← The CPG Guys
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's PVSB with the CPG Guys. You know, we talk a lot about this on the show. For CPG marketers today, it's not just about reaching consumers, it's about connecting with them meaningfully at every touch point. Here's the reality. Shopping isn't just an event anymore. It's woven into daily life. And with consumers spending over 90 minutes streaming content, daily entertainment has become central to the shopping journey. Amazon ads unifies commerce, entertainment and open Internet to reach 86% of US households, turning trillions of consumer signals into powerful results both on and beyond Amazon. So visit advertising.Amazon.com to learn more. Welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. Your host, Sree Rajagopalan and Peter Vs. Bond explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in an increasingly digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys.
- [01:12]
B
Hello and welcome to this episode of the CPG Guys Podcast. This is one of several episodes I shot while up in Seattle. I was invited to Amazon Accelerate 2025. Thank you to Hunter PR for inviting us and shepherding us through several interviews and podcasts. Of course, sri, your co host and also CRO and co founder of ThinkBlue Consulting, your trusted partner on your omnichannel development journey. Get in touch with me at sri@thinkblueconsulting co. Please will listen to my older daughter's music at www.rearaj.com and follow Laraj, my younger daughter as a member of the world's fastest growing global girls group, Cat's Eye now. Winner of an MTV vma. Excited to be here and recording live today with our guests or guest unable to join me today is my co host and co founder pvsp who also moonlights as head of Industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the E Commerce acceleration division of Omnicom. Make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on our preferred listening platform where you can get our latest episodes and even go back to consume some of the 530plus episodes we've already published. You know that the CPG Guys have a great relationship with Amazon, what we consider one of the best e commerce retailers we have ever seen. So we're excited that we were invited to Amazon Accelerated. And here we go. Please enjoy this episode with one of the guests that was hand selected by Hunter PR for the CPG Guys 2 interview. Thank you Neil.
- [02:31]
C
Welcome to the CPG Guys. It's a pleasure to have you back on the show after two years. How you doing man?
- [02:35]
D
Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm very well. Thank you how are you?
- [02:38]
C
Where did you fly in from?
- [02:39]
D
I flew in from Arizona, so it's not too bad.
- [02:42]
C
Not too bad.
- [02:42]
D
It's pretty close and the same time zone which is always.
- [02:45]
C
I came in from Malay, so we got about the same two hours and change, I guess in flying.
- [02:48]
D
That's about right. Yes.
- [02:49]
C
But it's a pleasure to talk to you. I'm going to kick it off right away with being an analyst in the industry. Top of mind question that I had for you, Neil. What are some of the biggest surprises you've encountered working with consumer retail data over the past, let's say since 2023? I won't say Covid volume has completely dried up, so I'd love to get your perspective.
- [03:11]
D
Yes, I think some of the biggest surprises are some of the contradictions that you find with popular narratives. So for example, there's always this popular narrative that Gen Z is very digital generation. And that's true, they are. But when you dive into the data you see a lot of nuance and you see how much they place value on physical shopping, how much value they place on in person experiences. And I think that it often gives you a much more rounded picture than sometimes the headlines present. So I think things like that are very interesting. The other thing I would say, especially since the pandemic, is the speed with which changes come through. I mean the consumer always changes, but I think that the whole time it takes to go through very big changes is compressing. And the consumer, you see this in the data is changing preferences, behaviors and other things.
- [04:09]
C
Sometimes I feel like changes every day changes life at this point. Is that fair?
- [04:14]
D
I think it does. I mean, I think it presents a problem because I think you have to sort out what's a temporary change to what is a longer lasting change. But it certainly changes much more frequently than it did in people's preferences, their behaviors and you get micro trends and microcurrents and that's different from maybe sort of 10 years or so ago.
- [04:35]
C
That's awesome because I would say we always keep saying post Covid, but I divide that into 20 to 2023 March or so. I remember the day, March 17, when SNAP and EBT dried up in country or started drying up state by state and then the government assistant went away and since then it feels like volume sales hasn't come back. From your point of view, what are two or three trends everybody should be watching in retail in CPG 2025 going into 2026 you pointed a pretty profound one. The assumption that Gen Z is all digital and you're busting that myth. What are some of the others?
- [05:12]
D
Well, I think you mentioned one and I think one of the big ones is volume compression, because when you look at the retail sales numbers overall, they look quite good. There's growth there, but actually it's value growth and the volumes that sit underneath that are a lot slimmer. And of course, if volumes are slimmer, there's a real battle for market share and share of wallet. And that unfortunately, I don't think goes away in 2026. It's a persistent problem and I think that's something that all retailers are going to have to juggle with. So I certainly think that the volume piece is one of the, the problems there. The other one that I would also flag is brand disloyalty. I think people.
- [05:54]
C
That's a big one.
- [05:55]
D
It is. And I think everyone talks about loyalty, but the truth is the consumer is very focused on what is right for them. So loyalty can be very temporary. What is right for me in this moment on this purchasing journey may be very different from the very next day when I go and shop. So it's actually very difficult to sustain real solid loyalty for brands. And I think that, I mean, it's always been true to a degree, but I think it's.
- [06:23]
C
Would you say that's unique to large brands? Mid tier startups is just across the board because when value becomes the key anchor, loyalty goes out the window in about half a millisecond.
- [06:35]
D
Yes, I think it applies to everyone, the general narrative, but I think it's more of a problem for bigger brands because of course, if you're a big brand, you have a very large base of customers and the whole battle is to first of all hold on to them, as many of them as you can, and secondly to try and attract new ones. And actually what we've seen, especially in cpg, is it's the, you know, the innovator brands, the new hero brands coming through that have often nibbled away the share of the very big conglomerates. And we see it in the numbers. There's volume compression, which goes to the first point, the first trend. So it's a problem for brands that this loyalty understood.
- [07:11]
C
You said one other very important thing and which is sounds like it's a zero sum game. In 2026, the numbers may look decent up top. It's all come through inflation, pricing underneath. If it's a fight for market share, I can no longer say media is an investment, it's a spend to fight for market Share. Is that a fair statement?
- [07:34]
D
I think it is. I mean, there is some volume growth, but to your point, it's too minor, it's flat, basically, to all intents and purposes. So the battle then becomes, okay, how do I retain existing customers, but how do I attract new ones? And that could come through product innovation, it could come through enlarging share of mind, which obviously comes to media and obviously that intersects very nicely with retail media because that's a big topic from the retail side. So all of these things are real battle points. And in some ways it's a change because I think a lot of CPG companies are traditionally used to kind of churning out a bit of innovation, keeping the core lines going. Well, that model is a bit different now. You have to put more emphasis on the innovation.
- [08:17]
C
True innovation. Not lion extensions.
- [08:19]
D
Exactly. And I think you have to problem solve for the customer in cpg. You know, if you're in laundry, what are the problems people face? Because often if you.
- [08:28]
C
It's not just another scent.
- [08:29]
D
Exactly. I mean, another scent is. Can be fine if it's really innovative, something that's really trending and really novel and people are like, wow, this is amazing. But actually, you know, if you have sports clothing, for example, and you have difficulty getting.
- [08:42]
C
Wash it faster.
- [08:43]
D
Exactly.
- [08:43]
C
You want something, remove the stains.
- [08:45]
D
Exactly. Or some people don't like laundry detergents or some people make laundry sheets now and that's a genuine sort of innovation. It's those kind of things that we need to see a bit more of. And it's difficult. Innovation's not easy.
- [08:58]
C
I wasn't going to ask you about retail media, but you went there anyway, so why don't we go to that bold space. Give me your top line retail media friend or foe to the industry. Because with 175 retail media networks, proliferation is a mess. And every retailer is asking the CPG brand, gimme, gimme, gimme, what should a CPG brand do?
- [09:20]
D
I think honestly, you're absolutely right. There are far too many retail media brands because everyone is crowded into this space. They like the margins, they like the additional revenue. Exactly. And don't forget, retailers are under pressure as well. The truth is, you have to place your bets. It's just like television advertising or radio advertising. There are thousands of stations and potential routes you can go to advertise. Where do you get the biggest return? And of course, what's going to happen is the bigger players are going to win. Amazon, Walmart.
- [09:50]
C
And they already are, aren't they?
- [09:51]
D
Exactly. They have the most market share, and they're probably growing the fastest if you account for maturity cycles, because it's where the volume is and they're the ones that can drive the difference. A small media network that's not going to drive many dollars. You might dabble with it if it's cheap, but if it's costing you too much, why bother? So I think that we will see a kind of falling out. If you like, there'll be tiers, there'll be the top tier that does really well, probably a secondary tier where you can support quite a lot of volume and justify the investment, and a third tier that's very niche, and some brands, if it's appropriate to them, will dabble.
- [10:29]
C
The other gripe I hear in the industry all the time is the lack of measurement frameworks on metrics. So a lot of conversation about incrementality. But when I ask a brand, what are you looking for in incrementality? Someone will tell me, are they incremental to Costco? And I'll be like, what if it cannibalized Kroger to go to Costco? Is it still incremental to you? And they're like, oh, scratch, scratch. How do you feel about measurement frameworks, metrics?
- [10:53]
D
Well, I think the attribution is really important. I mean, attribution's always been important in advertising. And I think, to your point, there's such a proliferation of retail media networks that actually it's very difficult to attribute genuine incrementality. You've got to look across the channels, you've got to look across the customer, you've got to try and join those things up. And it's very, very difficult to do. But it is important because you don't want to waste that spend. I think that that's why working with a few partners where you can really understand the metrics and the dynamics is important. But the biggest thing of all, of course, is it's all very well to advertise, but you've got to have the good product.
- [11:33]
C
Absolutely.
- [11:34]
D
And that's where it comes back to the innovation. If you don't have the great product and it's not the right price, you can put all the money in the world to advertising and retail media. It won't move the. To me, I think the industry gets very excited with buzzwords and retail media has been one of them. It's great. There's definitely benefits to using it. But don't forget about the basics as well.
- [11:53]
C
The CPG guys have only done. I counted yesterday on the plane ride 131 out of our 440 episodes of retail Media. So talk about a buzzword.
- [12:04]
D
Good whim, right?
- [12:05]
C
What brings you to Amazon Accelerate? Why are you excited to be here? What are you looking forward to?
- [12:11]
D
Well, I've come to Amazon Accelerate for quite a few years now. And what I like about the event are two things primarily, first of all of the announcements and the ability to engage with Amazon. You hear about what Amazon is doing and that's interesting in and of itself. But I think behind that you also get a window into the thinking of Amazon. You know, it's fine reading press releases, but when you hear people say things and you see them on stage, you sometimes sort of get the why behind it. So that's very important. But I think the other thing is the ability to talk to sellers because the sellers are of all different sizes, they all have their own stories and you get a pulse of, you know, how things are trending, what they're seeing, you know, what they're doing to grow themselves in the marketplace. And I do think this is a really important point because we talked about big brands. Big brands still obviously in dollar terms dominate, but actually where the growth is is often with some of these smaller companies. And it's really interesting to hear their perspective and thinking because sometimes it's very different from the big brands.
- [13:17]
C
Yes, indeed. So let's get into some of the insights from all the data that you analyze and your company analyzes. Right. How are consumer behaviors changing? I'd say this 20, 23, and I wanted to say post pandemic, but let me say in this value challenge world, especially around quality, brand loyalty and of course value itself.
- [13:38]
D
Yeah. So I think the number one trend that we're seeing is not really surprising, but it's caution. Consumers are still very hard pressed and they're still very constrained.
- [13:53]
C
Is the caution more I'll buy it if I need it? Discretionary?
- [13:59]
D
I think it's I'll buy it if I need it, but it's also I'll buy it if I really want it. And I think that's the interesting thing. Now obviously things like laundry detergent, they're essential household staples. Yeah, they're staples. People will buy them, they're making choices. Do I trade down to a private label? Do I get a different brand? Do I switch? Do I buy a different volume? It's all about maximizing bang for the buck. But then you move into some of the more discretionary products and the question is, do I really want to spend on this? And that's why I think it's so important to invest in the brand. The proposition, because you're seeing the polarization play out in real time. I mean, even in the retail space, there are some players, you know, Dick's Sporting Goods, for example, Anthropologie, they're doing tremendously well because they're really aligned with what the customer wants. They create this real desire. But then at the other end of the spectrum, there are other retailers, like Kohl's, for example, just not doing so well because they're actually not satisfying that want and that desire. And people are saying, it's okay, I don't need to spend on that, I don't really want it. I can miss that out. And I think that caution, that thinking means you've got to double down on really understanding the customer and driving them to spend, almost nudging them into spending.
- [15:14]
C
So they're thinking harder about spending. Brands have to nudge them. Retail have to nudge them into spending. They're only buying what they want. Inflation hasn't gone away. Supply chain disruption has improved significantly, but it hasn't gone away to the day. Especially we've got these tariff challenges now that no one really knows is the tariff on or off? And then the shifting distribution channels with online getting a little bit more of a lean in. How are those reshaping what CPG brands need to do differently now?
- [15:44]
D
Yeah, sure. I think it's a really interesting point. And taking the, you know, by the.
- [15:48]
C
Way, I still have chief merchants at retail who tell me in store is the only way to go.
- [15:56]
D
Well, I think it's interesting because to that point, I think the most critical thing is the channel thing because you have to cater for shelf and screen. It's no good just saying it's about shelf because even if you take the raw data, the percentage of CPG sales that are made online, the vast majority are still in store. But what you don't see in those numbers is the amount of purchase decisions that are influenced by screen or digital. People are doing more research. They're looking into brands, they're looking and checking prices. They're looking at, you know, product quality, things like that, and then that informs the decision in store. So you have to have a presence on shelf and on screen and optimize for each. The other thing I think that's absolutely true is that, you know, I don't think online will necessarily dominate. But don't forget, even, you know, this past couple of months we've had an announcement. Amazon's getting more into fresh food and consumables.
- [16:56]
C
That's a big one.
- [16:57]
D
It is a big one. Instacart is stepping up the game. So actually we're going to see the penetration increase. I mean, I still think in 10 years a majority will be done in stores. But the growth channel.
- [17:08]
C
But even that isn't click and collect much more prevalent now.
- [17:11]
D
It is much better.
- [17:12]
C
They're not browsing the shelf, they're browsing beyond the screen, like you said.
- [17:15]
D
Exactly. And actually it goes further than just the things they're buying. Because if you think about it, if you're someone who used to go to the supermarket, you bought all your stuff from the supermarket, you did the whole shop there, you'd walk up and down the aisles. As you're walking up and down, you see things, something stands out to you. Oh, this is interesting. Maybe I'll try this. If suddenly you're buying all those center of store things online because they're the commodities, the staples. Well, a brand that you're not using, a product you're not using, they don't have the ability to put something interesting on shelf. You go and touch it and think, I'll try it. Because you're not going in that center store. And from our data we can see that. I mean people do obviously shop in the center of the store, but the foot traffic, if you like, the center of store over a 10 year period is much softer than at the perimeter of the store where you've got the counters, the deli, the fresh stuff people want to go into the store for. So automatically, even if your brand is not being sold online, it's not being exposed in store as it was. And that means you need to think about exposure.
- [18:20]
C
That brings rise to another question that I probably didn't send you in advance, but the value of a display in store, retailer charge brands, the same end caps, lobby. None of this has changed. Department 82, which is impulse.
- [18:35]
D
Yes.
- [18:36]
C
Is it right? Well, I think because you're 100% right, traffic has changed.
- [18:42]
D
Yes. I mean, in a way it should change because I think the dynamics are different.
- [18:50]
C
This is where merchants go wrong though. Merchants really are trained in, in store. They don't like retail media. It's not their thing.
- [18:58]
D
Yes.
- [18:59]
C
And the way retailers have created this, it's an agency that sits on the side. All retail media is doing is really pulling what we just discussed, the change traffic. If they want to retain that investment in the future, they need to embrace retail media. Brands are going to revolt at some point.
- [19:16]
D
Yeah, I think the Total value equation is the important thing because they don't want to spend on an end cap and on a screen in the store and something digital and coupons or whatever else. I think what they'll look for is the total channel strategy. And it makes sense. Right, because you think of how the consumer shops, they shop across channels. They don't say, oh, this is Walmart online, this is Walmart store. They see it as a holistic ecosystem.
- [19:41]
C
Absolutely.
- [19:42]
D
And actually the retailers and some of the merchants still have these fragmented silos for the advertising and the media. And that probably needs to change. You need a sort of package solution in a way that addresses the way in which people shop, which is a cross channel pretty seamlessly.
- [20:01]
C
Yeah, I think it's going to be a sustained challenge for CPG brands. How are stores like Amazon? I mean, we're here at the sellers conference, so how are stores like Amazon helping small businesses adapt to supply chain challenges and still get products to consumers quickly?
- [20:16]
D
I think it's a really interesting point because I think a lot of the things Amazon is doing on the fulfillment side is about taking the heavy lift they out of fulfillment. So they're doing things.
- [20:26]
C
It's a blessing for sellers.
- [20:28]
D
It is. I mean, look, the brand owners for most of the stores, they love the whole process of their business, but there's some bits they like better than others and shipping and logistics is not one of them. Amazon is taking care of a lot of that, including things like international shipping. And I think this frees up the sellers to spend time on things they're good at, such as brand development, product development. The other thing I think is really significant at the moment, especially if you're selling into the US One of the big problems for small sellers is if you're shipping from outside the US because the de minimis rule has gone away. If you ship yourself sometimes by traditional postal methods, you can't get the product in at all.
- [21:07]
C
Was it $600? What was the threshold?
- [21:10]
D
It was about $800, I think.
- [21:11]
C
$800, $800.
- [21:13]
D
Now there's so much paperwork, so much customs. Actually, if you're selling through Amazon, you can avoid a lot of that. I mean, you still can't avoid the tariffs, obviously, but it goes into Amazon's fulfillment network, it's shipped in in bulk, and then you can get it to the customer.
- [21:28]
C
So in some ways the new rule should favor retailers like Amazon because the ones who want benefit are like the shine Temu wish.
- [21:38]
D
Yes, I think that's right. It's the people that Ship the products directly, which is obviously one of the.
- [21:43]
C
Shein without a store in the U.S. exactly. Or a warehouse.
- [21:46]
D
But you have to watch this space because is Amazon partnering with Shein? Probably, yes. So if you are selling on Shein, you can probably fulfill through Amazon soon. So Amazon's smart because it's actually reacting.
- [22:00]
C
Fast, which is historically. That's been one of the strengths of Amazon.
- [22:03]
D
Exactly.
- [22:04]
C
Predictive and then reactive.
- [22:05]
D
Exactly. And Amazon is very good at fulfillment. Everyone knows that.
- [22:10]
C
Absolutely. Let's get into your world of analysis as an analyst. How are analytics, AI and data science changing the game for merchandising, promo forecasting and cpg? Retail especially. Is AI here today? I think of three words. Generative, agentic, predictive, or am I going light years ahead of where retailers are?
- [22:31]
D
No, I think you're on the money. So I think if you look at merchandising as an example, one of the easy things. Well, it's not easy technically, but it's one of the first things people have done, is to create things like digital twins, because obviously every store is different, especially if you have a large chain. There's not uniformity.
- [22:49]
C
So digital twins is real today.
- [22:51]
D
It is real. There are retailers like Lowes that use this technology. I'm not sure it's as advanced as it could be because it's obviously still evolving. But what they're able to do gives them a start. It gives them a start to say, look, okay, we've got this new line. How does it look in this store? How does it look in this store? What do we need to adapt? What are the units we need to sell? You know, how's it displayed? How's the shelving? Different and configuration?
- [23:11]
C
And it covers the assortment.
- [23:13]
D
Exactly. And you can plan so much easier. Now, of course, if you take it to the next level with Egentiq, it can start making decisions. What happens if you change the placement? What happens to the sales? Because it can start doing the predictive part as well. Now, I don't think we're quite at that level. People are trying it, but it's still embryonic. But it will get there. So you can, say, actually move the placement of this from here to here. If you change the shelf height a bit, your cells will go up by 5%. That's extremely useful because it used to be trial and error.
- [23:43]
C
Yeah.
- [23:43]
D
And now you can get some intelligence and then you can, of course, monitor it and there's a feedback loop. So I think it's very exciting because it's allowing you to do prediction in real time. And if you've got thousands of stores, it's a massive time saving.
- [23:58]
C
That's retail. But have you embraced personally AI in your analysis as well? Do you go, let's talk about simple engines, let's not make it complicated. Microsoft Pilot Chat, GPT simple free versions. Are you starting to use it more and more?
- [24:13]
D
Yeah. So our company is interesting. We don't allow any of our analysts to use any of the external AI for work because obviously a lot of our data is proprietary. So we don't want it going on there.
- [24:23]
C
However, we're just giving away data.
- [24:25]
D
Exactly.
- [24:26]
C
We don't know what you're training another engine to be intelligent.
- [24:28]
D
Exactly. So we've built a closed shop AI system and it's available.
- [24:34]
C
So you have your own.
- [24:35]
D
Yes, it's available for all of our, your clients. And what they're able to do on our intelligence center platform, which is where we put all of our research, all of our analysis is they can do previously go into the databases, they can do generative questions. Exactly. They can say, what's the market share of such and such a brand? How has it changed over time? Oh, what was it in this country compared to this country? By the way, can you produce a PowerPoint slide for me? All of that can be done and it saves our clients time, but it also allows them to use our resources more deeply. Because sometimes in the past you had to know where to look and you had to know we had that data. Now you don't. You can just ask and it will find. And a lot of our clients have said to us, oh, actually I asked this question and it brought up a data set I didn't really know you have.
- [25:18]
C
There we go.
- [25:19]
D
Which is really valuable for them.
- [25:20]
C
And obviously it's like the light bulb goes off in one second and then that's the future. So what's your advice to the CPG guys? Should we write our scripts with AI or should we do it the old school way? Because we research every guest who comes and Peter and I to the day, we don't use third parties. We write our scripts ourselves in English.
- [25:41]
D
I don't think you should. And I'll give you one tangible example why someone did use AI to introduce me to something the other day. I won't tell you who it was.
- [25:49]
C
That must have been funny.
- [25:50]
D
And they introduced me saying that before my analyst career I used to be a professional footballer because there is a footballer called Neil Saunders. Well, if anyone has ever seen me play football, they would know that this is.
- [26:02]
B
Did you take an early retirement.
- [26:03]
C
Is that what happened?
- [26:04]
D
It's a total fiction because my footballing skills are appalling. But someone had obviously used AI and that's what it had pulled up. It's.
- [26:11]
C
What club did they attach you with?
- [26:13]
D
I can't remember. No, it was not the big league, it was the small league, which is probably appropriate for me, but I'm not even a small league player.
- [26:21]
C
My knowledge of English soccer goes back to the Gary Lineker days.
- [26:26]
D
That's very good.
- [26:27]
C
What do you see as the elements of a strong brand retailer partner relationship these days? Has it changed now? We just talked about AI quite a bit. Shelf space has always been limited. So in that scenario, what makes one CPG brand in today's modern world of value more worthy than the other?
- [26:45]
D
Well, I think the battles of retailers and CPG firms face are the same. They want customer share, they want spending. So I think a partnership with the retailer is really about justifying your share of shelf. It's saying, look, this is what we do for your business, this is what we drive. And I think that behind that, it's a lot more data sharing, a lot more collaboration. There's a lot more partnership between retailer and brands working together. And we see it. I mean, ASDA in the UK grocer, is just launching new tools to help CPG players with insights to help them build better brands, which in turn helps Asda. So I think we're seeing much more collaboration because at the end of the day, if the CPG firm wins, the retailer wins and vice versa.
- [27:31]
C
Oh, no doubt about that.
- [27:32]
D
In that way. Much more.
- [27:33]
C
Now, I got a couple more here as we wrap up this episode. What innovations in retail models are you seeing that excite you? And then, you know, they could be niche, like Amazon was 20 years ago, and you're thinking those will become mainstream sooner or later.
- [27:50]
D
I think things like micro personalization are really interesting. I think being able to take a base product and personalize it with the help of AI is really interesting. I don't think we're quite there on the manufacturing side very often, but I think we will get there with AI and automation. I think that's very niche. Today we are seeing it come through more. I think it could be a lot bigger. So I think that's something really to watch out for, both individual companies doing it and brands adopting this kind of thing. I mean, it exists to a certain extent at the moment. I mean, you can go on the Converse site and you can choose your colors and your designs for your shoes. But I actually think with AI, you can tell it your vision and it'll produce something. So I think that's something to watch out for.
- [28:34]
C
And so let's wrap this up by asking you the all important question. What is the single most important trend that brands and retailers should be following these days, without which it is a death warrant?
- [28:47]
D
I think the single most important trend is what it has always been. It's the customer.
- [28:51]
C
I think it's really listen to the customer.
- [28:53]
D
It's listening to the customer. But more than that, trying to predict the customer and think, speeding up the listening. Because in the past you could listen, pause, implement, and then you could get on with the selling. Now you listen. You have to act because culture moves so quickly. And in apparel, for example, a lot of retailers are leaving open to buy each season because they can't commit to all the trends at the beginning because it could change midway through. So they're able to say, hey, this trend has popped up on TikTok within two weeks or whatever. I can have this from the factory into my store. Boom. They get the sales from it. It's that kind of speed with the listening you need to apply. And that's the different bit from 10 years ago or something.
- [29:37]
C
And if there's somebody who's best in class at it, it's Amazon. Hey, I can't thank you enough in a busy conference where I'm sure you're all over the place the next day and a half, two days, you made time to join me on the CPG Guys. So I want to say thank you for joining me on the CPG Guys. Enjoy the rest of this conference.
- [29:52]
D
Thank you and thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
- [29:55]
C
That's a wrap of this episode of the CPG Guys.
- [29:57]
B
Wow. What a terrific conversation here at Amazon Accelerate 2025. Let me thank our audience for listening to this wonderful episode. Do leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or your favorite listening platform. It informs us how we're doing as well as if we're having the right conversations. To all of you, thank you from Peter and me. You make this show happen to all the sponsors, whether this podcast or parties at events, hosted dinners, having us speak at panels. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The show doesn't exist without you. That's a wrap. We look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of the CPG Guys.
- [30:41]
A
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