Transcript of Fast Five Episode : Kroger’s Automation Reset, Starbucks & Why There Ain’t No Party Like A Walgreens Party | Fast Five Video

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 circumstances. 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, dropship 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 mirakl.com to learn more. That’s mirakl.com and course your stores are full of data, but are your teams acting on it? Corso turns retail data into personalised daily to dos 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.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. Learn more@ocampo capital.com hello, you are listening to Omnitox. Retail fast five ranked in the top 10% of the all podcasts globally and currently the only retail podcast ranked in the top 100 of all business podcasts on Apple Podcasts. The Retail Fast five 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 you can find from the Amitak Retail Podcast Network alongside our Retail Daily minute which 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. Today is September 17, 2025. I’m one of your hosts, Anne Mezzenga.

00:02:31 Chris
And I’m Chris Walton.

00:02:33 Anne
And we are here live from the Fusion Group booth in Paris at NRF Europe to bring you all the top headlines from the past week making waves in the world of omnichannel retailing. But Chris, before we get to the headlines, we’re here in Paris.

00:02:47 Chris
We are. It’s so it’s so energetic. I’m loving it here it is.

00:02:50 Anne
It’s beautiful here.

00:02:51 Chris
It slept in like three days.

00:02:53 Anne
Yes.

00:02:54 Chris
You’ll be able to tell very soon, people on the podcast listening.

00:02:57 Anne
But because I asked you this in Amsterdam and we are in the food capital of the world, I have to ask you now, what’s the best thing you’ve eaten so far in Paris?

00:03:06 Chris
Oh, it’s without a doubt. I teased it last weekend. We arrived on Sunday and the first place I went to, I looked it up. I looked up, ah. I’m gonna make sure I get it right too, because it’s very hard for me to say, ah, meuvelu eh meuvelleu de Fred. Literally de Fred.

00:03:24 Anne
Every French speaking person that listens to this podcast vomited a little bit.

00:03:28 Chris
Yeah. But I went and got the pastry that I wanted. It’s like a raisin sweet bread. Got two of them, ate them both. I think I got stung by a hornet too, because there were all these. Yeah, there was like a lot of. Did you see that? Yeah, there were a lot of bees in there. I think I got stung. I got stung pretty bad. But yeah, so that’s what I did. What was your. What was your favourite bite?

00:03:49 Anne
Mine is a chocolate bretzel au chocolate.

00:03:53 Chris
Okay.

00:03:54 Anne
I tried to bring one for you this morning.

00:03:55 Chris
Oh, wow, that was nice of you.

00:03:57 Anne
This is the bakery. I can’t pronounce it. It’s right by our hotel and it is the most wonderful. So I brought you a pan of chocolatier. Thank you. But which will come in.

00:04:06 Chris
Come in to put it later. Yeah. All right.

00:04:08 Anne
This thing is like a. It’s a bretzel.

00:04:11 Chris
You know, actually pretzels.

00:04:13 Anne
It’s in the shape of a pretzel. It has sea salt and chocolate inside of like the dough is more like a cinnamon roll. They were sold out this morning already at 7am when they opened. Like somebody came in and bought them all. So I’m gonna have to keep searching, but I will find you one. The Bretzel. I’ll chuck.

00:04:30 Chris
That sounds amazing. That’s. You know, it makes me wonder too. And why haven’t we called the beer pretzel the beer or something like that in the U.S. like, why do we call it the beer pretzel? Why don’t we get a little more creative with that? Why do the French need to own the pretzel? Why can’t the Americans get it? Get on it. Let’s get the beardel going, folks. Hey, we’re all friends here.

00:04:49 Anne
Maybe until we get like pummels.

00:04:53 Chris
All right, all right. Well, let’s get to today’s headlines. Today in this week’s Fast5, we’ve got news on Walgreens going after party supplies, Starbucks using Vision AI to monitor in store inventory. Pacsun announcing the formation of an industry First Youth Council and the growing preference of AI search engines over Google. But we begin today live from NRF Paris at the Fusion Group’s podcast studio with news on Kroger.

00:05:19 Anne
Ann that’s right, headline number one, Kroger is reviewing its automated e commerce fulfilment network. According to Grocery Dive. Kroger is conducting a quote, full site by site analysis, end quote, of its automated order fulfilment network as it looks to improve profitability and reduce costs, interim CEO Ron Sargent said Thursday during the grocer’s second quarter earnings call. Sargent said that the supermarket operator intends to focus on store level fulfilment as it strives to provide grocery delivery services faster and more efficiently. Instead, developed in partnership with UK based automatic sorry automation specialist Ocado, Kroger’s automated e commerce network features robotic warehouses that connect to smaller facilities known as spokes. Quote, where we have been strong, where we have seen strong demand in high density areas, these facilities deliver better results than those facilities where density is lower and customer adoption has been slower, end quote Sargent said about the network adding, quote, we are taking a hard look at some of our automated facilities, end quote. Chris, what are your insights here on Kroger’s purported site by site analysis of its automated e commerce fulfilment network?

00:06:28 Chris
Oh, my insights. That’s a new question. We haven’t had that before. All right, well, you know my thoughts in general for this. I think this is the right move. Yeah, I do. I think, you know, Ron Sargent, you know, the interim CEO, he appears to be making the tough decisions, he’s making the tough calls. He isn’t gonna. You know, one of the first things you learn about in business school is like you don’t ever want to fall into the sunk cost trap. Like the fact you’ve spent billions of dollars on something that you’re gonna keep doubling down on it until it works. So he’s trying to avoid that. That’s my first takeaway. My other takeaway is that, you know, this is kind of how we figured things were going to play out.

00:07:00 Anne
Yeah.

00:07:01 Chris
You know, if you look back at our coverage for the past, God, I don’t know, five, six, seven years since we started talking about micro fulfilment, we always had questions about whether or not the large centralised automated facilities would play out across America. Yeah, and it sounds like they may not be. And it sounds like where they are working is where there’s urban density, where you can. Where it’s similar to what you see in London, where Ocado is successful. So in some ways I’m not surprised by this, but those are my thoughts right now. But I’m curious. I’m interviewing Ocado CEO Tim Steiner on stage. I haven’t actually met him yet or talked about what our discussion topic is going to be, but I’m hoping to at least get some insight into how they’re thinking about Kroger, the landscape for automation in the US, but really broadly too, because I think they’re in 14 countries and I gotta imagine there’s a lot of similarities in terms of what works across those countries as well as differences that we can learn about as U.S. grocers and consumers too. So that’s my takeaway.

00:07:58 Anne
Yeah, I think you hit on a lot of important points. One being we know that in the US especially, stores are still important fulfilment centres when it comes to doing last mile efficiently and really being cost effective.

00:08:14 Chris
That’s cheaper, right?

00:08:15 Anne
It is. And that’s why I think, you see, even retailers like to target expanding their footprints in stores and expanding their back rooms so that they can do more in store fulfilment. Even Kroger is talking about some of their new concepts where they’re going to, you know, give more space in the back room. Although I don’t think that takes away from the role that these fulfilment centres play. But I think Ron Sargent is smartly kind of going through and looking at what, where do these make sense? Because they do make sense. Walmart’s building another, you know, they’re building where they’re automating some of these processes too. But I think it’s just really reevaluating smartly as Sargent is the nodes in the network and what makes sense and what buildings are fulfilling which operations. But I’m curious about this because what this really makes me think about more than anything is the challenge that Amazon has in front of them. Okay, with delivery, especially as they’re starting to get more into grocery. Because if Kroger’s having problems with this and Kroger has 2,800 store locations across the US, what does this mean for the continued expansion of Amazon with no stores? Yes, they have fulfilment centres, but we’re seeing from this that Kroger is having a lot of difficulty with these fulfilment centres. How is Amazon going to do this better with no physical locations?

00:09:30 Chris
Yeah, it’s a tough challenge. I mean that was part of the. That was, that’s a good point because that was part of the premise of these Kroger fulfilment centres too is that they could go into markets where they don’t even have stores. Right. And see and get them to work and get them to deliver products. And it doesn’t seem like that’s been working the way that they had hoped. So that’s an interesting point. Yeah. Just another challenge for Amazon’s grocery strategy. All right, headline number two. Walgreens is dedicating in store space to party supplies and expanding its assortment in the category. According to retail dive. Walgreens is expanding its party supply lineup in stores and online. And online, the retailer now has dedicated in store space for party supplies with nearly 55 times more than before. Not nine times like Ferris Bueller, but five times. Some of the retailers party items are also available for 30 minute pickup or even one hour delivery should you need that helium balloon. And yes, because the expanded assortment includes helium balloons, cake toppers, party plates, napkins, banners, foil backdrops and decorative centrepieces. And some of the items, Ann, are starting at $1.99. Can you believe this? All right.

00:10:33 Anne
What a steal.

00:10:33 Chris
I know, right? The move comes after Party City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy a second time and then announced the closure of nearly 700 locations. And as you can tell by the increased enthusiasm in my voice as I read that headline, this is also the A and M Put yout on the Spot question. All right, all right, here it is. And I quote, after Party City’s Chapter 11 filing and liquidation, is there still enough to go around that physical retail. Physical retail. And needs new players to pick up the slack, introduce these categories, End quote.

00:11:07 Anne
Yes, yes, I do think so. And not all retail players, let me.

00:11:11 Chris
Make note of that.

00:11:13 Anne
But Chris, have you ever found yourself like on a Christmas morning thinking I need some things, I need to get plates because we don’t have enough plates. I need some kind of.

00:11:26 Chris
I have had a plate emergency.

00:11:28 Anne
Yes, yes. You know what’s open on Christmas?

00:11:31 Chris
Not a hell of a lot.

00:11:31 Anne
Not a hell of a lot. But you know what is open?

00:11:33 Chris
Walgreens 24 hours.

00:11:34 Anne
Walgreens 24 hours stores. Which is I think why this move is so brilliant. Not only is this an area where I think people are already going, you already know that if, if it’s A. Especially in a holiday emergency situation where you need these types of products, Walgreens is available. They’re going to be open. And I also think that this is going to increase the basket for some of those shoppers. They’re not just going to be going there to get the party supplies. They’re going to be picking up extra sodas or maybe they’re picking up, like, little toys or candy or something to put in these party bags. Like, I think this is a very, very smart, strategic move for Walgreens. And even as I’ve been walking, I was in New York last week. We were in Paris this week. Even as you walk in these little city versions of, you know, Carrefour or whatever Monoprix might be, they have significant party supply areas and they are wiped out.

00:12:28 Chris
And the French know how to party. That shouldn’t be a surprise.

00:12:30 Anne
I know, but it’s like, everybody needs these products. This makes sense. Birthday candles.

00:12:36 Chris
So you’re all in on this move?

00:12:37 Anne
I am 100% in. I think this is so smart. And I do think, to answer A and M’s question, that this is 100% one retail retailer that should be picking up the slack.

00:12:49 Chris
Okay, okay. Okay, Ann. Well, I’m gonna. I’m going to respectfully. Respectfully agree with you. I’m going to agree with you on this one. Yes.

00:12:58 Anne
You have me worried.

00:12:59 Chris
Yeah.

00:12:59 Anne
No, a lot of respectfully is tell.

00:13:01 Chris
How A and M is thinking about this based on how they ask that question. I guess I’m kind of surmising that. But no, I think, you know, first of all, the party city business is nothing to sneeze at. I looked it up. It was $2 billion.

00:13:11 Anne
Yeah.

00:13:12 Chris
Consistently. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of change. That’s a lot of party supply.

00:13:15 Anne
Those helium balloons are not cheap. Have you bought one? They’re like 12, $15 for, like a balloon.

00:13:21 Chris
I try not to buy them as often as possible, to be honest, but I have had to buy them. Yes. And they are. Yeah, they are. There’s a margin in those helium balloons, you know, but I think for a couple other reasons, I think it’s a great addition, too. So, one, I think it’s a solid incremental item. Right. For the floor pad. Right.

00:13:39 Anne
Yeah.

00:13:40 Chris
And, you know, I go through Walgreens all the time. I’m like, there’s so much slow moving stuff in here. Like, you could dedicate more space to stuff that you need, like on the occasions that you’re talking about. Then the other thing I thought about too, is they have that whole service counter.

00:13:50 Anne
Yeah.

00:13:51 Chris
Which is an element of a Walgreens experience that not a lot of other retailers have. You can get your passport photos, you can get real photos developed.

00:13:58 Anne
Pick up packages.

00:13:59 Chris
Packages. Pick up packages. So why can’t you put helium behind there? It’s cool, easy, right.

00:14:03 Anne
And it gives the people something to do when they’re bored, you know, just like.

00:14:07 Chris
Right. Because the Walgreens employees don’t have enough to do. Right. No. Shout out to them. Those guys work hard.

00:14:11 Anne
Oh, my God.

00:14:12 Chris
But anyway, the other point I’d make, and this is inside baseball, folks. This is why you listen to Omnitalk Retail. Because we know that the new chief merchant at Walgreens, which was not in most of the headlines. I didn’t see it once in the headlines, actually. The new chief merchant for Walgreens is formerly of Party City and formerly a colleague of ours at Target, Tracy Kolder. So my hunch is she knows a little something about party supplies and how to tack this opportunity. So if anyone’s gonna do it, it’s probably her now. Caveat. Of course. She could be like, okay, maybe I know this category. That’s why I’m going into it. But I don’t think so. I know her pretty well. I think she thinks there’s some low hanging fruit here. So kudos to her for going after and getting it. And it sounds like the use cases like you described are there, Tracy.

00:14:54 Anne
We’re all in. So we’ll start buying our helium balloons as soon as they’re available at our local Walgreens.

00:15:01 Chris
I reached out to her to see if she’s at grocery shop. She’s not gonna be there, unfortunately, but hopefully maybe we get somebody else from her team to speak with us.

00:15:05 Anne
All right. I love it. Okay, let’s go to headline number three, Chris. Starbucks is deploying computer vision technology to help the chain track its in store stock and possibly even to automate some ordering. According to Supply Chain Dive. The tech developed in conjunction with Nomad Go is currently. Yeah, Nomad Go, it’s great name. Yeah. It’s currently live across thousands of coffee houses and will be in use across the chain’s entire North American company operated store system by the end of September, according to Deb Haul. Lefebvre. I’m going to go with Lefebvre.

00:15:39 Chris
This is my favourite name of any name. It’s like. It’s like Brett Favreau.

00:15:42 Anne
Yeah.

00:15:42 Chris
In Something about Mary.

00:15:44 Anne
Yeah, I know you mentioned that. Yeah. Like how do you. Yeah. Well, DebFevre, Deb, you know how to get in touch with us. She is Starbucks chief technology officers and she says that in cafes using the artificial intelligence systems, quote, inventory is now counted eight times more frequently, giving us real time visibility and enabling faster, more precise replenishment. End quote. A publicity video shared with the announcement shows workers scanning fridges and stockrooms with the cameras on store tablets which automatically tabulate the amount and type of ingredients on hand. Chris, are you for or against Starbucks experimenting with computer vision to help track store inventory?

00:16:25 Chris
Oh, I’m 100% for this, yeah. 100.

00:16:28 Anne
Explain why.

00:16:29 Chris
Well, it’s very simple and because Starbucks needs to find a way to free up its staff to actually fill orders.

00:16:35 Anne
Right.

00:16:35 Chris
And so if they’re gonna try to experiment with this through the future of automated ordering. Yeah, I’m all in. Because the most telling statistic to me in the article was actually buried at the end. I’m guessing you saw it too, where it where they talked about how Starbucks recently revealed that they’re testing something called the smart queue ordering sequencing platform, which is hard to say. The smart queue ordering sequencing platform. And here’s what Nicol Brian Nichols, the CEO of Starbucks said and I want to make sure I get this right, so I’m gonna read it out loud. So he said, quote, since testing the algorithm, it has driven, quote, a double digit improvement in cafe orders handed off in under 4 minutes. With 80% of in cafe orders now meeting that target, end quote. Where the algorithm is being tested. Okay, so think about what that statement means. And that means that 20% of the orders, yes, where this is showing a massive improvement, are still not meeting the customer service expectation of under four minutes.

00:17:28 Anne
That’s ridiculous.

00:17:30 Chris
That means you have a massive problem and you have no idea what the dispersion of that is either. Like are some people waiting 10, 15 minutes?

00:17:37 Anne
Right?

00:17:37 Chris
I mean I’ve been putting my orders in. It’s taken a long time, many, many times. So. So that is just crazy to me. And so yes, anything that possibly chips away at that frees up employees to make coffees more quickly. Yeah, all in.

00:17:52 Anne
Yeah, I agree, I agree. It’s not automated coffee makers yet, which I would still like to see. But like you said, anything that frees up time for the bar us to be more focused on getting in front of customers and making coffee more quickly, the better. The second part of this is I didn’t realise what a problem Starbucks had with out of stocks until this article and started like going into that.

00:18:17 Chris
I’ve never actually encountered that.

00:18:18 Anne
That to me is a huge problem because when I think about the future success of Starbucks, it’s not whether or not there’s a coffee house that I can sit in and work or not. Starbucks is sold 100% on reliability. The reliability that whether I’m in Beijing or Boston, I can get exactly the same drink that I am expecting every single time. And if they don’t have the products in stock, I’m gonna stop going to Starbucks for that. Like I’m.

00:18:43 Chris
Has that ever happened to you, though?

00:18:44 Anne
Yes, for sure.

00:18:45 Chris
Really?

00:18:45 Anne
Oat milk is out of stock or like I like a vanilla bean powder and that’s. There’s like a lot of instances or food, other things too, like where those products are not in stock. And I think if, if you can’t hit on reliably reliability Starbucks, that’s where you’re going to start losing people to the other local coffee houses or to somewhere else where they are having a better experience or they’re getting that fast coffee that they want or the coffee house experience that they want. So to me, you know, before mobile orders, before coffee house experience enhancements, you have to make sure that this is in your products are in stock and people can get what they’re looking for when they go to you.

00:19:24 Chris
That’s it. I never thought about that. I’ve never actually had that experience. But I also. But the other side, the coin too is like there’s actually the efficiency of the inventory from deploying tools like this too, which frees up your working capital, then potentially put it back into store labour as well. So there’s that side of it as well. So either way, it seems like a win. Win. All right. Headline number four. This one’s interesting. Paxon announced, announced this past week that it has formed an industry first youth advisory council. According to a PacSun press release, unlike traditional ambassador programmes, the PacSun Youth Advisory Council, the YAC as I’m calling it, selected members. Wait. The Youth Advisory Council. I’m sorry. Grants selected members direct access to PacSun’s strategic decision making processes and a spot at the leadership table. The Council is intentionally structured with young people who regularly meet with PacSun executives and to share their perspectives on the same topics reviewed at leadership meetings, while also contributing new ideas that reflect the values and priorities of their generation. Ann?

00:20:27 Anne
Yes.

00:20:27 Chris
I’m going to put it bluntly. Are you buying or selling the industry’s first youth advisory council?

00:20:33 Anne
I’m 100% buying.

00:20:35 Chris
I figured you would.

00:20:36 Anne
I think this is a really smart move for A few reasons. One bcg, we’ve worked with them, Burns Communication Group. They put this event on at most conferences that you’re going to called the Z Suite. It’s where they take a panel of Gen Z ers and they put them up in front of retailers and just open it up to questions. How are you shopping? What are you, what means, are you looking to help just with product discovery, like where are you going? Like any question that you want and those rooms are packed every single time because every retailer and every like solutions provider, provider, Google’s looking for this type of insight to really understand what, what this next generation is looking for. Second point, we’ve also started to see this trend in the fashion industry where publications, fashion publications are hiring influencers now as editors. And the reason that they’re doing that is because they one have the insight of what they know their loyal, engaged followers are paying attention to. But then the other side of that is that they also can put out that content, that editorial from that publication to their engaged followers and that cycle continues. And that’s no different than what pacsun is doing here with this advisory council because they’re taking well known influencers who are, you know, who have a devoted following. They’re getting insights into how to develop that right product for the rest of their, their demographic and then they’re also putting that content out and I think and they’re putting that product out in front of their followers. So to me this is a brilliant, brilliant move and they’re giving some great mentorship opportunities. Like side note, that’s great. How wonderful would it be to be, you know, a young 18 year old, 20 something and you get to be part of this council?

00:22:23 Chris
Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, okay. I, I disagree with you on the first part. Agree with you on the second part. I think the first part, I think that’s fine. I mean, yeah, I’ve been at those, I’ve been at those events, I’ve been in those rooms. Like lots of companies are doing that. I don’t think that’s competitively differentiated. I think it’s easy to do too. And I’ve been at things where they’ve said they’re going to do that and then the executives just pencil whip it and meet with the executives, meet with these people for 30 minutes and they go about their day and don’t really take anything back that improves the business. So when I first read the headline I was like, oh man, if that’s what this is, I’m not buying into this at all.

00:22:59 Anne
Right.

00:22:59 Chris
But your second point, I think is really important because this is seemingly unique. As I read into the headline, you look at the list of who’s on this advisory board, it is a who’s who at least seemingly so based on the backgrounds that they’re sharing.

00:23:12 Anne
Yeah.

00:23:12 Chris
The stats of bonafide influencers. And so to me, this is less of like an advisory council, depending on how they set it up. I may be giving them too much credit here, but I’m kind of doubting. I’m not. It’s more to me like an advisory board, like of a startup where you’re bringing these people in, you’re potentially getting them equally yoked to the success of PacSun.

00:23:31 Anne
Right.

00:23:31 Chris
They have their influencer channels too, so they’re gonna want to promote PacSun. And so I think about this kind of as maybe a new wave model to get a different representation on kind of your board, your boards in general. Because, like, when you think about the money you’re putting towards, like the old white guy on the board from options and things, you could probably spend the same amount to these people who could actually help drive the business as well. And that’s what I think is really unique about it.

00:23:57 Anne
Right. I also think that Brie Olson, the CEO over at PacSun, gets a lot of, should get a lot of kudos for this move. She is consistently an out of the box thinker and I’ve built a culture at her organisation that supports things like this being successful. Will this, would this work at any other retailer? You got to have the culture, you got to have the fit. I think Bri has done a tremendous job of making sure that she’s got that in place so that they can actually take from this council and learn something and do something with it, versus just being like, okay, we met with you for 30 minutes, we’re gone.

00:24:31 Chris
Although I would push that a little bit. I think it should be able to work at every retailer. If it doesn’t, that’s an. That’s because of your culture not being able to make for sure. And that’s another issue that you got to solve because as you’re trying to get younger, as the generations are growing and the spending power shifting, you have to figure this out for sure. So if you can’t make an idea like this work, you kind of suck. And your culture needs to change.

00:24:52 Anne
You need to fix your culture first. So that idea is like, this can work. That’s where the focus needs to be. All right, let’s go to headline number five. A new survey has Revealed Chris that almost half of AI search tool users prefer them to Google. According to Chainstorage, a new report from the SEO agency Ethical, Google remains the dominant search platform with 86% of survey respondents in the US and the United Kingdom are using it to find information. However, AI powered search tools are widely adopted with 81% of participants using them in the past three months. Younger consumers, 63% of Gen Z and 68% of millennials use AI tools frequently, compared to less than half. 46% of baby boomers. Almost 45% of those surveyed say that AI tools provide a superior experience to Google in terms of speed and clarity, with 15% saying it is, quote, much better than and 29% saying it is slightly better. I got one more percentage. Nearly 60%. Nearly 60% of respondents told Ethical that they use AI tools to research products or services before buying.

00:26:06 Chris
60% though, that’s a lot.

00:26:08 Anne
Yes. Chris, are you surprised that almost half of AI search tool users prefer them to Google and AI search tools as we’re talking about it? Chachi, bt Perplexity.

00:26:19 Chris
Yeah.

00:26:20 Anne
Gemini? Whatever you want to.

00:26:22 Chris
Whatever. Whatever your flavour is.

00:26:24 Anne
Whatever your flavour is, yes.

00:26:26 Chris
I’m not surprised.

00:26:27 Anne
Yeah.

00:26:27 Chris
Are you surprised? No, no, I’m not surprised. Not at all. And I mean, just about a times my mother and my wife and my friends use it. Like, I’m not surprised by this at all. My big question for me, and I’m curious about this because I’ve seen a lot of people start to poo poo this on LinkedIn, particularly some people that I really respect. I’m not going to call them out here because I want to actually talk to them first before I do, but they’ve been poo pooing the movement towards agentic AI. And so what I think is really interesting about this is the agentic AI movement. We’re not even in any one of that yet and that that potentially is still going to happen. So depending on how that takes off, this will amplify those numbers even more as people get acclimated to what that is, how it works and what it can do for you.

00:27:07 Anne
Right.

00:27:08 Chris
So I’m, I’m, I’m buying this headline. I think it’s very important. It’s very disruptive and it’s only going to become more disruptive. And to all the naysayers out there, I’d say I wouldn’t discount this so fast.

00:27:18 Anne
I know.

00:27:18 Chris
I think you’re kind of risking things a little bit there. I’d be hedging on this.

00:27:22 Anne
Yeah. Well, and you can’t even transact in some of these yet. Like that’s the thing too. Like they’re already getting this much traffic when you can’t even just click and buy in all of them yet. So I think as you as that, that process becomes more fluid and you can do that without having to leave that, that search engine. I think that’s really where things are going to continue to light up. The other thing, and I’m teasing. We have an amazing podcast coming up with David Dorff next week of Amazon, the Other Time. The Other Time I want to look back at this data, Chris, is after the holidays, because I’m curious now that we’ve had ChatGPT or large language search in all of our lives for over a year, pretty widely adopted.

00:28:06 Chris
Oh yeah.

00:28:07 Anne
Now I’m curious to see how much this increases after the holidays and during gift giving season because I would venture to guess that we’re going to start to see even more, more adoption as more people start to use this because it’s so valuable. You just, it’s so it’s a much better experience. You get much better results. The only missing link for me right now is that transacting in the moment.

00:28:30 Chris
Yeah. And that’s going to come now, whether the agentic part, how that plays into it and how that disruptive that is. Yes, but that’s a great point.

00:28:35 Anne
Yeah.

00:28:35 Chris
Like, you know, holiday shopping, E commerce always increases during the holidays, Right. Every year, the percentage of commerce that goes to E commerce always goes up.

00:28:43 Anne
Well, even Ryan Hamburger yesterday from Instacart, who we interviewed, I mean, one thing about it, one thing that occurred to me there is it’s like they are already thinking. If you aren’t thinking about how you’re going to prepare for a world where agents are shopping on behalf of your customers and customers are still shopping, you, you’re going to be in a whole heap of trouble, I think come, you know, even six months or a year from now, you know.

00:29:06 Chris
And newsflash, in my opinion, there’s no surprise that Instacart CEO Chris Rogers was out in the media this week saying that retailers need to keep their prices the same in store as they are on Instacart. And why is that? Because of the eventuality of agentic AI coming, because they’re going to get stripped away if they don’t do that. So they’re preparing for that eventuality at least as part of the reasoning for that.

00:29:27 Anne
Right. Okay, Chris, let’s go to the lightning round. This is a French edition.

00:29:32 Chris
French edition. Okay.

00:29:34 Anne
Croissant.

00:29:35 Chris
Bonjour. Monomi.

00:29:37 Anne
Bonjour. Croissant or pain au chocolat.

00:29:41 Chris
Ooh. Oh, pan. I go with the pan. A chocolat.

00:29:44 Anne
I know for sure. Which I brought you.

00:29:45 Chris
Yeah, which you brought me, you can have.

00:29:46 Anne
You can have right after this episode you brought me.

00:29:48 Chris
So. Well. All right, and next one. Langoustines or escargot?

00:29:53 Anne
For sure. Escargot.

00:29:54 Chris
No way.

00:29:54 Anne
Oh, a thousand days.

00:29:55 Chris
No way. The salty sea versus the dirt of the earth.

00:29:58 Anne
I think langoustines and lobster are very overrated.

00:30:01 Chris
Oh, no, not if you have a good one. Not yet. The best. The. The variability may be higher. Well, I don’t know. I’ve had some bad snails too, but, like, the best lobster is freaking amazing.

00:30:11 Anne
Oh. See? I mean, it’s okay, but I think escargot is, like, such a unique experience, given your choice. I think somebody could slip, like, a shrimp in there and. Or something, and you would not be able to notice. Okay.

00:30:25 Chris
Bonafide legacy, though. But not a shrimp. But okay.

00:30:28 Anne
Okay. I’m just saying, like, I think that you could. You could be told, that’s a langoustine, and be like, yeah, this is good.

00:30:33 Chris
It’s just a big prawn.

00:30:34 Anne
Yeah, yeah.

00:30:35 Chris
Right.

00:30:35 Anne
Okay. Okay. Paris Metro or London Tube?

00:30:39 Chris
Oh, God. You know the answer to that. London tube, 100%. For so many reasons. Because it’s also the greatest. Greatest example of user experience design in the history of the world. Because the map is not actually drawn to where the actual tube stops are.

00:30:52 Anne
Right.

00:30:52 Chris
Which I just find fascinating. That’s why it was on the back of the Fast5 podcast for so long in the background of our. Of our videos.

00:30:59 Anne
I was at dinner last night, and there was a French. A Frenchman, who said the difference between the London Tube and the Paris Metro is that if you bump into somebody on the London Tube, both people will apologise. And if you bump into. If I bump into you on the French Metro train, I would be mad at you for being too close to me. So that’s simply the difference between these two modes of transportation.

00:31:25 Chris
I will say I haven’t ridden the French Metro as often as the London tube either, so I got to give it more of a try. But. All right, and last one. This one’s a good one.

00:31:32 Anne
Yes.

00:31:33 Chris
Napoleon or Genghis Khan? Favourite emperor.

00:31:37 Anne
I picked Genghis Khan. I like that song more. The Mike Snow song, you know, Like, I get a little bit Genghis Khan. You’ll recognise that I’ll play it for you later. But yes, that’s. That’s.

00:31:47 Chris
You’re going Genghis, huh?

00:31:48 Anne
I’m just going Genghis Khan because I have no. I don’t have enough historical knowledge on both of their reigns to properly.

00:31:55 Chris
I just read War and Peace, so I was like, it’s all about Napoleon. So.

00:31:59 Anne
Okay, so you’re picking Napoleon?

00:32:00 Chris
I think I’d pick Napoleon. Plus, he’s got, like, you know, like, food named after him.

00:32:04 Anne
What about Genghis Khan? Like, why would. Why wouldn’t you pick Genghis Khan?

00:32:08 Chris
I don’t know. I mean, it’s probably because he doesn’t have any food named after him that I can think of.

00:32:12 Anne
So songs and food. This is how we’re.

00:32:14 Chris
Sounds about right for our personalities. All right, well, that wraps us up for today. Happy birthday to. I gotta find it here. Hold on. We’re live. I gotta find my notes. Happy birthday today to Kyle Chandler. Kyle Chandler? I know you like Kyle Chandler. Baz Luhrmann. You don’t know Kyle Chandler is Friday Night Lights. No.

00:32:34 Anne
Do I know him?

00:32:35 Chris
The coach in Friday Night Lights? Yeah, you know.

00:32:37 Anne
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:32:38 Chris
Oh, yeah.

00:32:39 Anne
I didn’t know that was his name.

00:32:41 Chris
Wow, you really know him. All right.

00:32:42 Anne
Okay.

00:32:43 Chris
Baz Luhrmann. And because we’re in Paris, to Daniel Huddlestone, who played little Gavroche in the 2012 movie version of Les Miserables starring Hugh Jackman. And remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, Make It Omnitok, the only retail media outlet run by two former executives from a current top 10 US retailer. Our Fast Five podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the week’s top news in 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 features special content that is exclusive to us and that Ann and I take 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 omnitalkretail so until next week, and on behalf of all of us at omnitalk, on behalf of Ann, myself, be careful out there.