Hello Omni Talk Fans! This week’s Fast Five is one for the retail ops crowd.
Joining me for this week’s podcast was Jenna DeFranco, Managing Director at J Recruiting Services and a former Aldi operator, making her the exact right guest host to help me get to the bottom of a plethora of talent-related headlines this week.
One of which was even about her former employer.
Here’s a breakdown of what Jenna and I discussed this week:
- Target’s new dress code and employee discount: Is it operationally smart? Probably. Is it a reason someone picks Target over a competitor? Neither of us thinks so. I’ll also tell you why I think Target missed a chance to go back to true red and khaki, and why you only get one shot at that.
- Aldi going all-in with Instacart: Jenna used to work at Aldi, so her take here was genuinely fascinating. We both landed in the same place: this is the right move, but only because it’s Aldi. Most grocers can’t pull this off and keep their souls intact.
- REI’s union authorizing a boycott of its biggest sales event: I got really candid discussing this one. REI’s leadership has made a mess of this, and now they’re playing chicken with their own brand. Jenna put it best. She said, “you don’t get to play hardball with employees without consequences. Not with this customer base.”
- DoorDash entering apparel: Urban Outfitters, Steve Madden, Dolce Vita, and Rally House are all partnering with DoorDash. Producer Ella called this the headline of the week, saying she would absolutely DoorDash herself a new pair of pants if she spilled coffee on herself at a conference. Which, honestly, samesies.
- Walmart’s Sparky coming to ChatGPT: Walmart basically admitted their OpenAI checkout experiment flopped. Conversion inside ChatGPT was running 3x lower than on Walmart’s own site.
There’s all that, plus many shed tears over Michigan State getting bounced from March Madness, this month’s OmniStar (congrats Kristie Maurer of Maurer’s Urban Market), and Adam Plom from Shoptalk Europe even stopped by to preview the upcoming conference in Barcelona this June.
Listen to This Week’s Fast Five Podcast
Be careful out there,
— Chris, Anne, and the entire Omni Talk team
P.S. Why should you never iron a four leaf clover?
Because you don’t want to press your luck.
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.