00:00:09 Chris
I’m over smart cards. Let’s just call it the retail media and couponing full time.
00:00:13 Laura
Maybe brand trust becomes even more important when consumers might think everything is fake.
00:00:18 Chris
Sales have gone from $15 billion to $10 billion.
00:00:22 Laura
If you don’t have a clear value proposition with a specific assortment, then you’re out.
00:00:26 Ella
People are saying things from in a feed full of AI. Thank you. Because no one else has done this.
00:00:31 Chris
They could carry the higher end brands that would never go into Walmart.
00:00:35 Laura
There’s too many steps. So then it just defeats the purpose of using an answer engine.
00:00:40 Chris
Hello and welcome to The Omni Talk Retail Fast Five. Today’s episode is a real treat everyone. Today’s guest host is someone whom I met and interviewed on stage at Shop Talk. Geez, it was a number of years ago. We struck up a friendship and what I admire most about her is that she always manages to help me see the future of retail in a new light. Who is she? Well, stay tuned because I’m going to introduce her right after we hear from all our wonderful partners who make this podcast possible each and every week. This episode of The OmniTalk Retail Fast Five is brought to you by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group.
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Help your managers focus on what matters most. Visit corso.com to see Intelligent management in motion and Infios. And 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 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 and finally, Veloc Voloc is a proven e grocery technology built by grocers for grocers. Exactly the type of technology we like here at Omnitalk. They unite proprietary software with right size automation to make same day delivery profitable. To learn more visit veloc.com that’s V E L O q.com Laura Kennedy, how the heck are you?
00:03:06 Laura
I’m great, I’m great. You know, it’s sun is shining. My son pointed out this morning there’s a lot of sevens in the temperature forecast for this week. So can’t. It can’t be bad.
00:03:18 Chris
Oh yeah, it’s sevens in Indiana. That’s nice. Nice Midwestern weather. I hope we’re going to get that in Minnesota too. It’s funny, somebody once told me you could take the Indiana out, you could take the girl out of Indiana, but you can never take the Indiana out of the girl. Is that true?
00:03:31 Laura
Probably. I am actually not a native Hoosier though. I’ve lived here for 10 years. But I’m a native western Pennsylvanian. So you could probably take me out of Pittsburgh, but you can’t take me out of Steeler Nation, maybe, something like that.
00:03:47 Chris
That’s probably even more so true, right? It’s more so, yeah. Well, Laura, you know, people kept telling me, I’m so excited to have you on the show because people kept telling me this literally just happened to me like a couple of weeks ago when I was out at Shop Talk. People, people that we both mutually respect kept telling me, they say you’ve got to get Laura on the Fast five. You got to get her as a guest host. And now you’re here, so I couldn’t be more pumped up. And so why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about you and who you are and then I’ll probably tell the storey about how we met too. But tell us about your background.
00:04:14 Laura
I’m a retail strategist and analyst and spend a lot of time thinking about how people shop, why it matters. I’ve led retail and consumer research both at CB Insights and Kantar, advised a lot of executives at big companies along the way. And at the moment I’m exploring, exploring my next chapter, something ideally at the intersection of, you know, retail strategy, big ideas, commercial, real commercial impact. But today I’m just here to talk shop and, you know, whatever else might come up.
00:04:47 Chris
Yeah, which is what I love because I love grabbing you all when you’re unfettered and can basically say whatever it is that’s on your mind, which is great. But yeah, I mentioned too, like, so we met at Shop Talk, right? When was it? When did we meet in shop? Like, what year was that? I don’t even remember.
00:05:00 Laura
It was 2020. I think it was 2023. Is that right? I think, yeah. Which is, you know, now three years ago, which is wild.
00:05:08 Chris
Yeah. And we did a rapid fire panel, right? We did a rapid fire panel. You’re on the panel. I think Primo Prima, the chief digital officer at the time at Ulta, was on the panel as well. And yes, and yes, it was great because you, like, brought up all these points that I had never thought about or conceived of and you got into some back and forth with me on stage and, and we’ve talked a couple times since then, so it was awesome. All right, well, Laura, without further ado, are you ready to do your first guest hosting stint on the Omnitalk Retail Fast 5?
00:05:35 Laura
As ready as I’m ever going to be.
00:05:38 Chris
All right, let’s do it. In this week’s Fast5, we’ve got news on Arri. Teaming up with Pamela Anderson to take a very public stand against AI generated content. Carrefour becoming the first European retailer to offer grocery shopping directly through chatgpt. QVC Group issuing a going concern warning. Carrefour again, believe it or not, a French retailer makes the Fast five twice, but this time for his Israel operation, announcing one of the largest smart cart deployments in the world. And AM’s Jeremy Levine joins us for five insightful minutes on how grocers can improve their fresh operations. But we begin today with Bed, Bath and Beyond buying the Container Store for a cool $150 million. Laura.
According to retail dive Bed, Bath and Beyond, which famously filed for bankruptcy and liquidated all of its physical stores in 20, has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire the Container Store, which itself filed for bankruptcy in December 2024 before emerging as a private company. The transaction also includes the Container Store’s Sweden based Alpha Home Organisation business and Chicago based Closet Works, giving Bed, Bath and Beyond a full home organisation and customization ecosystem under one roof. Rather than reopening standalone Bed, Bath and Beyond stores, the company plans to roll out dual branded locations, integrating its products into existing Container Store footprints. Laura, Bed, Bath and Beyond in the Container Store. Is this a case of two rugs making a right? What do you think of this move?
00:07:12 Laura
Well, I feel like there’s. There’s two ways to look at it. I think the sort of financial perspective is that these are two brands that, whose individual power is clearly waning. In the case of Bed, Bath and Beyond. Well, I guess in both cases, like really has waned. Yeah. Has waned. Yeah. We’re done. Yeah, yeah. Why? We’re not positive that they even still had stores. You’re right. They’re past tense brands almost. So, you know, this is just the consolidation in retail we’ve been talking about for like more than 20 years. It just continues to happen. But I think the risk is that you could look at it as like, well, you know, you got to combine the assets. It looks good financially, but the actual survival of it depends on them creating a differentiated experience. Like why, why are people going to shop there? Otherwise you’re just rearranging.
You know, it’s the proverbial rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. So. And to me it just means they have to get really intentional about what they carry about assortment, about pricing, about why you would go to the store. You know, I really, when I think about it, very few retailers, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, I feel like very few retailers succeed with an endless in store aisle today. You know, the beyond in Bed, Bath and Beyond. Unless you’re, you know, Walmart, Target, Meijer and your whole, you know, premise is mass. I feel like TJX’s banners are the closest thing, but they have the treasure hunt, they have the pricing. You know, there’s, there’s a reason those stores succeed.
You know, bookstores like Barnes and Noble have done, I think exactly what we’re talking about here, where they’re a category specialist, that they’ve remade their assortment and the experience to make people actually want to go there. So my, I, I kind of am just left with questions. Are they going to curate the assortment more? Are they going to take advantage of Container Store? I mean, Container Store is high end. The stuff is expensive there. Will they have more services? Yeah, well, they have more services. So that’s my question. I’m sure, you know, from the operator perspective or from the cfo, it’s like, oh, this looks like a good deal. But from the consumer perspective, I have more questions.
00:09:23 Chris
Yeah, that’s interesting to me because I’ll bring another, another experience to light in this conversation too. You know, when I was heading up home furnishings for, for target.com and also, you know, running some of the omnichannel sides of the business, Bed Bath and Beyond was always the retailer that scared me, you know, and it’s been funny to watch how it’s Played out. And the reason I, the reason I say that is because Bed Bath and Beyond did what Walmart and what Target at the time couldn’t do. They could carry the higher end brands in their stores that would never go into Walmart. And that’s something that hasn’t been capitalised on really, to the extent in terms of creating that truly differentiated mass market home furnishings and experience for the upper cachet, which department stores used to do. But that’s business has kind of gone out by the wayside.
So believe it or not, I mean, I always joke on this show, two wrongs never make a right. But in this case, I kind of think they might, Laura, because I think it. You mentioned it’s a return on assets play, you know, for background. Container store has 100 stores. Those stores, to your point, tend to be in very desirous locations. Like they are nice spots where you want to have stores. And Bed Bath and Beyond for the most part is acquiring them all at a very significant discount to what it would take to build them out themselves. So that’s number one. Number two, I think there’s actually synergies between the two product portfolios too. So I could see, you know, getting more, you know, getting more out of the box, so to speak, by blending and combining.
I think that’s a real thing that they could do. I don’t think that’s smoke and mirrors in terms of, you know, how they pitch this in terms of trying to combine the product portfolios of two of both entities. And then three, you know, the stores themselves tend to be newer, nicer, more inviting than what we all remember as the Bed Bath and Beyond experience, which is, was kind of getting to the point of like being trapped in old outdated strip malls and not being that great of experience. So, yeah, so net net. The merchant in me kinds of thinks this is a smart move and it’s from a company that’s helmed by a CEO too. You know, good old Marcus who has a track record of wheeling and dealing and figuring out how to make these things work. So I don’t know. Laura, what do you think? Did I sway your thinking in any way?
00:11:31 Laura
I mean, I think, I think we’re still kind of arriving at the same conclusion, which is that the experiencing assortment has to change. You mentioning the old Bed Bath experience with the stuff stacked to the ceiling, I mean, talk about stack it high. It’s like insane. Makes me wonder what will happen to the 20% off bed bath coupon. Are people. I mean, I was like, I’m A little bit in jest asking about this, but it’s a real question. Yeah. Because I think the Bed Bath consumer expected that and I think tells us a lot about the expectations of price and experience in the store and maybe it tells us a lot about why we have wound up in this situation in the first place. But it doesn’t play with the truthfully, like really high end Container store experience. And so I’m, I’m curious, you know, does a consumer buy it, for lack of a better term, you know, do they buy that? This is, this is the newest. Like they go in and say, whoa, this is, this is way nicer than I thought it was going to be. And I just, I just think that space, to your point, I mean, department stores don’t do it anymore. Well, I mean we saw what happened to department stores. Like there’s, there’s a reason. So I’m. Yeah, I’m really curious and I do think we’ve ultimately kind of arrived at the same conclusion. And maybe the upshot is we think they’re going to go higher end and are people going to want that? Yep.
00:13:01 Chris
Yeah. It all comes down to what are you giving people right at the end of the day. But I think from an assets play and, you know, trying to make that idea work. Yeah, it’s as smart as any, but the risk is in can you make the idea work, which is what the investors are, you know, taking into account.
00:13:15 Laura
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the nicer locations are meaningful too. That’s of course where we’re seeing the most success in retail real estate is better strip malls. Better malls. So that means that the worst ones are just looking even worse.
00:13:29 Chris
But yeah, I’d rather try to re enliven the Bed Bath and Beyond brand from the Container Stores footprint than the old Bed Bath and Beyond footprint. Right. Which I think is a key point in this storey, right?
00:13:39 Laura
Yes. Yeah, for sure. Cool. All right, well, let’s move on to headline number two. And this is the one about Aerie. Aerie, the American Eagle, you know, lingerie brand has launched an anti AI campaign starring Pamela Anderson under a pledge the brand is calling 100 Aerie Real, which is a commitment to never use AI generated bodies or people in its marketing. According to Marketing Dive, Arri first formalised its 100 Arri Real pledge in October 2025, committing to never use AI generated bodies or people in its marketing. The latest campaign centres on a film starring Pamela Anderson in which she is shown prompting an AI to generate female models and growing increasingly dissatisfied with the artificial results until real women appear on a live aerie set. Chris, this is also the A and M put you on the spot question of the week, so get ready.
00:14:36 Chris
I get it. You don’t get it this week.
00:14:37 Laura
I get it. No, I don’t.
00:14:38 Chris
Producer Ella. Thanks, Producer Ella.
00:14:40 Laura
A and M, happy to pass it over there. While the public debate around AI generated content today focuses on keeping it real. Can the same brands making stances today hold firm over time against the temptations of lower production costs by using AI? What do you got, Chris?
00:14:58 Chris
Oh. Oh, man. Yeah.
00:14:59 Laura
Wow.
00:15:00 Chris
Can of worms on this one. Wait, wait, wait till the social media comments start to fly on this one. Oh, man. Laura, my thoughts on this have swung back and forth so many times, and I think we talked about this on the show like, you know, six, seven months ago, too. But, you know, I think, I think you, I think, like, I would give, you know, Arie, who has a better chance of others, and I’ll talk about that more in a second of why. But, like, I give them even a 5 and 10 shot, like a 50, 50 shot of being able to hold this over the long term. You know, I like it for them right now because they’ve got a. They’re. They’re doing it from a high perch. I mean, their comp was 24 in the quarter, which is just absolutely insane.
They get first mover on this type of positioning and using. Pamela Anderson is also very smart, given, you know, how she’s kind of had a resurgence too. But is it applicable to everyone? I don’t think so. And the other part, which I’m curious to get your take on too, is like, where does this actually begin and end? You know? You know, you could say you’re not using models, but, you know, like, but. And, and you’re supposed to get some big prize out of that. But, like, are you using it in your video editing? Are you using copywriting? Are using your background imagery for your website? So there’s just so many shades of grey here where I actually start to question the real authenticity of it too, if everyone starts to follow suit. You know, I, I think there is something about models being different than copywriting and video editing tools and productivity tools versus the actual models themselves. But are you still going to be able to hold on to this mantra when you’re not on as high of a perch and.
00:16:28 Laura
Right.
00:16:28 Chris
Everyone’s congealing that way and the AI generated content gets better and better and hooks us better and better? I don’t know. I don’t know, but what do you think?
00:16:37 Laura
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s wild. You said aries comp is 24%. I mean, the rest of American Eagle, they still make. They make up like 40% of American eagle. Right. The rest of American eagle is like 2% comp. It’s like. That’s right. That is rough. I mean, they’re holding this ship afloat pretty much. So they obviously have a lot of power. You know, I think there’s again, sort of two parts to it. AI overall, I agree. Well, I guess I’ll start with talking about Arie. I think this is much stronger as just branding rather than a moat. And maybe you mean the moat is branding. But, you know, Arie already has this positive body image thing. To your point, Pamela Anderson has been doing this whole no makeup thing, so it’s like very on brand for her. It is interesting if you think about the, the consumer base of aerie versus people who know who Pamela Anderson is. But that’s for like a celebrity analysis podcast, I guess.
But still, the, the brands line, you know, you can make it the argument that maybe brand trust becomes even more important when consumers might think everything is fake. And that gets to the other. The other side of things, which is, I just agree with the idea that AI is just such a slippery slope. And I think the real issue is that we just don’t know how big its impact is going to be. And this is true across every part of life. You know, I know you talked about it a few weeks ago in the context of, you know, Jack Dorsey, you know, laying off so many people because they’re going to use AI and it’s sort of like, well, where does AI come in there in the workflow? Where are you eliminating people?
So we don’t know there. We don’t know how much content it’s going to impact. Like you said, is it just the backgrounds? Is it the people? You know, I, I hope it doesn’t permeate everything in our lives and things reach an equilibrium. But, you know, needless to say, I do think a lot of consumers are already really sceptical of everything they see. So it might be AI. And so then you’re saying anti retouching and AI generated bodies. And you know, Adobe Photoshop has AI features. Like they. Everybody uses Photoshop. Everything’s retouched. Right. You know, I think you. I’m like wondering what’s the word that we’re going to use in place of greenwashing? You know, is like, is it going to be Like AI washing or, you know, once other brands copy this because inevitably, to your point, they’re the first mover. But like, other brands are going to copy this.
00:19:12 Chris
That was going to be my question. So do you think this is the first domino to fall? You think other specialty apparel brands will come out and say similar types of things? That’s my first question that I think.
00:19:22 Laura
Yeah, I mean, that’s a good point. I guess you wonder what other brands really have a lot of ground to stand on. I could see, like, Patagonia saying something about their use of AI, but not in the. They don’t care about their models being retouched or something, but like they’re going to make some kind of AI statement, you know, so then it just becomes all these different things. And then like, to your point, it’s like you’re going to tell me that really, like, nobody at XYZ brand will just. I’m, you know, Patagonia obviously is a great brand. Nobody’s using Chat GPT, you know, to help with their work. And it’s like, that would be strange, honestly. So I have to imagine others are going to do it, but I don’t know that actually anybody else is in quite the position for their models. I mean, Victoria’s Secret is trying to get back with it. Right. And they. Maybe they’ll do it.
00:20:09 Chris
Yeah, they probably would do it. Yeah, I think, Yeah, I think, I think you’ll. I. My hunch is you’ll actually see a lot of people go this direction on the model side.
00:20:16 Laura
Yeah.
00:20:17 Chris
But my, but my other question for you is because this is, this is like current, like current retailers and we talk about the future too, in terms of upstart retailers and how they’ll approach things. I think upstart retailers are probably less inclined to, you know, lever into models because they’re expensive. So my, my other question for you is as all these, you know, digitally native brands start up and try to get, you know, cachet in the marketplace. I personally, I’m curious if you have the same experience when I’m scrolling, when I’m doom scrolling on, you know, Instagram and Facebook at night, the AI catches me in a different way than the other stuff. Is that true for you too?
00:20:54 Laura
It is. I think the quality is still not there where if you look at it for one more beat, you’re like, oh, this is weird. Like, I can tell that I’m weird.
00:21:03 Chris
I’m probably going, is this AI or not? You know, like that?
00:21:05 Laura
Exactly. I think we’re already at like, Is this AI. And you know, there was a time like five years ago where we, we’re talking all about like, the virtual avatar is going to take over. Oh, it’s cheaper for, you know, you don’t have to model on people and all this kind of stuff. I think there’s still a lot of room for that. If you’re a fashion designer, of course you don’t have to produce every single garment and stuff like that. But like I said, the quality right now I feel pretty quickly, you can see. That said, I mean, I think everyone’s gotten got by something, you know, in the news or whatever. So it’s on its way. But yeah, you wonder if the newer brands are gonna dip their toe in it and they could really get burned. Though. I almost wonder if the risk is actually higher for a newer brand because if you are instantly known as the brand that used all AI models. Is that good?
00:21:59 Chris
Yeah. Or you just hold to it, you know, you just.
00:22:01 Laura
Yeah, right.
00:22:01 Chris
Like, hey, we’re gonna do the anti branding. Right? It’s kind of like true, like, you know, that whole thing, thing too. So, yeah, hey, we just are who we are. You know, we make good stuff, good clothes that you want to buy. I don’t know. We’ll see.
00:22:16 Laura
It’s a dark time. I don’t know.
00:22:18 Chris
It’s a dark time. Yes, yes. 12 Sides of the apocalypse is upon us.
00:22:22 Laura
All right, let’s keep going.
00:22:23 Chris
Headline number three. Carrefour has become the first major European retailer to offer grocery shopping directly through chat GPT. And this was one of the. One of the headlines where I was specifically interested in getting your take on it today. Laura. And they are launching the integration in France on March 26 and targeting the company’s estimated 26 million ChatGPT users. According to the Retail Insight Network, French users can now interact with ChatGPT to get recipe ideas, cheque, product availability, build a shopping basket and select delivery or click and collect options, all without leaving the ChatGPT interface before completing their purchase on Care for the integration lives inside ChatGPT’s mobile app alongside other service partners like booking.com for example. And customers can access it simply by searching for card Carrefour in the app’s list of applications. Importantly, payment is. Com. Like we talked about last week, everyone, payment is completed on Carrefour’s own website, meaning Carrefour retains transaction data and the direct customer relationship even while seeding some control over what products the AI recommends. Laura, There are a lot of retailers, a lot of retailers debuting apps inside of ChatGPT. We talked about it, like I said, with Walmart last week. Sephora also recently is doing something similar. What do you think of this strategy? And does the fact that Carrefour is a traditional grocer change your thoughts on the approach at all?
00:23:47 Laura
No. I mean, this is an area that, to your. As you noted, I’ve been following really closely for a while for, you know, more than a year. It’s sort of the idea of we were calling it agentic shopping, but I’m not sure that it’s increasingly seeming like we’re, you know, we’re sort of just thinking about it all the LLMs. The short answer is I feel like it’s moving in the right direction, but the experience isn’t right yet. So I don’t know if you’ve used an app in Chat GPT. Okay, you’ve tried. I have not. So, you know, for these purposes, I played around with it. I used the Target, the Target app. It did a pretty good job on the suggestion side. I was asking it for snacks for a soccer team, which I imminently need for my son’s game this week. But there’s too many steps. You have to go in, you have to find the app, you have to connect it to your platform, and then you have to at Target, like old school Twitter style or something. And so then it just defeats the purpose of being in ChatGPT and using an answer engine, which is to make things easier and more efficient.
And so the other question it brings up for me is exactly how consumers are using ChatGPT or LLMs, you know, in their journey. You know, to your point, it seems like they’re not buying things there. You know, as you discussed on the podcast, as Walmart has said, everybody, the, the, the, the shot, it’s really just shopping and then you start to split hairs to understand which tasks exactly are they trying to use it for. You know, find me a spring jacket is different than give me what’s available at Target. And I would just say that the sort of generous view is that we just, it’s too early. You know, we don’t really know how exactly that’s happening, but we definitely know they don’t want to cheque out there. You know, it reminds me of when we were first talking about social commerce and everybody was like, is this actually what people want to be doing on these apps? And I think we kind of have to ask ourselves that about the LLMs.
But to your point, I think it also gets back to who owns which layer, you know, Carrefour still wants to own the checkout, but do the LLMs own the discovery? You know what happens with retail ad buying? Like, are you buying an ad on Chat GPT? Are you buying an ad on Carrefour? I’m sure this app thing is partially to like, keep things in a, in a box. So I, that’s the long way of, of saying what I initially said, which is I feel like we’re, we’re onto something, but the experience isn’t right. Your note about Carre 4 and grocery shopping, I think is important because that is a more distinctive experience in terms of loyalty, in terms of your intent. You know, at Carrefour, give me ingredients for a weekend barbecue is different than find me a spring jacket. So maybe, maybe if you know that your grocer, you’re more apt to attach that app to your LLM. But it still is this hiccup in the process that I’m always sceptical about whether consumers are going to do and want to do.
00:27:01 Chris
Yeah, I’m glad you brought up that point because that, the grocery thing is really, is really interesting to me. And to hear you talk about it, I think, you know, it’s really important because, like, in context, Walmart, when they initially said they were doing the Chat GPT integration, they kept grocery off the table from, from what I remember. And now I don’t know if that’s still the case given their recent announcement, but it’s, but that was very overtly said because I remember doing it on the pie. Very overtly said that they were not going to include grocery. And, and the, and because the thing I keep, I think grocery does behave differently. I 100 agree with you.
And producer Ellis said the same thing in terms of an app experience. Like, if I’m, if I’m just gonna have an app experience, why don’t I just go to the app and have great LLMs inside the app of the grocer or the retailer that I’m doing things with. And the thing that I worry about, grocery. So then I say, like, okay, well, what, what if it’s grocery? Is grocery different? Like, you know, I have a strong, Generally you have a strong bond already with your grocer because you’re going there, you know, each and every week. For the most part, that changed my thinking at all. And that’s what I keep coming back to is, no, it doesn’t. Because if I have good LLM search on my own properties, that’s a big, you know, that’s a big thing here. That’s a big caveat like why do I need this? And then, you know, especially when it’s already on my phone anyway, like why?
00:28:13 Laura
Right.
00:28:14 Chris
If I’m going to go. Tell me what, tell me car four what I should, you know, plan for my barbecue this weekend. Why would I do that on the LLM versus in. In the app itself? So it doesn’t make sense. And then the other thing I just wonder too is when I think about agentic commerce in the long run, the more grocery data these guys have, the more susceptible the grocers are to getting disintermediated with technology and price comparison and all those types of things.
00:28:43 Laura
Right?
00:28:45 Chris
So Net net. I don’t think I would be the first penguin in the water on this if I was carrefour. But I don’t know. What do you think? Am I, am I over it? Over it?
00:28:53 Laura
Yeah. I don’t know. I think the point about agentic commerce is, is where it becomes more interesting and like hypothetical at this point because we don’t have, we don’t have agent to commerce yet.
00:29:04 Chris
Right.
00:29:04 Laura
I think you’re absolutely right that I am much more likely to open my Walmart Target app and expect to have a better search experience within that as a consumer right now. And why isn’t the LLM just there? I don’t, you know, I’m already having issues when I go and ask ChatGPT shopping questions and I know that it’s not pulling Amazon results and I’m like, well, I’m not getting the whole world. So now I got to go to Amazon anyway.
00:29:30 Chris
Which of course that’s a good point too.
00:29:32 Laura
That’s what they wanted.
00:29:32 Chris
It’s not been brought up before.
00:29:33 Laura
Yep, yeah, but, but if we get into an agentic world, I think something that I’ve always felt that is if we get into the world where you really are having an agent shop for you, it’s going to be too much to have an agent for every retailer. You’re going to have the Google agent or the Open Air agent or the or or some other big tech agent, Apple agent that sees your whole world and goes out and does that shopping for you. So in that world, if Walmart has a presence already in Chat GPT or whatever LLM, it is probably Chat GPT maybe that gives it a foothold for this future agentic, truly autonomous world. Because it just is gonna. Why, why would you have a Rufus and a Sparky doing these things if you just are like, just find me toothpaste at the lowest price. Like, but that, that interacts with loyalty, then you know, what, what’s gonna happen, so.
00:30:36 Chris
Yeah, yeah. But by the same token, you’re putting the Amazon strategy of buy for me in a totally different light as well, you know.
00:30:43 Laura
Yeah.
00:30:43 Chris
It makes that positioning a lot stronger too, so. Oh, man, we’re gonna have to have you back and we’re gonna have to keep talking about this one because it changes every day. It’s just so interesting. But it’s important when you think about the long term implications of some of these decisions right now.
00:30:57 Laura
Yeah.
00:30:57 Chris
And how thought out are they and how much do you need to make that move right this second?
00:31:03 Laura
Yeah, yeah. Strategically, I, I, I find it amazing or fascinating that you have Carrefour and Walmart as two of the early movers, because Walmart historically has not been a first mover. And so what does that mean? Does that mean that they feel it’s really important to be first? Have they completely changed their plate? You know, now they’re one of our tech first movers. You know, this, these are other, other discussion questions. So it’s significant, I think.
00:31:32 Chris
Wow. Really, really great stuff, Laura. All right, now let’s welcome Jeremy Levine onto today’s programme. Joining us for today’s 5 insightful minutes segment is Jeremy Levine. Jeremy is a senior director at the Alvarez and Marcel consumer and retail group and he is here to walk us through the key insights from his recent white paper called Mastering Fresh Operations Tactics for Grocers to Win in the Next Decade. Jeremy, let’s start with this. Why are fresh departments getting so much attention right now? And what does that mean specifically for traditional regional grocers?
00:32:10 Jeremy
Okay, first, thanks for having me on the podcast. We are really excited to write this article. I think this is a great time for your traditional grocers. So what we’ve seen is an acceleration of a handful of consumer trends that are really pushing shoppers towards those fresh departments. And they all anchor around healthier lifestyles. You see it in aversion to processed foods, you see it in less alcohol, you see it in more protein. On that point, we’ve done some research and in the US Americans consume about 12 billion fewer grammes of protein than they should every single day. It’s a couple of protein bars per person.
So yeah, I see your jaw drop on that one. That’s, that’s, yeah, that was my reaction when, when we finished the, the analysis as well. And yeah, I just, there’s a lot of legs for the, for the, the meat department and the seafood areas in particular. Yeah, I think what’s exciting is because fresh is more important than ever. These are things. What’s important there is what the traditional grocer does really, really well. You think about quality, you think about service, that butcher that knows your name, that person at the deli counter who knows your order, and also localised assortments, be it local producers or really tailored assortments for a particular region. So I think in a place where traditional grocers have been squeezed from big box, from discounters on one end and then from specialty on the other, this is a really exciting time where they can. They can really lean in.
00:33:49 Chris
The fresh area is definitely a defensive moat for many of those regional grocers if they do this the right way. Of course, there’s dynamics involved in that, too. I mean, I can remember, you know, going back almost 15, 20 years at Target, always talking about fresh, so. But even though it matters, it’s really easy to screw it up or get it wrong. So what makes the fresh department so hard to execute, Jeremy?
00:34:13 Jeremy
They’re just fundamentally more complicated than the rest of the store. The margin of error is hours, not days, between a fuzzy strawberry versus a fresh one, a brown steak versus a appealing steak. So you just really need to get every detail right. And people are more discerning in those areas. Like, everyone picks up and examines the apple to the nth degree. So it’s just really, really critical. And I think where we see that go wrong is people often treat them all the same. They’re really all unique problems to solve.
00:34:53 Chris
You can’t treat fruit like you can steak. That’s what you’re saying.
00:34:57 Jeremy
Exactly. It matters. You need to get the doughnuts out early in the morning in the bakery, you need to be ready for the lunch rush. You need to kind of constantly do the culling in the produce section. They just have very different operating rhythms and customer expectations.
00:35:11 Chris
Yeah, for my days running super targets too. That takes a different level of expertise at the store level, too, to make it sure everything’s working correctly. Well, all right, if I’m a grocery executive listening to this, how should I be thinking about getting this right? What does good actually look like to.
00:35:25 Jeremy
To you?
00:35:25 Chris
Yeah.
00:35:25 Jeremy
So what we talk about in the article is really four things that are critical. The first is just having a team, top to bottom, to the organisation that is good at fresh. Right. So you think about is a store manager incentivized on the fresh department. What does the fresh training look like for store associates? You need that workforce so you can execute all of those things. The second is Process excellence. The more complex the area is, the more standardisation is required to execute it. Two things I’ll call out just from my experience. One, culling store associates. Often it’s just very counterintuitive that you pull product off of the floor to get more sales. That one takes a lot of extra discipline.
The other is back rooms. If the back room is a mess, it will show up on the sales floor in the quality, etc. So two areas that have been top of mind for me and my clients third bucket is scheduling. And I just really emphasise that a well placed hour of production, say in the deli department, can set up the department for success or failure for the entirety of the day. So it really matters on an hour by hour basis where you have folks either production, as I mentioned, or for customer service. And last one I’ll call out is just a bridge between stores and headquarters. I think too often there’s a bit of a communication gap between the two. And one, the stores will be able to tell you when things aren’t going well. So you want to have your finger on the pulse there. And also make sure that collaboration is in place between the store teams and, say, the merchandising teams.
00:37:16 Chris
All right, Jeremy, so let me put you on the spot here before I let you go. So if I’m a grocery CEO, let’s take it to the highest level now. And I’m listening to you. What’s the first thing I should do Monday morning around this area?
00:37:29 Jeremy
Yeah, I’m going to double down on the scheduling piece.
00:37:32 Chris
Scheduling?
00:37:33 Jeremy
Yeah. I have yet to see a retailer who consistently gets this right. There’s always pockets of folks who are, say, scheduling lesson on the weekends when people are there and it’s something that you can implement and affect really, really quickly. And it might just be a question of enforcing the rules that are already there. There might be some new design for how you think about scheduling, but even just some discipline around how it works today can make a massive, massive difference very, very quickly.
00:38:06 Chris
That’s great stuff and great advice. Thank you, Jeremy.
00:38:08 Jeremy
Thank you, Chris.
00:38:11 Laura
We’re moving on to headline number four for today. Moving from ChatGPT and LLMs to talking about QVC Group. We’re really all over the timeline today. QVC Group has disclosed that it anticipates issuing a going concern warning in its delayed annual report, citing $6.6 billion in debt. Wow. And ongoing negotiations with lenders. According to Retail Dive, QEC Group disclosed it cannot submit its 10k within the prescribed time period without unreasonable effort or expense, citing ongoing lender negotiations. The company carries approximately $6.6 billion in total consolidated debt, including a critical $2.9 billion credit facility maturing in October of this year, making near term refinancing the single most urgent priority for the business. The decline in QVC’s core business has been stark. QVC and HSN Home Shopping Network once reached over 90 million American homes at the company’s peak. By last September, the active consumer base had shrunk to 7 million people from 11.6 million as recently as 2020. Chris QVC has just issued a going concern warning. Is this the beginning of the end for Home shopping Television, or is there still a version of this business that can survive in the streaming and social commerce era?
00:39:37 Chris
Oh, wow. I think there’s probably still a version of it that survives, but it’s not qvc. I think it’s the end of qvc. I mean, I mean, it’s going to. The version of it that survives is called TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Let’s just call it like it is, you know, and I, I said this back in the day because qvc, I think it was last year, even the year before, they said they’re overtly pivoting towards social media. And I said at the time that it was game over then, like, that was the side to me, that was game over. And now it really is. I mean, sales, like you said, sales have gone from $15 billion in 2020 to $10 billion.
Somehow the debt got out of control, you know, as well, which, I mean, and it may still be tempting because I think there’s probably some people out there that are, they’re still tempted to say, oh, yeah, but they’re still doing $10 billion, Laura. Like $10 billion. A lot of volume. Yeah, but it’s $10 billion of typewriters. Because the brands and the influencers, they no longer need the services that QVC once provided. They can do that themselves. The business model just is no longer valid, in my opinion. So that $10 billion is just going to continue to shrink and shrink and shrink, and there’s no amount of refinancing or remodelling the business strategy that I think is going to save it in the long run. You might be able to still squeeze some juice out of that Lemon, but that $10 billion is going to ultimately end up being zero to me.
00:40:59 Laura
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s just a real bummer. I mean, in that 15 billion in 2020, I do we Assume that is like a little goosed by everybody sitting in front of their TVs. Like, I guess that’s the other thing. We’re even talking about a number that might not even be have been real quote unquote. But yeah, I really kind of pre.
00:41:16 Chris
TikTok explosion too, in the US. Yeah, TikTok exploded after that.
00:41:21 Laura
You’re right, you’re right. And that has become our shopping platform. Yeah, I mean, it’s a shame. I think it set the tone and the standard for what we see in social video shopping. But, you know, nobody has cable TV anymore. It’s your first nail on the coffin. Like, of course the customer base shrunk. You know, the Oscars are going to be on YouTube. Like they’re just. Everything in the base of the world that produce QVC is just gone. It does highlight for me the fact that live stream shopping, you know, as we were talking about five years ago, or even at the shop talk, where you and I were, we were still talking about, never came to the US in the same way that it. It has, you know, really lived and thrived in Asian countries, as you know, generalising there.
But it does succeed in very narrow worlds, like, you know, whatnot is in collectibles. I think there’s some sneaker platforms and stuff. So it does, you know, if we’re thinking in a productive way about qvc, not that it would survive, but it does bring me back to my questions about assortment. Like there’s just the model of just sort of having anything and everything and not having a platform like we’ll get again mentioned tjx, like a TJ Maxx store, you know, that people want to visit. It doesn’t seem, it doesn’t work. And so if you don’t have a clear value proposition with a specific assortment, then, you know, you’re out. So, yeah, this one’s just kind of a bummer.
00:42:50 Chris
Yeah, I think, I think. But I think it’s important what you’re bringing up because I think the way I think about what you just said is QVC wasn’t successful because of the live aspect of what was the programme. And QVC was successful in retrospect because it was the closest approximation we could get to doom Scrolling for product inspiration that you wanted to buy because that was the only outlet you had to go and occupy your time. But now it’s like Carter Jensen always talks about who’s on the show. A couple weeks ago it’s all about where do you spend your time? And now people are spending their time on what is a better experience in terms of how you can doom scroll in real time, whether it’s a live event or not, you have the option deciding that. And that, that’s really, I think, I never thought about that. I’ve never said that until you just mentioned that. But I think that’s really what, what has hit the business model more so than the actual live nature of, of what it did.
00:43:43 Laura
Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s, it’s. The old mass media is, is gone. And so the idea that everyone’s flipping through the channels, the same channels at the same time and stumbling on something and you know, I think you could still make the argument that they had stuff people wanted and they had good deals and stuff. And I think there were personalities at one time who maybe people like to watch. But yeah, when you, when you’ve splintered where people spend their time, you know, people aren’t going to the movies. It’s like mass media just isn’t a real. It’s the upheaval that we’ve been talking about for a long time. So yeah, I think it’s.
00:44:21 Chris
Yeah, yeah. And then with technology and AI, you just, you don’t need. The influencers are the people that actually bring the attention to the products. You don’t need that the qvc, you know, requires to do that. So.
00:44:34 Laura
Right.
00:44:34 Chris
So yeah, I think it’s just a tough game, but. All right, let’s close it out with headline five and let’s go back to Carrefour. But this time let’s go back to Carrefour in Israel because Carrefour Israel and A to Z Custom Made Solutions have announced a five year $50 million agreement to deploy 4,000 smart shopping carts across Carrefour Israel stores. One which is one of, if not the largest smart cart deployments in retail history according to Chain Storage. The rollout is set to begin in Q3, 2026. I see Laura already laughing. Across six Carrefour Israel flagship stores and will include end to end delivery of smart cart hardware, charging infrastructure, advanced software systems, full implementation training and long term support. Tell them what they’ve won, Bob.
ATC has been granted exclusive retail media and data monetization rights on the smart card platform for the duration of the deployment, giving the deal a recurring revenue model built on top of the hardware. Carrefour Israel expects approximately $35 million in profits tied to the agreement with additional operating with additional operational efficiencies and sales gains contributing beyond that figure. Laura, I have two questions to close out the Headlines today. One, are you buying? Number one, are you buying the size of this deal? I think I may know which way you’re leading on that. And two, what are your opinions on smart carts in general?
00:45:58 Laura
Well, I will say I did listen to a bit of you and Carter talking about smart cards. So I, I know that like, you know, maybe Omnitalk is like off smart carts right now. So I know that. Spoiler alert. So that’s part of why, why I’m, I’m laughing. I know not all of smart cards but I mean the first thing that this calls to mind for me is several years ago when Walmart made a deal for in store robots and like a thousand stores, which you know, for Walmart is huge, only to call it back a few years later, that is not to hate on robots. Some companies are still seeing success with that, but it’s just interesting.
00:46:34 Chris
Oh yes, we love robots at Arby Talk. Yes, we definitely love robots.
00:46:37 Laura
We love robots. But for this deal it seems like there’s so much bundled in it in terms of the amount of money and everything like that, it’s hard to know. Does all of this materialise? Obviously they’re focused on making the store more trackable because they’re really focused on the retail media and monetization points. So you know the answer, the short answer to this. Are you buying the size of this deal is like, I guess I don’t, I’m not really clear what’s in the amount, you know, and whether it’s actually going to happen because of my feeling about smart cards, which is they, they clearly haven’t proven an ROI at scale yet and that’s. I, I don’t think that we should expect them to.
And maybe this is in a backwards way actually saying I don’t think the size of the deal is good because my feeling with cashierless checkout from the beginning has been that it’s going to be one option for, that works for some shoppers and not for others. You know, some consumers, including me, still kind of hate self checkout the, the, the, the first iteration of this. Others love it, they think it’s more efficient. I know my husband’s somebody who like always wishes there was more scan and go type options and, and I always try and tell him this is no, there’s too much shrink, can’t do it. But you know, like there’s people who want different options and so I. Having it be your sole option feels like a lot of, you know, to put in that basket. And then I think with so many store tech solutions, they sound great and I would include robots in this, but operationally it’s so hard because every store is different. Shelves aren’t even. You know, it’s just all this stuff that doesn’t. That is much more difficult than it seems in the beginning.
You know, Amazon has only put the dash cart, which I think is still called the dash cart. They’re not even in other retailers. They’re only having them in whole food stores. And I feel like that’s telling because they’re in control of the whole food store. They could like change it to look like what they want. So when you say 4,000 across, I, I think there’s like 150 car, four stores in Israel. That’s like, that is a lot for it to be just an option. So, yeah, I’m sceptical. I’m curious what, what your smart cart POV is.
00:48:57 Chris
I’m sceptical of the deal because the one thing that stuck out to me is like you’re doing a six store pilot when you’ve signed a $50 million deal. Something. Yeah, something. Somebody’s jumping the gun on something or something is in the way this storey was written. So that’s, that’s why I was sceptical of it because you don’t pilot something and then invest 50 and say you’re already investing $50 million. So that’s weird. But I think what, I think what you’re hitting on here, and I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I mean, God, we talk about smart contract. I feel like every month, I think, I think the term smart card is just basically a disservice at the end of the day. Because you know what I like, what I like about the idea of a, of a smart shopping cart is really the two things that have proven to be valuable to the consumer and to the retailer. One, you can see your budget in real time as you shop, which I think is a valuable feature. And two, and this is actually beneficial for the consumer too. You can get served up ads while you shop. Right? That’s beneficial for the brands and the retailers.
That’s really what we’re talking about here. That’s, that’s where the value comes in. The idea of actually being able to exit the store checkout free. Like, I don’t think anyone really cares about that from an incremental value standpoint. So I feel like, I feel like this is doing custom made, which their solution actually looks like. You don’t need a whole cart redesign from what I, when I was perusing the site. It’s actually like it actually just bolts onto an existing cart and you can use it to do those things I talked about to provide those two elements of value to it. So like, I think the industry actually needs to go away from calling these things smart cards and let’s just call them what they are. Let’s just call it the retail media and couponing bolt on because that’s really what everybody wants to do and let’s just find the solution that does that in the best way possible. I mean, it sounds silly, but it’s so obvious to me when we talk about it like that. I’m just, I’m over smart cards. But I mean, I. Talk me off the ledge here, Laura. Yeah, no laughing in the background as I’m saying that. But like that’s really what we’re talking about.
00:50:52 Laura
Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think the bolt on has always seemed like the way it’s going to go. These whole carts with computer vision are like just insane investments for something that did not cost that much for the retailer to buy in its old form. So, yeah, that just doesn’t. That is the correct direction. The thing with, with retail media that I keep bumping up against is that that’s really great for the brands and the retailer. I’m just so curious to your point. At least if it has the budgeting aspect, then that’s going to make a consumer use it. But like what is the value for the consumer? Okay, the budgeting is good. Maybe it’s a little faster. You perceive it’s faster, which is actually all that really matters. And so that’s good because the retail media in store, I’m not like hating on it at all.
00:51:43 Chris
But that’s like the second thing from like 10 years ago, like how much. Yeah, pounded with.
00:51:48 Laura
Right, right, exactly. If that’s half of the proposition, I mean that’s the retailer and the brand proposition, that’s not the consumer proposition. So you have to have consumers adopt this. Which again just brings me back to like, yeah, make it an option if you want and if you want to get some ads and some coupons, like, have at it. But making it like the size of this implies that they want all their checkouts to be that. And I, it makes me a little more curious. I don’t know the Israel market that well, like, is there a real labour challenge here that we’re trying to. That’s like more extreme than what we see in the States or in, in Europe that like that we’re really having to deal with. Because then that would answer a little the question of like, why is this so huge? Or to your point, maybe it’s just weird and there’s no logic behind it being so huge.
00:52:36 Chris
But it also depends on how you pitch the pitch the deal too, right? Like, yes, pilot with the potential to get to 50 million too, you know.
00:52:44 Laura
Right, right, right, right, right.
00:52:45 Chris
We’ll see. All right, well that, God, that was such a great show. I love the show. All right, let’s get to the lightning round. Laura. All right, you live, as you said in the outset, you live and reside in Indianapolis. So what is one fun fact about Indianapolis that’s would surprise most of the our listeners?
00:53:02 Laura
Well, I would hope that most of our listeners watched some of the final four, so they got to see all the beauty shots of Indianapolis on TV this weekend, last past weekend. But maybe the, the sort of lesser known fact is that Kurt Vonnegut, the Author of Slaughterhouse 5among many other books, was born and raised in Indy. And so you get hints of that impact all over the city. There’s a mural downtown. There’s a restaurant, an excellent restaurant called Bluebeard that’s named after his book of the same name. There’s a movie, a art house movie theatre that is just like one of the coolest places in Indy that’s called the Cancan, which is also named for something in his book, the Cat’s cradle. So I would say if you are a visitor to India in any capacity, but particularly if you’re here for one of the many conventions or large sporting events that we do so well, you know, take the five minute Uber to get to Bluebeard or to Cancan to sort of like have your Kurt Vonnegut experience. There’s also a Kurt Vonnegut museum. I should, I can’t forget that.
00:54:04 Chris
So, yeah, of course there’s gotta be.
00:54:06 Laura
Yes. Gotta have a museum. So. Yeah.
00:54:10 Chris
Home of his birth too, probably.
00:54:11 Laura
Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, so just keep that in mind when you’re thinking about Indy along with all the other, the other great stuff.
00:54:20 Chris
All right, good to know, Good to know. You know, as far as well read as I like to think that I am, I have never read a Kirk Vonnegut book. So I need to, I need to go out and I actually, I’m looking for a new book to read. So I think you just solve that dilemma for me.
00:54:33 Laura
All right, well, so now I’ve got a question for Lightning Round. When we were chatting, you mentioned you’re a big movie fan. You listen to A lot of even movie podcasts. What is your favourite movie? You know, Bill Simmons has his podcast to steal from the. Called the Rewatchables.
00:54:48 Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:54:49 Laura
That might be different than your favourite, to be honest, but what, you know, answer one of those two questions, I guess. Your most rewatchable or your favourite?
00:54:56 Chris
Yeah, it’s actually, for me, it’s probably one of the same. So my. My most. My favourite, most rewatchable movie is the Sting with Robert and Paul Newman. I love that movie. Laura. Have you seen it?
00:55:07 Laura
I have not seen it. Oh, my God. But like, yes. And I have my next cultural.
00:55:12 Chris
You got to go run out. I gotta read. Run out and read Kurt Vonnegut. You gotta run out and watch this.
00:55:16 Laura
Yes, yes.
00:55:17 Chris
Especially since Redford just passed away. But, you know, it’s followed closely. Closely.
00:55:20 Laura
It’s a.
00:55:21 Chris
It’s a close one and two battle, Laura. So, like.
00:55:23 Laura
Okay.
00:55:23 Chris
Closely by Jaws. I think Jaws is just the perfect.
00:55:27 Laura
That’s another one that I haven’t watched. But I don’t know if I can. I know that’s a real. It’s a gap, but I also don’t know if I can. I know when I talk to, like, my mom saw it, like, when it came out and she said it just like she, like, couldn’t go in the ocean afterwards.
00:55:42 Chris
Yeah.
00:55:43 Laura
And so I’m a little like. I feel like it might change my life too much.
00:55:47 Chris
Yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I show it to my kids. They were like, dad, this is.
00:55:50 Laura
Oh, my God.
00:55:51 Chris
Yeah.
00:55:52 Laura
Yeah. I don’t think I could show it to.
00:55:54 Chris
Man, I can’t believe you haven’t seen that. Wow. Crazy. Okay. All right. Good. Good homework. Potentially.
00:55:58 Laura
Yes. You know, Very good.
00:55:58 Chris
You got to do it. You got to do what you’re. What you can. What you can stomach, though. Laura, too.
00:56:02 Laura
Yes.
00:56:02 Chris
I didn’t watch Johnson toss 15 because I was freaking out about it. I hate. I hate the ocean.
00:56:07 Laura
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I am not a huge ocean person anyway, so I’m sort of like, why would I add to that by seeing Jaws? I mean, greatest theme song. Maybe not ever. But it’s up there.
00:56:16 Chris
Yeah, but it’s up there. Yeah. Hence why you live in Indiana. All right.
00:56:19 Laura
Yeah.
00:56:19 Chris
The final season of the. So we’re staying in the movie theme. The final season of the Boys debuts this week on Amazon Prime. Will you be tuning in? And I’m curious if not. Why not? If you are not planning to tune in. Have you ever watched that show?
00:56:33 Laura
I have never watched it. I am familiar with it because it Has a huge cast. And I feel like in my pop culture surveying people are always like, oh, they’re on the Boys. So I’ve never watched it. I don’t, I don’t do a lot of prime shows. I will admit that. Just like, it’s not one of the places I spend my time. But I assume this means that you are a huge fan of the Boys.
00:56:55 Chris
I am, but I say that with trepidation. It is the most violent adult show I have ever watched in my entire life. Like I would Never let my 11 year old and 13. 13 Year old watch it because it is so violent.
00:57:08 Laura
And really it’s about superheroes.
00:57:11 Chris
Yeah, it’s like bad superheroes and like all the crazy stuff they can do. And it is, it is that more than once I’ve been going, should I be watching this?
00:57:21 Laura
Like this so more, more violent than like, than you like your typical HBO show, for instance.
00:57:26 Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:57:27 Laura
Really?
00:57:28 Chris
Yeah.
00:57:29 Laura
I mean, yeah.
00:57:30 Chris
Listeners might disagree with me and please do if you’re, if you’re paying attention, but yeah. Oh boy.
00:57:34 Laura
Yeah. No, that does not sell it for me. Needless to say. I will, I will let you have the wood.
00:57:40 Chris
I didn’t think I would.
00:57:42 Laura
No, no. All right. My last also like pop culture cultural related question is that Project Hail Mary and Artemis 2, of course have space on the brain for me. I just finished Project Hail Mary, the book, going to see the movie later this week. Would you ever go to space?
00:58:02 Chris
Oh, man. Oh, that’s such a good question too. Right now I’d say no. I don’t think I would. I don’t, I mean, I don’t even like going in the ocean. So why would I go into space? You know, that’s what I’m thinking. But, but like, I think if I, if I, God forbid, if I were to make it to like you know, 80. Yeah, then I’m going for sure.
00:58:21 Laura
Okay, then you’re sort of like just let it all. Yeah, got it.
00:58:24 Chris
Going to space.
00:58:26 Laura
No, absolutely not.
00:58:27 Chris
No. I didn’t think so based on this previous conversation.
00:58:29 Laura
No, no, I, I have a lot of, I think astronauts, they truly are like, you know, magical hero. People have loved watching the Artemis stuff. It’s amazing. They can see the moon and the Earth. They’ve had a lot of profound things to say. I know a lot of scientists who study space, like all this stuff, a lot of respect for it. But if I think too much about space and the vastness, it like physically makes my stomach hurt. Like I can’t. It’s it’s crazy. So, yeah, no, no space for me. I’ll. I’ll stick to the Ryan Gosling movie, so.
00:59:05 Chris
Yeah, Right. Yeah. The malfunctioning toilet on Artemis is enough to keep me out of space, too. I will say. But, you know, but hey. All right, producer Ella, let’s bring you in here again. Which. Which headline won the show for you this week? I’m thinking it was probably the area discussion, Am I right?
00:59:19 Laura
Absolutely. Yeah.
00:59:21 Ella
And I am honestly shocked between the debate between you guys, because I’m obsessed with this collab from a consumer perspective. I was reading the Instagram comments after they posted, and people are saying things from like, this is the best day of my life to this is why Love Aerie in. In a feed full of AI. Thank you. And I, wow, honestly want to be one of those commenters because I totally agree, 100%, I think.
00:59:48 Laura
Oh, it’s amazing.
00:59:49 Ella
Just a note about the difference between retouching and AI models, too.
00:59:55 Laura
Right? That’s true.
00:59:56 Ella
Because I think no matter what, no matter what, every photo, I mean, even, like my mother posting on Facebook, she’s retouching that photo.
01:00:04 Laura
Right, Right.
01:00:06 Ella
I think brands, it’s okay to retouch, but coming out clear publicly that these are real people and it’s not an AI generated body, especially with the younger generations filled with insecurities and comparison and all those things, I think it’s just a breath of fresh air. So I think that’s why they’re getting the feedback that they’re getting, because no one else has done this. And I mean, the talk, even on Omni Talk, it’s, you know, talking about AI every day, and it’s kind of noisy and you don’t know what’s right or wrong. So to hear this perspective from Aries, just so on brand. And Pamela Anderson, too.
01:00:42 Laura
Love her right.
01:00:43 Chris
Pe. I’m curious, like, I know you feel that way about ads. I can tell. Do you feel that same way about product imagery? On a website that uses a human.
01:00:53 Ella
Being, there’s a fine line. It depends on the product. First of all, I was a product design major, so when it comes to creating products and getting the imagery to just make someone want to buy that product, I mean, you might have to add a little AI in here, left or right. You don’t just, like, add a shadow, things like that. I don’t think there’s a problem with that at all. Especially because you want the consumer to think that’s the juiciest, awesomest product.
01:01:19 Laura
But when I’m.
01:01:20 Chris
Go ahead Keep going.
01:01:21 Ella
If the product is, you know, a shirt that I want to buy for my body that’s on a AI generated model, it’s not going to fit like that on me. So that’s where I have an issue.
01:01:31 Chris
Interesting. Which. Which. Which brings me into a whole host of other topics of, like, you know, how much are these AI fit finders going to take off then if, you know, you’re not confident in what you’re looking at or that kind of thing too? That’s.
01:01:40 Laura
Well, they’ve never taken off. I mean, that. That’s a whole other.
01:01:45 Chris
No, that’s a whole nother topic.
01:01:46 Laura
Yeah, yeah.
01:01:47 Chris
Which. Yeah, no, but that’s really interesting. So, like, so I was going to ask you, Ella, like, so if the. So. So you would be more likely to buy clothes at the gaps, let’s say, as an example, if you knew all the models styling their clothes on the Gap website were actual humans, potentially.
01:02:05 Ella
Yeah, I think so. And that. That’s also a fine line. It’s like, how do we know? And Aries saying, you know what? No matter what, this is a real person. We might, you know, edit a blemish. But if Gap, I. I have no idea if they’re using AI or not.
01:02:22 Chris
No, I don’t know either.
01:02:23 Ella
Yeah, it’s hard to know. So I feel like consumers. It’s. It’s great to hear someone say it. That’s my point.
01:02:30 Chris
Laura, any. Any final words on anything that we’ve talked about today, Laura?
01:02:35 Laura
I mean, it’s my only other thought on the product point. You were saying, like, oh, it’s good to add a shadow or something like that to make it something that you want to buy. We’ve always had, like, food stylists. I just think about how they make hamburgers look so good, you know, and so we’ve always had some doctoring of some kind that is not what a McDonald’s hamburger looks like when you get it. So, you know, you could make the case. And you’re right. I think if there’s not a human involved, you. It’s. It’s a different storey and it’s just a product. But even then, you know, I just start to think, like, don’t we have. We have rules about that? You can’t have false advertising either. So it’ll be interesting what happens with that if we get AI really involved. So.
01:03:17 Chris
God, this is such a great. I love doing this show. Like, yeah, what are you doing?
01:03:21 Laura
Food.
01:03:21 Chris
Like, can you use it? Can you use AI to show what your hamburger looks like? I’m sure people are doing it and they’re pretty well and none of us know because you’re right. Like, we already know that it doesn’t look like that anyway. That’s a great point. Oh, my God. All right, well, Laura, we’re going to have to have you back. Happy birthday today to Patricia Arquette, Robin Wright, and to the man who gave us Hank Schrader in Breaking Bad, the great Dean Norris.
And remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, make it omni Talk. Our Fast5 podcast is the quickest 5 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 we all take a tonne 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 omnitalk retail. Laura, if people listening want to get in touch with you, reach out for any reason, what’s the best way for them to do that?
01:04:19 Laura
I would say find me on all of our favourite platform, LinkedIn, but make sure you search for the Laura Kennedy in Indianapolis. Surprisingly not. It is somewhat of a common name, so. But you’ll see me. There’s, there’s pictures on there, so, yeah, find me there.
01:04:37 Chris
Yeah. It avoids getting somebody in Dublin with the same.
01:04:40 Laura
Exactly right.
01:04:40 Chris
For sure.
01:04:41 Laura
Exactly.
01:04:42 Chris
All right, well, thank you, Laura. Thank you so much for joining us today. It was a real pleasure. And until next week, on behalf of all of us on Omnitok, Rita, on behalf of Laura, producer Ella and myself, as always, be careful out there.
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.