Hello Omni Talk Fans!
As many of you know, I’ve spent the better part of a decade building Omni Talk on a simple premise: the best retail commentary comes from people who’ve actually done the job, not from outside observers guessing at what happens inside the building. So when my old friend Chris Niesen asked me to help him launch a new show built on that same idea, I didn’t hesitate.
Chris and I go back almost 25 years, to our days at Gap. He was running visual merchandising at the Mall of America flagship, I was at headquarters fielding his calls for extra denim, and neither of us had any idea we’d end up in the same room years later at Target headquarters, let alone co-hosting a podcast together in 2026. But that’s retail. It’s a small industry, and the people who care enough to keep walking stores tend to keep running into each other.
The new show is called Making Space — Real Time, presented by the Association of Retail Consumer Professionals (aka ARC) in partnership with our ever expanding Omni Talk Retail Podcast Network. Chris Niesen has spent the past couple of years walking thousands of stores and writing about more than 450 retailers and brands, and the show is built entirely on that field work.
Store by store, format by format.
I got to be his first guest host, and we used the maiden episode to dig into three stories that all, in one way or another, come down to execution on the floor.
#1 — Michaels is making a bet, and I want it to work
Michaels opened its third next-gen store in Rogers, Arkansas, building on earlier tests in Ohio and Texas. It’s leaning into the knit-and-sew shop it picked up from Jo-Ann’s IP after that bankruptcy, a rebuilt party shop, custom framing, and a Pinterest trend bar. On paper, it’s a smart, surgical strategy — i.e. jump into the voids left behind when competitors like Jo-Ann and Party City exited the market. Chris Niesen spent four years at Party City, so the party category is personal for him, and I’ve watched Michaels make good strategic bets before without fully seeing them land in the store.
This new format is different. There’s a welcome center at the front. Balloons and party goods are finally merchandised together instead of scattered. Knit-and-sew has moved from a tucked-away corner to a prominent spot up front. It’s a real departure from the tired, cluttered fleet most of us are used to walking into.
The open question, however, is whether Michaels can sustain that experience across a fleet of a thousand stores without the staffing and training model that has to sit underneath it. Chris and I have both seen this movie before. Back in my Target days, I remember a Borders closing near one of my stores and headquarters having zero plan for how to capitalize on it. Having a strategy is one thing. Getting the entire organization aligned to execute it consistently, day in and day out, is the actual work. Three test stores is a great start. The next 12 months will tell us whether it’s more than that.
#2 — TJX’s rare miss says less about pricing than about the shelf
TJX had an unusual quarter. Marmaxx — TJ Maxx and Marshalls — comped just 1%, down from 6% the quarter before, while HomeGoods, Canada, and international all held strong at 6% or higher. CEO Ernie Herman attributed it to what wasn’t in the assortment mix, not to traffic or pricing.
I don’t doubt there’s real external pressure here. Ross comped up over 10%. Burlington is improving its in-stocks and reinvesting tariff savings into lower prices. Five Below is growing net sales more than 20%. Walmart and Target are both cutting prices on thousands of items. Off-price and value retail are getting more competitive, not less.
But when Chris Niesen walks TJ Maxx and HomeGoods, which he does rather constantly, he sees something else too. HomeGoods is consistently dialed in. Strong in-stocks, sharp seasonal merchandising, messaging with actual personality tied to the calendar. TJ Maxx isn’t doing a bad job, but it’s not operating at that same level. Apparel is genuinely harder to merchandise well than home goods, and that’s a fair caveat. Still, when one part of your business is clearly outperforming another on execution, that’s worth a hard look inward before assuming it’s purely a buying miss.
One quarter is a blip. A second one starts a different conversation.
#3 — Target’s Beauty Studio has real promise and real clutter
Target opened its Beauty Studio in more than 600 stores, taking over the space that used to house Ulta Beauty inside its stores. Target now owns the assortment and service model outright. More than 90 prestige brands, 60 of them new to Target, with dedicated beauty advisors on the floor.
Chris and I both walked it opening week. There’s real energy: a fragrance minibar, rotating trial fixtures at the front corners, entry points that are actually open instead of blocked off by backstock carts the way the old Ulta shop often was.
What concerns me is what happens after the launch energy fades. The in-store marketing package felt like it needed to be cut by 70 or 80% to be something a store team could actually execute consistently. The color scheme and signage were all over the place instead of organized the way a merchant like Judy Bell would want it. And when I asked a beauty advisor who was behind the “Editor’s Picks” section, the answer was a shrug toward headquarters, which isn’t the kind of story that builds trust with a customer standing in a prestige beauty shop.
The real test will come long after month one. It will come in month six or month nine, when we’ll know whether this becomes a genuine habit or just a strong opening weekend.
Why this show, and why now
All three of these stories point at the same underlying truth: strategy is the easy part. Execution — staffing it right, training people well, keeping the shelf edited and in stock, making sure the in-store experience matches what the press release promised — is where retail actually gets won or lost. That’s the lens Chris Niesen has built this show around, and it’s the same lens I’ve tried to bring to Omni Talk for almost a decade.
New episodes of Making Space Real Time come out every other week. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, or head to youtube.com/omnitalkretail to watch. And if you want more of Chris’s store-by-store writing, his Retail in Real Time Substack is also worth the subscribe.
Be careful out there,
– Chris, Chris and the entire Omni Talk Team
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.