Amazon Wants To Be The Web's Search Bar, Ulta's Back & Vizio TVs Are Now Walmart Stores | Fast Five

Suddenly this has gone from buy for me to shop direct.

How many shopping carts have you seen in a creek down by your house?

This is the hype of all hype announcements.

There is no category that performs better than beauty on TikTok shops.

Walmart is broadening out the amount of time with which they can capture an individual's attention.

I said I produce podcasts all the time.

Told you a lie.

Hello and welcome to the OmniTalk Retail Fast 5.

This week a surprise guest returns after what I think is a six year hiatus.

But before we get to today's episode, let's take a quick break to hear from all our wonderful partners who make this podcast possible each and every week.

This episode of The OmniTalk Retail Fast 5 is brought to you by the A and M Consumer and Retail Group.

The A and M Consumer and Retail Group is a management consulting firm that tackles the most complex challenges and advances its clients, people and communities toward their maximum potential.

CRG brings the experience, tools and operator like pragmatism to help retailers and consumer products companies be on the right side of disruption and Miracle, the catalyst of Commerce.

Over 450 retailers are opening new revenue streams with marketplaces, dropship and retail media and succeeding.

With Miracle, you can unlock more products, more partners and more profits without the heavy lifting.

So what's holding you back?

Visit miracle.com to learn more.

That's fantastic.

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Visit corso.com to see Intelligent management in motion and Infios.

At Infios, they unite warehousing, transportation and order management into a seamless, adaptable network.

Infios helps you stay ahead from promise to delivery and every step in between.

To learn more, visit infios.com and Ocampo Capital Ocampo Capital is a venture capital firm founded by retail executives with the aim of helping early stage consumer businesses succeed through investment and operational support.

Learn more@ocampo capital.com and finally, Valoc Veloc is a proven e grocery technology built by grocers for grocers.

Exactly the type of technology we like here at Omnitalk.

They unite proprietary software with right size automation to make same day delivery profitable.

To learn more, visit Veloc.com that's V E L O Q.com Carter Jensen welcome back to Omnitalk.

How long has it been, my friend?

How long has it been since.

Well, you said six years.

I said eight years.

I don't know.

Is it less or more?

More or less?

I don't.

Chris, I don't even have any idea, but I'm just glad that I'm here.

Well, I know it's.

I know it's less than eight years because, actually, believe it or not, Carter, like, you started this podcast with us eight years ago almost to the day, because we went into my basement in March.

Fun story.

To start off today's show, Carter Carter texted me or called me.

I'd met him a couple times, and he was like, dude, you should start a podcast.

And so I was like, okay, you want to help me produce a podcast?

And you were like, yeah, sure, I'll help you.

And we went down into my basement one night, and in March of 2000, was it 2018.

And we were.

First episode.

Yeah.

And the first episode was me.

Do you remember?

It was like, me talking for, like, five minutes.

Well, I. I have something to come clean on.

To tell you.

Yeah.

Okay.

So when I was texting you, obviously I was, you know, six years ago, I was probably, like, 18 years old.

Right?

Don't do the math here.

Yeah, but.

But I was like, you should do a podcast.

And I also told you a lie.

I said, I produce podcasts all the time.

I've done this a million times.

No problem.

I had no idea how to do a podcast.

Zero idea.

So I'm like, okay, I'm going to figure this out.

I'm going to, like, buy some microphones on Amazon because I think I told you, I'm like, I got all the gear.

Yeah, don't worry.

You did.

And so I bought some microphones on Amazon.

And I was so scared sitting in your basement because I'm like, you were.

I.

Well, I hope this records.

Like, I'm like, I hope this works, right?

Because I, you know, you're sitting in, you know, my dusty old computer and GarageBand or whatever we recorded in back in the day.

I was like, it looks like it's working, working.

And you know what?

Look at you now.

Look at this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was crazy because, like, the first time we did it was like, me just talking for, like, five minutes about the headlines.

Like, the five headlines I thought were important.

And then we did what was originally called the after the five.

Do you remember that?

Where you, I and Anne would talk about the headlines collectively and debate them.

And then we suddenly realized, like, people like that More than they like, listen to me drone on each week.

So, like, here we are.

That's why I went to the guest host format.

And now here you are again after all this time.

So remind, remind the folks, the loyal, loyal listeners will definitely remember who you are.

But for those listening, remind everyone of who Carter Jensen is and why I am so excited to have you back.

Yeah, well, I met Chris and Ann and the old crew back in the day and I was working in like agency world, right?

Creative agency world, but like only focused on retail clients.

And so I wanted to find a way to double down on that.

And I got to know Chris and Anne and the crew early on as it kind of started.

Chris was just starting Omnitalk, that whole world, and I said, I want to know these guys better.

And so we went on like a two year run, Chris, like all the way up through the beginning of COVID We had the space, we had the studio, we had all that.

And then I jumped in and started leading E commerce acceleration for General Mills.

And General Mills is like, okay, so you want to talk critically about all of our customers publicly on a podcast?

And they're like, yeah, no, that's not going to happen.

I'm like, okay, fair.

So I had to resign from the Omnitalk world and I still have that episode sitting on my desktop.

You guys, like, I think you all, you gave me like black shirts because that's what I always used to wear or something like that.

It was, it was a great send off gift.

Yeah, yeah.

And what are you doing now?

So I left Mills six months ago now and did a bunch of different roles through that, through E comm capabilities across the globe, which was a ton of fun.

Learned so much.

And then I left there to join the startup world.

So I work for a company called the Uncommon Business now.

And ultimately everyone hears all this hype around AI, but no one knows what to do with it.

And we help businesses of all size figure it out.

And it is a rocket ship that I'm just holding on tight to.

Yeah, yeah.

And I can attest firsthand, being at Shoptalk, recording this from my hotel room at the W in Mandalay Bay, that what you just said about no one knowing what to do about AI is definitely prevalent at this conference.

Man, there's so much conflicting information which we're probably going to get to in some of today's headlines, so love it.

So, Carter, I'm excited to have you back.

This is kind of an eight year anniversary celebration from the start of the OmniToc Fast Five podcast.

So without further ado in today's podcast, we've got news on Ulta Beauty announcing its Tick Tock Shop launch.

Walmart and Vizio D deepening their ad integration.

Instacart teaming up with Nvidia to turn its capercarts into in store edge AI devices.

I can't wait to talk about that.

And Amazon and Winn Dixie expanding their grocery delivery partnership into Tampa Bay, while Amazon separately also rolled out one hour delivery to hundreds of additional American cities.

But we begin today with what could just be even more important.

Amazon news.

Wow.

Unbelievable.

All right, headline number one.

Amazon has expanded its Shop Direct feature to accept third party product feeds, making it dramatically easier for brands to appear in Amazon search results and its Rufus AI shopping assistant, even though they don't sell a single product on Amazon's own Marketplace.

According to ChainStorage, and as many of you loyal listeners likely remember, ShopDirect originally launched as a beta in February 2025, allowing Amazon to surface products from outside its marketplace in search results and and to link customers to the brand's website to complete the purchase.

It now includes over 100 million products from more than 400,000 merchants.

With this announcement, Amazon is now enabling third party feed providers to automatically sync a merchant's catalog, pricing and inventory in real time with Shop Direct.

Customers viewing Shop Direct products have two options.

They can tap Shop Direct to be sent to the merchant's website or tap buy for me.

You can to have Amazon's agentic AI complete the purchase on their behalf using their stored Amazon address and credit card.

Amazon stated vision around this initiative could not be more frank and not be more clear.

Carter.

Quote, Whenever a customer asks for a specific brand or product on Amazon, we can help them find it and buy it, even if that product is only available in another store.

End quote.

All right, Carter, I'm going to start you off well on this one because you without a doubt are the man.

You are my go to for all quote unquote future of E commerce questions.

So here it is.

How smart is this move from Amazon to accept third party feeds into its Shop Direct functionality?

And would you advise brands and retailers to feed the Amazon beast?

Smart versus cruel, right?

Like I think the reality here and the story goes into depth around some retailers haven't even opted in and start showing up on on Amazon, right?

From an Amazon perspective, it's brilliant.

Why don't you use the might that you have, right?

You know, even when we were talking, I'm going to say 100 years ago or whatever you still looked at the first click for shopping is over 50% on Amazon.

And I know for me from a personal perspective, Amazon's where I go for everything.

And if I don't have to go scrape a bunch of random websites or search around for a random D2C store and I can have Amazon just do it all with my safe card like it sounds great for Amazon and the consumer.

Now the question is in the, you know, you think about smaller brands that don't have a presence on Amazon, right?

There's, you know, the argument would be, hey, you're already spending a ton of money on meta ads.

You're already, you know, spending a ton of money on Google search.

Why don't you just jump into Amazon where the customer actually is?

Okay, cool.

But what are you giving up, right?

What's the data that you're giving up?

And Lord knows that this is a play for data and for ad dollars for Amazon.

Right.

You know, why not just take the entire retail marketing world and just put under your umbrel you if you can.

Right?

And I just think that this is Amazon just shifting its weight around finding ways to can not cannibalize but actually consume the rest of the market though still small.

Yeah, Carter, help me understand this too because like why, why if I'm a brand would I elect to do this?

Why would I elect to do this?

Like, why wouldn't I just go and directly sell on Amazon to begin with if I'm going to allow this to happen through this new, this new feed setup?

I think the, like, the reality is you look at a lot of these like D2C brands and they're very particular about their web experience.

You know, they have their brand, they have all this stuff.

And so I think they're a little particular and often they don't want to be on Amazon.

It degrades that brand story.

It degrades some of those types of things.

I think it's kind of like they

want to have their cake and eat it too kind of thing.

Yeah, I think, well, I think the other thing too is, is that, you know, there's a lot of Amazon experts here, but the three piece setup is still really complicated in my opinion.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and that's me who's been in the Amazon world 1pm 3p.

I mean try to set up a brand on 3p and it's like brand registry.

Like what?

Like, like how much cut are you take?

Like you have all this stuff, right?

Yeah.

And so I, I still think That's a pretty big barrier.

Now, those who have become experts in it and can navigate that obviously is a huge multiplier for you if you can actually set it up correctly and actually start to, you know, keep your margins even when Amazon takes its cut.

But I do think that it is.

There's a lot of brands out there that just don't even want to touch it.

Yeah, I think, I think that's fundamentally what's here.

Because the other interesting wrinkle of this story, if you look back at the history of it, like, suddenly this has gone from buy for me to shop direct.

And I think that's a marketing positioning, right, Carter, like, of, of what you're saying to the brands that they want to be able to, you know, sell with their permission, so to speak, instead of selling without their permission.

And so that's what they're trying to do here because they're like, yeah, it's probably hard.

Amazon, you can still get the benefit of us.

For those that want to still shop your website, yeah, they can still come to your website, they can still browse, they can see all your new cool DTC product.

But philosophically, it's really no different at the end of the day in terms of how this is ultimately going to work.

And the big question though is, and we don't know this from the headlines or what's been shared, is like, you know, what kind of data sharing is going on from the first party data for the brands that get entered to, you know, that come to their website from, you know, the Amazon or that get purchase directly through the buy for me function of Amazon.

Like, do the brands actually get that data at all?

I have no idea.

But you know that those are the big questions here.

But I think the marketing positioning of this, of going to shop direct is really fascinating.

Yeah, it's wild.

And I wouldn't be surprised if stories to come are about how now they're leveraging that traffic data to now sell ads directly to these brands.

Right?

Because you're.

They're basically saying, like, why spend money on Meta?

Why spend money on Google?

Just spend it with us here at Amazon.

Because we're already driving X amount of traffic.

What if we put a zero behind that?

How much would you pay for that?

And all of a sudden this is a huge ad play just to continue the ad dominance in the retail media landscape that Amazon already has.

Right?

That's even the and one ad play.

Because they're going to get more ads even just from being able to surface this up on their site because they can 100% getting ads to these too.

So yeah, it's amazing.

All right, I'm going to take on headline number two.

Here's the deal.

Ulta Beauty.

Their CEO Keisha Steelman announced that Ulta is launching on TikTok shops while delivering Q4 results showing an 11.8% year over year jump in net SAL sales to $3.9 billion.

Steelman also is saying that Ulta has gotten their quote Chris swagger back.

Wow.

Swagger.

Yeah.

So according to glossy Ulta launched in TikTok shops on March 17, they brought 15 brands across the makeup, skincare, hair, fragrance, along the more, along with 25 other exclusive bundles.

Critically, the launch was anchored in this only at Ulta exclusivity.

Right.

That brought this unique spin to the TikTok shop.

The company also cited a 15 Ulta app growth and launched more than 100 new brands in 2025 as part of their broader turnaround momentum.

Chris, here's the deal.

Alta CEO says the company got its swagger back, as I said.

But on a scale of 1 to 10, how much swagger do you really think Alta has right now?

And is TikTok Shops truly the right move for the specialty beauty retailer, or is it going to disrupt and degrade ultimately their core business?

That's my question.

Chris, what do you think?

All right, Carter, you're making it hard for me here to start the show.

Yeah, I mean, so two part question.

So I think, I think Alta, I think Alta definitely has its swagger back.

I think, I think CEO Keisha Stillman's peacocking a little bit here, and rightly so, because they've done a great job and they've made some, they've made some tough strategic choices here over the years as well, which I'll probably talk about in answering the second question.

And so, you know, the second question is TikTok Shop, you know, the right move here or is it a distraction?

I 100% think it's the right move.

You know, the difference between TikTok, I'm curious to get your take on this too, Carter, but the difference to me between being on the TikTok Shop marketplace and being on the Amazon marketplace, because you could make the argument of like, if you're going to do one, why wouldn't you just do both of them?

But the difference for me with TikTok Shop is it's about inspiration, it's about social, true social commerce versus just search and buy, which is always the delineation that I think is important for people to think about.

And so that's what you're doing with TikTok Shop.

You want to be at the place where inspired traffic is being inspired to buy products.

And that is particularly important in the beauty.

So 100% Ulta should be on TikTok's marketplace and exploring how best to utilize it.

So I like also that they're starting off slow.

They're gonna test the waters with exclusive, you know, kind of exclusive collections and products, and then they'll decide what to do from there.

And that's a really smart way to think about it from a smart retailer who knows when to call its bets back.

Even, like, and that's what I alluded to at the front.

Like, they made the big call to pull out a target.

Like, it wasn't going to work for them to the way they want.

That was a huge capital investment and a huge partnership that they just said, nope, we're not.

Now we're going to fund more attainable, more easily achieved revenue growth through means like this.

This is one of them.

I'm sure they've got a whole host of ideas.

And so Keisha Steelman, yeah, she's doing a great job of putting the.

Putting the chips on the table in terms of where they're going to pay off the best.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of this.

And I was.

I've gone real deep in the TikTok shops world.

I was actually.

We launched one of the first food and Bev TikTok shop experiences when I was at General Mills.

And.

And the reality is this is that there's no category that performs better than beauty on TikTok shops.

And it's for many of the reasons that you talk about, plus some traditional reasons of E commerce, if you think about it, right?

So beauty, it's all about inspiration.

But also, like them, where they are for an emerging consumer market like this is where these consumers are getting that inspiration, are making their purchasing decisions.

And we're seeing continuously, especially in this category of beauty, that TikTok Shops people want to buy.

Like there is no barrier to entry there.

You're inspired, you're targeted.

All of a sudden, purchasing is a click away.

And then I mentioned the more traditional side of things.

There's no better category than beauty to ship.

E commerce, right?

You got margins, small, lightweight products.

And then back to your point, when you can be in an immersive video experience compared to a dimly lit target aisle, like, which better way is it to bring this new brand, your brand, to life?

And keep it to be a premium experience like that.

That's really like when you look at where you put your chips, I would put it on TikTok shops all day versus a retailer where you can't actually control that experience.

Yeah.

Your return on assets are going to be a lot higher.

You know Carter, I never thought about this until you, until I just started listening to you talk there too.

How does TikTok TikTok shops marketplace, how ultimately defensible is that against the rise of the GPTs and the LLMs?

Like, you know, how, how, how will that marketplace factor into things compared to Amazon, where Amazon is definitely under threat from the activities that's happening there?

Is.

Is TikTok shop relatively more immune to some of those threats or how do you think about that?

Yeah, 100%.

I think you have to think about what the actual shopping experience is.

Right.

So.

Right.

You know, you put large language models, whatever shopping experience you want and Amazon doesn't love it because you're not sitting browsing their site.

Right.

You're not, you're going right to the pdp.

You're making that purchase or maybe even making the purchase on a third party site like ChatGPT or whatever it might be.

Right?

Yeah.

With TikTok, like first of all, the amount of time younger consumers are spending on these platforms is just insane.

Right?

If you look at back some of the social commerce stuff we talked about six years ago, right.

Like I mean you're not sitting in Target cruising on Amazon, right.

You're sitting on TikTok looking at all your friends and inspirational content from your favorite brands that you can buy before you actually hit the checkout at a more traditional store.

Right.

And so I think when you look at that experience, this is defensible because you're not getting that immersive video experience in ChatGPT.

Now to say that, you know that won't come around and there won't be some AI driven, you know, experience on that.

Sure, maybe.

But you know, the other thing you got to remember is, is that the Tick Tock algorithm is one of the best in the world that's serving you the exact content that you want when you want it.

And yes, you could say retail media is the same thing, but it's very different.

When I see a banner ad on a PDP or on a search results page versus seeing this beautiful content come to life full bleed on my phone between some of my best friends and the most entertaining content that I look at all day.

So I do think it's Defensible.

Yeah.

And for that reason it's a very clairvoyant move, you know, when you think about it.

And there's nothing to say too that TikTok couldn't go and evolve in a way similar to what the LLMs are doing too.

You know, Facebook's trying to do that.

But Facebook, for some reason, you know, basically left their marketplace business, you know, for the most other than like the traditional third party marketplace business.

But, you know, and I've been trying to get that back to a degree, but.

Were you gonna say anything else, Carter?

Yeah, I was just gonna say like, I think the other thing is, is that there are categories that don't work in social commerce.

I think we've seen that, like there's not this huge boom like grocery, I found out firsthand is not something you use on social commerce for a variety of very good reasons.

Margins aren't good enough.

You don't have the complete basket.

The shopping journey is just different.

Right.

So to say that social commerce is this massive home run that no one's been seeing isn't right anymore.

But for specific categories, in this case, beauty hits on every single checkbox that's needed, inspiration, easy to purchase, one off purchases, easy to ship, like you're good to go.

And so I just think like this again is a home run.

Yeah, it's interesting way to think about TikTok too.

Yeah, and I misspoke too.

I meant to say Facebook, you know, shut down its traditional, you know, B2C marketplace.

Marketplaces.

What's still firing?

So, all right, headline number three.

Walmart and Vizio unveiled new content to commerce integrations at the 2026 IAB Newfronts this week.

I know something that Carter follows religiously.

Whatever happens at newfronts, he's all about that.

Introducing a unified account login, a first of its kind l' Oreal product placement partnership and a closed loop measurement vision that ties streaming behavior directly to in store and online purchases.

According to Chainstorage, Walmart and Vizio are progressively implementing a unified account login to new Vizio OS TVs and on TVs powered by Vizio.

Enabling customers to use Walmart accounts to access smart TV features.

Creating a single identity framework across shopping and entertainment.

In addition, l', Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics company, is launching a product placement integration that will place l' Oreal products within premium content across Vizio's OS in the US Powered by Walmart's first party customer insights.

I'm curious to understand what that Actually looks like in practice, said Courtney Nado, SVP of business integration and planning at Walmart.

Quote, by unifying account access, we're creating a seamless experience across screens while laying the groundwork for deeper integration between retail and entertainment.

End quote.

Carter, are you buying or selling Walmart?

Connect, powered by Vizio, becoming a powerful, meaningful new tent pole for Walmart's retail media strategy.

I think it's huge for Walmart just because of the data.

Like, if you think about this, right?

So you talk about basically, and for a lot of families, you know, your TV in your living room is the hub of the family, right?

You're constantly watching.

And what you can deduce from family dynamics based on looking at what you're watching, when you're watching and what that looks like is absolutely massive to start to understand now.

You know, critics will say that this is ultimately a surveillance device that's sitting in your living room.

And yeah, it is like that's exactly what it is.

But this move from, from Walmart, you know, it's kind of about time, right?

It's been two years since they kind of made this acquisition, two years since they made this investment, and there really hasn't been any meaningful moves from it, from it at all.

And the ability to have this unified login at the OS level, right?

So think about it.

Anything you do on that TV is documented and given to Walmart to then target ads.

And not only ads in the tv, I know that was part of it.

But your first party profile for Walmart is going to just absolutely explode, which means that your targeted ads, your deals, when you're online, et cetera, are now going to get that much better.

And I think here's the deal is also, Walmart had to do this.

When you think about what Amazon has and has had for a long time now, whether it's with Prime Video and just their dominance in the retail media network world, like this is a move they had to do or else they're just going to keep getting buried.

Yeah, the interesting thing to me when I think about this story is actually what I learned from you when we were first talking and I remember we were on the speaking circuit together a couple times and you always talked about the idea of you're competing for time, you're competing for the time on the phone.

And so Walmart, as successful as it's been, is still limited by the amount of time people want to spend with its app on the phone, on the substrate of the phone.

Amazon is in a sense too.

And so with this move though, Walmart is broadening out the substrate and the amount of time with which they can capture, capture an individual's attention because now they can capture that individual's attention once they're logged in for everything they're watching on that substrate, which is not something they can do on a phone and not something Amazon can do on a phone.

And I looked it up, there's 12, there's the estimates from Google.

When I looked it up, there's 12 to 18 million people that actively have their data connected to Vizio TVs.

Like that's how many people in the US minimally right now.

And so that's only going to grow over time.

And so when you think about this, that gives them so like you said, Carter, it's 100% right.

That gives them so much more power to understand where an individual is putting their attention throughout the course of a day, both on their phone and on the screen in front of them.

And that's just going to make the advertising so much more powerful.

And that's why I think I, I agree.

I was actually a little surprised to hear you say that because I've had some people poo, poo this headline over, you know, since it got announced two years ago.

But I think it's going to be pretty meaningful in the long run because you know, Vizio's a, it's got a sizable chunk of the population and Walmart's going to keep pushing it.

Here's an interesting spin on it too, Chris.

Do you think that there's a potential that Vizio TVs could be 50% of the cost of the next biggest competitor because they can justify this idea, right?

So if I can buy a 70 inch TV for a hundred bucks at Walmart, like think about the ability for, for the, you know, the idea of an average American family to get a brand new TV for next to nothing because ultimately you're paying with your data and for Walmart to justify that just based on how much they get to know about you.

Yeah, the merchant in me says 100, Carter.

So if I'm the merchant and I'm looking at this and Walmart is filled with great merchants, I would be saying, okay, as soon as I'm comfortable that that login process is easy and friction free and is going to work for the majority of people because we probably get one shot at this.

We're going big on Black Friday with 70, 75 inch screen TVs at the hottest deal you can imagine.

Because we're gonna want this data platform inside of as many homes as possible, and we're gonna go big into it 100%.

That's what the move is, right?

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

All right, Chris, let's move on to headline number four.

Headline number four.

It's all about AI.

Here we go.

Instacart is integrating Nvidia AI technology into caper carts, that smart cart platform.

Turning each cart into an AI edge device and laying the groundwork for what they call the grocery World model.

Now, Grocery world model, what is it, you might ask?

Oh, yes, please tell me, Carter.

Yeah, tell me more about this.

I want to know more.

Well, according to chain storage, each caper cart is now going to be equipped with the Nvidia Jetson edge AI device that runs advanced sensor fusion.

Sensor fusion, Buzzword, right?

Combining basket facing cameras, weights, measures, and a certified scale location tracking system for when it's actually in the aisles and outward facing cameras to accurately identify the exact items that are placed in the cart in real time, even when the cameras are blocked.

Talk about a surveillance device.

Holy cow.

So two AI systems are going to work in parallel.

The Edge encoder, which Nvidia Jetson is known for, giving real time feedback and a cloud vision language model for all the reasoning and actually crunching all of that data.

Those two data streams produce really this signal that allows for this incredibly high accuracy to understand everything that is in the cart.

The system updates its understanding of each store shelf as frequently as every hour, creating a real near real time view or model of shelf conditions, item placements, et cetera.

Right, Chris, this is the A and M put you on the spot question of the week.

And here it is.

As investment continues for the Capercart is the Nvidia integration and specifically the idea that it can see items on the shelf and unlock Instacart needs to increase Caper's relevance or is throwing more money and hype at this a niche application?

Oh, my God.

It's 100% the latter, Carter.

100%.

This is, this is the.

This is the hype of all hype announcements.

And I mean, they're laying AI on top of, you know.

Yeah, the announcements maybe get a little bit more press.

The amount of ways this card has been tried to be sold over the last X number of years is just unfathomable to me.

So, like, this, here's the.

But here's the reason I think this, this announcement is all hype because to me, this is this.

Actually the funny thing about this announcement is it's right strategy, wrong substrate.

For example, if the cart is the tool for this, why does it need to be a smart shopping cart at all?

Couldn't you just equip a regular old cart unbeknownst to shoppers, and not require shoppers to adapt their behavior to using a new cart and get all the same information that you're reportedly trying to get from this 100% you can?

And with that said, though, there's even a better way to do this.

And that better way is robotics.

Because the problem with the cart serving as the substrate is that despite what this headline says, you cannot guarantee the real time view of the store is being captured the same way at the same time every time.

Because when you're leaving that to customers or employees, they're going to do it differently.

A robot is the only thing that can do it the same way every time.

And robotics are still the best way to do that, because that's what they do.

And their field of vision is better too, for that reason as well, because they can get inside the nooks and crannies better than, say, a cart that's just randomly going through the store.

So once again, once again, Carter, like Instacart's out pushing the cart.

I don't think it's gonna work.

They'd be better off at this point.

They'd be better off just acquiring a robotics company and stop throwing more good money after bad.

That's my opinion.

Yeah.

It's so the other thing to think about here also, first of all, there's, there's, there's like multiple downsides, different angles here.

First of all, the consumer side, they talk in this article, Chris, about, like, what is the benefit to the consumer?

Like, why would I take, you know, two minutes to log in and actually do this thing when my kids are crying, right?

And I'm just trying to get in and out, whatever, you know, and they say, oh, it'll help you with recipes.

Well, coming from someone who did digital at General Mills, like, no, like this recipe game.

And the recipe excuse is something that everyone talks about, but no one actually can figure out how to add any value to.

You got your lists that you put on your phone or written a piece of paper, and that's the, that's the behavior, that's what you do.

Don't try to change it.

And the, the value that they claim this is going to give, the consumer pales in compari into the friction that it's going to bring, which is, which is accurate.

Then you have, like the actual tech side.

So, Chris, one of these Nvidia chips is about 500 bucks.

That doesn't count the cameras, it doesn't count the scales.

It doesn't account the actual cost of the cart, Right.

How many shopping carts have you seen in a creek down by your house?

Right?

Like, the cost that this is going to bring to grocers, right?

Like, you know, you're talking about a retail environment that's got 2% margins and you're going to spend, what, $2,000 per cart so that you can get a little bit more data between the hours of noon and one coffee is out of stock.

Like, it just doesn't, it doesn't make sense.

That relationship is so off balance that there's zero way that this actually is a legitimate play.

Yeah, that's really interesting too.

Like, actually, that's a good, that's a good tell for all our listeners, too.

When you hear the stories that people keep saying over and over again, in this case, it's recipes.

Like, yeah, I mean, you basically just said on the previous headline, like, you couldn't even sell recipes through TikTok.

You know, it wasn't, it wasn't really doing anything for you through TikTok.

So it's not going to do anything for you on a cart either.

You know, it's so, it's just, it's just as I think about and what.

I say that too, because when I'm sitting here at Shop Talk, you know, Agentic AI is the topic of the day.

I'm going to veer off course a little bit, but Agentica as the topic of the day, and you keep hearing all these things about how it's going to make our lives easier.

We don't have to reorder everything, which is the same baloney that you heard about subscription models forever and ever.

And it's just because our minds just gravitate towards something we know without just going into and saying, okay, how many of us really want that at the end of the day?

Because the chances are it's a really small percentage of the people.

I don't know.

What do you think, Carter?

Am I, am I on the right track with that?

100%.

Like, here's the thing.

Like, there's two sides.

You have the industry side, which everyone's just talking about buzzwords.

And I guarantee no one actually knows what it means or how to actually apply it to their business.

Right.

That's the issue that you're seeing at Shop Talk now and then from the consumer perspective, like they just don't care.

Right.

Like, you know, again, I go through my mind of the barriers to entry to try to assemble a recipe on a touchscreen that your kid is yelling at you about.

Right.

Like, it just is the worst.

Right.

So it's just one of those things where, you know, there are, there are fails in every side.

This is a sizzle, as we used to call it, Chris.

This is a sizzle in the pan.

I'm going to bring that up, actually.

Yeah.

This is throwing AI at a problem, chasing bad money after more bad money after more bad money and thinking that AI is going to be the solution with these really expensive carts when the investment probably could have been made into something like robotics like you talk about.

Right?

Yeah.

100 something that's proven and rolling out.

Oh my gosh.

Showing the efficiencies that come with it too.

That's the other thing.

Like, why would you be investing this?

It's totally unproven.

But anyway, all right, there's a lot of, there's a lot of fun aimed in the direction at that headline.

All right, headline number five, last one.

Two separate but related headlines that close out today.

First, Amazon and Winn Dixie have expanded their grocery delivery partnership to the greater Tampa Bay area.

And second, Amazon also has announced the rollout of new one hour and three hour delivery options covering over 90,000 products in hundreds of US cities, according to the Business Observer.

I don't know if you knew this, Carter, but the Business observer is Florida's newspaper for the C suite.

That's what it says directly on their website.

Well, good to know.

Yeah, I didn't know that.

So when I'm in Florida, I better be reading that.

One expansion makes delivery available to customers in many new Florida counties, including Tampa, Brandon, Lakeland, Bradenton, Sarasota and surrounding communities.

Adding to a service that began in Jacksonville and Orlando last September.

Customers can shop more than 15,000 Winn Dixie grocery items on Amazon, including fresh produce, quality meats, private label brands and locally sourced products.

Winn Dixie Rewards members can even link their accounts to Amazon to earn rewards points on eligible purchases redeemable for dollars off future in store purchases.

Then, on the delivery speed side of things, Amazon's new one hour option is also now live in hundreds of cities and towns.

And three hour delivery is now available in over 2,000 cities.

All right, Carter.

Amazon has quietly been adding regional grocers like Cub and Winn Dixie to extend its grocery reach.

And now it's offering one hour delivery in hundreds of US Cities who do you think wins and loses in the long run here as Amazon continues to tighten its grip on the final mile.

You have wins and losers here potentially.

But I think what's really interesting is, is that if you look at the grocery history of Amazon, it hasn't been awesome.

Right.

They've struggled to get grocery, but you know what they're really freaking good at?

They're really good at logistics.

And you know what also these other grocers are good at?

They're good at trust.

Right.

These consumers, these customers trust Winn Dixie.

They trust their local grocery.

They trust Cub.

They love their Cub foods.

They love their local Winn Dixie.

You know, and so what Amazon's been able to do is they've been able to capitalize on that trust and actually monetize it by putting the logistics layer between the trusted grocer.

Don't mess with that.

But then I'm still going to get paid.

And this isn't cheap stuff.

We're talking like 1530 delivery setups.

Right?

Right.

The idea that you can now pay for the Amazon, the best logistics in the world to get you those groceries quick, I think consumers who can afford it are going to really, really love it now.

Now who loses in this?

I don't know.

Right.

Like, I, if you look at the groceries, I'd be curious in your take, Chris.

Like, yeah, you know, they're still getting the purchase.

I'm sure Amazon's taking some healthy cut from already slim margins of grocers.

The, the thing is, is that though these, in the today's day and age, these local grocers don't have a single hope in the world to spin up their own delivery network.

Right.

They can't compete with the, with the others.

And so, so, you know, to go with Amazon, the biggest and the best, like, it seems like a smart move.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, okay.

I think, but I want your take

because I. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot here.

There's a lot here.

I mean, I think, you know, in it could be argued it's a smart move in, in the short term.

But, you know, the other part about Amazon too is Amazon is incredibly good at business.

You know, and I think you have to look at the history here as a judge too.

Like, you look at, you know, they bought diapers.com and what'd they do?

They basically like brought that into the fold and kind of, you know, basically shut it down.

They brought Zappos into the fold and now Zappos is a shell of what it used to be.

Right.

And so the same, the same kind of principle, you know, applies here.

Whereas like you get all these regional players onto the platform, it looks like a win win for everyone.

Amazon gets the mark media dollars from having these products on their shelves in a way that the regional grocers aren't going to get to the same degree.

Because Amazon's ad network is so much bigger.

Amazon just continues to leverage the scale of its delivery infrastructure.

The regional grocers are going to find it tougher and tougher to compete.

This is going to help them feel like they're competing in the short term, but at the end of the day, their business is probably going to get smaller and smaller and smaller and then the values of those businesses are going to get smaller and smaller and smaller.

So that leaves Amazon a great option.

You know, five to ten years out they can say, do I just let them die off because, you know, I've got a healthy business that I've created in groceries somewhere else.

Or do I come in and start buying these up?

Do I start buying these up regionally?

And you know, just because I know what they're going to sell, I know how much volume I'm going to get from it, I know what it's going to take to run it, and that's how I get into the grocery business.

So, so I think it's really fascinating because you're right, there's, there's only so many options like Walmart's kicking their, kicking everyone's butts, right?

Carter, you could go with Instacart, which is fine, which Amazon is essentially like Instacart, you know, different version of that, or you can set up your own delivery infrastructure, which is the only real way to survive in the long run.

You have to figure out your own picking and packing infrastructure in a way such that you can then very comfortably plug yourself into any of these marketplaces that you want at no detriment to yourself, right?

Because then, because then you can keep the first party data, you can keep them on your site.

You can make the decision out of desire to be on Amazon or be on Instacart versus being forced to be in there because your customers are wanting you to, wanting to find you there.

So that's, that's the thing for me here is like, I think this is, this is a needle that if you put it in your arm, it's going to be really hard to get it out.

And I worry about that in the long run.

What do you think?

100%, if you think about the strategy as described Amazon five years ago, started going top down, right?

Like, let's buy Whole Foods in its entirety, right?

For, you know, let's, let's do that, that kind of stuff.

And, and you can almost describe what you're, you're talking about here.

Is this kind of ground up, you know, it's the, the frog and boiling water a little bit here, right?

Because yes, they got logistics.

Like, what's the next step?

Like, all right, well, why couldn't you just shop Winn Dixie from Amazon.com right?

You know, and all of a sudden now you have all that traffic and you tell Winn Dixie, it's like, hey, managing a site is hard.

You got to bring people to it.

It.

We'll just take care of all.

But we already got your inventory, we're already doing delivery.

And then before you know it, Amazon, to your point, just buys the brand, which is a shell of itself and slaps that brand on the side of an Amazon warehouse and calls it a new Winn Dixie.

Yeah, yeah, because we've already got 20 of your volume going through, you know, Walmart in that region.

And then they solve the trust problem because the average person is like, I love Winn Dixie and who knows where that cucumber is actually coming from, Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, and all that stuff is market available too.

So Amazon's also going to know what's selling in those regions and they can also just position their own products there directly because people are probably on the site looking, you know, at all the options that are available to you.

Even if they're potentially still loyal to Winn Dixie over time, that's going to, you know, siphon off some customers too.

Yeah, that's a, that's a great way to think about it, Carter.

It's more of a bottoms up approach here that Amazon's potentially taking.

So, so net.

Net.

So did, did your mind change on that one?

Do you think that there's some more fear for the, the reason I think digital grocers could lose here in the long run?

I just think like, there's so much competition in terms, like to your point, setting up your own logistics network as a regional grocer, like, what are you really going to do?

Right?

And so you know, your choices to partner with Amazon or not to partner with Amazon and just trust that in store sales are going to continue to be what they are.

And, and honestly too, there's still a lot of people in this world who go to the grocery store every week.

Like, you know, grocery delivery is still, though growing.

It's.

It's not 50.

That for sure.

Right.

Like, you know, you're talking 10, 15 maybe.

Right.

If that.

And so there's still a huge market that wants to go to Winn Dixie.

So I guess the argument would be is like, okay, do you do this or do nothing at all?

And I think there are probably two poor ends to each one of those.

Those flight paths.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not a position I'd want to be in.

Which is also probably why Aho Delez's CEO yesterday jumped shipped to Dollar General.

For those that are paying close, close attention to the headlines, too, that's probably a big reason, because he saw, you know, sees the writing on the wall in terms of where does he want to be and where does he want to have his chips placed?

All right, Carter, let's go to the lighting round.

So today.

Today's lighting round is gonna be a little bit different.

I've just got two lightning round questions for Carter.

All right, Carter, number one.

Valerie Perrine of the original Superman movie fame passed away this week at the age of 82.

I'm sure it's a movie producer Ella has never seen.

What, in your mind, is the best Superman movie of all time?

Time.

Chris.

I feel like I'm having deja vu here, because I'm gonna be with Ella.

Like, I don't think I've ever seen any of the Superman movies.

Not a single one.

You got it.

Not a single one.

I'm still young.

It's been six years.

There's one that just came out last year.

What are you talking about?

Your statement stands.

I. I shot the.

I shot the Gap.

Now I got kids.

I don't go to movies.

Okay, I'm sure she was an incredible director.

Question for you.

And I'm gonna say the most recent one.

Yeah, the most recent one.

Okay.

Most famous ones.

It's all right.

It's a little cheesy, but I think the first one.

That's what I was gonna say.

Yeah, it was cheesy.

That's 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The first one's still the best one.

The one with Marlon Brando, you know, getting paid a million dollars for, like, five minutes of screen time.

All right, last one.

I know this one's near and dear to your heart.

Carter.

It was National Puppy Day on Monday.

How did you celebrate?

Well, for my dog Raymond, which is no longer a puppy, turned 10 years old.

And you know what?

I forgot about International Pupp.

But.

But unfortunately, you know, I used to work, you know, Blue Buffalo back in the General Mills days.

Right.

So it should have been really near and dear to my heart.

But Raymond got the same pets, the same.

You know, we got three tiny kids at home.

The poor guy gets colored on.

The poor guy gets necklaces put on him, you know, so at the end of the day, it was another day for Raymond.

But now in my heart, I feel like I need to spoil him when I get home.

Yeah.

So you.

You.

So you feel like you.

You didn't.

You kind of didn't do him, right?

I didn't do him.

Right.

And I think that's maybe why he's holding a grud.

So are you in this morning?

Are you in the doghouse with Raymond?

Is that.

Yeah, basically.

Is he shunning?

Yeah.

But here's the deal.

Raymond's most spoiled dog in the world.

He probably has the most comfortable, you know, living around.

So I'm fine living in that doghouse.

Right, right.

He's still the ruler of that doghouse.

You rule the roost of that doghouse.

Right, Carter?

100.

100, right?

Yeah.

Yes.

As.

As it should be the case when it comes to dogs versus humans, in my opinion, there's probably a lot of people that disagree with that, listening to this podcast.

All right, today's podcast was produced with the help and of course, of Ella.

Sir Yard.

Ella, come on in here.

What'd you think of today's podcast, Ella?

What do you think, Carter.

Carter's a. Carter's good to have back in the fold, huh?

Yeah, no, I'm loving this duo.

It's.

It's very, very powerful duo.

I'm loving it.

It's fun.

I loved it too.

It's really fun getting to shoot the.

Shoot the proverbial, you know, what with Carter.

All right, Ella, which headline won the week for you?

I think I might know, but this one was.

This is the toughest call.

The toughest call.

So for those listening maybe that haven't heard this before so far in the history of this show, since I've been asking Ella which headline won the show, I've guessed which headline she likes every week that we've done this.

So I'm putting my reputation on the line again.

I'm gonna go with.

I'm gonna go with TikTok Shop.

Was that the one, Ella?

Yep.

You got it, Chris.

Ulta Beauty, Tick Tock Shop, by far, stand out, but I feel like this one was pretty obvious because my love for makeup and I'm part of the population that's on Tick Tock.

Regrettably too much.

But I feel like TikTok has such a unique perspective that when I'm going to search a new product, I'm searching in the search bar.

Like a very niche story, like I'm going to this event or I, I want like makeup products for my specific skin or my hair.

And I feel like it always leads me to a link to know or LTK for creators that I'm following very closely.

So I feel like ULTA probably already had all that data that I'm, I'm the consumer that's going directly to Ulta anyways.

And so I think integrating it directly in the app, brilliant move.

I mean that five seconds that you're immediately hooked and then you buy the product in one second.

That's really interesting.

So.

So, Ella.

So like you're doing that in the TikTok interface too, right?

You're doing those searches like that in the interface.

So you're.

Because we're hearing a lot at Shop talk about how people are using, you know, chatgpt particularly.

Chatgpt is what everyone's talking about.

But like they're using that for product searches.

But you, but you're actually doing product searches like that in TikTok, which is a whole different thing, right?

Yeah, I, I've honestly, I've caught myself doing it more often.

Like if I'm shop talk, let's say I'm going to Shop talk and I'm trying to find a, a denim blazer or something.

I'm specifically searching in my TikTok, like best Amazon denim, you know, jackets or you know, if I was going like Ulta best mascara, things like that.

And yeah, I'm specifically searching that story.

Because you can get so niche because of the creators, right?

Because the creators and the creators give the confidence and the authenticity in terms of what you want and the credibility for what you want to buy.

Have you ever done searches like that in the LLMs?

Not quite.

No.

I, I'd say close.

Not beauty products though.

Okay.

Definitely not beauty products.

Goes back to the inspiration part.

Like, you know, when you do that search, it comes back with just the best 5 to 12 second videos that you give you all the information you need in an entertaining way.

Way.

Yeah.

And you can, you can pick for yourself like, who do I trust, what, which ones work for me instead of just maybe these LLMs or ChatGPT giving you one, two answers.

Yeah.

And Carter, to your point, the algorithm knows that.

Because that algorithm is, is, is like the best there is.

And understanding that too.

Right.

100 yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, wow.

What a great show.

Happy birthday today to Jenny Slate, Mikey Madison, and to the woman who played Elaine's famed nemesis on Seinfeld, Sue Ellen Mischke, Brenda K. Strong.

And remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, make it obvious.

I'm sure the two of you have no idea what that reference was.

Yeah, we're drawing blanks over here.

I know, I know.

This is where I always die laughing at the end of the show because my.

My references are so obscure.

All right, remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, make it on me.

Talk.

Our Fast Five podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the week's top news.

And our daily newsletter, the Retail Daily Minute, tells you all you need to know each day to stay on top of your game as a retail executive and regularly features special content that is exclusive to us and that we all take a lot of pride in doing just for you.

Thanks as always for listening in.

Please remember to like and leave us a review wherever you happen to listen to your podcast or on YouTube.

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Carter, if people want to get in touch with you, reach out to you, pick your brain, what's the best way for them to do that?

My friend, you know, I left corporate America, but LinkedIn's still the best way.

I'm one of the only Carter Jensen's that that show up.

There's a few others floating around, but you'll be able to find me really quick and would love to hear from you.

Well, you are definitely the one and only Carter Jensen in my book too.

So until next week.

On that note, on behalf of all of us here at omnitalk, on behalf of myself, on behalf of producer Ella, as always, is be careful out there.