Retail technology of the year.

Ann, let's go back to you on this one.

Oh boy, I was not ready.

I will I did cover Jenny I in my last two headlines so I'm going to go away from that this year.

So I have my, my retail technology of the year.

You mentioned it earlier Chris in store robotics.

I think you have everything from the robotics that are happening help with automation and picking and back of house we talked about with Dometics Kim Beaudry early on just about how that's really getting smaller and smaller to simbi raising another $500 million to presumably kind of support the expansion for more retailers of tally in stores.

Even our visit last week Chris we went to SPS Commerce here in Minneapolis and we went into their DC and that was a really big light bulb moment for me not having spent a ton of time in DCs but just to see the room for error in packing facilities especially when you and I are in charge but really just understanding like this is the real place where robotics you know in the back of of a grocery store or something where they really can help speed things up and make make things safer for the employees that are in the back of house.

So that robots.

Robots are my robots is our See I've been saying robots is 2025 an so you're preempting me.

You're kind of coming in early on the robot headline.

That's interest interesting play there my friend.

Chad, what about you?

Well let's go to the envelope.

So let's go to the apology of the year.

Let's see what David had to say.

Doesn't get old Chad.

Doesn't get old.

I'm really glad there's like seven more of them so I hope.

All right.

Invisible barcodes.

Oh that was close on my list too.

Yeah, me too.

Really interesting.

I mean still, still early stage being piloted.

Right.

But I think what digimark and and Walmart have been putting together as a combination in order to speed meet up checkout and you know stem shoplifting as a, as an ancillary benefit could be really really game changing.

Right.

You know for, for an n of 1 I still hate self checkout.

My wife can't believe it but like going in and like the the way of scanning every single item at checkout like I actually think a cashier can do it faster than me.

Right.

It's the, it's the cue is the only reason I would use it.

But this mechanism to create speediness in that, in that self checkout delivery could really really amplify that and any element in order to be able to, you know, stem that, that theft, loss of people not scanning, holding things in their pocket, whatever, you know, just avoiding everything we can do to lock up the store has the potential to be a real game changer.

So there you go.

Tech tech announcement of the year.

Yeah, that's a good one.

That's a good one.

It also has a lot of backroom applications too, as you think about finding product quickly for employees too, over time.

So, yeah, that's an interesting one to keep an eye on.

All right, I'll go next.

So for mine, mine this year was I thought the easy one to do was like a generative AI play, you know, like you could easily do something like that.

But I didn't want to do that either.

Plus I didn't know the exact application yet, which I think is something we've been talking a lot about on the show.

The retailers don't know exactly what application is the best one yet.

So for me, this one might surprise you.

3.

I'm going with marketplaces.

Marketplace platforms.

Walmart is killing it with their marketplace.

Like it's driving a ton of their retail media growth.

And then you saw companies like Lowe's, Macy's, Nordstrom's, they've all started to build their own versions and all for the very same reason.

Right.

You can expand the assortment, but it also gets you the ability to scale your retail media ad dollars much more efficiently.

So with all the first party data that retailers have out there, I think you're starting to see that marketplaces are going to be the way that you help scale that retail media effort.

So that's why marketplaces wins for me.

David, close us out.

All right, so mine dove still is on Chad's shrink is one of the biggest issues retailers are facing today.

And frankly shrink in many situations is one of the reasons they're closing stores because they just can't control the shrink.

And when your shrink is higher than your sales, it just becomes untenable.

So this, this technology has not yet been fully rolled out.

But the most effective way to prevent shrink is to lock stuff up.

But locking stuff up is an awful consumer experience.

In comes Walmart with if you have the app and you are a loyalty customer, you can open it yourself.

I don't know exactly what it's called.

The loyalty phone unlock for locked up goods in terms of theft prevention is I think the wave of the future, especially in high theft areas and will enable some stores to stay open.

If we get widespread adoption that's my tech.

Wow.

Wow.

So you like that idea, David, huh?

That's interesting.

And just for clarification, too, Walmart so far for those listening is only testing that with employees.

They haven't rolled it out to customers yet, but people are hypothesizing that they could do that.

But, David, you like that from a customer experience standpoint and an overall retail sales standpoint?

Well, I think there's just places where you have to lock stuff up.

There's organized retail crime.

The only real way that has been proven to reduce that.

You can't have a security guard.

It is locking this stuff up.

So in a world where that has to happen, I think having an app where the customer can do it themselves rather than wait for someone to come from the back room to do it for them is a much better customer experience.

I also think there's a secondary benefit of driving people to your loyalty program, because if you, if you do it once or twice, waiting on someone like suddenly that if it's your corner store or the store that you shop the most, you're incentivized to join their loyalty program.

So I think it's a two prong, reduced sh.

Shrink, but also drive additional customers to your loyalty plan.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, it's a great.

That's a great, great call because, yeah, we see a lot.

We.

And I see a lot of companies that are really talking about detection, but prevention is a whole nother ball game.

So you like this on the prevention angle?

All right, Chad, who, Who won.

Who won the award here?

Who takes home retail technology of the year?

Oh, man.

I, I continue to be the.

You guys on your toes today.

I mean, I, I like, I like David's of David Brown.

All right, so I'm gonna go with.

I'm gonna go with the invisible barcodes.

All right.

All right, Very nice.

I love marketplaces, though.

That is not.

That's not an angle that I thought.

Of for this question or.

I know, I know.

That was a good pick, Chris.