The Way Too Early 2025 Retail Year-in-Review With Ethan Chernofsky | Ask An Expert

Foreign welcome to the latest edition of the Omnitalk Retail Ask An Expert series.

I am one of your co hosts for today's interview, Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazinga.

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 our next guest likely needs no introduction and I of course, am talking about Ethan Chernofsky, Placer AI's chief marketing officer.

Ethan is here, as he has been now for I think the past three years, to give us what we are calling his way too early 2020 five year end review analysis.

Ethan, welcome back to Omnitalk and congrats on holding on to your title as our most interviewed guest in 2025.

It's, it's, it's great to be here and I, I feel like we're doing, we're doing what the world needs, which is giving annual lessons in the start of November, right?

In month 11.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the way to do it.

Nothing can change in month 12.

Nothing can change, Nothing can impact this analysis.

It's not like anything happens in retail in the end of November and December.

No, no, no, no, no.

That's what all the, Exactly.

Yeah.

That's what all the prediction, prediction content is for at the beginning of the year in January.

Right.

But, but for those watching and listening in real time, keep in mind, and this is a hallmark of how we do things here with our friend Ethan from Placer AI Ann and I have literally no idea what Ethan is going to share with us.

And so we, like all of you, will be reacting in real time to what Ethan says 100%, organically and authentically.

So an I think we should get started.

Yes.

But before we do, just a quick reminder to all of you who are joining us live, if you want to razz Ethan, you want to send him a question, you want to question any of the content that he's about to put in front of us, you know where to do that in the chat field to the right of your screen.

Throughout our conversation, Ethan will be responding to hopefully all of your questions.

The razzing, maybe not, but, but we're so excited to have you, Ethan, and all of you who are joining us live today.

But before we get started, Ethan, please tell the audience, for those who might be joining us for the first time and learning about Placer, what is Placer and what is it about the data that you're collecting that makes it Such a useful tool in providing the insights into the topic at hand today.

So happy you asked.

So Placer is a location analytics company.

What that means is people vote with their feet.

We show you how they vote across the United States every single day.

We do that by observing a panel of tens of millions of mobile devices very critically.

This data is all aggregate data that has been stripped of identifiers like maids.

So we are gdpr, CCPA compliant.

We then analyze that data with machine learning and AI algorithms and make utilize those algorithms to make estimations of visits to locations across the country.

And we display that in a wealth of different reports within our platform and everything from cannibalization, the customer journey, visitation trends, and a whole lot more.

All right, let's not keep the audience in suspense any longer.

What is the first thing you're going to share with us in this way too early 2025 review?

I genuinely get excited about this because it's, I'm excited to see how you guys respond to it.

But lesson number one, and it is without question the, the biggest lesson for me from this year is reason for being and the, what we're calling the consumer preference epiphany.

Right.

And so let's, let's, let's break this down.

Okay.

We have talked for a long time about the idea that convenience is overrated.

We've talked about it multiple times about the idea that like, visits per category are going up for like the average visitor, so they're going to more grocers, more superstores, more home furnishings players within their ongoing journey, that they're willing to travel farther than they were for four, for brands that they like, for products that they love, for value, for experience, whatever it may be.

That's one thing that we're seeing pop in the data and continue to happen, if not actually get more significant over time.

At the same time, when we look at the retail space, there are a lot of things that are showing us that focus, flexibility, a real message, a real kind of core ability to, to deliver on a brand promise, a clear brand promise.

All those things are more important than they were before.

You take those two things together.

A consumer that says, I want specific things that I love and a retailer that says, I'm going to get really good at providing this and I'm not going to overextend.

That's a very powerful element of what's going to drive retail moving forward.

And I think we're going to talk about this in another frame of reference in, in, in a few lessons from now idea of like doubling and tripling down on what is it that makes you great?

What fundamentals are necessary for you to show that?

How do you create an experience around that?

That is the biggest lesson from 2025 for me.

I think it's going to carry for quite a few years.

Like, I don't think we're going to see this reversion to mission driven shopping where people try to do as much as possible in fewer spaces.

I think this is something that is here to stay.

It's bucked things that should have offset their value.

So for example, economic uncertainty, high gas prices, those should have pushed us to do more emission driven shopping and it didn't.

So I think this is one of the key trends that has huge staying power.

Ethan, I'm curious for those watching and then maybe those listening that can't see the slide in front of them.

You know, you're pointing out sprouts, particularly in Barnes and Noble, on the slide.

What is it about them that, you know, really rings home in this idea of the preference epiphany that you're describing here.

So sprouts is such a great example because when we think about the grocery space, it's really divided into these subcategories that are super significant.

So you could create a value subcategory where they're clearly leading with that process.

You could create an all in one category where I'm trying to accomplish as much as possible with your basket.

And if we think about 2020 to 2022, what we saw was mission driven shopping.

I want to go to the all in one.

I want to go to the place where I can accomplish as much as possible.

I want to walk all the aisles and I'm going to get as much done in a place that allows me to do as much as possible.

That was the preference for the consumer that changed.

And it didn't change overnight, but it was.

It started shifting pretty aggressively from 22 to 2023.

And then we've seen that trend continue on.

And I think sprouts is such an awesome example of who benefits from it.

They know who they are, they know what they're trying to provide.

They're not looking to be your only grocery provider, but they're going to do certain things better than others.

And that doesn't just give them the ability to execute on that promise more.

It gives them format flexibility so they can fit in a smaller location where others can't.

It's harder for them to edit and figure out what to put in each space.

It gives them a better sense of who their audience is, where their audience is, what it takes to convert people to become part of their audience.

It gives them so much power.

That's why Sprouts is such a big one, leaving Barnes and Noble, because I'm also going to steal that example for a later one, but another great example about what was going wrong with Barnes and Noble, you know, five, 10 years ago over expansion.

They're trying to do too much that loses the sense of what made them exciting and popular to begin with.

And this refocus on being a great bookstore, a great bookstore, a space where you want to have these kind of events and like, kind of a hub of the community.

This town square has really been a huge part of their recovery as well.

This is really interesting, Ethan, too, as we look at it in the context of, like, what's happening with Amazon and Whole Foods now where they're, you know, Amazon's pushing, selling Doritos and Pepsi and stuff inside the Whole Foods.

But you look conversely at this data that you're showing from Sprouts here, where Sprouts is doubling down on.

We know we're an extra trip, but we know you want that extra trip because it provides you a unique value, 100%.

All right, let's go to the next slide.

Ethan.

Cause growth, innovation and the store's future state.

So one of the things that we, that I think the three of us really enjoy talking about is innovation in the retail space.

I think one of the really cool things from looking at our data is you can kind of identify certain places where strategies make sense in terms of what they're attempting to achieve, and certain places where strategy just misses the mark.

Right.

It doesn't make sense.

And what I mean by that is not is there a cool technology, is there a cool innovation, but does it drive?

The main thing that's going to push retail forward, especially when we think about physical spaces.

So let's think about what we're seeing trend wise in terms of consumer behavior.

Again, people are going to more stores, they're spending less time in stores, they're willing to travel further.

They're looking for that reason for being, which means the battle is less about the visit and it's more about maximizing the visit.

So it's more about this kind of dollar per location, dollar per visit gain.

So what we're essentially agreeing on, if we agree with that kind of that Sprouts concept, just like you just said, Ann, is that I care.

I'm less concerned with what makes my life more convenient and I'm more concerned with what makes my life better because it has products or things that I really appreciate and like.

So I think what we're going to see is a heavy emphasis on elements that drive that dollar within the store.

So obviously if a technology gives you a path to increase basket size, that's going to be exciting.

I know it's overhyped, I know there's huge issues, but it's why I'm still bullish on retail media, specifically in the physical environment, even more than in the digital environment, especially when we think of what's happening on the AI side, because there is this need to expand out what we're doing.

Store fulfilled E Commerce.

This is going to be an even bigger area of emphasis because it's how do I maximize that location, how do I do more with it, how do I increase the value of each trip?

Something that we call adjacent innovation, which is something that's a step away.

So the example that's up here for us is H E B with their true Texas barbecue.

Like H E B is brilliant.

This idea that now there's this kind of restaurant component next to it.

This isn't a shocking concept, right?

Like Whole Foods has prepared food, Wegmans has prepared food.

It does really well.

Lots of places have bakery components or coffee components within their four walls.

This idea that once you come, you're going to now do more and I'm going to increase that amount of dollars you're spending with me with these locations is a really significant, powerful step forward.

I mean, Walmart we have up here because of what they're doing a lot on the, you know, kind of both on the retail media side, but also with the store fulfilled E Commerce.

And then I think the element here that's really exciting and again, not the most exciting brand in retail is the Staples where visits are really spiking.

They're seeing a lot of improvements because of services, because of things that they're doing with the store.

Because let's be honest, Amazon isn't going anywhere.

Staples could have had a slow death where it's like, hey, we're just going to compete with Amazon and hope that people are going to come to our store continually and it wouldn't have worked.

But instead they did pivots to try to shift to more B2B to try to shift to more stores, services and things that you can accomplish from the store that allow them to increase their value and they're seeing visits surge.

So I think that the biggest takeaway from this is that it's a, for me, it's a measuring stick for when you hear strategic ideas come out from retailers.

When strategic ideas come out and it's like, how do we maximize someone's visit?

How do we get them to spend more time in the store?

How do we get them to spend more dollars with us?

Overall, I'm in.

When it's about how do we get them in and out so much faster, I don't care.

I think it's a waste of, of attention.

In the time being.

Ethan one, one thing I want to call out and again, for those listening, surprisingly, on this slide, Walmart visits are slightly down.

Which, which based on all of the success that Walmart's had over the course of the last year in innovation, I'm, I'm surprised to see that.

What do you think is contributing to that?

And especially as you compare it to, you know, this, the H E B with a true Texas barbecue.

Like, do you, does that, does that mean that Walmart should be considering having some sort of food component in addition to what they're having to increase store visits?

Or like, what do you think is going on here?

Especially as it pertains to the Walmart data?

Ethan?

I don't think it means anything like that.

I think I need to be fair.

Let's, let's, let's contextualize what we're seeing.

Slight decreases in visits, slightly.

We were talking about here about like 1 2%.

Okay.

It's within the margin of error of like flat.

And then we're seeing the boost come from E commerce.

So people who are ordering and stopping in, that's not always getting counted.

Like the delivery is not getting counted.

It is when you're talking about, you know, I saw someone post about this about the coffee wars of like, hey, let's, let's not Forget that like 80% of coffee is Starbucks, Dunkin and McDonald's.

Right?

Yeah.

I think it's important to remember that with Walmart too.

Like if Walmart sees a 2% traffic decline.

Yeah, I don't care.

That is, that is flat.

Considering the heights that they're operating at and the distribution of visits that's going other places, their dominance I think is beyond reproach at this stage.

Right.

And we're still seeing a significant increase in, in online sales as a result.

So.

Yeah, well, and you have to put it in context too.

Like comparatively, Walmart's traffic growth, I think I wrote about this in my last article for you guys, has been pretty steady over time, which is very different than some of its core competitor set.

One of which.

One of those competitors we know pretty darn well, too.

And I want to come back to your point, though, Ethan.

You know, you said, like, you wouldn't be spending, you wouldn't be investing in anything.

That just gets people in and out of the store faster.

Because it makes me think that there potentially is a caveat to that statement, though, because, like, if I'm Costco, for example, and I have a literal capacity problem with the amount of cars in my parking lot, then I might want to actually take advantage of things that would improve the throughput of my store operation.

Yes, phenomenal point, 100%.

One of the innovations we were most excited by this year.

Innovations again, this is not such a crazy idea.

Was when Costco allowed executive club members to come in an hour earlier like that.

We saw the impact on traffic distribution.

Like, it's not, it's not enormous, but it's enough to move the needle.

Totally agreed.

There are cases where it makes sense, but that's a very specific example.

And it's not the.

More.

What's the, what's the diplomatic way of saying, like a tagline for the sake of sounding cool like everyone else of like, oh, my God, nothing matters more than convenience.

It's like that's fundamentally false.

Like, in some cases, you want to move people through the store because you have capacity challenges.

But that's, that's a kind of a rich retailer problem, let's call it.

Right.

It's, it's.

But it's why we do what we do and why we have you on.

Because we want to develop the frameworks for the executives listening to say, okay, like, when.

How should I be thinking about this?

Because I think you're.

I think you're bringing up a great point, which is, you know, like, if you're going to think about your tech investment or even your capital investment, what is the purpose of that investment?

And one of the reasons that you would invest in speedy technology is if you have a capacity problem, if you have a throughput problem, if you don't, then I'd be probably more inclined to go in the realm that you're describing in terms of where should we put our money?

You know, what gets people more excited to come to our store?

Yeah.

But even problems like, okay, let's talk about efficiency problems that I think solve something even bigger.

So, yeah, there's a lot of technologies that push, that enable frontline workers to do more.

Right.

Those are amazing technologies.

I don't think it's just like people find things better.

I think it's the fact that you're now helping people find things.

So if someone engages with me and I have a better sense of what's in the store, what's in the back, what I might need to have delivered to you, I'm increasing the likelihood that you're going to make a purchase.

The fact that it's speeding your process is almost like a side benefit or a secondary benefit.

Then I.

But I think that your point is well made of.

There are specific cases where you.

There are specific challenges that a given retailer will face where that throughput or the efficiency in store or keeping the stores free enough that you don't have a huge problem is a value in and of itself.

But from an overarching perspective, that's not the primary problem for most retailers to be grappling with.

Yep.

And efficiency for your employees is a very different ball game than efficiency for your customers too.

So, you know, because of the reason you're saying like you're coming into that store, you want your customers to find what they're looking for.

So.

All right, great discussion, man.

We're getting into some media topics already.

All right, what's next?

Where are you taking us next?

The two parter.

All right, Bifurcation, part one.

All right, this is.

This one bothers me because I got it wrong.

But that's why I have a part two, so I can kind of give myself a way out.

So you'll see where.

Okay, bifurcation, part one is the pushes to value and luxury.

We're seeing it in restaurants, we're seeing it in retail.

We're seeing it in so many spaces where those who are pushing in either of those directions are benefiting.

Right.

They're clearly seeing value.

So this is off price compared to like apparel overall, not excluding off price.

We see the luxury sector outperforming and whereas those who are kind of aiming for that classic middle, really struggling.

This is a really important thing because I believe there's clear reasons why.

And we'll get to the second point why those clear reasons why really matter.

So the first is when we think about what we talked about at the top, the reason for being, if you're in the luxury space or in the value space, you know why you're there.

It makes it clear what you're going to accomplish with your store, the kind of messaging you need, what you're looking to provide to the customer and how to provide it in the most effective way.

I think it's Almost like a cheat code to reason for being.

I also think that the bifurcation pressures retail fundamentals.

In places where the retail where you're playing with a margin game, that's more difficult.

And I think, you know, one of the retailers you, you might have been referring to when you talked about a major Walmart competitor.

I think a lot of their struggles come to that, right?

It's service out of stocks, the experience, the store journey.

Is it good enough to make it worth going there as opposed to going to someone in the value lane?

Is the, is the product you're going to get there value enough that you're, that you're not going to go luxury for that same product?

That nuanced middle is really difficult to maneuver within.

And I think that's creating or exacerbating what's already been happening with the bifurcation.

And I'll go to point two on this and we can discuss and we can kind of dive into them both together.

That doesn't mean it's an inevitability like this idea that the middle is dying.

And one of the is, I think is, it is true, but it doesn't need to be right.

It's dying because we're failing the middle.

It's not dying because the middle has gone away.

And I think a great example of this actually comes from the department store space.

We were having a conversation, I was having a conversation with a colleague from another retail company and we were talking about department stores.

And one of the con with the kind of, the conclusions that we came to is that, look, a department store experience where you go in and you're able to get this product from this brand and this product from that brand and this product from that other brand and put it all together and you get the things you want to.

It can be great.

I had to go to a conference.

I got four pairs of pants from four different retailers.

Like it was, it was great.

It checked the box for me.

I was super happy.

My wife felt like I wasn't going to look as embarrassing on stage.

So she was happy.

But the weird thing was it was the same brands that had been there 20 years ago.

So like nothing had changed, nothing had evolved.

And his point, this, this, this colleague said, well, look at Dillard's.

When you walk into dealers, they're like, hey, we got new stuff.

We had new things.

And Diller's is outperforming the other players in that kind of same segment.

I think a lot of that is, you know, department stores is curation.

As a brand.

And so if you're failing on the curation side and constantly evolving the curation side, you're not going to live up to your promise.

The middle is the same thing.

If you're not living up to that promise of like being able to walk that line of what the middle wants, provide a great in store experience, ensure you have the right products in stock, ensure you have a good enough service to help people find what they're looking for.

If it doesn't feel better than the value lane, why would you go?

So it's an execution problem more than a kind of inevitable, there's nothing you can do, you're doomed.

And so that would be the wider take on the bifurcation.

I think the thing that you call out, Ethan, that's really important to state here again for our listeners is, and Ethan's slide right now is showing the difference in high end department stores versus mid tier department stores is something that you called out about the service component too.

I mean you look at Nordstrom, you look at Dillard's, the last time that most of us were in those stores, somebody came up to us to help us, to help us pull together those four looks from four different departments that you were talking about.

And that's not happening at the mid tier department stores.

And I think to your point, that's why we're seeing this influx of people going to some of the fast fashion retailers for the type of shopping trip that you're talking about or some of the, some of the convenience players, the Walmarts and targets of the world because they can get that product and there is the convenience component there too that they just don't have at the department stores like that.

That seems like that's a big indicator of some of the data that we're looking at in front of us right now.

I couldn't agree with you more.

I saw a data point from a company called True Rating that and this is in grocery where the margins are thinner and I think where as opposed to compared to department stores where I think it's almost more binary like there's either going to be a sale or not be a sale.

Yeah.

So it's more significant that there's a 6% increase in basket size.

If you say hel to someone at the door.

Now that's not because when you walk in you're like oh my God, you said hello, I'll buy more things.

That's no, it's the fact that once you said hello I feel more comfortable asking you, hey, where is this?

Could you help me find this other thing I'm looking for?

Those simple things just like you're talking about, Ann, have a big impact on the consumer's likelihood to kind of complete this journey of finding something and then actually getting to the, to the, to the transaction, right?

Yeah, but I.

Okay, I'm gonna play devil's advocate here for a second because.

And that's why I love having you on too.

Because we can debate these things with both of you, I think, is why I think the idea is possible.

I think the product mix precludes it from actually happening because all those extra service elements are a cost.

They add costs to the business.

And the unfortunate problem is the product mix that you carry in your store does not have the margins that the more high end department stores traditionally carry.

So therefore you're kind of hamstrung by the brand and the products you carry.

Unless you can somehow start to carry more high margin products.

Flip the service equation on its head, but that's going against the brand that you've traditionally had.

And so the one that I think is the biggest rub for this, or maybe there's two, is actually Macy's and Kohl's.

It would be really hard for them to pivot in that direction.

So that's the one, the one rub I see in, in the theory with, you know, what you two are both espousing here.

But, you know, what do you think?

I think there's a basket size part of this equation too.

Like, I hear your point.

Like, let's be clear, there's.

Everyone has advantages and disadvantages.

So if I'm high end and I don't need to get you to buy as many products like, I met this guy once who sold yachts.

He's like, I need to sell like one or two things a year, like mega yachts.

He's like, and that's it.

I've hit my quota.

And there's people who sell, you know, SaaS, platforms for small businesses, and they've got to sell to, you know, a thousand deals in order to hit their quota.

So.

Right.

It's just asking of like, what's the motion you need and what does service look like?

I think like a higher end experience could be more engaged, more high touch, more personalized and you won't necessarily be able to provide the same thing at scale in the middle.

But that doesn't mean you don't have service.

I think what we're seeing in a lot of cases is a complete whiff on the service side.

So it's not necessarily that you need to match what's happening on the high end side, but doing more than what we're doing now is already a huge boost.

Yeah, and I agree with that 100%.

I mean, like, let's take Macy's as an example.

Macy's can just do what they're doing still better.

And I give Tony Spring a lot of credit for like thinking about where do I need service in my store, particularly like in the shoe section.

He's been very aggressive in trying to improve the shoe buying experience.

And so that, I think hits on your point too, Ethan.

Yeah, I think it also depends on the training too that you're giving your teams.

Like, I would argue that instead of training, I mean if you look at the brands that some of these are carrying, there's, there still is value and high quality and luxury brands that are being sold at a Macy's, but the training for those employees has been focused on just checking people out.

Like it's not the focus again on the experience that Ethan's talking about, the greeting, the how do I spend time with, you know, helping somebody, like they just, they don't have that capacity right now.

And that's not been a focus.

It's the focus needs to get back to how do I upsell or how do I, once I have the people in the fitting rooms, how do, how am I continuing to build the basket like Ethan's talking about?

And I just, I don't think that's been a focus of theirs or for Kohl's.

Like, it's, everything's moved to like, how do we just make sure the checkout process is smooth and you know, I have one person covering one zone of the store versus how do we really invest in training for those associates to.

To be able to help somebody put an outfit together and spend a hundred dollars instead of 40?

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know though, because that's all a function of the product margins and it's all going to cost things too, but.

All right, good discussion.

All right, Ethan, what do you got next?

All right, the Suburban opportunity part three.

So I think when we looked at the shift to the suburbs, we saw the first thing we saw and this was obvious and makes total sense.

And there's nothing shocking here is we think about the migration post pandemic is you saw people move to suburban environment and all of a sudden start to take advantage of retail experiences that they hadn't had available to them when they were living in the urban environment.

And There were some prime beneficiaries.

I think off price retail was a prime beneficiary.

I think Costco membership clubs were prime beneficiaries of like, this is now relevant to me and it wasn't relevant before.

So this kind of like first time demand push, I think the second wave was who got there quick.

So either who had already been orienting towards suburbs or who was like, hey, my audience is moving, I need to get there.

So like Shake Shack is a great example.

They've spoken openly about the push to get into the suburbs.

Kava is another great example of that.

Sweetgreen is a great example of that.

I think we're heading into part three of this story and I'm stealing terminology from Barry Scardina, from Cushman, which is urbanization of the suburbs.

And I love this concept so much and we're seeing it.

This doesn't mean that you're.

I don't know, I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

That Allentown, Pennsylvania's downtown is going to look like New York City.

That's not what we're saying, but it means they're going to be urban elements that we had normally associated with the urban environment.

In suburban environments, higher end restaurants are coming.

Higher end restaurant concepts are coming.

Higher end retail concepts are coming.

Right.

There's these experiences, even just the way that the areas are set up.

There's more of an emphasis on place making, getting you to hang out there in shopping centers.

And it's not the kind of more bland shopping center of old.

Does this apply to every shopping center in every suburb?

No, but it's going to be a push and you're going to see that have ripple effects.

So I think this is a very significant element because there's this, if you build it, they will come component of if you create a great center, people are going to want to be there.

And then therefore great retailers are going to want to be there because their audience is are there.

And so it has.

The reason I think this is such a big deal is not because, oh, suburbs are exciting because people are there.

But if these centers go there and they are able to draw crowds, it fundamentally influences decision making.

Not just that the retailers are going to be there, but the brands around them, the people who are trying to figure out what centers are adjacent, what the kind of move looks like in the city.

So I think there's a much wider impact if this hits.

So Ethan, how's that different than like, how.

Explain that more to me.

Like, how's that different than how Traditional strip centers have evolved for the past, you know, 20 or 30 years through suburban America.

What's different about it now?

There was a feeling like when we, when we think about, like, what belongs in a strip center, we'd be like, all right, does Marshalls belong in a strip center?

Yeah, of course.

Does, like the local nail salon belong in the strip center?

Does a grocery store belong in a strip center?

Yeah, course a few years ago, if we would have been like, does a Nike owned location belong in a strip center?

We've been like, no.

Does a J.

Crew own location belong in a strip center that's sort of didn't know it?

Belongs in a lifestyle center, belongs in a mall, belongs in an urban environment.

And so that's changing.

And I think the ability to kind of widen brand.

And you know, Nike's an interesting example because they went potentially overcorrected on some of this.

But this ability to gain visibility, to gain those touch points, to understand what they can do from a distribution perspective of again, the store fulfilled commerce concept, where if I have locations close to you, you have a place to return items.

You don't need to go back to the city.

If you don't get the right size, you can come to this location and have the return and then we have the upsell potential.

It changes where people want to be based on where the audiences are and where the audiences want to spend money.

So things like work from home have a huge impact here.

Right.

They change where we're spending a bulk of our time.

That these normal patterns of movement aren't what they were five, six years ago has a really significant effect.

Ethan, do you think that the players that we have on screen right now, Shake Shack and Sweet Green, do you think that there's any sort of impact when we're talking about the expansion of suburban strip centers?

Almost like the Lululemon headband effect, where it's like, this is the entry point.

So like you're giving them a little bit higher up, more sought after concept to go to a Shake Shack or a Sweet Sweet Green.

And that's starting to kind of tease or wet the palette of these suburbanites who are in these markets.

And then you're able to bring in the J.

Crew, the Nike, like this is.

This is like a still affordable price point, but little better quality, little higher end experience, little more in demand experience than maybe a traditional like Burger King or Wendy's or Subway sandwich shop or something.

100%, yes.

But I think you add to that the fact that people have also moved Being lovers of Shake Shack.

So I used to live in New York City, and I would go to Shake Shack for lunch once or twice a week.

And now I moved to the suburbs, and it's like, oh, I really miss Shake Shack.

I'm not going to go to the office four days a week now.

But they have one nearby.

Isn't that great?

And so Shake Shack realizes their audience is there and that their audience has more disposable income and that maybe they're looking for something a little bit more higher end than they were classically looking for.

So there's an element of audience transition.

There's an element of being new and exciting, and I think those come together to create the opportunity.

Awesome.

All right, let's go to the next one, Ethan.

All right, this is the next one and the last one.

This is the last lesson, but I have a surprise takeaway ready or a surprise prediction take.

I don't know, something, whatever, but we'll leave it.

Okay, Ready?

I can't.

Can't leave here without something exciting at the end.

All right.

Oh, boy, oh, boy.

Some people were really excited about Bed Bath and Beyond, but that company's finances got in the way.

But, no, that's not what we're going to talk about.

Some people.

I don't know what we're talking about.

True visionaries recognize.

You got staples in here, Ethan?

Yeah, I did get staples in his presentation.

I had to put.

You should know that when building this deck, I was in my head imagining Chris's face.

So if you're not watching, it's worth tuning into the video just to see Chris's face when he saw beyond ink on a slide.

All right.

But the rebound trend, I think, is real and significant.

And there's a few reasons.

There's a few things we've seen that make it so.

First, we got to understand, like, why they closed a lot of these places overextended.

They had challenging financials.

Bed Bath man was the example we gave before.

They were too many places.

They kind of lost their identity.

You needed to shrink the size and, like, you needed this really, like, refresh.

But what we kind of have a tendency to forget is they got some things really right.

That's how they got to that level to begin with.

They were that exciting.

They were that significant.

They were able to do disrupt in some way or another what they were doing before.

And they have massive brand power.

So one of the interesting things, one of the reasons we decided to put, you know, beyond as the example here, was the decision to change overstock.com to beyond.

Right?

And then according to Earnest analytics, there was a massive surge in visits to that website immediately post because the name has some brand equity.

And the silly example.

And I, I accept all of the challenges, right?

And I accept all of the things that this is not going to be what it was before.

It shouldn't be.

We shouldn't have that expectation.

But this idea that there is a healthy place for these retailers to exist and that even more the success is going to tease some people into wanting this to this trend to happen more.

So you're going to see more of it doesn't mean you're going to see it all successful.

You're going to see more of it.

Is, is going to happen.

Like people are going to look at, I don't know, a Joanne that just closed Claire's that was closing and being brought back because there's a brand power.

And they're going to ask themselves, all right, what's the level?

I can take this to where it'll be successful.

I know I can't do what it was before, but there's gotta be someplace in between.

And I think you're gonna see a lot of talk about that in 26 and certainly in 27.

Fascinating.

All right, so this is interesting to me too.

Like, I don't, I don't know if I'm buying it, but I will say this.

It's.

It reminds me of a conversation.

Joe Laszlo of Shop Talk and I have been talking about this idea because I think what you're hitting at here is the idea of the nostalgic brand.

How much does the nostalgia of the brand matter, both as a going concern for say, like, Macy's.

We talked about Macy's versus, like, ones that have gone away and are coming back.

So, like, maybe Claire's might fall into that camp.

Bed, Bath and Beyond falls into that camp.

So I think 1.

Ethan, I think as we go forward, we should, you, we, you and I should.

And, and, and should talk about tracking nostalgic brands to see, like, you know, how much does nostalgia matter?

And so then my next question is here.

So what we're looking at on this slide, this is Kirkland's data then in terms of store visits.

Okay.

All right, so you're seeing some rebound here that you think potentially is bringing the brand back and they only have more room to grow given the fact that they're going to amplify the previous Bed, Bath and Beyond positioning in those stores.

A few elements here, like, because one, I will.

I Have to concede this.

First of all, there is a limit here.

This isn't saying Bed, Bath and Beyond is going back to what it was or that all these ideas are all going to work and hit.

It's saying that there is an in between.

And I think we saw it with like amc, we saw it with Barnes and Noble, we see it with I mean even the Abercrombie recovery, the Hollister recovery, the recovery of like kind of gaps, seeing visits bounce back.

Like we can have, we can have our cake and eat it too.

In this respect of saying some of these brands overextended, they went too far, but there is still a place for them to exist.

And if they can get the kind of the financials right and emotions right, there is a place for them to be successful.

Not to the same level that they were, but, but to be successful nonetheless.

And I also want to.

It's an interesting point because I had looked at it from a different perspective and your nostalgia point is significant.

I didn't view it as nostalgia, I viewed it as brand.

There's an element of, as anyone who's ever like kind of worked in an early stage company, building brand awareness is unbelievably difficult.

It's super, super hard.

Once you have it, it's a massive advantage.

Right.

It's just the fact that like people think about you and creating your name within a certain zeitgeist is so difficult.

So I think it's like the nostalgia point is really important.

I think it's super interesting.

But the idea of just like, hey, they've successfully made themselves known, that's already a huge accomplishment and a huge asset that they bring to the table.

I think this brings back in though, Ethan, like that question of what, what's the quality of the product, what's the price point of the product and what's the service component like in the stores?

Because if there is, if they're just competing in this case, they're doing the big box, the bed, Bath and beyond and there's no experience that we talked about earlier.

I think then, then you're, you're going back to the Walmarts, you're going back to the targets to get this type of product because you, it's the value experience that you were talking about earlier.

So that's, that's another thing to me that nostalgia tracking is one thing, but also like what, what does this look like with the rebranded stores and is it serving a need in the space that consumers can't get elsewhere and for less expensive Yeah, I think you're.

You're 100% right.

I will just add that, like, there's always a creative laziness factor.

Right.

Where people don't love to come up with.

That's why, like, every movie is like a redo or like a superhero movie.

I think in all these places, people see someone doing something like, well, we're going to.

We're going to do that also, you know, and so you'll see an example or two where it works again, like, Barnes and Noble is a great, a great example of that.

And they'll be like.

Or, you know, I saw someone talking.

The owners who, who are bringing Claire's back did the same with lids.

Right.

So they'll be like, oh, lids worked.

Therefore Pier 1 will work when we bring that back, you know, So I think you'll see a little bit of copycat.

And that doesn't mean that it's all going to succeed, but I do think it means it's going to happen.

Right.

But the point you're making is.

Right, like, and Anne's right too.

Like, at the end of the day, it's going to come down to what is the products you carry and the experience in your stores.

But I'd rather do that.

I'd rather take that effort to create differentiation with a brand that already exists at my back than starting from scratch and doing it from ground zero.

That's.

That's what you're saying.

And that's.

That's right.

And so that's why it's going to be interesting to track how these brands that we already know try to reinvent themselves.

Yeah.

And it's going to be fun to see which ones fail miserably, which is going to happen.

But that takes us to the way, the only way we can end this.

We need.

The year's not actually over, so we still have room for one more 2025 prediction.

Oh, have it for you, my friends.

We were looking at days of the week of when the holiday season is falling out, specifically Christmas and New Year's.

Christmas, I think, is on a Thursday.

New Year's falls out on a Wednesday.

The 31st is a Wednesday.

The first is a, is a Thursday.

That means we have a long buildup into Christmas and we have a big, long weekend potential on New Year's that screams massive retail opportunity.

Right.

Last year we already, we saw triggers of this of, like, Super Saturday visits were significantly down year over year on Super Saturday.

But the days as a whole were so up because there was this kind of build up into Christmas.

You have that potential, especially if you're in the grocery or superstore space.

You're in that discounted dollar, the return.

We always see a surge in visits to things like consumer electronics department stores because people got you gifts, you don't want them all, so you go to the place to return them.

You got a, a gift card, you're going to go use it.

I think there is a huge potential from let's say the 20th to the 3rd or 4th of January to have a massive retail season.

And it would be criminal to waste the opportunity if you're in one of those categories that generally sees better visits in that week before Christmas than you do in that Black Friday week, better visits in that week after Christmas.

So there's a, I think there's a really significant retail period coming.

I just don't think it's Black Friday or Super Saturday.

Wow.

You heard it here first, folks.

All right, Ethan, can we have you back on to catch us up on that data?

We might have to do like a spot special post update the week of January 5th and 6th so that we can give everybody the, the, the download of what truly happened.

And if it was correct, I will, I will be here with bells on.

If it was wrong, you're like, what?

That wasn't, that wasn't even.

I don't even have a slide on that.

Prove it.

Yes.

Maybe we'll have to find you at NRF and do a follow up or something.

It'll just be like an ambush.

An Ethan ambush.

I'm going to hold you to that and send you the bells too, Ethan.

That's what I'm going to do.

Oh my God.

That would be, that would be glorious.

And now this is our plug to come hang out with us at nrf.

Yes, Ethan, where will you be at nrf?

And also if you can give our audience some contact info because I'm sure that they are going to want to also challenge those assumptions that you've made today and, and get more information.

What's the best place for them to do that?

Love the feedback, post these conversations.

So please do reach out.

I'm at Ethan Chernofsky on LinkedIn.

You can find me at Ethan Placer AI via email.

Come hang out at NRF.

We'll have our big Placer booth there.

And looking forward to seeing you all hopefully very, very soon.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Ethan.

That wraps us up.

Thanks to Ethan Chernofsky at Placer AI for sitting down with us today.

Thank you to all of you who took the time to join us during this very busy time of year as well.

And thank you to our producer, Ella Sirjord, who produced this podcast.

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