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To Omnitalk's Retail Fast Five, ranked in the top 10% of all podcasts globally and currently the only retail retail podcast ranked in the top 100 business podcasts on Apple Podcasts.

The Retail Fast Five is the podcast that we hope makes you feel a little smarter, but most importantly, a little happier each week too.

And the Fast 5 is just one.

Of the many great podcasts 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 into each week on the latest retail technology Trends.

Today is January 29, 2025.

I'm one of your hosts, Anne 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.

Chris no surprise to any of our listeners, but we're headed on a plane again today to go back to another conference.

This time we're going to Marco island, which I love.

I have to tell our listeners that when you tell people where we're going, you always say San Marco island.

And it does sound a little more exotic, which I love.

But what are you most excited about for this trip?

I'm definitely excited about getting hopefully someplace warmer, although I've heard and that Florida is not that warm this time of year.

At least it wasn't last week.

But I'm excited about getting out of the cold, Minnesota.

And I'm excited about interviewing the retail executives out there, the grocery executives.

We got some, we got some bangers going to reconnect with David Best, the CEO of Coburn's former friend and colleague, and a whole host of other great executives from, hopefully Sprouts and Hy Vee, and you name it, we got them on the list.

And I'm excited about it.

How about you?

Yeah, me too.

I mean, I, I'm excited.

My, my mom and dad are down in that area, so I'm going to spend the time with them once we wrap up the, the Food Marketing Institute conference.

But super excited.

We're partnering with Cindy on that.

And, and yeah, we have a lot of great content to bring you through the weekend.

Because you know what, Chris?

We don't rest on Friday.

We just go all weekend long with the retail party.

That is a hundred percent right.

And, and yeah, you're right.

We're going to be doing it with Simbi Simbi, the sponsor of this podcast as well.

And if you're going to be at the show, which I imagine a lot of you are, because it's a big, big show for a lot of the big time executives, stop by and see us.

We're going to be at Booth108 on Friday and Saturday all day long doing interviews.

So, Ann, I'm super thrilled.

All right, let's get to the headlines, Chris.

They're not coming with us to Florida.

They don't care.

They just want to know what the retail headlines are this week.

Although I imagine quite a few of our listeners are jealous about the sunny confines of Florida.

It's like, where in the world are Chris and Ann this week?

All right, today's headlines are brought to you in partnership with etel.

Yes.

Because we need to go to another conference in just 31 days.

You can join and, and just this time in sunny Palm Springs.

Yes, she is taking this one for the team going to the great Palm Springs.

Your heart should go out to her.

I'll take this one too, fans.

Yes, you'll take this one.

I'll take the Palm Springs conference.

No problem.

Chris said this, this is a nice conference.

I'm not gonna lie.

She will be with the best of the best in retail brands and technology including H and M, skims, Zappos, Fabletics, Pacsun and more.

You can use code etail partner, all one word, etail partner to get 20% off this must attend event.

In this week's Fast 5, we've got news on Walmart enabling its suppliers to test products in Walmart's customers homes.

Starbucks rolling out ceramic mugs and macchiato art.

I just like saying that.

And Levi's claim that Google cloud could help it jump on the quote, baggy jeans trend.

Walmart lifting its max pay for regional store managers above 60, $600,000, not 60,000 and $600,000.

And Justin Hahnemann of AWS stops by for five insightful minutes to discuss the key trends he is seeing in 2025 and to give us his take on Amazon ads recently launched retail ad services.

But we begin today with, dare I say it.

And an interesting move from Amazon related to its grocery strategy.

That's right, Chris.

Headline number one is that Amazon this week announced that current Whole Foods CEO and Beagle will take the helm for its entire worldwide grocery business.

According to grocery dive, Beagle, who already oversees the vast majority of Amazon's grocery stores as the head of Whole Foods, will now be atop the Amazon Fresh traditional supermarket chain and Amazon Go fleet of convenience stores.

Doug Harrington, the CEO of worldwide Amazon stores, praised Beagle's experience running Whole Foods in the Monday announcement, saying, quote, in his time as CEO, Jason has unlocked our ability to make high quality natural and organic groceries more affordable and accessible to customers, end quote.

And that Walmart, or sorry, that Walmart, that Whole Foods has achieved, quote, record sales growth, end quote, under Beagle.

And in somewhat related news, Amazon also announced that it plans to close another one of its Amazon Go stores in Woodland hills, California on February 26, meaning its total store count will have decreased about 50% since early 2023.

Wow, Chris, with all, with all that out of the way, do you think, Mr.

He just goes by Jason if you're friends with him.

But do you think that Beagle is the right person to head Amazon's grocery strategy?

Whoa.

All right, we're getting started off hot here again and man, I mean, I gotta, I gotta think about how I want to answer that question.

You know, I think Jason seems like a good dude, but you know, I gotta be true, true to the show and give my opinion here.

But there's a lot to unpack in this Headline, which is why I think we started out with it.

And I think it all depends on what Amazon's goal is here with their grocery strategy.

If it's retreat, which given the Amazon go headlines, I kind of think that might be what it is.

It's just like, throw the white flag and call it a day, then, sure, give him more responsibility.

Wind down Amazon Fresh and Amazon go make that part of his job.

And it feels like that's what they're doing to me.

But if it's grow the business, honestly, I'm a little, little skeptical.

And I think the dude's sharp, he's articulate, but I don't, I don't really know what he's done for Whole Foods.

I mean, the record sales growth claim kind of shocked me a little bit, you know, especially given the massive inflation we've had too, in the grocery industry.

So I'm a little bit like, okay, how much do I put into that claim?

You know, it sounds like something I'm trying to do to chin up, you know, excitement.

The daily Shop, which is like his like bread and butter strategy for Whole Foods, is just getting off the ground.

I don't think we could say that that's successful yet.

And we have a lot of skepticism about how well that's going to work too.

And, you know, I just go back to what I've said on the show a lot of times.

Is Whole Foods really better off now than it Was back in 2017?

I don't think so.

I mean, I think Walmart is stronger with upper incomes.

Sprout is doing great.

Sprouts is doing great.

Like, so I just don't know if the track record's there yet to be like, this is the guy that's going to re enliven our Amazon, you know, grocery growth strategy.

It feels like, it feels like a promotion based on potential versus, like actual experience and performance to me, quite honestly.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that you bring up a really important point, which is where is the future for Amazon in the grocery space?

I think that's what we really have to focus on here and now.

This, this, this, like, placement of Beagle now, if, if it follows the way that it should go, I think there certainly could be some positives coming out of this.

Like, is he leading the strategy?

He does know the Whole Foods shopper.

He's been in the Whole Foods ecosystem for a very long time.

He knows what the Whole Foods customers are expecting.

I think it just depends on will he get to start making calls about the Daily shop that you mentioned or the way, the direction in which Amazon takes grocery, and I don't know that that's possible.

Like, I think it's a good, it's a good thing to do.

I think Amazon is taking a hard look at what their grocery strategy should be and if he's put in this role, he's really in control of driving the strategy.

There could be some changes.

My thought though, Chris, is that the more likely scenario is that we continue to kind of further see the degradation of Whole Foods as we know it.

I think we're going to start to see Pepsi in the aisles.

I think that, that Jason being in charge will be like, yeah, this isn't the, the Whole Foods that we know and love.

But I think Amazon will start pushing and be like, well, but we need the money from these CPGs, the concepts that we've been testing with the side by side or order ahead.

Like, I think that's where we start to see them going, which to your earlier point just puts them in closer competition with Walmart and some of the mass merchants out there who are doing organic foods, who are doing that at a lower price point that Whole Foods is never going to beat.

And then I think you, you kind of, you, you push away the Whole Foods customers to places like Sprouts, like you're talking about.

Wow.

Yeah, wow, that's really interesting.

So you think they might go that direction.

That's like the third realm here, right?

Of like, you know, where.

I hope not, I hope not.

But I mean, I think just based on what we know about Amazon, I, I think that's probably the direction that they're about money, they're about making money and how they do that quickly.

So, yeah, I was like looking at the resume too.

And you know, and his resume is 13.

I think it's like 13 years at Accenture, like over a decade at Accenture, which, you know, is mostly it, then came into Whole Foods as kind of an IT strategist guy.

And then to your point, he's been at Whole Foods now, I think since 2013, so like almost 12 years at whole Foods.

So he's got a good grocery understanding.

But you know, how much merchandising is in there is my question.

But we got to hear him speak at retail spaces and he did seem like he was very, you know, interested in understanding the merchandising aspect of the business.

So, yeah, God knows where this goes, but it's going to be fascinating what the other thing, I can't say Beagle without thinking of beaker from, from the Muppets.

Can you?

I don't know.

That's just every time you say beagle I'm like.

But anyway.

All right, headline number two.

Moving on Walmart.

Yep, we are.

Walmart will now let suppliers test products in its customers homes.

According to modern retail.

Last Wednesday Walmart launched a program in which verified customers can receive products at their homes, test them and provide feedback to suppliers.

The in home user test program is for suppliers that pay to subscribe to it insights platform Walmart Luminate, which the retailer recently renamed Scintilla.

In early February, Walmart Luminate researchers will help brands design surveys to collect customer feedback on new or existing products.

Walmart will offer the test to customers from Walmart's customer spark community, an invitation only group of Walmart shoppers.

The retailer has used to conduct surveys since 2018.

And this is the put you on the spot question.

This week I get a break finally this week.

Wow.

All right, all right, let's bring it A and M.

Here it is.

Quote, investing in consumer research and direct usage testing is always a positive, always a positive towards building more consumer friendly products with higher probability of success.

Is there a downside to CPGs doing this through Walmart versus third party research agencies such as increased risk of delisting if consumer feedback is initially poor, End quote.

And what are your thoughts on that question?

You know I think the only downside that I can think of here would be is if the product creators, the CPGs, the same thing we talk about with retail technology companies.

If you're building your product for Walmart which is hard not to do because it's a massive retailer, you're building it for America.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's basically if you're, if you're not doing that though with the ability to consider like okay, how do I then make sure that this product works in Target, works in Sprouts, works in all these other retailers.

Like you can't just focus on the Walmart represent or the Walmart feedback that you're getting from these.

But I think you just said it, Chris.

I think that this is good because number one, you have confirmed Walmart shoppers.

This is not people from a focus groups.

I've done plenty of focus groups in my day who say yeah, I shopped at Walmart in the last six months or I think I did or I might or whatever.

I, I think there's still so much ambiguity in the cons in the consumer focus groups that I think this is somebody you know exactly is a confirmed Walmart shopper will be potentially in a place to buy this product.

And I think Walmart rep does do a better job of representing the core of the country.

So if you're going to scale this beyond the coast, like Walmart's a great representation and the CPGs and Walmart are gonna get a ton of data from this.

So I think it's a really good move.

I think it just is important, like that's the data collection side of things.

I said I still think it's important to have the art side of the merchandising here to really understand, okay, what's the data that we're getting from Walmart from the majority of the country and how do we delicately design that product to fit, fit within those other retailers that are going to be in our portfolio.

But you, you're the, the merchant here.

So what you mean you've done plenty of these tests too?

What do you think?

Yeah, I mean I, I, I, I, I think you're drinking the Kool Aid a little bit on this one and I, I kind of tend to side with where I think the A and M consumer and retail group was leading us with that question, which is why would, why would the CPG sign up for this?

Like I, I don't, I don't think if I'm a cpg, I don't think I would and I honestly, I think, you know, for me this, I hate to say it, but this just, and fair play to Walmart for doing it and this just feels like a way to squeeze more incremental money out of your vendor community.

Because if, like, if I'm a vendor, it's not hard, I mean it's not hard to find Walmart shoppers.

It's really not through third party research firms.

It's not, maybe, maybe there's occasionally somebody that's lying, but for the most part you can find somebody.

And you know, and so like why, why?

And so if that's the case, if I'm a cbg, why do I need Walmart to help me design tests for new products?

And the other part I don't like about this, which, which is different than the reasons that A and M gave for not liking it or potentially not liking it is I don't want to give, I don't want Walmart to get insight into the data that I'm collecting on what's working and not working with my new product development because then they could go and take that and put that into their own private label development.

Why would I?

Yeah, but they're going to do that anyway, right?

I mean they're going to get that in.

They're not going to have your research data, they're not going to have your feedback on your products.

No, they're just going to know what's selling and what's not at the end of the day off the shelf and that might still spur them but like if you're, if you're doing some new recycled packaging or some new thing, you know, in terms of some, some new like label claim around like the, the Ozempic craze or whatever, they're going to get insight into that more quickly than they would otherwise and they could put that in their private lab.

And so, so maybe I'm, I'm, maybe I'm missing something but I don't know.

The merchant had in me is like good job Walmart.

You can press them into, you know, spending more money with you but at the end of the day if I'm a cpg, I'm like treading really lightly here and I'm putting the minimum expected commitment into this program with Walmart.

That's what I think.

Oh, I think there's, I think there's so much more opportunity to like I just as a Walmart plus member.

Like I think there's so many more opportunities to capture like that upper income demographic and I do think, I think that there's more to knowing you have a Walmart shopper especially in grocery and, and understanding what their purchasing behaviors are, what else they like, what other flavor profiles they like.

Like I think there's a lot more data exchange that could be happening and you're right, I'm sure there's some hook in there just like with retail media like you have to be part of this program and pay us more money if you're going to be like, I'm sure there's a lot of nuance in.

There but part of the vendor summit?

Yes.

I, I don't know.

I think I, I think it's worth exploring.

I would like to see it.

I, I guess I'll, I just, it's something I want to follow and see if we start to see this pickup as you know, with the rebrand of the name, who knows, maybe it'll take off and what is it?

Resilience or something there salience or something.

How can I forget?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh my God.

My bet.

If I was a betting man I would say, I would say we'll never hear about this headline again.

That's what I think.

But, but anyway this next headline ad is my personal favorite.

I know, I know you're pumped about this one.

Headline number three, Starbucks is betting on mugs and macchiato art as part of its new CEOs plan.

According to Bloomberg, when customers walk into Starbucks, when they walk into Starbucks this week, actually on Monday, the vibes are going to be different.

Did you feel it?

I did not feel it.

But did you feel it, Chris?

Did you go into Starbucks?

I haven't been yet this week.

I haven't been to Starbucks yet.

But we get to Florida, this is the first thing I'm doing.

Okay.

Workers will now ask guests if they want drinks for here or to go, offering ceramic mugs for those who want to stay.

Baristas will also be more vigilant.

This is my favorite about topping macchiatos with a caramel crosshatch pattern made up of exactly seven vertical lines and seven horizontal lines, which will take seven minutes too long, in my opinion.

Finished with a spiral.

Now, Chris, do you agree with new CEO Brian Nichols move to offer ceramic mugs to in store customers and do a crosshatch caramel pattern?

What do you think?

Oh, my God, this is so many jokes coming into my head.

But anyway, to answer that question, no, I actually don't.

I think, I think he's moving way too fast on this and way too fast.

You know, I've said on the show many times I've been 100% bought in on the 4 minutes or less idea, and I have noticed a discernible difference in store wait times versus ordering on mobile.

So I give him big points on that and big marketing credit for that too, because he's done a masterful job on that.

But here's the other thing.

And dude, Brian has only been enrolled since September, which is like less than four months, you know, like, yeah, so, so, and now you're introducing ceramic comps on a massive scale to roll out across the chain.

That's a huge change.

Like, I'm like, how, how long did you test that?

Like, that's the type of thing to me that should be tested for at least six months, if, if not a year.

So, and then, and then the example thing too is like.

Or the other question I have is like, what about the environments themselves?

Like, you know, like, I would say that the environments at Starbucks in general need to be improved.

Like, if I look at the variants, the variance between like the different stores that are around me, like the three different stores, they're all different environments.

Like, I'm not going to want ceramic mugs in all of those.

I might want them in some of them, but not all of them.

So why am I rolling this out to all stores?

So it feels like you're putting the cart before the horse, before the horse, before the horse.

But I don't know, maybe it's not that big of a change, but I just think, like, you know, not understanding the impact of spills, more mess, more tilts in the operations, that you have to evaluate it for longer because, you know, if it doesn't work or causes some wrinkle down the line, then what do you do?

Do you pull it back?

I don't know.

It's.

At the end of the day, this feels like leadership by fiat to me, based on how quickly it's happening.

And whenever leadership by fiat happens, that concerns me.

So I'm a little worried about this in the long run.

What's leadership by fiat?

Yeah, I mean, it's like three.

Like, I'm, I'm, like, I'm, I'm, I.

I'm smarter than everyone else.

And this is what I'm going to tell our organization to do.

Regardless of testing it or understanding if it's the right move.

This just feels like too fast for me.

I'm not saying it's wrong.

Yeah.

But, wow, it seems riskier to me than probably the media is going to pick up on.

And then the impacts of the experience in the long run could be bad because what if, I mean, Starbucks stores have not been very clean of late?

Like, what if they're just sitting around, like, just on tables, like, not picked up and stuff?

And like, I don't know, it could just detract from the overall experience, too.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think my bigger issue with this is like, your whole goal is about throughput.

Like, you need to make more money at Starbucks.

And this doesn't seem like a way.

I don't understand how this is doing it or, you know, like you said, introducing a new, A new version of how you get your coffee and having to clean that and clean, you know, mugs that are left around the.

Like you're taking people away from doing the work of making the coffee faster and getting more product through.

You've always been on the other side of this argument.

You don't actually like that he's going this direction at all.

You, like, just like getting the throughput, getting it in the hands, going faster, faster, faster.

Right?

For sure.

I just, I don't think this makes any sense.

The only thing I could think of is, like, now that you have ceramic mugs and they just put in this new rule, like, you can't loiter at a Starbucks.

You have to buy something.

Like, maybe now there's no lid on the cup, so they can be like, get out of here, your coffee's gone.

Go buy more or get out of the store.

So that's the only logic I have, which is a super stretch that they'd be able to see with a ceramic mug that there's no more coffee left and they can kick people out.

That's, that's it.

That's all I got, Chris.

Really?

That's what you, you think that's, that?

Wow, that's crazy.

No, I don't really think that.

I'm just.

Yeah, you don't think that.

But that's like digging deep.

I'm like, maybe with my ceramic, you know, if I'm sitting at a table and I can have an empty cup sitting there for four hours, as we know some people like to do, like, maybe then, I don't know.

I, I, I have no idea.

Okay, so let's, let's put our money where our mouth is real quick on this.

Let's eat what we cook, and let's go test this out this week when we're in Florida.

But, so, so you're saying having your coffee in a ceramic mug would have no impact on your desire to sit inside of a Starbucks?

No, I prefer not to have a ceramic mug, actually.

Yeah, like in the, in a Starbucks, like, I, I, I'm not there for long.

I want to get in and get out.

There's no Starbucks is still not an environment that makes me want to stay.

So I want, I, there's no reason for me to have a ceramic mug in that place.

Yeah, that's what I think.

That's what, that's kind of what I was trying to get at too, is I think, like, maybe, but it's not the first thing that needs to happen for me to feel like I want to stay there.

Right.

It's, it's like the third or fourth decision criteria for me of wanting to stay there and the environment and the design of the environment and the cleanliness of the environment is first and foremost.

So.

Wow.

Okay.

All right, well, let's bring Justin onto today's show.

Joining us now for five insightful minutes is the head of Worldwide retail Restaurants and the consumer goods business development at aws, Justin Hahnemann.

Justin is here to discuss the key trends he is seeing for 2025 and to give us his thoughts on Amazon ads recently launched retail ad services as well as many, many more topics.

Justin, let's start off with this.

What are the key topics and or trends you're hearing for 2025?

Three big areas I'd say that were top of mind this week.

One, of course, AI.

You can't not be talking AI now.

And you know, AI has been around since the 50s, but a lot of new, a lot of new use cases around generative AI.

We just launched a whole new set of models at AWS called Nova.

And these are a brand new set of foundation models.

Everything from text to images to video and videos really coming to life this year.

The second area, Retail Ad Services, is a new service we launched literally in the last two weeks.

It's taking the engine from Amazon Advertising and allowing retailers to use that to drive ads on their own site.

Powerful, you know, leveraging the best practice of, of how you execute ads at Amazon advertising and retailers to use that.

Really, really powerful.

And then the third area, I'd say, you know, an old phrase but I think is important, unified commerce.

So still bringing together the in store experience with the digital experience and, and really creating an environment for consumers and shoppers to connect with a retailer or brand.

All the things you just talked about, especially with Gen, what do companies need to be doing with the tools you just talked about in order to generate business value or see the business value and to generate more revenue in 2025?

It links back to data.

And so a big focus of our customers is on the customer data, the operational data, the connection of operations in the stores data.

And in order to do some of the modeling and leveraging generative AI, you've got to have access to that.

So we've really seen an acceleration, therefore in movement to cloud acceleration move to more flexible data platforms and acceleration investment in cleaning up data.

And that all is the foundation to allowing you to take advantage of things like the Nova models that we just launched.

All right, I want to go back to what we teased at the top because that was primarily why we were super excited to have you on today's program.

Amazon Ads.

Amazon Ads just launched Retail Ads Service as it's called.

Can you tell us more about that?

And also I want to get your thoughts on retail media networks in 2025.

Yeah, so if you've been around retail for any number of years now, we've seen this kind of vertical chart of what retail media revenue could be for a retailer based on ad spend from like a brand or whatnot on those retailer sites or in store.

Right.

So for us, you know, Amazon advertising is a very significant business underneath Amazon and the engine that executes basically ads on a site.

We've now taken and made that available to retailers so they can use that as a service, execute ads on their own site.

And the orders that might be executed through ads are executed by that retailer.

They are not executed through Amazon.com, so it's basically taking a service from the ad side, allowing retailers to leverage it to drive traffic, drive spend, to drive execution of orders on their own site.

It's very powerful.

It literally was just launched in the last two weeks.

We had a lot of interest actually this week from retailers that are looking at ways to better leverage retail media spend.

Justin, let's get you out of here on this.

Everything you've talked about makes a lot of sense for a retailer's investment, but what does it mean for the end consumer?

Knowing that that's always going to be top of mind for retailers and brands every year.

And how do you kind of see that evolving in 2025 in consumer, you're.

Going to see a level of personalization that you have not experienced elsewhere.

I think that's one big thing you'll see across retailers is the investment in data, the investment in capabilities is going to provide a better experience, a more personalized experience, one where we know you to serve you.

If you think about it from a retailer's perspective.

And then our job with a retailer, for example, is to serve up the tools, the infrastructure, the kind of the how the how do we enable that experience for the customer, the retailer with that customer and for a brand.

Remember, we, we work with the vast majority of brands in the world.

We're helping them connect to customers, the retailer and they're in consumer or shopper.

So we really have an important role to play in the end customer experience to then backing it up from that into the retailer and then back to the brand.

Justin, how do you think about that across both the physical stores and the digital commerce environment?

Yeah, the challenge for most retailers is they built their physical store kind of infrastructure, technology platform separate from E commerce.

And so many of the legacy retailers are still struggling to, I'll say, integrate that so that they can operate across different channels.

And that's something we're helping our customers with, especially as it relates to what's called composable commerce.

So that's a big focus for us with legacy retailers.

For the, I'd say the digital native retailers or those that might be newer, a lot of them started in cloud.

They launched in cloud.

So they're very interested in new tech, new capabilities they can launch quickly to better that experience, whether it be on a mobile app, the website, or in store.

And then the third area that I just mentioned is the in store experience for the actual employee.

Right.

How do you enable the staff member to have better insights into a customer or better insights into actual inventory and whatnot?

So there's a lot of focus on technology, not only for the customer, but for the staff member in store.

Great stuff, Justin.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

Headline number four.

Levi's reportedly crunched the data to jump on the baggy jeans trend.

According to the Wall street journal, in 2020, Levi signed a deal with Google Cloud and began gathering data points from purchases, web browsing retail partner sales and its loyalty program into a Google database and running daily machine learning algorithms designed to identify and predict purchase trends.

Jesus Christ.

And how many, how many buzzwords were in that last sentence?

A lot.

For the last time, Levi's Chief digital.

For the first time, not the last time, and for the first time, Levi's Chief Digital Officer Jason Gowens told the Journal, Levi's was able to continuously pull together data from 110 countries, not 100 and 110 countries, and 50,000 points of distribution, only 1100 of which were Levi's own stores.

As a result, the new data system helped the company understand that Baggy and Loose silhouettes weren't just for the TikTok generation, they were for everyone.

As a result, Levi's dove into marketing campaigns like Live Loose, gotta like that campaign and began evangelizing on the trendiness of roomier fits to its retail partners.

And yes, are you buying or selling the impact of data that Levi's claims it has had on its business?

My God, there's so many merchandising questions in this.

I feel like I'm just getting slaughtered and they're going right to me.

So I'm, I'm interested to hear where you land on this, Chris.

But look, I'm buying because the price is low.

I'm buying because the price is low and things can only go up from here.

Not because I think this baggy jeans example is like the case study I would choose to represent investing in this kind of data.

But I think you and I have heard repeatedly over the course of the last several weeks at all these conferences that the number one thing that the retail CEOs and executives that we've been interviewing have been saying that they're investing in is data to support decision making.

For them, including in merchandising scenarios.

I think you also have to be invested and AI tools to kind of aggregate this data to really bring that to something that the buying and merchandising teams at Levi's in this case can really utilize and help inform some of the decisions they're making.

But much like the Walmart story that we were talking about earlier within home testing, I still think that that's going to be the thing that you have to invest in, but you still need the art of the merchandising here.

Like, you still need.

A good merchant would know that the baggy jeans trend is coming.

A.

A good merchant understands that.

But I think what's cool about this is that I think you start to position Levi's in a more competitive space against some of the fast fashion players out there, like Shein and Timu, who are taking aggregated data on their platforms.

How much timing, like, what people are searching, how much time they're spending engaging with, you know, games or shopping experiences for certain products in the app and then using that data to determine how much of products they make, what trends are kind of coming down the pipeline.

I think there's, there's a use case for this.

I think this is just an early stage and maybe not the best example for it, but I have a feeling that you're gonna, you're gonna take this in a completely different direction.

Chris.

Well, and you're not buying.

You're not buying.

I gotta tell you, you know me really, really well at this point.

You could probably tell from how I did the re.

I'm.

I'm.

No, I'm not buying this.

I'm selling this hard.

In fact, like, I think back, this is like, why, why I personally got into the business that we're in is to call.

Call PS on headlines like this, I'm selling this so hard.

This, this story to me is an example of claiming text impact for something that lines up after the fact, after it's happened.

Okay, the baggy trend, you're just doing this on leave, like, for this Levi's.

Yeah, I'm.

The claim on the claim that Levi's is attributing their success on the baggy jeans trend to their partnership with Google Cloud.

I just think it's total baloney.

I mean, and seriously, the baggy jeans trend, you didn't see that coming?

I saw that coming.

You know, like, I mean, and you're telling me, like, you even mentioned all the fashion merchants at Levi's went to data from Google Cloud to Tell them the baggy jeans trend was coming.

Come on, I wasn't born yesterday.

And, and, and, but, you know, my last I'd say is, good job by you, Jason Gowans, for trying to make Levi's sound much cooler from a tech standpoint than it probably is.

And, and for my friends there, like, I've heard very, very different varying degrees of how, how tech forward Levi's is and how, and how much they struggle on the tech side of things.

So, so maybe so.

I, I just think this is taking a victory lap for something that is just nicely correlated with your sales performance.

That's what I'd say.

So, so to clarify then, I think so you're saying you're selling the, the claim that Levi's is making.

You're not selling the idea that companies should be investing in this type of technology to aggregate supply their merchants with and that there could be a positive outcome from that?

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

100.

Yes.

Okay, here's.

I think we're on the same page.

I think we're on the same page.

Yes.

Here's how I'm guessing this conversation actually went down.

If I had, if I had, you know, a bird's eye view into Macy's if I was a fly in the wall or not Macy's in Levi's, if I was a fly on the wall in Levi's, like, the fashion, the, the merchants are like doing their line review.

They're like, biggie, baggy jeans is going to be the trend this year.

We're going to buy into it big.

And then some computer walk in the side's like, yep, our data says that, that, let's do that.

And then they're like, okay, fine, yeah, let's take credit for it.

That's how it works.

You know that.

Well, that's, that's a funny thing about retail.

I mean, there's there's only.

Still so much art and sci, you know, so much science that goes into the art of just having to make bet.

I mean, Levi's has to make some pretty big freaking bets pretty darn early too.

So, like, I, I don't know.

I just, I don't.

I'm not buying it.

Maybe a little bit, but not buying it.

All right, all right, fair.

Well, we kind of agree.

Not.

But not on the baggage jeans case study.

That's where we'll leave this.

Oh, yeah.

Data 100 data is the foundation of good retailing going forward.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Headline number five.

Walmart is boosting what it pays.

Regional store managers this year, enabling the top performers to take home more than $600,000 a year.

According to the Wall Street Journal, regional managers responsible for clusters of a dozen Walmart stores, a role known as a market, will be able to earn between $420,000 and $620,000 if they get their full bonuses this year.

That total is up from a range of roughly 320,000 to 570,000 last year.

The retail giant recently told these supervisors about increased bonus and stock awards, changes that reflect how their jobs of running a collection of stores have become more critical to the company's success.

At the same time, Walmart is pulling back on perks for office based staff, such as gradually ending remote work, cutting some pay and shifting workers to the same health insurance plans offered to most store staff.

Chris, are you pro or con?

Walmart increasing its benefits for regional store managers?

Especially important since you were one.

Yes, I was, thank you.

But for Target.

Yeah, not for Walmart, not for Walmart, but for Target.

And were you making $640,000 a year?

Because that is pretty sweet.

God no.

And I was a store manager when the sales weren't that great at Target either, so it definitely was not.

Or a regional manager at Target when the sales were not great either.

So no, I was not.

But the great thing about this headline to end the show is finally a headline I can laud.

I feel like I think every headline this week but this one I'm lauding.

I love this move and why, you know, why Other retailers are closing stores.

Walmart is investing in its bread and butter and signaling to the entire organization.

This is my favorite part.

They are signaling to the entire organization that store level work is as important, if not more important, than the work done in headquarters.

And I got to tell you, and to your point, having done this exact job at Target, that is true.

The scope of the job is much harder, much, much harder and requires an entirely different skill set than what I was getting paid for at an equivalent salary for my HQ roles at Target.

Like hands down, I would say that every day to the cows come home.

And at HQ also you're a dime a dozen.

But good, competent field leaders are much, much harder to find.

Like you can find pick some random MBA off the street, but get an MBA in there to run a store and let alone run a region, that's a whole different thing.

So Walmart, kudos to you for understanding what really leads to your success, which is fundamentally your performance in your stores.

Got to give you credit on this one.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean I think it's about time.

I never understood even you know, in our days at Target why you know, we had different bathrooms than the head at the headquarters than the stores teams.

Like it's like little things like that.

And so I think even looking at like the health care being consistent across the board, like you should be treating these store teams who are still making the most impact to your bottom line.

They're responsible for successfully rolling out all this technology and eventually creating a positive customer experience that's going to keep all the HQ jobs funded anyway.

Like these are the people who you should be investing in.

Plus I think it's really important when you think of, and I hope that this, this helps with attrition in these jobs early on, like the early store associate jobs.

It gives you a really well deserved and well laid out career path for something to aspire working.

Yes.

Like if I know as an associate starting as a 16 year old begging groceries like you know, Doug McMillan did or stocking shelves like that, that I have a career path that could net me up to $600,000 a year.

Like I am loyal to this company, I am working hard and I am invested in making sure that this is a great experience overall.

So I think it's a really, really brilliant move by Walmart and I think just goes to show how they are able to move so quickly and how they've come to the position that they're in because the hierarchy BS is not present.

They're making sure that everybody's value is being appropriately rewarded in the organization.

It's not about you know, who's friends with who or you know, what, what relationships are in which places.

It's do the work and you get paid for it and we treat people equally here and I think that's really impressive.

Yeah, no, 100%.

And I gotta ask you because I'm sure our listeners are wondering, and I'm wondering too, what did you mean about the Target bathrooms?

What was, what was that about?

I didn't understand, I didn't like when.

We were building store of the future and we were trying to look at like what should the store bathrooms be like for associates, you know, at a Target store versus what the bathrooms were like at the headquarters.

And that was always like a sticking point was you know, headquarters has the, have these like, like beautiful floor to ceiling like windows and you know, state of the art beautiful.

It was like walking into a casino or a hotel room at headquarters to go into the bathrooms and there's all these like Paper products and feminine products out for people.

And then you go into the store's bathrooms and it's like you're lucky if you got a toilet that's not clogged that you're gonna sit down at.

And it was just things like that that we were really working to invest in at Target.

And you've seen some of that in the store remodels that have happened certainly since then.

But just like we wanted to make the experience as good as we had it at headquarters for the store, the regional managers, the store managers, and the team members that were working day in and day out, there's no reason they shouldn't have those things too.

Yeah, I got you.

So, like, yeah, we were.

I remember that.

Yeah, we were asking the questions like, should we have a shower for the people that bike to work or kids to work?

You know, like we do at headquarters, you know.

Right.

You know, we were just talking about it at that time, but like, those are the types of things that we're saying.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I had forgotten about that.

Thanks for.

Thanks for.

Thanks for taking me down memory lane.

And I was, oh my God, anytime, Chris.

You know, I'd do that.

All right, well, let's get people out of here.

Let's go to the lightning round.

Chris, question number one is for you.

I was so excited when I read this because it's perfect for you.

Weight in the UK has made two major changes in an effort to steal back share from competitors.

Number one, they've reintroduced their free daily tea or Americano program for all loyalty members with or without purchase.

And back by popular demand, Chris is their original recipe ultra plush toilet paper.

They have brought it back after your customers complained that the new toilet paper was two plies too thin.

Which is of greater value to you, Chris, and would get you to shop at a weight rose more ply in the paper or a free morning Americano.

Oh, man, you do know me so well.

100%.

It's the.

The two ply toilet paper.

And letting.

Letting the listeners in on a little secret.

I now travel with my own toilet paper.

I'm bringing my own down to Florida because I.

I need the extra play.

My tushy needs some cushy.

And that's basically what I would say we were.

You guys, this is a taste of life on the road with Chris and myself.

Chris, we were walking off the plane, we stopped at the bathroom and Chris, like, do you hands a roll of toilet paper?

Do you want some toilet paper to bring into the bathroom?

In case you need it, while very thoughtful, was one of the memories that I will absolutely not forget.

That was standing next to the Wetzel's Pretzels in the middle of Las Vegas or New York Airport.

I did not need that ply, but I'm glad that you have it, Chris.

And Weight Roast has got you.

They've got your back.

You don't.

You don't ever want to be short of ply.

And.

All right.

Oreo has released limited edition post Malone Oreo cookies that feature a first of a kind, first of its kind swirled cream that is two different flavored cookies and embossments that represent Malone's music career.

Okay, Stretch.

Yeah.

Right.

All right.

Okay.

And.

But it made me think.

And if you were to design your own Oreo, what color would the filling and the cookie each be?

Oh, this was a fun experiment to think about, Chris.

It would be an Oreo cookie on top and a chewy Chips Ahoy on the bottom with a vanilla bean cream center.

Like, I want a little Oreo, a little chocolate chip, and then a cream center.

So it'd be not possible to produce Oreo.

The testing would not go well with a Walmart group, because I think so.

It'd be like multiple cookies with the cream filling in the center.

That's.

That's.

It would be like an Oreo top cream filling.

And then instead of another Oreo chocolate cookie, it would be like a chewy Chips Ahoy or like a chocolate chip cookie on the bottom.

Well, maybe, maybe, maybe the makers of Oreo should test that through Walmart's new scintilla.

That's what I said.

It would not test well, so don't do it.

That's not the.

Not the road you should be going down.

But, Chris, I'm going to go to you next.

According to fashion editors, house slippers are a footwear trend to watch in 2025.

As a house shoe aficionado, what are the critical components of a good house shoe or slipper?

Man, you're bringing out all the skeletons in the wall.

I am like, all my little office the news.

It's not me.

Yeah, right, right.

Yeah.

I'm sure it wasn't directed at me at all.

Yes.

For those.

For those.

For those that are listening, I always wear my shoes in the house.

I never walk around my house barefoot, so.

And to answer your question, a good pair of house shoes or slippers have to be sturdy.

They have to stand up to stepping on a Lego or bumping your toe into a side table, both of which that I've done many times, and it hurts.

So these have to have, like, shoe bottoms.

You're talking like, solid bottoms.

Like an ugg.

See, you know where I'm going next.

Yes.

Because this is why I'm actually not a slipper fan at all.

Okay.

I always just prefer to wear my shoes in the house.

Yes, that makes sense.

Do you go out in the garage with your shoes on?

Like.

Or outside to get, like, the paper or something or take the garbage out with your house shoes on or they just stay in the house?

House.

I don't change my shoes when I come in from the outside.

I just feel like this is a Mr.

Rogers situation.

Like, Chris puts his outside shoes on to go take the garbage out and then puts his inside shoes back on.

No, they're.

They're in and out.

Doesn't matter.

If I were.

If I were staying.

Like, for example, if I was staying at a long time at your house, I would bring a pair of house shoes because I know you require people to take their shoes off.

If I was staying at your house for more than one night, I would bring a pair of shoes and I'd be like, these have been disinfected.

I haven't brought them outside.

They're only going to be worn in your house, so you don't need to freak out.

And then I would take them.

I would put them on when I came in the door.

But several years of New York living will do that to you.

You don't.

You step in stuff in New York that you don't want walking around your house.

That's.

That ruined me forever.

I will say I do have house shoes for the winter in Minnesota, though, because, you know.

Okay.

You know, because you get.

Sometimes you have to take those shoes off because there's just so much ice and salt and everything.

Snow on the bottom of them.

But I love that.

Yeah, any.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, now you get a little insight into me, folks.

All right, the tr.

Now you get a little insight into an.

The trailer for White Lotus Season 3 debuted this week, and from the looks of it, an.

Yoga is very much front and center.

As someone that loves yoga and goes multiple times a week, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes.

What is what?

I've never asked you this.

What is your favorite yoga pose?

My favorite yoga pose is not really a pose.

It's a scorpion stretch.

So it's like you lay on your stomach, you thread your.

Your hand through your other hand and then you roll back.

So you kind of are like splayed out and it just, it's a really good back and shoulder stretch for those old bones that these days you just.

I do it every morning almost when I wake up so I can, you know, not that fall over when I get out of bed, but scorpion stress.

So you should give it a try.

So, so, so I should take from that.

You like a good splay?

You like.

You like a good.

Oh, yeah.

You like to be played?

Yeah, I mean, I'm splayed.

I'm.

That's kind of.

I splay all day.

That's pretty much my.

My MO is just falling over somewhere.

And.

And, yeah, that's.

And splaying.

Yeah, that's it.

Play all day and rose all day, all day.

Those are the two phrases that captured my business part of very well.

All right.

Happy birthday today to Ed Burns, Heather Graham, and to the 1982 Beastmaster himself, Mark Singer.

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