00:00:11 Anne
This episode of the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five is brought to you by 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 towards 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 Mirakl, the catalyst of commerce. Over 450 retailers are opening new revenue streams with marketplaces, Drop Ship and Retail Media and succeeding. With Miracle, you can unlock more products, more partners and more profits without the heavy lifting. What’s holding you back? Visit miracle.com to learn more. That’s MIRAKL.com and Corso. Your stores are full of data, but are your teams acting on it? Corso turns retail data into personalised daily to do’s that drive sales, reduce waste and improve execution. No fluff, just action. Help your managers focus on what matters most. Visit corso.com to see intelligent management in motion and Infios. At Infios they unite warehousing, transportation and order management into a seamless, adaptable network. Infios helps you stay ahead from promise to delivery and every step in between. To learn more, visit Infios dot com. And finally, Ocampo Capital Ocampo Capital is a venture capital firm founded by retail executives with the aim of helping early stage consumer businesses succeed through investment and operational support.learnmore@ocampocapital.com. Hello, you are listening to Omni Talk’s Retail Fast Five ranked in the top 10% of all podcasts globally and currently the only retail podcast ranked in the top 100 of all business podcasts on Apple Podcasts.
The Retail Fast 5 is the podcast that we hope makes you feel a little smarter, but most importantly, a little happier each week too. And the Fast 5 is just one of the many great podcasts that you can find from the Omni Talk retail podcast network alongside our Retail Daily Minute, which give brings you a curated selection of the most important retail headlines every morning and our Retail Technology Spotlight series, which goes deep each week on the latest retail technology trends. It’s August 20th, 2025. I’m one of your hosts Anne Mezzenga.
00:02:30 Chris
And I’m Chris Walton.
00:02:32 Anne
And we are here once again to discuss all the top headlines from the past two weeks making waves in the world of Omni channel retailing. We are finally back from vacation and boy oh boy, it has not been a quiet couple of weeks in retail news and we have a tonne to cover. So before we get to that, it is our first show of August ’cause we’re back from vacation, yes, Which means we need to call out Chris, this month’s Omni Star.
00:03:00 Chris
That’s right. And yes. And yes, quite a bit’s happened. And why does Target always make announcements like 20?
00:03:06 Anne
Minutes Wednesday.
00:03:06 Chris
Morning Air. And yeah, why is that? Why is that? I don’t know. I think it, I don’t know. It could be coincidental. I think it probably is. But anyway, yes, it’s our first show of August, which means we need to call out this month’s Omni Star. For those new to the podcast, our Omni Star, what is the word we give out each month in partnership with Corso to recognise the top Omni channel operators out there. Not the pundits, not the so-called experts, but the real life retail operators making a difference in their organisations. Course those AI copilot coaches retail leaders to optimise store performance at every level. It’ll help you transform retail operations from data overload into data powered. And this month, we are excited to give this month’s award to Scott Casiato, the VP of Global Logistics and Omni Channel Fulfilment at Dick’s Sporting Goods. Dick. Sorry Scott, not Dick, but Scott has been a long time friend of the show And and why is Scott so deserving of this award? Your opinion?
00:04:01 Anne
Well, you know what, Chris Scott is a long time listener and friend of the show. But what I always loved about him from the very start was that he has stayed in contact with us and he has used the show and has really helped us bring together groups of retailers to ask questions. He stays curious. He doesn’t expect that he knows all the answers. And so I think one of the things that I really admire about him and his leadership on the team, what I think we can all learn in the retail industry is how to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, and to reach out to your industry peers to really try to understand how we all do this better. And so, Scott, it is with great pleasure that we offer you this month’s Omnistar, that we award you, not offer you. Maybe you offer. Take it. Maybe you will take.
00:04:52 Chris
It maybe you can keep that award.
00:04:55 Anne
Yeah, you shove it, you can turn it down, Scott. But This is why we are giving you this Omnistar award in partnership with Corso.
00:05:04 Chris
Yes, well, I couldn’t agree more. Yeah, Scott, do I add some point you said Scott just a good dude. He’s a good dude that gets Omni channel retailing what it’s all about. And I love that Omni channel is in its title too, as a as a side note, but yeah, Scott for being named this month’s Omni star. All right, and this week’s past five. We’ve got two weeks of news to get caught up on. And we’ll probably catch the Target announcement next week for those anxious to hear our thoughts on that might talk about it a little bit towards the end of the show as well. But we’ve got news on Starbucks abandoning its mobile order pickup only stores, Warby Parker ending its home Tryon programme, IKEA opening shopping shops inside of Best Buys, the sad end of Target and Ulta’s beauty partnership. And Ben Miller also stops by for five insightful minutes on what to expect at this year’s Shop Talk fall and grocery shop conferences. But when we begin today with big fresh news out of Amazon and.
00:05:57 Anne
That’s right, headline number one. While we were on vacation, Chris, Amazon added perishable foods to its same day delivery offering. According to Reuters, subscribers to amazon.com’s new Prime service can now get strawberries, milk, meats, and frozen dinners on the same day that they ordered them. The new same day delivery service is free for Prime members who pay 1499 a month or $139 annually for orders over $25. Shoppers without a Prime membership can pay a 1299 fee, regardless of order size to use the new service. And as of last Wednesday, Amazon shoppers in more than 1000 U.S. cities were able to obtain same day delivery of perishable, perishable food items. And the company plans to expand the service to 2300 cities by the end of the year. Christy, you see Amazon Fresh same day delivery as a sizable direct threat to Walmart and Instacart.
00:06:51 Chris
Wow. You know, and I, I’m going to take a little bit of a potentially surprising opinion on this one. And I’m curious what you see, what you think too, because we haven’t talked about this in advance. I don’t really see it as a threat to either 1. I don’t really see it as a big threat to either 1 And I say that for a couple reasons. 1st and I would give credit to my buddy Tom Furphy of Replenium because he pointed out this week in an article for Grocery Dive, he asked a question, do do consumers really want to combine their fresh orders with everything else they’re getting from Amazon? You know, you know, and I think he’s right. I, I got to give him credit for that. I think the jury is still out on that. We actually don’t know. And second of all, Walmart Plus is still a much better value at $98 per year, as I’m sure you’ll attest, you being the biggest Walmart plus super fan out there. And the other point is Walmart also still has a long standing reputation as an actual grocer. So I don’t see the conversion happening, you know, from Walmart either. So now, so then, so then that leaves the Instacart in the DoorDash, you know, that whole lot. And so the difference between there’s a difference here, though, because the difference between the Instacart and the DoorDash marketplaces and Amazon is that they’re connected to the actual grocers from which consumers actually want to shop. And that already trust Amazon is just, it’s just Amazon. Grocery doesn’t mean anything. It has no connotation for freshness, which is a big hurdle to get over, you know, to make this happen. So use Amazon supposed to build a reputation in grocery. So we’ll provide incremental business. Yeah, but I think it’s more of a threat to like the go puff players of the world than it is to like DoorDash, Instacart and Walmart. I just think there’s more competitive moats at play here than people are probably thinking about. Like the other point I’ll make, Dan Bogor Borgal said of this on LinkedIn. He’s like those trucks you see that Amazon’s out delivering with. They’re not going to be able to deliver frozen food. They’re not equipped for that. So like this is a whole different set of infrastructure to that Amazon may or may not have the muscle to pull off. So I, I, I, I, I don’t know. That’s my take though. And what do you think though? Do you agree with me or disagree? You think it’s? I’m guessing I’m kind of disagreeing with me based on the looks you’re giving me on the.
00:08:54 Anne
Video I think the it’s you know, I think it could be making a dent in the short term, especially based on the data that you shared in the retail Daily Minute from Jordan Burke’s Tomorrow group. You know, is it is it having some impact in these thousand cities that it’s in right now? But I think that there’s two reasons that this to me is not a long term threat. First, as you mentioned, you still have quality and the reliability hurdle to get over from grocery from Amazon. And while I think this free delivery for Prime members might be a way to like start to get some early orders or to get people to experiment again or to revisit getting grocery delivery with their other items on Amazon.com. I still don’t know that when they get those items, it’s going to pay it off. And it’s still, like you mentioned, more expensive than a more reliable player like a Walmart Plus. Second, I think you have to think about how consumers are starting to search for things. And if you look at organic search behaviours over the last several years, especially when grocery products are involved, E marketers show that, you know, product search when grocery is a component of the order is increasing at a much more steady pace at Walmart than it is anywhere else. So Amazon may still lead, that might still be the place where people are going to search right now. For that, you know, I need a phone charger or whatever, but I think that it’s going to continue to lose share places like, you know, LLM search engines or to Walmart and that’s where things are going to change. And I don’t see this like long term payoff of Amazon’s my go to for everything perishable, everything, you know, essentials product. I don’t think it’s enough to keep that momentum going for Amazon.
00:10:36 Chris
Yeah, no, I, yeah, that that’s, it’s really interesting and that that that that research study that you mentioned with Jordan Burke and Tomorrow Retail too, which I thought was really interesting and really good. Yeah, it’s, you have to read between the lines on that article a little bit too though, because that was and, and, and I’d love to get Jordan’s opinion on this. Maybe when he sees the post on social media too. It seemed like that was more about like the household cleaning products and things like that, that people are adding to their orders versus like actual fresh groceries yet. So I think they’re making that’s a, it’s, it’s, it’s a bit of a logic jump to say that that’s going to then happen with fresh and frozen foods too, you know, because the beauty of those those orders is they can sit on your doorstep for a while. That can’t happen with fresh and frozen food orders, right? Like, you know, do you? So I think that the the thought process here is is really tricky in terms of whether this plays out.
00:11:25 Anne
Yes, Celia van Wykel did a really good test on LinkedIn. So Celia has been a long time follower of the show. But Celia did a test order and the stuff didn’t show up at the same time. It’s still coming. Like she got one of like tomatoes. We’re in a separate delivery than some frozen things. And, you know, it’s like the that you can give some space and time for. Like Amazon needs to figure out the logistics of this potentially. But how long is that runway? Like, yeah, yeah.
00:11:54 Chris
I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know. Are they coming from different trucks too, You know, I don’t know. Different.
00:11:58 Anne
Sounds like it.
00:11:59 Chris
Vehicles too. All right, Well, yeah, that’s interesting. So I think we’ve covered a lot of ground there. So, all right, headline #2 Starbucks plans to abandon all of its mobile order pickup only stores. I can’t wait to hear what you think about about this one because I think this is, you know, part and parcel of the strategy that you would not have recommended back in a year ago when we when Brian Nichol first took over. But according to the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks is moving away from operating stores that only accept mobile orders for pickup because they don’t have the right vibes. The company operates around 80 to 90 locations, some of which are in office buildings that don’t offer seating and are designed to get customers out quickly. Some locations could even be converted to locations with seats quote. We found that the format was overly transactional and lacking the warmth and human connection that defines our brand, Chief Executive Officer Brian Nichol told investors on a recent earnings call. And do you agree or disagree with Starbucks decision to shut down its mobile only pickup stores?
00:12:57 Anne
OK, I disagree completely personally with removing the pickup only stores, but I think clearly there are things behind the scenes going on that we don’t know about. I think my the thing that rubs me the wrong way in the most here with this story is that you’re using the the statement bad vibes in any statement about a visitor. Like what in the hell are you thinking? That seems crazy. But here’s my question. I want to know, because I don’t think we have a good picture of what Nichol’s actual vision is for these future house coffee houses. What is the right vibe that he’s going for? Because the in the article like it that talks about like we’re we’re going to have a coffee house that has 32 chairs and a drive through like that already exists. That doesn’t that’s not anything new. And the Dr throughs are awful experiences. Like they still take too long. They’re not getting the throughput. So I think a better mobile experience is an absolute must for their future store experience. Is it exactly how they were doing it now? No, clearly not. But I still think that a mobile pickup only experience has to be part of the future coffee house experience because not everyone needs coffee plus vibes, OK? They do want to just get their coffee as quickly as possible in under 4 minutes like Brian Nichol promised. So my question is, how do they continue to refine operations so that they can give their customers the best of both worlds and as many options as possible? But where do you land on removal of these pick up only stores? Because I know you want your coffee house vibes, Chris.
00:14:35 Chris
Yeah, Well, no, I don’t know. I mean, I, I love that you called out the vibe thing because we went to the Penn Station store like five years ago and I thought that felt really vibey with Starbucks. I actually loved it. I thought the guy was great. That gave me my order. It totally had a Starbucks vibe. It had a friendly vibe. So. So I disagree with that being the motivation, but I think I, I agree with this move, but I with a big caveat in the short term, because I think what he’s doing here is you have to strip. I think he’s just stripping everything back to the base. He’s just like, let’s strip it all away and let’s start over, Let’s start fresh. That’s what he’s doing across the board because for long run to Starbucks, for in the long run, for Starbucks to survive, and you and I have disagreed on this, it has to become more than just a place to get your coffee quickly and in personally. At least that’s what Nickel thinks. And I happen to agree with him. However, with that said, I think you’re hitting on the key point here is I do predict in the future that we’re going to see this type of concept again, but either in a way that is more strategically located or in a new iteration of it, possibly alongside what he’s calling his coffee House of the future. Because Starbucks still needs to figure out the capacity issue for ordering and queuing. So I think we’re going to see this in some way, shape or form in the future, but we won’t know until we see what that prototype is. And that’s going to take a hell of a long time to re engineer the Starbucks store base to do that. So I still think we’ll potentially see these stores start to exist in some variety, but with an enhanced marketing vibe, so to speak when they do come back and roll out down the.
00:16:10 Anne
Road. That’s my prediction. Unbelievable. I, I just like picture Brian Nickel in his brand new office in Newport Beach with his good vibes only T-shirt and, you know, trying to, trying to look out at the ocean and figure out what this new concept looks like. It sounds very peaceful and relaxing. I’m very envious. OK, let’s go into headline #3 Warby Parker plans to end its Home Tryon programme as it focuses on its stores and digital experience, according to Retail Dive. Warby Parker will sunset its Home Tryon programme by the end of the year, executives said On a call, the eyewear company said the vast majority of recent Home Tryon users live within 30 minutes of a Warby Parker store. Chris, what does this move to cancel in Home Tryon say about the future of Warby Parker?
00:17:00 Chris
I think it says there’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye. And see what I did.
00:17:04 Anne
Oh good. I’m so glad you had that opportunity. Continue, please.
00:17:10 Chris
And the reason I say that is I’ve often wondered aloud on this show why Warby Parker has been growing so slowly because according to the article, Warby has approximately 300 stores and has been around for almost 15 years. So if you’re keeping score at home, folks, that’s 20 stores per year in what is honestly a relatively small footprint. So I think relatively speaking, it should roll out a little bit faster because it takes less capital when it’s a smaller footprint. And now they’re saying in the article that all their customers live within 30 minutes of the store. Yeah. Well, if your stores are only in in dense urban areas, yeah, that’s probably true. So, so if I’m reading between the lines and understand what understand and mean, what this announcement is trying to say is we no longer need online for the acquisition that it provides, that it’s no longer needed as an acquisition tool in the urban markets and vice versa, it isn’t paying off for us as an acquisition tool in the other markets. So we’re shutting it down because it’s too expensive. And so then I have to ask myself, with with that element gone, how different is Warby from another eyewear store? I mean, virtual triad, come on, seriously. And I mean, how many of those things have we tried and how gimmicky are they? They never look right under your face. Like they look ridiculous half the time.
00:18:21 Anne
They’re not good.
00:18:22 Chris
No, they’re not good. So like that’s not going to be a supplement for this. So, and and more importantly, doesn’t it also mean that that Warby’s growth nationally could soon be constrained? So, so and, and, and, and that kind of explains the odd decision, I think, to go into Target stores as well. So something just doesn’t smell right to me with this announcement.
00:18:47 Anne
Yeah, I, I don’t know, I think it makes sense from a financial standpoint. I think if you’re, if you’re looking at the spreadsheet like home Tryon is incredibly expensive and, and the return again, to your point, like the return on that, you know, even if somebody gets those 5 glasses, are they deciding how many pairs of glasses you try on when you go look at glasses? It’s probably more than five. Like how many times is that go happening? Like I just, I think there’s a lot of waste. And so this feels like a smart financial decision to just cut the fat there. But the big questions for me now are, you know, even though they live within 30 miles of stores, are people going to drive to the Warby Parker stores? Like are, are they going to continue to get the volume that they’re seeing right now with the existing store count that they have maybe now that they’ve added like the the eye exams and the doctors in the store, like that’s something people have to do. So you’re kind of you’re kind of creating that one stop shop. But then my other question is can they scale that great store experience because they do have a high level. Like there’s so many employees in that store. There’s a certain kind of educated employee that’s working in that store that, you know, in a tighten labour market. Like I just wonder if they’re going to be able to keep that up because if they can’t pay that off and they don’t have home Tryon anymore, there’s no difference between them and every other player out there selling classes online. So that’s that. Those are the. Real questions for me. And then finally, will that Target partnership pay off for them? That’s going to be a big question. They’ve got 5 stores right now. But knowing, knowing that Target’s going to have some extra floor space coming up available in August of 2026, will they figure out like we have to be in more areas, we have to take more advantage of this Target partnership? Or does it just completely go away and and they’re stuck with their their 300 stores?
00:20:44 Chris
I got to get over and see that too, and I guess it’s over in Bloomington. I got to go.
00:20:46 Anne
Check it out. It looks great. I mean, it looks great. It’s right up front like it’s, it’s in a good spot. But what, what will traffic look like? That’s the big question.
00:20:56 Chris
The big net, net question that you and I have then is like, where’s the growth opportunity coming from? Like how is this? How are they going to continue to scale if, if this goes away So interesting. All right. Well, let’s bring Ben Miller on to today’s show. Joining us now for five insightful minutes is Ben Miller, the VP of Original Content and Strategy for Shop Talk and Grocery Shop. Ben is here to give us a preview of the upcoming Shop Talk Fall and Grocery Shop events. OK Ben, let’s start with this shop Talk Fall. It’s coming up fast in mid-september. What are you expecting to be the main topics of conversation?
00:21:34 Ben
And there’s 2 themes that are emerging above all of us, and that’s tariffs and AI. And of course, we’re going to be covering both extensively, AI use cases, deep dive sessions and on tariffs as well as some of the practical implications. We’ve also added a 2 day full track. We’ve seen you speakers talking about leadership in times of turmoil and and talking about agility. So that’s new for this show and that’s going to be really, really interesting. But no, it’s not just about tariffs and AI. We’re going to be covering so much more. So there will be, there are sessions on merchandising, we’ve got tracks on loyalty, we’ve got tracks on brand building. So lots and lots to cover, including the deep dive on tariff and AI.
00:22:18 Anne
What about grocery shop here at the end of the month? What should we expect at that show?
00:22:23 Ben
Yeah. Look, grocery shop could be slightly different a because it’s global in focus, whereas top talk fall is, is, is a lot more about the US market. And also we can be a really sector specific around grocery and CPG. So we can really hone in on the big questions for that sector. And and for us that’s around digital demand creation and how you move volume in the market at the moment. It’s about efficiency. So it’s incredibly efficient industry is, it is running away within margins, but the pressure is there to make even more efficiency gains and technology is the only route to do that. So how are we going to do that? And then of course, is retail media. It sits across all the conversations between retails and brands at the moment. We’ve got to face into it. But yeah, what does good look like? What does the future look like? And how do you get the best out of your investment? I think consumer attitudes about GLP warn about drugs, but also about the potential Maha Make America Healthy Again moment and some of the intervention that we’ve seen from governments.
00:23:22 Chris
Ben, I noticed you didn’t say AI. Is AI not impacting the grocery industry to the same degree?
00:23:27 Ben
Absolutely. Far from it. So how we’re tackling that grocery shop this year, because we’ve got a very focused audience, we can go into a bit more detail and we’re launching something brand new. So we’re launching something that we call the Test Kitchen. It’s a series of smaller, practical interactive sessions focused on specific technology use cases. So you can learn from industry experts and practitioners on topics from SEO strategies in an AI world through to AI tools for forecasting and inventory management. And we’ve also got some specific sessions that aren’t about AI, for example, data and measurement capability capabilities for retail media. So renew and get into that extra level of granular detail that our attendees are requesting of us.
00:24:14 Anne
OK, Ben, I have to know who are the headliners at both grocery shop and Shop Talk fall?
00:24:20 Ben
At 4, we’ve got some great senior speakers, the likes of Home Depot, Amazon, Walmart and Sam’s Club, Coles, Al Express, Wayfair and and then grocery shop. You got that mix of retailers and CPGS. So retailers include Whole Foods, Sam’s Club, Kroger, HEBL, delays and keynotes of the CEO’s of Sprouts and little and I know we’ve got a great interviewer lined up, the Sprouts keynote and then CPGS, Miles Wrigley, Unilever, then on Nesty Coco, I could go on. We’ve got over 250 fantastic speakers.
00:24:54 Chris
Yeah, I’m really excited to interview Jack Sinclair, the CEO of Sprout on stage. Thanks for that opportunity too, Ben. All right. Any key differences you’d like to call out compared to what people are used to seeing at both these shows?
00:25:04 Ben
You know, we’re always innovating and we’re excited about some of the new things we’re doing. The biggest change is Shop Talk Fall. So Shop Talk fall this year, Chicago 17 through 19 September. That’s a Wednesday to Friday show and we’re starting the show this year to really showcase the fantastic retail in Chicago by our large to have a programme Shop Walk that’s our guided store visit. They’re taking place on the Wednesday morning and into the early afternoon before the content and opening keynotes then kick off on the Wednesday afternoon. That means the third day is Thursday and Friday going to be two really full days. The Friday is probably the busiest and fullest day of them all. So when you’re booking your travel, please don’t book an early flight on the Friday because there’ll be an awful lot going on for throughout that that Friday. Grocery shop. Grocery shop is 28th September through to 1st of October. That’s a Sunday afternoon start with content, keynotes and the test kitchen through to a Wednesday wrap. So again, make sure you’re there. There’s going to be a lot of great parties and things happening on the Sunday evening. So Sunday through Wednesday through grocery.
00:26:05 Anne
Ben, how do our listeners get tickets to both events?
00:26:08 Ben
Yeah, look, tickets are available on the Shop Talk website now. Prices increase as availability goes down. South pays to plan and book early for your listeners who take part in our hosted programme as the free tickets for qualifying retailers and consumer brands where we support travel as well. The deadlines are quickly approaching. So 25th of August is the hosted deadline for Shop Talk fall and 5th of September for grocery Shop. So if you want to take part in that programme, get your application in soon. And but that we want to support all the listeners to the podcast. So therefore we are sharing 20% discount links to all listeners, to all Omni taught listeners. You need to use specific links for them. So they’re going to be in the show notes for this episode.
00:26:55 Chris
Wow, 20% off. Thanks Ben. For those who want to hear more insights from Ben, you can TuneIn next week when Ben will also be guest hosting our weekly Fast 5 podcast. So tune in for that and retailers and brands if you want those codes for shop talk fall, use code RBOMNI T20 and for grocery shop use code RBOMNIT 510. And if your solutions provider and thinking about attending, you can also save with our codes GAOMNI T20 for shop talk fall and GAOM NIT799 for grocery shop. Links to register will also be available in the show notes. All right, headline #4 IKEA is planning to open mini showrooms inside of Best Buys. According to the Star Tribune and our friend Carson Hartzog, the Swedish HomeGoods giant will feature kitchen and laundry products inside mini showrooms at select Best Buy locations. And the store in stores will also feature Best Buy appliances. The 1st 10 shops will launch in Florida and Texas, and the new locations will be staffed by IKEA designers and will offer consultation services. The first locations will open in the fall. Two stores will also serve as IKEA fulfilment centres, allowing customers of the home superstore to pick up their orders from a participating Best Buy location. And are you buying or selling the idea of shopping IKEA inside of a Best Buy?
00:28:22 Anne
I’m buying the pilot, Chris. I don’t know if this is going to work.
00:28:26 Chris
Buying the pilot? What does that mean?
00:28:28 Anne
I’m buying. I’m buying the I If I were at Best Buy making the decision, I would definitely do this pilot with IKEA. It’s big name it. I think this along with their marketplace announcement with Miracle yesterday were absolutely necessary things that Best Buy needs to do to stay relevant right now to today’s consumer. So back to the IKEA pilot. You know, I love this for the kitchen component. I, I want to know where else you can go when you’re remodelling your kitchen. Where else can you go to get all of your appliances and a good range of prices on appliances from like early basic appliances all the way up to your high quality appliances in one place and get the cabinets and get the whole thing planned like.
00:29:18 Chris
There’s no Home Depot and Lowe’s for that though in I thought you.
00:29:21 Anne
Could go to Home Depots and Lowe’s, but you don’t have the selection and the trend and the design there that IKEA brings. So yes, you could go to Home Depot and Lowe’s, but I really do think that Best Buy is a good place where you can get both things. Home Depot and Lowe’s. There’s like a couple of options. It’s not like new fresh, especially if you want a modern like you’re appealing to this younger consumer that knows IKEA, that is more comfortable going with an IKEA cabinet sets to outfit my kitchen. Like that’s that’s something that I would do. Are is the boomer generation going to do that? No, they’re going to go to Home Depot and they’re going to go to Lowe’s to do that. But I really think that that’s where if I’m, if I’m really playing the odds that Best Buy is going to stay this relevant retailer. I think this is a a worthwhile test. I have a little bit of a harder time buying this in the laundry category because I don’t know many friends of mine that are like, I am dying to show you my new laundry room remodel. I think the kitchen could be really clutched because I think that’s an area where people are really starting to invest. And especially right now with where the economy is, I think this is like a good high, low option for people looking to redo their kitchens. But you are definitely not in agreement. I can tell but.
00:30:38 Chris
Wow no I I think you’re overestimating the amount of product and and design IKEA can showcase in a small shop and shop inside of a Best Buy too. At least from the pictures I’m looking at.
00:30:50 Anne
Oh, yeah, I don’t, I’m not saying that they’re going to be able to do that at all in the store, but I think that from a, from the perspective of being able to like sit down with an IKEA advisor and be like, you could do these cabinets in green and Navy and whatever, like I think that that could be a better experience. But what am I missing?
00:31:08 Chris
Just go to IKEA to begin with is my point. But I mean, I mean, I here’s what I think you’re missing. I think with all due respect to Rob Olson of IKEA, who I’ve met and I like him a lot. He’s a good dude too. And all of our friends over at Best Buy. I, I, you’re right. I just don’t like this idea at all. I get it on paper. I mean, it, it sounds smart on paper, like Best Best Buy stores are probably larger than they need to be at this point, given all the electronics categories and video games categories that are all moving online. IKEA has tried to get a smaller store concept off the ground. They haven’t been able to have success with that here in the United States. Appliances and home furnishings kind of go together. So let’s partner up. Yay. But it’s not going to work because it isn’t the core experience of why I go to IKEA. You kind of just said it there. I need to get a lot of stuff done. I need help. I need to do that so I can get it all done at one time when I go to IKEA. In fact, this setup probably induces more friction for me and I’m going to ultimately end up back in IKEA anyway due to your point. I mean, you kind of said that when in what you said. So. So net, net it feels like a very expensive over engineered branding exercise to me at best, when money could be better spent just getting people to interact with IKEA either online or actually in IKEA stores. So so I mean Best Buy. I don’t think Best Buy has that much to lose on this, but IKEA, it seems like a waste of time for me.
00:32:27 Anne
Oh man, I don’t think so. I think, I think, I think the IKEA trip has changed considerably in terms especially in the kitchen category. I do. I mean, anecdotally from people that who I have friends of mine and people who have recently remodelled their houses, like I’m surprised at the number of people who are like, these are these cabinets are from IKEA Kia. We did this whole kitchen because our budget was X and appliances cost more because of tariffs and all the other things cost more like the, the construction cost more. This is a way to save money. And so I think for this specific category, it is a one stop shop and and we’ll see how it plays out. I’m excited to get you to.
00:33:05 Chris
Follow it. Yeah, we’ll agree to disagree on this one. All right, headline #5 we saved it to the end, folks. But this is Anne’s headline. I’m just super excited about it.
00:33:15 Anne
Yes, all right, let’s go to headline #5. Ulta and Target are planning to conclude their Shop in Shop partnership in 2026. Chris just can’t wait to get to it. According to the Path to Purchase Institute, Ulta Beauty and Target have announced that their shop in Shop partnership, Ulta Beauty at Target, will conclude when the current agreement ends in August of 2026. Until then, the experience will continue in stores and online, with Ulta Beauty Rewards remaining active for eligible purchases. Both companies emphasise that they will continue to maintain product availability and a seamless shopping experience until the partnership officially ends. Do we think it’d be funny if they’re just like, Matt, we’re just going to give up? Like yes, of course you have to maintain this to them I.
00:33:54 Chris
Wish, I actually wish they would just say that, yeah.
00:33:57 Anne
God, I know. All right. Well, Chris, this also happens to be the A&M put you on the spot question of the week, all right? They want to know, Chris, given the resilience of the beauty segment in retail and Targets challenges, does the end of this partnership more strongly signal how retailers should refocus on their standalone until experience over a store in store? Or does it signal just how deep Target struggles go?
00:34:23 Chris
Oh man, that that is such a good question. That actually may be my my all time favourite, put you on the spot question like without a doubt, because I think the answer is it. It signals both quite frankly and it it also it helps explain why Target stock took took a major dip today with the new CEO announcement. You know, if I look back on this headline, let’s just keep it on the headline. Target appears to have crapped the bet on this one and Lord knows the reasons why Ulta is pulling out. You know, but it is a big, big about face and it’s an about face that’s happened rather quickly. Was it operations? Was it the brand standards? Who knows time will tell. We’ll probably get answers to that overtime. But now Target is faced with a really tough situation. It has to comp against the loss of what has been publicly stated as one of its biggest comp drivers ever since the partnership started. At least that is my recollection of reading the recent earnings reports for the last two years.
00:35:20 Anne
It’s every call. It’s been part of every earnings.
00:35:22 Chris
Right. It has, right? I’m not making that up, right. So all which goes back to the broader question now of shopping shops, which A&M smartly is asking. You have to tread carefully into them and you have to ask yourself the question, are you a mall or are you a retailer? Under Brian Cornell, Target has overtly tried to become or under Brian Cornell, I have to say in the past tense now, Target overtly tried to become a mall. And the next place it’s going to bite them in the rear is with the CVS partnership, because Buddha as medicine is the biggest trend that’s going to shape grocery over the next 10 years and even longer. And Target gave away the RX tie ends to that trend. The impacts of that aren’t felt yet either, but they soon are going to be as Walmart and other grocers get smarter on how to tailor their assortments and their RX loyalty reward programmes to capitalise on that trend. Where Target’s going to be hamstrung, they’re going to be having to work through CVS with that. That’s going to be impossible. So that’s going to mean less and less traffic to Target in the years to come. So yet it’s yet another sign to me then. And it’s, it’s, and this is I thought about the best quote to, to, to capture my thoughts on Target and Brian Cornell’s tenure. A rival CEO exec told me about Brian Cornell one time that Brian, and this is ACEO of A10 plus billion dollar retailer. This is a real quote. He said to me, Brian Cornell wouldn’t understand my strategy if I wrote it down and handed it to him on a cocktail napkin. That’s what’s at play here, folks. And that’s what this that’s what this headline says to me in terms of looking back on everything that’s happened under his tenure over the last, what is it 11 years? And I think he’s been there.
00:37:03 Anne
I think so. 2014, yeah. So yeah, this cuts, man. I just, I’ve read this and I was just, I’m again, I’m really bummed that this is happening. I don’t know how else to say it. I, I do think though, this is, this is really going to be something that the street’s going to be watching, that consumers are going to be watching to really see because this is an opportunity to see, have Target show what it’s made of. Can Rick Gomez and the team bring the right product assortment into the store that’s going to supplement what this, you know, the Ulta beauty traffic drivers were. And that’s where that’s, like I’ve said this to several people, like beauty especially, but Target in general, it’s about this creativity, this design at this price point that a mass audience can adopt. And I really worry because for the last several years, years, Target has been decreasing the priority of making things uniquely Target. They’ve been decreasing the marketing, decreasing the decreasing the brand. Like the priority has been on how do we compete with Amazon and Walmart? And that’s a, that’s a race to the bottom. You’re never going to beat them on price. You’re never going to beat them And any like the people are going to, people are going to Walmart and Amazon right now and there’s no way to stop them. You had that core, that identity, that Target, that thing that made you so strong. And beauty is one of these key categories where you going to need to figure out how to bring those people back and how to create that, how to really invest there in the type of beauty product that’s going to reach that mass audience. And that’s where I worry. I’m like Target, you got to focus inward right now on yourself. Quit worrying about the shopping shops and these other things. How are you going to get back to Core Target, which is really establishing yourself as a brand that has a point of view?
00:38:59 Chris
Yeah, 100% and that and, and you’re, you’re dead, right. Like you, you have to keep control of those businesses. That’s why I made the point about pharmacy, like, right, if Walmart can run a pharmacy, Costco can run a pharmacy, Safeway, Albertsons can run a pharmacy, why can’t you Target like, well, that was a really short sighted move too, in retrospect, in my opinion. So like, you know, and it’s just going to, it’s just going to hurt them in the long run. And, and the good news though, and if I have a silver lining on this, I saw Michael Fidelki, the new CE OS video on LinkedIn today. He was talking about bringing back design and the design merchandising. So I think that’s the right thing. Now, there’s a lot of other things that, you know, Mayor, I could give or take with that video, but I think that is still the right approach, which says what you said. And I’m curious what other people think of that video. Drop me a message on LinkedIn, you know, because I’d love to hear your thoughts. But yeah, interesting time for Target for sure.
00:39:50 Anne
All right, Chris, let’s close it out with the lightning round. Number one question for you. The NFL and Crocs are teaming up this season to bring fans special Crocs emblazoned with the logos and colours of their favourite teams. What are the chances that the Arizona Cardinals pair, once it’s created, will make it as your winter house shoes?
00:40:10 Chris
Oh, probably, probably 0 on my account, but I could see someone purchasing those for me because you know why? For me and I, I’m riding or die with my new UFOs slides. Those things are, they will clear your legs in no time. Man, if you’re running, they’re great. All right. Limited edition Harry Potter Donuts arrived at Krispy Kreme shops across across the US this week. If you were a donut, and this is a question I’ve always wanted to ask you, if you were a donut, what donut would you be and why? And how would you spell donut?
00:40:40 Anne
Oh God so many questions in this. I guess I always spell doughnut with the GH like doughnuts, not the DONUTI feel like it’s one of the most supreme pastries, so you got to give it all the letters. I think that if I were to be a doughnut, I was thinking I think I would be like a crueller because I think that it’s the most beautiful of the doughnuts and it just looks like a piece of art that is edible, edible art. So that’s what I would choose, a glazed crueller.
00:41:14 Chris
Interesting, so the curler is the most beautiful doughnut. I’m curious if other people agree with that. Let us know your thoughts. What is the most beautiful doughnut I’ve never thought about?
00:41:21 Anne
That Oh yeah. I think it’s like art though. Beauty is in the eye of the doughnut holder. You just you need to decide what what is the most beautiful. Some it might be sprinkles that do it for some people. For me it’s like the beautiful crown pattern of a crueller.
00:41:36 Chris
Yeah, it’s in the I have the knot or the nut holder depending on how you want to spell it.
00:41:40 Anne
That’s right. That’s right. OK, Chris. New data from CNN Business showed that pawn shops are the newest destinations for back to school shopping because goods like laptops and electronics are more affordable there and free from tariff price hikes. Have you ever purchased or sought out anything from a pawn shop, Chris? And if So, what was it?
00:42:01 Chris
No, you know, I’ve never even actually, I don’t think I’ve even been inside of a pawn shop and.
00:42:05 Anne
Ever.
00:42:06 Chris
I think I’ve no, I don’t think so. I can’t remember.
00:42:08 Anne
That I.
00:42:08 Chris
Don’t think I have. I’ve never even been to the Pawn Star shop in Vegas. I’ve always wanted to go, but no, I’ve just looked through the window. There’s one on, there’s one in Delmar, in San, in San Clemente that I walk by all the time. I look through the window of the Sports Ben Mobile, but I never have. Have you ever bought anything from a pawn shop?
00:42:23 Anne
Oh God, yes, it’s like the one of the best places to go explore and thrift. Like there’s just you never know what you’re going to find in there. Great jewellery usually, yeah, there’s I, I mean, I, I, it makes sense and it makes sense that people are going to pawn shops. That’s a great option for people like given given how much the cost of things is going up as I just completed my round one of school shopping last week. So we might be heading to the pawn shop ourselves.
00:42:54 Chris
All right, last one. The Minnesota State Fair is also right around the corner. In addition to going back to school, what food on a stick are you most excited to procure?
00:43:02 Anne
I am not a fair person. Every year I don’t go. Every year I handle it. I might go this year on Saturday, there’s an Atmosphere concert and like bringing back all the old hip hop artists from the 90s that I loved. And in that case, I will probably get a pickle on a stick. There’s like a pickle dog. It’s so good. It’s like a pickle that’s wrapped in corned beef and like cream cheese is on the outside of the pickle. It’s it’s a delicacy. So it’s so wonderful. Those are my favourite things like salty and briny. It’s great.
00:43:37 Chris
I got to remember not to take a sip of coffee when I ask you questions at the lightning rod because I will spit it all over my computer there, all right?
00:43:43 Anne
You’re not a no no pickle on a stick for you.
00:43:46 Chris
No, God, a pickle on a stick maybe, but when you talked about it wrapped in like pastrami and cream cheese, I want to like in my mouth. Oh my God, that sounds horrible and I love pastrami and I love pastrami sandwich, but that does not sound good to me at all. All right, that closes up. Happy birthday today to Amy Adams, Andrew Garfield and to Natty Gann’s father, Ray Wise. And remember, if you can only read or listen to 1 retail blog in the business, make it Omni talk, the only retail media outlet run by two former executives from the current top ten US retailer. Our Fast 5 podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the week’s top news. And our daily newsletter, the Retail daily Minute tells you all you need to know each day to stay on top of your game as a retail executive and also regularly feature special content that is exclusive to us. And that and, and I take a lot of pride in doing just for you. 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. You can follow us today by simply going to youtube.com/omni Talk Retail. So until next week, and on behalf of all of us here at Omni Talk, as always, be careful out there.
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.