AI's In Charge, Best Buy's In Transition & Walmart's Stores Are Amazon's Worst Nightmare | Fast Five

The future of consumer is in community building.

Would you ever put mattresses in a Best Buy store?

This is the worst the technology is ever going to be.

You can't just build it.

And they will come.

The leadership becomes about not only managing people but around leading systems.

Hello and welcome to the OmniTalk Retail Fast 5.

In this week's episode, let's just say for all you Godfather fans out there, my guest and I definitely went to the mattresses because this week the former CEO of Serta Simmons Bedding, Shelly Huff got behind the microphones with me.

Shelly was in the us I was in the Berlin.

And God, isn't modern technology just the greatest?

So I owe a big darkest Shane to Shelly and to all our wonderful partners who make this podcast possible each and every week.

Let's get to today's show.

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That's V, E, L, O Q. Shelly Huff in Arizona.

Wildcat.

A fellow Arizonan on the podcast what is this world coming to?

How have you been keeping?

Hi, Chris.

Well, it's a great year to be a Wildcat.

I know our basketball team didn't make it quite as far as we wanted in the tournament this year, but seeing them at the Final Four was certainly wonderful.

And I've been doing well.

Fantastic, enjoying life and work, happy to be here.

And it seems like every time you and I catch up, one of us is across the world.

So thanks for making this happen today.

That's right, yeah.

When he first talked to you in Portugal, I was in Minnesota and now I'm in Berlin.

And you're where?

Are you in Chicago today?

I'm in Chicago today for a conference.

Yeah, Chicago.

Yeah.

So, so.

Yeah, so, so, so.

Tell her.

I know you.

The audience doesn't know you.

I mean, some of.

There's probably a lot of people in the retail industry that know you, but for those maybe that are, you know, hearing you for the first time.

Tell us about yourself, Shelley.

Sure, happy to.

I'm a retail and consumer products executive, most notably spent 14 years at Walmart in a series of leadership roles there, mostly in merchandising similar to yourself, and had a big part in shaping Walmart's digital transformation.

Following Walmart, I was the CEO of Certus Simmons Betting, leading transformation efforts there.

And then most recently I co founded and served in the CEO of a company called the Interval, which is a peer led community of C suite executives and founders who are in career transition.

And Chris, this may seem like a big pivot, but I believe the future of consumer is in community building.

And I personally am having a ton of fun climbing a new mountain.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

How long, how long have you been doing that?

Well, we started about 18 months ago and this community grew very organically to over 100 executives.

And then we formalized it as a company, my co founder and I, Marian Banner Karam in February.

And so we've been meeting a lot of new folks that are coming into our community and broadening the aperture of what's possible when they're on a career break.

Nice, nice.

Are you missing retail at all?

I mean, I think you can take the retail out of you, but you can't ever fully get rid of it.

Is that true, Shelly?

I agree with that.

So my obsession with consumers and service and people development came with me along this journey of community development.

But no, I pay a lot of attention to retail.

I'm always out in the market.

I am a shopper myself.

And so I don't know if I'll ever be that far away from it.

Yeah, right, right.

Which is why I came and grabbed you as soon as I got the opportunity.

I was like, shelley, what do you say about being a guest host on the podcast?

And you're like, yes, let's do it.

So.

All right, Shell.

Well, let's get to this week's headlines, because in this week's Fast 5, we've got news on Best Buy announcing a major CEO transition with Corey Barry set to step down and Jason Bonfig stepping up.

Party City staging a retail comeback.

This time living inside Staples stores across the country.

Dairy Queen expanding its voice.

AI pilot at the drive thru with technology partner Presto.

And Walmart, which Walmart, Shelley's experience is going to be keen on this one.

Walmart reportedly piloting store based fulfillment of marketplace orders that could shrink delivery times from days to just hours.

But we begin today with the story of a San Francisco store that has no human boss, just an AI named Luna.

Whoa.

According to USA Today, an AI agent named Luna is now the boss of a real retail store in San Francisco.

Backed by a $100,000 budget from its creators at Andon Labs, Luna picked the inventory, designed the store, hired the human staff, and signed the lease.

Believe it or not, Luna communicates with customers via a corded telephone handset in the store and manages her human employees via Slack, handling data, planning and logistics, while the human staff handled the warmth and in person, customer service.

Yeah, I bet.

Luna chose all the inventory, designed a mural for the store wall, commissioned painters to execute it, and even signed up for trash collection in ADT system and AT&T Internet.

However, Shelly, however, Shelley and Omnitok fans, there have been some early stumbles.

Luna has reportedly been over ordering candles.

There are no visible price tags on products.

Yeah, that's a problem.

Customers must ask Luna for prices via the phone.

And two female employees were found to be paid $2 less per hour than the one male employee, though Luna said it was actually based on retail experience.

Shelley, we're gonna start you off on this one.

This is.

This is a.

This is a story that doesn't typically make, you know, make our headlines, but this one is so unique, we're gonna start off with this.

And believe it or not, and not surprisingly, the A and M consumer and retail groups put you on the spot.

Question of the week.

So here it is.

Putting aside the question for the moment of whether retail is ready for an AI run store concept, what are the most important things the retail industry should seek to learn from such an experiment?

Well, I personally think this is so cool.

And this is what I love about what's happening in Silicon Valley right now in the renaissance that is happening in that part of the country.

This to me is not about AI replacing retail leadership, it's about it replacing the, or supporting the operational layer underneath retail execution.

And so I think this just signals where AI is going, which is about really middle management automation.

So when we say AI, we mean automation.

And so when I talk about middle management automation, I mean things around planning, allocation, assortment, all of those things.

And Chris, I see, I think the biggest takeaways are we can imagine a world now where a buyer, for instance, might be selecting an item and negotiating pricing and AI is doing the rest.

And so leadership comes about around, you know, becomes about not only managing people, but around leading systems and understanding each of those operational layers so those can continue to be enhanced.

What I thought was funny about this and the candle situation is that, yeah, you and I both know buyers buy too much or too little things all the time, myself included.

And so this, to me is interesting because Luna will most likely learn from this and not make that error again.

And in real life, buyers may be in a role three or four years and move categories and you're having to teach a person all over again.

And so I think this ultimately leads to fewer mistakes as AI continues to learn here.

But, but I think it's super interesting.

And I also think what's unique about this is that consumer experience and consumer experience scores are going to continue to be incredibly important to the retailers that do it the best.

And so what I think we'll learn from this is which categories and which shopping circumstances are going to require more human intervention than not.

And so one thing I think about is if I want to buy a stick of gum, I probably don't expect to interact with people as much.

But if I'm buying an air maze scarf for a luxury handbag, that's high consideration.

I do.

But again, super excited that companies are trying this.

They're not the only ones.

I'm interested to see more of this come out of Silicon Valley and I'll be eager to see what continues to happen with Luna.

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

So.

Wow.

All right, so.

So be honest with me.

Be honest with me.

So was that, was that your initial take when you read the headline, or were you kind of like oh, wow, this is weird.

Or did you, did you come at that like after you digested it, knowing that we were going to talk about it today?

Be honest.

No, I honestly, I am excited about what.

You're excited about it.

Excited about what's happening with AI as it relates to retail.

So when I read this headline, I was like, yes, someone finally stepped forward and is going all the way with it.

And that's a typical way of Silicon Valley companies coming at this.

They're going to go as far as they possibly can, they're going to learn, they're going to iterate, and then they're going to execute beautifully.

And you know, a couple days ago I had lunch with another founder who's billing building another automation layer for retailers that's basically ingesting different forms of AI that can serve as one stop shop for many elements of retail execution.

So when I read this, it made me excited because there's actually a physical presence with this.

But there's a lot of companies working on this and it's really.

And it's, it makes it an exciting time to be a retailer.

Wow.

Yeah, it presses the envelope, right?

I mean, that's the cool thing about it.

Yeah, man.

I will 100% agree with you.

I think it's wrong to dismiss this too quickly.

And if you're reading this and you have, you know, I'd encourage you to.

I think, Shelley, you're dead right.

You gotta think about it from the lens that you're discussing it.

I had a really interesting conversation this morning with Scott Price, who's the CEO you might even know, a former Walmart guy, but currently the CEO of DFI Group, which is a large grocer in Asia.

And he said, I asked him at the end, I said, how are you thinking about AI impacting your business?

And he brought up a framework where he's looking at it from three lenses.

First is the consumer facing side, which is what we've been talking about on the podcast every week, like using LLMs to search for product and that kind of thing.

Second is the general, the productivity that you're gonna get from using agents and deploying them in your operation, which is a little bit of what's happening here.

And then Shelley, the part that you made me think about.

Cause I wasn't gonna talk about this until you mentioned it was.

He also said it can make the buyers better at their jobs, it can make them better negotiators, better planogram designers, better product designers.

And that was really interesting.

So he and I Called it kind of the productivity plus.

So there's the standard day to day productivity of all the jobs people don't want to get done.

But then there's also the improvement on the jobs, which is interesting when you said like, yeah, we've all overbought candles, but hey, we could actually stop doing that in the long run if we think about deploying this the, the right way.

So then the next thing I'd say is like, you know, the implications to me are this.

Shelly, like as executives, we.

I want to get your thoughts on this too.

As executives, we are not going to just be managing people going forward.

We're going to be managing agents and how we manage agents and who knows how to manage agents and who learns how to manage agents is going to be what separates those from who are successful in the long run versus those that don't.

But you get the last word on that one.

I couldn't agree more.

And I think there's going to be, you know, and we can talk about retail leadership, but when you think about understanding all the layers of a retailer and the systems that have to work together, that's where really great experience comes through.

Because you know how the questions to ask and the guidance that has to be provided not only to the people, but the system.

And I think about that in terms of how you lead an organization and actually build the systems required.

If you are not experienced of decades working across every aspect of the business, I think it becomes much more difficult to lead a retailer.

Right.

And that's another great point too, because the other thing we were talking about today a lot at the World Retail Congress was you have to know your process.

Like you can start with your goal, but you have to know your process to actually do this the right way as well.

Shelley, which is what you're talking about.

And so that's going to put a premium on everything as well.

Great point.

Thank you.

Really exciting.

Headline number two that we're covering today is Best Buy CEO Corey Berry is stepping down after seven years leading the consumer electronics retailer.

And Jason Bondfig, currently Best Buy's chief customer, product and Fulfillment officer, will succeed her as CEO on October 31, 2026.

Barry, who became the CEO in 2019, was the first female CEO in Best Buy's history.

She guided the company through COVID 19, record high inflation and the impact of new tariffs.

Best Buy Stock fell nearly 5% on the news, reflecting ongoing investor concern about sluggish comp sales across the company's entertainment and appliance segments.

Bonfig a 27 year best buy veteran who joined the company as an inventory analyst in 1999, the same year as Barry.

He will become the sixth CEO in Best Buy's history.

In his current role, Bonfig oversees merchandising, e commerce marketing supply chain, Best Buy Canada, and Best Buy Ads, the company's retail media network.

Barry will stay on as a strategic advisor for six months after stepping down.

The board noted the transition timing end of Q3 just before holiday season as intentional providing bond figure Runway to lead into Best Buy's most important selling period.

Chris, do you think Barry's experience at Best Buy highlights the need for merchandising or store ops experience in the chief executive role?

Oh, wow.

I can't wait to hear what you think on that question.

I think it goes back to what you, I think what you said on the first headline.

I think.

I don't know if it's a requirement, but I think it's as darn close to one as you're gonna get, especially for an omnichannel retailer with a significant store base.

I mean, having done both like running a store operation and being a, you know, a merchant for a long time, I just can't imagine learning the lifeblood of a retail organization while being my only.

While my only job experience is in finance or HQ operations.

There's just so much more to how a retail operation gets done at the end of the day.

And so when I step back from this story, Shelly, I think it also tells me that Best Buys board, and rightly so, and possibly even Barry, to her own credit, feels the same way.

She gave it a good run.

Let's not, let's put it out there.

She gave it a good run.

She, she was there seven years.

That's a long time in the life of a CEO.

The electronics business is as tough as they come, especially given the decimation of things like music, movies, printing, things that, you know, Best Buy used to stand behind, which are just basically businesses that don't even exist anymore.

But by the same token, some of the moves, some of the moves which I've questioned on this show pretty overtly, like, like they bought a patio furniture company, they're putting IKEA into their stores.

Those just feel really odd to me.

And so, like, I, like, I just step back and go, like, like Shelley, would you ever put mattresses in a Best Buy store?

I mean, who knows if it was even broached you.

But like, that just seems strange to me.

So, yes, I think, I think it's Maybe not a requirement, but it, it's.

It's something that I would be looking very hard at if I was picking a next CEO for a retailer.

But what do you think?

I mean, I do.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got the experience.

I mean, what do you.

Do you agree with me or No, I do.

I think we just talked about this, that where retail's headed and what has to happen, especially with technology and where the consumer is moving, I think this is an example of Best Buy requiring much more than financial engineering.

It's going to require somebody coming in and really defining the core strategy.

To your point of where can they win?

And I think the Yardbird acquisition and then the Ikea, you know, stores is an example of picking adjacencies where Best Buy is never going to win.

You have low Jim Roy, possibly in all of retail with patio furniture due to the seasonality.

Then you.

It begs the question, did we ever need another retailer selling flat pack furniture when you can order anything on Amazon and at Wayfair?

So when I actually think about mattresses, I think that's sleep technology as a growth category globally and one of the most searched terms in social media.

You could actually make a case that sleep tech and companies like eight Sleep that are consumers want to experience in stores.

And getting behind a growth category that Best Buy can actually win in is a more compelling proposition than some of the things they've tried so far.

But I think, you know, those are going to be some of the questions that Jason has to answer as he thinks about the future strategy of Best Buy and looking at where, where future growth exists and where Best Buy can actually carve out a place where they can win.

So I think that this is a really great move for Best Buy.

I think the board very clearly is also giving Jason no time.

Holiday season is going to be a defining moment for him.

But I think overall, this is what Best Buy needs, is, you know, a true retail operator coming in and helping redefine the value proposition for the future of Best Buy.

Yeah, I think you've nailed it.

I mean, you've nailed it on the show already.

Like, your point about the future of retail is going to be dependent on people leading it that really understand the process soup to nuts, both digitally and in stores in terms of how they work and how they operate.

So, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, it's getting me thinking already, Shelly.

All right, let's keep moving.

Headline number three, Party City is back, but not the way you remember it.

Everybody.

After filing for bankruptcy for the second time in 2024 and shuttering nearly all of its locations.

Party City has reopened inside more than 700 Staples stores nationwide, with plans to expand to additional Staples locations through the end of 2026, according to Chain Storage.

The partnership announced this week brings Party City's balloons, decor, tablewear, gift bags and costume accessories inside Staples locations, turning Staples into a one stop shop for celebration and printing needs.

Customers can combine Party City supplies with Staples Print Services, creating custom banners, yard signs, posters and personalized invitations all in one visit.

I think this is the first time the word yard has been used twice in two headlines in the history of the Amitalk retail fast five balloon pickups will soon be available to schedule online via Staples.com and the Staples app Shelley.

Party City had 700 standalone stores at its peak before it went bankrupt.

Now it has 700 locations again, but this time they're inside of Staples.

Is this a genuine second act for a beloved brand and or a point of real differentiation for Staples?

I think it's neither.

Neither.

And I'll take you through.

I'll take I think this is gonna so the, the growth in Party is coming from personalization.

So I don't think the insight there or the thesis is wrong.

I do think, however, this is going to come down to execution on Staples part.

So when we talk about this, they have to bring this part platform together, which is going to require not only your digital interface, your execution in stores, what customer service looks like, but in general the margin is in the balloon business, the margin is in the personalization business.

When you look at the rest of the business for Party City, you have low retail items that potentially have incredibly low velocity due to Amazon and Walmart outpacing them on every level, including beating them on price.

So anytime you combine low retail categories with low velocity, it destroys your ROI in the business.

And so I think if Staples can't pull together the personalization in the other part of the business, this makes absolutely no sense.

It's going to be dilutive to their business.

They're not going to be a destination.

And I think there's huge risks across the board in execution training, marketing and then potentially stagnant inventory for not turning any of it.

So this is a big, big one to watch, I guess, because it's going to require a lot to be successful here.

Wow.

Shelley, tell us how you really feel.

I love it.

I love the candor on this one.

This is great.

This is great.

No, I, I think I agree with you though because like, you know, we've talked about it a Lot Staples feels like it's just trying to be like the, the mall for all the junk that you don't want to do.

It's becoming like the swap meet for like retail concepts or ideas.

And so they're throwing Party City in there.

And I, I guess I get the tie ins to it on the printing side.

But your point is, right, because we've talked about on the show a lot.

You can't just build it and they will come.

You can't take an Iowa strategy and just build it and they will come.

It's not gonna work that way.

You have to spend money, you have to invest in marketing and in store training and digital product development, which is what gets you all the personalization aspects of what you've talked about in order to make this work.

So, yeah, I'm with you.

I just think, where's the ROI in that in the long run?

And also, Shelley, you brought this up about, you know, Amazon and the other competition that's out there in that space.

Like it's going to be really hard to keep up or even meet the level that's table stakes for that right now, given the amount of investment you've put into this as Staples and as a defunct Party City, let alone in the long run too.

So like, I just, yeah, I don't, I don't see this bringing a lot of traffic into the store.

I feel like it's going to be more, more of a hamstringing effort in the long run too.

I think so, too.

So many parts of the party business are highly commoditized and that's where Amazon and Walmart really shine.

So it'll be interesting to see if they can make this one work.

Yeah, well, I get, But I guess, you know, I do need those balloons for my yard.

That's where, that's where it could be interesting.

Right, Right, right.

Yeah, the graduation yard signs, you know, like, hey, little Johnny's graduating from high school today.

Come into Staples and make the sign.

So, yeah, who knows?

I mean, it's, I don't, I don't hate it as much as, as I don't, I don't know, I don't hate it that much.

I just think it's going to be really hard to do.

Exactly.

I agree.

We'll keep an eye on it.

Moving on to our next headline, Dairy Queen is expanding its voice AI pilot at the drive thru, partnering with Presto Phoenix to deploy the technology beyond its corporate test stores and into into select franchisee locations across at least 25 US states and Canadian provinces, according to chain store age.

American Dairy Queen Corporation tested Presto's Voice AI at company owned stores where it improved customer satisfaction scores by double digit percentages.

Presto Phoenix says its AI system can accurately process about 90% of orders at the drive thru.

Kevin Bartman, EVP of IT at Dairy Queen, cited improved order accuracy and the ability to free staff for high value tasks as key outcomes of the initial tests.

Presto CEO Krishna Gupta said the goal is to eventually Deploy across all 3000 of Dairy Queen's US and Canadian drive thrus.

Chris, is drive thru voice AI finally ready for prime time or is Dairy Queen in danger of getting too far in front of the hype?

Ooh, ooh, I can't wait to hear what you have to say about this.

Like, I kind of knew where you're going to go on the first three, but I have no idea what you think about this one.

Well, first of all, confession, Shelley.

I have this at my local Dairy Queen.

It is in operation at my local Dairy Queen.

And yes, Omnitok fans, I go to Dairy Queen every Tuesday after I take my son to his drum lesson practice.

Yes, it's like the standard place that we go and I got to tell you, it works really, really, really well.

And I personally love the addition.

Now granted, I'm kind of a, you know, I kind of focus on this stuff for a living, so I'm a little, probably more, you know, accepting of it and tolerant of it.

But there's a number of things I like about it a lot.

Like, first, first you can hear it and you can understand it.

Like, as I'm sitting there at every drive thru, I'm always reminded of the old Saturday Night Live skit where they do the subway announcement in New York and everyone's standing on the platform and they're like, what?

I can't hear them.

And they go inside where the people are making the announcements and they all talk to each other like, you know, and, and that's because that's what it's like when you go to a drive thru.

It's hard to hear.

So, like that that's gone.

Like, it is crisp, clean, very well done, very professional sounding.

Second, it is amazing that it reacts to you and knows to ask you questions about things to make sure your order is right, which is, which is really impressive when you think about it.

You have to be a, you have to be a little slow to like, make sure that it's hearing you right.

And you don't want to speak too fast, but you know, once you just let it do its thing, it's great.

And the first few times I went through, the other thing I'll say is I said to my family, I was like, is that AI?

And we were, we weren't really sure.

We weren't really sure.

And now, now having gone through it enough, I know that it is.

And now that they're doing this, it 100% is.

But, but in all actuality, the, the, the bar for improvement on what we're talking about here in my mind is so low that I think this will make it better.

And the last point is, and this could just be a sample size of 1, but the service at the Dairy Queen is much better.

I pull up to the window, the service is better.

The quality of the food is better too.

And I have no idea if that's related, but I have to think it helps because the people that are actually working there can focus on the things that, that make service, you know, that bring about good service and bring about good quality food versus having to haggle and order with people that have pulled their cars through the drive through with 16 kids in tow.

So anyway, that's my take, Shelley, but I'm dying to hear what you think about this one.

Are you in on this or no?

Oh yeah.

I think this is a perfect application for AI when you, when we're talking about customer service where there's a finite number of menu items and a finite number of questions that could potentially be asked around those items and permutations of that.

And we have to remember you had a great experience and this is the worst the technology is ever going to be.

Right.

So this is a perfect application.

Customer service replacing a person, freeing up staff to really focus on the face to face interaction.

And this is the best application of it I've seen in the food industry.

I think we can all remember was it like last year or two years ago where Chick Fil A put up customer service screens and their drive thru with like a person sitting on their couch remotely taking your order like that just wasn't a great experience at all.

So I think this is a retailer or you know, a fast food retailer doing this incredibly well.

And I don't think that they're going to be obviously the last.

Yeah, and it seems like a trend too.

It seems like, you know, we're seeing other, even this week, other companies jump into this too and make announcements to the same degree.

So it seems like there's a there there and we're going to see more of it.

And you know, if it plays out like this, that's a great point too.

Like, I never thought about that.

Yeah, it's the best the technology is right now, but it's not going to be the best it ever is.

And so as they learn to do this across more retailers, it's going to be interesting to Watch or more QSRs.

All right, last one.

Shelly.

Shelly, I don't know if we're going to have you back.

We might need to disagree more.

I don't know.

We're pretty aligned on this show.

I don't know.

It's not in the ethos of the OmniTalk Fast 5, but hey, that's okay.

Sometimes we got to agree too.

All right, headline number five.

Walmart is reportedly piloting a program that will use its own retail stores as fulfillment hubs for third party marketplace orders.

A move that could cut delivery times from the current one to two days down to as little as three hours, according to coverage from the Financial Times.

And Seeking Alpha, Walmart is running the pilot at several stores in Dallas.

No surprise, a market the company has historically used as a test bed for new technology.

And Manish Juneja, a former Omnitok guest and SVP of Walmart's US Marketplace and Walmart Fulfillment Services, confirmed the test to the Financial Times.

Walmart is also reportedly using AI to help determine which store should carry which marketplace items for optimal fulfillment.

The effort is also being framed as a direct challenge to Amazon, which offers third party sellers same day delivery through its own fulfillment services.

Shelley Walmart has 4,600 stores within 10% of 90% of the U.S. population.

If it can turn those stores into same day fulfillment centers for marketplace sellers, how big a deal is it and what does it actually mean for Amazon?

Well, here's where we might disagree.

I have a lot of questions.

Yeah, I have a lot of questions about this one because there are a lot of practical limitations.

So we're, let's talk about Amazon first.

So Amazon has huge, large distribution centers in a lot of metros across the United States.

In Phoenix, for example, where I spend a lot of time, I can get the majority of the items I order from Amazon, whether they're marketplace or first party, within a number of hours.

And so if Walmart does this in my geography, it probably isn't going to be the thing that causes me to switch.

And because of the limitations of space in their Walmart stores, they're probably still not going to have the breadth of items that Amazon has.

And so there's a lot of practical limitations here.

However, when you look across the US broadly, it could make sense to folks that are not in a close proximity to a large Amazon warehouse where then Walmart potentially could beat the delivery times of Amazon.

The question you have there is when Amazon's the number one most trusted retailer to get things to you on time, is that enough to cause somebody to switch?

That's the question.

If it's a couple hours sooner.

And then there's the practical question of how many of these marketplace items can you actually warehouse within a store?

And what does this inventory orchestration look like in a store or where did you know, I've been in many Walmart back rooms in my day.

Where does the Walmart item live?

How is it allocated?

Like how fast does it turn?

How does that compare to all your other items that you have in a Walmart store?

So while I think this test is interesting to watch, do I think it goes head to head with Amazon still?

No.

Do I think it has huge implications for Amazon as a company, broadly as a tech company?

No.

So I'm going to, I think it's a wait and see.

I think it's worth testing and worth seeing how consumers respond to this and whether you can get the right items and be predictive about that.

But what's interesting to me is it still doesn't solve the larger delivery problem for Walmart getting closer to that 10% in big cities they're still not servicing.

So it's interesting the focus on this versus like there's this big population of people that still isn't being served by a Walmart.

So that's my perspective.

That's a really interesting point too because that, to your point, like Amazon's definitely going after those, which is hence the Phoenix, you know, metro area that you're talking about too.

You know, even though Walmart can reach that.

But you know, as you get into even more dense geographies too, like a.

San Francisco or like a New York or these, where the 10% is that like, you know, that isn't buy at Walmart.

Yeah, right.

And you're right too, because you know, the way Amazon is going to approach, there's going to be more breadth in terms of the inventory that they're probably housing in those locations at least, you know, from what we know from this announcement, you know, you know, you know, in terms of what Walmart can house inside, you know, the back rooms of their stores.

That's interesting.

I'm not surprised to hear you kind of muted on this one.

I.

But I think, I still think, I think I really like this move, Shelly.

I think I do it.

So I want you to talk me through it and tell me what I got right and what I get wrong here from your opinion.

But you know, I think when you think about.

So from the inventory question, right, Walmart's, Walmart's gonna take the items it knows it can bank on from its marketplace.

That's what it's going to put in here, right?

And Walmart's thinking, I think they're thinking about this like as a Walmart plus play to like the app play.

Like, how do I get more people in my ecosystem?

How do I get people shopping for groceries and shopping for everything they need from me?

So I think that's a key, you know, a key piece of it here.

And they're going to offer.

The other cool thing about it is too, they can offer the warehousing for those bankable items via Walmart fulfillment services to their suppliers, which is something that Amazon cannot offer.

Like, that just does not come as part of their fulfillment services where, hey, yeah, you can be close to 90% of the country with your items.

So that's interesting to me as a hook to the supplier community.

And then from a consumer perspective, I also think it's a smart test because consumers don't know where things ship from or which items ship from where.

At the end of the day, this is just a search game.

So like, you know, having to be right on what inventory you actually put in the back room, the premium on that is probably less than I think we want to think it is because either you're going to have it or you're not.

And I'm not going to know that on one day you could get it to me in three days and another day you could get it to me, you know, you know, in three hours.

Another day it might get me same day or even in two days.

Like, I just don't think consumers know that.

But so as long as Walmart can, can put the right items in the store in a way that's credible and they can do it at a mass where it moves the needle.

You know, I think it's important, particularly for the marketplace.

So I, I don't know it at the end of the day too.

I mean, it means more sales, it means more a more reason to shop at Walmart because you can get things that quickly, especially when you look at, not just Amazon, all the competitive dynamics out there, like a Target or whatnot too.

And that just means more retail media Dollars, too.

Because the more marketplace items you're putting front and center in ways that people want to buy them or get them delivered, that's more profit, too, the way this works, the way the engine works.

So.

So I don't know.

What.

What do you.

What do you think I missed?

What do you think I got right?

What do you think I got wrong there?

Shelley, I don't disagree on the media dollar piece and the potential.

It's exciting to think about the potential of.

Could Walmart actually change the unit economics of marketplace more broadly in the United States?

However, I go back to.

It's a good point.

Still going to be the tip of the spear.

Yep.

And it's still going to be narrow.

And maybe if the experiment goes well, they'll change the fact that it's narrow in tip of the spear.

But in order to make an impact at that big of a scale on revenue, you have to tip that needle so far.

And my big question is, is it enough to, like, actually make an impact at a scale that large?

So it's a wait and see.

Yeah, that's really.

I think you just flipped me, too.

I think you flipped me on this conversation because.

Yeah, that.

I mean, and it's a big.

It's not easy to pull this off logistically too.

Right.

And so then the juice has got to be worth the squeeze.

That's what I'm hearing you say as well.

Absolutely.

But that's why it's a test.

And so they're going to learn something from it that might end up being a multibillion dollar game changer.

We don't know, so.

Right, right.

Yeah.

And we don't know.

We don't know the size and scale of some of these marketplace items that Walmart doesn't traditionally carry either, you know, and how well rounded out, how well they round out the assortment, too, I guess, is another point I hadn't thought about before.

Wow, this is.

This is great.

All right, Shelly, let's go to the lightning round.

First question, since I'm currently in Berlin, explain what you think.

A CurryWurst is in five words or less.

And you cannot Google this live time or chatgpt or whatever.

Okay, A curry worst.

I'm literally gonna break it down.

Yep.

Probably a sausage with a curry adjacency.

A curry adjacency.

Oh, my God.

Spoken like a true merchant.

And by curry adjacency, you mean like a curry sauce?

Maybe, Maybe, maybe.

All right, there's curry involved.

What is it really now?

You can tell me.

Yeah, no, you Nailed it.

You nailed it.

It's sausage covered and smothered in curry.

Typically, it seems like it's a ketchup based curry because I had it and I asked some friends who tried it too this week and sometimes has curry powder dusted on it.

Sounds like you get served with chips, too, or French fries too.

Shelly.

That's the other thing.

Ketchup based curry.

That's a new one.

It's a very tomato based curry.

Very tomato based curry.

Yeah.

Not.

Maybe ketchup based is not the right word.

People probably take offense to that.

But.

But it's a very tomato based curry.

Yes.

I'm not enticed to try it, but I hope you do, though.

I got.

I got recommended from some Brits last week and I told some people and they're like, you took.

You took eating advice from British people.

What are you doing?

But hey, hey, gotta love my Brits.

Yeah, there you go.

Okay, so your question is, Chris, being another Arizona, a fellow Arizonan, what is the first place you go to eat and when you land in Arizona?

Oh, my God.

Oh, wow.

That's.

Wow.

God.

So back in college, I used to go to native New Yorker and this place called Pranksters for the wings down in Tempe for the Buffalo wings.

They had great Buffalo wings.

But those I think are gone now.

So now I'd probably either say TC Eggington's, which is like a brunch place, or Venezia's, the pizza place.

Jeff Venetia's in Tucson.

No, no, Venezia's, for those listening, is the pizza place in Breaking Bad when he throws the pizza on the roof.

They have it in Albuquerque and in.

In the Phoenix area, too.

So, yeah, that's what I'd say.

That pizza is really good, Shelly.

I'll have to try it.

Yeah.

All right.

Back in the day, as a Wildcat alum, who is the greatest Wildcat in the history of Arizona basketball.

And Shelley, there is a right answer to this question.

So I'm.

Well, there's absolutely one answer is how I think about this.

And it's Steve Kerr before now and always Steve.

I grew up watching Steve play Arizona basketball as a kid.

I obviously live in the Bay Area for a long time and love watching him coach Golden State State.

Tremendous guy, tremendous character.

But I will add Sean Elliott a distance second, so I will.

I.

And Sean's a Tucson guy, too, so.

So I've got some love for Sean Elliott, but Steve Kerr by a large margin.

I'm surprised he didn't represent Tucson as the hometown with Sean Elliott, you went with Steve Kerr by a wide margin.

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

Wow.

All right.

I guess.

So, Chris, over to you.

Are you trusting AI more to manage your shopping list or your calendar?

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

You know, I've never been able to get in those calendly tools and stuff.

Like, they just.

I just can't get those to work for me.

I'm definitely not using it to manage my shopping list either.

But I think if I had to put a gun on my head and decide which one, I think I'd say my calendar because, like, you know, I get a little weirded out by agentic payments and it seems like a lot of folks here at the World Retail Congress are too.

Like, people are saying, like, literally I had somebody on stage say I would not be investing in payment integrations and tie ins, but what about you?

I don't know, Shelly.

What would you do?

So I heard a new use case last night that I'm going to try.

So this week I had to pack for Miami for four days, Chicago for four days, and Kentucky for four days.

And I did it myself.

And I heard of another executive that I'm close to, used an agent to put her packing list together and gave it the dimensions of her luggage, and it did the whole thing.

She offered like a couple pictures of her outfits, the style she wanted to go with where she was traveling, and it recommended her entire packing list that would fit in her luggage.

So I will be back to talk about how that works out for me, but I wish I would have done it for this trip.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Cause you're on your way to the Kentucky Derby, right?

I am on my way to the Kentucky Derby, like hours away.

Right.

Tomorrow I leave for.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

So, so excited.

Yeah.

And I, I. Yeah.

God, so much fun.

That, that is such a blast.

That's a, that's a bucket list trip.

I'm gonna take your recommendation and just have fun, which is what you said.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

And Gamble too, I think, was my other recommendation.

Right.

Yeah.

Put some money on the horses.

Definitely pick the horse and.

Okay.

So have fun and pick the winning horse.

Got it.

That's right.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Pick the winning horse.

Yeah.

Don't we wish we all could do that?

All right, Ella, come on in here.

Which, which headline won the show for you?

I'm not even a guest this week because I'm so jet lagged that I probably wouldn't even make sense of what I'm trying to say, but what I'm curious.

I have no idea.

Anyway, which way you lean this week?

Yeah.

Well, first of all, you two together are a powerhouse.

Like you dove straight into the headlines.

And you made me very confused.

I thought I had my answer and now I'm just, I'm so confused on what I want to pick.

But the Conversation winner for this week is Party City Comeback.

Okay, why?

Why?

What was that?

What was so interesting about that for you?

Well, I was not expecting the conversation to go the way it did because that was my initial answer was like, let's go.

Party City's back.

I'm so excited so to hear kind of the inside scoop on, you know, the company side.

Makes total sense what you guys were saying.

But from someone who just recently put on a bridal shower and I needed all those last minute tablecloths.

We forgot so many things.

There was not a one stop shop that had the good quality things that I needed for this party.

And so we were jumping around from Walmart to Dollar General.

Dollar General didn't open till 9.

This party was at 10.

Like, we were chaotic.

It was.

I wish I had my Party City in that moment.

Well, Ella, did you agentic AI it or not?

Not even agent.

But did you generative AI it?

Did you ask for help from ChatGPT a lot, what Shelly said for her upcoming trip, or no.

Or do you forget about that?

The night before, we were trying to set up the tables and chairs and I did take a photo and say, please rearrange this room for me and set this up.

However it was all messed up.

It didn't work out the way I wanted.

It had the dimensions all wrong.

So.

Okay.

But yeah, you could see, you could see the use case of being like, hey, I really need all this stuff in like two hours.

Go source it for me, get it for me.

Versus having to search through all those sites too, in the use case that you talked about.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

And I agree with you, Chris, though I don't think I'm.

I'm there to trust them to use my card and pay for it though.

Yeah, yeah.

Shelley, where do you come down on that?

The whole, like, you know, you know, using agents to pay for you as well.

I'm, I tend to try everything, so.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I.

As long as it's, you know, the data security is there, I, I mean, that's where we're headed.

Right?

Especially if you're storing your card with a retailer that's using AI to, you know, order things for you on a regular basis or Amazon subscription does this for us already.

So it's just another format that's doing that for us.

So I don't necessarily have an issue.

Yeah, I guess we all kind of do it in a lot of ways.

It's just like in what interface are we ready and willing to do it?

Yeah.

I had no idea you were such a technophile too, coming into this show.

I think that's the right word.

Not technophobe, right?

Technophile.

Yeah, I think that's the right word.

Word.

That's great, man.

This has been so much fun.

Well, Shelley, any last words before we sign off here?

No, it's been great chatting with both of you and yeah, excited to see how some of these headlines evolve over the next few months.

So thanks for having me on the show.

Yeah, no doubt.

There were a lot of headlines to revisit here in like, you know, the six month time frame, so.

And I imagine a lot of them will be revisited through different commentary that the media has as well as the companies themselves had and have in terms of how they're.

They're playing out.

So.

All right, well, happy birthday today to ddl, that's Daniel Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and to the man who starred in the single greatest TV sitcom without debate, the great Jerry Seinfeld.

What a great day for birthdays.

Daniel Day Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jerry Seinfeld all have a birthday on the same day.

That's outstanding.

And remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, make it Omnitok.

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You can follow us today by simply going to YouTube.com omnitalkretail hey, Shelly, if people are listening and they want to get in touch with you, maybe be a part of what it is you're building with the community that you talked about at the open.

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

Sure, reach out to me directly.

I'm on LinkedIn.

S h e l l e y Huff on LinkedIn at Huff, Shelley on Instagram or you can reach me on email.

Shelley.

The interval community dot com.

Awesome.

The Interval Community.

All right.

Yeah, Everybody, check it out.

Shelly's gonna be doing some bigger and better things here.

I just can sense it.

I can sense it.

Cause she's, like, beaming whenever she talks about it.

If you're watching the video here, too, so if you probably see see it, you can probably even hear it in her voice.

All right, well, on behalf of Shelly, producer, Ella, myself, everyone at Omnitok retail, as always, be careful out there.