Hello Omni Talks Fans! This week’s Fast Five is coming to you live from Shoptalk Europe in Barcelona, where the Pope is also in town, so one could say this week’s podcast was pretty blessed.
Blessed in the sense that I was also joined by Gartner’s super analyst for digital commerce and supply chain, Chap Achen. Chap is a fellow Minnesotan and a longtime listener of the show, and it turns out he’s been getting his retail news from us while riding his bike for years. I take that as the highest possible endorsement (though, kids, please don’t try riding your bikes and listening to our podcast at home).
Here’s a taste of what Chap and I sunk our teeth into this week:
- Walmart delivering Subway meals with your groceries:Â Chap and I both agreed this is a shot fired straight at Uber Eats and DoorDash. Walmart’s delivery flywheel is humming, and when you pair restaurant delivery with drones and a growing marketplace, we start to get into super app territory.
- Amazon Fresh goes same-day in London:Â This is actually one of the rare cases where the U.S. got something before Europe. The UK online grocery market is mature and Amazon will have to steal share, but the long-game logic here is the same death-by-a-thousand-cuts playbook we know well.
- New York passes the One Fair Price Act:Â Surveillance pricing is now legislated against in three states. Chap had the quote of the week on this one. Chap said, “It’s sad we need a law to stop retailers from doing something smart retailers would have avoided anyway.”
- Amazon’s new AI visual search features:Â I’ve been covering Amazon visual search since the first video I ever shot for Omni Talk. These new capabilities, e.g. real-time AI-generated images and shop-by-style collages, are genuinely exciting, but Chap raised a sharp point about returns risk. Producer Ella also had some very on-brand intel about searching for “coastal grandma rain jackets.” I’ll just leave it at that.
- The Mall, aka the “Spotify of online shopping”:Â I give it zero chance. But the reason we covered it is that the problem it’s trying to solve is real, and the bigger platforms are going to eat its lunch trying to solve it themselves.Â
There’s all that, plus Duvo CEO Tom Cupr joined us live from Shoptalk Europe for five insightful minutes on the biggest mistake retailers are making with AI right now, and Chap and I got into starting quarterbacks and Spanish architecture in this week’s lightning round.
Listen to This Week’s Fast Five Podcast
Be careful out there,
— Chris and the entire Omni Talk team
P.S. What do you call a happy warehouse?
A fulfillment center.
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.