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Hello, everyone.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Anne Mazinga.

And we are coming to you live from NRF 2025 from the fusion Group's podcast studio, which is located in booth 4938.

Come on in, say hi.

Check out their cool tech.

Come by, say hi to us.

I'm sure Anne would love to see you.

I would probably love to see you too.

I.

I would.

Obviously, I always do.

Chris, on the other hand, he might, he might give you the cold shoulder.

No, I don't know.

But you got to watch the animal.

She's got those headphones in.

You don't want to come and knock it.

All right, don't.

All right.

But joining us today without waiting any longer to introduce the person in between the two of us is Todd Garner, the SVP and Chief Product Officer at Sam's Club.

Great to be with you, omnitalk.

Thank you, Todd.

Thanks for your patience with us today and thanks for just sharing so much with us.

As we're getting ready to come on today, I'd love for you to do that with our audience at home.

Tell us a little, tell them a little bit about you, your background and your role at Sam's.

Yeah, absolutely.

I've had, I've had quite the journey, actually.

I would call it an eclectic background that brought me to this place.

That's right, eclectic.

Tell us more.

Yeah, I started out in the military actually.

I think I might have watched some fighter pilot movie one too many times.

Thought I wanted to be a fighter pilot.

So I actually started out in the Air Force where actually I didn't fly.

What I actually did was all about contracting and acquisitions.

So that's kind of the business side of the Air Force is the way to think about that.

Absolutely incredible opportunity.

And really talked about impact act and things like that.

But it was a great experience and a great way of starting my career.

But I think it is worth noting, technically, my career started in Muscatine, Iowa, at a Walmart super center in the electronics and garden center.

I mean, that's really the real foundation.

Electronics and garden.

Well, I mean, you know, I spread myself out of both.

You got to get the sunlight and electronics right.

That's like multi dimensional talents.

We're talking about high school, college.

This was high school.

You can fit, fix a computer and tell me why my plants died.

I can at least sell you a computer and tell you why the plants died.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, let's talk a little bit about your role now.

At Sam's.

What are you doing there?

Well, it's been a good journey getting up to here.

I mean, I actually had several.

I had a product stop, I had a consulting stop where I learned a lot about strategy and then even stopped over at Starbucks before I got here where I could learn more about retail, more about operations and more about products.

But it all ultimately led me to Sam's Club, which is a fantastic place to be.

Yeah, we hear that.

Yeah, it's true.

Hey, we're differentiating retail out there and we're doing it through experiences, which is really cool.

Well, we don't call you the most innovative retailer out there for nothing, my friend.

But.

But you know, to that point, I think you are the third chief product officer in a row that we've had on our show.

Right, Ann?

I think going back, I think if I'm keeping count, which I always do, keeping track, keeping score at home, you're the third chief product officer.

We've had you guys take a really interesting approach to that role.

Can you explain that for the audience?

What is so unique about the CPO role at Sam's Club?

Well, first and foremost, the Sam's Club strategy is all about differentiating an experience and building trust.

And when you think about what the chief product role is, it's really all about building trust.

It's all about delivering an experience that differentiates us from every retailer.

And the chief product officer is actually the role that's responsible for doing that.

Our job is to create these fantastic experiences that solve the biggest pain points for both our members and our associates.

And what makes this role so cool is that we are basically vertically integrated and across the entire spectrum.

That means supply chain, that means in club with our associates.

That means that we're talking about omni commerce and marketing and we're even talking about merchandising.

Making sure we have the right assortment that's out there as well.

Ding, ding, ding.

The whole purview.

That's the thing.

That's the key thing here, folks.

That's the key thing about the role.

He's got the whole purview.

Absolutely.

Okay, you are fresh off the stage.

Yep.

Yeah.

What did you talk to everybody in the audience about?

What was something that you maybe hope somebody listening took away from your session just a little bit ago?

I hope it's the importance of experiences.

I hope it's about how you can be a people led tech powered company because they're both equally important.

Yeah, you gotta elaborate on that a little bit because I'm not used to a product officer.

I'm used to hearing that from like a marketing officer, but a product officer talking about experiences.

So tell us a little bit more elaborate.

Well, let me explain the people led, tech powered thing first.

So people led, right.

If you think about it, our associates, our employees, they're the gatekeepers of the experience, of the culture, and of the connections that you can build.

And that's a true differentiating experience.

But when you think about tech powered, the question is, how can we take that technology and apply it both for our associates and for our members to solve their pain points?

Because if you can do that, what you're gonna do is you're gonna get better insights, you're gonna remove friction out of the system, you're going to up level capabilities and you're going to deliver an experience that's truly great.

Like, let me give you two examples.

Yeah, do it.

Sam's Club, we've got scan and go.

This is a retailer that at scale across 600 chains, you can now check out without ever going to a register.

But here's what's interesting about that.

We solved a major pain point, but then we realized actually what we did is we moved the pain point downstream, right Then it went to exit because people were queuing up in an exit.

Anybody that's been to a Sam's Club, you got to sign, sign up or queue up, ultimately get your receipt checked and then you exit.

It's a little frustrating.

And we saw that.

So being member focused, what we did was we actually said, how can we solve that problem now?

Great, you solve the register with scan and go.

How can you actually solve exit?

So then we got to deploy computer vision at scale again, across all of our chain, we got to deploy computer vision to automatically take a picture of a basket and verify the transaction.

So as long as you paid for your goods, now at scale, you can leave the club without ever stopping, without ever queuing, without ever having to go to a register.

It's a cool problem.

Can I ask you a question, like, as a, as somebody working on your team.

Yeah.

How does, how do you, how does that come up where it's like, oh, we did scan and go.

It's awesome.

Now we have a problem at exit.

Like, what is the process of taking that feedback that you're getting, I'm imagining from the store associates to like you doing something like computer vision to eliminate that problem?

Well, here's what I'd say.

You got to start with intentionality.

If you don't have a member, centric culture.

If you don't have something where you're constantly focused on what is the experience of our associates, of our members, you won't get there.

So it starts with intentionality.

We apply something we call design thinking.

And for folks that aren't familiar with that, design thinking is this.

It's this human centric, iterative approach that starts with a deep understanding and a deep empathy.

Right.

You've got to know the context, you got to know the experience, you got to know the process that they're in.

And when you have a focus like that, all of a sudden, you can unlock a lot of additional insights.

But it doesn't stop there.

You also have to be open to the feedback.

You have to be constantly looking, doing product reviews, and you have to be collecting the feedback.

It's a true statement.

In every single one of our associate applications, and we've got over 10 of them, there is a common place where you can click to provide feedback.

And that feedback does not go to a black hole.

It goes directly to my team, it goes directly to engineers, and it goes directly to our business partners.

So we've got multiple different ways that we can make sure that we're connected to the member, we're getting the feedback, and we understand what's going on.

Wow.

Todd, how many iterations do you think you went through before you finally got the right gate at the end of that exit experience?

I'm just curious.

Well, look, we're still iterating.

Ballparking.

Yeah.

Right.

We're still iterating.

Answer, my friend.

Good answer.

I don't know.

I mean, we probably went through 10 plus iterations, continuing to figure out not only just the technology, but the experience.

Right.

Because it's both.

It's not technology alone.

It's technology in service of the experience.

And that's why it's so critical that we stay focused on those outcomes.

Right.

And just for the audience perspective, too, what.

What percentage transactions are going through the Scan and Go app now?

Yeah, we've actually got 75%.

Well, through the Scan and Go.

Sorry?

Through the Scan and go, it's one in one in three.

Still 30%.

Okay.

Yeah.

But of that frictionless exit, that's the 75%.

Wow.

So we've now been able to reduce the friction of 75% of our members, and we've seen empirically it drives better results.

Right.

Because that applies to everybody.

Right.

Exit process applies to everybody.

Overall, 20% faster exit and 20% fast or better customer service.

That's really cool.

Especially in today's day and age.

Focus on, shrink.

And just don't forget your time either.

Yes.

And that's important.

Time is my money.

I don't like.

I don't like a highlighter.

Being in charge of my afternoon.

I will say that much.

Well said.

All right, so I'll put you on the spot a little bit here.

So your role, like we said, it's really unique.

You have the full purview as you look to 20, 25.

I'm curious, where do you expect more of your time to be centered around?

Do you expect it to be more on the customer facing side of product or more on the employee side of product to improve their lives and their productivity?

I don't know that you're gonna like my answer, but it's a real one.

It's an and.

It's an and you can't have either because what you're finding now is this environment, yes, is becoming more technologically dependent, but it's also becoming more systemic.

And that means that the systems, it's an ecosystem and things are connected across the entire thing.

And so if you let one drop, you're gonna find that it has an impact across something else.

If the associate tools get impacted, then all of a sudden the online experience is going to be impacted as well.

And so our goal is to continue to figure out what are the key problems across all four of those areas and then keep improving them.

And it's why we've got those four different areas so that we can look at the end to end experience.

Are you kidding me?

That's a great answer.

That's a great answer.

No, because it's kind of a trick question.

At the end of the day, you improve either one, it helps the other side, without a doubt.

Okay, last question.

I want to know.

Tell us a little bit about what's going on in Grapevine, Texas, these days.

And I want to know exactly what your team did to make that store come alive and how soon Chris and I can come down and see it.

Grapevine's an exciting story.

So actually, Grapevine was a club that was impacted by a natural disaster.

Okay.

And when we reopened it, when we rebuilt it, we made an intentional decision that we wanted this to be the first digital, first club.

And so what we're talking about is this is a club that does not have registers at the front end.

Yeah.

The people are using scan and go to actually exit.

And we pulled that digital theme through everything.

So.

So we're trying to figure out what does that experience look like?

Because we Know that if we can take the technology and again we can power our people led philosophy, you're going to deliver a much better experience.

So you're going to see an altered cafe where it's scan and go for the cafe and you can pick up the food when you're ready.

You're going to see the cashierless front end.

You're going to see things like computer vision, receiving in the back.

You of course have your inventory intelligence where we're using our autonomous cleaners to go up and down the aisles, take pictures of items and then they can check in stock rates, location, price, sign, accuracy.

And so our members have given us permission at this club to go a little bit further and really test out what the experience could be.

So we're excited about it and we're continuing to evolve there too.

Yeah, you're the best concept store retailer out there, bar none, in our opinion.

So sorry.

Lastly.

So you're at nrf.

Yeah.

What tips and tricks do you have as a retail executive?

Us having been former retail executives ourselves, having attended the show ourselves, there's different approaches, different strategies to get the most out of the show.

What do you recommend for people?

You know, I think it starts by looking inward.

I think it starts by your question about, you know, how do you find these problems, figure out what problems are pressing.

There's probably thousands of vendors here, right?

Yeah.

And that means there's thousands of people that are solving different problems and those problems may or may not be right for you and your business.

So if you actually do the work beforehand and you say, where are we seeing the most friction?

What's getting in the way of our corporate strategy, then you can really dial in what you're looking for and you can come here and you can find partners that will complement your existing suite and actually make an impact.

So if I say that another way, so you say your recommendation would be.

Be intentional with why you're here 100%.

And then also in that intention, look for new partners as well that you maybe haven't been acclimated towards as much as in the past versus like existing partners or both.

No, I mean, it's both.

But like the key is it's not about the partner, it's about the problem, it's about the member, it's about the associate, it's about the experience.

Great point.

And so what you're doing is you're looking for somebody that complements your suite, your skill set, your company that can deliver an outcome.

You know the old saying in product, right?

Outcomes over output, and that's the goal.

Who can help you achieve the outcomes that are most important to your business model?

Right.

Well, Todd, thank you.

This was the most fun that we've had in a transformed meat locker recording studio.

I'm gonna come back and make sure I held that title.

Yes, all right.

I know.

Because you're welcome back anytime.

Tomorrow's a big day, too.

We've got some more colleagues of yours showing up here at the Fusion group booth number 4938.

Come stop by.

Chris and I will be here all day today, tomorrow and Tuesday.

And until next time, be careful out there.