery or in-store pickup giving customers the fastest way to get the products they need from their desired local stores the partnership makes thousands of products accessible to more than uh to more us customers by offering them the option to pick up their online orders at a nearby retail location or have it delivered straight to their homes Chris um who you’ve been talking a lot about this at shop talk lots of cpgs here.
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Talking about going direct to Consumer but what do you think about this news from Lucky uh I love this story I mean I think this is one I fought hard for this week too I mean I think there’s a couple key points I would make one is you know I’m all in on the way they’re doing this with the cpg and the retailers working together in a combined approach to go direct the CBG is going alone and you could hear this when we were talking to Coca-Cola you can hear it when we’re talking to Mars you can hear it in people on stage there’s still a lot of skepticism out there and when you talk to experts too like there’s still a lot of skepticism out there about CBG Brands actually going direct and fulfilling product themselves because there’s just no way you can make money shipping something they cost especially with like a Coca-Cola like we talked to Simon about yesterday like like yeah it’s heavy you can’t ship that efficiently it’s just not gonna work so and and you need to combine it with even if you’re going to ship like a case or something it’s got to be combined with something else in the order to make it work and so and the brands are going to struggle with that because you know no one’s ever going to buy a bunch of stuff from Coke you know directly so they’re gonna buy it as a one-off but the second point I make too is that by integrating with Sephora and the brands that Sephora sells Bucky is actually doing something really different here than some of the other Technologies in this space that we’ve highlighted before many of the Technologies we’ve highlighted before are scraping the websites right they’re scraping the websites for what they think are the inventory feeds here.
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You’re getting a direct integration with Sephora’s inventory and the Brand’s inventory which ultimately leads to a better more confident consumer experience in the long run and that’s a really big deal so for that reason and as I’ve said on social media a lot of times I think it’s just a matter of a matter of time before this idea starts to take hold throughout the industry and Sephora if you think about it is one of the best table Setters for what’s going to come because they’re one of the best army Channel retails and what they do we’ve tended to pay attention to so I’m hoping the other retailers and brands are listening because this is something to watch because it will make the Fulfillment of your products as a cpg and on behalf of the retailer that much easier to do and that much more cost efficient as well yeah and I think it’ll give them there’s a such a huge opportunity here in the beauty Market especially when you start to think about where consumers are seeing this content like you know beauty alone has it’s like one of the most searched and engaged with pieces of content on Instagram on Tick Tock and you start to think about you know what is that.
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Experience right now for your consumers I see this you know DIY beauty demo on Tick Tock I click through to the Brand’s page to buy that item right now you know you’re taken to the brand page then you’re taken to the store finder and you’re taking you know you’re getting the customer steps away from that content Neil Reynolds and I from Mars radio we were talking about that and how they they’re challenged with that right now you take them out of the content you take them you know down a rabbit hole and then they can’t get back to that post that they were seeing but now what you’re able to do you can take this you can stay within the Brand’s experience you’re giving the brand that one-to-one relationship the brand gets to see where what retailers are performing for them what you know fulfillment options that customers want they’re able to stay you know stay on top of that brand work through promotions now with that company with those companies where they’re sending their consumers but ultimately they’re giving their consumer the best possible experience and getting them back to that content getting you know that’s convenience and I think that’s the important thing that we don’t highlight it’s not about getting it quickly it’s about how do you keep.
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The consumer give them the least disruption possible to engage with your brand yeah I mean you just you just hit something on the head from me then I hadn’t thought about until you just said that so kudos to you for the way you articulated that because what you have essentially here with this technological capability is you have a conversion driving tool because like you said especially in the beauty space like you said I never thought about that like the beauty space is so heavily involved in social commerce you see that you’re at the point of inspiration it’s going to help drive conversion because it’s going to take you to the brands you want that quickly with the competency inventory is there right and at the same time as an operational savings there aren’t many Technologies we’re going to.
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Find the conversion and the operational savings and how the order gets fulfilled at the end of the day which is really important to think about and I think the other thing too and you know I I thank the you know Matthew price and Neil Reynolds who were on my panel yesterday about convenience here for opening my eyes to this it’s not just about the consumer facing thing too but the other part of this too is that it opens you up to set up your company better for other players in the space the doordashes the Uber Eats of this who are also going to be fulfilled like right now it’s here of the stores the bricks and mortar locations you can go to but you’re also setting up operational efficiencies when you start to talk about giving your content to those marketplaces like doordash like ubereats to offer another level of fulfillment for you can fill into this equation too in the long run so yeah wow uh great story to end on really heady stuff there yeah and really something to watch because it’s it’s gonna happen folks all right let’s go to the lightning round Chris uh this one comes from uh mom Omni attack Grandma talk Linda Linda Linda Linda s Linda s of army top Army talk listener uh so Chris ditto which is a joint venture between Joanne and singer uh launched.
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The first ever digital pattern projection system for home sewist did you know that’s what a person who sews is called a sewist no I didn’t okay well ditto combines algorithmic intelligence with digital projection to make patterns paperless customizable and adaptable to specific body measurements all in real time Chris I want to know what is your favorite homemade clothing article and how did it fit three words I never thought I’d hear this podcast Joanne singer and psoas but um yeah that’s a good question so what’s immediately coming to mind is uh my mother when I was like three or four years old made me a homemade and handmade Batman costume oh how did it fit oh it fit pretty good for my my three-year-old body um it was it wasn’t it was just like you know pretty basic you know and this was like 1960s Batman you know what he looked like oh yeah so it was like that kind of thing but she did a great job and I’m always appreciative for moms and uh what she put into that effort so.
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You should thank her for that this Mother’s Day I should yeah Mother’s Day maybe I’ll send her this little snippet here from the podcast like hey Mom thanks for being my mom love you very much to all moms out there Ann yes we love you we salute you Mother’s day is this Sunday right yeah it is yeah so yeah so um shout out to you guys you should thank her for being the OG ditto she was ditto yes before all the AI changed the world all right and Miller life is partnering with chocolatier an entrepreneur Philip Ashley to create Miller High Life bar snack truffles a dream come true a collection of beer infused chocolate confections that come in a six-pack of popular bar flavored.
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Snacks designed to be paired with a six pack of beer not just a beer a six pack of beer six beers before you’re going to want to eat these things it’s actually pretty funny of the fine real flavors and grilled cheese lemon pepper chicken pretzel praline beer nut buttery popcorn and sweet potato fry which one would you most like to try none this feels like did you ever none no God they sound as good it’s chocolate that tastes like lemon pepper chicken no gross I don’t do the chocolate part yeah all those sound really good to me with a Miller High Life but you’re right I never thought about it no it’s a truffle that tastes like that it’s your kids ever have they ever made you play that Jelly Belly game called Bean Boozled no what is that oh it’s like a container of Jelly Bellies and each one tastes like one tastes like vomit oh yeah that’s terrible yeah it’s so vile Miller High Life that’s what this game so you think this is so gimmicky yeah that’s so gross all right Chris um next lightning round question this also coming from a family member of mine my brother John who’s an.
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Avid listener of this podcast I love that the family’s sending us headlines I know can you tell they’re like will you please come back to the us we miss you right or not or they’re just like here here’s this is we know this will pique your interest okay so Amazon has put six properties in the Twin Cities where had been planning to open Amazon Fresh stores up for sublease what use case do you think is most likely for the sublease of these Amazon Fresh stores Chris indoor pickleball courts or doggy daycares both of which we have a deficiency in believe it or not it’s like picking the lesser of two evils it’s like you know Damien or The Exorcist or the omen or The Exorcist in my opinion I my hunches would be more likely I don’t I don’t I can I just I’m gonna go on left field I want more veterinarians like I think we need more veterinarians than take dogs you need more veterinarians yes there’s doctors in order to have more Veterinary that’s true that’s true that’s a harder operational thing to do you’re right so.
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All right I’ll go with the pickleball thing even though I’ve never played and I’m getting nauseous of it and I heard there’s a new version of pickleball with walls this weekend yeah I don’t know what it’s called Ken pilate told us about it he was like raving about that but padel yes right so who the hell knows where that’s going to go but anyway the other part of that story no Amazon Fresh in Minneapolis like I’m super bummed I know my family’s gonna be like super bomb you lie yeah you lie about this Amazon store that was going to come here yeah it’s crazy how they’re still focused on growing the physical retail presence without it but all right uh lightning round question number four and this one’s fun Coca cause Smart Water recently rolled out a robot Pete Davidson as part of its latest ad campaign so my question to you is this Anne who is the sexiest robot of all time oh my God this came to me immediately really Lisa of Weird Science do you remember Weird Science did you ever watch that oh a robot she technically a robot she’s a robot she looked she was like a model she was like a British model oh yeah and then she would like go still and my brother and.
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I used to watch that show all the time oh yeah but for sure she’s the only sexy robot I tell you the Brock right that’s her name yeah I don’t know yeah she used to be married to Steven Seagal sure yeah right I mean you’re definitely a sexy robot if you’re gonna marry Steven Seagal yeah that’s a good get out of the head who would you have picked I would have picked a robot from Rocky IV I she was she was smoking yeah so like on fire actually no not at all but you know you know you know Polly got with her too that was a crazy thing Paulie you know Polly was a little loose like I think he might he was a little ethically compromised so I you know you never know what happened between him and that robot you know in the deleted scenes of Rocky IV all right that wraps us up today happy birthday today to Francis Fisher to Mike Nelson and to one of the people who was one of my early Inspirations as a writer when I first read him as a young boy Mike Lupica yeah right I always love when I throw you with this that’s my favorite segment to do because I’m like yeah it’s like.
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I never know what he’s gonna say who he’s gonna recognize I remember if you can only read or listen to One retail blog in the business make it on me talk the Army we are the only retail midi Outlet run by two former Executives from a current top 10 retailer yes two former Executives from a current top 10 U.S retailer our Fast Five podcast is the quickest fastest rundown of all the week’s top news in our twice Weekly Newsletter tells you the top five things you need to know each day and also features exclusive content that is special to us and we make it 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.amitake.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 we’ll be back next week live from Minneapolis yeah we’ll be home next yes we’ll be home so until then and on behalf of all of us at Omni talk as always and be careful out there.
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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 is the largest video Commerce solution built for the world’s leading Brands they Empower brands with the stoppable 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. 