Episodes

In today's Omni Talk Retail Fast Five Podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga had a blast: - Taking a victory lap on Amazon’s price positioning in Amazon Fresh stores. - Opening our minds to GNC's new food delivery service. - Lauding Simon, after slagging it last week, for something it is calling “Simon Search.” - Sounding alarm bells (that likely only our loyal Omni Talk fans will hear) on Amazon’s second Style ...

In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, A&M's Chad Lusk and Truett Horne join Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga to debate: - The significance of Walmart's new automated fulfillment centers - Target's recent earnings warning - Simon's new "National Outlet Shopping Day" - Sam's Club charging regular old Sam's Club members for curbside pickup - And Amazon trying to one-up Walmart with its own drone announcement this week There...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Retail Spotlight Series, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sit down with Talkdesk's VP Global Industry Strategy for Retail & Consumer Goods and fellow Top 100 Retail Influencer Shannon Flanagan. Together the three of them discuss: - The role of retailers to provide great product and great service - The dwindling use of the "secret shop" - Creating experiences that make your customers happy, when pre-purchase customer service is now just as important as post-...

In today's Omni Talk Retail Fast Five Podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Anne Mezzenga and Chris Walton went deep on: - Dollar General’s self-checkout only pilot - Brookfield and Sephora’s new “curbcierge” service - UPS acquiring Delivery Solutions - Tortoise’s remote-controlled store on wheels at the Mall of America - And closed with a look at Old Navy’s decision to cut back on its more inclusive sizing strategy There’s all that, plus ...

In today's take no prisoners Omni Talk Retail Fast Five Podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Anne Mezzenga and Chris Walton: - Give their very early take on Amazon's new Amazon Style store. - Lambast Walmart from the high heavens for its drone announcement this week. - Laud Firework for its recent $150 million investment round, as it continues to push the boundaries and lead the way in livestream commerce. - Question whether Wayfair chose t...

Livestreaming, and specifically Firework, was the #1 hot topic coming out of Shoptalk this year. So Omni Talk Retail invited Firework CEO and Co-Founder Vincent Yang back to provide his mid-year report on the state of livestreaming across retail for the latest installment of our Ask An Expert Series. Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga get Vincent’s thoughts on: - What changes he is seeing in retailers’ approaches to livestreaming - Whether retailers are heeding his past advice of streaming on the...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Retail Spotlight Video Series, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sit down with Signifyd’s CMO Indy Guha to learn all they can about the latest fiendish effort being used to defraud consumers, aka Account Takeover (or ATO, if you are in the know). Together they discuss: The rise of e-commerce and the increasing strain placed on fraud prevention What account takeover is and why it is so much more sinister than just using someone’s credit card number And why a ...

In today's episode of the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, David Ritter and Michael Simoncic join Chris and Anne to discuss: What to make of Target and Walmart’s earnings this week How warm and fuzzy we should feel about Instacart’s IPO plans Whether Peloton planning to sell through third-party retailers for the first time ever makes strategic sense Why Zara’s move to charge U.K. customers for returns feels like ...

Amid the ever-increasing omnichannel nature of our retail experiences, it can be difficult to know how best to solve customer issues when they arise. It isn’t as simple as just having great person-to-person customer service anymore. So Omni Talk is pleased to announce that Talkdesk’s Genesis Miranda Longo, Head of Industry Marketing for Retail and Consumer Goods, and Antonio Gonzalez, Head of Industries Research & Insights, join Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga for the latest installment of their...

What devices in your store could be working harder for you? That is the question we posed to Scandit CTO and Co-Founder Christian Floerkemeier in our latest Omni Talk Retail Spotlight Series Podcast. Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga discuss with Christian: - How everything from an iPhone to a floor scrubber can become a smart data capturing device within a retail store - Tackling hiring and training challenges by capturing smart data on an employee's own or company provided mobile device - Remo...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Retail Spotlight Series, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sit down with Rafay's CEO Haseeb Budhani and HP's VP of Retail and Industry Solutions Cory McElroy to dive deep into the topic of what it takes to scale computer vision implementations across thousands of store locations. Together they discuss: - How computer vision has moved from a "science project" to a business necessity - In what areas retailers are most interested in applying computer vision - T...

In today's special Wednesday edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga: - Discuss why IKEA's new store investment plans show just how smart of retailer IKEA is. - Laud Unilever for its bold move to deploy mobile ice cream stores with Robomart. - Grow skeptical of Adidas's all-in move with Foot Locker. - Debate whether Sweetgreen's new digital order pickup-only store is something more...

In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga: - Had a split opinion on Publix's new nano-fulfillment partnership with Instacart. - Both extolled the virtues of the one-stop shop and H-E-B's newest store concept down in Texas. - Praised Verizon for going all-in on 24/7 pickup lockers. - Tipped our caps to Target for once again getting omnichannel retail tech right, as evidenced by their recent pil...

In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga had a ball discussing: - Amazon’s newest suburban store Amazon Go concept, replete with made-to-order food, and whether it could one day soon evolve into “the gas station of the future.” - A really interesting new store concept from online retailer MorningSave down in Texas that promises to meld the beauty of the online treasure hunt with in-store reta...

In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga: - Gave their hot take on Andrew Jassy’s first-ever letter to Amazon shareholders - Had mixed feelings on Lululemon’s new subscription program - Took a second to bash the Yankees as they discussed Caper Counter at Fenway Park - Exhibited a high degree of skepticism around the new Champs store concept - And closed with a look at Pensa’s new deployment w...

In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, A&M’s Chad Lusk and Hemant Kalbag joined Anne as they debated: -An Earth Day Resale PR blitz from multiple retailers, including Target partnering up once again with ThredUP. -Zara’s new knockout high-tech, half-warehouse flagship store in Madrid finally enabling mobile self-checkout for apparel. - Meta giving creators the green light to sell virtual goods in the metaverse - Santa Mo...

Part of what makes the concept of omnichannel retailing so great is the idea that retail is now perpetual, i.e. always on and available to consumers whenever and however they want it. But, by definition then, doing it right requires unprecedented levels of flexibility within our retail supply chains. So Omni Talk is pleased to announce that Purolator’s Senior Director of Retail, Laurie Weston, joins Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga for the latest installment of their Omni Talk Ask An Expert Serie...

To understand the future of commerce and words like the “metaverse,” it is important to place things in the proper context. So Omni Talk is pleased to announce that Meta’s VP of its Commerce Business, Emma Rodgers, joins Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga for the latest installment of their Omni Talk Ask An Expert Series to give her firsthand perspective on how she sees the future of retail shaping up. Collectively the three of them go deep on: – Why “portability” and “dimensionality” are key ter...

In the latest Women's Retail Collective Podcast Anne Mezzenga sits down with Meijer's Group Vice President, Marketing & Customer Strategy: Retail Media, E-Comm, Own Brand, Data Insights at Meijer Amanda Mcvay You read that title right. Amanda wears a lot of hats and in fact, after 10 years at the company, Meijer created this job just for her. Amanda has diverse experience in everything customer-centric; from buying to product development to gathering consumer insights that have resulted in some...

A&M's Jonathan Sharp gets hit with tough questions from Omni Talk Retail, as he shares the most important insights from the A&M Consumer & Retail Group's latest installment of their ongoing Consumer Sentiment Survey in just five minutes! To read the full survey, head here: https://alvarezandmarsal-crg.com/insi... *Sponsored Content* This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Instacart dropped a big bomb recently, devaluing the company while, at the same time, announcing a new “platform” approach to their strategy going forward, and to say Anne and Chris are skeptical of the move, as many of you know, is an understatement. So we are pleased to bring you our latest in depth discussion with 1010data's Chief Product Officer Jonah Ellin about his company's just released comprehensive report surrounding Instacart. In this podcast interview, Chris, Anne, and Jonah discus...

In this week’s Fast Five video, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris and Anne discuss: - Target accepting food stamps online - Farfetch’s investment in Neiman Marcus - JOOR and something called “Automated Attribution” - Kroger giving the restaurant supply business a go down in Texas - And closed with a hot debate over Alexa giving advanced notification on deals There’s all that, plus Lizzo karaoke, how to screw up a burrito, and why we could nev...

In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris and Anne discuss: - Using BNPL at the gas station - Instacart’s downright laughable new strategic positioning - Red Wing Shoes smartly getting ahead of the fit tech curve - Adidas giving Nike a lesson in long-tail marketplace influencer commerce - And close with a “good on ya” to Kath McLay at Sam’s Club for suing BJ’s and protecting the hell out of her scan-and-go turf There...

In this special Shoptalk edition of the Omni Talk Spotlight Series brought to you through the support of Meta, Anne Mezzenga sits down with DoorDash VP of Global Partnerships to dive deep into the DoorDash headlines the retail world has been buzzing about for the past year including: - The future of DashMart - Express Grocery Delivery with Albertsons Co. - DoorDash Returns Pickup - And an exciting, first-of-its-kind partnership for the delivery provider and a popular East Coast merchant. Anne ...