Stay ConnectedOmni Talk Retail provides news, analysis, and commentary on the latest trends and issues in the retail industry. Created by a retailer, Chris Walton, for retailers, Omni Talk Retail covers a wide range of topics related to retail, including e-commerce, technology, marketing, and consumer behavior.
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In what had to be one of our favorite podcasts on AI from the NRF Innovation Lab, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sat down with Compass Digital Labs CTO, Scott Wu, to learn how his massive company, the Compass Group, is looking to bring computer-vision based checkout-free retail to food service and the many micro-markets it is opening at an astonishing clip.
In this podcast, Scott does an excellent job of relaying all the puts and takes that come with computer vision deployments, including how to view:
- New builds vs. retrofits
- Cameras vs. sensor fusion
- Operating on the edge vs. in the cloud
- And much, much more!
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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AI is helping retailers improve business agility in these unprecedented times.
Using store analytics, retailers can understand consumer behavior and optimize processes for better shopping experiences and faster, contactless checkout in stores with improved ROI.
But knowing where to start is always the big question. So we have brought together a senior retail asset protection executive and a system’s developer to talk about one use case, the deployment of AI in grocery self-checkout, that is already paying big dividends at one of the world’s most innovative grocery retailers.
In our latest AI Spotlight podcast, Kroger's Director of Assets Protection, Tom Arigi, and Everseen's VP of Strategy and Growth Initiatives, Alex Siskos, sit down with Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga live from the NRF Innovation Lab to discuss all that it took to rollout an improved AI-based self-checkout experience to roughly 1,700 Kroger stores at an astonishing pace.
And, that last sentence alone should give you an idea of the level of success Kroger is already seeing with the initiative!
*Sponsored Content*
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In the first of our special weeklong Spotlight Series highlighting AI in retail, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga interviewed Anand Muralidaran of NVIDIA and Andi Huels of Lenovo live from the NRF Innovation Lab.
Anand is NVIDIA's Head of Global Growth Strategy and AI Business Development for Retail, Consumer Goods, and QSR, and Andi is Lenovo's Head of AI for North America. In other words, they are both two absolute experts on the subject of how retailers are looking at AI in the coming years.
Give this podcast a listen, and you will hear which companies Anand and Andi believe are the ones to watch coming out of NRF, where AI will have the biggest retail impact in 2022 (the answer just may surprise you), and why AI has, without a doubt, crossed the chasm from buzzword to an everyday fact of retail life going forward.
*Sponsored Content*
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
How to fight online return fraud when all the players don't play by the same rules is a growing problem in retail.
And nowhere was this more evident than this past holiday season when the overall rate of e-commerce returns increased and so, too, did the rate of online return fraud.
Resident Omni Talk expert and retail commerce protection expert extraordinaire, Signifyd’s SVP of Operations and Corporate Development, Bennett, joined Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga to discuss this very topic and what to do about it.
The short-answer -- it takes AI and machine learning to attack the problem in real-time because that is the only solution that will work when the rules of the game are always changing.
*Sponsored Content*
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, David Ritter and Jonathan Sharp of A&M join Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga as they discuss:
- Walmart's porch delivery program.
- Gopuff's overt move into private label.
- Who made the bigger move in the checkout-free retail war this week: Aldi or Wakefern?
- The relative value of voice-assisted ordering in QSR vs. retail.
- And, closed with a discussion on the long-term viability of a new startup that just raised $25 million to help consumers, not Buy Now, but Save Money and Pay Later.
There's all that, plus Anne and I mutually patting each other's backs for being named Top 100 retail influencers, edible utensils, and David Ritter's favorite Taco Bell vice.
To redeem your $300 discount on the Manifest Conference, visit: manife.st/continue-registrati...
To learn more about Microsoft, visit: www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/r…cloud-for-retail
To learn more about the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, visit: www.alvarezandmarsal-crg.com/
To learn more about Takeoff, visit: www.takeoff.com/
To learn more about Sezzle, visit: www.sezzle.com/
Plus, check out our ranking in Feedspot’s 45 Top Retail Podcasts: blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/
Music by hooksounds.com
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
In a special NRF edition of The Omni Talk Spotlight Series, sponsored by Cleveron, Firework, and Scandit, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sit down with Gopuff Co-CEO and Co-Founder Rafael Ilishayev.
Gopuff started delivering a hundred or so products to college students back in 2013, today they're delivering over 4,000 SKUs in as little as 15-20 minutes to customers in many major cities in the US and around the world.
In this interview, Raf shares Gopuff's bold expansion plans for 2022, releasing another round of their "Put Me On" program for local CPG's and businesses, and further developing their ad network and kitchen concepts.
The instant delivery space is going to continue to heat up in the next year, and Gopuff with 75% share of the current instant delivery market in the US will be one you'll want to watch.
For more information on Gopuff, head to: https://gopuff.com/go
Thanks to Cleveron, Scandit, and Firework for making this episode possible.
For more information on Cleveron head to https://cleveron.com/
For more information on Scandit head to https://www.scandit.com/
For more information on Firework head to https://firework.com/us/
**Sponsored Content**
Music by Hooksounds.com
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
In a special NRF edition of The Omni Talk Spotlight Series, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sit down with Leap Co-founder and CEO Jared Golden to talk about how his company's proprietary platform helps retailers and brands take the "leap" in licensing the soup to nuts operations of their physical stores.
From Mack Weldon to Ashley Stewart, Jared and his team at Leap are launching brands with one store or one hundred stores, offering a full menu of services from point-of-sale management, leasing, and staffing, to full retail tech operations.
Leap has deployed nearly 50 stores with over 30 brands, and, in this interview, Jared explains their massive expansion plans in 2022 taking the data they are collecting across brands to build more benefits for retailers and customers.
If Jared has his way, we shouldn't be surprised to see Leap take the idea to the Metaverse soon, too.
For more information on Leap head to https://www.leapinc.com/
Thanks to Cleveron, Scandit, and Firework for making this episode possible.
For more information on Cleveron head to https://cleveron.com/
For more information on Scandit head to https://www.scandit.com/
For more information on Firework head to https://firework.com/us/
Music by hooksounds.com
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
In a special NRF edition of The Omni Talk Spotlight Series, sponsored by Cleveron, Firework, and Scandit, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sit down with Takeoff CEO and Co-Founder Max Pedró.
Takeoff has been making headlines of late, launching an automated microfulfillment center with Jewel-Osco in Chicago this past December. The center allows the grocer to pick, pack, and deliver online orders more efficiently, and do it in a way that expands their bottom line profit.
Sound too good to be true?
It's not.
Find out how your store could be just one basketball-court-sized microfulfillment center away from thriving in the future of online grocery commerce.
For more information on Takeoff, head to: https://www.takeoff.com/
Thanks to Cleveron, Scandit, and Firework for making this episode possible.
For more information on Cleveron head to https://cleveron.com/
For more information on Scandit head to https://www.scandit.com/
For more information on Firework head to https://firework.com/us/
**Sponsored Content**
Music by Hooksounds.com
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
In a special NRF edition of The Omni Talk Spotlight Series, sponsored by Cleveron, Firework, and Scandit, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga sit down with Firework President & Chief Business Officer Jason Holland.
When many retailers come to the Firework team, it's because they're interested in replicating the on-site live streaming applications Firework's has created for companies like Albertsons and The Fresh Market, but what Anne and Chris discover in this interview is that's only just a part of an effective shoppable video content strategy.
Jason explains how the team at Firework is laying the groundwork for the future of shoppable content right from your favorite retailers' own sites and apps, allowing seamless shopping and checkout experiences, while, at the same time, helping retailers to build a background of customer data that will help them continue to provide the richest, most highly engaging shopping experiences as consumers move into Web 3.0 and beyond.
For more information on Firework, head to: https://firework.com/us/
Thanks to Cleveron, Scandit, and Firework for making this episode possible.
For more information on Cleveron head to https://cleveron.com/
For more information on Scandit head to https://www.scandit.com/
For more information on Firework head to https://firework.com/us/
**Sponsored Content**
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
In this week’s Fast Five podcast, sponsored by Microsoft, the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Takeoff, and Sezzle, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga hotly debate even more topics than normal, including:
- Who had the cooler board appointee this week? Meta with DoorDash's CEO? Or Shopify with Instacart's?
- Whether the Yeezy Gap and Balenciaga partnership will amount to a hill of beans.
- If there is anything at all to read from a supposedly leaked Shopify patent on in-store traffic monitoring.
- Why TikTok broadening its consumer reach by way of its new Atmosphere partnership is so important within the context of video commerce.
- And, close with a pointed discussion about why autonomous delivery robots at the Cincinnati airport may be the wrong next step to solve a real consumer pain point.
There's all that, plus my likely lone Arizona Cardinals playoff plug of the season, our salute to Bob Saget, and why I would like to get "sequentially stable" with Tom Brady.
To redeem your $300 discount on the Manifest Conference, visit: manife.st/continue-registrati...
To learn more about Microsoft, visit: www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/r…cloud-for-retail
To learn more about the A&M Consumer & Retail Group, visit: alvarezandmarsal-crg.com/
To learn more about Takeoff, visit: www.takeoff.com/
To learn more about Sezzle, visit: sezzle.com/
Plus, check out our ranking in Feedspot’s 45 Top Retail Podcasts: blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/
Music by hooksounds.com
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
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