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 U.S.

wow.

The extension follows Walmart's June 2024 announcement to expand its use of Vision 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 for show of the year.

Okay.

Okay.

Are you ready for it?

Yeah, I guess so.

I'm as 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 ESLs in 2025?

Chris, what are your thoughts?

Oh, wow.

That's a real 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, 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, and so, you know, pay hooks are, you know what those are.

Right.

People familiar with mass market retailing will understand this, but there were like, maybe not hundreds of them, but tens of tens of them, you know, like 20, 30, 40, 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 nauseam 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, 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 Foot Locker 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 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 in feet 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, 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 anything 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 this 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, 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 Otin of Fusion Group next week on Tuesday.

And we're going to 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 too, Chris.

And another tease for one of the videos that we'll be putting out here.

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

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.

How big is that 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 Fantasia.

Remember that song?

No.

Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe.

I, I don't know.

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