Hello Omni Talk Fans! This week’s Fast Five has a very special feel to it because Carter Jensen is back.
For those who don’t know, Carter is one of the original architects of this whole thing. He’s the guy who called me up years ago, told me I should start a podcast, said he’d “produced them a million times,” then showed up to my basement with microphones he’d just ordered off Amazon, hoping it would all work.
His words, not mine.
After a long run leading e-commerce acceleration at General Mills and building global digital capabilities, Carter’s now at The Uncommon Business, helping companies actually figure out what to do with all this AI hype.
Here’s what Carter and I got into this week:
- Amazon’s Shop Direct just got a whole lot bigger. Third-party feeds are now serving 100 million products, 400,000+ merchants, and brands that don’t sell a single item on Amazon can now surface in search results and its Rufus AI assistant. Sounds great for consumers. But what data are brands actually giving up? And is this really just an enormous ad play in disguise? Carter and I have opinions.
- Ulta Beauty launches on TikTok Shop. CEO Kecia Steelman says Ulta got its “swagger back” and after launching with exclusive collections and a niche-first approach, I think she’s right to brag. Carter, who helped launch one of the first food and bev TikTok Shop experiences at General Mills, breaks down exactly why beauty is the perfect category for this move. Ella weighed in too, and her take on how she actually shops on TikTok was one of the best moments of the episode.
- Walmart + Vizio at IAB Newfronts. Unified account logins across Vizio smart TVs, a L’OrĂ©al product placement integration inside streaming content, and a closed-loop measurement vision that ties what you watch to what you buy. Carter and I both think this is a bigger deal than people are giving it credit for, and we floated a theory about what this could mean for Vizio TV prices on Black Friday that I think could indeed be in play.
- Instacart layers Nvidia AI onto its Caper Carts. I’ll just say it: this is the hype of all hype announcements. Right strategy, wrong substrate. Carter backed me up with a pointed question about how many shopping carts you’ve seen abandoned in a creek near your house, along with a reminder that a single Nvidia chip runs about $500 before you add the cameras, the scales, or the actual cart. The math doesn’t, well, math.
- Amazon + Winn-Dixie expand to Tampa Bay, plus one-hour delivery in hundreds of cities. In the short run? Smart for everyone. In the long run? Carter and I walked through why this might be the retail equivalent of the frog in boiling water for regional grocers, and why the brands that survive will be the ones who build their own infrastructure instead of getting high on Amazon’s supply.
This one’s a genuine throwback with a very present-day edge. Don’t miss it.
Listen to This Week’s Fast Five Podcast
Be careful out there,
— Chris and the entire Omni Talk team
P.S. Why did the dog sit in the shade?
Because he didn’t want to be a hot dog.
That one’s for Raymond. Happy (very belated) National Puppy Day, buddy. Carter, as he expressed in the podcast, is very sorry about forgetting you.
Omni Talk® is the retail blog for retailers, written by retailers. Chris Walton founded Omni Talk® in 2017 and have quickly turned it into one of the fastest growing blogs in retail.