Hello Omni Talk Fans! This week’s Fast Five was officially our hottest episode ever, and I mean that literally. Hackers in France cranked supermarket freezers up to 122 degrees, which may make this the first cyberattack in history to accidentally make a Hot Pocket.
To help me make sense of it all, I broke in not one but two first-timers from the A&M Consumer and Retail Group: Cory Painter and Anshu Prasad. No breaks for the newbies, and they handled it like seasoned pros.
Here’s a taste of what we discussed this week:
- Albertsons pulling its guidance — Everything is on the table, from banners to capital allocation. I asked Anshu to rank-order whether Albertsons rights the ship or gets broken up, and then we got into whether 22 banners is a 20th-century holdover.
- Online grocery hitting a record — Online now captures one in every five grocery dollars, and delivery is eating pickup’s lunch. That 20% threshold is historically where retail verticals start to crack.
- French supermarket fridges getting hacked — Cory and Anshu explained why retail cybersecurity had been laser-focused on corporate networks while stores, DCs, and connected freezers sat wide open, and why the fix might actually make physical retail healthier.
- ChatGPT launching virtual try-on — If you’re a head of product at a retailer, should you hit pause on all front-end development right now? You’ll hear why “activity over accomplishment” is the trap to avoid.
- Happy Returns landing in TikTok Shop — I first met Happy Returns founder David Sobie when he was basically running the business off a card table in a California mall. Seeing where they are now is pretty darn compelling.
There’s all that, plus SmartScout’s Scott Needham joins us for 5 Insightful Minutes on who’s really winning on Amazon and TikTok Shop, and why if you’re a creatine brand growing 50%, you’re actually losing.
Oh, and if you want to know which guest bought a five-foot stuffed tiger during a late-night shopping session, or why Karate Champ is the true OG of fighting games, you’ll just have to listen.
Listen to This Week’s Fast Five Podcast
Be careful out there,
— Chris and the entire Omni Talk team
P.S. I used to wonder where the sun went at night . . .
Then it dawned on me.
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.