Target Goes Factory-Direct, Walmart Goes Dark & Starbucks Revamps Its Hiring Process

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It's July 2, 2025.

I'm one of your hosts and Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton and we're here.

Once again to discuss all the top headlines from the past week making Waves in the world of omnichannel retailing.

And shockingly, we are at home in our home studios doing this podcast.

Feels good, doesn't it, Anne?

I think it might feel great.

I could not be happier to be home.

Thank you, LaGuardia, for making it the worst possible flight home.

Four hours on the tarmac, Delta, not your best, but now we're home and it's great.

But I did have a really good experience before we left New York from.

Oh, yeah.

Last week, Chris, I want to give a big shout out.

I was sitting in the lobby bar at the Hilton Midtown.

I was getting a glass of wine to take up to my room so I could relax on my final evening in New York.

And Justin Emig, the chief technology officer at Artisan Lane Furniture Collective, he came by, Chris, he stopped me and he.

Said he recognized you.

Yes.

Recognized you.

Yeah.

Even in a sweaty 100 degree post walk.

Subway home.

Subway ride home.

And he said, I just want to tell you how great I think that you and Chris are.

He gave.

Gave us, I think what for me is the best compliment ever.

And he said that we are his Scott and Kara of retail.

Oh, wow.

That let it sink in.

Wow, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Shout out to Justin.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Justin, for doing that.

It means so much to us.

Thank you to all of you who listen and come up to us and tell us and have done that over the course of the past several weeks as we've been traveling and seeing you all live at conferences.

It really means a lot to us.

So thank you.

Thank you for listening.

That's pretty.

That's pretty impressive that he.

He recognized you when you weren't your May west either.

And you know, you're hot, sweaty.

Oh, God.

In the bar.

And it was bad.

It was bad.

I had a big bad News Bears.

Yeah, Real sweaty.

That, that subway ride home was not pretty.

So, yeah, it was great.

But now we're in fourth of July week.

What are we back?

Yeah, you know, and this.

This funny.

You're gonna appreciate this.

I'm going big into sausage this fourth of July and big into sausage.

Oh, God.

Bratwurst and the reason why.

Do you remember when we were at Outdoor Retailer?

I think it was last year.

Right?

We're at Outdoor Retailer last year in Salt Lake City.

It was either last year, the year before.

Track of time.

Yes.

But you remember we went to that German restaurant and we got the bratwurst sliced in half on the kaiser.

I do Swiss cheese, pickles and mayonnaise.

I'm Gonna try to recreate that.

That's my goal for this, this Fourth of July.

And I'm.

I'm excited about it.

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna try to get my culinary sausage skills a go here.

And that's what I'm.

So you're not making the sausage just to be certain or you are?

Well, I'm not.

I'm not like, procuring the pig and then slaughtering the pig and making the sausage, but I'm going to.

I'm going to brown the sausage, I guess.

Okay.

I'm going to grill the sausage.

This.

I'm going to slice it in half.

Okay, fine.

In half.

Okay.

Swiss cheese, little mayonnaise, little.

Little kosher pickle in a kaiser roll.

The kaiser roll is key ad because I tried it last year without the kaiser roll.

Doesn't work as well.

You need, like, the texture of, like, the hard and the soft of the kaiser roll to make this sandwich work.

I think that was the secret of.

Of the German restaurant that we went to in downtown city.

Do you remember that, though?

It was so good, wasn't it?

It was.

I remember the name of it.

Like mustard and sauerkraut, too, on the one that I had.

And that was wonderful.

It was so good.

Well, update us all on how that, that experiment turns out, because.

What are you doing, though?

What's your fourth of July plans?

Hopefully it's not raining for both of us.

Yes.

No, we.

We do a staycation at my parents.

They live on a little lake.

My siblings and I are gonna all come over.

We put all the boys in a garage and they.

We shut the door.

It's got a TV and a gaming system in there.

And then the rest of us get to.

Get to catch up on life.

And we do do a hot wings challenge.

We do the hot ones, though, every year.

So wings are the kickoff to the fourth of July weekend.

And then we get the hot ones, like box of.

Of hot sauces.

And so we all see if we can make it through.

The bomb still kills us every year, so.

So same question to you.

So you make the wings and then put the sauces on the wings.

Is that what you do or do you.

My brother is previously made.

No, my brother is the wing master.

So he just makes the wings.

And then we put the wings on the picnic table in the middle.

And then you just take your wings and then you dip them in the sauces that we pass around.

So I am not in charge of the wings.

I'm doing.

We're doing breakfast and salads, which is much more my speed.

So.

Nice.

Nice.

Yeah, it'll be fun.

Wing Master is a good moniker.

I think I like that better than Sausage Master.

I think I might have to try to be Wing Master next year.

I think that might.

Broadmaster.

Broadmaster, Broadmaster be good too.

But Sausage Master just doesn't have the sausage.

I mean, Sausage King, maybe.

Isn't there like a Sausage King in Chicago?

I think that.

Yeah, I think that's what you should go for.

Sausage King.

Chris Walton, the sausage king of Adina.

Yes.

All right, Perfect.

All right, let's get rolling.

That's funny.

In this week's Fast5, we've got news on Starbucks retooling its hiring process for baristas.

Wegmans piloting instacart smart carts.

Target exploring factory direct shipping models similar to Shein and Teemu, Hibbit's launch of a kid focused app and website.

And G Store from Gray Orange's general manager Troy Silek stops by for five insightful minutes to give us the lowdown on what technology he thinks retailers should be evaluating for their next generation of smart stores.

But we begin today with big dark news out of Walmart and dark news indeed.

Yes, yes.

Headline number one, Walmart is testing dark stores.

According to retail dive, Walmart is currently piloting the dark store concept in Dallas.

The dark stores will carry some of the retailers most popular products.

And another location is planned for Bentonville, Arkansas, the retailer's hometown.

What is a dark store, you might ask.

Many of our listeners know this, but in case you don't, a dark store may look like a regular shopping location, but there's a catch.

The public won't be allowed inside and it exists only to speed up and streamline online fulfillment.

Chris, what do you think of Walmart going public with its dark store place plans?

You know, on the whole, I like the move.

I like that they're going public with it.

But at the same time, like dark stores aren't really anything new and they've been around forever.

I mean, at the end of the day, they're just a fancy name for a smaller warehouse, but in, in a way they operate differently than a warehouse too.

As I was saying to my buddy Greg London over LinkedIn this week as he was describing what he thinks this operation is and shout out to him for helping me through this headline this week I picture this installation kind of like Walmart's warehouse operation and a Walmart store had a baby.

That's how I think about it conceptually.

In My head, you know, it's, it's an operation that's designed for maximum throughput via probably manual picking, which, you know, when you think about a dark store, it has a number of benefits.

Number one, you get better inventory item accuracy for your online fulfillment because you don't have shoppers coming in there and mucking with shelves.

You don't have store employees mucking with shelves too.

Second, secondly, it also potentially keeps in store pickers out of your aisles as well, which is just good from a customer experience standpoint.

And in addition to the item accuracy point that I made before.

And then third, longer term, and this is, I give Greg kudos for this too.

He said they could be calling it a dark store and also signaling that it has a Walmart storefront to the public.

Because Walmart over time could push many, if not all of its curbside orders through these locations too, thereby freeing up their store staff to, you know, be more productive for the operations of running the store.

Because we've heard from a lot of retailers that that's becoming a problem operationally for stores to keep up with their online orders and they're missing service opportunities in the store as a result of that because their heads are down trying to get their job done.

So it's an idea that I don't think works everywhere, but it is a potentially smart utilization of capital where the market dynamics and the online volume is high enough.

So I think it's well worth the test.

That's, that's my take.

Yeah, I completely agree.

I mean I'm, I was surprised that you know, there, they could do this even faster.

I mean, I'm still impressed by how quickly I get product from Walmart and we only have a handful of stores here within, you know, that are, are, are within a reasonable distance here from us in the Twin Cities.

And I, I still stand by like there are a lot of people, myself included, who don't always want to go to the Walmart store.

But I really like having the Walmart product delivered.

And so I think if they can position themselves especially in areas where they're starting to see more, some more of these high income shoppers coming in more online orders, if they can do that even faster.

I think it's a very SM move from Walmart and puts them even more closely in competition with Amazon and DoorDash being able to do things like this in such a short amount of time because they're, they're optimizing their operations with these dark stores.

And I wonder what we're going to see from other competitors, like, what does Target do now that Walmart's speeding this up?

Like, what do grocery stores do in order to compete here?

That's the real question that I have coming out is this.

Yeah, the.

There's another important subtext here too, Ann, which is robotics and co location of robotics in the stores.

Because that was the big talk of the town at Walmart for the past four or five years, you know, and ever since like kind of January when, you know, they went through the whole thing with alert innovation, that's kind of sloughed off a little bit.

And so.

Right.

And they're not talking about robotics being deployed here too.

And you know, and they're not really saying it too, but I'm, you know, theorizing that it's probably a manual picking process just given, you know, how it's set up and how it's being talked about.

So.

So like, where are they going with robotics?

Is co location behind the store, in the warehouse, you know, in the back room of the store?

Is that a done idea?

I don't know.

It seems like it may be now, given that we're not hearing about that anymore.

So it's important subtext here.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right.

Headline number two.

Wegmans is piloting Instacart's keeper cart.

According to an Instacart press release, Instacart yesterday announced the launch of its AI powered smart cards at Wegman's DeWitt store in Syracuse, New York.

This marks the first deployment of kipper carts at Wegmans as part of an initial store program offering customers a smarter, more seamless way to shop in store caper carts.

For those who have not been listening to Omnitop regularly for the past five or so years, enable customers to track their spending and checkout seamlessly.

Caper carts automatically recognize items as they are dropped into the cart and customers can bag as they shop.

Tapping signals from an array of capercart cameras, a digital scale and location sensors, Wegmans customers can log into their shoppers club account on the cart screen in order to shop with the caper cart.

And my question for you is, is Wegman's capercart pilot a sign that we will soon all be shopping grocery stores via smart carts?

What do you think?

You know, I don't know that that's what this indicates.

As we told David McIntosh at Shop Talk Europe, I love David.

I even suggested that he become Fiji, Simo's CEO successor at Instacart.

I think he's doing really smart things, but I would say I'm still kind of what the kids would say mid on smart cards.

And specifically in this, in this use case, I wasn't able to see the current checkout scenario at Wegmans and DeWitt.

Like, I did some research and tried to see if we could see, see what that setup looks like.

So I'm just going off of my experience from the as your place store.

And I think what is really important for Wegmans right now in that store and I imagine in a lot of the other stores with as.

As beloved as they are as a retailer, is that it's all about throughput, getting the most people, especially during those high traffic times, through the store as quickly as possible.

And I think the smart carts here do enable, you know, people to get through that line a little bit more quickly.

They don't have to go the self checkout route.

But I think that the bigger play here for Wegmans and why Wegmans has moved forward with this is really about, you know, they've just relaunched their loyalty app that you just talked about this year.

And I think that the timing is now right for them to test this kind of thing, to test a smart cart more from a consumer targeting perspective and the money that they could bring in from brands, from retail media, and getting to really understand and know their customer a little bit and build engagement with that loyalty app.

So, you know, smart cards, we've always said yes from that perspective.

They're a great play when you're trying to learn your customer to use it for retail media instances.

But I still am not.

If you're, if you're asking more broadly, I'm still not sold on this idea that they're the right move for everybody everywhere.

But what, what, where do you sit in this?

Yeah, so you said you're mid.

So you're kind of hedging a little bit.

You know, it's funny, like I was, I was on the negative side going into today and then you and I actually just recorded a webinar conversation with Ethan Chernofsky at Placer AI.

And as I was sitting there having that conversation with him, he made this comment about, you know, at the end of the day, it's about retail 101.

It's not about the fancy glossy tech that, you know, gets people excited.

And so for that reason, I still put this in that bucket.

This is not retailing 101.

This is not something you need to be a good, effective retailer.

See Sprouts, see Trader Joe's.

They don't have this kind of stuff.

So I'm still not there that this is going to work in the long term.

And I get what's pushing it 100%.

It's retail media.

But there are much lower hanging pieces of fruit to capture retail media dollars.

And the features of the smart cart itself just aren't that big of a hook for most people.

And the one sore nature of this test also frightens me and because it means, it means it's truly experimental.

Heck, I was at the doctor yesterday and my nurse asked me what we, what I did and I told her, yeah, podcaster.

And she's like, and the other.

And she started asking me, well what do you think about self checkout?

And she was younger than me and she was telling me how she hates self checkout and her parents hate it too.

And so when I put that together, like, you know, we're not even in a place where a self checkout machine is a must.

So I still have trouble seeing where retailers are going to end up putting what is very much an expensive capital investment towards deploying smart cards at scale.

And for that reason, when I go back to what makes a good retailer, I just don't think smart cards, when you look at the costs involved here, will ever be a formidable solution at scale.

I don't know.

But yeah, I mean and the resources involved that are, that go towards just one a one store pilot like this too.

I mean I think that's, that's an important part of what you're saying too is right.

That's a good.

Dedicate a whole team to divert from just improving traditional checkout in the the majority of your stores to really kind of start to test this and see if this is a viable option.

And yeah is I guess the question still remains like how good is the retail media opportunity and is it enough to pay off some of this, this investment?

I don't know that we'll see that from this one particular piece of technology.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

And there's so many more things you could be doing to get retail media dollars that are cheaper and more efficient, that don't even touch your customer in the same way.

Right, exactly.

Exactly.

Well, we'll see, we'll see.

We'll have to make a trip out to DeWitt and test it for ourselves with Syracuse.

Let's go.

Yes, Northern New York, Upstate New York.

Let's do it, Anne.

All right.

Headline number three, Chris.

Target is exploring the factory direct shipping model used by temu.

According to Bloomberg, Target is testing a service that delivers products directly to customers homes from factories.

Similar to the Chinese e commerce platforms Temu and Shein, the effort aims to broaden Target's range of low cost offerings, primarily including apparel, household goods and and non food items.

And it's still in its early stages.

Most online orders from Target and other US Retailers get sent to warehouses before going to customers via truck delivery.

By shipping directly from production sites, Target can offer lower prices and potentially increase market share among discounters.

The X factor remains the US Government's move to close the so called de minimis exception, which for years allowed Shein and Teemu to capture market share by shipping orders of less than $800 to US customers duty free free.

The change has eroded performance at both companies and could also impact direct shipping efforts of Target and other retailers.

Nevertheless, Chris, you have taken a few shots at Target on this podcast recently.

So are you pro or con Target exploring this factory direct model?

I I actually love this.

I think it's a great defensive move as well as a great offensive move.

Because you know, Target, to me, yeah, it's I swear to God.

And like I know it surprised me.

When I read it even, even with the, even with the like de minimis exceptions being reconsidered by the government.

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's something we have to figure out.

But I think that can be calibrated in terms of pricing and what the expectations are for the customer that you set over time too.

And God knows where those things are going to fall out in the long run too.

But you know, I love it because I think Target has the sourcing and brand credibility in the apparel and home space to do this better than anyone, to do it better than she and Timu, honestly.

And they can do it in a way that keeps the price value relationships strong in the minds of their consumers.

In fact, and I you might not remember this, I don't even remember how long ago it was, but I mentioned on a previous podcast how the president of Target Sourcing Services and I Tim Mantel was his name at the time.

Back in 2008, in 2013, we hypothesized about doing this with rugs direct from factory.

And the reason, and the reason I love it is because for the categories for which Target is known, particularly home and apparel, it provides the opportunity to never be out of stock online.

That's what I like about this and that's a mental flip that I would recommend everyone listening to this podcast do in assessing this headline.

Think about what that Means if you could set up your sourcing structure to go direct from factory to never be out of stock online.

Sure, you have to communicate the expectations and the cost of the consumer.

But that's a really advantageous position to put yourselves in.

And Target has the reputation to do that better than anyone at home and apparel.

So that's what I like about this.

That's the customer value.

There's growth that can come from this and minimally.

I think the other point about this I mentioned at the outset, it stems the slow breed from Temu and Shein.

And also it helps your product development too because you're going to get faster and sharper on the small batch production runs.

You can run through this as well before you place the bigger bets on your assortment, which are quite, very substantial bets that you have to get right when you're deploying that amount of product into a store.

So that's my take.

What do you think?

Do you like it just as much?

I don't know.

You're not as big on it.

Wow, I'm not.

Because I think that we're, I think we're, you're looking at target back in 2013.

I would, I would challenge whether or not Target still has the, the credibility in these categories that they did back then.

I think that, you know, we mentioned, we talked to, we talked to Ethan Chernofsky recently.

This morning we were recording about like, you know, what, what, what should retailers be thinking about doing?

And I, I think Target still has this challenge of really getting back to putting a flag in the sand and really standing for something and their perspective on product and especially in home categories that they were really big in.

Because I think you look at the compliment, the competition, Chris, you look at Temu, you look at Shein, you look at Walmart, you look at Wayfair like they're doing a really great job right now of providing product that is unique, that has a point of view that isn't just like run of the mill.

We're trying, even Amazon, like we're trying to just replicate it and make it as big and bold as we can.

I think you're seeing more competition in this space and I worry that Target going this route now is a little, is too little too late and you're gonna like you're not, you're now competing on price and I don't think that's something that Target's going to win on when it comes to these products.

I think Walmart, Amazon can offer a better price point and, and comparable product and so that's what I worry about here.

Like, I think it's a good move from Target to get into this and do this, but I, I question whether or not they're in a position to win when you start putting them in a price race for product against Amazon and Walmart.

Wow, I'm blown away.

Okay, so hold on a sec.

So you're basically saying that you don't think Target has the brand reputation anymore in home and apparel.

The Target reputation, the design for all reputation, the brand ethos of expect more, pay less to be able to pull this off.

That's what you're saying.

I, I don't know.

I really think it's a question in your head, right?

It's a question in my head that is going to.

Is this, is this a mode that I'd be working on?

I mean, if it were me, I think I'd be putting more of my resources towards building up the marketplace so that they're showing up in more places.

Oh, 100%.

I'd be doing that too.

Yeah.

It's not question.

Not that it's an either or, but I think that's where I would be levering up is like, okay, the real point of differentiation or if I really want to continue to get consumers into my store, I'm working on not having, you know, 1100 items in my marketplace.

It's really building this out.

Right.

And using my creative like that, that magic that used to be there for Target and really applying that to the products that, that, that you are even talking about.

Like, how do I.

Why do I go to Target?

I go to Target because they're bringing design to the masses.

They're really, like, edging and putting a, like, putting their place, their Target into design.

And I feel like right now this just feels like a total move towards, like, how do we just stay competitive, not focused on how are we differentiating and being that Target that we used to be.

Right.

And let me be clear, too.

I 100% agree with you on the marketplace.

In fact, like, I'd be hitting the gas pedal to the metal on the marketplace.

And I think this is more of a slow grow.

But the important point here that I want to make sure is, is you have a question about whether.

So do you think they can get it back?

Do you think they can get their brand cachet back?

Or do you think.

Are you worried that it's gone?

Because.

No, like, I would think.

I would think with a merchandising regime change or something, you could get somebody in there that, you know, understands what this brand is about and get it back.

But, you know, do you think the same are you hope.

I mean, what.

Yes, absolutely.

I absolutely think they can get it back.

I think that the, that crazy you're saying this, this, this leadership at Target right now, I think is, has become so focused post pandemic on, oh my God, we got to compete, we got to keep that, that, you know, momentum going that we saw during the pandemic that the focus has shifted from being uniquely Target to trying to compete with our competitors.

And I think that in order for Target to turn around, they are going to have to focus on being uniquely Target again and prioritizing what that means as a culture at Target, as a.

And I didn't mean for this to be like the Target turnaround story by any means, but.

No, it's going there.

But yeah, I think, I think that's what really where Target has to go in order to kind of come back and, and see this turnaround.

And I don't know that that's happening with things staying the way that they are and with, you know, these types of investments being as heavily focused on as they are.

Yeah, that's, that's actually why I like, that's kind of why I like the move too, because I think it actually, if you had good merch, if you had the merchandising turned around and you got the brand back, I think it actually gives you a bullet in the chamber to absolutely promote what Target is about even more.

And a lot of people online were, you know, kind of coming at me saying, like, I think they need to invest in stores and 100% they need to get their store experience right too.

But I think you've got to, you've got to position the bets, and this is one in the portfolio of bet and capital that I think actually makes a ton of sense.

But wow, I did not expect you to say that and that that's a big shot call right there.

I mean, you know, a big shot fired actually, you know, in terms of where Target's brand stands right now.

All right, well, let's.

Before we go on to headline four, let's welcome Troy onto the show following that riveting discussion.

Joining us now for five insightful minutes is G Stores, Troy Sewick to share his tried and true tips on tech for the world's smartest stores.

Troy, many retailers are looking at tech like RFID and inventory management software to be more agile as they encounter more and more market uncertainty.

What tech is critical for stores to.

Have right now, it's not just about knowing what's in stock, it's about being able to move fast when things change in the store.

So the smartest stores are using RFID in their inventory systems as a foundation, but then they're layering on tech on top of that that helps them react faster.

So think about visibility, exception based workflows, predictive alerts.

So not just dashboards that are kind of collecting dust, but stuff that really actions the store associates and the people that work in the stores what to do, you know, telling them, telling them what to do.

And if you, for retailers that have some of this technology but the older version, like the handheld RFID readers, that's perfect.

So keep that and you can build on that with the overhead systems and the newer tech.

The handhelds still come into play and still have a purpose.

So the overhead readers we're deploying now eliminate the manual work and give stores and associates time back.

So it's not replacing the people, it's helping them focus on what drives sales and engagement with the customers.

And not counting socks in the back of the store.

What if you're a mass retailer though, that might have some items that are RFID tagged, but not all of them.

What, what tech or what solutions do you put in place?

If that's the scenario and that's most.

Of them, I think there aren't 100% or many aren't even 50% RFID tag.

So it's just a playbook that has to be considered where you have overhead RFID for the fast moving apparel type of items.

You keep your handheld scanning systems for other RFID that aren't as conducive for overhead.

And then now we're seeing a lot of piloting around computer vision and that's where this is going to go.

So cameras looking at things, you know, and, and figuring out what your stock is combined with RFID and then combined with older school solutions like handheld readers and POS data, all that combined for those big stores will, will be the answer in the future.

Well, I love that older school solutions.

All right, so, so if I'm a retail executive listening right now, Troy, and, and I'm, I want to, and I'm bought in on this whole smart store idea.

What does a smart store pilot look like and how long does it take to get a pilot up and running?

Yeah, so it wasn't always this way and we weren't always this good, but we've become pretty good at moving fast.

So a typical pilot takes 60 to 90 days to kick from time you kick it off until getting insights from that pilot.

So, you know, there's plugging in things and there's installing things, but it's not about plugging in sensors and waiting.

It's kind of like live fire testing with the store associates.

So does it reduce the BOPIS misses or the skips in the BOPIS process or does it help associates find products faster to help the customer?

Are we saving labor and focusing on what's really important for sales?

So, you know, a lot of pilots are tech showcases.

That's what you'll see when you go to customers and clients.

That's not what these should be.

They should be behavior changing labs where we change how the associates act with the customers in the store.

And, and then they'll want this tech.

If it's working, they'll want it and they'll ask for it after the pilot's done.

So where is the smart store tech kind of heading?

Troy, what do we think we'll see after some of those deployments have been done?

Those pilots have been done.

Where, where?

What is the art of the possible here?

So I think it's, it's kind of like the, I mean, I've seen this in retail for a long time, this word, but I think we're really there in the orchestration era.

So.

So all these things, all these devices, the stuff we just talked about playing together, the magic is when they're all working together.

So planogram compliance, automated replenishment from back of the house to the front of the house, Bopus triggers.

So it's not just merchandise, it's not just inventory.

It's like merchandising, staffing, fulfillment shrink.

The store tech becomes like a central nervous system so that these retailers and most importantly, their associates can help the customers and help sales.

So it's really all the orchestration around all this tech coming together.

Awesome.

Thanks, Troy.

Thank you, Troy.

All right, headline number four.

Hibbett has debuted a kid app and e commerce site, according to retail Dive.

Hibbett, the Birmingham, Alabama based athletics apparel and footwear company has launched an e commerce website and mobile app dedicated to selling products for kids, the retailer announced last Wednesday.

The app is available on Android and iOS devices.

Hibbett Kids offers apparel and footwear for kids ages 13 and younger from brands like New Balance, Jordan, Nike, Crocs and Adidas.

The e commerce platform features installment payment options, a customer service chat feature, access to its rewards program, new product release notifications and personalized content.

The retailer Also said it plans to release new products on a daily basis.

Hibbett is executing this digital push with a new owner at its helm, UK based JD Sports, which bought Hibbett last year for $1.1 billion.

And do you agree with Hibbett's decision to create a standalone kids app and website?

I mean, I don't get it.

I don't understand.

I feel like there's something that we don't understand here and that is like what the condition was of the Hibbett platform before JD Sports bought it.

Because to me, like filtering by product type, new arrival, size, gender, like that's just best practice for an E commerce site back in, you know, even 10 years ago or whatever.

I mean, if I were Hibbett, I think, or JD Sports in this case, I think I would be focused on not just this, but how do I invest that money instead of building an app, how am I investing that money into content creation media buys that get them front and center in front of with influencers on TikTok, on Snap and other platforms.

And then, you know, how am I also integrating this into how I show up in large language Search across, you know, Gemini and ChatGPT.

That's where the traffic is coming.

Like this just feels very old school.

Like, oh, and so that's why, I guess I'm wondering, like, did they just have to revamp the site because it was so bad before that in order to drive any traffic they had to just set up a basic taxonomy here.

But the app, to me, absolutely not.

No kids are going to that.

They're on TikTok, they're on Snap, they're finding new products that way.

And the, their parents who are trying to figure out what the best shoes are for them or you know, parents of a toddler trying to figure out what the best shoes are that will hold up to a summer program for a toddler.

Like, those questions are going to ChatGPT.

The kids are on Snap and TikTok.

So like that's where I'd be focusing right now if I was trying to go after those audiences.

Not, not on building a standalone app that I don't know how they're going to get traffic to.

But that's just me.

You're the E comm expert.

What would you have done if you were Hibbit or JD Sports?

Chris?

No, I mean it was like I was talking to myself there and I mean you're, you're coming in hot and strong on this podcast.

No, I mean I, I 100 agree with you, I mean, you know, generally speaking, I hate moves like this.

And, and it goes to what you said.

It's, it's about traffic.

Like now you've got to market and operate two distinct properties.

Like, you know, one should be able to do that job if you're doing it well, to your point.

So like, you know, but the only conceivable rationale I can give for this is, you know, why would JD Sports take this approach?

The only rationale is maybe they got, you know, they bought the Hibbit and they're like, they got into it and they're like, oh my God, this is going to be really hard to re platform this website to the degree that we want to.

And it's probably even an impossibility.

So, you know, that's the only answer I can give.

And so they're like, okay, let's create a kids website so we can understand if we can do it better and then we can migrate the adult business onto that platform over time.

That's the only conceivable rationale.

Otherwise this is, I think, an insanely dumb idea.

And wouldn't you agree?

I mean, it sounded like you did.

It doesn't make any sense.

It does not make any sense to me.

That's why I'm like, there has to be something that we don't understand about what the pre and post conditions were to make this decision.

But are you surprised even talking about it or are they talking about it because they have to get traffic to it to see if it works?

If that is the rationale, I don't know.

I can't.

Again, I wouldn't be paying the PR agency to talk about this.

I would be paying somebody to get my product on TikTok.

I would be paying an influencer money so that they can start talking about I go to the Hibbett app to do X, Y and Z.

Yeah, I, I do not understand this at all, Chris.

At all.

I have to, I have to move on to the next headline because I don't even know what else to say.

I can't wait to hear what you say about the next headline because you keep growing here in, in, in, in hot takes.

Let's do this.

Yes.

All right.

Headline number five.

Starbucks is retooling the baristas hiring process as it transformation continues.

According to msn, Starbucks Corporation has increased the of level screening of external applications for the chain's new baristas.

The screening process now includes being reviewed by district managers in addition to the manager of the store where they're applying.

Sources tipped Bloomberg District managers were noted to normally oversee about 10 locations that were not previously part of the hiring process for each store.

The change coincides with an effort by Starbucks Chief Executive Officer Brian Nichol to increase sales staffing at the coffee chain in a reversal of past years when the average number of workers at stores was reduced.

Notably, Starbucks has said that nearly all of its more than 10,000 company operated locations in the US will have more workers by the end of September.

Chris, you may have realized from its absence thus far, but this is also the A and M question.

Here it is.

Okay.

What could be confused as a small internal process change for Starbucks seems to be indicative of larger strategic shifts back toward experience as a differentiator.

As Starbucks loyalists, do you think an elevated front end hiring profile is necessary?

Think Enterprise vs.

Hertz.

Or is delivering an under 4 minute wait time and your name and a fanciful phrase written on your cup enough?

Oh man, that's a good question.

And there's a lot of layers to that question.

And, and I know you and I, you and I disagree on the elevated experience versus throughput argument.

But you know, with that said, like just this week, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, the low price chain out of China, Luckin, just entered the market in, in New York.

So yeah, so Starbucks, Starbucks in my mind, I have no idea how formidable that's going to be, but it's a huge chain in China.

So Starbucks in my mind has to differentiate on something other than throughput because even throughput in my latest Starbucks experience is questionable.

They're not doing that well.

Like I went in there the other day, there were 30 drinks on the counter waiting for pickup.

So something's still not working right.

So you know, with this headline, nickel, he clearly seems to be sending a message to field leadership that you are accountable for hiring culture and attitude, which is also something that in my recent experiences has been missing.

I'll say that point blank.

But, but my fear is because I lived through this same type of edict at Target back when I was in stores, we were told we had to interview three levels down as district leaders.

What?

And interviewing.

Yeah, we did.

I.

So we had to interview all store managers.

All, all levels below store manager and every level below them.

Store managers make sense, but every.

Like a cashier, you have to, I.

Mean, no, I wasn't a cashier.

So there was, I had to interview store managers, what's called executive team leaders, which is like kind of assistant manager.

And then like the, and then the team Leader, which is an hourly.

So the two, two were salaried.

And then I had to interview the team leaders as well.

Okay, so.

And as a district manager, this is your most important job, is hiring.

So I don't know how many levels down they're actually having to interview, but if it is three levels, it gets really unsustainable really fast.

But it does send a message.

But the issue for me is that the baristas at the end of the day just seem too overworked to be keeping up with mobile orders.

So you can hire happy, fun, outgoing people, but days upon days of drowning from the morning pickup rush wipes the smiles off everyone's face really fast.

So the, so the problem is actually at the end of the day, throughput first, then service.

You have to solve one before the other, which it appears Nikola is trying to, but it doesn't appear he's trying to do that.

So he might not ultimately accomplish anything.

That's at least my fear anyway.

Like, you're putting so much emphasis on the in store experience, but you can't get it back until you solve the amount of demand coming through the box, right?

I completely agree.

I mean, this got me thinking about number one, what you just said.

Like, you have to get throughput, right?

You have to be able to make those coffees.

To answer A and M's question, you have to be able to get me the coffee in four minutes or less or I'm not going to period.

It doesn't matter how many locations.

Like, and you know, I don't care about the experience.

I'm more about like, does my coffee taste the same, right?

How I want it every single time and how quickly can I get in and out?

Because I'm not going there for the experience.

But that leads me to think about like chick Fil A.

You think about your chick Fil A experience.

You pull up, you have a really pleasant interaction with somebody who helps you with your order.

And I never see the, the, the chicken sandwiches being made because they're handed out, out to me, you know, either in the drive thru or somebody walks it out.

To me, those are the interactions at the front and back end of the experience that are meaningful to me.

If they were making everything by robot inside, it wouldn't make a bit of difference to me as long as the order is consistent.

And I think that's what Starbucks needs to think about here.

Are you able to have the automation down so that your role for the humans in your experience is just for that interaction for the, for Making sure that they put your order in correctly, that you're going to get that consistency that you're looking for every time.

And bringing more people in power into this just doesn't seem to me like it's going to fix the problem.

It's got to be automation first, I think.

And then working on.

Sure.

How do you make sure that you're bringing in people that are going to liven people's day and create that experience?

Well, I would go a little bit further.

I don't even know if it's automation per se, but it's operational design change, you know, like, because we talked about how much can you automate the coffee production process?

You know, I think there are limits to that and in the food production process too.

But, like, when I started hearing you talk, like, I.

The issue could be, like, how the stores are laid out, how much is front of house versus how much is back of house.

Your point about Chick Fil A, how much you need to see the coffee being made versus, like your grande Americano or your tall latte just comes out a door and it's ready for you and waiting in a very easily findable slot, you know, versus now.

Like, I have to search through 30 different cups to even know if mine's there.

And then I'm like, I found one, but I didn't find the other.

And I don't know, did you make mine?

Am I still waiting for it?

I don't know who to ask.

Like, it's just crazy.

Yeah.

So, like.

But when I think about it like that, and I think the challenges, if that's what it's going to take, the challenges in some ways seem insurmountable from an operational design perspective.

And you just throw people at this, like he's doing, or you throw an emphasis on culture.

You're just going to piss people off in the long run and you're going to dissatisfy a lot more workers because they're never going to meet your standards.

Right.

I mean, especially a district manager.

Like, why are you putting the district manager towards this?

Like that to me, tells me as a store manager somewhere else.

Yeah.

Like, and then you're taking these people who are so valuable to innovation, understanding the whole, like, landscape of stores and what's going on in each one and how you can make improvements to processes across a multitude of stores.

Like, let your store managers who live and work in the community, let them figure out, like, what the vibe is and what the people are like, that should be coming into their stores.

This Feels like very short sighted leadership.

So, yeah, that was always my, that was always my pushback at Target too.

I was like, I hire the people to hire the people that they need, and if they're not doing that, then I'm going to get rid of those people.

I shouldn't have to be involved in double checking their hiring process, which is, that's, that's why this gets a little frustrating for me too.

Like, I just don't like that either.

But anyway, who.

All right, let's go to the show today.

Good show.

Lots of meat on these bones.

All right, Chris, question number one for you is this General Dynamics electric boat unit which designs, builds, repairs and modernizes nuclear submarines for the U.S.

navy, has just acquired the 121,000 square foot Macy's anchor location that is connected to the Crystal mall in Waterford, Connecticut.

If not building submarines for the U.S.

navy, Chris, what's the best use in your opinion of dead anchor space?

Oh, I'm going to say government here and I think we need to use it to hide the alien bodies.

That's what I think.

I think we need to.

I think we need to hide bodies in dead mall anchor spaces like Stranger Things.

Oh, my God.

I thought you were going to talk about, like putting DMVs.

It was like, that is actually a very good idea.

I like the government use cases for the mall.

Oh, DMVs.

Yeah, yeah, we have one in our model.

Works really well.

Yeah, we have DMV in our model.

That's actually a really good idea.

Yeah, but alien bodies.

Okay.

Yeah, let's hide the alien bodies.

Area 51, all over the country.

All right.

Google's AI mode push confirmed.

Was confirmed yesterday with a doodle that broadly promotes how you can quote search like never before.

Did you give AI mode a try yesterday and what was your verdict if you did?

Yes, I've been giving AI mode a try for the last month and I love it so much.

I posted, I did the Mango outfit style and then tried on the actual product in Barcelona when I was at Mango and I was very impressed.

And I was just talking to Hillary Littleton of FitMatch yesterday about how skinny and attractive it makes you look actually cute.

So compared to some of the other fit finders you like, you put on the outfit.

Google AI mode puts the outfit on you.

And I was like, ooh, I look really good in this.

Not quite as good as I do in real life in that outfit, but it definitely gets my vote.

I love AI mode from a consumer experience standpoint.

Do you like that, though, do you like thinking the garment's going to fit a certain way and then, you know.

You know, you get the garment?

I don't know if this happened, but did you get the garment and it, like, didn't fit that way?

Like, is that.

I mean, there is satisfying.

Is it friction filled?

Like, how do you think about that?

There is definitely some differences, but I still felt like I would have kept, like, that the garment still fit me well, and I still would have kept it.

I would have.

I would have purchased that item.

I would have been happy if I purchased that item online and got that.

Even though it was.

The fit wasn't exactly the same, I still was very pleasantly surprised by the recommendations that it made.

So.

Nice.

Still some work to do there, though.

All right, Chris, question number three.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez got married in Venice last week.

I have to know, which celebrity guests were you most surprised to see?

Got the invite to the wedding.

Oh, geez.

And, I mean, you came in hot in this podcast.

I'm gonna come in hot right here.

Don't even get me started on this wedding.

And, I mean, did anyone that actually attended this wedding even know Jeff Bezos, like, and his wife?

Like, it was, I don't know, celebrities.

The whole list was like, celebrities.

I was like, come on.

Like, where's your friends and family?

Like, you know, like, where are they in this mix?

But, well, they're not as interesting.

They're not as interesting to put on tmz.

No.

Curious how many of them even has, you know, like, I don't know.

Like, you know, I mean, I guess when you're that rich, it's hard to have close friends.

But my favorite guests were definitely, though, Tom Brady and Sydney Sweeney, which.

Have you heard the rumors?

It appears old Tommy may have been making a play for her despite being 20 years her senior, too.

Do you think?

Here's my question for you, Ed.

Do you think she asked him?

Did you think she went up to him?

She's like, so, did Tom.

Did you try my soap?

Gross.

No, I hope not.

This is so the most disgusting.

No Tom Brady.

Go find someone your own age.

Actually, Tom Brady is probably like, hey, I tried your soap.

I really liked it.

That's.

That's Tom Brady's move.

I bet that was his.

Go.

Total creep.

That's such a creep thing to say.

Ugh, gross.

I've heard stories about Tom Brady from back in his early Boston days.

All right, the trailer.

Running man, the remake of the 1980s movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, debuted Yesterday.

I have not seen it yet.

I need to watch that, actually.

What are your top five Arnold movies ranked five through one, starting with number five?

Well, you know, I haven't seen the Terminators in Completion.

We talked about that on a previous show.

So the only.

I had to look up all of his movies.

Number five is Junior.

Number four is True Lies.

Number three is Batman and Robin.

Two is Jingle all the Way.

And number one, the.

In my opinion, the best Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and one of the greatest movies of all time, Kindergarten Cop.

That movie so good.

Better than all the rest of them, I think.

I think you're gonna have a lot of disagreement on social media with that list.

Oh, my God.

That's fine.

I'm okay with it.

Kindergarten Cop.

I'll take it to the grave.

I loved that movie.

I thought it was so good.

Oh, my God.

There's only probably one maybe True Lies that would make my top five.

But anyway.

Oh, my God, that's crazy.

I can't wait to hear what people think about that list.

All right, happy birthday today to Margot Robbie, Lindsay Lohan, and to the man who shares my distaste for destination weddings, Larry David.

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

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