Walmart Expands ESLs To All Stores, DoorDash Teams With Ibotta & Simbe Hits The Spot

The OmniTalk Fast5 is brought to you with support from 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 and Miracle.

Miracle is the global leader in platform business innovation for E commerce.

Companies like Macy's, Nordstrom and Kroger use Miracle to build disruptive growth and profitability through marketplace, dropship and retail media.

For more visit Miracle.com that's M I R A K L.com and Symbi Simbee powers the most retail banners in the world with today's only multimodal platform for in store intelligence.

See how Albertsons, BJ, Spartan Nash and Wake firm win with AI and automation at simbirobotics.com and 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.

Learn more@ocampocapital.com and finally, Scratch Event DJs Scratch Event DJs tap into its unrivaled network of top local DJs to provide brands with high quality curated in store experiences anytime, anywhere.

Find out more@events.scratch.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 a podcast that we hope makes you feel a little smarter, but most importantly a little happier each week and each new year too.

And the Fast 5 is just one of the many great podcasts that you can find from the Omnitalk Retail Podcast Network alongside our Retail Daily Minute, which brings you a curated selection of the most important retail headlines every morning and our Retail Technology Spotlight series which goes deep each week on the latest retail technology trends.

It's January 8, 2025.

I'm one of your hosts, Anne Mazing.

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

In the new year once again to discuss all the top headlines from the past couple of weeks at least, making waves in the world of Omni Channel retailing.

Chris it is the New year.

As I've mentioned a couple of times that intro things are just jumping off, right?

Like immediately you're out in Vegas, right?

You're out in Vegas, you're at ces.

You're on location in am.

I am.

I'm out here at ces.

I'm going to hop back home for a hot second, and then we're going to NRF starting on Friday, and it's going to be a busy 2025.

You got a hell of a travel schedule, my friend.

Kudos to you.

And Ann, from what hotel are you broadcasting from today?

For those watching the video this week.

I'm here at the lovely Vdara Hotel.

The Vdara.

Nice.

Paying some exorbitant amount of money to stay in a hotel room that ordinarily would probably cost, like, $89.

But CES, man, they know how to.

They know make.

Make sure that everybody's making money off of this event.

Let's just put it that way.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

I can't wait to see your coverage, though.

You're so.

What are you doing out there?

Tell the audience what you're doing out at ces.

Yeah, so I'm out here.

We've never been out here before, and, you know, we are really trying to find, like, what.

What makes sense here.

I think we get a lot of questions from our audience about, you know, should we be going out to ces, especially with it being so close to nrf.

And so, you know, Chris, you and I were like, let's go, let's go, Ch.

Let's see what happens, what our audience should be paying attention to.

And so I'm going to do a quick recap of the technologies that I feel like out here are most applicable to retailers and whether or not it's something that you should check out next year.

So that's.

That's the.

That's the long and short of it.

Nice.

Can't wait to see it.

A yeoman's effort on your part, too, and a yeoman's effort.

I don't even know what a yeoman is.

I don't know either, but I just know people say that, but, you know, you're a yeoman's effort of doing the hard work.

And is that like a shogun?

No, I.

I have no idea.

And I think.

I think it.

I think it's like a.

Like a surfer, like an agricultural worker or something.

Somebody that works hard.

That's what it is.

And somebody that works hard.

Okay, I'll look it.

I'll look it up at one point when you're reading a headline here today.

But.

But yeah, we've got some hardware to hand out, too, right?

Oh, yes.

First week of the month.

Yes, yes, we sure do.

Why don't you tell all our listeners who we're handing out this month's Omnistar award to?

Yes, this month's Omnistar.

It's time to recognize this month's Omnistar.

So our Omnistar award for those maybe that are new to our show is the award we give out each month in partnership with Corso to recognize the top omnichannel operators out there.

Not the pundits, not the so called experts, but the real life retail operators making a difference in their organizations.

Now remember, Corso's AI copilot coaches retail leaders to optimize store performance at every level, transform retail operations from data overload into data powered with Corso today.

This month award goes to Minardi, the executive vice president of growth and development at Whole Foods.

Christina, I mean, if you read the headline, she is clearly a mover and shaker in the industry as she is the executive in charge of Whole Foods new smaller store concept, the Daily Shop, which started rolling out this past fall.

And I, I know Ann and I will both be watching this concept as it unfolds quite closely because it appears there is a heck of a lot riding on it both for Whole Foods and also for Amazon.

So.

And congratulations to Christina Minardi at Whole Foods.

We look forward to hopefully crossing paths with her at some conference here in the near future as well.

But with that said, Anne, I think.

She'S the real yeoman.

Christina Minardi is the real yeoman, whatever that is.

Yeah, yeah.

When you're building a store concept, you get the yeoman designation.

Yeoman.

Yes.

Christina McMurdy equals yeoman.

Yes.

Congrats.

Yes.

Let's get to the headlines.

Time to start the headlines of 2025.

Let's do it.

All right.

And this what we've been waiting for it.

It's been three weeks since we've done a real fast five.

All right, this week's fast five, we've got news on some new innovation in in store vending or set another way how retailers can keep products behind glass.

Can't wait to talk about that.

Simbi augmenting its robots with fixed sensors.

Doordash and Ibotta teaming up to offer more savings on everyday purchases.

I know Ann has some thoughts on that.

Giant Food introducing a new community space inside one of its stores.

And Todd Barentine of the of the barcode group stops by for five insightful minutes on Costco's 2025 strategy.

But we begin today with big smart store news out of who else But Walmart to start 2025.

And it wouldn't be NRF week if Walmart wasn't putting out some massive announcement.

Headline number one, the Omni Talk either.

You know, like if we weren't covering Walmart.

True, true.

Headline number one, Walmart is accelerating its digital shelf rollout.

According to the Path to Purchase Institute, Walmart has signed a contract extension with digital shelf label DSL technology provider Vision Group to accelerate the deployment of its solutions across all of the retailers.

4, 600 stores in the US Wow.

The extension follows Walmart's June 2024 announcement to expand its use of Fusion Groups DSLs, also known as shelf label, as electronic shelf labels or ESLs for those keeping score at home to 202,300 stores by 2026 to improve and speed up how associates manage pricing, inventory, order fulfillment and customer interactions.

Chris, this also happens to be the A and M put you on the spot question right away.

First headline show of the year.

Okay.

Okay.

Are you ready for it?

Yeah, I guess so.

I'm ready as I'll ever be.

Okay.

So A and M says we love to see Walmart already making a push for 2025's retailer of the year in week one.

Walmart obviously leading here, but honestly, is there a retailer or sector that shouldn't be going all in on ESL in 2025?

Chris, what are your thoughts?

Oh, wow, that's a wow.

Off the top of my head, I'd say candidly, no.

No.

Yeah.

I think every retailer should be evaluating this.

Now.

I think there's different degrees of, of retailers that, of different types of retailers that should be looking at this faster than others.

But on the whole I'd say no.

And the reason I say that and is I've been seeing some pictures of Walmart's deployment of these ESLs or DSLs on the ground from folks like Omnitok superfan Kevin Iverson.

So thanks to him for sending me like 20 pictures this week of, of them deployed throughout the entire Walmart store operation.

It was pretty impressive.

But the one photo that he and I got talking about that was really interesting was he sent me a picture of like the DSLs on peg hooks.

And so, you know peg hooks are, you know what those are, right?

Yeah.

People, people familiar with mass market retail understand this, but there were like maybe not hundreds of them, but tens of tens of them.

You know, like 20, 30, 40.

Yeah.

All with, all with labels, you know, very easily readable.

And so that tells me like, okay, they've got this thing ironed out if they're using it in that type of display.

And so, you know, with all the ROI offshoots from electronic shelf labels that we've talked about ad nauseum at this show, I think that Walmart is going to all stores with this.

It shows that now's the time for further dissemination of this across retail.

So that means to me, you know, we've already seen it in, in grocery.

I think it'll start moving next into the warehouse clubs.

Then I think it starts going into sporting goods and footwear.

Like, why doesn't Footlocker have this as an example, at least in part of their operation?

You know, on the wall displays for shoes, for sure.

And then the other place I think that really makes sense, which is not as big of a retail segment anymore, is furniture stores.

Like, furniture stores should 100% have this.

Like, it's so, so easy for them to do.

I think apparel is still a hard get, but with all those categories I just mentioned, that means the majority of retail is ready for this.

And that now that Walmart is doing it, all the laggards in grocery and mass merchandising will suddenly get their feet.

They'll have no choice but to jump into feed first in the water as well.

Because the one thing that proves the ROI quickly, which is what we've heard is, is still the use case for those that don't want to do it, is we can't prove the roi.

It's like, come on guys, really?

You can't prove the roi?

You're not testing this.

Right.

But the one thing that proves the ROI really quickly is that you can tell your boss Walmart's already doing it in all stores.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, and I think the, I think you make some really great points.

Points, Chris.

The other areas I'd call out, like drug, especially beauty beauty specialty stores, especially like those stores, like the fact that those that Walgreens and CVS haven't like shelves.

Yeah.

And like, even in the apparel use case, like Uniqlo is doing this, like anything like that has the stuff out.

Like Old Navy should be doing, like all these stores that have the stuff out on racks.

I think that's a very quick and easy, easy application.

But I think the other thing that I want to make sure that we point out about this and just a teaser for those of you who are going to be out at nrf, I actually am sitting on stage with Walmart's EVP of store operations, Cedric Clark and the CEO Philip Ottin of Fusion group next week on Tuesday and we're gonna be talking about like this entire rollout.

And the really key thing that he has mentioned to me several times as we've been preparing for this is he's in the stores every day.

So not only is this like this is a great thing for Walmart, like we have pricing accuracy, we're using these as like this better is the Walmart bottom line situation, but he's also seen the impact that it's had in stores with the store associates.

And I think that's really powerful here too is it's not just, you know, it's great for the business, it's great for the people working the stores too.

And they've really seen dramatic changes in their day to day workload because of that.

So that's one, one key thing, the last thing I'll mention to Chris and another tease for one of the videos that we'll be putting out here.

I interviewed a company, Power Foil yesterday who our Foil, Yes.

And they are putting solar powered strips on these ESL right on the rails.

And so not only when you talk about roi, not only are these going, these shelf labels themselves going to bring a return on investment for Walmart, but then you start to talk about eliminating battery power that's required for this.

So that hits on that ROI of the batteries for every single SKU that you're putting an ESL or DSL on in the store.

And you're hitting sustainability goals too.

So I think there's a lot here in this headline that people must be paying attention to.

Huge headline for 2025.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love the point you brought up about Cedric Clark too for a couple of reasons.

One, the other thing that Kevin said to me is like, oh my God, this, this is a gift to anyone that's ever done ad set up on a weekend, you know, because that is just the worst job in history.

So I'm sure Cedric is going to talk about that.

And then the other thing, Shameless plug for us.

Yeah, like this is why I think our listeners follow us because we are on the ground talking to the people and ahead of the game in terms of where the industry is moving and getting those conversations with the key people.

So kudos to you for doing that at NRF as well.

All right, headline number two, tech company Cantaloupe Inc.

My favorite tech company name ever, Cantaloupe Inc.

Do you think they.

Cantaloupe, like remember that song from the 80s and 90s?

I'm.

This is like a maybe a Deep cut.

But I know it's 80s and 90s, you know that.

You gotta sing it for me.

Fantasia.

Remember that song?

No.

Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe.

I don't know.

I think it's a play on the size of their melon actually.

But.

Cantaloupe has expanded its line of self service vending machines designed to provide shoppers with a convenient in store option while helping retailers address challenges related to labor shrink and theft.

According to Progressive Grocer, as part of Cantaloupe's Smart Store series, its new smart store 600 and 700 models can be used to purvey both shelf stable and fresh items.

That's what's interesting here, folks.

The shelf service vending machines are installed at a range of businesses including corporate offices, residential buildings, hotel pantries and and grocery and mass retail locations.

The units use weighted shelves and cameras to monitor inventory and feature interactive touchscreens, audio help and visual cues to help shoppers choose the items they want.

And here's my question for you on this Shrink is clearly an issue.

Yes.

Our friend at the A and M consumer and retail group, David Ritter on our annual show called out a similar idea Walmart is testing as the tech of the year for him.

But do you like, do you like that ideas like this are gaining traction?

What are your thoughts on this?

Is this the right way for retailers to go?

I, I think this will, this will be a helpful solution for some retailers in some very specific use cases.

Perhaps it does eliminate your wait times for getting, you know, the cabinets or the glass unlocked in those situations.

But for me, Chris, like, I don't know, I was not big on this headline because it still is a less than desirable shopping experience.

I just, I don't think this is the solution.

I think this is a very short term middle of the road investment.

That and there's, I can't really fault the retailers because shrink is such a big problem like you talked about.

They are trying to find kind of any piecemeal solutions that they can test to try to see what happens.

But I really think that this is a huge miss and the one of the other reasons that I don't like it, especially when I start to think about how this is tying in and is and as I dug more into this and the Cantaloupe team will have to, you know, bring this up or, or reach out to us and let us know.

But I'm not sure because you're paying with your credit card in that moment, I'm not sure that it's tapping into like point of sale or the, like the rest of the point of sale, the store or my loyalty programs or promotion programs and some of these like big ticket items like they mentioned in there, you know, like, is this the right thing for like makeup or razors?

Like those are things that a lot of people have couponing associated with.

So if I'm tapping to pay, like do I get loyalty rewards points or is it just the convenience element of it?

So there's still a lot of friction, disjointed things in this solution for me to like be all in on it.

But I mean, what do you think?

Are you, you wanted to talk about this headline, Are you into it?

Like, yeah, that's why I want to talk it up.

Because I think, I think it's an interesting philosophical conversation.

I think, you know, I, I think on, on the whole I, I agree with you.

I'd actually, I think I'd go even a step further and how much I, I actually don't like it.

So with all respect to David Ritter, who I respect immensely, I don't, I don't like the, I don't like the idea at all.

And you know, I, to your point, I can see why retailers are doing it because they've been forced into this situation.

But at the end of the day I think it just pushes more people to shop online.

And if, if you're forcing me to download an app to open a case in the store, why not just force me to do an app scan when I enter the score when I enter the store.

Excuse me.

Or, or show my loyalty card when I enter the store, similar to Costco or Whole Foods.

That just seems like an easier solution and it doesn't require the expensive hardware and just do that and call it a day that you know, that way the customer experience is better.

You don't introduce all this friction into the experience.

It's a cheaper option.

There are better options even than this if you want to deter theft, which we'll get to in the next headline.

And, and so like at the end of the day it just feels like an over engineered solution to a problem that isn't ultimately that complicated.

That, that is what I think here.

And so I think people started putting things behind glass and now they're thinking about oh, how do we continue to over engineer that idea?

And that's just, I think that's just bad for the industry.

I do too.

I mean it just reminds me of like an airport or you know, like it's a, it's still a vending machine at the end of the day, like you don't get to touch things and I get that you don't get to do that if it's behind glass either.

But I just.

None of these are making a better shopping experience in my opinion.

But the one thing I will say, because I've been reading the comments on social media after David's comment in our annual award show and he said it does seem like consumers want the ability to do this.

So that's, that's probably what's driving the retailers to do this too.

If they are putting it behind glass.

Consumers don't want to wait to get help.

They want to be in control of that themselves.

Yeah, so I can see that.

But is that the, is that, is that customer feedback leading you in the right direction in the long run?

I don't think so.

This is sometimes where you have to think beyond the customer.

Right.

All right.

Yeah, that's a great.

Headline number three.

This one's good too, because this bridges into the same conversation.

Yes.

Oh, sorry.

And this is your headline.

I'm sorry, man, we're rusty after two weeks.

Ed, you go.

That's all right.

Headline number three.

Chris is so excited about this one.

Simbi is rolling out fixed sensors to augment its inventory robots Chris.

According to Grocery Dive, Simbi Robotics has introduced fixed sensor units to monitor products in targeted areas of grocery and other retail stores that augment the company's Tally aisle scanning robots, the company announced just this past Tuesday.

The new equipment, known as Tally Spot, uses computer vision cameras to identify and analyze items in specific zones that more more frequently than the robots which traverse the entire store.

Tally Spot, Simbi says, reflects retailers interest in technology to enable them to keep an even closer eye on products that need frequent restocking or have elevated rates of shrink.

Chris, why do you think Simbi is rolling out a fixed position sensor to complement its shelf scanning robots that we already know and love and so much so that they are also a new sponsor of the Fast Five.

Might I call.

Yeah, 100%.

I think they're doing it because it's fricking smart.

It's a smart idea.

And to your point, in full disclosure, like Symbios now a pod, a sponsor of this podcast on a weekly basis and we're going to do some more work with them.

And as well, we just released a Spotlight series podcast with their CEO Brad Begolia yesterday when this news broke talking about this very thing.

So again, to your point about Cedric, we're trying to stay on top of it.

For all you folks that listen to us on a regular basis.

And so the answer to me about why I think this is smartant, it comes down to one word and that's vigilance.

So there are certain areas of the store that you just have to keep a closer eye on.

And the robot, as great as it is, is doing it at standard intervals.

So things just move quicker in certain areas than the robot can capture.

So those are things where you have high throughput, like probably fresh produce in some stores.

High theft is also a big issue.

So if you get those running right, the ROI drops to the bottom line pretty quickly.

So here's the use case because I, I queried some friends of mine, I was like, okay, why is this an important use case?

Yeah.

And what they said to me is like, you take alcohol, right?

You put a fixed position camera looking at the alcohol and it's, it's basically sending updates, let's say every 15 minutes so that, you know, if in that 15 minute cycle they see that something got hit, something got a ton of product got stolen, they can correlate that back to the pos.

And then the idea then is that the AP teams can get that information.

They can know exactly when to look in the camera systems, the overhead camera systems, to try to figure out who's been stealing.

Right.

That's information that doesn't exist without this type of setup.

The other important point here of why this is smart is it's an extension of what tally the robot does.

The problem with fixed position camera systems is they only are positioned to look at what they look at.

They don't get a 360 view.

And so the only way this works if it's complemented with the 360 view of the robot as it's scanning the store to get the full view of everything on the shelf.

And so the fixed position camera then just tells you what's missing or what's moving really quickly.

That's why it's really smart.

It's a product extension and it just widens the market for Brad and the Simba team.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's, I mean I don't have much more to add.

You really hit on all the, the key points and I think I'm so.

Excited to talk about it.

Yes, yes.

Well, I mean in that interview with Brad, I remember specifically you talking about, you know, the consistency being a thing.

Like it you have the level up with the robot because you're getting that real time consistency and you can't get that with human labor, like, it just doesn't work that way because you have different people on different shifts.

And I think that was the, that was the first thing that I thought of when we read about this announcement.

But I think you also bring up like, I mean, you were, you were in a store manager, I worked in stores.

Like, you don't get to that stuff until the end of the day or like when somebody comes to you and it's already been done and the, you know, the cashmere sweater table's been wiped clean because somebody gave like, now we're talking every 15 minutes you're able to get some of these, you know, real, truly real time inputs on what's going on in your store.

And I, I think this is just the beginning for what Simbi and that team is going to be able to unlock with their offering.

Like, Tally was already great and now you have Tally spot coming in.

This is just completely supercharged it, which I think proves that I was wrong.

And 2024 was just the beginning of in store robotics.

And you were right, Chris.

This 2025, 25 really is going to be the year of the robot.

Yeah.

To your point, then like 15 minutes, I was just using that as an illustrative example.

Like this could essentially get down to real time to AP is getting that alert like within one or two minutes of it happening and still potentially being able to apprehend or alert authorities in real time that, you know, something things happening.

Now there's a whole host of issues that come with that, but, you know, it's at least leading to a, to a, to a road of new ideas and new ways to tackle the problem.

Yeah, well, and I.

And the last thing too, Chris, that you just made me think of, like, I remember when we were talking to somebody on a past Spotlight series about RFID and how they're finally able to, now that RFID is on more products, they're finally able to give authorities in these communities the information that they need.

Otherwise it's just, it's done.

It's like this will happen in the store.

It's done.

But now to your point, like, you're talking about like time of day, what they took, how many people, all this information, like, that's something that, that local law enforcement can actually follow up on and start to be held accountable to, like, and these types of problems, which is huge.

Yeah.

And Marshall Cage has put out a great article on Forbes.

I encourage everybody to read it about how Walmart's now deploying RFID on items that are Less than that are 99 cents or less.

So, like, these are the solutions that are out there that just make so much more sense than putting products behind glass.

All right, and well, let's bring Todd onto the podcast to talk a little bit about Costco.

Joining us now for five insightful minutes is Todd Barentine, president of the club division for the Barcode Group.

And Todd is here to give us special insight on Costco.

Todd, Costco's been knocking it out of the park, seems like decades now, but particularly in 2024.

What do you anticipate their key initiatives will be for 2025?

Hey, Chris, that's a great question.

And Costco is really their own worst enemy because they've just continued to have success year over year.

2025, though, interestingly, is going to be almost a recommitment back to the basics.

And I know that seems a little bit odd, but what they're going to look to do in 2025 is kind of get back to the core of what makes them successful.

And some of those real kind of initiatives and tactics are simple things like, hey, SKU management and making sure that items are coming in on time and then flowing out on time.

And when you think about a limited SKU environment, you know, in and out on time really matters for them.

You know, there's been a lot of challenges over the last several years, right?

Everyone knows what, what the world looked like in 2020, and now here we are in 2024.

Market conditions, global supply chain challenges that really challenged Costco.

So what they're looking to kind of do is get back into some more normalized behaviors.

With SKU management, they're also looking to get back to the roots in terms of, hey, treasure hunt, right?

Which really is one of the advantages of Costco.

Bringing items in that are really new and unique, exciting, that drive member value both from a price value sensitivity standpoint, but also just from a creativity and uniqueness standpoint.

Those are some of the real big things that you'll look for here in 2025.

And they're really focused on, well, Todd.

What'S really key for brands and suppliers trying to get products into Costco in 2025?

Yeah, good question.

Again, you know, if I were talking to a brand, one of the things that, that we definitely tell them is, hey, value.

And again, value can be measured a couple different ways, right?

Anybody can race to the bottom on price.

It's not just about price, but it's also really about, hey, the uniqueness of the item build, the quality Costco wants to sell the best possible quality goods.

So they don't want you to just kind of take quality down to get to a value on price.

They want you to build the quality up and then lean in with an investment on that costing to give Costco an advantage.

You know, most people probably know, hey, Costco works on smaller margins than a lot of other retailers, but you know, that's a big thing for them.

So helping to kind of lean in and understand that you're going to get that volume on the backside, that, that's really the way that that mechanic works for most suppliers.

But you know, it's really all about value.

Costco buys open so there aren't time to resets, which is different from some other retailers.

So thinking about, hey, how can you launch something and being first to market with Costco, bringing them a unique opportunity that you can partner with them and get them to work back and forth, lean in with.

That's the way that you should approach this retailer.

You know, they're very different.

They're an open book test.

You know, there's not a lot of hidden, you know, fees and you know, slotting.

You don't deal with that.

It's really straightforward, bringing your best possible quality, your best item at your best possible value.

And let's see what happens.

Todd, that open, that open insights, really, that's really interesting, you know, and, and I want to get back to something you said earlier.

The treasure hunt.

You know, one of the best, you know, absolute best part of Costco is the treasure hunt for its members.

What, what insider intel can you provide into how they continue to use that as a competitive advantage?

Yeah, so Costco is unique in the fact that they are not centrally purchased.

They have eight US region buying teams that all are focused against a very specific geography.

And so because of that, they can tailor items and their item assortment based on what works for their member within a market.

And because then they have these micro markets they can look at, we'll use the San Diego region as an example.

The San Diego region is essentially the southwest of the US So it's like San Diego proper.

Then it's like Boulder and Colorado and then it's also like Phoenix, Tolleson, you know that area.

They can find items that work for those various micro markets, test them there, build them, expand them, and then it kind of flows and builds from there.

But it's just it that is probably the competitive advantage that helps them treasure hunt and bring items in is their ability to be nimble.

They don't have to launch everything at every single warehouse at once.

They can kind of pioneer it, test, prove the concept, get it right, and then roll it out in a bigger fashion.

Wow.

Well, Todd, we know that Costco is planning on going, you know, even more international in the next year and beyond.

What does that mean for brands and for customers?

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting model.

Most people think of Costco as being a US retailer, but they are a global retailer.

And year in and year out at supplier day and you hear it through, you know, different meetings, they'll tell the suppliers, hey, we're global.

They want suppliers to start thinking about their global international country regions.

You know, being a global retailer gives them access to international suppliers, also gives this domestic supplier an opportunity to build an international business.

It works the same way.

Their plans for international are pretty robust.

I think They've got about 180 warehouses right now outside of, you know, North America.

The scale there is to grow that pretty substantially by the end of 2030.

What's really cool about that though too is again, the ability to create treasure hunt that you can test and pioneer an opportunity in a country like Australia.

Right.

Or, you know, pick, you know, Taiwan or, you know, you know, even the uk.

And if you think about the Costco member being a pretty, you know, educated and affluent, you know, household by demographic, they're globe travelers.

So having that kind of flow back and forth is another competitive advantage for them.

Great stuff, Todd.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, headline number four.

DoorDash and Ibotta have teamed up to offer savings on everyday purchases.

According to Progr Grocer Boy, this is the heaviest grocery podcast I think we've done in a long time, man.

Ibotta, the operator of the largest digital promotions network in North America and DoorDash, DoorDash have established a multi year strategic partnership to give DoorDash customers access to iBotta's catalog of digital promotions.

By joining the iBotta Performance Network, also known as the IPN and DoorDash will be able to offer personalized promotions and coupons in a range of categories, among them grocery, health and beauty, home improvement, and of course, alcohol for CBG brands.

The partnership provides an opportunity to reach consumers across DoorDash's footprint of 115,000 plus non restaurant stores on its marketplace in North America.

The Ibotta provided offers are expected to be live across DoorDash's marketplace later this year.

And yes, why do you view this Ibotta and DoorDash partnership as a quote.

Must discuss retail headline Because, Chris, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but have you ever gone on doordash and you're like, I have no macaroni and cheese.

I brought it back for our vacation.

Chris.

I was like, I'm going to start getting macaroni and cheese for these vacations so that you can.

And have you ever gone on there and you're like, I'm going to order macaroni and cheese.

My kids want it.

I don't have any left.

And then you get all the way to the end and you're like, am I paying $20 for two boxes of macaroni and cheese?

This is insane.

So I think that you have a ton of drop off with people.

Even doordash is still a convenience for people.

And I think that sometimes with all the charges, you get to a point where people are like abandoning the cart and they're like, I'll do something else or I'll go drive to the store and get it.

But with this partnership, you start to chip away at some of those fees when you get a dollar off of the product.

Or like, everybody is winning here.

And that's why I think this is so important.

The customers win because they get prices that are more comparable to what they'd be paying if they went to the store and bought this themselves.

They.

It kind of diminishes that threshold of like, should I do this or not?

Then you also get Doordash and Ibotta getting all this information now that they can use to provide me with more deals to learn more about my shopping behaviors.

And then the brands get that information too.

Like, oh, doordash is this great channel for me.

Maybe I should be pushing out more.

Like everything here, I think starts to add up to benefits for everybody around.

It's your old analogy of one plus one equals three.

And I think that this is a great, great move and just kind of further solidifies DoorDash's penetration in this space though.

I think it's a great move.

But what do you think?

Yeah, no, those are really great points.

I don't have a lot to add, but I think, I think you're dead on in terms of like, the one issue with DoorDash that's still out there is like, is am I getting a good price?

Right?

You just don't know that.

And so this gives you the confidence.

And there's a lot of ways you could do this.

Like you give instant redeemable coupons, like just by buying products that flow through this.

I don't know how they're going to execute this, but.

But you're right.

And that helps ameliorate that issue.

The other point that I think is interesting here, that I would just add is I have, I have been surprised about how often I'm using doordash to search for things.

Really?

And it's particularly.

Yeah, it's particularly because I have the Dash pass.

And, you know, what's happening most is with alcohol, actually, which is why I keyed in on alcohol in that read.

Like, oh, where can I get this beer that I like?

I know it's not going to be at my grocery store, but where can I find it?

Is it available on the DashPass Marketplace?

It's a regional beer.

Who has it, who carries it?

Like, that type of thing is happening for me.

And the other place where I start to get intrigued too is with the double dash.

I'm always like playing around with the double dash.

I don't know if you've done that, but.

Oh, I do the double dash all the time.

Do you?

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Especially traveling like here, like, you know, we always got like last night for dinner, I ordered my food from the restaurant and then double dashed my, like, drinks, my bottled water and whatever.

Right.

All to the room.

And last night, actually the first.

For the first time I had the same person do both dashes for me.

And it was amazing.

I had such a good experience.

Wow.

You.

You double dash with the same person.

Anne, that.

That's.

That's pretty awesome.

Sounds very Vegas of me, doesn't it?

It does sound very Vegas, but.

And you didn't keep it in Vegas.

You shoot, shared it with the world.

And it's out there.

Yeah, but J.C.

you're amazing.

J.C.

got five stars for his double dashing tip.

Yeah.

Yeah, he did.

Yeah, he did.

But, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I think it just, it just makes doordash and the Dash path stronger.

This is a great idea, I think.

Part and parcel.

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

Giant Food introduced a first of its kind community space.

According to Grocery Dive, the Giant Food store located on Alabama Avenue southeast in Ward 8 of Washington, D.C.

a food desert in part because of its lack of supermarkets.

According to the D.C.

policy center, they reintroduced a Healthy Living center during its grand reopening event on December 10, 2024.

The Multipurpose center, located to the left of the store's front entrance, provides health and wellness information and programming to the greater D.C.

area.

The healthy, Healthy Living center is Also prepared to offer an array of programs including financial literacy, yoga classes, nutrition education and board meetings for non profits.

Jefferson said, noting that the space is free to use.

Chris, are you pro or con retailers setting aside space in their stores for things like community spaces the floor?

Not at all, Anne.

Not at all.

In fact, I'm gonna start 2025 here off on a mini rant.

I don't think I'm gonna go full Walton ramp, but I'm gonna go, oh.

Boy, let's hear it, let's hear it.

I, I actually loathe these ideas.

And as soon as I hear yoga classes in any announcement and I'm out.

Like, I'm out like it like Cartman from South park, you know, yoga is code for or namaste is code for I have anxiety.

You know this, that's how I feel about this headline.

And the reason being these community spaces, one, they're just really hard to program year round.

Two, they don't bring in any additional revenue so it's a complete waste of students space.

They generally don't draw any incremental traffic which is why they end up being unused or just unprogrammed for the most part.

We've seen them come and go as ideas in various forms of our eight years of doing Omni talk.

And I hate to say it and, but you know what we never hear about, we never hear about the second community center at another store rolling out based on the success of the first one.

I, I, I tried to think about that.

Of all the times we've heard about similar ideas, I can't think of one happening.

So I don't know.

But you know, take me, get me off the ledge and tell me where I'm right.

Tell me where I'm wrong.

I don't know, I just, I just don't like this idea.

I think it's silly.

I think that the points you bring up are valid.

The key thing here I think is to, for, at least for me, as I was considering this is like do we need to think specifically about the location of these spaces versus just like broader, like rolling this out to every giant food location in the country?

Like that does not make sense to me.

But they're in a food desert, you know, it's not necessarily like, you know, $100 a square foot prime retail location.

I, I think that I, I agree with you in that like this space being free to use and the, and no programming around it, like that could be a problem.

Like you and I have seen those spaces fail.

You're Absolutely correct.

But I do think, like, if you look closely at like what Walmart's been doing with health hubs in the spaces, like trying to figure out like I would be focusing more if I was Giant on like how do you utilize.

It was used as like a COVID testing center.

Like how do you figure out how to make this a place where if I live in a food desert, I may not be going to Giant.

I might be just going to my local bodega or whatever I can get my hands on, but if I can go there and meet a friend for coffee, I can do, you know, I can get a mammogram like Walmart was offering or you know, even, even get a flu shot or something like that.

Like that's different though.

Like that's, that's.

Yeah, that's different though.

That's why I put that in different bucket.

Yeah, there's revenue with that stuff.

Right.

Well, and I even think that, you know, you know, you could still argue that if I, that I wouldn't have gone to Giant unless I could accomplish more than one thing in one space.

And that does bring in an incremental revenue, not for that specific, you know, square footage of the community space, but it does bring, bring somebody into a Giant, which if I'm carrying on on this thread, could potentially put them in a stronger position once the dollar store sectors continue to start to add things like produce and start to like kind of take up and you know, everybody's trying to fight this food desert problem.

You know, could that still position Giant is like, well, I can, you know, I could do a yoga class there.

I don't like the yoga example, but I could do something.

Yeah, right.

I could accomplish more things.

I think you're a little harsh on the whole yoga thing.

Be like, I think you went too far on yoga.

I love yoga.

So I will, you know, I'll fight you to the death on that one.

You're gonna take yoga at the Giant grocery store.

That's where you get yoga.

I would not take yoga at the Gian grocery store.

Some people might, I don't know.

I, I think there has to be some considerations made though for the locations of these spaces.

No, it is not an application.

I'd roll out, you know, chain wide across my whole region.

But I think in some of these locations there, the store is the community for that space.

And so I think that there's, there's testing.

Okay.

Okay.

So I want to take this argument, I want to spin it a little bit so like here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

Like, I actually, I agree with you.

Like, the locations of these types of ideas matter.

But my question.

My question comes down to this.

How are you in a food desert if this is inside a grocery store?

Like, so if this is a great idea for the community, why don't you just put it in the community where everyone can, you know, learn from it and benefit from it, like a community center is traditionally done, versus making this something that a grocery store is doing and won't end up putting the effort towards it because they're not going to get the payoff in the long run because it's going to end up not being programmed and not being vacant so that it doesn't feel like put more food in there.

Store should be owning.

Yes, it seems like make more food accessible and available to people and easier to get and draw them in that way.

I don't know.

You also.

I mean, I just.

I think there's more.

There's more to it than that.

I mean, there's tax credits.

There's things that, you know, like, I want to.

This building.

Like, I think that again, like, in.

There's murals.

And like, we didn't even talk about that.

There's a mural designed by an Emmy award winner, which I was like, the award winner designing a mural.

But anyway, I got laughing on that one.

I don't know.

Yeah, so.

So I don't know.

I don't think I got convinced by the argument, but it was a very fun discussion.

A very fun discussion.

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

Chris, number one question in the Lightning round is for you.

You took your first Waymo over the break.

What's one thing that the lack of driver improved about your journey and one thing you miss about having a driver behind the wheel?

Oh, and I miss nothing.

I love not having to drive behind the wheel.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

It was so.

I mean, God, you.

Many times we've gotten into Ubers and we have, like, disgusting old McDonald's bags in the front seat, and the guy smells like.

Like, you just smoke, like, 16 joints.

You know, as well.

Like, that's just not there anymore.

I love it.

And I have the confidence that the machine knows how to drive better than the person does, actually.

So I think I'm hooked.

Waymo is the future.

And you also don't have to tip, which is just amazing as well.

So, you know, you don't have to give a rating on it either.

You know, it's just.

It's Great.

All right, you got three stars, Waymo.

Three stars.

Yeah.

I mean, my brother, my wife, everybody, we all just absolutely loved it.

It was such a fun experience, and we tried to do it as much as we could.

All right, number two, Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster recently stepped out hand in hand for a dinner date in la.

And if you could date one of the X Men, which X Men would it be?

Let me just Google who are X Men?

Quick.

I.

I don't even know.

I think the people that come to mind for me are like, Mike, Mark Ruffalo and Paul Rudd.

But they're not X Men, right?

No, they're not.

They're technically not X Men.

And I wasn't actually going for the actor.

I was actually going for the.

The comic book character.

Like, would you date Wolverine?

Would you date Cyclops?

Would you date.

I don't even know who they are, Chris.

I don't even know any of these people.

Like, I know that, you know, Like, I know Mark Ruffalo played the Hulk.

Like, I guess him, but he's not even X Men.

Oh, God, I don't know.

Yeah, no, you're fine.

You're fine.

The Hulk's fitting for my personality, I think.

Actually.

Actually, like, now that I.

Now that I'm thinking about it, like, okay, yeah, the Hulk, sure.

Just powerful.

Yeah.

So I'm thinking big bad Colossus fits your personality type.

Who plays that?

Who's Colossus?

Nobody.

It's never been a big.

It's never been a big feature, but you should check him out.

I think he's your type.

Of course, he's all metal as well, so.

So that might.

Might provide a few difficulties for you.

But I think when he's non metal state, I think you'd like him a lot.

Oh, my God.

All right, Chris.

Target just launched a new Athleisure apparel line in conjunction with creator Cassie Ho called Blogilates.

If you started an apparel line when you started writing Omni Talk, the blog back in 2017, what would be one or two hero products you'd create?

Oh, my God.

First of all, Blog a Lottie sounds like something I would 100% create, doesn't it?

Like, doesn't that sound like a name that.

I thought of that immediately when I saw the press release about Blogilates, I was like, oh, God, Chris is loving this so much right now.

Yeah, I know, right?

And who knows how it's doing too?

But, you know, it makes me curious about.

About that it's blown out.

It's like sold out.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

How much, how much did they buy too?

You know, that whole thing like, you know, I'm sure it is, but so this one was fun.

And so for me, I think I would.

I would debut a line of Omnitok inspired Canadian tuxedos because you asked me to go back in time because very.

On trend right now.

I know it's on trend.

And our first Omnitox followers were overwhelmingly Canadian because I think they like our sense of humor and our self deprecating sense of humor.

So, like, I think I'd go with the Canadian tuxedo.

I'm not sure how much they're fans of Canadian tuxedos, but.

Well, Trudeau is available now.

Trudeau's available to be our spokesmodel, so.

Right.

Let's just dive.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good looking gentleman.

All right.

And Peter Yarrow of the folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary.

I just lost my headphone.

The first concert I ever attended died yesterday at age 86.

Yeah, it's very sad.

And it was literally the first concert I ever did.

I know that.

So I ask you, are you more Stuball was a racehorse or a Puff the Magic Dragon fan?

Because I know you're a big music.

Yeah, I was not familiar with Stuball, so I listened to that one last night.

But Puff the Magic Dragon, for sure, that just goes down.

Anytime I can talk about Jackie Paper and Hana Lee, it just brings a smile to my face.

So for sure.

Puff the Magic Dragon, without a doubt.

I have no surprise there, Panama Red.

Alright.

Happy birthday today to Amy Dolenz, Peter Stroma, and to the little girl who once almost fictionally designed, died from choking on a hot dog while watching old men play baseball on the field of dreams.

Gabby hoffman, who turns 43 today.

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.

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 features special content that is exclusive to us and that Ann and I take a heck of a lot 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 on YouTube by simply going to YouTube.com omnitalkretail so until next week, on behalf of all of us at Omnitalk Retail, on behalf of Ann and myself, be careful out there.