Episodes

In this Omni Talk Special Report Anne Mezzenga and Shlomo Chopp Managing Partner of Case Equity Partners & Founder of RetailOS, dive into a conversation about the state of malls and retail real estate and why the current model has the potential to see a fate similar to Ryan Gosling's falling Jenga tower in the Big Short. Shlomo takes Anne and the audience on a journey behind the scenes to break down why, when so many malls are struggling, there's little appetite for REITs, Landlords, and mall o...

In the latest Women's Retail Collective Podcast brought to you by Parcel Pending by Quadient, host Anne Mezzenga sits down with Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Sucharita Kodali. This is a special one, in particular, because the retail industry may have lost one of their most valuable analysts and experts to Hollywood director, Judd Apatow. Sucharita explains her very unique career journey and the full details of that story in this podcast. They also cover important pointers from Sucharita o...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by Takeoff and the A&M Consumer & Retail Group Anne Mezzenga and guest hosts Mohit Mohal and Hemant Kalbag of the Alvarez & Marsal Consumer & Retail Group discuss: -Target’s and Walmart’s banner Q2 earnings and what, if anything stands in their way. -If Allbirds has all the right stuff to become a competitive and successful player in the activewear space, or if this pre-IPO move will have them wishing they stuck to the soft and sweat-...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by Takeoff and the A&M Consumer & Retail Group Anne Mezzenga and guest host James Cook Americas Director of Retail Research for JLL and host of the podcast Where We Buy discuss: -Kroger and Kitchen United’s ghost kitchen partnership allowing picky families everywhere to each order a different restaurant meal and the week’s fill-in groceries in one trip. -No more waiting In lines for click and collect pickup or, more importantly, to ma...

In the latest Omni Talk Ask An Expert Series Anne Mezzenga sits down with Lowes Foods E-commerce VP Chad Petersen to hear about the strategy they're putting together for the next year in grocery. Lowes Foods is no stranger to online grocery ordering, they've been doing it since 1997, but as Chad explains, like many regional grocery chains, they are experimenting with the right mix of resource allocation for in-store pickup vs. delivery and owned vs third party services for picking, packing, and...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by Takeoff and the A&M Consumer & Retail Group Anne Mezzenga and guest host Najla Kayyem of Pacific Retail Capital Partners discuss: -Twitter, better late than never, finally enabling shopping in-app and exposing a large and diverse audience to the concept of social commerce. -Shopify widely sharing the increased revenues merchants using Shop Pay, their BNPL feature, have seen but keeping the word on merchant processing fees for this ...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, and Takeoff Anne Mezzenga and guest hosts David Ritter and Kristin Kohler Burrows of the A&M Consumer & Retail Group discuss: -Uber announcing partnerships with both Albertsons and Costco sending the Fast Five team into a debate about what this means for the grocery delivery ecosystem and grocers moving away from Instacart -Foxtrot’s ambitious expansion plans and some ideas on how they should consid...

Sunny Jiang started at then startup EyeBuyDirect right out of university as a financial controller. Like many of her coworkers at the online eyewear retailer, she has remained with the company almost 15 years later. Unlike many of her coworkers, after many successes, she made her way from finance controller to leading the entire company as CEO and President in 2017. Sunny attributes her success leading EyeBuyDirect and the over three million customers they serve to her dedication to leading by ...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, and Takeoff Anne Mezzenga and guest host Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Sucharita Kodali discuss: -Instacart’s powerhouse move, bringing over yet another Facebook Exec, Fidji Simo, to be the company’s CEO and what this indicates for the direction company may be headed in. -Why Sam’s Club adding Scan & Ship is so much more than a new app feature and may open them up to an entirely new consumer. ...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, and Takeoff Anne Mezzenga and returning guest host Steve Dennis: -Dive into Dollar General’s big announcements they’re getting into healthcare and expanding fresh produce to 10,000+ stores including many in USDA-deemed food deserts. -Tap Steve’s luxury retail experience for his analysis on Bloomingdale’s new off-mall concept, Bloomie’s. -Discuss Brookfield’s and Simon Property Group’s investments i...

In this Omni Talk Ask An Expert Interview, Anne Mezzenga sits down with Yair Holtzer VP of Business Development at Trigo to talk about Artificial Intelligence Computer Vision (AICV). The AICV space is heating up with retailers across the globe piloting checkout-free retail stores of all sizes and in this interview, Anne gets Yair’s expert opinion on how retailers can best approach scaling this technology. Trigo has learned this strategy first hand over the course of the last three years as one...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, Takeoff, and BrightSign, Anne Mezzenga and returning guest host Oliver Banks: -Recap rather muted Prime Day results, how the event compares to Singles Day, and what Amazon can do to keep their holiday hopping. -Laud Nordstrom and Indochino for making one of the smartest partnership moves to bring GenZ and Millennials back to the department store. -Geek out over the expansion of Alibaba’s Store X co...

"You know great omnichannel retailing when you don’t see it." Omni Talk’s Chris Walton is joined by Sam’s Club Chief Technology Officer Vinod Bidarkoppa in this special edition of the Omni Talk Ask An Expert Series to share how his team has triumphed during this pandemic year, consistently putting out best-in-class examples of true omnichannel retailing. Vinod was brought on to the Walmart team to lead a “$65 billion dollar startup” also known as Sam’s Club, and in just under two years, has le...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, Takeoff, and BrightSign, Anne Mezzenga and guest hosts David Ritter and Mohit Mohal of the Alvarez & Marsal Consumer & Retail Group: -Debate, that’s right, I said debate, the significance of Amazon opening a full-size Amazon Fresh autonomous grocery store. -Discuss the required execution necessary for Lowes Foods office locker delivery to be as successful as Anne wants it to be. -Determine just how...

Sepideh Burkett knew at an early age that she was ready to take on big things. At 17, she left her family in Dubai with a one-way ticket to the US to start work on her engineering degree. After being "beaten into submission" by calculus, those plans changed and she followed in the family's footsteps and decided to make the pivot to pharmacy school. Now, you're probably thinking, this is a retail podcast, right? Yes. That's what makes Sepideh's story so unique. After years of running the pharma...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, Takeoff, and BrightSign, Anne Mezzenga and guest host Carl Boutet: -Discuss their admiration for Walmart’s newest plan to plus up Walmart+ with free prescriptions for members. -Talk GNC making ultra Ulta moves setting up shop in 4,000+ Walmart stores and on Walmart.com. Remember to scan-and-go that protein, bro! -Discover Carl Boutet’s love of bin shopping for beans, now available at Quicklotz. -L...

Did you know 58% of consumers never return after making an initial purchase? And that is because loyalty is fast and fleeting, especially in today’s complex and competitive eCommerce environment. Only focusing on a consumer's linear path-to-purchase risks losing sight of all the activity that happens after a purchase is made. The best predictors of what a consumer may do next lie within his or her online activity, not just from search to purchase but also in what happens beyond the purchase as ...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, Takeoff, and BrightSign, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga: - Discuss what the new Walmart and Gap partnership means for a brand they both love so much (and would come out of retirement for). - Explain why there is so much more nuance to the long-term discussion about Instacart than what the pundits are relaying with all their pithy comments on social media. - Debate whether Sheetz taking Bitcoin is a s...

As NetElixir CEO and Founder Udayan Bose says, Chief Marketing Officers and e-commerce marketing teams have been running on a treadmill at 10 mph since the pandemic began. And, now just when they don't need another wrench thrown into things, iOS updates have eliminated third-party cookies, turning up the heat and forcing them to come up with new ways to attract customers. In fact, according to a NetElixir study, 80% of the brands and retailers they surveyed were so busy trying to stay on top of...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, Takeoff, and Manhattan Associates, A&M's Kristin Kohler Burrows and Chad Lusk stop by to discuss all the week's top retail news with Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga. Together they debate: - The likely impacts of Amazon's MGM acquisition. - The first-ever antitrust suit brought against Amazon and why it feels like the Attorney General of Washington, D.C. may have a case. - 10 minute delivery and the n...

A few years ago, Adam Siegel came to Omni Talk and said he was leaving his position at RILA to found a startup he believed could revolutionize resale by giving brands a new way for their existing customers to resell the products they had previously purchased from them online and in an intuitive way. Intrigued by the simplicity of the idea as Adam described it, Anne and Chris asked that Adam keep in touch, and lo and behold almost two years later that startup, Recurate, has just secured $3.25 mi...

In the latest Omni Talk Ask An Expert Series interview, Chris Walton speaks with Quorso Founder and CEO Julian Mills about the latest trends in agile store management theory and practice. Agile store management, first introduced to the Omni Talk audience back in the summer of 2020, is the idea that retail operations, particularly at the store level, can be managed similar to how software is created, i.e. with a quick, iterative mindset that is all about coordinated testing and learning to deliv...

In the latest edition of the Omni Talk Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, Takeoff, and Manhattan Associates, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga debate: - Target's billion dollar plus move into alcohol delivery and what CEO Brian Cornell likely wears to the gym twice a day. - Amazon Go Grocery's rebranding to Amazon Fresh and what it heralds for the future (hint: it's more than you think). - Google and Shopify's new partnership and whether it will amount to a hill of beans. - T...

In 2020, Adeptmind made headlines with plans to make Centennial Mall properties fully shoppable online, and just last month this plan became a reality. Consumers can now shop over 2.0 million skus across a bevy of retailers at Centennial’s MainPlace mall for both delivery and pickup. That's 2.0 million plus skus online, from a mall, for delivery and pickup -- a massive milestone and achievement in mall-based retailing. We first spotlighted Adeptmind in a podcast interview last year, and now Ch...