Amazon vs. Meta’s Muse, Kroger’s New Dress Code & Lowe’s Takes Flight | Fast Five

Hello, I am Chris Walton and welcome to this week's OMNITALK Retail Fast 5, brought to you exclusively by the Omnitalk retail podcast network.

This week I'm trying something new, something I've always wanted to do, but I never dared attempt it.

But through the encouragement of producer Ella, I am giving it a go.

The single hardest thing in podcasting, AKA the solo show, the Tom Hanks in Castaway, standing on an island on all alone, talking about all the headlines in retail.

And this week was all about who gets control of the customer, whether it's an AI agent, a delivery drone, or even a shirt producer.

Ella, let's start today's show.

I'm not sure this is a battle Amazon can win.

Oh, my God, a Trojan horse.

It's a dessert topping and a floor wax.

I actually, I think this story's great.

If you start a paint job and you run out of painter stick, heck yeah, I need that quickly.

Agentix storefronts are coming, but the consumer love potential is so great.

I crave pizza more than any food.

I think I could eat pizza every day.

I might go back to the Best Buy store and check this out.

I went over invest here vs agentix search live and functioning on your own site.

That's what I would go and invest in first.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome.

I am coming to you live from my hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee, the home of country music.

I've already had two meals with two live performances while I'm eating dinner and even breakfast.

Just crazy, crazy how things work here.

But man, this week, this week and the last couple weeks have gotten a hold of us here at omnitok.

Due to some late reshuffling.

Our planned guest hosts from the A and M consumer and retail group were no longer able to join me for today's recording.

I had to shift some things around.

They had to shift some things around because, you know, it's been a busy week.

We've been out at grocery shop.

Last week we're Ben and I interviewed, I think, all told, 12 retail executives by my final count.

And this week I'm in Nashville.

I've got the key takeaways podcast I'm doing for the shop talk fall show again at the end of the show.

And then I've also got a rapid fire panel on overhyped or underhyped around.

All the different technologies that are are intersecting with retail with three retail executives that I'm going to do on Wednesday morning.

But the highlight of my week, the highest, the highlight of my week is going to be when I sit down and interview David Bridle's CEO Kelly Cook on stage on Thursday from the main stage.

That's going to be a great conversation, I guess.

I guess.

Who knew when Josh Hahn and I talked about David's Bridal and their new outlet store that that would get me a keynote moderating gig with Kelly Cook herself.

Who knew?

Two guys talking about Bridal, but that's the way it is.

But fear not, fear not, because we are gonna have A and M back on the program soon.

As I know they are always your favorite episode every month, each and every time they appear.

But the show must go on.

So I am going solo.

Well, sort of solo.

I've still got producer Ella alongside of me, my good luck charm.

And we're gonna do our very best to bring you the same great show you have come to know each and every week.

And who knows, who knows, who knows?

Everybody.

Serendipity tends to have a way of surprising us all.

So let us know what you think of this solo format because I'm always looking for new ways to bring you the news in ways that you all appreciate.

All right, Ella, I think we should do this show.

I think we should get to it.

And of course, before we start, this week's Fast5 is brought to you by the A and M consumer and retail group Miracle Corso, Ocampo Capital, Valack and RNS Logistics.

In this week's Fast 5, we've got news on Tapestry putting Coach and Kate Spade checkout right inside Google's gemini app and AI mode.

Kroger asking nearly 400,000 store associates to wear new company issued shirts.

Amazon letting other retailers offer prime delivery on their own websites.

And Lowe's taking flight with 20 minute drone delivery.

But we begin today.

We begin today with Amazon slamming the door on Meta's new AI shopping agent.

Headline number one is of course brought to you with the help and support of the A and M Consumer and Retail Group.

The A and M Consumer and Retail Group is a management consulting firm that tackles the most complex challenges and advances its clients, people and communities toward their maximum potential.

CRG brings the experience, tools and operator like pragmatism to help retailers and consumer products companies be on the right side of disruption.

Here we go.

Headline number one.

Amazon has cut off Meta's new Muse personal AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com citing data security concerns after Meta declined to voluntarily exclude the site from the experience.

According to Geekwire, Amazon says Meta never told it Muse would access its store, that the agent doesn't identify itself when it browses and that it appears to capture and store customer credentials.

Meta has said Muse has no visibility into people's passwords or payment methods.

Shoppers trying to use Muse on Amazon now see a pop up warning that access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon's conditions of use.

Amazon says third party shopping apps should, quote, operate openly and respect service provider decisions.

End quote.

Now, for those loyal listeners, you all will remember that Amazon has spent the better part of the past year keeping outside agents off its site, suing Perplexity and moving to block shopping agents from Google and OpenAI.

The stakes here are high.

Amazon generated more than $68 billion in ad revenue last year, a business that depends partially on people browsing its pages.

The legal backdrop here is also fascinating because the 9th Circuit overturned Amazon's injunction against perplexity on August 4, ruling the user, not the AI company, was accessing Amazon's computers, leaving Amazon to lean on its terms of service rather than its anti hacking law.

All right, producer Ella, Producer Ella is going to step in for our friends at the A and M and she's going to ask me.

I'll put you on the spot question for every one of today's headlines.

So, producer Ella, how am I going to be put on the spot for headline number one?

All right, Chris.

A and M wants to know who ultimately has more power as this agentic commerce battle rages on.

The AI super apparent or the megalith E commerce marketplace like Amazon.

Ooh, the megalith.

That's a big word, Ella.

I like that, I like that.

Oh, man, that's a tough question.

But I think it's a really, really important question to start out the show.

I think it's going to be a grounding point for this entire show when we look at the headlines in front of us too, Ella.

But sadly, sadly, I think this might surprise some people.

I'm not sure this is a battle Amazon can win.

I think there's going to be a struggle here for Amazon, Ella.

And it could be also why they took the defensive position, allowing prime purchases on other retailers websites, which we're going to cover in a few headlines.

And the reason I say that it's going to be a struggle for them is that the AI engines, the LLMs, they are coming.

Agentix storefronts are coming.

And if Amazon doesn't provide that marketplace to connect with those LLMs, somebody else is going to do it.

Is it Walmart?

Is it TikTok?

I don't know, but the consumer love Potential is so great that no one's gonna avoid it.

Somebody's gonna step into the void and fill the need that the customers want.

So I don't think the answer, I don't think the answer is shutting down the bots to keep a hold of advertising income in the long run for Amazon, short term.

Short term, however, I do think it's the right move.

But longer term, if the demand is what everyone thinks it will be, shutting off the LLM bots, in my opinion, is going to hurt in two ways.

One, it's going to hurt your advertising revenue, but two, in the long run, it's going to hurt your overall retail sales.

Amazon can figure out its way around the loss of the first one, particularly if Alexa for shopping can also take hold.

But the second one, the second one is a lot harder to overcome.

I'm reminded of the famous quote from Jeff Bezos.

Bezos, my margin is your opportunity, Mr. Jeff used to say, or like to say.

And that is exactly how the LLMs are thinking about things.

The LLMs are going after Amazon's margin with this strategy.

And Amazon, I don't necessarily like the position that they are in.

All right, headline number two.

This headline is brought to you by Miracle, the catalyst of Commerce.

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And succeeding with Miracle, you can unlock more products, more partners and more profits without the heavy lifting.

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Headline number two.

Tapestry is making Coach and Kate Spade products purchasable directly inside Google Search, including AI Mode and the Gemini app with an inline buy button and Google Pay checkout with no website redirect required, according to Retail dive.

Checkout is powered by the Universal Commerce Protocol, AKA the the ucp.

That's my favorite three letter acronym in all of retail right now.

The ucp an open industry standard for agentic commerce.

And each transaction requires the consumer's explicit approval.

Tapestry's CEO noted that Discovery has moved from store windows and magazines to social media and said, quote, now it's happening inside a conversation with AI.

End quote.

Ella, what is the next question?

All right, Chris, question number two.

In the same week, Amazon is slamming the door on Meta's agent, Tapestry is throwing the doors wide open to Google's.

What do you think of Tapestry's agentic commerce strategy?

And what does Tapestry risk giving up by letting Google own the checkout moment?

Oh my God, these guys are putting my feet to the fire here, Ella.

Jesus.

All Right.

Well, I mean, at the end of the day, I don't think this is a risky move from Tapestry at all.

And the reason I say that and this nuance I think is important, Producer Ella.

I think this nuance is that because here we're talking about branded apparel.

Branded apparel doesn't run on retail media the same way other retail verticals do, particularly grocery or like the large marketplaces like Amazon does.

So if the consumer is demanding it, or even if Tapestry wants to trial it out, I'm good with it.

I think it makes sense.

But I wouldn't over invest here.

I will take this till the cows come home.

Ella.

I wouldn't over invest here vs agentix search live and functioning on your own site.

That's what I would go and invest in first.

Because it is still a big if.

A big if.

If Google will get people to interact in this manner.

To a large degree, likely, yes, but still a big if.

Whereas in your own site, customers are already looking for your product and therefore there's a stronger proclivity to buy from you.

So again, going back to the first headline, the through line here of all these stories are gonna start to run together.

The through line here is that you can try to block them, but enough retailers are going to be out there plugging into them where it's going to be hard to beat them if you can't join them.

All right, headline number three is brought to you by Corso.

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Headline number three.

Kroger has updated its store uniform policy for the first time in a decade, now requiring nearly 400,000 store associates across all 21 of its chains, including Fred Meyer and Ralphs, to wear company issued shirts instead of their own tops.

According to Bloomberg, the new shirts feature Kroger's shopping cart logo on the front and back and come in blue, red and black, with each corporate division choosing one color.

The change was driven by customer feedback suggesting shoppers had trouble finding staff.

Kroger HR VP Carl Neiman said associates were, quote, not as visible or as available, end quote, as the company thought.

The rollout wrapped at the end of August and store leader uniforms now include button down shirts and quarter zip tops.

All right, Ella.

The first two have been at Doozy.

I'm curious what this next one is,.

Yeah, we're keeping it simple.

Buy or sell a new dress code at Kroger being a necessary step towards recovery.

Oh, I like that.

I like that.

Oh, man, I, I, it's not, I wouldn't say it's a necessary condition for recovery, for the turnaround to take hold, but I do think, I do think it's a darn good first step, you know, that the problem they cited, you know, in this story, I've had this problem numerous times.

I frequent Ralph's when I go to California and when I walk into those stores, I have no idea who can help me.

And it's a problem that gets particularly amplified because when I'm in California, Ella, when I'm in California, I like to buy certain types of products, namely some spirits, and oftentimes those spirits under lock and key.

So, you know, so it is a real problem, I think here that is potentially impacting sales.

But there's a more important reason that I like this move, Ella.

The other thing I like about this move is that I think it is a signal.

It's a signal from Greg Foran, the new CEO, that the stores matter, the store experience matters.

It tells the entire organization that the bar and the expectation around service has been raised.

So look out, store managers, because the expectations on you are higher.

You've got those shirts, you're going to be wearing them and expectation you is that you're going to be wearing them with pride.

And do I like that as a Kroger shopper?

I sure as heck do.

All right, headline number four.

Headline number four is brought to you by Ocampo Capital.

Ocampo Capital is a venture capital firm founded by retail executives with the aim of helping early stage consumer businesses succeed through investment and operational support.

You can learn more at ocampo.

Capital.

Com.

Amazon is letting us merchants that use its multi channel fulfillment service offer prime delivery directly on their own websites at no added cost to them or their shoppers.

According to ChainStorage MCF, multi channel fulfillment, that's another cool acronym, is part of Amazon Supply Chain Services, which I guess is ascs, the third party logistics platform Amazon launched in May.

Retailers don't need to change their payment processing, order management or store policies.

And prime membership is verified after checkout, so shoppers don't need to log into Amazon.

All right, producer Ella I have no idea which way this one's going to go either.

Put me on the spot once again.

Okay, we're coming in hot with question number four.

A&M wants to know Is prime on your own site a gift for mid sized retailers or a Trojan horse that makes them even more dependent on Amazon?

Oh my God, a Trojan horse.

Oh man.

I guess if you put a gun in my head, I think the answer to me is it's neither one.

Or actually maybe it's kind of both.

Both.

So I guess what I'm saying, it's a dessert topping and a floor wax, to quote the great Dan Aykroyd.

And the reason I say that it kind of is both the brands and the mid sized retailers get the benefit of offering their customers the confidence of Amazon's shipping service.

And Amazon, which has always been what I call an infrastructuralist going back to the first headline, keeps their drug in the arm of these very same retailers that much longer.

And it also, which is important, positions Amazon to do quite well in the years ahead defensively against the LLMs.

Because the one thing as I think about this story that I think all of us need to keep in mind that we should never forget, especially if you follow retail as closely as we do for the past 10 years of doing this.

Past 10 years.

Can you believe we're in 10 years of doing Omnitalk?

Ella, that's crazy.

But in the past 10 years there's one thing I've learned never to discount and that is that Amazon is as smart as they come.

They are always thinking years ahead.

So they've likely scenario planned all the moves that the industry could make and they're now placing their chips on the board proportionally to come out standing on the right side of things.

At the end of the day we never should forget that, that Amazon always plays the long game.

And that's the move here.

I think this is the move to say we're going to be the infrastructure for retail regardless of how people start interacting.

And as agentic AI comes into the fore.

All right, headline number five.

Man, we are running through this show fast and furiously.

But that's the name of the show.

It's the OmniTalk Fast 5 after all.

Headline number five is brought to you by Valak.

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All right, last one.

Lowe's is launching drone delivery in partnership with Doordash and Alphabet's Wing Becoming the first home improvement retailer to offer this service, according to CNBC.

The pilot is live at a store in Matthews, North Carolina, a Charlotte suburb, giving customers access to more than 100 products in as fast as 20 minutes.

With plans for expansion.

Customers order through a dedicated Lowe's by Drones storefront in the doordash app wing.

Drones carry about 2 1/2 pounds per flight and cover roughly a 5 mile radius around the store.

The assortment focuses on small, easily forgotten project essentials.

Hand tools, paint supplies, painters tape, caulk, batteries, soap, and all purpose cleaner.

I love that soap's in there.

Ella.

I find that really interesting.

Do you find that interesting?

But more importantly, what is the last question of the day?

Okay, last question.

Finale.

A and M wants to know, is Lowe's delivery PR Steak or sizzle?

Ooh, steak or sizzle.

I had a steak last night.

It was very good, actually.

Oh, man.

I actually, I think this story's great.

I'm just going to come out and say it.

I think this story's great because I believe that the need is probably there to get things to customers quickly when you're in a home improvement situation.

You know, like, yeah, I probably need some caulk or I probably need some soap or some cleaning detergent or what else the heck did they say?

Ella?

Yeah, I probably need some painters tape.

Yeah, if you start a paint job and you run out of painters tape, heck yeah, I need that quickly, I need that fast.

And Lowe's is going to want to deliver it at low cost.

So net net.

I think it's worth the test.

And here's the thing, here's the thing.

If it works, it's pretty darn validating because if you want to use it the way they describe the experiences, you have to really find it.

You have to go to a dedicated Lowe's by drone storefront.

I mean, how many people are gonna find that?

So that's my one misgiving with this whole thing.

But at the test stage, it isn't necessarily bad to have the customer find it that way, because if it works, you know, you have something.

However.

However, my one caveat is I think it could also lead to a lot of false negatives if the experience is just too hard to find for most of your customers.

But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I like it a lot, and I think it's a very valid test to run, particularly because I would imagine the volume of these types of concerns will be low or lower than normal.

And so the drone flight should be pretty easy to manage.

All right, Ella.

Wow, what a show.

So far, I'm having a ton of fun.

You can tell the energy level is up.

Let's go to the lightning round.

Today's Lightning round is brought to you with the help and support of RNS Logistics.

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With technology that can scale your growing e commerce operations, visit rswarehousingsolutions.com all right, everybody, we're going to do something a little bit different today.

Today we're going to try to keep it a pure lightning round style format.

And producer Ella has come up with the questions that she is going to pose to me.

Producer Ella, are you ready?

I can't wait.

Let's keep this fast and on our feet and fancy free.

You ready?

I'm ready.

And this is quite the honor, Chris.

I can't wait.

I can't wait.

Let's do this.

All right, question number one.

Given that Kroger just overhauled its dress code, what is, in your opinion, the best retail employee uniform of all time?

Oh, my God.

That's so easy.

So easy.

It's got to be the Burger King employee outfit from the 1980.

See, if you got to go back, everyone see Elizabeth Shoe as the Burger King commercial girl in, like, 1982 classic.

That is by far and away the best one.

Ella.

Love it.

All right, Chris, if you could only spend one night in either Nashville or Vegas, which you've been recently to both the places, would you prefer?

Oh, hands down, Vegas.

Heads down, Vegas.

Yeah.

The.

The Hangover.

The Hangover, the movie Hangover captures Vegas to a T. But, you know, I've not really ever been to Nashville before, so I say that having only spent time in Vegas, so maybe Nashville will convince me by the end of this trip.

Okay, we'll have to touch base next week.

Question number three.

If you could have one thing delivered to your backyard by drone in 20 minutes, what would it be?

This one's so easy.

Oh, pizza.

I love pizza.

I. I crave pizza more than any food.

I think I could eat pizza every day, Ella.

I really do.

I really do.

And I think getting pizza delivered by drone would just be so bomb.

Like, I don't.

I'm.

I'm waiting for the day when that happens.

I wonder why.

I wonder why pizza drone delivery hasn't caught on yet.

As Quickly as some of the other ones.

You don't hear it talked about that much.

It's really.

It's really kind of interesting.

There must be some dynamic to it.

Maybe it's, like, too light.

I don't know.

All right, let's finish it out.

Final question of the day.

Meta offers camera free audio AI smart glasses designed to address growing privacy backlash over covert recording.

Does this make you want to run out and buy a pair?

A hundred percent.

Yes, it does.

100%.

Yes, it does.

I mean, it's so funny that this story broke after we covered the expansion of their stores, their Meta Glass stores, and I don't think that's the right name for them, but the stores that sell the Meta glasses.

Last week on the Fast 5, because Ben Miller sent this headline to me because he and I got into the discussion about how I saw there was a use case for these outside the video capabilities.

Because, you know, he got all he got, as have many people got all creeped out by the video, you know, factor here.

And here they are releasing them, saying there's still a lot of utility here with the idea of smart glasses.

So.

So, like, I. I love this.

I think it's really interesting, particularly if they can get the style dialed in.

That's where I'm still.

I'm still not ready to bite yet, Ella, but I think I will be very soon.

But I'm gonna go.

I might go back to the Best Buy store and check this out to see.

See, you know, exactly what I can and can't get through this because, you know, it could be kind of interesting.

Of course, it's got to interact well with all the peripherals that come around.

Come on.

Come along with it.

But I. I think this is gonna happen.

I'm.

I'm really starting to think it might, whether it's Meta or somebody else, you know, who knows what Apple's sitting on the sidelines trying to do here, too.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

And didn't Kylie Jenner just come out with a new pair?

A little collab, and they were actually really cute.

Like, I feel like I would want those, but.

Chris.

Oh, a pair.

Don't you?

I do.

I have a pair, but I have one of the first pairs.

And first of all, they're super big, super dorky, and you put the camera on it, it flashes a big blue light.

So I.

And.

And there's one thing that I do not want to ever be assigned or have one moniker ever assigned to me, and that's creeper, because that's how I would feel if I walked around any store wearing those with the big flashing light.

I haven't thought about taking him to my son's soccer game to just record the soccer game without having to hold my phone up.

But I haven't even done that.

So like, yeah, I don't know.

But for some reason I'm still kind of in on these.

But I think the use cases I talked about like last week on the show, like, you know, automatic translation in your ear as you're, you know, in a foreign country is key.

Being able to look at a menu or, you know, something now that that's.

There's some video capabilities in that too.

So I don't know.

But like, you know, could it project it onto my phone, for example?

Could.

Could it screen mirror that?

Or I don't know, but I guess not, probably because that would be the same thing with the video.

So.

But anyway, I think there's still some use cases out there, particularly the translation that I like a lot, particularly if you're in France and have to deal with their waiters, as everyone always knows.

All right, today's podcast was produced with the help and support of Ella Sirjord.

Happy birthday today to, I'm guessing, three people.

Ella, you have to tell me if you know who any of these people are.

Kieran Culkin.

I'm guessing you might know who Kieran Culkin is.

Monica Bellucci.

No chance.

And to the hero of Gen Xer film enthusiasts everywhere, the great Eric Stoltz.

Three people Ella has never heard of.

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

Our Fast Five podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the week's top news and our daily newsletter, the Retail Daily Minute, tells you all you need to know each day to stay on top of your game as a retail executive and also regularly features special content that is exclusive to us and that we all take a of ton of pride in doing just for you.

Thanks as always for listening in.

Please remember to like and leave us a review wherever you happen to listen to your podcast or on YouTube.

You can follow us today by simply going to YouTube.com omnitalk retail.

Well, I hope you enjoyed today's Castaway solo show.

Thanks again to Ella for sticking with it and helping me out and giving me the encouragement to try this out given the situation that transpired with all the travel and all the scheduling rearrangements that have been going on this past week.

So until next week.

We'll return when we return with our regularly scheduled programming.

On behalf of all of us here at Omnitalk, be careful out there.