Shoptalk 2025 Key Takeaways Live Podcast

Summary

Omni Talk Retail: Shoptalk 2025 Key Takeaways Live Podcast

Release Date: March 27, 2025

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Introduction

In the latest episode of Omni Talk Retail, hosts Anne Mazinga and Chris Walton delve into the key takeaways from the Shoptalk 2025 conference. Joined by industry experts Marielle Bobo, Ben Miller, and HG O'Connell, the panel navigates through pivotal topics shaping the future of retail. Utilizing an engaging interactive format with buzzers and a spinning wheel, the discussion highlights insights from various sessions and speakers, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of current trends and future directions in the retail landscape.

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1. Tariffs and the Macroeconomic Environment

Timestamp: 03:00 – 05:08

Chris Walton opens the discussion on tariffs, highlighting the reluctance among retail executives to address the topic publicly. He references a conversation with a representative from Sheehan, who notably stated, “we welcome regulation on the de minimis exception” ([03:12]). This sentiment underscores the complex relationship between businesses' operational models and regulatory frameworks.

Ben Miller builds on this by emphasizing a pragmatic approach adopted by retailers, focusing on two main areas:

• Pricing Agility: “Lots of conversations around pricing agility, tools for pricing agility... understanding the margin changes” ([04:07]).

• Supply Chain Resilience: “Supply chain resilience, sourcing... it's part of uncertainty” ([04:07]).

The panel unanimously agrees that addressing tariffs requires a balance between immediate response strategies and long-term resilience planning.

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2. Data: The New Black in Retail

Timestamp: 05:08 – 07:58

Anne Mazinga passionately discusses the centrality of data in modern retail strategies. She cites Jessica Lacks, Chief Analytics Officer at DoorDash, who emphasized the role of data engineering in identifying and prioritizing business challenges: “DoorDash is really using their data engineering team to help them identify what the problems are that they really need to solve” ([05:13]).

HG O'Connell adds that data is foundational in building community within brands. Quoting Evelyn Webster, CEO of SoulCycle, she states, “data is what builds the community... everything has to be underpinned by data” ([07:58]).

Marielle Bobo highlights Hanes' use of data to venture into niche markets and drive innovation: “using data to inform their approach when it comes to niche launches and innovation” ([08:00]).

The consensus is clear: data analytics and engineering are indispensable for understanding consumer behavior, driving innovation, and ensuring personalized customer experiences.

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3. The State and Future of Retail Media

Timestamp: 10:14 – 13:33

HG O'Connell references Sarah Marzano from eMarketer, who provides a dose of reality about retail media growth: “between now and 2029, we will be seeing diminishing growth in comparison from the year prior” ([10:15]). Despite this, projected revenues remain substantial, reaching “100 billion by 2029”.

Ben Miller concurs, acknowledging the dominance of platforms like Amazon but points out opportunities in the remaining market segments: “for the remaining 25% of the market, how do we generate genuine returns” ([11:00]).

Chris Walton offers a contrarian view, arguing that untapped areas within retail media—such as in-store environments and upper-funnel activities—still hold significant growth potential: “there's still a lot of bullets in the chamber here to see growth” ([12:57]).

Anne Mazinga emphasizes that retail media is now a fundamental component for retailers: “it's table stakes now... you have to make the investments in making sure that you're getting the right information, the right offers” ([13:33]).

The panel underscores that while growth rates may stabilize, the strategic implementation of retail media remains crucial for sustained success.

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4. Innovations from Startups at Shoptalk 2025

Timestamp: 27:37 – 31:19

The discussion shifts to innovative startups showcased at Shoptalk:

• Sotira, led by Amrita Bossen, focuses on reverse logistics using AI to tackle inventory waste: “25% of all inventory goes to landfills... using AI to help companies offload and monetize all of that inventory” ([28:50]).

• Playably creates tailored gamified solutions for websites, enhancing user engagement based on behavior and intent: “tailors the games for users to captivate what they think that person is on the website to do” ([28:33]).

• Arcade AI offers an AI-driven marketplace for customized jewelry and home goods, combining technology with human craftsmanship: “an AI driven marketplace where you can produce customized jewelry and home goods with AI driven prompts” ([29:31]).

• In-Store Audio Solutions, advocated by Chris Walton, propose the integration of generative AI to create dynamic, attributable content within physical stores: “In Store Audio... generate content to inspire your guests or to tell your guests your guest target coming out” ([30:37]).

These startups exemplify the fusion of technology and creativity, addressing critical retail challenges through innovative solutions.

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5. Changing Search Behaviors: Language and Visual Search

Timestamp: 16:29 – 27:37

Anne Mazinga and HG O'Connell delve into evolving search behaviors, emphasizing the rise of language-based and visual search:

• Language-Based Search: Anne discusses the shift towards conversational queries and the importance of integrating these into retailers' own platforms: “language based search... how am I thinking about that on my own property” ([23:17]).

• Visual Search: Fiona Tan, CTO of Wayfair, underscores the necessity of visual search technologies: “they have to have visual search... investing in tools like Muse” ([27:02]). Sean Scott from Google Shopping highlights the surge in visual searches: “20 billion Google Lens searches every month... a quarter of those have what they determine to be commercial intent” ([26:34]).

Ben Miller adds that not all retailers should adopt visual search immediately, especially those with limited assortments, advocating for prioritization based on business needs: “there's a prioritization here that's important” ([27:03]).

The panel agrees that integrating advanced search functionalities is pivotal for enhancing product discovery and meeting modern consumer expectations.

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6. Resale Market and Sustainability Initiatives

Timestamp: 33:19 – 35:10

Chris Walton introduces the "Careless Whisper" category by discussing insights from Trove's CEO, who claims that entering the resale market can immediately boost comparable sales (comp points) by “three to five comp points” ([33:19]). This revelation prompts questions about the broader adoption of resale strategies within the retail sector.

Anne Mazinga shares a heartening initiative from Sam's Club, where Harvey Ma announced reinvesting retail media proceeds into employee wages and store remodels: “if you start putting that to work into those spaces, you're going to create a better experience” ([35:10]). This approach exemplifies how retail media can be leveraged for enhancing both employee satisfaction and customer experience, rather than merely serving as a profit center.

This segment highlights the dual focus on profitability and sustainability, demonstrating how retailers can drive growth while fostering positive community and employee relations.

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7. Emerging Trends: Agentic AI and In-Store Audio

Timestamp: 39:00 – 40:15

Ben Miller and Chris Walton explore the burgeoning role of Agentic AI in retail:

• Agentic Consumer Commerce: There's a marked increase in AI-driven purchasing behaviors, with a “1300% increase of agents purchasing products” during recent holidays ([39:00]). This mirrors historical shifts that have significantly impacted retail landscapes.

• Back-Office Applications: Companies like Walmart and Tractor Supply are employing agentic AI to streamline operations and cut costs, signaling widespread adoption in retail infrastructures ([39:24]).

Chris Walton also reiterates the importance of in-store audio solutions, predicting their exponential growth: “In Store Audio is going to explode... generative AI, you can create the content to inspire your guests” ([30:37]).

The panel concludes that agentic AI and in-store audio represent transformative technologies that will redefine both consumer interactions and internal retail operations in the near future.

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Conclusion

The Shoptalk 2025 Key Takeaways Live Podcast offers a nuanced exploration of the multifaceted challenges and opportunities facing the retail industry today. From navigating tariffs and harnessing the power of data to embracing innovative technologies like agentic AI and in-store audio, the discussion underscores the necessity for retailers to adapt and innovate. By leveraging insights from industry leaders and showcasing groundbreaking startups, Omni Talk Retail provides listeners with actionable strategies and a forward-looking perspective essential for thriving in the evolving retail landscape.

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For more insights and future episodes, visit Omni Talk Retail and stay tuned for upcoming events across Barcelona, Chicago, Vegas, and Abu Dhabi.

Transcript

[Anne Mazinga]

Hello, Shop Talk. Welcome, everybody. Thank you so much for staying until the very end. To join us, we are going to do one of our favorite things about Shop Talk, the Key Takeaways podcast. We are recording a live podcast right now, and we've got a lot of ground to cover today. So before we do that, I just want to take a quick moment to introduce the people here on stage. Those who are listening live at home after the show know Chris and me. But for those of you who are meeting us for the first time in this audience, I'm Anne Mazinga.

[Chris Walton]

I'm Chris Walton.

[Anne Mazinga]

Chris Walton. We are the hosts of the Omnitok Retail Podcast Network, the only retail podcast that's in the top 100 of Apple's business podcasts. We focus our coverage on the people, the technologies and the companies that are shaping the future of retail. And sometimes we're funny, sometimes, sometimes we're candid, but we try to leverage our backgrounds as former retail executives in all the coverage that we do. So check us out and check out this podcast that will be available online right after the show. But let's introduce the real experts, the people who've been bringing you content for the last three days, tirelessly working to make Shop Talk as brilliant as it's been. The Shop Talk dream team. First, I'd like to introduce Marielle Bobo. She's sitting next to Chris. Marielle is the Vice President of Content for Shop Talk Spring and fall. And Marielle has 25 years of cross platform media experience, most recently serving as the Editor in Chief and Senior Vice President of programming@ebony. Marielle, welcome to the stage for your very first Shop Talk spring, very first Shop Talk.

[Marielle Bobo]

Thank you.

[Anne Mazinga]

You all know the gentleman next to Marielle, Ben Miller, the VP of Original Content and Strategy, who needs no further introduction. And then finally we have HG O'Connell. HG is the senior content director at ShopDoc and she's also the content lead for Shop Talk Meetup for women. Welcome, H.G. all right, so let's get into the format for today. So you see we have these very giant red buzzers here. We are going to play a little game for the takeaways podcast with we are going to spin a wheel and every. We don't know what's going to happen on the wheel, but we are all going to be buzzing to try to answer first and get our statement in about what we have to share that we learned at this Shop Talk. So yeah, that's it.

[Chris Walton]

Let's get the wheel up. Anne, let's do the wheel.

[Ben Miller]

Let's do it.

[Chris Walton]

Let's put that wheel on the board. All right, there it is. All right, let's spin that wheel now.

[Anne Mazinga]

Oh, you're gonna have to give it more emphasis.

[Chris Walton]

There it goes. Yes. Tariffs. All right, I'll go first on that one. Nobody wants that one, huh?

[Anne Mazinga]

You're gonna have to go.

[Chris Walton]

All right, well, I'll go first. All right, tariffs. So a couple takeaways for me on tariffs. So one, you know, Ann and I, I don't know if you guys know, but we do a lot of interviews with retail executives when we're here, and it was funny talking to them because the one thing they said before we started the interview was, don't ask us anything about tariffs. So we steered clear of that. But interestingly enough, one company that did talk about tariffs was actually Sheehan, and they said something that I found very interesting, which is they said that they welcome regulation on the de minimis exception. And so that was kind of mind blowing in thinking that, you know, the premise was, hey, our business model is great. We can handle anything. That's not why people shop with us. They shop with us because of the value that we provide to them as consumers. So. So I thought that was a really interesting dichotomy when you look at east versus west in terms of how people are thinking about the current macroeconomic environment.

[Ben Miller]

So let me come in and build a little bit on that one. I think it's been two things have been really interesting about the conversations on tariffs. And it's obviously been a subject that's come up a lot. I think one side of it is the conversation has been very pragmatic and kind of in true retailer style, it's been, okay, well, these things are happening. What are we going to do about it? And the what are we going to do about it? Is focused on two things. One is quite short term, which is pricing agility. So lots of conversations around pricing agility, tools for pricing agility, recognizing that things could change quick and how do we do about it and how do we understand the margin changes and what are the tools and softwares to support that? And the second has been on supply chain resilience, supply chain resilience, sourcing. And I think those are the two areas that have dominated the conversation. It's part of uncertainty. It's driving some of the broader uncertainty in the market. But it's the response I've found the last couple of days has been, I think, pragmatic.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah, people are thinking about it. It's top of mindful state.

[Chris Walton]

All right, should we spin again?

[Anne Mazinga]

Let's do it.

[Chris Walton]

Spin again. All right, spin away.

[Anne Mazinga]

There we go. That's what I. Data, Yours worked. Mine is lit. I'm lit over here. Okay. Data. I feel like every retailer that Chris and I talked to, every retailer that we heard from at this show, the most innovative ones, the smartest ones, are focused on data, getting their hands around that data and doing as much with it as possible. I like to say data is the new black, which I feel like because it's become so popular in our. Not just here at Shop Talk, but in the months leading up to this. I think one of my favorite things was Jessica Lacks from DoorDash, their chief analytics officer. She was just up here on stage, but she was just talking about how DoorDash is really using their data engineering team to help them identify what the problems are that they really need to solve and the priorities of those problems and what they're going to attack, where they're going to make investments, what technology they need to prioritize building or sourcing in order to really serve their customers. And I think that that's something that we are hearing from a lot of the other retailers here. And now that we have tools like AI, they're able to distill that data and help kind of get to those ends that we're all looking for much more quickly. The other thing that I thought she said was interesting, Chris, was I asked her, I said, where are you getting these people from? I been a while since I've been in university, but I mean, there was not.

[Chris Walton]

Understatement of the year. But, yeah, go ahead.

[Anne Mazinga]

Understatement of the year. But, I mean, there was not this emphasis on getting a data science or data engineering degree to the level that it sounds like there is now. I mean, Jessica said they're getting a lot of people who this is. This is what they went to school for. They're passionate about this. And because of where we're headed with AI, this will become a more important area of focus for retailers as they're trying to build strategies and move at the speed of AI.

[HG O'Connell]

I'll jump in on data as well. So I talked to Evelyn Webster, she's CEO of SoulCycle, and we were talking about hospitality, which has come up over and over, and the idea of what the brand is. But she says that data is what builds the community. So at the end of the day, everything you think about with this very welcoming experience, everything that's going on there, on marketing, on Brand side, it has to be underpinned by data. And the more data, the better. And so I think that's a really key thing to remember, is that, you know, no matter what kind of an experience you're trying to build as your brand, without that data, you're not going to get to the next level.

[Ben Miller]

Sorry, go on, Mario.

[Marielle Bobo]

Mine isn't working.

[Ben Miller]

I don't think. I don't.

[Chris Walton]

Oh, mine's working now. But you go ahead, you go ahead. You go ahead.

[HG O'Connell]

I didn't even buzz. I just jumped in.

[Anne Mazinga]

It's a live recording. This is.

[Marielle Bobo]

This is what I follow the rules.

[Chris Walton]

Yeah. This is what happens when you walk on a tightrope without a net. Let's do it. You go.

[Marielle Bobo]

You go. No. So I wanted to add, I had a great conversation with the team at Hanes who talked about how they've been using data to inform their approach when it comes to niche launches and innovation. And so I thought it was really interesting to hear about how a legacy brand, they're celebrating almost 125 years, is using data to branch out into more niche markets. They've done a lot of innovation around sort of absorbency technology and that's burned sort of a whole range of new launches for them. So that was really interesting.

[Anne Mazinga]

Who'd have thought? Absorbency technology?

[Marielle Bobo]

Yeah.

[Anne Mazinga]

I mean, these are the things you learn when you hire data scientists.

[Ben Miller]

And I just want to bring everybody right back to Tuesday morning, which genuinely feels a lifetime ago. A fantastic presentation from Jordan Burke, where we were talking as part of a session we ran on the future of retail. And he shared a really interesting stat that right now, 40% of all retail transactions that take place in the US, the retailer does not know the person who's bought it. 40% are anonymous. And all. They are all in physical retail. Obviously, you've got to log on and you've got to go through some sort of basket and transaction when you're online. So one of the focuses he was predicting for the next five years to get that data is to create value propositions, loyalty mechanics, to enable us to identify more of those shoppers to then be able to serve them. Personalization, retail, media, et cetera, et cetera.

[Chris Walton]

It worked. Yeah. I mean, the other key epiphany for me, having been in merchandising my entire career, was. And again, the chief analytics officer from Doordash is the one that opened my eyes to this is data engineering is a different discipline than data science. Data engineering is the plumbing that enables us to use the science to do the things that we're talking about. That AI will eventually, potentially take us to new realms.

[Anne Mazinga]

Thank you, Professor Walton.

[Chris Walton]

Well, hey, I didn't know it, Anne, but, hey, I do now. I feel good. All right, well, just half the battle, Anne. Go ahead.

[Anne Mazinga]

Let's spin the wheel.

[HG O'Connell]

I'm going.

[Marielle Bobo]

I'm here.

[Anne Mazinga]

Oh, retail media. Look at what it is. Sound effects now. It's getting better. It's getting.

[HG O'Connell]

Hey, I'm ready. Retail media. So Sarah Marzano from eMarketer gave a presentation yesterday. I think time is flying. And she said she was bringing in a dose of reality to everyone who's been thinking about retail media.

[Anne Mazinga]

Hmm.

[HG O'Connell]

It's not stopping anytime soon, but it is not as unstoppable, she said, as it once looked. And one side I want to call out is that between now and 2029, we will be seeing diminishing growth in comparison from the year prior. So does that mean that, you know, we're losing on revenue? No, absolutely not. 100 billion by 2029. But things are slowing down. I'm curious, do people agree? Chris, I see disagreement on your face.

[Chris Walton]

No, I don't know. I'm. I'm processing hd. I don't know.

[HG O'Connell]

I'm just the messenger.

[Ben Miller]

I completely agree. I think I've been. Yeah, I do. I think the conversation over the last couple of days on retail media has been really pragmatic. I think there is. There's a lot of excitement about it. We know the revenue opportunity for retailers, but there's equally this realization that 75% of the market is still Amazon, it's still search, and in all honesty, it's marketplace. You have that huge millions of products inventory, and if you don't sponsor your search returns, you don't get found on Amazon. So if you're in a curated store environment or a curated marketplace, it's easier to find the products and therefore the need to invest so much into retail media spend isn't as great, which is definitely cooling some of the excitement. So I think a lot of the focus has turned to okay, for the remaining 25% of the market, how do we generate genuine returns? That's different to what we shop and market marketing. So there is absolutely revenue opportunity and there's going some really great conversations about it. But in a. Again, I keep saying pragmatic. So I'm going to swear box that. But it's been measured.

[Chris Walton]

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to go contrarian. I don't know. I don't know. First I've heard that too. I don't know if I agree with it because I think of all the dynamics that are still at play, right, you've got retailers going into marketplaces. So one plus one equals three relationship between retail media dollars and marketplaces. Absolutely got the in store environment, which is still untapped in terms of generating retail media dollars. You have traditional, like trade spend versus media, which the retail media networks haven't fully tapped into on the media side of things as well. And then you've also got the upper funnel of retail media too, around inspiration, where retail media has traditionally been like a bottle of funnel activity through search and everything. So I think there's still a lot of bullets in the chamber here to see growth. Maybe it doesn't happen yet, but it still could come down the road. That's what I think.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think for me the key component of retail media was one, it's table stakes now. You gotta be thinking about how you're doing it. And two, I think we heard a lot of emphasis on you have to do it right. You have to make the investments in making sure that you're getting the right information, the right offers. And again, I think that goes back to the data question that we. Our topic that we talked about earlier. But it has to be right. There's no excuse anymore with AI again with the personalization capabilities. There's no, no reason that you shouldn't be hitting the right consumers with the right offers at the right time.

[Chris Walton]

All right, anything else on retail media? We got a little bit of a debate going there. That was good. All right, let's spin the wheel again. Oh, tell them what they want, Bob. All right, Court of the show.

[Marielle Bobo]

So I'm going to take this one. This was hard because I had a few. Can I have more than one quoted?

[Chris Walton]

Yeah, you can do it.

[Anne Mazinga]

You're in charge here, Marielle.

[Chris Walton]

Whatever you want.

[Anne Mazinga]

Listen to your. You're in charge of content here. You pick as many as you want.

[Marielle Bobo]

Okay. So I had to first Karen Tracy at Meadow, who talked about. She had a quote that said, while creative may be automated, creativity never will be. And I love that because basically she's talking about how, you know, brands can use the technology to sort of streamline processes, but that there still will always be that need for, for sort of the innovation. And I think that ties back to our theme this year of customer centricity. And so she talked about really sort of using the technology to test and make those big bets and take risks and be more, you know, more proactive. In terms of trying new things. Right. Which I loved. And then also, I mean, Kevin O'Leary, I mean, you know, he had.

[Anne Mazinga]

Which one? Which poem?

[Marielle Bobo]

I mean, there were so many. But Kevin O'Leary test everything. You know, he said, be promiscuous. The only expert is locac and high roas. And he said, no hot sauce. He doesn't want to see anything.

[Anne Mazinga]

You on the first two, cheers her out and be promiscuous. Sounds great.

[Marielle Bobo]

Yeah, there was a lot there, especially in Vegas. But hey, yeah, those were a few of my faves.

[Anne Mazinga]

What else? What did everybody else.

[Chris Walton]

You got a quote of the show?

[HG O'Connell]

Oh, I have a quote. I have a quote. And I hope it makes you guys laugh because it made me laugh too. We have content coming out the wazoo. Said no marketer ever is the full quote.

[Chris Walton]

Said no marketer.

[HG O'Connell]

But it's making a very good point. This was in regards to True Religion. We had the CMO speaking and she was saying that UGC has exploded for them and this is every brand's dream. People are coming to them and saying, I love the brand and can I make these videos for you? I spend so much of my time thinking about Gen Z. Now I'm thinking about Gen Alpha all the time. Starting to think about Gen Beta. Is that it? Yeah. Are they even born?

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Chris Walton]

I don't know.

[HG O'Connell]

But authenticity, we hear over and over, it is so key. And for a brand like True Religion, who is able to unlock this true authenticity, I think it gives them a leg up. It's table stakes now, right?

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah. It's interesting too, because that will have to be measured. That was one thing that we don't have, like, in our topic set, but that will have to be measured too. Like brands will have to figure out when you do have UGC being submitted. And there are incentives for people to be doing that. How do you measure that?

[HG O'Connell]

How are those metrics going to change? And do we throw the old playbook out the window and it's more and more like we're going to need to.

[Chris Walton]

What's your quote of the show, Ann?

[Anne Mazinga]

My quote of the show was that was actually Mousabile, the chief merchant at CVS who said front of house drives 70% of the traffic to their stores. And that was, you know, talking about. We were asking him about new store formats or you were asking him on stage, Chris, about new store formats. Some of them without front of house or front of store concepts at all. Just strictly going into pharmacy. And that really blew my Mind, I guess I'd always seen CBS as this retailer who's focused on going and picking up a prescription and then any other additive products that you needed while you were there. So to hear about how they're really trying to scale the business across 9,000 stores to suit the needs of the community was pretty cool.

[Chris Walton]

Yeah, it's a pretty aggressive goal, for sure.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah.

[Chris Walton]

Ben, what was yours?

[Ben Miller]

So mine was from this morning. I thought the keynotes this morning were fascinating and included kat Cole. Kat, CEO of AG1 Athletics Greens as was really nice quote. She said GLP1s are transforming the ways the world in ways we don't yet understand and don't appreciate. And I completely agree. And it just made me think that the next time we'll be all together is in Vegas is for grocery shop. And Rockwell and I spent a lot of time talking about how we need to talk about and try and start understanding the GLP1 impact at that show and really kind of drilled home to me the importance of doing that.

[Chris Walton]

That's a good one. That's a good one. I got one, too. I mean, I think I thought it was a perfect one for Shop Talk, particularly given the focus on tech and education, which was from Cedric Clark at Walmart. We interviewed him as part of Shop Talk TV today, and he said, I want to read this. Right. Perspective has an expiration date, which I think is really powerful, and you just let that sink in. Perspective has an expiration date, especially as a leader, too. You know, when you think about where you've come in your career and what you've taken along the way and the wisdom and knowledge you have. But at the end of the day, that all goes out of date. So I thought that was really fascinating.

[Marielle Bobo]

Yeah, good one.

[Anne Mazinga]

All right, let's spin the wheel. Oh, God. Ben Miller with a hot dick.

[Ben Miller]

Ben, I'm slow.

[Anne Mazinga]

The floor is yours.

[Ben Miller]

Demand. Creation, we've called inspiration has been one of the topics of the show that we've programmed a lot. I think my reflection. It's been really interesting and many of you will have been through this. We've sort of been through these cycles of grand statements like the physical store is dead and online is the future. And then actually, we haven't had a decade of online growth in a year, and there's been lots of headlines generated. I think we now settled in a really comfortable space where everybody absolutely accepts that 80 to 90% of retail is physical and will continue to be physical. Some categories ebbs and flows and peaks and troughs, but the Purchasing of production. You've got this huge physical base and it's optimizing your E commerce to deliver. But at the same time there seems to be a general acceptance. No one's arguing that the vast majority of demand creation, of exploration, of inspiration, of product discovery is now digital. So we've settling in a world now of absolutely acknowledging that these two have got to sit together. And it's been great listening to some of the digital demand creation stories. Some apparel brands and a power retailer, some beauty brands, they're really ahead of the game and there's certain sectors that really aren't and that don't yet have the muscle to be able to build digital demand, digital inspiration, even though their product is being sold in store. And I think that seeing that trend develop over the next couple of years I think will be huge.

[Chris Walton]

Yeah, and that's a big question too, like what is our language or our measurement for digital demand creation and its impact in the stores? Right. That's something we still have to understand as an industry because you know, if you think about the converse way, if you just continuing measure, continue to measure it the way we always have, the digital space from an advertising perspective has gotten more competitive, it's gotten more expensive. And if you start to pull back from that, it might be the right decision if you're looking at it in isolation in a channel. But it's going to have impact on your store volume as well, which is not a good place to be. So you've got to think about that and get creative. And that's why I like what I mentioned this before, but like the upper funnel, that inspiration which you were talking about too, Ben, like what Best Buy is doing now with Social plus and making that part of their retail media network, that's a really interesting play for them to, you know, figure out what this new language is from a metric standpoint inside their organization, but also in terms of how to talk to their consumer over the long run as well.

[Ben Miller]

Yeah, and I and this is going to be really interesting to come back to your point about retail media. So how does retail media help drive the top of the funnel? Especially a time when the funnel is getting so compressed and it's so easy to jump between points. You know, we've heard from Dick's, we've heard from Sephora, all about building influencers. We've heard from Best Buy and increasingly working with influencers and driving that and Unilever came out not at this show, just I think it was the week before last and said that they're expecting 50% of their marketing budget going forward to be around influencers and creators. And that's huge, you know, from a big brand, cpg. So that recognizing how demand creation is changing, really important.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah. Especially with what HG was just talking about too, with, you know, UGC and the micro influencer getting even more micro and influencing their, their independent, like, groups of people that they're. They're with.

[HG O'Connell]

I'll jump in with one more thing. If we're talking.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah, go for it.

[HG O'Connell]

Talking about the funnel, I feel like someone has to say, is the funnel dead? We can't just talk about the funnel as it was. So I will be the one to say and I'll let everyone decide if it is or not.

[Ben Miller]

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I've said before, the tunnel's completely collapsed. And if anybody's still thinking in that way, the problem is there is some really, there's some really important marketing basics to understand, but recognize that it's not linear. So can you discover. Yes. Can you convert? Yes. Do these things still happen? Yes. Do they happen in a linear way? And I mean, it's something that Google touched on in their keynote earlier. They said that there is an increasing number of touch points, but what that means is there's an increased number of influence points.

[Marielle Bobo]

Yeah.

[Ben Miller]

So it's more complex, but there is even more ways to be able to get to customers, Right?

[HG O'Connell]

Absolutely.

[Chris Walton]

What he said, hg, that worked for me.

[HG O'Connell]

I agree. I just like to ask the question 100%.

[Ben Miller]

Yeah. All right.

[Chris Walton]

Should we spin the wheel again? Let's do it. Let's do it.

[Anne Mazinga]

I'm just taking this one.

[Chris Walton]

You're doing search.

[Anne Mazinga]

I am, because this was the one I was. This was the track I was most excited for for this whole conference was just listening to brands talk about how they're thinking about customers as we totally change our search behaviors. The funnel's changing. We're discovering product in different ways. I had the good fortune of sitting down with chief Technology Officer from Wayfair from Nix, and then the Chief Digital Officer from Nestle Purina. And we were talking about technologies that they're prioritizing right now. Like what? It was a rapid fire panel. What are the things that are really bubbling to the top for them? And the first thing that they called out in that session was language based search. And not just, you know, language based search. Like, how am I ready to show up when somebody's using Perplexity or they're using Google to try to find something? But how am I thinking about that on my own property because people will, when they are coming to your brand site, they are going to naturally be inclined to start to ask questions this way. And I would say the majority of retailers are just starting to get their feet underneath them when it comes to language based search. We also, I quote the Tomorrow research again that I found really fascinating linking consumer use of agentic AI, which, you know, we hear a lot of retailers and brands here talking about how they're starting to apply agentic AI. But I thought it was really interesting to think about the fact that consumers also will have this copilot to be like, hey, I need to get a birthday gift for my niece who's six years old. She likes, you know, karate. Can you pull something together and have it shipped to me? Like that's a real command that we'll be able to do. So I think language based search, it was a one thing that I feel like was really talked about quite a bit here at the shop talk show. And then the second thing is visual search. So Fiona Tan talked about this, the CTO of Wayfair, about how like they have to have visual search, they have to be prepared for this because of how people are discovering products. And not just, again, not just when people like take a picture of this chair and with their Google lens and they're trying to find it, but also when they're on Wayfair.com and it's why they've invested in tools like Muse and other things to really tap into AI to help people find the thing that they're looking for so they can purchase it or if they can't find the thing they're looking for, how does Wayfair take that information and share it with their design team to understand what is it that people are looking for and how do we use again collecting this data to start to influence the decisions that we're making down the road about the types of products that we're carrying and how we get those to the customer as soon as possible.

[HG O'Connell]

So yeah, I want to jump in on visual search. TikTok's GM of US commerce and I'm back to talking about my Gen Alphas. She was talking about visual search and how for younger generations search is visual. She was giving the example that if you're looking for a restaurant in a new city, you're doing a visual search. To me, I need to wrap my head around that that isn't how I think about search at all. The way it's changing and the way that visual is really becoming it again. I hate using the word table stakes all the time, but it feels like yet another thing that is table stakes at this point.

[Ben Miller]

Well, there was a great quote from Sean Scott, who's GM of Google Shopping this morning in his keynote, and he share that There are now 20 billion Google Lens searches every month and they believe that a quarter of those have what they determine to be commercial intent.

[Anne Mazinga]

Right.

[Ben Miller]

So that, that fits with all the other stats we've seen about how visual search is exploding.

[Chris Walton]

But the other thing I learned from your session though is not every retailer should jump into visual search.

[Anne Mazinga]

Right, right.

[Chris Walton]

Like if you have a very small assortment, like if you're a startup brand.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah.

[Chris Walton]

Niche, but a very small assortment. You shouldn't be jumping into it. I mean, you don't. It's not going to add anything to you. It's not a spend that's worthwhile for you right now relative to other things, like probably natural language search, relatively speaking. So, like, there's a prioritization here that's important and we can't just jump at all these things too.

[Ben Miller]

Yeah, yeah, really good point.

[Anne Mazinga]

All right, let's spin it.

[HG O'Connell]

Did I get it?

[Ben Miller]

You got it.

[Anne Mazinga]

You got it.

[HG O'Connell]

All right. I have my notes for this one because I want to get it right. So our startup pitch judges winner. I'm really excited to talk about her technology. So Amrita Bossen, co founder and CEO of Sotira. So stat 25% of all inventory goes to landfills. We all know this is a huge problem. She has a reverse logistics company. They're using AI to essentially help companies offload and monetize all of that inventory. I call this out because I think we know that this is an area that is so much market growth and that is such a necessity to, you know, to so many retailers. And it's also a little bit of something that's like under the table. We're not really talking about all this inventory that we have back of house. Right. It's kind of secret. And so I like that her company is going to these retailers and saying, we know this is an issue and we're going to try to help you out there. So I think that's interesting. I think that's really one to watch.

[Anne Mazinga]

That's your most interesting technology. I love it.

[HG O'Connell]

What I'm most excited about.

[Anne Mazinga]

Okay, all right.

[HG O'Connell]

Interesting as many definitions.

[Anne Mazinga]

All right, well, we'll keep going. We'll keep going down the line, Ben.

[Ben Miller]

I mean, we have, look, we give two winners during the startup each competition. We have judges Choice and our audience choice. So the other winner of this year's pitch was Playably. And what Playably does is it creates gamified solutions on websites. That's nothing new, but it tailors the games for users so it is able to identify from behavior and intent and then produce games that will captivate what they think that person is on the website to do. So super exciting. We had a number of solutions which are all about helping to tailor and personalize the E comm experience based on prior behaviors and first party data. But yeah, so playably playable.

[Anne Mazinga]

All right, Marielle.

[Marielle Bobo]

I had, I mean, so I know I had a few, but I think my favorite was a brand called Arcade AI.

[Anne Mazinga]

Okay.

[Marielle Bobo]

And so they are an AI driven marketplace where you can produce customized jewelry and home goods with AI driven prompts. So you can type in whatever it is that you want to have made and it'll generate immediately a whole slew of designs for you. And then they'll pair you with a whole, you know, they have a whole community of creatives that they tap that then will make the pieces for you. So it's this perfect kind of synergy of using the technology but then pairing it with actual real life makers to create customized pieces. So it's, it's really, you know, empowering the shoppers to get anything that they want. You know, no longer, you know, this idea of not being able to find the pieces that you're looking for in the marketplace, but also pairing it with the human touch of the actual makers that are making the pieces.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah, it's like thumbtack for products. You just go out and type in what you need and somebody submits a.

[Chris Walton]

Bid like it's sheen in the palm of your hand.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yes, true. Chris, what was yours?

[Chris Walton]

Mine's not a company, but it's more an area which would be In Store Audio. I think In Store Audio is going to explode because. And I think there's going to be a lot of companies, my prediction is going to be a lot of companies that are going to regret the amount of digital screens they've put in their stores because it's so capital intensive, it's so hard to manage. But In Store Audio doesn't require the same lift. And with generative AI, you can create the content to inspire your guests or to tell your guests your guest target coming out. You can inspire your customers with all this different content now that you weren't able to do before in all kinds of new ways. It's all attributable at the point of sale. Too, when you're in that in store environment. So I. I'm big on that.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah. I've long been a skeptic of hearing Blue light special ads in the store, but I do think that they've really come around, like when you start to hear what it's able to do and to really see the impact that it's having in stores. I mean, we've talked to several retailers who piloted.

[Chris Walton]

It's immediately measurable.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah. Okay. Well, mine was from this morning, just hearing from Perplexity. They're like so not. They haven't even cracked the surface. I think on what we're going to start to see from them in the commerce space, they're still in the very early stages of just suggesting product. They haven't even tapped into full official partnerships with retailers yet. There's a guy walking around after like, do you want to sell on Perplexity? We haven't even crossed the chasm yet of where I think perplexity is going to start to move and the role they're going to start to play when it comes to E commerce. And then the other thing is they're just getting into travel and sports. He said too. And so I think that's gonna be really interesting when you start to talk about cross categories too. And again, like we were talking about with language based search, like setting an agent to do something for me, to get me tickets to a game and then to buy my beer and popcorn when I get to the game. There's all these things that are happening that I think are going to really start to take off. And. And we're just, we're going to remember hearing him on stage today.

[Chris Walton]

Wow. Wow. All right, I think we've got two more left. If I'm not mistaken. I think Careless Whisper and Agentic AI. Let's spin the board and see where we fall.

[HG O'Connell]

Okay.

[Anne Mazinga]

You set yourself up for this.

[Chris Walton]

I always want to sing this one too. But Careless Whisper. So for those that maybe haven't been to shoptalk before, this is the category where we. Where we discussed the most important thing we heard outside of the stage. So not on stage. So who buzzed this one in first?

[Anne Mazinga]

You.

[Chris Walton]

Me. Oh, my God, it's me. All right. So for me, I got to think about this. Okay. So for me, the Careless Whisper of Shop Talk 2025, we interviewed Trove's CEO. Yeah. And he dropped a statistic on me that was pretty crazy. He said, he said if you get into resale as a brand from what he's seen from his Perspective. It is three to five comp points immediately. And I was like, I said to him, I said, well, that seems like a no brainer. Why doesn't everybody jump on it? He's like, yeah, that's exactly my question. I have no idea. But I was like, wow, if that's really true, that's something to look at.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yeah. Especially with all the overstock they've got.

[Chris Walton]

What's your careless whisper?

[Anne Mazinga]

My careless whisper was not careless at all. It was extremely full of care. And that was from Harvey Ma at Sam's club. He was talking about retail media and what they're doing with the proceeds that they're getting from their retail media investments. And they're putting that directly back into raising employee wages and remodels of stores. Because their belief is that if you start putting that to work into those spaces, you're going to create a better experience, you're going to have happier associates, you're going to have better looking stores, and that's going to continue to, to fill that flywheel of customer engagement, returning customers. And I just thought that was really touching and nice because I feel like we hear so much about retail media just being like just a profit center. We're just going to try to make as much money off of this as we can to make up for some other areas of our business. And this was very. It'll stick with me for a while.

[Chris Walton]

Yeah. But they have to show how they're going to measure that too. Right. Or otherwise it's just lip service too. So they're putting a stake in the ground. What was your careless wisdom?

[Marielle Bobo]

So mine is a little controversial.

[Chris Walton]

Okay.

[Marielle Bobo]

The controversy. So I know the metaverse is still, you know, it's a controversial topic here.

[Anne Mazinga]

Yes.

[Chris Walton]

Wow.

[Ben Miller]

Okay.

[Marielle Bobo]

I guess.

[Chris Walton]

Okay.

[Marielle Bobo]

Uh, oh, oh, no idea.

[HG O'Connell]

We're going to a little while.

[Marielle Bobo]

But we did have a representative from xblocks, sorry, from Roblox and Xbox here at Shop Talk. And in our session prep, I want to say, I want to share this stat because the executive from Roblox shared that 83% of Gen Z said that they're more likely to consider an item if they tried it on in a virtual environment than in the real world. I know, you know, however, I think, you know, it would be something for brands to consider because obviously clearly there is, you know, there's engagement, there's an audience there. Also I want to flag that, you know, she Talked about the $20,000 necklace that Roblox partnered with, with Adidas on that sold within 30 seconds. So there's an audience and there's, you know, there's something there. There's something there. And, you know, at Shop Talk, we're definitely about pushing the envelope, and so we embraced it and had conversation around it. But I would say, you know, that there's opportunity for partnership there, and I, I want to throw that out there as my careless wisdom.

[HG O'Connell]

All right, podcast listeners, I'd like to describe Ann's face when she.

[Chris Walton]

Yeah, right.

[Marielle Bobo]

The shock, the shock.

[Anne Mazinga]

I'm surprised. I'm surprised, actually. I just want to know how I get Adidas Roblox money. That's really, what, like 20 grand to drop on a necklace?

[Chris Walton]

That'd be pretty nice. That'd be pretty nice.

[Ben Miller]

Okay, let me come in. We mentioned earlier Jordan Burke's presentation. One of the stats he gave in it was about agent based commerce, so using agency ki Sell. And he talked about in the holidays just gone, that there was a, a 1300% increase of agents purchasing products. And that was great. And I, anyway, I got a chance to chat to him today and I went, that's great. But the year before there was hardly any agents, so that's like a big number. Was not a lot to. Just a bit more of not a lot. So why, why does that matter? And he sort of smiled. And I should know better than trying to one up Jordan, because he said that it was a 1300% increase in traffic that Jeff Bezos identified on the Internet in total between two fails between 94 and 95 that led him to create Amazon. So he said there's a weird synergy in that number. And he was saying we need to keep an eye on whether we've just had a Bezos moment.

[Anne Mazinga]

Geez.

[Chris Walton]

Sure sounds like it in a lot of ways.

[HG O'Connell]

Hg, I don't know if I have a careless whisper.

[Anne Mazinga]

You have a careless whisper. No careless whispers from Shop Talk. Maybe not.

[HG O'Connell]

All right, I have a game of telephone. Neil Saunders told me that Kevin Tulip, the US president of Primark, told him that CEOs need to be in their stores. And that sounds very basic, but I enjoyed hearing that because apparently what Kevin was saying is he goes into the stores and he is digging through the merchandise, he's feeling the fabrics, he's catching things that aren't. I won't say they're issues per se. The store is running smoothly. Everyone is happy. He's catching those little things that make a difference between a good retail experience, hospitality experience, and a great one. And I just liked that reminder that if you are a CEO still go into your store. Craig Bromers, CMO of American Eagle, also told me stores are their superpower. So again and again we're hearing get in the stores. Store is not dead.

[Chris Walton]

All right, well, we saved the best one for last, it looks like. So let's do. Let's. I can spin the wheel if we want, but we know it's agentic AI, so who wants that one?

[Ben Miller]

Okay, I'm going to go super quick. We've got one minute left. Agent Ki, two elements. One agent of consumer commerce. It looks like it's going to boom. And I completely hear what you say. You remember where you were for that perplexity conversation. Second side is back office Cedric at Walmart Tractor Supply. Example after example of using agentic AI to take cost out and expect that to be a huge trend over the next 6 to 12 months.

[Anne Mazinga]

Amazing. Anyone else? Everybody's. We've talked about it at length at this show. So agentic AI, obviously one of the things that we'll be excited to talk about at Grocery Shop as well at Shop Talk Europe. Ben, where should people go to learn more about those shows? Coming up after Shop Talk.

[Ben Miller]

Yeah. So look, thank you everybody for staying with us, for being here for three full days. I hope you had a fantastic time and we really appreciate it. Thank you to everyone who's listened. June in Barcelona for Shop Talk Europe, Chicago in September for Shop Talk fall, grocery shop back in Vegas the end of September. And then Shop Talk Lux in Abu dhabi end of January, 2026. Very exciting. Shoptalk.com for all of that. But for now, thank you everybody. We really appreciate it. And safe journeys home, everyone. Thank you.

[Anne Mazinga]

All right.