Amazon Exits Fresh, E-Grocery Booms & eBay Bans AI Bots | Fast Five

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E L O q.com hello, you are listening to Omnitalk's Retail Fast Five, ranked in the top 10% of all podcasts globally and currently the only retail podcast ranked in the top 100 of all business podcasts on Apple Podcasts.

The Retail Fast Five is the podcast that we hope makes you feel a little smarter, but most importantly, a little happier each week too.

Today is February 4, 2026.

I'm one of your hosts, Anne Mazinga.

And I'm one of your other hosts, Chris Walton.

And we're here once again to bring you all the top retail headlines making waves in the world of omnichannel retailing.

Helping us out today for their regularly scheduled monthly appearance is the Alvarez and Marcel consumer and retail group's managing director Ken Cochran and senior director John Malankar.

Ken.

John, welcome both of you first timers to OmniTok.

I want to start by having each of you introduce yourselves and give a brief background for our audience since, since this is your first time.

And Ken, we're going to go to you first.

I have been with A and M for a little over eight years.

I, I spent some time, a very long time with one of the companies that you're going to ask me a question about later.

So it'll be a little search and find game for everybody to figure out which company it is.

But I bet you'll be able to figure it out.

I, I've become a grandfather for the second time in the past month, so that's pretty exciting.

And I'm currently in France sitting in a DC because that's all I do is go to DCs and figure stuff out.

So thanks for the opportunity and run.

The world as a grandpa for the second time.

Congratulations on that, Ken.

I'm excited to hear more about that after the show.

All right.

And John, let's hear about you and your background.

Sure thing.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

Depending on when somebody might be listening to this.

Yeah, My name is John Malankar, senior director with Alvarez and Marcel consumer and retail group.

I spent the better part of the last 15 years focused on end to end operations in food and beverage, or cpg, as well as some groceries.

And that means I found myself doing everything from sourcing peanut butter cups to be included in ice cream to warehouse networking modeling for a client that did everything from jarred pickles to dried pasta and everything in between and even reducing waste at a chicken processing plant.

And I'll let everybody guess which one of those, you know, smelled the best or maybe with the most fun.

But it's, it's been a good, a great ride and excited to be here and share my perspectives on some of the headlines of the day with y'.

All.

Oh, John, I am jealous of pickles, pasta and peanut butter cups, that those are three categories that I would love to be part of a focus group for.

So I'm excited to have your insight on the show.

Well, thanks so much for being here, Chris.

Should we get started?

Yeah, let's do it.

I mean, usually we talk about the four P's when it comes to marketing, but I think we got the three P's here with John with pickles, pasta and peanut butter cups.

So I think we've got to get to this week's headlines.

Because in this week's Fast Five, we've got news on grocery E commerce hitting 19% penetration last month.

Walmart launching a cross border shipment program to take on Amazon's FBA program.

EBay drawing a hard line in the sand against AI shopping bots on its platform.

And BJ's Wholesale opening its second small format market location.

But we begin today with another about.

Face from Amazon and all right, headline one.

Amazon is shutting down its Amazon One palm recognition payment system and in the same week is closing all 72 of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores according to multiple outlets.

Amazon announced it will end Amazon one and remove all palm readers from physical locations by June 3rd of this year citing limited customer adoption.

The simultaneously Amazon said it would close all 72 of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores across the US Converting various locations into Whole Foods Market stores.

Amazon stated, quote, while we've seen encouraging signals in our Amazon branded physical grocery stores, we haven't yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large scale expansion.

End quote.

John, we're going to you here first.

What do you think is the bigger headline here?

That Amazon is shutting down its standalone grocery stores or that it's ending its palm payment efforts?

Yeah, I think that's a great place to start, right?

What is the bigger headline?

Because it's a very curiously written headline.

If a big retailer is pulling out of, you know, 70 stores and kind of closing a huge format, which was a big bet, I mean, I would lead with that, right?

I mean that's where my eyes go.

And if I dissect that a little bit, you know, we know that Amazon is not afraid to ramp something down, right?

Or sort of kill an experiment.

Does anyone remember the fire phone?

You know?

Yeah, PSA for, you know, rest in peace, right?

The fire phone.

It came, it went, didn't work.

Too crowded of a space.

Are we seeing a rhyming here, you know, with, with grocery store actual retail formats where, okay, they gave it a go.

The value proposition was essentially around affordable pricing and you know, some interesting features, right?

A different shopping.

I remember the days when they opened those small formats and you had all the cameras in the ceiling and it just knew what we're getting and so on, right?

And okay, they tried it for a while, several years.

They had the Whole Foods brand, which is obviously a more premium brand.

So you have these Amazon Fresh kind of playing a fighter, affordable strategy.

Whole Foods securing the premium.

And they basically said to the market, you know what, this experiment down here didn't quite work.

Which.

Okay, let's move on.

Right.

So I think it's a, it's a interesting milestone where, hey, some of these technologies, maybe the privacy concerns were just a little too far.

We're not quite ready for it.

Maybe the technology and the cameras weren't, weren't quite where they needed to be.

So we're going to pause for now and double down on a strong brand that we have.

That's kind of my takeaway for it.

And we'll see what goes on in the future and where some of these technologies go because I don't think they're going to go away forever, but it's okay.

We need to try again and figure this out.

So, John, your thoughts are really more focused on like, it was more about the technology not working in the store.

And like, are you.

Is it less about the offering, the grocery offering that Amazon was able to provide or how do you kind of think about that?

Yeah.

On the offering.

So, you know, just an anecdote right from my side where I happen to live right now.

I have a Lidl nearby, I have a shoprite, I have a Trader Joe's.

You know, Whole Foods is a little further, not really realistic to drive there.

And I do have an Amazon Fresh.

And when I first moved to this area 18 months ago, I said, all right, well, I'm going to go to all of them.

Right.

And see what the deal is.

So personally and you know, someone who's worked in grocery for a while and thought about this a bit, you walk around the Amazon Fresh format and yeah, there's some interesting bells and whistles, but like, the floor space isn't really super optimized.

You know, the offering.

Yeah, there's a lot of brands here, but then this other part of the aisle is kind of tight.

I'm not sure they had a super clear value proposition other than.

Right.

More affordable prices because it's Amazon, so I always get the best price.

And you know, there are going to be some cool features as the cart.

You know, there's gonna be a cool dashboard on my cart and I can scan things and all this and that.

But it just, it was never quite a cohesive, kind of shiny experience, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, absolutely does.

And I think tells.

And further, I think justifies what you were saying earlier about, you know, eliminating things like palm payment that were really the, like that's the driver is the technology and the convenience that you get with some of the.

In some of these Amazon stores.

All right.

I want to Hear what you have to say.

Ken, what are, what's your perspective on this?

Are you, which do you think is the bigger story?

Is it more eliminating some of that technology or is it closing the Fresh and go stores?

I think it's closing the fresh and grow stores.

Just the Palm technology is, is interesting, but it's kind of to me you take the combination of who fresh might have been targeting, which is a younger consumer that's a little bit more technology enabled to be cool.

But that's going to come into the next question we're going to talk of in today's session about the growth of grocery E commerce.

Those targeted customers might be the exact same people that are ordering everything online and want to deal with that technology.

Whereas potentially the order demographic may be less interested in some of the technology that's in these stores.

And quite candidly, you know, where do you go today without your phone?

Do I really want to register my credit cards with yet another recognition technology?

Probably not.

And you know, and if you think about a younger demographic, they don't leave their phone for more than a hot second.

And so you've got all your payment capabilities there.

Right?

And why bother with the palm reader capability?

Yeah, I agree with you too, Ken.

I think that's, you know, I did, I loved the Palm pay, but I totally agree there's, there's really rare, rarely is there a moment where I don't have my phone with me that I can, you know, very quickly tap to pay or use, you know, the, the functions on my card to quickly scan through.

I'm curious what your thoughts are about, you know, what this means for Amazon, like talking about the conversion to a Whole Foods concept.

And I think, you know, also what John, you brought in about price point and like you shopped Amazon because the price point was competitive.

I, I actually think this could be a really interesting move for Whole Foods to further position it as like the low price leader when it comes to higher quality produce and ingredients and better food than some of the competitors like maybe the Trader Joe's or the Sprouts that are starting to gain in popularity, especially with a nation that's, you know, increasingly using GLP1s and is looking for these fresh offerings.

I'm curious your thoughts on whether or not like I think the bigger headline here is definitely the closing of the fresh stores and the conversion to Whole Foods because I think that Amazon stands to get really competitive if they can bring the scale of Amazon to a Whole Foods location.

So curious Chris, to hear maybe wrap us up here with your thoughts on, on bigger headline.

And if you think there's an opportunity here for Amazon to really take Whole Foods and make it attainable or something that more people could shop at.

Wow, that's, that's kind of a different tangent to, to what we were discussing previously.

You know, to get back to the question at hand, I mean, disagree with Ken a little bit.

And I think, you know, from my perspective, I think if you take Amazon out of this question, you know, there's a new entry into grocery in the US market.

It didn't work.

We've seen that before, We've seen that lots of times.

But when you think about it from the perspective of someone just tried biometric payments and Ken, the part I agree with, what in terms of what you said is like, yeah, there's just no utility in it and so we don't need it.

And so a company with like Amazon can't make a technology like that work.

And I think that's pretty telling, like in terms of where does the future go in terms of biometrics versus where does the future grow and go in grocery?

Because I think we all kind of expected them to shut these stores down.

Which gets to your point.

And back to your other question on the tangent is, is what do they do with Whole Foods?

I don't, I don't know what they're going to do with Whole Foods.

I mean, I think you could potentially take the prices down, but those prices are that way for a reason because they don't have as large of distribution as they do throughout the national grocery chain.

So I think you're in kind of a, they're in a tight spot here in which.

But that's why I think the next headline is really important too, which Ken alluded to as well, which is the increasing the increase in grocery E Commerce penetration and Amazon's hand at that.

So let's get to the next headline.

Headline number two.

Grocery E Commerce hit a slew of record highs in 2025, including 19% penetration in December, according to Grocery Dive.

Nearly every month in 2025 saw year over year growth in E grocery sales.

And December was no exception, with sales surging to a record $12.7 billion, which was up 32% year over year.

The final month of 2025 also saw the online share of total grocery spending reach 19%, up 430 basis points year over year as order frequency rates increased.

All of which comes from Brick meets Click's most recent monthly findings.

And those guys I met, I met Their, their head the other day and, and those guys are just smoking it.

With these monthly reports, Amazon appears to be having an impact to Amazon's grocery delivery.

As we just alluded to, Amazon's grocery delivery offering bolstered ship to homes performance.

In December, the segment's order average order value grew 14% exceeding delivery and pickup because of Amazon's same day fresh grocery delivery again according to Brick meets Click.

Ken, my question to you.

19% E Commerce Grocery penetration has kind of, dare I say it snuck up on us rather quickly in my opinion.

How should regional grocers respond to this news?

I think they definitely have to, they have to be in the game.

They've got to have a good app, a good shopping shopability solution.

They've got to figure out how to do home delivery.

I give all the people that I work with a hard time because they tend to be a lot younger than I am.

I, I can't imagine somebody else picking out my avocado for me because I want to see that it has exactly the right ripeness or the right feel or picking out my bananas.

I don't do green bananas, you know, but you know, I guess other people can get over those critical issues in life and figure out that someone else can pick them out for them.

But I, I, I think the regionals will figure this out.

I think assortment still wins the day for a lot of people because you know, the better stores have a better assortment, they have a finer quality of product and so they'll always be those consumers that want to go to that local, regional place, regional location with a better assortment.

But you know, I think it's going to be really critical how all this works out because you probably have seen in the press Kroger's massive failure with Ocado, their distribution centers that they try to put in place, you know, $2.6 billion of, of impairment taken in those scenarios.

And so it's, it's always a challenge how you're going to manage fresh delivery in the most time effective way.

But you know, the consumer behaviors are changing and more and more people don't want to get out of their house.

Personal level bugs me because we got to get people out of their houses.

But I guess those folks don't really care about leaving their house and they're happy to stay at home and have somebody else do everything for them.

Yeah, and there's two, there's two points that come to mind for me on this, ken too is 1, is 1, is 20% has always historically been the Inflection point where we start to see bankruptcies through the industry.

And so you know that also to me the second point brings up the death by a thousand cuts because grocery isn't all just fresh produce either.

Right.

And there's a, and especially as Amazon categorizes it, there's a lot of other items which you know, probably helped the margins in to some degree too.

So you know, how do you, how do you think about that in terms of what they need to do to defend themselves against this if some of their basket they traditionally get from the store trip starts to decline?

Yeah, I mean this is the challenge that Amazon is presenting to so many companies because at the end of the day the possibility of me ordering raspberries online because how many times have you gotten your raspberries home and they have, they have mold on them.

Well, I'm not going to do it.

But the trick becomes is when all of a sudden I can't use my local grocer just as a raspberry pickup point because he's not going to stay in business that way.

So it's this cannibalization question and the consumers don't appreciate the impact of what this is doing on the cannibalization front because those grocers need more volume to stay in business and they can't just be, to use my overused analogy, the raspberry pickup point.

So that we've got to figure this out and it's how they message and how they keep their assortment message out there.

And the key thing is figure out how to offer same day delivery.

There's a lot of cool technology companies out there that are trying to be the anti Amazon and deliver real time or excuse me, very rapid pickup solutions.

And the grocery guys now don't have to develop all that tech.

They can find partners that provide it it and that's what they should be doing.

Yep.

Yeah, I'm curious too, John.

I want to bring you into this conversation too because I tend to agree with what you just said there, Ken.

Like it's not going to be an easy battle and I love you don't want to be the raspberry pickup spot.

I think I might borrow that and steal that in the future because it's really true.

You don't want to be that.

And so part of me starts to say, you know what, maybe it's time for the regional grocers to get out and harvest, you know, sell themselves, be acquired, start rolling know.

John, what do you think about that approach?

Yeah, I think it's definitely a possibility.

Right.

And some of them are going to go that way.

Inevitably there's not going to be one outcome.

Right.

Some to your point, are maybe not going to make it all the way, but others are going to find a way to reinvent themselves and double down on things.

And when I think about what to double down on, if I can expand on that for a second.

Grocery, let's take a step back.

Grocery is fundamentally a very local, you know, business.

Right?

I mean, how far will somebody travel to go to a grocery store?

About 10 minutes or so drive time.

Right.

So you have a very fixed radius.

Generally it's a real estate game where you put that, that store in the first place.

So if you take that thought or if you agree to that assumption, then what you can come up with is if you're a regional grocer, you don't have the infrastructure, the dollars to invest in, let's say a big delivery network.

And having, you know, those Kroger or Walmart trucks going down the road, that's, that's just not going to be realistic.

I 100% agree with Ken's point that hey, invest in partners.

Instacart, Doordash, you know, don't try to reinvent your own app.

Don't try to reinvent a delivery network.

You're going to pay a fee.

It is what it is.

But it's table stakes.

If you don't offer curbside pickup, if you don't have an app to download, somebody may just go to the next door within that 10 minute drive radius.

So check the box on those capabilities.

But then the thing you double down on is local.

Be local, local, local.

Invest in the highest quality produce at a reasonable price.

Stock the items that maybe, you know, the different ethnic communities in your area might be interested in that the big box store just doesn't quite pay attention.

Right.

And that's not just in produce.

You can think about the bread, you know, bakery section, you can think about that hot buffet area, you know, for ready, ready to eat meals.

Really invest in understanding that 10 minute drive radius.

Who lives there and how do you scratch their itch when it comes to grocery beyond corn flakes are going to be really low price or you're going to get a Delivery today at 5pm they might wait until tomorrow because you have a handful of products that mean a lot to that consumer and the big shop, right.

Or whoever.

Not to throw out random names, but may not carry.

They might just have a small aisle with some specialty items.

I think that's where competitive advantage could really come into play.

And the big guys likely just don't have the mind share.

They're operating at too high of a level so they're going to miss that consumer insight and it's a chance to create an advantage.

Yeah, yeah.

Just seems really hard to do though at the end of the day.

Like I wonder if we're not sitting here looking, you know, 10 years from now looking at the circuit Cities of the world and the Toys R Us of the world getting, you know, getting hit by this.

Yeah.

Ken, you want to add something?

Yeah, I mean it's going to be really, this is always interesting to me because I, I, you can see it already happening with the impact of Amazon on so many other local stores and chains where they're just really facing a struggle and are the, the consumer doesn't really realize what they're doing.

But unfortunately there, there can be a day in our future where these stores start to close and everybody goes, well, what happened to the stores?

I'm like, well you bought everything from Big Brother and the local store needed to sell some cornflakes to sell the raspberries.

You know, it's, it's, it'll be interesting to see if they're, that inflection point finally starts to resonate with people.

I doubt it will because I don't think consumers think that longer term.

But it is something that concerns me because I just wonder, you know, when, when we lose some of that local delivery capability, what will happen to us?

The other point too is curbside pickup is much more of a factor in these numbers than it was historically when you look at like the Toys R Us and the electronics impact.

So that could be one thing that potentially gives them some benefit.

But Ann, you get the last word here.

What would you advise the regional grocers to do in light of the increasing e commerce grocery penetration statistics?

Look, I think it's exactly what all of you have said.

You have to have a culture at a regional grocer that's ready to invest in the technology partners.

They are not technology companies.

They are pillars of their community.

And the way that they stand out is by investing in being that place that their community goes to and can trust.

However, the shoppers are being trained to expect same day delivery from, from, you know, Walmart and Amazon and all these, these other grocery providers, the big box stores.

And so I think you have to be invested in how can I make my operations run as efficiently as possible and then how do I get some savings, some cost savings there that I can then pass on to, you know, investing in more, you know, in, in these delivery platforms or, or lowering prices for my loyalty members or things like that.

I think it's really creating a cultural shift within these regionals of how they're going to approach the business to withstand the next 10 years and some of these competitors.

But I, I do think there's still a place for regional grocers and I think we heard that loud and clear at FMI a couple of weeks ago from Leideran at Lowe's Foods, from Melissa Vecchio at Fresh Market, from the Schnooks team.

Like everybody there, they, they are still, there's still a place for that, there's still a reason to go to those stores because they invest in their community.

So I think that's going to be a key component to their success is investing in technology in the future and then still being that pillar, that destination, that trusted resource in the community that that's focused on serving their, their customers with the best price possible and the best, best quality produce possible and, and food.

I was just going to say one thing.

One of those regional stores that you were just talking about, they opened a beer garden in their store and I was like, who in the world's gonna go drink beer at the grocery store?

And I could not have been more wrong.

There are like Thursday night, the grocery store has become the social hub.

People go hang out and then they go buy groceries drinking beer.

And I just, you know, that's out of the box thinking that made people want to go to the store and that's how some of these regional guys will pull this off.

It's not, it's not all about the cheapest price.

It's about an experience a little bit.

So that's one way you can reach those folks.

Yeah, and I don't necessarily think it's about tech either.

I think what I would say is instead of investing in tech and assuming the tech is table stakes, I'd be investing in what brings you differentiation in the marketplace.

That's how I'd be thinking about it because tech can.

There's been a lot of tech investments that haven't paid off.

And Trader Joe's is a great example of somebody that is not a very tech forward retailer.

And that store is always packed because they know how to differentiate themselves.

All right, let's go to headline number three.

Walmart is launching a new cross border shipping program called Walmart Exports for its third party marketplace sellers.

According to supply chain Dive, Walmart Exports will allow eligible Walmart fulfillment services items to be shipped from the US to shoppers in Mexico and Canada with additional countries to be added over time.

Eligible products will be automatically enrolled in the program with Walmart handling the picking, packing and shipping.

0 additional friction required from its sellers.

Quote Walmart is currently testing new marketplace capabilities that leverage our fulfillment and logistics network to help sellers on our U.S. marketplace reach customers shopping across borders, end quote.

A company spokesperson told Supply Chain Dive.

Ken, you, you are the, this, this, this headline was written for you to answer, so we're going to go to you first.

Are you buying or selling the idea of Walmart exports?

I am buying in bulk on this idea.

Yeah, me too.

I'm a Walmart buyer in bulk on this particular issue.

So you know, I, I think it's a great idea.

I think that Walmart will, they may require a little bit more information from their vendors to make sure they have all the information that they require to be compliant.

It's up to the vendors to make sure their product is saleable in those destination markets.

But it is absolutely a good plan.

Walmart has scale on distribution and volume and this is a great answer to Amazon's capabilities and it makes people want to join their, their marketplace.

So I'm absolutely buying on Walmart offering this capability.

Love it.

Chris, you are, you are gleefully in, in unison with Ken.

It sounds like why, why does that, why does that emotion come to be for you when we're talking about Walmart exports?

Oh, oh, I mean, yeah, 100% agree with Ken.

I love how he said it again too.

I mean there's a couple of reasons.

One, you know, the infrastructure, what's the infrastructure set up, which essentially it is, you know, once you do it once it's so easy to rinse and repeat this for scale and you just make it part of the wfs, the Walmart fulfillment service offering from now going forward.

So it's like a no brainer.

But then the other part about it that I like is, and this is a kind of a new wrinkle to discussion is we've, we've talked about marketplaces and retail media and the relationship between that and so this expands the reach of Walmart's marketplace for Walmart sellers which in turn means more retail media dollars from the sellers too.

And retail media and advertising has become the key growth vehicle for Walmart which for those paying attention just became a trillion dollar company yesterday.

On the back of said advertising business increases.

So it just makes a ton of sense.

And yeah, I mean and I think you have to look at the new appointments that Walmart has put in place too to support this strategy.

You have David Gugina with his supply chain and E Comm know how running the show now for the US Walmart team.

Seth's dalier's growth and marketplace expansion experience and then Chris Nicholas is bringing in his financial operations and the know how to kind of operate this from an international perspective.

I think think you have the right team in place to further catapult this into what I think will be a very direct direct competitor for Amazon sellers and for the fulfilled by Amazon service.

But John, let's have you close us out here.

Any, any other thoughts on our what seems like our unanimous decision that this is a buy for Walmart imports?

Well, I'm not to be the.

The Danny Downer.

Oh just qualifier.

Just a bit of nuance I think.

Right.

Okay.

Headline for me is the devil's in the details.

And as you just covered right.

They've built out a pretty impressive team to mind those details and make sure that all the promise that I think we are aligned on.

Right.

Anytime you can expand the pie, that's a good thing.

But if it was so easy to do it would have been done already.

So the.

I just.

That's what I would add to this discussion of.

Okay.

In this, particularly in this macroeconomic environment or you know, administration, et cetera with international trade dynamics kind of changing by the week, it seems sometimes, right.

There's, there's going to be a lot more volatility maybe than if they were trying this several years ago or maybe several years from now.

There will be a lot of, a lot of details to mind and you can imagine, you can somewhat easily imagine a scenario where sellers are getting, you know, suddenly seeing a lot of fees showing up that maybe that they, they weren't aware of, you know, goods getting kind of caught up, crossing borders and, and then delivery times being shaken up, consumers not being, you know, so that story is possible but any good idea has risk.

Right.

Not saying that's a reason not to do it but we'll just be very curious to see how the execution of this strategy.

Right.

The classic, well hey, the you know, 80% of the the value is in the execution, not the, not the strategy and the idea.

I think this one in particular, you know, there are some meaningful considerations that I'm sure that team is going to be very on top of and looking to nail down.

We shall see.

That's right.

Yeah.

Because if it doesn't work right.

The first time you might have some sellers that are walking back from their experience with maybe Walmart Marketplace, us too, not just the, the Mexico and Canada versions.

Ken, did you want to close us out here with one more thought?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's obviously great to start with Canada, New Mexico, those are the easy buttons of international shipping from the United States.

So that's the place to do this.

You know, I think the, you know, vendors need to be aware that they are now going to be responsible for compliance and making sure things are in the right language, marked the right way, packed the right way, with the right requirements.

So I'm sure Walmart will be very good at communicating those requirements backwards.

But you know, Canada and Mexico is the place to start.

They got lots of volume, scale, you know, scale is all that matters in transportation.

So at the end of the day, they can deliver a heck of a value.

For folks that were trying to do small parcel shipping from their house, that, that's never going to work.

So, you know, fire it up and let's go.

Now we start going across oceans, it'll get a little trickier, but we'll see, right?

Yeah.

And I think too, Ken, you know, to that point, to the point you guys brought up about the vendors, like, let's not forget there's a lot of vendors already doing this via Amazon.

So there's a lot of vendors that understand the cross border dynamics.

There's probably thousands, if not tens of thousands of them that are already doing this with Amazon.

So they're not going to have trouble acclimating.

So as long as Walmart can get the execution right, it's, it's kind of a.

It's kind of.

It'll work.

It'll work.

Right.

All right, headline number four.

EBay is banning AI shopping bots for making automated purchases on its platform.

According to chainstorage.

EBay is updating its user agreement to specifically prohibit.

We split an infinitive there.

And to specifically prohibit unauthorized agentic AI tools and bots from accessing or taking actions on its platform.

Ebay called out AI shopping agents like Amazon's Buy from Me and LLM scraping bots by name, saying they are not permitted to interact with the platform without eBay's explicit permission.

EBay said, quote, these rules help keep interactions predictable and safe so we can protect buyers and sellers, apply appropriate safeguard and usage limits and maintain a reliable experience, end quote.

Ken, curious, do you agree with the approach ebay is taking here?

And do you expect other retailers to follow ebay's lead.

Well, I listened to this world class podcast that talked just a week or so ago about Amazon's move in this area.

So I was doing my homework before the call, and I think it makes sense for ebay to make this decision because they're a marketplace.

And you know, you just mentioned earlier about, about Walmart's valuation as it relates to advertising dollars and some things.

At the end of the day, marketplaces are making a lot of money off advertising and how they manage that relationship with their customers.

And so as a retailer, I don't think I would take this stance.

As a marketplace, I think I would take this stance.

So to me, the distinction there is marketplace versus retailer.

Because at the end of the day, do I want to sell something as a, as a single brand retailer selling something?

Yeah, if I'm a.

But if I'm a marketplace vendor where all of a sudden I'm really trying to combine the marketing message and my own search capabilities and some of those things I look at a little bit differently.

So I would say I understand why they're doing it in their case, but I'm not sure how more single brand retail solutions or those folks would really adopt this kind of strategy.

That's interesting.

I hadn't thought about that dichotomy of marketplace versus a retailer.

John, what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think it's a really meaningful difference.

And when you think about ebay, obviously it's been around for a while, and we think about 20 years ago when we were bidding on some collectible antique or something, and you didn't know who was on the other side, and that was kind of mysterious.

I think the success of ebay, one of the biggest predictors of it is do people trust the marketplace?

And it's a little different than trusting the retailer.

The retailer, you want a certain quality of goods and, and safety and so on.

On a marketplace, well, the seller is responsible for the, you know, the quality of the goods.

What I trust the marketplace to do is just kind of keep a level playing field and feel like, okay, I had a, I had a fair shot, you know, in my interaction, I know what's going on.

I know the fees.

When I saw this headline, I thought, you know, ticketmaster says hello.

The analogy perfectly works, necessarily.

But if we just tease that out a little bit, you know, we've all been frustrated with, you know, bots buying up tickets, and then you're onto the secondary market and you're paying a premium price there, you know, that frustration.

And we haven't quite solved that one just yet.

Right.

But I think the analogy holds that, okay, ebay's, you know, saying, hey, we don't want our core users, right, the ones that are particularly high volume and so on, getting frustrated by this dynamic.

Let's, let's keep for now at least.

Let's keep it, you know, human to human.

And then when I think about the bottom line impact, just to add one more point at the end of the day, yes, ebay is making a lot of money on marketing, as Ken said.

But also, you know, there's a fee, right, that's depending on, okay, how many dollars are flowing through those auctions.

And I suspect that a well programmed bot might be a little bit too rational in what they're bidding versus wow, the human who really wants that Magic the Gathering card shout out to younger John and they put in that final little bit higher bid, a little bit more revenue flowing through the pipes.

So I wonder if there's just a bit of a bottom line play here as well as the integrity, fair display.

That's a really interesting point too.

That's unique, particularly unique to ebay too.

I, I, you know, I, the marketplace, the marketplace versus retail I think is really interesting.

Me too.

I kind of, Ken, as I'm thinking about this in, in the mo moment, in real time, I almost think it's like, yes, and the, and for me would be what is your reputation as a retailer and basically your power in the marketplace too, I think comes into play here too.

Because the one thing about this is, you know, in the short term you cannot, you can take this approach and always change your mind later, but if you open it up too soon, it's hard to probably go back and unwire that.

So that's why I, I like this approach.

And the other thing I think you have to factor in too is what's the size of your IT team.

Like eBay probably has a pretty sizable IT team to create and control this.

Whereas like, if you're a small, medium sized business, you have, you have probably no hope in trying to do this or it's going to be very difficult for you.

But, but Ann, what do you think?

And then we'll go back to Ken.

Well, I, I think we're, we're missing a key component of the conversation here and that is what the customer is going to buy on ebay too.

I mean like, like Ken and John both said, I mean, you're going to buy collectibles too.

You're going to buy Magic the Gathering cards.

I'm going on ebay to buy resale apparel and accessories and clothing.

And that doesn't work the same way as a buy for me when I'm buying a brand new product or a bra from Lululemon.

Like Amazon Buy for Me example was, came out, you know, months ago.

This, this requires you to go on the like, I'm fine with the LLM search like which it sounds like ebay is still doing.

I can still show up, have my products show up in the LLM search when I'm saying I'm looking for, you know, a, a yellow handbag and have the ebay results come through.

What I don't want is a bot automatically purchasing something for me that I can't then go in and specifically inspect myself and look at the quality and look at the reviews from that person.

Like that part is, is still, I think, something that I, as ebay, as a retailer, I don't want a bot coming in and having my customers be dissatisfied with their purchase that they automatically had a bot buy for them when they didn't get to look at the, the product and inspect it themselves.

So I'm with, I'm here, I'm with Ken here.

Like, I think retailers who are selling new goods, like go ahead, buy from me, that's not a problem.

You don't have an issue with returns as much.

You don't have like those kinds of issues aren't there when you're dealing with a marketplace that especially is, is known and came on the scene selling collectibles and resold goods that have more nuance to them when you're purchasing and isn't a situation where a bot should just come and buy it and you're done.

Hmm, that's interesting too.

Like it goes back to the first headline too, about biometric payments.

Like, we think everyone wants this agent commerce, but you're saying you want it for some items and not for others.

And I'm actually wondering if the utility is there for anything and time will tell.

But Ken, what do you think?

Yeah, it's really interesting what you said there.

And I could almost see a bot that would say, oh, that seller has one star.

I'm not even going to show that that product.

But if I want the Hummel figure that looked like my grandma's and I might take a chip, then I, I don't want that bot to eliminate that.

And that's what ebay wants to make sure they can continue to enable.

Is somebody saying, no, the value of the Hummel figure is what I wanted because that's what grandma had.

Now the only thing I had to say that I think I found ironic about this article and John kind of referen that somehow ebay can figure out that this is a bot coming shopping, but Ticketmaster can't figure out that it's a bot coming to buy a bunch of tickets up.

So I'm like, what is really, what really does exist as a capability and can we really stop bot buying of.

Of bulk tickets and then driving them in the resale marketplace?

Because I'm trying to figure out who's on which side of the story here.

Yeah.

And that's a topic I want to dive deep into over the next, you know, three to six months because I think it's going to be very, it's going to become more important with each passing week.

Ken, I think that's a great call out.

All right, let's go on to headline number five.

BJ's Wholesale Club is opening its second small format BJ's location, this time in Delray Beach, Florida.

According to storebrands.com the new BJ's Market is 55000 square feet, about half the size of a typical BJ's Wholesale location.

BJ's first introduced the market concept in Warwick, Rhode island back in 2022, making this only the the second test of the smaller footprint format.

The store features fresh food, produce, sundries and seasonal products and is positioned as a convenient weeknight grocery run or a fast weekend trip.

BJ's EVP of Strategy and Development Bill Werner said, quote, BJ's market offers unbeatable value on groceries.

Combined with a smaller footprint that makes for a quick shopping experience.

End quote.

John, we're going to you again who should be the most scared if a smaller format club operation proves successful, especially in Rhode island and Delray Beach, Florida.

Yeah, there are two different, two more different places.

Can we start there and they took them.

Yeah, this, this one's super interesting and, but in, in many ways a bit perplexing.

You know, you wait four years to take the second bite of the apple.

I hope you learned a lot right about the first one.

And then in a very different location.

I think my takeaway on this one or my take on it is I think this format will have limited potential because it's targeting a fairly thin sliver of the market.

So the way I would think through this is you have a club format, club, fundamentally limited SKU assortment and low, low pricing on a per ounce basis.

Right.

I mean obviously the dollar amounts could End up being quite large the last time I walked out of a Costco.

But on a per ounce basis, hopefully you're doing better.

That's fundamentally the value prop.

And their own quotes are saying we want you in and out.

Very convenient.

Hey, you just have a few minutes on a Wednesday night, go get your staples, right.

Because you're not going to get a super wide assortment of things in experimentation.

So if I play that out, the other thing by the way, sorry, real quick, is that they are going to be E comms capable.

I saw that in the headlines as well, that you can do curbside pickup and so on.

So they want you in and out or maybe just park in and park out and off you go with, with your goods.

So all that to me translates to this is almost like a mini fulfillment center.

I mean it sounds like a ghost store in some ways.

Right.

And we've seen other retailers kind of experiment with this.

You know, somebody comes in, they get their staples, they know what they're going to shop for.

Very little impulse buying and they're in and out.

Okay, who is that consumer and how many dollars are in that kind of trip demand moment, if you will.

I just don't know that it's that big.

So in terms of retailers that would be concerned, I think everyone's just kind of going to be on a bit of wait and see.

Maybe the ones that are more price oriented probably are a little closer to the hot zone.

But whether this format does well or not and they get to that third and fourth and fifth star, God knows where is going to depend on.

Is there actually enough demand out there for a pretty lock and load trip, you know, a replenishment of sorts?

Are there enough dollars there to make this worthwhile for both the consumer and BJ's?

Right?

Yeah.

No, I think you bring up some really good points, John.

I looked to like the Costco early opening example too of like, you know, when you eliminate some of those friction points for people to get those essentials, like if milk, bread, you know, produce becomes lower price available and it's a quicker in and out experience like BJ is kind of hammering.

And in this headline, you know, that to me brings issue for the public's locations in Florida, the regional players, the Winn Dixies in Florida that are, you know, those, that's where people are going for those quick in and out trips.

And if they can now get, you know, bulk pricing for those, those items that they typically are doing in and out trips on, I think that's where, where we, we could have some concern, but I think your point is, is well taken in that there's, this is the second location that they built.

So what kind of scale do we really think that they're going to get and how much of an impact will that end up having?

Ken, let's go to you next.

What are your thoughts on, on BJ's and the slower price format?

Who should be scared?

Scared and the other regionals should be scared.

It kind of ties nicely into the first couple of topics.

Amazon's closing their grocery offering, but now BJ's is going to open a different one.

It's an interesting dynamic for me because they talk about going in for a quick run on a Wednesday night.

Quite honestly, when I go to Costco on a Wednesday night, there's nobody there either.

So I can make that run pretty quick.

So it's finding that niche.

Rhode island could not be more different than Delray Beach.

So I'm fascinated as to how they're figuring out their demographics and what they're shooting at.

But yeah, you know, well, they can give it a go.

It's going to be interesting.

I, I think unfortunately, too many people are getting used to saying, well, I'll just order something and maybe the online drive through pickup, excuse me, will, will work for them.

But more and more people are saying, I'm not even going to go out on a Wednesday night.

I'm just going to have it get delivered to me by some retiree in Florida, which, the last time I checked, there's a couple.

So we'll see how that works out.

Yeah, 40% or something.

I think I just heard of the population in Florida are still buried.

Residents and retirees.

Okay, Chris, what, what do you think?

Who, who should be worried?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think it's interesting that you guys, you guys think these stores are so dissimilar.

I actually think they're closer than they appear in the mirror because if you think about where the first one is, it's right in BJ's backyard.

Right.

And so, so BJ's, I think, is looking that at that as the first experiment.

And I kudos to them for taking time to roll out the second one because that tells me that they waited potentially to get the operations down to the point where they felt confident they could roll it.

So where do they take it?

Well, they take it down to Florida where there's a lot of East Coasters that probably already have familiarity with the brand.

And every East Coaster, when they come down there for the weekend, for the week, for the, the six months period when they're snowboarding, whatever is already going to have the BJ's membership.

So that's sticky.

And they're going to have the experience.

And now they're going to be like, maybe I'll try this.

So, yes, I agree.

The regional grocers are at risk here.

I think this is a concept actually that everyone needs to be watching for that reason.

Because if you can make a club experience work in 50,000 square feet, it's huge.

Now can they?

I don't know if they can make it work in Florida.

They might be able to make it work in their own backyard.

But the one, the one big, the one retailer that I think needs to be paying really close attention to this, it's not going to surprise anyone is Target, because Target has always had that reputation as the place you go when you're on vacation.

And this could take that away.

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

We're almost done.

You guys have been so good for sticking with us.

Ken, you get the first question here, and I'm really, really excited.

Being a lover of fashion, your former former alma mater, Ralph Lauren designed the USA team uniforms for the Winter Olympics, which begin this Friday.

What is your favorite piece from the Ralph Lauren Team USA collection?

Well, I actually was involved in these things when I was there getting ready for the, the Olympic teams and some of these things.

So this is, this is near and dear to my heart.

I, I always like the ear flap hat, the little toboggan, like, you know, that's a great one.

If I was way cooler, I'd get a, the opening ceremony toggle coat.

But I'm, I'm too old to be cool, so.

But if I was young, if I would get that then.

But if I were to go, if I were to go core Ken fashion, I would get a. I like the base layer shirt.

It's nice and simple.

Got some cool logoing.

Or you got to go the polo bear T shirt or hoodie.

You can't ever, can't ever beat the Olympic polo bear.

And if I was going to get a little crazy, like, you know, in my fashion statement, I might go for the, the Team USA track jacket.

It's got some really cool features.

But people, people will generally tell you that my fashion sense looks like I, I haven't left the 1990s or something, or maybe 70s, but we'll see.

Ken, those polar bear T shirts are selling out with Gen Z.

They're like Reselling on some of the sites for hundreds of dollars.

So I actually think you have it flipped.

Like, maybe, maybe you are more fashion forward than you think with the toggle coat than that or with the bear T shirt than you are with a toggle coat out.

Well, the amazing.

The amazing thing about this is I was on the site kind of getting ready for today, and almost everything sold out.

It is unbelievable to me.

A ear flap knitted ski cap is for 400 bucks is sold out.

So kudos to Ralph Lauren.

They always figured out a way to tell a story and they've done some great things for the Olympians over the years.

Yeah.

And I can't.

I can't wait to watch Lindsey Vaughn in the downhill on the.

A torn ACL that she just suffered.

Like, that's just nuts that she's going to do the downhill on a torn acl.

But anyway.

All right, Ken, next one Cracker Barrel issued a mandate, according to the Wall Street Journal, that, quote, employees are expected to dine at a Cracker Barrel store for all or the majority of meals while traveling whenever practical, based on location and schedule, end quote.

So my question for you, Ken, is if you had to work under this type of mandate or regime, what national restaurant chain would you most want to work at?

Well, I'm known to have a very fine culinary palate.

So my first answer to this question was Taco Bell.

Okay.

Because.

Because of how just how discriminating I am.

But then upon a little bit of further reflection, I decided to go Ruth Chris, because maybe there's no breakfast, limited lunch.

And then if I figure Ruth Chris, you know, if I work for them, I'd love to be able to have to go there for every meal.

So that, that's my.

That's my insights.

That's a really good call.

Man.

I didn't even think about that.

That didn't enter my consideration set.

Taco Bell, I can't get on board with.

But Ruth Chris, that's strong.

Strong to quite strong.

Well, I got to work on your palette there.

You know, all my colleagues will laugh at me saying Taco Bell because they understand my discerning palette.

But I have pivoted now to Ruth Chris, so you can run with that one.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay.

John, Winter weather has been pulverizing the US in the last couple of weeks.

Weeks.

Especially those people out on the East Coast.

So I have to know, where is your go to winter travel destination?

So I have a lot of fond memories at Snowbird Ski Resort as well.

You know, you can do the combo pass there.

It's been a little bit since I've had the pleasure of going, partially because, you know, the weather hasn't been so conducive to it over the last several years.

But that would be top of my list for sure.

I thought of it the second I read that question.

Not the year to go there this year.

Man, they are really missing some snow up at Snowbird and Alta this year, too.

I can tell John doesn't live where we live, too, and because I don't think the last place I'd want to go is somewhere cold, given the weather in Minneapolis, but.

All right, John.

Kelly Clarkson's daytime talk show is coming to an end after seven years.

Yes.

That's sad but true.

What is your favorite Kelly Clarkson song?

So I'm gonna.

I don't know if this is a cop out or not, but I'm gonna take the first one.

A moment like this.

I mean, is there.

Is there any.

Any other option?

I. I was not a huge American Idol fan that first season, but I do still remember watching her perform after she, you know, was awarded the.

The winner.

And that was that first song.

Right.

That they.

That they did in her first.

First hit.

I can still hear it.

I can still see her, you know, on stage belting it out as she knew she was when it had won and, you know, tears going down her face.

So.

Nice.

Nice.

That's gonna be my pick.

Nice.

I know, Ken, you're.

You're chopping it the bit to get it on this lightning question.

What's your answer?

I. I wanted this one so bad, so.

But.

So I. I.

Because of the departure motif of her leaving, I was about to go with since you've been gone, but I didn't.

It's the only answer.

Well, see, I. I had a pivot, but because I. I live by these words I tell my kids and other people all the time, I go, what does not kill you makes you stronger.

So stronger is my ultimate recommendation, so.

Because I'm a big believer in what does not kill you makes you stronger, so.

So I went.

I went stronger at the end of the day.

Yeah, you know, I might have to go with my life would suck without you too, because.

And producer Ella.

My life would definitely suck without you.

So what.

What is your.

Your favorite Kelly Clarkson song as you're sitting in the background smiling away?

I'm so excited, Ken, that you picked since youe've been Gone, because I stand behind that being the ultimate karaoke song.

The ultimate karaoke Song.

All right.

Wow, that's great.

All right, Ella, what producer Ella, What?

What headline caught your fancy this week?

Yeah, this was a hard one.

And I'm going to kind of build off of what you all said about Amazon shutting down its palm payment technology.

But, Ken, what you said about gen zers like myself and maybe that technology being more towards them.

I was reflecting on my time at Whole Foods and I saw this palm payment technology and I found myself in this place of feeling embarrassed to set it up.

Like, I'm standing in this self checkout.

No one's really adopting it.

Right.

And having this concept of some grocer having this biometric data on me, that scared me a little bit.

And so the customer adoption, I'm not that shocked that people like me did not pick up on it.

So, yeah, honestly, it's more effort to set up and at least the thought of it than just using my phone.

Yeah, that was a big takeaway.

Anna and I shot a video at the Mall of America when, remember, John, you were joking about the Amazon fire.

But we went into Amazon four Star, which we joked about on a recent podcast too.

And I remember our takeaway was like, it takes a while to set up.

It's cool.

Once you get it, you once you can use it.

And it's been fun to use ever since.

But like, your point about the setup is just really true.

And like, I think we even said coming out there, we're like, man, could just use my phone just as easily.

So, yeah.

All right, well, happy birthday today to Gabrielle Anwar Michael Beck of Warriors fame, and to the woman who gave us Private Vasquez in Aliens, the underappreciated Jeanette Goldstein.

And remember, if you can only read or listen to one retail blog in the business, make it Omnitok, the only retail media outlet run by two former executives from a current top 10 US retailer.

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John, if people want to get in touch with you, with anyone at A and M, what's the best way for them to do that?

Absolutely.

Just want to share a couple of ways to do that.

So first of all, our website is www.alvarezmarcel.

c. I'll just spell that real quick.

A L V A R E Z Alvarez A N D and then M A R s a l marcel-crg for consumer retail group dot com.

You can also find us on LinkedIn very easily.

Just search for Alvarez Marcel Consumer and Retail Group and follow us there or feel free to message.

Awesome.

Well, John, Ken, thank you so much for joining us today.

It was a great discussion.

If you want to watch, watch it back live.

You can watch it on YouTube@YouTube.com omnietalkretail or you can find the audio replay of this podcast wherever you get your podcast.

And until next week, on behalf of all of us at omnitalk, on behalf of Anne, producer Ella and myself and our friends at the A and M Consumer and Retail Group, as always, be careful out there.