Omni Talk Retail

Are Smart Carts Worth the Investment? Wegmans Food Markets Pilots Instacart's Latest Innovation

🎯 RETAIL' FIRST SEMESTER REPORT CARD IS IN: Who Is Making the Grades (Good and Bad)? Anne and Chris, along with Placer.ai's Chief Marketing Officer Ethan Chernofsky, just dropped their highly anticipated retail grades for the first half of 2025, and the results might surprise you! 📊 THE STANDOUTS: ✅ Walmart - Mastering the "store as platform" concept ✅ Trader Joe's & Sprouts Farmers Market - Clear reason for being pays off ✅ The TJX Companies, Inc./MARSHALLS LLC - Converting new visitors into loyal customers 📉 NEEDS IMPROVEMENT: ⚠️ Target - Operational challenges beyond the headlines ⚠️ lululemon - Facing saturation in key markets ⚠️ Dave & Buster's Inc. - Pricing pressure hurting traffic 🎬 SURPRISING COMEBACK: Movie theaters are finding their footing with the "blockbuster mindset" 🏬 MALL RENAISSANCE: B-class malls showing unexpected resilience with 89% occupancy KEY INSIGHT: The biggest winners aren't chasing shiny tech - they're nailing retail fundamentals and know exactly who they serve. This data-driven discussion uses real foot traffic from millions of devices to reveal what's ACTUALLY happening in retail, not just what earnings calls tell us. 🎧 Want the full breakdown? Listen to the complete Omni Talk episode for all the grades, surprising insights, and what this means for the rest of 2025 . Subscribe to Omni Talk - the fast-growing retail media outlet covering the companies, technologies, and people shaping retail's future. 👇 Drop a comment: Which retail grade surprised you most? #RetailAnalytics #RetailTrends #PlacerAI #OmniTalk #RetailStrategy #ConsumerBehavior 🔗 Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | https://lnkd.in/g99hXh85 Spotify | https://lnkd.in/gUT738ma Amazon Music | https://lnkd.in/gbwJF5Nr YouTube | https://lnkd.in/gfAPnNbi

💬 "It's really like having a professional studio at your fingertips, just more scalable and faster." — Daniele Stroppa, Amazon Web Services (AWS) 🎉 CONGRATULATIONS: BRIA AI Named July's Retail Startup of the Month! Omni Talk Retail and AWS's Daniele Stroppa just announced the latest winner of July Retail Startup of the Month Award, and Chris and Anne couldn't be more excited about what they're building. The celebration is well-deserved: BRIA AI is changing how brands create visual content at scale with their visual generative AI platform. What earned them the spotlight: ✅ Builder-first platform with commercial licensing compliance ✅ Tailored generation that maintains perfect brand integrity ✅ Professional studio quality results in minutes, not weeks ✅ Seamless integration into existing retail workflows The breakthrough: Brand-compliant AI content at enterprise scale. Product imagery, social campaigns, retail media—all created with proper lighting, shadows, and proportions while maintaining brand consistency. Daniele's verdict: "Bria is really one of those startups that is worth keeping an eye on in this retail tech space." Congratulations to the entire BRIA AI team on this recognition! 🚀 Want to learn more? Watch our full award video below. #RetailTech #GenerativeAI #ContentCreation #BriaAI #RetailInnovation #StartupOfTheMonth

Retail’s Mid-Year Report Card With Ethan Chernofsky of Placer.ai It is that time of the year again! The time where Omni Talk and Placer.ai get together for their annual tradition of handing out mid-year grades across retail. Placer.ai’s SVP of Marketing Ethan Chernofsky is back to give his mid-year report card assessment of which retailers are setting the pace and which ones are lagging behind. Chris and Anne will go in depth with Ethan as he shares his thoughts on who is doing an outstanding job, who is doing just satisfactory, and which retailers are, of course, also in need of improvement :)

In this week’s lighting round, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga discuss everything from Banskying and Spicy McMuffins to what pieces of furniture within their homes are most in need of a eulogy. For the full #fastfive episode, sponsored by the Alvarez & Marsal Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and ClearDemand head here:https://lnkd.in/gSSYydMv #retail #retailing #grocery #conveniencestores #cpg #branding #advertisingandmarketing #onlineshopping #shoppingandtheretailindustry #supplychainmanagement #fashionretail

"If you're going to have the benefit of people being in the office, you actually have to have them in the office together. Otherwise you're in the office on Zoom with many people still." – David Brown, A&M Consumer and Retail Group 🚨 New Podcast Alert! 🚨 This week's Retail Fast Five Podcast with Chris and Anne and guests hosts David Brown and Chad Lusk is packed with the stories every retail leader should be tracking: 💰 Kraft Heinz plans $20B breakup a decade after infamous merger 🏢 Starbucks and Target issue return-to-office mandates 📈 Tariff-driven inflation hits 2.7% in June 🛒 Supermarkets losing ground with younger shoppers 🤖 Shopify blocks agentic AI bots from unauthorized purchases PLUS… Omni Talk and Daniele Stroppa of Amazon Web Services (AWS) hand out the hardware for their latest Retail Tech Startup of the Month — and July's award goes to BRIA AI! 🎧 Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts: 🍏 Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gRwbTtVQ 🎵 Spotify: 🎵 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/ggrTdgq6 🎶 Amazon Music: https://lnkd.in/gbwJF5Nr 🙏 A big thank you to our sponsors who make this podcast possible each week: Alvarez & Marsal Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Simbe, ClearDemand, Infios, and Ocampo Capital. #RetailNews #RetailPodcast #KraftHeinz #ReturnToOffice #TariffInflation #SupermarketTrends #ShopifyAI #RetailTech #OmniTalk #RetailFastFive #StartupSpotlight #EcommerceTrends #RetailInnovation

This week’s Alvarez & Marsal Consumer and Retail Group’s “Put You on the Spot” Question of the Week: “When the gas-finding app GasBuddy took off, the pricing transparency to consumers put major pressure on fuel retailers to dynamically respond to the competitive pricing environment around them. But it also served to firmly establish relative pricing strategies for those same retailers across the market. As this kind of pricing transparency makes its way to grocery via the Grocery Dealz, LLC. app, should retailers be concerned about a race to the bottom or is there an inherent benefit in there for them?” For the full #fastfive episode, sponsored by the Alvarez & Marsal Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and ClearDemand head here: https://lnkd.in/gSSYydMv #retail #retailing #onlineshopping #shoppingandtheretailindustry #grocery