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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Live from the Vusion podcast studio at NRF Retail's Big Show Europe in Paris, Ben Miller sits down with Shailesh Jain, Chief Customer & Analytics Officer at Landmark Group, to cut through the AI hype and explore where the technology is actually creating value in retail.
Shailesh explains why AI can amplify both good and bad business decisions, why retailers should start with the problem rather than the technology, and how Landmark Group is scaling AI across thousands of stores, multiple brands and geographies. He also breaks down how AI is enabling the company to personalize content across 2,000 micro-segments, while keeping guardrails in place to make sure personalization helps customers without crossing the line into feeling like surveillance.
In this episode:
• Where AI is creating real value in retail, and where the hype is misplaced
• Why retailers should start with business decisions, not AI projects
• How Landmark Group is scaling AI across brands and geographies
• Using AI to personalize content across 2,000 customer micro-segments
• How AI is changing CRM, customer communication and personalization
• Why the best customer decision can sometimes be not to communicate
• Where retailers should draw the line between personalization and surveillance
• The importance of human oversight in critical customer and business decisions
• What retail CEOs should focus on when approaching AI
🎧 Subscribe to Omni Talk Retail for more conversations with the leaders shaping retail.
The Fall retail conference season is officially underway, with NRF Paris having just wrapped and Groceryshop, Shoptalk Fall, NACS, and many others just weeks away. Omni Talk figured what better way to get ready for the upcoming season than to put together our primer of the must-see tech that has caught our attention this year.
Whether attending a conference over the next few months or if you just have FOMO, we have assembled a review of the cutting edge solutions providers thinking about how to make retail work better.
Chris Walton (OmniTalk, President & CEO) and special guest host and conference content producer extraordinaire Ben Miller (GrocerTalk, Founder & Editor-in-Chief) break down key insights alongside executives from every solutions provider highlighted.
Featured expert speakers and companies include:
Be sure to check out the rest of our podcasts this past week and the next few to catch exclusive content from some of the biggest retail conferences!
We can’t think of a better way to get a bird's eye view into the tech shaping the retail of tomorrow, today!
P.S. To explore more conversations from the Omni Talk Ask an Expert Series, head here.
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Live from the Vusion podcast studio at NRF Retail’s Big Show Europe in Paris, Ben Miller is joined by Bastian Sehnert, Head of Data & AI Initiative Office at MediaMarktSaturn, to explore how Europe’s largest electronics retailers are moving AI from experimentation into real operational use.
Bastian breaks down how MediaMarktSaturn is using AI across customer-facing applications, product data and internal processes, while explaining what it takes to scale AI across 11 countries through strong governance, clear ownership and integration with existing workflows. He also looks ahead at agentic commerce and AI orchestration and what they could mean for retail.
In this episode:
• How MediaMarktSaturn is approaching AI across customer and internal operations
• Where AI can create value across customer care, recommendations and advertising
• Using AI to improve and scale product data quality
• Why AI should take on repetitive tasks while humans retain accountability
• How AI governance can help move use cases from pilot to scale
• Why every AI use case needs a clear business owner
• The importance of adoption when scaling AI across an organization
• Integrating AI into existing workflows, backend systems and legacy technology
• How MediaMarktSaturn is scaling AI across 11 countries
• Balancing shared technology with local customer and cultural needs
• Why every AI pilot needs a clear plan to scale
• What agentic commerce and AI orchestration could mean for retail
🎧 Subscribe to Omni Talk Retail for more conversations with the leaders shaping retail.
Grocers are investing heavily in electronic shelf labels, but what happens when the hardware is in place and the software can't keep up with the complexity of grocery pricing? In this edition of 5 Insightful Minutes, Kim Schneider, VP of Sales for Vestcom North America Retail at Avery Dennison, joins Ben Miller and Chris Walton to explain why the key to maximizing shelf-edge technology investments starts with the software behind the labels.
Kim breaks down why Vestcom's expertise goes far beyond paper shelf tags, and how its storeLink software acts as a central brain for managing the complex data, pricing rules, promotions, and operational demands of the grocery shelf edge. She explains why going digital doesn't eliminate the challenges of retail execution, especially when grocers are managing a combination of paper and electronic shelf labels, and how intelligent software can help retailers protect their ROI, avoid vendor lock-in, and maintain accurate pricing across every store.
Key Topics Covered:
• Why electronic shelf labels are only as effective as the software behind them
• How Vestcom's 40 years of shelf-edge expertise informs its technology solutions
• Why grocery pricing data is so complex
• How storeLink manages pricing, promotions, and shelf-edge data
• The operational challenges of balancing paper and digital shelf labels
• Why going digital doesn't automatically eliminate pricing and execution issues
• How software can act as a single source of truth across paper and digital labels
• Why hardware-agnostic software helps retailers avoid vendor lock-in
• How retailers can protect the ROI of their ESL investments
• The hidden operational costs of pricing errors and sync failures
• How storeLink proactively identifies data issues, layout errors, and offline tags
• Why software should never be an afterthought in an ESL rollout
• What grocery CEOs and CIOs should consider before investing in digital shelf labels
Read Kim Schneider's article: Could an ESL Blindspot Sabotage Your ROI?
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Welcome to Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, sponsored by R&S Logistics, ZenlineAI, and Mirakl.
In today's Retail Daily Minute, Omni Talk's Chris Walton discusses:
The Retail Daily Minute has been rocketing up the Feedspot charts, so stay informed with Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, your source for the latest and most important retail insights.
In this week’s Omni Talk Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Quorso, Veloq, and R&S Logistics, Chris Walton is joined by J Recruiting’s Josh Hahn for another round of Fast Five fun, recorded from Chris’s very tiny Paris hotel room across the street from NRF Europe. This week’s episode can best be summed up as . . . better ingredients, better pizza, better delivery via Walmart.
Chris and Josh dig into five of the biggest stories in retail this week, including:
• Walmart adding Papa Johns to Walmart Express Delivery and whether Walmart is quietly building a challenger to DoorDash and Uber Eats. (Source)
• Macy’s posting its fifth straight quarter of comparable-sales growth and raising guidance as CEO Tony Spring’s turnaround begins to take hold. (Source)
• Amazon expanding “Shop the Show” from 1,300 titles to more than 8,000 and whether shoppable TV is finally reaching scale. (Source)
• SKIMS partnering with DoorDash for on-demand delivery and whether instant delivery fits a brand built around exclusivity and hype. (Source)
• Kroger cutting its full-year sales outlook even as ecommerce and retail media continue to grow, raising questions about the future of traditional grocery. (Source)
The episode wraps with a lightning round covering Josh’s 20 years between Sports Authority and Meijer, the daily chore Chris wishes AI would handle for him, which QSR Josh would like to see added to Walmart’s restaurant tab, and Chris’s two non-negotiable rules for airport etiquette.
Plus, this month’s OmniStar is Meredith Klausner, SVP of Retail & Services at Best Buy, recognized for the impact she continues to make across the retail industry.
P.S. Be sure to check out all our other podcasts from the past week here, too: https://omnitalk.blog/category/podcast/
P.P.S. Also be sure to check out our podcast rankings on Feedspot.
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Live from the Vusion podcast studio at NRF Retail's Big Show Europe in Paris, Chris Walton sits down with Øistein Burøy Olsen, Head of Digital Customer Experience at REMA 1000 in Norway, to explore how the soft discounter is using digital to build a more connected in-store customer experience.
Øistein explains how REMA 1000 has evolved its app from personalized discounts into a broader relationship with customers, why the company is focused on hyper-personalization that genuinely helps shoppers, and how its Scan & Go experience lets customers scan, bag and pay in the app before leaving through a dedicated fast-track gate. He also looks at how REMA 1000 is using AI to prototype faster and build toward a more personalized shopping experience, including helping customers figure out what to make for dinner and remember what they need to restock.
In this episode:
• How REMA 1000 is approaching hyper-personalization
• Evolving from a discount app into a digital relationship with customers
• How REMA 1000's Scan & Go experience works
• Why a controlled exit is key to the Scan & Go experience
• Connecting the digital app experience to the physical store
• Using AI to prototype and test new customer experiences
• How AI could help shoppers plan meals and build shopping lists
• The future of digital customer experience at REMA 1000
🎧 Subscribe to Omni Talk Retail for more conversations with the leaders shaping retail.
Live from the Vusion podcast studio at NRF Retail's Big Show Europe in Paris, Ben Miller sits down with Guilherme Cardoso, Head of E-Commerce at Continente, Portugal's largest grocery retailer and the food retail division of Sonae MC, to unpack the state of online grocery in Portugal and what it takes to build an e-commerce business that balances growth, profitability and customer experience.
Guilherme explains how Continente is balancing e-commerce growth, quick commerce and profitability while adapting to changing consumer expectations around delivery. He also looks at what's next, from AI and personalization to the lessons Continente has learned from operating its autonomous grocery store.
In this episode:
• Inside Continente & Sonae MC, Portugal's largest grocery retailer
• Balancing e-commerce growth, profitability and customer experience
• Why quick commerce is moving away from 15-minute delivery expectations
• What Portuguese consumers want from fast grocery delivery
• How Continente uses stores, warehouses and a Lisbon dark store for fulfillment
• The role of AI agents and personalization in Continente's e-commerce strategy
• Lessons from Continente's autonomous grocery store
• Why the autonomous store has evolved into a hybrid model
🎧 Subscribe to Omni Talk Retail for more conversations with the leaders shaping retail.
Welcome to Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, sponsored by R&S Logistics, ZenlineAI, and Mirakl.
In today's Retail Daily Minute, Omni Talk's Chris Walton discusses:
The Retail Daily Minute has been rocketing up the Feedspot charts, so stay informed with Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, your source for the latest and most important retail insights.
Live from the Vusion podcast studio at NRF Retail's Big Show Europe in Paris, Ben Miller sits down with Alexis Marcombe, CEO of Unlimitail, the retail media joint venture between Carrefour and Publicis.
Alexis explains how Unlimitail built an open, cross-border retail media alliance now spanning 40+ retailers and 21 countries, why in-store measurement remains the industry's biggest unsolved problem despite 70-98% of European sales still happening in physical stores, and why Unlimitail plugs into partners' existing tech stacks rather than forcing its own. He closes with a bold prediction for 2027: a massive RFP that could reshape in-store retail media across Europe.
In this episode:
🎧 Subscribe to Omni Talk Retail for more conversations with the leaders shaping retail.
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