Home Depot’s Interconnected Experiences & Holiday Highlights With VP Sarah Post

Hello, everyone.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Annmazinga and we are coming.

To you live from shop Talk fall.

We've got the exhibit hall behind us and we want to give a big shout out and thank you before we get started to our partners who make our shop talk fall 2024 coverage possible.

First, Microsoft.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization to achieve more.

You can learn more about how together tech and people can realize the promise of AI responsibly at aka, Ms.

Alatmicrosoft and of course, Narvar as the leader in post purchase intelligence.

Narvar empowers retailers to drive revenue, reduce costs and streamline operations, all while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

If you happen to be at the show while you're watching this, you can stop by booth L 45 or also visit them@narvar.com at your convenience.

All right, Anne, I'm excited for this one.

Me too.

Another former colleague of ours and I am excited to introduce Sarah Post, the VP of interconnected experience at Home Depot.

What a cool title.

I know.

Thanks for being here.

Interconnected experiences.

Yes.

All right.

We're all about connecting and networking and.

Interconnected making good experiences.

Yes.

Well, miss Interconnection, can you explain for the listeners at home who might, that might be a new title to them?

Can you explain what's all under your purview at the Home Depot?

You've got it.

So the notion of interconnection is really bringing together multiple channels, and we do so in a digital way and a physical way and acknowledging really the fact that it's not necessarily omnichannel or multi channel, that all of those channels are interconnected for the customer.

What's under my purview?

Yeah, I've got product management for Home Depot.com and our apps.

I've got our category experience team, user experience teams and strategy and site operations.

And why is it important that all of those things are underneath your oversight?

Oversight.

I mean, really, it's really kind of sole end to end ownership of the digital experience.

Right, right.

And so, of course, we've got incredible merchant teams, we've got store teams.

But acknowledging that the digital touch points don't start and stop with just the app or just the four walls of the website, but really extend beyond cool.

So it's a very unified product approach, too, at Home Depot, which is generally a calling card for the retailers that get it the best, too, in my opinion.

So I think Ann and I both think that.

All right, so I missed your session yesterday.

Apologies, 1000 apologies.

So if you can, for me and for our audience, can you share what you talked about?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we went a lot of different places.

We talked about the diYer, obviously, more of our consumer base.

We have had the experiences that we create for them.

We talked about being customer backed, starting from the customer, acknowledging what jobs to be done they have, or really what their pain points are, what their moments that matter are, and how we build experiences, starting with them and working our way backwards, understanding them holistically.

We also talked about the pro.

The pro is a lot different than the consumer.

The pro is managing a business.

They're entrepreneurs.

They have a different set of needs.

Their time is money.

They're not shopping.

They're gathering materials so that they can get jobs done.

They often have multiple jobs going at once.

And by pro, you mean the contractor or the home builder, right?

Just to be specific.

Yeah.

Reno modeler.

You're not a pro.

Chris, if you were wondering if you fit into, you cannot go to the pro desk at Home Depot.

That is not where you and I go.

We go.

They would laugh me out of the store.

And if I tried to show up at the pro desk.

Exactly.

They'd point you.

Well, they'd probably help you out, just so you know.

But it'd be a great digital experience.

You tell them, you know, Sarah, and they will help you, but otherwise that's your only saving grace.

Right.

Well, Sarah, there's a big theme here at shop talk that's focused on unified commerce.

And I'm curious, based off of what you've learned since you've been in this role for the last two years now?

Almost two years.

Yeah, almost two years.

What advice do you have for retailers and brands who are either listening at home or who maybe missed the session yesterday as they start to really kind of improve on or test new ways to improve their unified commerce journey?

Yeah, I think, I mean, overarchingly we talk about the customer.

The customer is a central point of everything.

And so from a digital perspective, truly understanding that customer by having a single view of the customer, ensuring that you've sort of got a customer, good, good customer kind of data architecture plan there and great ways and incentivizing the customer to tell us who they are in store.

In addition to that, you've got to understand how they flow across your journey.

And then that kind of gets mapped at a macro level so that you can design experiences that really cater to their needs.

All right, so we'll get you out of here on this holidays.

Coming.

What do you got in the pipe pipeline?

What are you working on?

What can you share?

What can you tease for our audience?

Christmas trees and lights and all the.

Oh, my gosh.

So speaking of TikTok, you know, we have a very viral.

Oh, yes.

The Christmas, the grand dutch dentistry, the 2250 lights.

I think this thing is a value, you guys.

I mean, I was always, always a cut tree person.

Yeah, like what?

Fresh.

We have beautiful fresh trees.

But if you can get your hands on a grand duchess.

So you're saying, go synthetic, you never go back.

Once you go synthetic, you never go back.

Go for the grand duchess.

Grand duchess.

You gotta get the grand duchess.

And you guys know, right now, our Halloween assortment is out.

We were the pioneer of giants.

Yeah.

Twelve foot skeleton.

My God, in your front yard.

I think you seem like the kind of guy who needs that.

Oh, yeah, I do.

I do.

You know me so well.

Second week in a row we've got people pubbing like big ass hogs.

Holiday stuff too, right?

It's great.

Big time executives popping their twelve foot skeletons again.

This, like, it's a value, okay?

Like the best value out there.

All right, all right.

We'll check it out.

Well, thank you so much, Sarapost VP.

Interconnected, interconnected experiences at Home Depot.

Thank you so much for taking the time.

Thanks for keeping us on.

It was great having this.

Really fun.

Yes.

And thanks so much again to Microsoft and Narvar for making all of our coverage possible.

Stay tuned.

We'll be right back with more.

And until then, be careful out there.