In this week’s Omni Talk Retail Fast Five, sponsored by A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Quorso, Veloq, and new Fast Five sponsor SmartScout, Chris Walton welcomes his good friend Richard McKenzie into the guest hosting chair for the very first time. And Richard came prepared. Very prepared. As in, he trained AI to talk like Chris and spent the week getting challenged by “Claude Chris” prepared. From there, the two are off and running, with plenty of UK vs. U.S. banter, a little Ted Lasso, some very strong retail opinions, and an IKEA story that officially brings the show to an 11.
When they do get around to the retail news, Chris and Richard debate whether McDonald’s can really turn its screens into a billion-dollar media opportunity, why Sephora at M&S could be a 1 + 1 = 3 partnership, whether DoorDash’s “mall in your pocket” could become a legitimate threat to Amazon, which of Walmart’s new light-up digital shelf label capabilities could create the most value, and why IKEA’s small-format experiment may be fundamentally at odds with what makes IKEA, well, IKEA.
00:04:35 – McDonald’s Bets On A $1B Media Network
00:11:00 – Sephora At M&S Comes To 100 UK Stores
00:17:05 – DoorDash Builds Its “Mall In Your Pocket”
00:24:21 – Walmart Lights Up Its Digital Shelf Labels
00:31:26 – IKEA Rethinks Its Small-Format Store Strategy
00:38:01 – Lightning Round: Chariots Of Fire, Ted Lasso, IKEA Fails And French Retail
The episode closes with a lightning round that somehow gets from Chariots of Fire to which Ted Lasso character would make the best retail CEO, before Richard tells an IKEA assembly story that Chris definitely was not prepared for. Then it’s off to France as the two debate which French retailer they’d most like to have closer to home.
Be careful out there,
The Omni Talk team
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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.