Making Space – Real Time: Target, Walmart & Amazon Deal Events, Retail Media’s Role & Trader Joe’s Seasonal Playbook

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Welcome back to Making Space Real Time.

I'm Chris Ne.

The holiday season is almost here and the stores are telling us a lot.

A brand can promise anything in a press release, but the store is where you find out if it actually delivers.

And that's why I walk so many stores and it's the lens that I bring to this show.

Each episode we cover a few stories worth your time.

My guests and I come prepared to share what we've uncovered and react in real time to each other's perspectives.

And even better today because we're going to take a bit of a different approach and extend this a bit beyond the store.

Making Space Real Time is presented by the association of Retail and Consumer Professionals in partnership with omnituck.

Today's guest host is Dave Glase.

And we go back several years.

In fact, we both lived in the same neighborhood for several years.

I went back and did a little walk the other day, a little reconnaissance, and I figured out that we were three houses away from each other.

Uh, and on top of that, we both worked at Target, never directly together unless my memory fails me.

Uh, and so, Dave, I wanted to welcome you to Making Space.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, great to be here.

And, yeah, just I. I thought you were gonna count in steps versus in houses there.

And so we, we were very close, which is awesome.

Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

I. I can't even remember.

But how, I mean, how many years ago was that, now that you moved away?

Ooh, about five.

About five years now.

Five.

Okay.

Yeah.

A few things have changed since you moved out, but yeah, every time I walk by that house, I still think of you guys.

So I'm glad to have you on the show.

Yeah.

Great to be here.

All right, so, Dave, for anyone that doesn't know you yet, I'd love for you to introduce yourself, tell people a bit more about yourself, and then tell people about Digits Agency and the work that you and your team do.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah.

I am owner and CEO of Digits Agency.

We are a retail media agency.

Specifically, that's all we do.

I like to tell prospects where we're not running media for banks or QSRs or whatnot.

We are just fully focused in on on CPGs and retailers in this space.

In a previous life I was a merchant at Target and so I was a store side merchant for 10 years, which building planograms, managing space in store, doing signs, a lot of this stuff that I know we're kind of talking about here in store.

And then I got moved into the digital world for the early days of their Cartwheel program, which is now Target Circle and some Roundel efforts.

So got a good background of physical retail, digital retail, and helped bring a lot of that to our, to our clients at digits.

Fantastic.

Thanks for the introduction.

I think that people are going to find out that that's going to make you about the perfect guest for what we're going to talk about here over the course of the next few minutes or so.

So how about you say we get started?

You good?

Good with that?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right, so here's what we got for you today.

So Trader Joe's turns fall and newness into a reason to visit without running a single ad.

And we'll look at how it does it.

But we're going to start today with a broader conversation on the October deal events at Target, Walmart and Amazon, what they look like in store and how they extended online.

You ready, Dave?

Let's do it.

All right, so in early October, Walmart, Target and Amazon all ran big deal events that overlapped and that was no accident.

So here's a quick backdrop.

Three events, one for each of the different retailers that we've talked about.

Walmart deal days extended from October 5th to 11th.

So an entire week Amazon Prime Big deal days and Target Circle deal days.

You'll see a theme here, Deal days, not a ton of creativity happening when it comes to naming.

These Both happened on October 6th and 7th.

Amazon results have already been reported by a few different media outlets.

So Adobe tracked nearly $10 billion in US online sales across their Amazon tracking and they said that was up about 8.5%.

Numerator talked about the top sellers and I think this tells a really interesting thing about what these sales are maybe all about.

They said that many of the top sellers at Amazon were everyday staples like protein shakes, Lysol wipes, toilet paper, with 68% of most of the items that were sold under $20.

We don't know a ton about what happened at Walmart and Target yet, and we'll learn more there when it becomes a bit clearer when they report earnings in mid November.

So let's talk about the deals specifically and what they announced heading into Those events, first and foremost, Walmart talked about them being open to all, meaning you didn't need a Walmart.

Plus the deals were advertised as up to 50% off and they mentioned them being led by home kitchen, tech and toys.

Target Circle deal days were available if you had a free Circle account.

And they were broader, 40% deals across the peril.

Shoes, handbags, sports fan shops, Halloween and costumes at 30% off.

And Amazon was available to prime members.

So I used this as an opportunity to dig into what I actually saw in store.

And I'd say that, you know, I've traditionally thought about this as one of the bigger moments on the retail calendar, sort of between 4th of July, maybe back to school and Halloween.

And I'll tell you that I'm starting to wonder if that's actually true anymore.

So how about I set up my walks and dig into what I saw and then let you do a bit of reaction.

Sound good?

Perfect.

All right, so I'm going to take Walmart first and share what I saw.

So I visited a couple of different stores and it became pretty clear early on that the deal day itself was not all that present in store.

The first things that I saw were special brand new special signs talking about manager specials in both English and Spanish hanging from the ceiling, starting in the grocery the main aisles.

So the racetrack for those that know the term in retail were all about everyday low price or rollbacks.

In fact, you know, there were probably a hundred different points where those two things came into play in the main aisle.

And there were only two moments that I saw actual deal day presences and they were large corrugates, one of them for $8 fleece jackets and $10 women joggers.

And the other one was a beacon for $15 to $20.

Toys at shelf, a very similar thing.

You know, rollbacks were probably most prominent and I don't think that I saw a single thing tied to the deal days in IO.

On top of that, the one place where I did see the deal event show up in store was in apparel and jewelry and largely mostly in apparel.

The unique thing was that it was a very much brand by brand approach, sort of a was now pricing approach.

And it was very specific to own brands.

So brands like Tara and Sky, Weekend Academy and even their new fashion brand scenario rarely did I see it anywhere else.

And I paid special attention to a couple of areas because they did show up a bit more prevalently in Target.

And one of them was seasonal.

And I don't think that I saw a single Deal.

And so if I had to summarize what I saw deal days is not a major emphasis in the physical store for Walmart.

Everyday low prices, rollbacks and thousands of new lower prices that's really what sort of took priority and deal days felt like a bit of an afterthought.

So you know I've talked for a while now and I love to hear from you just you know what did you see if you walked a Walmart store and what stood out to you about the event?

Yeah and I one of the things, you know Chris that I know that I love that you put in all the detail and the work and the analyst when you go through so like really keeping track of all how that works I think is really interesting of which places they had it and not I would say for me, you know I've been in this loyalty deal days ecosystem for 12 years now is what I would say.

And so I'm like, I've seen the evolution of these.

Walmart's never really been a big physical player in store.

I think when we get to Target we can talk how that they've gone in cycles a little bit but Walmart has always kept it pretty quiet in store when it comes to their deal days and I didn't see anything different this time I guess is what I would say.

So like they, it's been a similar playbook where super spotty in store.

What I did see that I liked was you talked about the term manager special and that where you know we've been seeing them do more hyper local deals and what I'm not sure about and probably maybe people listening would know is like if those are decided literally at the store level because if it's like an overstock of inventory or they got a miss shipment or something that literally that store manager decides they need to get rid of or if these orchestrated headquarters deals I, I don't have insights to that but I what I have seen is they are putting that in the app and there are ways to find those which I think is interesting and special and a way to make this to feel local even if it's a big you know, thousand multi store chain event still feels local to the shopper.

And so I guess to summarize my thoughts, they they haven't made it come to life in store that just has not been a priority of theirs.

But I think they are doing some cool stuff to try to play off the, the loyalty angle and the personalization that they can do.

Yeah and I think that's what I Expected when I walked into the store, I remember past deal events and it's definitely not felt all that important.

And I also think, you know, with the emphasis on rollback and everyday low prices that you feel every time that you go into the store, I almost wonder if they feel like we don't need to go that big in store because I think it's pretty clear to you already that price is something that is incredibly important to us and we try to always have great deals and offers to you so that, you know, the deal days might be on top of that.

There might be a few extra special things that we're doing, but at the end of the day, we're trying to bring you the best price every, each and every day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wish they could do more.

Well, and probably this is a collective they Walmart and Target as we start to talk about them.

But I mean, these events to me have two goals.

The most obvious goal, and this is why they don't come across in store, is really just pre holiday SEO is these were started by digital merchandisers and marketers to try to get their words of like pre Black Friday deal and all that stuff to be registered by, by Google and the search engines.

Like that was the original idea 10, 15 years ago when these used to happen in like July and whatnot was to build traffic and relevance before Christmas.

So that's like still once, that's still why it occurs.

But the second, I think is to reward your most loyal shoppers.

Like when I was running this program for, for Target that you have millions and millions of shoppers that love to shop the store.

How do you make it come to life in store?

How does it feel like a celebration moment?

And it doesn't feel that way today.

It feels that way in the app.

Both of them do a good job of making it come to life in the app.

Then you walk in store and it, it's, you know, there's a different season happening.

It's just blank.

So.

Yeah, yep, absolutely.

All right.

I think that's a great time for us to transition into Target since we've already sort of hinted at what we saw there.

So what I saw were deals that showed up that were wide ranging, but large parts of the store, including grocery, Home beauty even didn't feel like they were involved in the event at all.

As I mentioned a moment ago, you know, apparel and seasonal were sort of the two areas where I felt like it really showed up.

Again, they were pretty specific deals.

In most cases it was up to 40% off it was wide parts of the assortment, so I think that was helpful.

And you definitely felt as you walked through apparel and seasonal that there were pretty significant deals to be had.

You know, Halloween was mostly 40% off, costumes were 30% off.

And so, you know, in a couple parts of the store, it definitely feel like there was something happening, but for most of the store, it didn't feel like there was an event necessarily going on.

Another thing that I noticed that I thought was interesting was that deals of the day were gone.

And this is something that they've done in the past pretty extensively.

I'd say they'd have four to six deals each of the days of the event.

Most often they'd be on a front end cap pretty prominently displayed.

There'd be a stanchion sign next to it.

It'd feel a bit special, but I actually think that's fine.

Many times as I think about those deals of the day and what they were in the past, I'm not sure that they were something that was creating a ton of sense of urgency to actually get a customer to buy that item on that day, whether it be rushing to the store to get it or to find it online.

And operationally, it probably makes life a lot easier for those in the stores to not have to change those out every single day when it comes to, you know, this was the deal today and now we have five new ones tomorrow that we need to manage.

Another thing that I noticed about this deal that I think was a bit different was the event stretched into clearance and there was a pretty clear emphasis on clearance.

And you mentioned the app.

I saw this both in store and online.

I took a bunch of screenshots from my app as I was preparing for this episode and as I was walking the stores.

And there were several banners that talked about home, online and in store, up to 70% clearance.

And I even saw a few spots in the store where that clearance was pulled together and in aisle.

The one other thing that I did see was a lot of rollback pricing.

Again, those lower prices that all of these companies have talked about investing, whether that be through tariff refunds or other things that they're doing to create lower prices on a day to day basis.

It felt like that was much more of an emphasis, you know, from a floor planning perspective and just thinking about how they were utilizing the space.

Very few of the deals were actually on prominent locations.

And I thought that was pretty interesting.

I saw five end caps in one store, seven in another.

And you guys all know there's hundreds of end caps in a Target.

Very few of them were actually dedicated to any one deal.

And then one last thing that I saw that I thought was pretty interesting is that in app, you know, I talked about seasonal already.

Obviously Halloween is set in store.

We all know that Christmas typically sets a bit later at Target than it does a lot of its rivals.

Last year they had some Christmas that had set at the same time as Halloween.

This year they did not.

And one of the deals was Christmas trees and decors for 40% off.

Well, obviously if it's not in the store, you can't buy it in the store.

So yes, it's available online, but I think it's another just hint at maybe the lack of importance to the deal days in store.

And then the last thing I'd say is there were a lot of main aisle activations in the past and I think maybe a year ago, a year and a half ago was sort of the peak of that for Target.

And it really didn't feel like the deals extended all that far beyond the things that they were focused on in, you know, the two areas I really talked about in apparel in Halloween.

So Dave, I'd imagine you were in a Target store.

You know, I'd love to hear what you saw and just how did you see the physical event changing from maybe what you saw in the past at Target?

Yeah, I, so I actually was in the flagship store, if you will, which is like their downtown Nicollet mall location in Minneapolis.

I, I happened to be down there for to see some clients on these two days.

And so I went into that store and checked it out.

And so theoretically that's maybe their biggest activation.

You know, they might have also picked some big stores across the country, but there they actually made it come to life a little bit in store.

I will say less, less than in past.

But it wasn't nothing.

They had the, you walk right in store and it was the big square balls, or not even not balls, but boxes, right, that stacked up to a couple, maybe five, 10ft tall.

So you felt it when you walked in a little bit.

They had some big signs in the apparel floor pad, you know, like on the side of racks and whatnot.

So I would say 20% of what they did maybe a year and a half ago, but it wasn't zero and more so and more than Walmart.

But to me it sort of felt like the remains of an in store strategy.

Right?

Like somebody, somebody built a good strategy two years ago and every event they're slowly crossing the lines off and Be like, oh, okay, we need to save some money, save some payroll, save some time.

And so they cross off some stuff but then they leave, you know, they leave some.

That, that's the way it felt to me as somebody who's been going into these, you know, every cycle for the last couple of years.

So I didn't see a ton of deals signed.

I think there were some in apparel, but not a lot.

But I would.

And conversely, I would say they invested in deals pretty strongly.

Meaning, you know, I know how much some of these cost Target as far as markdowns and they did deals in like their top apparel offers.

Like if you're going to see an offer for 40% off some women's clothes, like that is a mover at Target.

Those are the ones that one, drive interest, but two, cost a lot of redemption dollars for Target.

And so this cycle I do think they invested in deals to try to drive interest and engagement, which is a positive for the customer.

More so than even some of the previous cycles.

I didn't necessarily come to in store signage or in store experience, but you know, they had the upfront part right, deals wise, at least from, from my opinion.

Yeah.

And I wanted to pick on a couple of things or dig into a couple of things that you said.

I mean one, I think we both agree that the in store deal event at Target has started to minimize to some degree.

I agree with you.

The sort of large gift boxes at the front of the store were still there, very consistent.

You knew what was happening.

It highlights the deal event in a way that you don't see at Walmart.

But you mentioned sort of maybe a dialing back and potentially related to expense or operational challenges that that might present?

I mean, do you think that that's part of why these are becoming maybe a bit more muted in stores or do you think there's something else at play?

I think it's, I think it's hard to be nimble for a two day event and make it physically come to life in store.

Like I would say my interpretation of what happened is probably about three or four years ago they were reinventing this circle and they're trying to get a little bit more branding for circle and try to get more people to sign up for it.

They were changing what it meant a bit.

They were branding it.

So it was probably somebody's strategic imperative to get it out in store and make it feel like more part of the everyday shopping experience.

My expectation then is that cost a lot of money and, and they were like, oh, we're signing this one deal for two days that only gets an uptick of, you know, $30,000 of sales or $50,000 or something.

And then somebody does the math and like that might not be a great idea.

Right.

And you know, signing things physically really boxes out what you can do digitally.

Meaning, you know, you're making decisions weeks in advance, you're, you're not able to be nimble.

Then there's a lot of confusion of, well, am I signing every deal we're running?

Am I signing only like the top deals that we're running?

Then can I not add other deals?

And then is, are we.

You almost are being more confusing to the guest by trying to be less confusing.

But in any ways you're, you're being confusing in one way, you're not going to sign literally every deal to every guest happening.

And so I think they tried to solve problems that maybe didn't exist in some ways and then realized that that wasn't really the right way to go about it.

But.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And one other thing you said, you know, caught my attention.

There were a lot of other deals in the store and in many cases on prominent front end caps.

But you know, just due to how they were signed, it was clear that they were not part of the deal event.

So I thought, I thought that was interesting too to figure out, you know, honestly, like how do you decide what is part of the deal event and just what is it another sale?

Should you think about them more comprehensively?

Is it fine that they're sort of separate things?

But it was interesting because there was a lot of part of the stores that there was another deal, a buy two get one free, you know, $20 off of a $50 purchase of this.

So it's not that there weren't deals to be had.

It felt like they were deals that were happening in a lot of different ways, whether that be clearance price cuts, other deals, circle deals, not necessarily one comprehensive package of offerings during that two day event.

Yeah, they don't.

None of these retailers will stop the drumbeat of weekly programming.

Right.

To drop in a two day event.

Right?

Sure.

And I think that's where it does get hard.

There's the art and science of these promo events.

Right.

Like you might have a scientific engine that says the best way to run this promotion is X deal.

And some categories like soda, it's going to be, you know, buy three for X.

Other categories it's going to be a percent off, otherwise it'll be price point, which makes sense.

At an individual unilateral level.

But then when you try to wrap it in branding, it gets really hard because then you talk to the customer like, hey, just come in for a bunch of deals.

You're not like 40% off all 50 different deals.

Right.

So the messaging versus the science, I think can be tough.

And what I have seen is Target and Walmart sort of like rotate back and forth between, well, do we want this to be a messaging marketing event?

Do we want this to be a science based promotional event?

And then it almost yings and yangs almost every year.

And I don't know if the average customer can tell the difference, but people like us that are retail operators that have been in it, we're like, okay, we can see how this feels a little bit different.

So.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I appreciate you getting out to the stores and going back and forth with me on that piece of the puzzle, but I'd say I'm even more excited to dig in here on a couple of questions that I had about how I think about these online.

And you're my resident expert today, so I'm going to put you on the spot here with a couple of things.

As I dug in a bit deeper to some of the things that were already being reported specifically around the Amazon event, but again, more broadly.

So, you know, as I dug into what I saw online with Amazon in the mix, numerator found that 55% of Amazon shoppers compared prices at other retailers first, mostly Walmart and Target.

You know, so the floor and the digital shelf are competing in the same moment.

What did you see online and sort of what caught your attention as you thought about these deal events?

Yeah, I mean, for Amazon, it's always super interesting because their assortment is so huge.

Right.

And they kind of make these events available within their marketplace for marketplace sellers and kind of just like, hey, we're running these events.

You submit deals, they can put your own marketing behind it and dollars.

And so there it's, I think it just runs the gamut of products that can be, can be merchandised or can be offered.

And so it's always a lot more variable, I guess, and a little less headquarters orchestrated, which.

So it's always interesting for me to see what, what pops up in this Amazon world.

Yeah, okay.

You know, on top of that, you know, the other thing that I saw was Numerator also found top sellers were.

I mentioned this earlier, it was largely staples.

And so, you know, I'm curious, like, you know, what does that tell you about.

Maybe it's not only the events themselves, but maybe it's a broader economic conversation to be had around, you know, the fact that Lysol wipes and toilet paper are some of the most prominently things being purchased.

But I mean how do you see these events evolving and how important do you think they remain?

I think it's, you know, they, I, I do see them evolving and I think they have to have some sort of, I mean I was going back and forth between the marketing versus the science.

Like the ones that we always thought were most important when I was there was the, when it had a marketing handle like we used to do circle events.

If you did them in January, then you wanted a bunch of deals that were around, you know, essentials and return to routine and whatnot.

And they were always.

Target tries to be more thematic than I'd say where Amazon is just open source for deals.

So I think to answer your question, they still remain very important but probably different reasons.

I would probably the merchant in me would probably want to see them come back to being a little bit more thematic and a little bit more is something that the actual shopper can resonate with.

Like is there 50 circle deals on just cleaning or on just, you know, food or new tick tock items that are in the Target store?

Or how are these kind of like organized a little bit better thematically so that it actually breaks through with the shopper.

I mean I think we both talked about right now is like what the shopper understands is there's, there's just a bunch of deals these two days like come in and find some deals and whether that's a deal on a sweater or a deal on a Lysol wipe, they're pretty different.

But the shopper's only expecting good deals.

And I think that we should be able to try to message it a bit more to put it around a category or a theme or an event or a purchase history.

Something there that is a little bit more breakthrough in my opinion.

That's interesting because it would give the customer an idea of what they're walking into and the types of deals that they're potentially going to look in.

Versus to your point, it's sort of a scattershot and sort of like maybe unclear as to what I'm walking into and what I should actually be looking for.

So that's, yeah, that's interesting.

It definitely doesn't feel like, you know, I felt a bit of that in store, you know, broad parallel deals and those kind of things.

But the online universe is pretty wide as you mentioned and I think to make it a bit more focused could lead to very different results.

Well, maybe you rotate it around the store, right.

Like you could do monthly events in Walmart plus or, or circle and you do food and then you do a beauty and then you do, you know, candy.

I'm, I'm making them up.

But like that could be an interesting way to do it.

Where then the, the, the devoted shoppers that are, you know, Walmart plus shoppers or Target circle shoppers actually like see that and understand that like, oh, I'm going to explore the food business.

Now I don't usually shop food at target, but there's 40% deals across 40 different items.

Maybe I'll explore and try some things new that I haven't done before and then they could actually make it come to life in store a little bit because it's contained and it's not to like 30 different end caps across the store that they don't want to sign because then they touch all these different store managers and it's just impossible to do versus doing something a little bit tighter.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

All right, so one last thing on this and then we'll move on.

The one interesting thing to me continues to be is that these deal events are all happening at the exact same time, give or take, with Walmart's obviously being a bit longer than the others.

I'm just curious like do you ever see that model flipping and these retailers deciding to sort of do their own thing on their own time frame?

Maybe there's an inertia related to them all happening at the same time.

But I do wonder about that.

And then secondarily, you know, for Amazon and Target specifically, you know, they happened midweek, I think it was a Tuesday and Wednesday maybe or either way it wasn't on a weekend.

And so in store is generally going to be less important.

Right.

You have less people in the store during the week than you do on the weekend in most cases.

And so I'm just curious if you think there will ever be a time when they'll sort of go out on their own and do their own thing at their own time or if, if there truly is a halo effect for all of them happening at the same time?

Yeah, I'll give me, give you a two part answer.

So one, do I think that they're going to change it?

No.

So I.

Okay, okay.

We see these full like unfold in real time.

That it's honestly sort of a game of chicken between the two of who announces it first?

Because once the dates are announced, the other one changes it.

And so they're, they're playing in real time.

It's, it's almost like, shoot, this was a while ago.

But there was, when Black Friday was important, there was always a scheme of chicken of who's saying what time you're opening.

Like, are we going to open at 4?

And then, oh, dang it, Walmart's opening at 3 in the morning.

Okay, then we need to change and open at three in the morning because we can't lose all our customers.

It feels it's the same way for these deal events is even if they had a different day picked, if they found out the other one was doing it different than they, they kind of change.

And so we've seen that the last couple of cycles.

And so being at the same time is important to the other one because they don't want to get scooped and lose their business.

And then they pop up on, you know, CPG's radars for losing share a certain week because Walmart had their event or Amazon had their event and they're losing share.

So everybody kind of follows Amazon's lead.

There is, is what I would say, but what I Part two, what I wish would happen.

And it kind of goes, we were talking about five minutes ago.

It's like I wish they had their own POV and their own opinion of how to make these come to be really good events for their most loyal shoppers.

And so just picking what works for you if you're Target or for Walmart.

Because I think that they're so worried about the others that they're not making it come to life in store and they're having to keep it really nimble because they're deciding sometimes a few weeks in advance of, you know, what days to run these.

And then it's not, it's feeling half baked, I guess is my point.

I'd rather have them jump all the way in.

What does it really mean to you to do this twice a year as a store and, and figure that out?

Yeah, I kind of love that.

I mean, own your deal event for your customers on your own time and do it the way that you feel like is going to best serve them?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's the other, you know, they just, they haven't been thinking it that way yet.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So I think that's a great place to leave deal days.

Like I said earlier, we're going to learn a lot more about what the results were Maybe or at least somewhat more from Target and Walmart once they report Q3 here in a few weeks.

So now we're going to go on to a grocer that has a very different playbook and we're going to talk about Trader Joe's.

You know, I thought Trader Joe's might be a good counterpoint to the discussion that we just had with how it uses its physical stores to talk about newness, value and even seasonality.

Not necessarily something that I always think about when I think about grocers.

So here's the setup.

You know, they're an outlier on the go to market.

No sales, no coupons, no deals.

I mean, all the things that we were just talking about.

No loyalty program and no online promotions.

The fall push for them lives in stores.

It's 100 plus new items that they've talked about launching all in stores by September.

Not only a focus on newness, they do a great job of focusing on value and ultimately a great customer experience in a non digital environment.

And so, you know, I wanted to see how they're using that space to spotlight what's new, what's valuable and what's exciting without deals or digital.

So I walked a few different stores on a few different days.

Thankfully, there seems to be a Trader Joe's on nearly every corner.

So there's no, it's pretty easy to get into those stores.

And so, you know, as I walked the store, I wanted to share a few things that I saw.

And then I'd just love to get your perspective on how you think about this and then maybe we'll have a broader conversation on how we think it applies beyond Trader Joe's.

So the first, first thing that I saw is, you know, they do their merchandising out on the sidewalk.

A lot of this starts even before you walk into the store.

Pumpkins, gourds, mums on the sidewalk.

You start to feel that the season is being signaled to you the moment you get out of your car.

Now obviously a lot of retailers might not have that luxury, but I think a lot do and they don't necessarily do that much to utilize it.

Five below is probably one that comes to mind that they do a pretty good job of talking about value before you've closed the door on your car.

And Trader Joe's does some of the same things inside.

You know, another place where they tell you that seasonal and exactly where they are and how they're going to meet the moment is with the flowers.

It's the first thing you see I think in every single Trader Joe's.

And I had the blessing of walking in early on a Saturday morning.

It's homecoming season, or it was homecoming season here in Minnesota.

And I think I saw a group of 15 teen girls gathered around the flowers in sort of a frenzy, picking out the flowers.

And for those of you not in sort of the high school scene right now, I'm just going to say most of the girls seem to make their own flower bouquets nowadays.

The boys are getting off pretty easy.

So Trader Joe's is primed to succeed because it was clear that there were like two different groups and two different high schools that were clamoring to get the best flowers for themselves.

So another way that again, you know, I'd maybe made 50 steps from my car and I'd already been signaled twice exactly what season it was, how important it was, and that they were there really to meet the moment.

In addition, every single end cap in that store, both front and back, was being utilized to not only highlight the season, but to also highlight value and to highlight new items.

Cornbread, I've actually gone gluten free here, so they had a gluten free option.

Maple leaf cookies and Harvest blend herbal tea.

I mean, just everything there was a combination of seasonal newness at a great price.

And on top of that, they were doing sampling at two of the different end caps so that they were introducing the customer to things in a way that, you know, we know what happens.

Costco does a ton of that every now and then.

I think I see it at Target, sort of, but I don't think it's all that consistent necessarily.

And so they're inviting you to explore and navigate those new items and see if it's something that might interest you.

On top of that, when the items were not on a main end capped, I think they've leaned heavier into shelf tags that are calling out some of those new items.

And something I've seen over the course of the past 90 days is there is an end cap in most stores all the time that is a mix and match of many of the new items.

And it clearly in chalk writing tells you, you know, Here are the 20 new items that we want you to see.

And so you can't really miss them when you're in the store.

In addition to that, the end caps themselves, like I saw one that was pretty much sold through, it was actively being switched out to something else.

And while I didn't stay around to see exactly what that would be, they made sure that they could no longer support this item.

They had a clear plan for what was going to be next.

And so I summarize what they're doing in a physical world and say that the season is staged from the sidewalk to Cash Wrap.

They're utilizing their best real estate to promote those new items or to signal the season to you.

They're always in stock and I don't think that they often need deals to be successful.

And it's really interesting because I think they're one of the few people that operate in this way.

I mean, they're an outlier in many ways, a successful outlier on that, you know.

And so, Dave, like, you know, in an environment where there are no coupons, no loyalty program, no online promotions, the floor is doing a lot of the work.

And we talked about these events at these other retailers that are not really utilizing the sales floor.

You know, I'd be curious, I mean, one, if you visited a Trader Joe's, what did you see?

But on top of that, you know, what do you make of it?

Can other grocers learn from it or do you think Trader Joe's is truly an outlier?

Yeah, a lot of good stuff there.

And I, I love Trader Joe's.

I, I shop there rotationally.

I wish you made.

You said there's one everywhere.

I wish there was one closer to my house because.

Okay, okay, it's about 15 minutes for us, which isn't okay, but you know, we're good.

But yeah, Trader Joe's from a customer lens and even personally is does an amazing job in store.

I would say from a marketer point of view, somebody who now does, you know, brand shopper marketing, you know, they're so own brand that doesn't really exist.

But if, if I pretended that their items had brands on them, let's say they were from a Craft or a Nestle or whatever, I would say that they lose a lot of their levers, right.

Because they're not doing paid search, they're not doing E Comm, they're not doing off site ctv, they're not doing all this stuff at an item level.

But I don't think it matters for them is my point.

Right.

But if I, if I was a marketer looking like what can I do at Walmart versus what can I do at Trader Joe's?

I would have a lot less levers.

But because they're all own brand, I think they do just do such a great job of wrapping it all up into a seasonal moment and it comes to life in store.

Right.

And so I'm a.

Like, I don't think a Target or a Walmart could replicate, but where I actually think that people could learn from them is digits.

We.

We work with a ton of regional grocers to do some, like, retail media and I think, you know, regional grocers to compete against the big nationals of Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, whatnot, actually could borrow a lot of the Trader Joe's playbook, and a lot of them already do.

So this isn't new news, but you walk into a Kowalski's here locally or Ascendex in Milwaukee or these other sort of like, more local thematic grocers.

Like, they're trying to do similar things, I think.

And that's where.

Yeah, they're.

I mean, they're maybe not quite as private label.

Right.

And so, like connected merchandise, like Trader Do's does such a great job.

Or, you know, I think they're even like boxing things to fit on end caps.

And like, the planogramming and whatnot just all fits so perfectly.

Right.

That it comes to life.

Like, the local grocers are still pulling a lot of national brands together, so maybe it feels a little bit more haphazard, but they're trying to be much more local and thematic and seasonal than I think your big nationals are.

And so that's where I'd say, who could try to win?

My question for you, like, I'm interested as somebody in the space, is like, how do they pull it off?

Like, is it.

Do they have just amazing merchandisers in store?

Is it their headquarters that does a great job with planograms?

Is it a payroll percentage?

Like, how are they able to be so much better pulling it off in store than, you know, your big nationals?

Yeah, that's a great point and a great question that, you know, I mean, one, I mean, they are resourced in a way that I don't think a lot of other grocers are.

Their stores are not all that big.

I mean, first of all.

So I think there is less to manage, but they have immense volume that they do out of those small boxes.

And so that means that there is a ton of turnover in products.

And I see more people working in those stores than I do in, I think, any other grocer.

So there's certainly a resourcing component to it.

There's probably a hiring component to it.

I think they seem to hire the people that just fit the mold.

Like, they're not only operationally diligent, but each of them is very able to quickly Navigate away from their operational moments to helping a customer at that same time and walking away from it and leaning in and helping them find the thing that they're looking for.

And so I think there is a huge people and culture actually component to this that they're really striving to deliver a great experience each and every time that a customer walks in their door.

And that doesn't happen by chance.

That happens through hiring the right people, tons of training.

You obviously have to resource it appropriately.

But I think, you know, we don't talk about that all that much.

But I do think that there's a large people piece of this now.

I mean, they have an artist on hand, I think, in each of their stores that does all of the chalk signage.

And so that's a piece of it, right?

It feels more personal, it feels more local.

Even though this is a national chain, there's just things that they've done and built sort of into the DNA of the company that sort of set them up for success.

And I do think that there are things that other, probably even to your point, more regional grocers could replicate there.

But at the end of the day, I mean, some of it does come down to being able to fund it and you have to have the right volume to be able to do that.

And is it the chicken or the egg?

I mean, what would happen if you leaned in on a resourcing and funding and training and culture and all of those things before you then got to the point where you were then driving those incremental sales?

And a lot of times that's not how it works, right?

You have to the incremental sales fund the resources.

And that flywheel for Trader Joe's is obviously working really well.

And it's maybe more tricky for someone to get from their current flywheel to that one.

But I just think.

I think there's a huge thing to be taken away from that around culture and people and probably just people that are.

I mean, they're great merchandisers.

They just get merchandising.

Well, it's.

So they do an amazing job of, I think, planning everything so thoughtfully.

Right.

Like, I'm sure those end caps, like when they're sourcing product 612 months ago and designing these new own brands and packaging and everything.

It's so well thought out.

But yet at shelf, it just feels whimsical, right?

It almost feels like the local person just pulled it together out of nothing, like a, you know, like a small little mom and pop shop.

But I'm sure it's not that way.

Right.

Like, there's a.

The art to kind of go from however millions of units of cornbread that they need to source to then just sort of popping up on an end cap.

Right.

Is.

Is somebody there does a really good job making that come to life.

Well, and the one other benefit that they have from a format perspective, not every store is the same.

Right.

But I mentioned they're not all that big.

Most of these stores, and we're talking about the prime real estate here in many cases, obviously in Iowa is just as effective and just as efficient.

But those end caps in most stores, there's probably a dozen of them.

You know, we were talking about, I mean, many of grocery stores, they probably even luns and buyer lease here locally.

I mean, they might have 50 end caps and, you know, we're talking a quarter of that.

And so to dial those in and get those right is easier.

There's less of them.

You can be more focused, they become more important.

They're more valuable to what you're trying to show your customer.

And so I think there's something around the format, too, that, you know, they're not managing a huge space.

They're very focused and rigorous around what they do and the points that they have to provide inspiration, they do it incredibly well.

Awesome.

All right, well, that was a good discussion, and I think it's an interesting counterpoint.

And the one thing that I like that you said, and you know, I hadn't really thought about this, was, you know, the applicability to regional grocers and how they might think about some of the things that Trader Joe's is doing and maybe applying those.

And it's good to hear that there's some of that already happening.

So I think that's a good place for us to leave the stories.

So we're going to move on to the final checkout.

All right.

This is a chance for us to have a little bit of fun.

And so, Dave, I'm going to let you go first.

Yeah, Chris.

So I know you get out in stores a ton, probably more than anybody, and I think that's a lot of, you know, your secret sauce where what's the story you've been in recently?

What's.

What's more of your recent story to share?

All right, so this is our fourth episode of Making Space, and this retailer is getting a mention for the second time.

So I think it'll hint at how.

What an affinity I have for them.

And it's patina.

So I love.

Patina.

Yeah.

Yeah, and they actually just opened their ninth store.

You know, they haven't.

I don't know when the last time is that they opened the store, but they opened the store at Southdale Square in Edina.

It actually happens to be the biggest store they've opened yet.

So they'd expanded things like women's apparel.

They have dressing rooms for the very first time.

But they also have more toys, crafts, decor, sort of everything that you think about when you think about a potential gift giving opportunity.

And I just wanted to give them a shout out because bigger isn't always better.

But in this case they did a tremendous job.

The store is fantastic.

And anyone here in the Minneapolis area, I would definitely recommend that you find your way to that store soon because I think there's a lot that you can take from it and it's a pretty cool space.

And I'm also writing something about this, a bit of a freelance project I'm working on.

So there'll be more showing up in the near future, which I'm excited about.

All right, Dave, so what's one of the biggest challenges or major focuses in retail media right now?

Yeah, retail media.

So retail media got born eight years ago, let's think of it that way.

So it's only.

It's a little baby.

And I think what's happening in the industry is it's continuing to go down and down market meaning.

We talked about regional grocers a few minutes ago.

So that's actually a big piece of digits business is we manage regional grocer retail media for seven regional grocers right now.

And it's causing problems for CPGs is what I would say.

So that's the biggest problems is CPGs are like, holy crap, we need to manage 50 retail media networks now.

Like, it's just difficult for them.

They're very used to spending money on Walmart, Instacart, Target, Kroger, whatnot, and like dedicating time and resources.

But they're just really struggling with these regionals that, you know, are manifesting retail media.

Instead of maybe doing circulars or flyers, like they're still getting their voice out there to their 500,000 customers, but it's through a different method.

And so regional, I mean, I'd say CPGs are struggling.

There's a lot of talk in the space of fragmentation.

So I'd say digits.

We are aiming to solve it by framing up like we now have seven under our banner.

Right.

So if you're a CPG and you want to activate the same message across regionals.

Great.

Come to us.

Like we can do that for you.

So I think you'll see people like us continuing to try to build like many networks in that space where we're trying to bring value both to the retailer and the CPG by coordination.

You'll see tech solutions more so coming out in the space where you know, you can just operate them all with a click of a button.

Not, maybe not that easily, but you know, sure, trying to bring some automation to the space.

So that's one of the big challenges.

It comes up at every conference, but I think it's only going to get, the challenge is only going to get bigger.

Hopefully it gets easier through certain solutions.

But you know, these networks aren't going away like these.

All these grocers want to be able to talk to their customers with their brands and like that need will not go away.

How it gets done hopefully gets easier.

Okay, my turn.

So any while you're visiting stores, any trips that you have planned for the next travel?

Yeah, the next big trip sort of on our plate is my younger son's got a soccer tournament, a showcase I should say down in Virginia in late November.

So that'll be a fun chance for the family to travel.

Although not all that easy to find our way to Virginia.

I think we have to take a couple of different flights.

But looking forward to that.

Any unique retailers there you got to check out?

You know, I haven't actually done the research yet.

We're about three or four weeks away from the trip.

But I'm sure I'll find myself into some local retailers that I've not yet been able to write about.

So looking forward to that.

Find some regional groceries then.

That'll be the good one.

That's always fun to go to.

That sounds good.

All right.

Dave, what were the costume choices in the Glase household?

Well, my kids are aging up so my bigger ones are now just more candy hander outers.

I would say that they like to do that.

But my littlest guy, he, he and a bunch of buddies all wanted to be Star Wars Stormtroopers this year.

So that's the, that's the plan there, which is just different.

I know we were talking about living neighbors back when we used to be neighbors.

There was hundreds of people in that neighborhood for Halloween.

It was amazing.

Still.

Is still there.

Still are there still.

Yeah, I had to buy like 400 pieces of candy.

I think like they're my new neighborhood.

We're a little bit more spread out.

It's a little bit more Mature.

Like, you know, we have people at very different ages living around here, and so not quite the environment it used to be.

Sadly, Halloween is not nearly as much fun.

Yeah.

But stormtroopers, that.

That's.

That's the costume in our house.

Star wars seems to be pretty evergreen when it comes to.

To Halloween.

Yeah.

All right, so time for final sale.

I'm always eager for new ideas, stories, or stores to explore.

So Dave put me on the spot one last time.

You know, what's a retailer?

You think I should try to get into a future episode?

Well, I.

So I'm going to give you a bit of a pivot on the answer here.

So it's not a retailer.

It's like a.

A theme, maybe.

Right.

So I.

One of my previous lives at Target is I was the sports buyer.

So I did what Target calls fan central.

So I bought all the nf, NFL, college hockey, baseball, whatever, and I would.

So.

And I'm a huge sports nut.

So that's.

That's the thing for you.

Because I'd also say this has been the year of sports in the Glaza household.

So, like, I love seeing, like, championship sports merchandised.

Right.

And so glazes.

We were fortunate to go to the World cup, right.

And so you go to the World cup, there's all these souvenir shops and like, very officially merchandise stuff that I just think is.

I love seeing how they pull it all together.

And then now when we're recording this, it is World Series time.

My brewers are in the World Series.

And so it's like, all right, like, how do we.

How do we get World Series gear?

And so I think that, you know, if you have a chance, whether that's, you know, an NFL shop with the Vikings here locally or as you're traveling, like, trying to go there, like, that would be.

I. I think there's so much interest of, you know, make bringing these souvenir type shops to life in real time where they got like two weeks to sell this stuff.

Right.

And how do they.

But yet they sell so much.

Like, you should have seen the line at the World Cup.

It was.

You literally waited in line for 75 minutes, I think, before the game to go buy, like, your T shirt and your hat and you're buying a 60T shirt.

Right.

And so just the merchandising there, like, things that, to your point, on, like what Trader Joe's can pull off, like, there's almost things you can pull from that of, like, here's how they built this end cap and how they're stocking your merchandise and you can bring that into a real time to making, you know, a Walmart or a Target even sound more special.

So.

All right.

Definitely something for me to add to the list.

It sounds like it's been a bit of a dream year for the Glazes.

For.

In the sports world.

Yeah, the sports.

You know, Mike Packer's got to make the super bowl next.

Maybe that.

That's the next.

That's what we'll be hoping for, so.

Well, yeah, you can't have everything, so.

All right, well, this was a lot of fun, Dave, you know, that's a wrap on episode four of Making Space Real Time.

Thanks to our producer, Jake Niemi.

This show is presented by the association of Retail and Consumer Professionals in partnership with Omnitalk Podcast Network.

If you enjoyed this one, a review goes a long way.

We're also actively seeking sponsors.

I'd love to hear from you, so reach out to me directly on LinkedIn.

Dave, where can people find you and keep up with what you and the team at Digits are up to?

Yeah, yeah, we are.

I like to say we're not hard to find.

We try to be out there as much as we can, so LinkedIn is the easiest.

If anybody is interesting in connecting with me.

I am active on LinkedIn pretty often, so just David Glaza or digits agency on LinkedIn, find us there, shoot me a message, and I'm happy to connect.

Awesome, Dave.

Thanks again for being here.

This is a lot of fun.

We're four episodes in and we're just getting started.

Until next time.

I'll see you on the floor.