Digital Store Survival Kit: Realities, Roadmaps, & Resources For 2026 | Ask An Expert

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Hello, welcome to the latest edition of the Omnitok Retail Ask An Expert series.

I'm one of your hosts, Anne Mazinga.

And I'm one of the other co hosts, Chris Walton.

And we are the founders of omnitalk, the fast growing retail media outlet that is all about the companies, the technologies, and the people that are coming together to shape the future of retail.

And Chris, our next expert, is one of the most knowledgeable people that we know when it comes to store digitization.

He's here today for our very last LinkedIn Live event of 2025, and he's going to share with this audience some of the realities of what store digitization might look like in 2026, as well as the keys to developing a very smart roadmap for your organization.

And also to share some resources, some that our audience can have a spot to turn to as they're putting together their own store digitization strategies in 2026.

Digitization.

It's not an easy word to say.

Doesn't roll off the tongue.

No, doesn't roll off the tongue.

So it's.

I'm going to hand it over to somebody who can say digitization much more fluidly than I can.

It's with great pleasure that we introduce Gray Orange's general manager of G Store, Dr.

Troy Siwick, back onto the show.

Troy, it's great to have you.

Welcome back to omnitalk.

It's always great to be here to talk digitization.

With you.

See, I love that.

I love that you're giving.

You're throwing me that bone.

I was like, is this my lisp?

Is this something like what is happening with store digitization?

No, it's a hard word to say anytime you get into like four.

I don't even know how many syllables it has.

Four or five syllables.

It's always tricky on these microphones to say it correctly.

Digitization.

But I like that you doubled down on it.

You went back to it, even though you had got a little tongue tied the first couple of times.

And then, yeah, Troy, it's good to see you.

So, Troy, this is your first webinar with us, right?

We've had you on the podcast numerous times.

We've done five insightful minutes with you, but this is our first live presentation of your thoughts and insights, correct?

I think so.

We did some stuff last year at nrf, but this is a little bit different, right?

Yes, Right.

We did the tech preview.

That's right.

Yeah.

But this is the first time we get you for 30 full minutes to ourselves.

So I'm excited about it.

But because before we get started, just a quick reminder, for those watching the early release of this Interview live on LinkedIn, feel free to ask your questions at any time via the chat session window on your mobile phone or your desktop computer.

All right, Troy, let's start out as we always do.

Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

We've had you on a bunch of times, so I'm sure there's some people that aren't familiar with who you are and what it is that Gray Orange does.

Thanks, Chris.

So my career path has always been in retail, helping physical and digital stores work a little better in the real world.

It's been a little bit of a multi decade career, so I'll just leave it at that to not date myself too much.

But I spent most of my career advising retail execs in a consulting form, and now I'm running a retail software business at Gray Orange called G Store.

That experience that I had consulting shaped how I think about digitization.

It has to be practical, it has to be fast.

It has to help store teams with their everyday experiences and challenges.

I think we'll talk about some of that today.

So I always ground myself in how is this helping the stores.

But at G Store, our team provides an operating platform for the store, for the store associates that connects all the signals you get from RFID readers, robotics, sensors, cameras, and so on.

So when you pair all that tech with our orchestration software and mobility, you get a store that feels awake, feels responsive, feels in this decade.

So that's what we do at G Store.

And that's a little bit about me.

So, Troy, Troy, I love, I love that you aged yourself too, but your hair is, is holding up much better than mine is too, for a similar length of career.

But, but digitization.

So how do you, how do you actually define digitization of the physical store?

Like, how do you actually define for our audience what that is?

Because people talk about it a lot, a lot of times, but I don't necessarily hear a great definition of it, necessarily.

How do you define it?

It's.

For me, it's like we make it sound too complicated.

It's really simple.

If you think of e Comm in 2010 or 2015, you know, everything about Chris is on my website.

This is what he's looking at.

This is what he abandoned.

This is what he didn't like.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

You know, everything about your visit, what you're interested in, your preferences all that kind of stuff.

Here we are 10, 15 years after that, and you still don't know almost anything about people that walk in your store, what they look like, where they are.

So this is bridging that Gap and catching us up.

And, you know, I remember the days, I'm sure you do, too, when people said the physical store is going to be dead, and it's still 25.

You know, Ecom.

Still 25, 28%.

You know, people want to go experience stores.

They just want to experience it with that level of digital.

Like, know me, that happens.

Like, know who I am when I'm in your store and understand me.

And we got to bridge that gap.

So that's what I call digitization of physical stores.

I love how you said the store is awake.

Like, that was a really cool way of thinking about it.

Like, the store is awake and responsive.

And, you know, that's something that retailers have been trying to do, as you mentioned and Chris and I certainly tried to work on.

That was kind of a foundation of our work at Store of the Future, too, is like, how do we make a site that.

Or a store that's adapting to our shoppers, like.

Like a website would.

I want to.

I want to ask you something, Troy, because when.

When you and I were talking, as I mentioned, you're our go to for everything store digitization, I was asking you just casually, like, where.

Where do you think we're headed?

Like, what are some of the trends that you think people are going to be talking about?

What should be on our audience's radar as we head into 2026?

And I have to quote you because it was one of the funniest things that I've heard you told me, and I quote, everyone and their mothers are going to be talking about digital twins and AI in 2026.

End quote.

So, one, I want to know why that is.

And two, I have to ask, is that what we should be talking about?

I. I don't remember, but that definitely sounds like something I would say.

So.

Yes.

Yes, I do.

I think I. I've seen the PowerPoints.

It.

It's coming.

Digital twin of everything.

And maybe like, just as a little throwback, I was in IBM retail consulting for several years, and I remember the term store of the Future.

And somebody new would be presenting me.

We're going to do this thing and we're going to call it Store of the Future.

And I felt like I was in the movie Groundhog's Day.

Like, how many times have you heard Story of the Future in your career.

Right.

Like, so I was like, is this really, is this a real presentation or am I being punked?

Digital Twin is just starting, but I think you're gonna feel that in the next two to three years.

I think it's a good thing, but it's gonna be a very well worn term.

So sorting out, what does that mean for me in the retail business is what I would, I would say people, people have to do.

So figure out what companies mean, who's telling something really interesting and who's not.

The idea is it's a, it's a duplicate copy of your store, a digital duplicate copy of your store.

But what everybody who's providing those, that software, that service has a different meaning for what that is.

So it's a, it could be a buzzword or it could be something really innovative.

So the real question is, does it deserve that level of attention?

So is it a concept or is it something real?

What we would do, we, we're thinking of it in terms of a mirror of your store.

So what my store look like today, the merchandising, the physical inventory, the human traffic, bringing that all into an operating platform that advises the associates or the executives at the home office of what's happening in that store.

So imagine not having to fly to every store to figure out what's happening in there and sending teams out, what does the store look like today?

Why did whatever happened yesterday happen?

Are things in the right place and stuff like that?

So that's how we think of it, as a digital mirror.

We're trying to come up with the, the right term because I think everybody's going to say digital twin, but it might mean something different to everybody.

And then AI, everything is AI story, retail AI, you know, so what does it mean and how is it grounded in helping the store associate or the customer navigate the store each and every day?

So that's why I made that comment.

You know, we're doing it, we're doing digital twins.

So I can't make fun of it too much because it's what we're doing.

But I do think it's going to be all over like say NRF this year.

So you have to sort through what does this company mean when they say digital Twin.

Yeah, I mean I think it gets, this gets back to the digital mirror concept, gets back to me of like a store being awake or alive or responsive versus when I think digital Twin, I think like it's a copy to play around with, not like the live interaction of what's going on in the current store environment is.

Is there an example, Troy, that you have of like a client that you're working on that you feel like is using Digital Twin in the right way?

And you don't have to say the name specifically, but just so that the audience, I think, can grasp like the types of information really that.

That they're being.

They're gathering or that they're being able.

To act on.

In what I would say is like in the lab.

So, yeah, no, nobody that I would name, but in the.

The quote unquote lab.

What we're talking about in testing.

With some of these companies is the concept of, okay, here's our store format.

Or some store, like some retailer might have four store formats.

What happens now?

We have a digital copy of the store.

What happens if we change this?

Using trends stuff coming in from different insights from the Internet, right.

Weather patterns, you know, TikTok, whatever, whatever it might be.

Here's a suggested small change we make.

What would that look like?

You can process it and do a B testing with a digital twin and say, how much would that change?

Would that move the needle?

Would that raise it?

So that's where it'll really come in to help merchandisers and store operators figure out whatever this change is that we want to do, what would it do to our store?

And start profiling that, then seeing how good that profile was.

Did what it said it would do in our experiment, Digital experiment happen in real life?

If it did, now we can start to build a model and build a model more and more.

So I think that a B testing using AI is going to be really helpful, especially to the merchants and, you know, maybe the store operators too.

Got it.

So.

So, Troy, circle back for me then, because we started this conversation out on store digitization.

Then we talked about digital twins.

How does Digital Twin fit into the concept of store digitization?

Are they separate ideas?

Are they complementary ideas?

Can you do one without the other?

How do you think of that landscape?

There's there.

We think of them as tied completely together.

So if you.

Again, I like to ground it in reality because you start talking tech and you get up into this sphere where nobody's understanding what we're.

What we mean.

But when you walk into a store and they.

And you're looking for something and they don't have your size.

So let's say for me, it's a medium, right?

Well, I'm walking down the store.

It's an empty spot in the store.

There's no help there.

And I look through the rack.

And my size isn't there.

There's a bunch of different colors.

The product is there, but my size isn't there.

And if you have a digital twin of the store, if you know that there's people in your store, they're not finding something, they're gazing at something that there's inventory missing.

And you have these signals, you have this twin, right?

You're more informed.

It might automatically suggest that the associate go help that person.

They're looking at those blue shirts, but they keep picking things up and setting them down.

So think cameras, think RFID inventory.

All these things will feed information to say, this is the guy you got to go help right now, you know, and alert somebody, create a task, or better yet, replenish that item before he gets there to buy that item.

So we think it's hand in hand.

I mean, you can really think futuristically.

You tie in robots into this night.

Robots.

If you don't want robots when customers are there, there's a lot of ways that you would have to have a map, a digital map.

Fixtures, ceiling, floor.

What does this place look like?

Inventory.

All that is part of that digital mirror.

Digital twin of the store.

Troy, the other question I have too, that you want.

I want to make sure we're clear for the audience to.

The necessary condition for this complimentary relationship to exist, however, is the system of recording devices and technologies that you have deployed in the store.

Because.

Am I right in saying that?

Because without that, then the digital twin.

Can the digital twin exist without that or not?

It depends on your definition of that digital twin, but I don't think so.

I think you need a platform that pulls it all together or it's too complicated.

And then a lot of these companies, even the really good tech savvy retailers, they like to do their own labs and their own experiments, which is cool because it's fun to work with those companies because they're willing to try things, fail fast, and then fix it.

But the only way it really comes together is if you unify all that data in some kind of platform, right?

If you have great RFID and you have great computer vision on something, maybe it's products, maybe it's people, but you don't have a unified platform to pull all this data in and make sense of it for the associates.

Then you just got a bunch of sort of science experiments side by side.

And some of them come to that realization.

They do the fun testing, they do the pilots, and then they come back and go, all right, I don't Know how to turn this into something actionable across the whole store.

I'm glad I asked because, I mean, I can remember five or six years ago, we're hearing a lot about digital twins and them almost being exogenous from the actual store operation.

They were like 3D visual maps of what was going on, but they didn't really digitize your understanding of the store in a complimentary way like you just described.

So.

Yeah.

And you should be able to see the people, the products, fixtures, and play around with it.

Otherwise, you don't really have.

You don't really have a digital twin.

Right.

And the people being the staff and the customers, too.

That's right.

The AI can use basic cameras to determine who's an associate and who's a customer.

Right.

So just using AI, it can go.

Well, this person's behavior is a.

They're going behind the counter in the back room.

That's.

That's an associate.

This person's a customer.

So it's getting pretty advanced.

Let's hope, anyway.

Right, Troy?

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Hey, what's he doing there?

Yeah, right, right.

Which is probably good in another way, too.

All right, so.

So, you know, you know, from our experience, too, and my experience, you know, we've seen a lot of retailers that if they're buying into this concept, they're generally trying to take the work in house to protect their data, their relationships with their clients, with their customers, again, too, potentially.

But how should they be thinking about this in terms of when and where to partner with the right solution providers that make the most sense?

Yeah, so I'm biased because now I work at a software company.

Right.

And so clearly I. I have a point of view that they.

They should use companies like us, but I understand the proprietary nature of why they want to do that.

They.

They want to protect their data.

They want to keep their secret sauce in the house.

But a lot of what we do and companies like us do isn't secret.

You know, where's my inventory?

Where are the people?

Where are the people moving around?

What insights can I get?

What product walked out without a POS transaction?

And do you have video of that tied with the location data and the RFID data and the epc, which is the unique code for that singular item that left.

I just don't get why a retailer would want to build all that R D to tie all those tech systems together in a platform and then hope they keep up with the tech trends.

It seems like if they have something super unique and a lot of them do.

They should keep that in house, but find a partner that's willing to, you know, do tech with you, be flexible, change with you, and, you know, give you your autonomy as a brand so you don't affect that experience.

I mean, if I'm doing my job as a software company, you don't even know I'm in the store, right?

Unless it's some cool thing, you know, that it's a trendy thing, you shouldn't even know I'm there.

It should just be a better store experience because I'm there.

That's.

That's what our goal is.

So I, I think unless it's your secret sauce, you should find really good forward thinking tech partners that can kind of scale with you and provide you tech and stay out of the way.

You know, I've been watching a lot of NFL football lately and they say a good offensive lineman is one you never think about or hear their name on the broadcast.

Right.

Like they're just blocking and they're not causing trouble and they're not getting penalties.

That's a good software company, right?

If in retail, at least in retail, if the store is operating great and it's awake, you know, you feel like it's not a sleepy store, they know what's happening in here, then the software is working and it's really hard for them to do that in house.

And then maybe they make the perfect solution in house with software, but how do they maintain it and then upgrade it and stay ahead of the trends?

You know, if I fall behind, they can drop me as a software accomplice.

Really?

Yeah, it's really hard to do that when it's internally.

Yeah.

Yeah, they can get you to compete.

Yeah, they can even just get you to compete with each other too.

Yeah.

Troy, how are you seeing the leaders then of these teams internally?

Because it's one thing to make the decision to, you know, have one platform managing all the point solutions as you're working on digitizing your store.

But how, how are you seeing like what maybe used to fall into the store ops team and the CTO or CIO's role?

How are you seeing that kind of expand now across the organization as they're digitizing their stores?

You've done 40,000 deployments of these stores.

Like, how are you seeing that shift happen as they're bringing in new partners and trying to really help the organization grasp, like this is not just a CIO or a CTO's responsibility.

This is really going to impact all of the verticals within our organization.

It's interesting from the stuff we do.

I'm sure other companies would have a different point of view, but the stuff that we do is so close to the associate and the P. L of the store that we are always engaged with the store leader, whoever that is, whoever's running stores.

And then it depends on the org and the power structure within the org.

But usually like a CTO or a chief innovation officer or chief omnichannel officer, usually as a quasi tech functional role.

So we'll see them.

But I think that where we see speed and success is there's usually one or two that are leading that effort and their goals are totally aligned.

I remember I won't name retailer names, but I remember trying to do Omnichannel and E Com projects in the 2012, 2013, 2014 time frame.

And projects would stop for a long time because they couldn't figure out which executive was going to get a bonus based on the sales that came through an omnichannel transaction.

As the E. Comm person, you know, like literally it'd be like, so it's the right thing to do for the customer, but you're gonna wait until you figure out who gets paid at the corporate office, you know, that would literally happen, like stop a huge program until they figured out, well, how are we gonna credit people?

I see in this space, like usually two people championing it.

More of a tech person leader and more of a store ops person.

They're both on board.

It usually runs pretty smoothly and then less so.

The CI, like usually the CIO is super important to it, but.

But he or she's managing a huge portfolio of apps.

So they're just taking over this app and making sure it scales and it passes all the tests.

But they don't seem to be as close, at least with our projects, until it becomes a let's roll this out to all of our stores and then they own it.

Right.

And Troy, I'm curious your perspective then too.

I mean, we're starting to see some retailers bring in like a chief AI officer as one approach.

They're.

They're looking at, you know, making sure that across every vertical, everyone's got AI expertise.

How do you think about that with AI playing such an important role in the digitization of the store?

And then the outcomes that you're seeing from.

From some of these deployments that you've done.

I haven't met one of those yet.

Okay.

I know they exist.

I've been reading about it.

I haven't met One.

It could be a good thing, Troy.

Yeah, I don't know.

Well, like, once I do, I'll let you know.

I. I do think though that there's two flavors that we're seeing.

Again, we're very biased, focused on the store associate and operating the store.

But there's a lot of other areas, E Com and things like that.

Consumer facing.

But what we see is there's two flavors.

There's.

They want the data.

So that digital twin we've been talking about with all that data about inventory people.

Yeah.

Store formats served up so that their internal AI can either help associates answer questions or, you know, externally we feed that data and then they can provide it through their app or their website or kiosks, those types of things.

And then there's like, we provide AI, like we have a help, a sale app and we can provide in store help for the associates through our G Store app.

Right.

In our G Store tech partners.

So there's both flavors.

And some of those CIOs or those executives literally have something in their objectives that say implement AI by the end of the year.

So some of them are happy if we can do it, and some of them are happy if we can provide them enough data so that they can do it and build it and build those data models.

So we're seeing it happen.

But it's not so mature that somebody, I don't think somebody can definitively say this is the answer for this type of retailer.

They're still all trying to figure it out.

Right.

So it's important that everybody, again, you find those two champions within your organization that can really help move a project like this along.

And, and it helps if everyone's got that AI background, is what I. I think I'm.

That understanding and acceptance of it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, if I read between the lines of what you're saying too, Troy, it sounds like on annual review time, there's just literally expectations of what have you done in regards to AI that's being checked off the boxes here with the executives that you're.

You're describing.

Yeah.

Wow.

It's a little sad, but true.

I've talked to some of the.

Analyst agencies and they confirmed like there's companies that are really leaning in and going really specific with the type of AI they want to provide for their consumers and associates.

And there are some that are a little more general, like let's have AI by the end of the year, but you have to be able to serve both.

Right, Right.

Which.

Which actually brings up a good question.

For me.

So like, you know, there's a lot of talk around computer vision AI.

We've had you on a lot in the past talking about RFID in terms of its ability to help you understand the, the inventory in the physical store.

But computer vision AI is a part of the overall digitization of the store too.

So I'm curious, like, how do you think retailers should be incorporating, should they, number one, be incorporating computer vision AI and in what order of operations against rfid and like how should they be thinking about computer vision AI on their roadmaps?

With all that said, we're not a computer vision company.

I like to think of us as a platform company, but we're interfacing and working with and testing with a lot of different computer vision solutions out there.

So I'm seeing a lot.

There's some really cool stuff.

If I was a retailer and I was evaluating computer vision, I would say what am I trying to do?

Right, Connecting the vision solution to the decisions we're trying to make.

Is it telling you something you don't know?

Can it replace something manual?

Can it surface like actual moments on the sales floor?

So what am I trying to do with computer vision?

If you don't know that question, then maybe pump the brakes a little bit.

Now if you know what you want to do and you're looking at a computer vision partner, I'll, I'll give you a cheat code because we've already gone through this.

Figure out what the computer vision company you're talking to does for a living.

Well, so if they're counting Coke cans at a, like an Amazon go at the airport, they're probably not going to help you people track and stuff like that.

Right?

Like, so what do they do that's really good, that's going to help you?

And then I'm not a computer vision expert, but just looking at the data that we get, you know, figure out what they specialize in and then what you're going to do with it and how is it going to help you make decisions?

For example, the example I gave earlier was somebody walks out of your store with an item that's RFID tagged and now can you map that to a two minute video that shows the exact moment that product went in their pocket and out the door?

And now you have a game changer in the, in the loss prevention space or you just put this new merchandising display in the back of the room and we have a computer vision company that's able to capture with AI the gaze people keep Looking at this, but no one's buying it.

Something's wrong.

Tell the merchant something's wrong with this item.

Go do some testing.

So I think it's really important to know what your problem you're trying to solve.

Connect it to a decision on the floor, and then make sure the vendors you're talking to aren't just a computer vision company, but they do what you actually want them to do, because that's how they tune their product to things or people or whatever it may be.

And coming back full circle again.

I mean, that's the thing I love about the digital twin concept.

When you put it in context, like when you have all this working, like you just said, especially in a fashion apparel business, like, you can understand, like, okay, if this table of sweaters is earning its keep, right, all things being equal, are people stopping and looking at this sweater table and is it earning its placement?

Is it.

Is it the right thing to have there, or should we adjust and move?

Because in apparel, you can make those switches a lot easier than you can and say, like hard fixture businesses.

And.

And that stuff matters.

The.

Especially the inspiration of clothing.

And.

And so that's where you're seeing the complementarity of the digital twin come about.

That's one example.

Right, Troy?

Yeah.

And.

And you can figure out conversion a little better.

I mean, there are solutions now.

There's solutions out there for a long time that count people.

Right.

But what hasn't been there, at least not that I've seen.

It's something that connects it all right.

And gives you real time.

Like, this isn't working.

Let's change it this week, let's change it today.

Not like at the end of the season or something like that.

Like, the table of sweaters is really rocking.

Let's change our San Marco store to see if that works there too.

Giving that real time feedback.

And maybe even I'll tease out some stuff we're looking at, maybe even suggesting actual merchandising changes, small micro changes you could make based on that pattern we're seeing in the store.

Right.

Like, of what people are doing and.

The inventory you actually have, and then you can actually measure whether or not it was an effective change and.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

A B testing.

Yep.

And.

And I think it gets back to some of the stuff that you were saying earlier, Troy, of like the.

A retailer is not engineered to be staying on top of these, you know, the, these trends and the changes that are happening, especially when you inject on top of, you know, just what's Happening in the stores.

What are the, what are the trends that are coming as things like TikTok influences like today?

This is going to be the product that you have to have in your stores.

Where is it?

Who has that?

What, what stores do we think are going to have the highest likelihood to sell through this type of product?

Like, there's all of these complexities that I think you're, what you're, you're telling us in.

And what you just said is that, you know, it's really, it's, it's about the, the hardware, the software that you have and the technology that you have working in the store.

But then it's also kind of allowing the expertise of a, of a platform provider to help your company distill that down and make it actionable.

Yeah, yeah, keep it unique, keep it you as your brand, but allow tech partners to plug in that you feel like enable your business won't hold you back.

And then you can always break up with them if they're not keeping up with the trends and find somebody new.

Well, Chris, got to ask about computer vision.

You teased it earlier, but I want to ask about robots.

We're thinking about the future digitization of stores.

How do you feel like robots come into play?

Where is that appropriate?

What should retailers and brands be thinking about as they're considering robots as a way to kind of manage inventory and things?

This is an interesting one.

It's definitely one in our lab that we're working on.

I would say robots and stores is going to be interesting.

We've deployed tens of thousands of robotic agents across all, you know, Fortune, top Fortune retailers.

And so we're very experienced with robots, the good, bad and the ugly.

And so what we've done is we provide this orchestration layer that allows multiple robots, different robot companies, to all work together.

An agent could be a person, an agent can be a robot.

An agent could be a forklift, whatever, a conveyor.

It's, it's something, doing something right.

And if you can orchestrate all those things together, you can really see an roi.

You can really see increased throughput, you know, lower costs and stuff like that.

So we look at an agent as anything we can help with the software, orchestrate, push it around, you know, tell it where to go, stuff like that.

There's one question I've never, I don't think I've ever asked this of a guest before.

And you, you are a kind of our resident expert on the digitization of the physical store.

So, so I'm curious as, as People look ahead to NRF in January and 2026 in general.

What would you suggest that the retailers and brands listening look into or what advice would you have for them as they approach this next year in terms of thinking about their technological roadmaps?

What I'm seeing that frustrates me outside of my job and my objectives in my job.

But if I was just somebody advising retailers, I see so much process that they've built up over time during the big ELAs and the big Oracle, Microsoft, IBM contracts and all the consulting companies.

And so there's so much process built into selecting technology.

Technology it's starting to get in the way now, despite the fact that I'm a software company trying to sell into that process.

So full caveat there.

But it feels like the companies where an executive can talk to someone like me or my competitor, the, the Troy at my competitor and say, tell me how you're going to fix this for me.

And then they sure put in some process to make sure you're not making a decision.

One person's making a decision, put in some process, do some testing and get going.

Right.

One of the biggest, most successful projects we had with a massive retailer, the conversation happened with how long are we going to look at this test?

How long are we going to POC things?

Let's get it going.

Let's make the magic happen in the stores.

So that would be the first thing I would say is just really look at your process and say, is this really helping?

Right.

I have a retailer we're working with right now where they actually said it's working.

The store associates love it and we're seeing blah, blah, blah, payback.

But they want to look at it again in January and February just to make sure, you know.

And I'm thinking to myself, okay, of course I would love to have that now.

But if I was running, if I was an owner of that retailer, what are you waiting for?

Like, you know, jump in the pool.

Correct it fast if it's not working, but jump in and get these projects done.

Because by the time you implement rfid, maybe there's.

The replacement of RFID is going to be happening.

Like this keeps happening in the tech space.

Like you can't be so selective and so process oriented that you miss the big splash.

Right?

You miss that.

So that's one thing.

And then I think what Ann and I were talking about with the organization of the teams, the really slow retailers seem to have a decision by committee, a big committee and four or five groups involved in the Project which is almost a death sentence.

Not quite a death sentence, but almost a death sentence for a big ROI because it takes so long to get through those changes.

I don't know if that's the nature of what you were asking me, Chris, but that's like, if I was advising the leaders of a company buying tech or looking at tech, that's what I would do.

And then I wouldn't.

I would test everything.

I would have my own lab.

To test things out with vendors, and a lot of these guys do, but I wouldn't.

I would rely on those partners to come in and show me the best and brightest tech that's out there and then use my lab to figure out how to implement it at my place versus using my lab to figure out what to do.

Right.

Like the deciding and brainstorming what to do.

There's a lot of companies out there spending a lot on R and D&AI and robotics and RFID.

Bring them in and let them show you what they have.

That's interesting.

Yeah, show me instead of build what to do.

That's really interesting.

That's something I've never heard before.

The other point too, that I want to bring out in closing too, is given our mutual experience in retail over the years, would you agree with me when you.

When I would say, like, in retail, generally speaking, you know, if something's working or not right away.

And so if you're piloting something and it's working, either go after it or make the decision and cut it.

And if it's not working, just cut it and get out.

Right.

I mean, that's generally how things work.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

That's what I was trying to say.

You said it a little better than I did.

It's just like, you know, if you see it working and the magic is happening, like, it's almost like the fear of getting fired for making a technology decision is, Is overwhelming to some of these decision makers.

And like, you know, I'm.

I'm a go for it type of person.

Go for it.

Like, test it out.

Go three store.

Who's going to get fired for doing something in three stores?

And then you can.

And then you can roll it out.

So I think.

And then just one of the things I said early in this conversation was ground it in reality.

And how is this going to help the on the ground situation in my store?

Because sometimes I look at people's pilots and I'm like, and then what is that going to do.

Is the associate going to do that?

They're going to pick up a different device, not the device they already have.

You know, that kind of stuff.

So just make sure it feels like it's grounded in reality for how the stores operate now.

They're not thinking of.

The associate is not thinking of what new tech are they going to give me this week.

They're thinking of how's my Tuesday?

How's my Tuesday going to go this week?

Is it going to be a nightmare or is it going to be okay?

Yeah, yeah.

They just want the hours most of the time.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Want the paycheck.

Right.

And that's clear.

There's something.

For those listening, we, we released a video at the Fabletics store that G Store is deployed in out in La Jolla, California.

And that was one of the things that was so remarkable about it.

It was like the.

Their day went from a full, you know, week of doing inventory to 18 minutes of doing inventory on a Monday morning.

Check done and you go on to doing other things in the store.

So I, yes, we appreciate, we appreciate all that you and the team at Greg Orange are doing, Troy, to truly help accelerate the.

The digitization of the stores in retail and retailers around the country.

So, Troy, that was really awesome.

We appreciate your time.

You gave us so much to think about.

If people want to get in touch with you, they want to call you, they want to have you show them how, how you can deploy some of the technologies we talked about today in their store, how you can support them.

What's the best way for the retailers and brands in the audience listening to get in touch with you?

Well, so I'm on our website so they can go to grayorange.com and just reach out.

They can reach out to me on LinkedIn.

I'm widely available.

I can probably be reached there more than my corporate email.

Then we'll be at.

We'll both be in the zebra booth at NRF in New York this year.

Yes.

And then we have our own booth that's probably 50ft from that booth, I think it is.

3974 is the booth number.

So I'll be making my way between both of those locations.

So come see us at nrf and otherwise just reach out to me from our website or LinkedIn.

I'd love to, love to engage.

Yes, we know from last year, Troy, you like to get your steps in at nrf.

That's one of your favorite things to do there.

So we'll be watching, watching you run between booths.

I'm sure.

Well, Troy, that wraps us up.

Thanks so much to all of you for joining us today.

Thanks to Troy Siwick for sitting down with us.

Thank you also to our producer, Ella Seord, who helped bring us this episode of the Ask An Expert series.

And as always, on behalf of all of us here at Omni Talk, be careful out there.