Hello Omni Talk Fans! This week’s Fast Five is dominated by, of all things, a $9 billion family-owned grocer crying uncle, and I’m not being dramatic. That’s basically the plot of our lead story.
Ben Miller, my brother from another mother across the Atlantic, once again joined me fresh off England’s World Cup win, and between the two of us, we covered everything from grocery M&A to decorative geese (yes, you read that right).
Here’s a taste of what Ben I got into in this week’s Fast Five Podcast:
- Kroger buying Giant Eagle for $1.65 billion: Ben and I went back and forth on whether this is a smart move or just “Kroger being Kroger.”
- AWS betting $1 billion on embedding AI engineers inside retailers: Ben coined the phrase of the week here: “the great concentration in action.” We dig into why the AI arms race is now about who can pick a model, go with it, and deploy it before everyone else.
- Lowe’s letting store associates sell marketplace items, decorative geese included: Ben and I are both fully on board with this one. Home improvement is a high-touch category, and this is smart omnichannel execution, plain and simple.
- New Jersey banning surveillance pricing (and pausing electronic shelf labels): This is the one that got me fired up. I’m all for protecting consumers, but conflating ESLs with surveillance pricing is, in my very direct opinion, downright ridiculous. No grocer is changing prices while you’re standing in the aisle.
- Amazon’s Alexa giving shoppers a full year of price history: Does this make Amazon look more trustworthy, or does it just invite more scrutiny? Ben and I think it’s a smart, low-risk experiment either way.
There’s all that, plus Producer Ella even jumped in to crown Lowe’s her favorite headline of the week and to up the ante on the decorative geese discussion..
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 goose with a sense of humor?
A wise quacker.
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.