S2E12a #ShoptalkLive – SPECIAL - Krystina Gustafson & Ben Miller

Did you miss Shoptalk 2023 this year? Or were you there and feel like you didn’t catch enough of the content and top trends? We’ve got you covered with another podcast cross-over event with This Week in Innovation and special guest host Jeff Roster! Kicking off this multi-part series, Jeff and regular host Ricardo Belmar sit down with Shoptalk’s content team of Krystina Gustafson and Ben Miller live and in-person on the final day of the event. Together they review the top 4 trends and what they mean for retailers, brands, and the retail tech community. The team goes deep to break down the hype vs reality of Generative AI and discuss how retailers are changing and evolving their relationships with consumers, employees, and suppliers. Plus, hear about the latest trends in shopper engagement!

This episode’s guests:

Krystina Gustafson, SVP Content, Shoptalk and Groceryshop

Ben Miller, Director of original content, Shoptalk and Groceryshop

We’re at number 19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list - please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we’ll move our way up the Top 20! Leave us a review & be mentioned in future episodes! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/

Meet your regular hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023, 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2023. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. 

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Host → Ricardo Belmar,

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TRANSCRIPT

S2E12a #ShoptalkLive – SPECIAL - Krystina Gustafson & Ben Miller

[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:00] Show Intro 

[00:00:20] Casey Golden: Hello Retail Razor Show listeners and viewers, and welcome to retail's favorite podcast for product junkies, commerce technologist, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike. I'm your host, Casey Golden.

[00:00:33] Ricardo Belmar: And I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar. And boy do we have a special treat for you this episode! Today we are talking about the changing relationships between retailers and brands, the evolution of shopper engagement. How omnichannel is morphing into seamless stores, and we see how it's possible to transform over 320,000 meeting requests into over 50,000 actual meetings in a span of three days.

[00:00:57] But first, let's talk about our newest [00:01:00] crossover event, and this episode's special guests.

[00:01:03] Casey Golden: That's right after our wildly successful crossover event with This Week In Innovation podcast for our N R F Live miniseries. Joined by one of our favorite guest hosts, Jeff Roster. We've done it again for our Shop Talk coverage.

[00:01:20] Ricardo Belmar: Yes, indeed. By popular demand, and by popular demand, I mean, we really liked the idea, so we thought, let's do it again. Jeff Roster and I teamed up at Shop Talk for a few special interviews to bring you a Shop Talk live mini-series.

[00:01:33] Casey Golden: Well, I'm sad I once again had to miss this one, but I know you guys have pulled together a killer miniseries not to be missed. Who are the episodes special guests?

[00:01:45] Ricardo Belmar: I am glad you asked Casey. What better way to kick off this mini-series and with a deep dive discussion on all the hot topics at Shop Talk than sitting down with the Source, Shop talk's, amazing content team led by Krystina Gustafson, SVP of Content, [00:02:00] and Ben Miller, director of original content.

[00:02:02] Casey Golden: Christina and Ben are incredible. Uh, you and Jeff really got to dig in to all the hot topics and wasn't this right after they had delivered their retail zeitgeist presentation on , the main stage, right?

[00:02:17] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We, we recorded this the very next morning after that session where Krystina and Joe Laszlo had run through what Shop Talk was seeing as the major retail trends for the year. Plus , Ben and Krystina gave us some insights into what they found most notable from all the sessions at the show.

[00:02:33] And did I mention those 50,000 meetings they orchestrated? I mean, just, wow. Wait until you hear all the stats about what was surely the, the biggest shop talk ever.

[00:02:42] Casey Golden: Well, let's get to it then and jump right into you and Jeff's conversation with Krystina Gustafson and Ben Miller from Shop Talk, recorded live and in person at the show. 

[00:02:54] ​

[00:02:59] The Shoptalk Review 

[00:02:59] Ricardo Belmar: Hello everyone [00:03:00] and welcome to our special Retail Razor crossover event with This Week In Innovation. I'm Ricardo Belmar, live and in person here at Shop Talk 2023, and I am here with the myth, the legend, Mr. Jeff Roster from This Week In Innovation. How you doing, Jeff?

[00:03:15] Jeff Roster: Really good. Ricardo. I, you know, I, I'm so proud of both of us. We're, we're here last day, literally working the show to the last minute, and that's how we roll. That's how we

[00:03:24] Ricardo Belmar: what we do. That's right. And for this special edition episode of our live series here at Shop Talk, we have the incredible pleasure of having two folks from the Shop talk team to talk to us about the event.

[00:03:36] We're here with Krystina Gustafson and Ben Miller. Krystina. Ben, how are you doing today?

[00:03:40] Krystina Gustafson: Doing awesome.

[00:03:41] Ben Miller: Yeah, very good. Thank you. Thanks for having us. 

[00:03:43] Ricardo Belmar: Fantastic. Fantastic. So let's jump in. And I think, you know, one of the, the probably most in, well maybe not most interesting, but something I'm sure everyone wants to know is just give us a little bit of data around just how big a shop talk was this, this year?

[00:03:56] Krystina Gustafson: Yeah, happy to start. 10,000 plus attendees, our [00:04:00] largest crowd so far. I would say though, what I take away even more than the size is just the quality of the a attendee. So it really sort of felt like this was. The big year. I know last year was technically retail's big reunion, but with the loss of corporate travel bands people just really being back down to business, the caliber of attendee, the amount of retailers and brands we had attending the show at a very senior level was, was one of the big takeaways to me beyond just kind of the scale of the event.

[00:04:25] I know we'll probably talk about meet up a little bit later, but we also were able to facilitate 50,000 meetings over the course of two days which was incredibly impressive. Other things to note about scale 275 speakers 70 hours. 50 hours of content, 80 sessions seven content theaters. So I would say those are kind of the high level numbers. But Ben, you might have some, some additional stats to toss out there.

[00:04:48] Ben Miller: kind of, yeah, I think when we talk about the Meetup 50,000 sounds an incredible number

[00:04:53] Ricardo Belmar: right?

[00:04:53] Yeah, it does.

[00:04:54] Ben Miller: We had 323,000 requests to[00:05:00] so the appetite the appetite for, everybody to want to get together, to have some meetings, to meet people, to build their business. And you could feel that energy when you walked around.

[00:05:10] And that energy, you know, it's, day four with lagging a little bit, but that energy that that energy is palpable. And that's, and that's been, yeah, that's been a key part of the show this year. 

[00:05:21] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's un 323,000 requests . Wow. What I, I, you know, one of the things we were talking about before, you know, what we think is sort of unique about the Shop Talk experience you have you know, for example, like how, how, how many vendors were here, whether exhibiting or, or attendees.

[00:05:39] I think that's always a key part of bringing all parts of the industry together. That Shop Talk is so, so special for 

[00:05:45] Ben Miller: key. No, we, we re really agree our. I think you've heard Sophie, our president talk before that we don't really think about a buy side and a sell side. We don't try and compartmentalize. We have a community and our vendors, the technology companies, whether they are [00:06:00] really small startups for whom a Series A feels a distant proposition still right through to Google Face meta.

[00:06:07] You know, some of the biggest organizations and biggest corporations in the country and in the world are here. We have about 700. Technology companies and technology vendors, and many of them are on our show floor exhibiting showing their wear, hosting their their, their clients, and also being involved in the meetings and they're a really important part of our community.

[00:06:26] Ricardo Belmar: And then tell us a little bit about you know, the, the startup community and the relationship with, with the shop talk there.

[00:06:32] Krystina Gustafson: Yeah, it's I think, been a part of our community that's been really special from day one. You know, we were really the first show that was putting Katrina Lake on, on the main stage when she had founded Stitch Fix. You know, the guys at Dollar Shave Club. So I'd say it's always been a core part of who we are.

[00:06:45] But we have recognized that it's Such a differentiator for us that we wanna pour more investment into it. And so we've actually been building out our team internally to make sure that we're really cultivating that community, bringing people on board who are specific to, you know, bringing the big VCs to, to the show because, hey, when you [00:07:00] get the big VCs here, you're also gonna be be building a, a big start of community.

[00:07:03] And I had jotted down the number, which of course is escaping me now, but yes, 475 founders who were at Shop Talk this year. I like to think that number's actually probably a little lower. When you think about the fact that some founders have potentially sold their businesses, gone onto corporate ventures, it's probably over 500 in, in some capacity.

[00:07:19] People who are current founders or have founded businesses before. But we just truly think that's what gives the show so much life. Just the energy that you have from those entrepreneurs who are coming here to learn share what they're finding. They tend to be also some of the more open folks , when they're talking about the challenges that they're facing, which is

[00:07:34] Jeff Roster: Yeah. Not tend to be a hundred percent. What? That's, that's why it's so fun to, to, to talk to the startup community cuz they there is no filter.

[00:07:41] And there was no AR person to, to say, don't say that. So, no, it's, I mean, the difference is an analyst working, you know, with, with the largest companies in my old days of Gartner to work covering the startup committee.

[00:07:52] I mean, it's night and day. It's so refreshing.

[00:07:55] Krystina Gustafson: were you I don't know if you were in the keynote with Imran Khan from Veri Shop, but he, he was unfiltered while he [00:08:00] was up there on stage, which, I mean, we've been getting such good feedback on that interview, so yeah, I hear you. 

[00:08:04] Ben Miller: getting, I think we are incredibly proud about the keynote lineup this. year. And we, we, we've, it's an incredible process to work with all of our keynotes to, to be prepared. But one of the things that we have spoken about is how they can be open. Cuz nobody wants to come to an event and just see someone reading the press release.

[00:08:19] And some of, the, some the great conversations that we've had on the main stage this year and some of the openness of the speakers has been quite a revelation and yeah, I think it's probably the best keynote group that we put together.

[00:08:30] Krystina Gustafson: I agree. And I have to say, just being in the, I spent a lot of my time in the, the depths of the green room at the show, and I have to tell you the authenticity of those leaders. And I know that sounds really cheesy, and I'm not typically the type of prince Ben knows. I'm not the soft emotive type.

[00:08:44] But I mean, it was palpable. Every single one of them was incredibly kind, incredibly grateful to be here. Willing to be open, recognizing that our audience really wanted to learn. And so I didn't even feel to the same degree as impacious that we had to push. Obviously we're always pushing people to say interesting things, but they [00:09:00] were eager to do it which was really unique and special.

[00:09:02] Ricardo Belmar: tell us a bit more about some of the feedback you've had, both, both in the keynotes and then even in some of the other track sessions that I know there have been some really interesting speakers there. I know I was in some where you could just feel, you know, and some of the speakers are, or just, I, I would almost have to describe as entertaining and some of the things they said in, in the way that, that the crowd really reacted to them.

[00:09:20] Krystina Gustafson: Yeah.

[00:09:20] I think some of the interesting formats that we rolled out have been a lot of fun. So one session that got a ton of great feedback was our rapid fire session. We did two of them. One was with investors, which again, kind of getting back to your point about people that can be unfiltered, a lot of laughter coming outta that one.

[00:09:34] I think one of the, one of the questions at the end was you know, what's your most unpopular opinion today? And just really kinda, you know, use poking and prodding

[00:09:42] them. So that one was a lot of fun. 

[00:09:44] Jeff Roster: I'm stealing that one. I'm gonna, that, that's gonna be my,

[00:09:46] Ricardo Belmar: yeah, that's right. Right. Yeah.

[00:09:47] Krystina Gustafson: Exactly.

[00:09:48] We gamify it. There's a really loud, obnoxious buzzer when people run out of time.

[00:09:51] They have their four minutes. So, so that was a hit. And then we also did one on tech investing, which was really fun. It had CB Insights, Ulta Beauty and Patagonia on [00:10:00] it. And I think what was really interesting about that one was you had sort of Ulta that has this huge budget. They're always trying new things.

[00:10:05] They're always testing, and, learning. And then you have Patagonia, which is a little bit more conservative, maybe doesn't have that big budget to blow. So just kind of hearing Prama, who's the Chief digital officer at Ulta talking about, oh yes, we're trying this. Yes, we're doing AR. Oh, this is fantastic. And Patagonia just being kinda like, no hard pass on Metaverse hard pass on this.

[00:10:19] You know, it really represents the dynamics that our audience has, you know? 

[00:10:23] Ricardo Belmar: different. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:24] Ben Miller: And, and I think that authenticity has been something that's, that's thread throughout and we, we've programmed sessions that were, were about purpose and we wanted to talk about purpose and want to talk about sustainability.

[00:10:34] But actually what we've found is great. We've got the specific sessions, but the general principle of authentic leadership has, has woven through so many of the conversations. Whether that's, you know, leaders openly facing in some of the challenges that they've had or talk about their views on social issues.

[00:10:48] There's been some really dynamic conversations and that's been exciting to be part of. 

[00:10:54] Krystina Gustafson: I think to your question too about feedback though I haven't had anyone complain to me yet.

[00:10:57] so that to me is, 

[00:10:59] Ricardo Belmar: That's something, 

[00:10:59] Krystina Gustafson: [00:11:00] that's a big barometer of, of people being happy. So I think just generally kind of going back to where we started the conversation, everyone's gritting, ear to ear having a fantastic time, and that's not really something that's measurable.

[00:11:10] We'll get sort of the more measurable data after the show, but. , but it's, I mean, so far I think the buzz has been really great. I do really look forward to getting that feedback though. One of the things that I had mentioned for anyone who was in the opening remarks session, when we talked about how we were doing more on seamless stores this year, that was feedback that we got from both Shop Talk and the most recent grocery shop was that people wanted to see us lean more into physical stores.

[00:11:30] And so, We did that we made sure that it was covered on our keynote stage with Footlocker, with Brilliant Earth. It was something that we dialed up in our track sessions as well. So it's great to hear kind of the initial buzz and excitement. But we also try to take that constructive feedback post show when we're getting more concrete data, survey results, and then action that for, the next show 

[00:11:48] Seamless Stores & the "Death of Omnichannel"

[00:11:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. So tell, tell us a little bit more on that topic of Seamless stores, because I, I did, I, cause I noticed that difference as well, right? From back, from both, from last Shop Talk and, and progressing through grocery shop to hear that there was [00:12:00] more emphasis on what's happening in physical stores and how that ties back into the rest of of the retail organization.

[00:12:06] So how, tell us more about that.

[00:12:07] Ben Miller: I woke up this morning to a notification on my phone flicking through half jet lag still, and there's this great message that somebody had posted on my LinkedIn saying, thank you, shop Talk 2023 for finally killing omnichannel.

[00:12:24] And

[00:12:24] I think, 

[00:12:25] Ricardo Belmar: saw that post

[00:12:26] Ben Miller: do you know what, we've now reached that point where we talk about seamless stores, we talk about unified commerce, the general principle of how do we help customers wherever they are, whenever they want to interact with the brand, to be able to, discover, to be able to explore,

[00:12:44] to be able to excited it or to be able to buy and whether that's on a social media channel, whether that's on the retailer's own asset, whether that's having a fantastic experience when they walk through a store.

[00:12:55] That's shopping. And I think the number of times I've heard that, you know, [00:13:00]there's been very few conversations about channel management, cuz I think we've finally realized that channels are just this artificial construct and actually

[00:13:05] what it is he's getting, he's getting product to people and exciting. about product. And that's been one of the big things for me for, for the whole show. When we, we, we spent a lot of time talking about it in advance. We've been looking at how do you remove friction from the shopping experience, and places where a bit of friction's good, but also where you want to take out friction.

[00:13:23] And that's been a really important thought. How do you link some of these things together about the online experience and the offline experience What are the building blocks? What, what's the tech stack to enable that? But as a, as a concept, just getting product to people when they want, it has been, I think it's been the biggest thing for me, 

[00:13:40] Krystina Gustafson: One of the, one of the cheesy jokes I didn't get into the zeitgeist was it reminds me of the Nintendo Switch, you know, where you're playing on your handheld and then you plug it into the TV and your game is picked up. You know exactly where you were in, in the game progress, you don't have to finish a level.

[00:13:53] That's how I, that's how my brain thinks about what unified retail should be going forward. I didn't have room for it though. We were already five minutes over. But, but in all [00:14:00]seriousness you know, the example that I did share, which was probably more valuable to the audience, was Brilliant Earth, right?

[00:14:04] You know, go online. You do an online consultation, you get to the store, Hey, here's five rings that we picked out for you based off of what you told us online. Like I think that's kind of how we're thinking about unified these days. It's less about shopping where you want, when you want, and making that a continuous experience.

[00:14:18] Because we were talking, we didn't wanna undermine in in our zeitgeist presentation that frictionless isn't hard and it isn't important. But I think where we landed is more companies have solved for that already, right? The amount of companies that have curbside, that have redesigned their store formats.

[00:14:31] I think that's kind of more progressed, if you will. And I think Unified is really still in its early stages seeing what companies like Brilliant Earth are doing. The other speaker who we confirmed was the chief digital Officer from Panera. And they recently signed that deal with Amazon One for the biometric scanning in their stores linking to loyalty programs.

[00:14:47] So that's another great example. And it's a completely different category than fine jewelry, which is what Brilliant Earth is doing. But I feel like those are two early examples of where we see this trend heading. 

[00:14:57]

[00:14:57] "Follow the Money" ... but, Omnichannel?

[00:14:57] Ben Miller: And I was in a different room when the Panera presentation was [00:15:00]on, so I missed it. But the social comments and the social feedback on that yeah, we did some work. One of the things that, it goes right back to when Shop Talk was founded by, led by Anil and, and the team was to sit down and look at where does the VC And if you follow the money, then you start to pick up the trends. And we spend a, we spend quite a bit of time looking at this whole idea of, okay, if Shop Talk wants to talk about physical stores, well what's relevant, what's new? What's the future in that? So, you with our friends, at CB Insights, we went into the data and there's a phenomenal amount of funding's continuing to go into removing friction.

[00:15:38] Whether that's checkout free, for example, they say whole seamless of connecting that shopping journey. It's, there's funding there, but it's, it's still lower, but we really see that increasing and there some, some of the stats about the levels of is huge. So we believe that's only gonna get more and that's only gonna snowball.

[00:15:55] So understanding that further, pulling out great examples. We talked on the main stage [00:16:00] about Zara and some of the work that they're doing in their flagship stores. Yeah. Zara is is certainly the biggest apparel retailer in Europe, if not, yeah, the parent company, Inditex, the biggest in the world

[00:16:11] They're still only doing it in, in a couple of trial stores. So the potential is, is absolutely huge and, and we wanna celebrate trials like that.

[00:16:19] Ricardo Belmar: Right. Yeah, no, that, that, that makes sense.

[00:16:20] Jeff Roster: Yeah, that's music in my ears. I mean, I've been fighting omnichannel forever. 

[00:16:25] No, no offense, but when, when your competitor coins the term, no, Gardner, Allen should ever use that term. What's funny, the funniest thing I ever had is somebody, one time, you know, no offense to the, the vendors in the room, but a vendor one time ask me, Hey, do you have omnichannel IT spend?

[00:16:39] And I said, well, I do, but you'll have to define what you mean. And the conversation went dead. He had no idea what he he was 

[00:16:44] Krystina Gustafson: I absolutely love that. My favorite, thing is when people apply to speak at Shop Talk and we're like, what do you wanna speak about? And they're like, oh, omnichannel, or, oh, I wanna talk about e-com. And I'm just like, gimme more, gimme more 

[00:16:53] Supporting Store Teams

[00:16:53] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. Right. Could you be a little more vague?

[00:16:56] Yeah. Yeah. So, so one thing I [00:17:00] noticed in particular this time, which I haven't seen at other shows as much attention. And I think maybe it's part, it sort of comes out I think, a little bit out of the seamless stores. But I think Krystina, you or Joe mentioned it in this, session that there's this renewed, focus on how we're enabling store teams, whether it's directly with technology or just with different, by changing the processes, but just how they're able to work and how even if you didn't have a session that was stated on the agenda, that's what it was about. I heard that come up from so many presenters and speakers that part of what they were doing was tying back into how they're supporting those store teams to make their job better. And I, I think I lost track, but maybe three or four times, I heard one of the speakers mention how they see that as something that is enabling a better career path for these retail workers. And I thought that was super interesting to me because I haven't seen that at other shows or in other events.

[00:17:53] Ben Miller: I mean, let me give a big picture of you and I'll pass over to Krystina for a bit more detail.

[00:17:58] I would say take one step back from [00:18:00] that. And, and the first step back from that is, is the investment environment that we find ourselves in right now.

[00:18:05] And the decisions and the hard decisions that people have to make.

[00:18:10] So if we are going through continued elevated levels of e-commerce sales, we're going through a store Renaissance, something as we referred to it, and we need to try and deliver to customers, you know, commerce everywhere where, that's great, but all of those parts require investment.

[00:18:25] So how do you do it in an investment environment which is, which is tighter and it, this has felt a really optimistic few days, but we are really cognizant of the environment that we're in. The number of speakers that I've heard to say in an environment. The two things that they focus on right now are people and talent, and also the store infrastructure.

[00:18:44] If you take that together and you think, okay, well where's the investment in people? In stores?

[00:18:49] Then you start to realize that actually you've got a really cost effective way to be able to drive, drive digital transformation and to drive significant improvement. So we, we deliberately programmed some areas where we wanted to talk about some of the [00:19:00] detail about that, but actually is a theme.

[00:19:02] Completely agree. Ricardo. It's cropped up in so many different 

[00:19:05] Krystina Gustafson: Yeah. I would build on that. I think it's not only the store associates, right? I think people overall ended up being a much bigger theme than we had intended it to be. You know, to Ben's point, we did have a couple of sessions that were very specific to store employees, whether it was from the retailer brand side, whether it was from the tech side.

[00:19:21] We had a couple sessions, maybe one or two on culture and leadership. But that theme came up I feel, even more than usual. And I think it's this whole idea of empathy. Kind of going back to your point too, and, and how you leverage your workers. Leverage is probably a, a crass word, but. 

[00:19:35] Empower your

[00:19:36] Jeff Roster: There you 

[00:19:37] Krystina Gustafson: use Empower. What Use Empower. It was really interesting because I, I feel like the dialogue around store associates for so long has been about productivity. And of course we were hearing quite a bit of that. The lens of safety seemed to be a new conversation, right? As much as we hear about automation and the, is that, oh, the robots aren't gonna take your jobs now, it was sort of, you know, listening into Amazon, okay, well we're actually using automation to make the warehouse [00:20:00] workers safer and to make sure that we have, you know, safety protocols in place. And that was kind of a new spin on that theme that I hadn't previously heard and, and wasn't necessarily expecting coming into the show.

[00:20:08] Ben Miller: I'm trying to find a stat and I'm 

[00:20:12] we go. I got it. There's a great, there's a great session from Katie Reeves from, who's the managing director of Cos

[00:20:20] of the h and m group manager of Cos in North America, and she's talked about the investment that they are making their smart store

[00:20:27] portfolio. 

[00:20:28] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. I, I remember that session. 

[00:20:29] Yeah. But

[00:20:30] Ben Miller: one of the key components of the smart store was enabling their teams in the store and they talked about the app that they. And, and they'd use the app for process improvement, bring all the information into the right place to help them operationally as well as help serve customers better.

[00:20:46] And she shared that in the pilot stores where they have got the app running, their staff retention of install teams has increased by And if you think about the labor market we are in,

[00:20:58] Ricardo Belmar: wow. [00:21:00]

[00:21:00] Ben Miller: Joe shared on the main stage, the the quit rate is over 40% higher for retail than it is for as a whole.

[00:21:07] Yeah. It's harder to find people, people more expensive. If you're able to make that sort of change, enable that by technology. That's incredible.

[00:21:13] Not only that, she shared that because the process improvements their store staff are having an extra two and a half hours a week to be able to serve their customers better.

[00:21:25] And that's, that's transformational for a

[00:21:27] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's a massive difference. That's a massive improvement.

[00:21:30] Yeah.

[00:21:30] Krystina Gustafson: You know, one thing that comes to mind as you're saying that, and it sort of circles back to what we were talking about before I was in the session with Chobani, and they were actually taking this from more of a perspective. And you know, she was saying, we get asked the question all the time, how do you measure. The impact on sales. How do you measure the impact on the business? And she was actually making the point actually, we see the most measurable statistics in our employee acquisition and retention because there are so many people that want to be a part of a company that is mission driven. So I think it's always such a [00:22:00] good point.

[00:22:00] Technology is really enabling workers. It's, you know, boosting retention. It's helping that labor shortage, but also a really strong purpose and something that has nothing to do with technology could also be really powerful.

[00:22:10] Ricardo Belmar: strong purpose. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:22:12] Jeff Roster: I mean, how novel people wanna be part of something big. I'm shocking

[00:22:15] Ricardo Belmar: Shocking, right.

[00:22:16] Krystina Gustafson: We lose sight of it though, don't we?

[00:22:18] Jeff Roster: Well, we do. And you know, and that was such a strong point. And, and, and I was sitting here thinking as you're talking you know, of course our, our good friend Ron Thurston is this, is this like his legacy because. Five years ago, four years ago, we weren't really talking about this stuff.

[00:22:32] And then Ron pops on and does that amazing podcast and that amazing journey and now all of a sudden it's, it's like we all are, are able to say what, what's common sense? It's, it's a people business. You better put your people in front of your people business.

[00:22:46] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I, I, I even think, you know, the, the biggest change I've noticed to your point, if you go back five years, no one used the phrases enabling store teams. No one talked about empowering them with the right technology. What everyone said is, well, we have to get them the right training. [00:23:00] It was all about, training was always the key word, and it was investment in training as if, you know, the only thing you needed to do was to impart a set of skills to just work the store.

[00:23:09] And now that's completely transformed that it is. I, I think, you know, you have the right words, Krystina, right, it's about enabling, empowering those teams with the right elements, whether it's process, technology or the. People skills itself, whatever it is. And I can't remember which session it was, but the one that's also stood out to me, someone was talking about how they recognize that when they look across all of the store associates, they have, people have different skills and the different talents, and some are better than others at certain roles in the store. And that it doesn't make sense to assume that every store employee should be able to do every single job in the store. And especially if you start layering in things now, like live streaming, for example.

[00:23:47] And this was one that I keyed in on because and you may remember this, this trip because some time ago on, on the podcast we talked. This idea. And I had, and, and some other conversation I had with with Retail Wire. I think we talked about this idea that, the retailers [00:24:00] have this inherent talent in some of their employees.

[00:24:02] Because let's face it, if you go by the, just by age demographics alone, odds are in most retailers, you have employees in stores who may have their own YouTube channel already. Independent of that job function. And they're good at this and they like doing it. So it makes sense for a retailer to kind of take advantage of that in, in a sense, right?

[00:24:19] And encourage those skills. But at the same time, that that same person who might like to live stream, they might not be a good stylist. For example, if it's an apparel store and there might be another employee that loves to do styling with customers and is so much better at it than others. So give them that kind of growth path using those skills.

[00:24:37] Ben Miller: using, and this speaks to something at the sort, the very heart of shop content, which is how is technology enabling a lot of this transformation? And if you talk about, you know, enabling and empowering frontline workers, you've got a hundred percent, there is this sort of talent.

[00:24:51] How do you unlock this talent? And things like livestream shoppable video, creating new way for frontline workers to be able to unlock that talent that [00:25:00] they've had in that store. And they've probably been helping a small number of customers with, but now you can do it on a bigger scale. The second in training,

[00:25:07] it's really hard, to take a whole day out or to take a frontline worker away from their store to help them with some of the at times softer to be able to do that.

[00:25:18] We've got some amazing trials and Kroger on the front foot about doing some incredible work to help empower with app enable. Short, quick, accessible training to help be able to improve and to deliver a better experience for their guests. And then finally, there's that element you talked about, about playing to STRs. There is this group of workers in the in flexible environments economy and tech is enabling retailers to access that pool. But actually more broadly, is enable. Existing workers to have that flexibility to choose which all they want to work in, or tasks that they wanna pick up, working at times their families.

[00:25:59] So tech is [00:26:00] enabling all these things to take that workforce, drive the attention, drive the engagement, and ultimately serve their customers better.

[00:26:06] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:26:07] Krystina Gustafson: I'm laughing because , it's a little bit of a tangent, but as you're talking about this and, and we're just kind of on this theme about empowering your workers and thinking about building technology for the people who are running the organization. I think about maybe another industry, maybe the airline industry

[00:26:23] Ricardo Belmar: mm-hmm.

[00:26:23] Krystina Gustafson: didn't focus on this and Yeah.

[00:26:24] Somewhat imploded. And so i, I, I laugh because, We always tell people, if you tell me you're a data-driven, consumer-centric company, get off the stage.

[00:26:33] Cuz everyone else, like every single company who's on our stages. If you're, if you're not, get outta here.

[00:26:37] But I do think sometimes by saying that, and it's obviously the right approach we ignore what needs to happen for the employees to make this whole business run.

[00:26:46] And we've very clearly what can happen when that gets ignored. So I think, even just kind of looking to lessons from other industries. Made us realize just kind of how important is overall as well.

[00:26:57] All about the Data & Data Insights

[00:26:57] Ben Miller: Ricardo, there's a question that I, I wanted to ask you. [00:27:00] What one of the conversations, cause we're starting to touch about data Mm-hmm. and you, you've got such incredible knowledge in this space. We, we've picked conversation almost.

[00:27:09] The number of speakers that almost thrown their hands in the and said, you know what?

[00:27:13] Data, trying to understand the customer across all touchpoints. You just can't do First party, hear a party.

[00:27:19] I, I can't get an omnichannel, a true of my customer everywhere, and that's fine. I'm just gonna have to serve them where you can.

[00:27:27] Ricardo Belmar: Uhhuh

[00:27:28] Ben Miller: Is that a view you recognize?

[00:27:30] Ricardo Belmar: I, I I think kind of maybe the, the, I would kind of break that down to say that I, every retailer I talk to Will, will say, you know, at the end of the day, we are overwhelmed with data.

[00:27:39] There's no lack of data . It's, it's really a matter of a, what can I do with that? How can I actually analyze it in a way that tells me the story about my customer and who they are, what, what their preferences are, what, how they want to engage with us. That's what every retailer wants to know. And I think the challenge really is I forget what the statistic is, but the [00:28:00] amount of data that retail generates every day is just overwhelming. I think it's something on the order of it's more data than the internet generated five years ago or something. Un unbelievable like that. And so the question every retailer has to ask is, so what am I gonna do with this now?

[00:28:14] Right? What are the tools I have to use? And even if you have the tools, it's not enough, right? Because it, even that needs to be looked at by people to interpret what do I do now that I have this knowledge? If I convert that data into something useful and knowledgeable, that gives me a, a possible actions to take.

[00:28:29] Someone has to take those actions, someone has to make the decision, which is the best action, and then it becomes back to a, a people problem. And I know. . I think even today, but in past years, I've, I've seen retailers will say, you know, now we think we know how to select the right tools to help us with the analysis, but now my challenge is this is so new, we don't have anyone on staff that knows how to deal with this.

[00:28:49] And if I try to go out and hire those people, everyone wants to hire those people. So it's incredibly competitive and I feel like I don't even know if we can afford those people on to be part of our, [00:29:00] our organization because it's so competitive.

[00:29:02] Ben Miller: We're back to people in

[00:29:03] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly right. Exactly. It always seems to come back to that.

[00:29:06] You know, I guess what I'll maybe turn around because sort of the one thing we haven't talked about that has come up all over the, the place is, everyone's favorite new, hyped up technology , is generative ai, ? It's like last year's metaverse. And, and one of the promises, I guess I'll use that strong word about this, is that it is supposed to help with this problem and give you better tools and better decision making capability with all that data that you have.

[00:29:29] What About Generative AI?

[00:29:29] Ricardo Belmar: I, I'm, I'm wondering, I mean, what, what are your, for both of you, what are your thoughts? Cuz obviously everyone must be coming up to you and saying, oh, what, where, where is the session that we're gonna talk about generative ai 

[00:29:38] Krystina Gustafson: Every, yeah.

[00:29:39] You know was actually surprised people were more measured than I expected them to be. I thought it was gonna be like Metaverse last year where it was like, the session is not about metaverse and it's still snuck in. I, I feel like generative AI was a little bit more measured.

[00:29:50] Look, I think our big thesis on it is, again, still very early. What feels different to us though is that this feels immediately applicable and it feels like something [00:30:00] that you invest in and see real business results on. Right? So, so many opportunities I think.

[00:30:06] Gosh, he wasn't. Sean Downey from Google was just kind of talking about the various use cases for it, whether it's advertising, whether it's, you know, looking at supply chain data, whether it's creatives, whether it's customer service.

[00:30:14] We had a slide that was kind of making fun of in a, in a good way. The CB insights market map that they built with just all the, and it was just scrolling, right?

[00:30:21] I mean, it's not even retail. Right. It's every single industry, the use cases. Endless, which I think is a really exciting opportunity.

[00:30:28] I think we would both agree that a lot of work still needs to be done to make sure this is ethical, to make sure it's accurate. We're very early stages, but I think it just feels more real than the metaverse

[00:30:38] Jeff Roster: well, the, the thing that's real about it is we all, we all are, are playing on it in our own search engine. I

[00:30:44] Ricardo Belmar: right. Yeah.

[00:30:45] Jeff Roster: I wanted to ask you know, the Microsoft guys we talked to yesterday, just what. How many more hits on Bing has gotten in the last

[00:30:52] Ben Miller: own

[00:30:52] Jeff Roster: I mean,

[00:30:52] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, it

[00:30:53] Jeff Roster: that's all I've used. Yeah.

[00:30:54] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, it

[00:30:55] Jeff Roster: And, and so we're so it's

[00:30:56] Ricardo Belmar: extra users

[00:30:57] Jeff Roster: Exactly. Exactly. It just, it has to be [00:31:00] so, so literally. There's no technology that, that every single person is using that it has this immediate impact in the business. I mean, we all didn't pick up point of sale devices or all, didn't pick up whatever, but this one thing hit, but we, I mean, we were tracking it from an, from a startup perspective.

[00:31:17] I mean, the amount of, of spending AI even 2, 3, 4 years ago, it's, it's, it's orders of magnitude compared to everything else. Yeah. And then it just exploded.

[00:31:25] And then it got a little controversial, so then people even used it more and everyone's trying to trick it and all this stuff,

[00:31:30] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. It kinda 

[00:31:30] Krystina Gustafson: but I think you, you hit on something really important there, right? One of the biggest problems with the metaverse conversation, and we were very clear about this last year as well, the learning curve.

[00:31:39] To even understand what it is to understand what blockchain is.

[00:31:42] is virtual gaming actually, the metaverse, what ,is it goggles?

[00:31:46] ChatGPT, my parents can go, go. on the website, tape it. It is So easily accessible and it's so Easily understandable. And I think that's why you've seen just meteor meteoric rise in interest compared to the metaverse.

[00:31:57] Ben Miller: And the other thing is if you break it down, [00:32:00] There is three potential areas that generative AI can help with, which are fundamental retail challenges.

[00:32:08] Number one, can I make repetitive tasks more efficient

[00:32:11] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:11] Ben Miller: Mm-hmm. , and scale retail is the efficiency of process.

[00:32:16] that's what it is. it's, about 

[00:32:17] Ricardo Belmar: scale, right? It's about 

[00:32:18] Ben Miller: Great. This is something that can help it. So of course retail's gonna lean in. The second is can it help drive commerce everywhere? You know, we started a conversation with seamless stores, The amount of copy and creative that it be required to be wherever your customers want to be is mind boggling. Generative AI might be able to help. And thirdly, that the holy grail of mass retail, physical, of personalization, we've talked about it every time. And the reason we talk about it every single conference is cause we haven't cracked it

[00:32:45] Ricardo Belmar: confidence, right? That's right.

[00:32:46] Ben Miller: generative AI has the potential to be able to help in in stalled areas. So there's three absolutely cool retail, pr drivers that we can see. cases for. So no wonder people are very excited on the plus side.

[00:32:57] We were, we were in the staff room just before we came [00:33:00] down, and I, we brought up chat, G b T, and I asked you chat, G b T what were the key themes from Shop Talk 2023. And of course he told me that unfortunately it's historic and can't can't Do that. So Krystina pointed out that maybe our jobs were secure for another year yet. So 

[00:33:13] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. 

[00:33:14] Ben Miller: we'll take, we'll take, we'll take that. 

[00:33:16] Ricardo Belmar: that's right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I think you're, you're, you're spot on on that. I mean, I, I, I like to I sort of, I steal a, a quote from one of my colleagues at Microsoft who like tells everyone in every meeting, you know, if I haven't had five retailers I talked to today about generative, generative ai, it's only because the fourth retailer didn't get off the phone with me till the end of the day and I couldn't get to the fifth call

[00:33:37] Krystina Gustafson: I like that.

[00:33:38] That's a good one! 

[00:33:39] Ricardo Belmar: And, and it's, and it so true.

[00:33:40] And, and I think, you're right about the, different categories. I mean, one of our. Favorite customers that we, we talk about is CarMax, where they've taken this technology and, you know, one of, they found that one of the pain points in their customer journey is people go to their website and they wanna research the cars they have in inventory.

[00:33:57] And one of the tools, of course, is to look at reviews and [00:34:00] comments from people who've bought past cars. Well there are thousands of reviews! So you go on there and if you wanna look at a car, what's your, your choice is to read a thousand reviews before you decide what you want to go look at. Or maybe you just give up or you find some other tool to help you do that research.

[00:34:14] So they've actually leveraged these tools now to do all of that summarization for you. So you can go to their website now and you give it the parameters that interest you about a car. Their new AI tool just comes back to you with immediately the summarization across all those thousands of reviews.

[00:34:29] Here are the key points that you're interested in. Here's how it compares in these cars that you chose to look at.

[00:34:33] Krystina Gustafson: I need this so bad. The joke, the joke. in Our household is whenever we travel, I don't read anything. I literally, I just see, I see a pretty picture and I'm like, book. And it kills my husband. He is like the one that's reading

[00:34:44] Ricardo Belmar: He wants to research everything, right?

[00:34:46] Krystina Gustafson: my god. Every single thing. Well, I think the bars in the wrong place in this hotel or the room is only this many. Yeah, he's, he's, on, he's on it. And I am not So this, this, will help me be a better 

[00:34:55] Ricardo Belmar: you go,

[00:34:56] Krystina Gustafson: partner

[00:34:57] Retail Media Networks

[00:34:57] Ricardo Belmar: There you go. So I guess let me shift [00:35:00] then to the kind of the last one trending thing I wanted to ask you about because it's, it's one that, it's probably one of my favorites. So, over the past year, and Jeff likes to poke fun of me for this quite a bit.

[00:35:10] You know, I, I've been really big on retail media networks and knew I was going this way. And part of the reason why I've been beating the retail media network's drum for so long cuz I, I started talking about it back in, what did I talk October, 2021,

[00:35:23] Jeff Roster: it seemed like two decades

[00:35:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. . Yeah. Yeah.

[00:35:25] But it, it's evolved and and I think, again, I think you, you guys mentioned this in this session, that really, what has it evolved to? It's become more about retailers looking more like a technology company and offering technology solutions and services to other retailers. . And I think that to me is a, is just really interesting into how their own, their whole core business is evolving.

[00:35:45] Krystina Gustafson: I think that Ben will jump out of his skin if he doesn't get to answer

[00:35:48] Ricardo Belmar: I know. Well, and I, and Ben's laugh and Ben's laughing, so anyone not who's not can't see this. I mean, Ben's laughing because he and I have had this conversation exactly before . 

[00:35:56] Krystina Gustafson: I don't, think, I don't think an hour goes by without ben talking [00:36:00] about in a, in a Very positive way. 

[00:36:02] Ricardo Belmar: We're, we're of like, minds . 

[00:36:03] we're of like minds.

[00:36:04] Ben Miller: I, I, I, You did a very good job leaving that to the last question, because otherwise we'd have lost a whole of the podcast. 

[00:36:10] Ricardo Belmar: else if we had started with that. Yes. , 

[00:36:12] Ben Miller: this is, it's what the, why is it so important and why do I get so interested about it? Because there's two levels. One, I think at the, our friend Andrew lipman Insider says it so well. this is the third wave of digital. 

[00:36:24] Ricardo Belmar: Yep. I absolutely, yeah, totally agree.

[00:36:26] Ben Miller: You see the numbers, okay, the numbers, let's be honest, the numbers are hugely hugely skewed by investment in search returns on Amazon, so yes, we recognize the prize, but you've gotta recognize that's skew in it. But when you strip that back, there is a marketing a digital marketing channel where, which has the opportunity to directly attribute sales to investment and whether retail media is more efficient than other digital marketing channels or at, or it's just that you can actually prove it, then actually that point is really valuable.

[00:36:59] [00:37:00] it's a, it's a phenomenal trend. It's a, it's a huge wave and what's been really exciting in this particular event, and yeah, we, we, we'll continue the conversation in a, a European Barcelona as well, I is to stand back and say, okay, we all know what retail media is now. We don't need to do that. a lot of us are doing it, really, how do we get efficient?

[00:37:19] Okay, do we, and do I need 600, retail media networks in my portfolio?

[00:37:23] Where, where do I spend the money? What's exciting about it is he's coming back to, and I think this is a point that we made Joe made during the zeitgeist, is it's about the basics of great advertising. So let's talk again about creative, let's talk about engagement, let's talk about generating fun, and this is another channel to enable us, us to do that.

[00:37:41] So that that, that's really exciting. The second element of it, which is why it's so important, is that element about changing relationships.

[00:37:49] This idea that a retailer is as, as well as a buyer, is now a seller to their vendors. And it's not, that's not just limited to retail media that, that think you have these, we call it [00:38:00]collaborative commerce networks, which is the sharing of logistics, for example. and when you're adding marketplaces and you see how the Their customers and we feel the retailers are changing and how do you do all of that and drive the margin that's there to be taken at the same time as keeping that laser focus? Cause we know that as soon as a retailer loses their laser focus on the customer, then that's a challenge for them. How do you balance those two together? And that's, that's still a working progress.

[00:38:30] And that's one of the fun conversations that we've been having and seeing where, seeing what next and seeing how retailers map that you've got. Yeah. If you are a serious retailer or a significant scale, you've got to be in the retail media game.

[00:38:40] You cannot leave that margin on the table. But how do you do it in a way that keeps focused on the customer and you're targeted now calling that out in their earnings reports to say to the center of their thinking. And that customer-centric approach to alternative revenue streams is gonna be a really interesting trend to 

[00:38:56] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I agree.

[00:38:57] Jeff Roster: yeah, I gotta tell you, Ricardo, so, so I was [00:39:00] kidding you about, you know, that. I spent probably three and a half hours yesterday about four different vendors. And I think I now begin, am only beginning to understand literally how much money we're talking about in re in, in retail media. And it is it's never been, I mean, it really was never a focus at the, at the other show in in the cold part of the country in January and it's ever present here. Yeah. And you can't, as an analyst, it covers the entire landscape. You can't get away with it. But the people that actually built some of this stuff I talked to. Right. And it's, and you know, it got the history and it's like, oh my gosh, we're not talking about something that's been around a hundred years.

[00:39:38] We're talking about something, it's really exploding the last three years.

[00:39:40] Ben Miller: yes, 

[00:39:41] Jeff Roster: And, and it's like, that's what he's been talking 

[00:39:45] Krystina Gustafson: Ricardo, I'd be curious your thoughts. One debate that we've kind of been having, and we haven't come up with an answer to it yet, is just kind of the dynamics of how this plays out in industries outside of grocery because. . That's of course been the industry that's adopted it the fastest, but yeah, the incestuousness of, [00:40:00] of that industry compared to department stores. Apparel. Yeah. Places where companies have the opportunity to be more D to C.

[00:40:05] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:40:06] Krystina Gustafson: Part of me wonders if it's as scalable there where the retailers don't have as much, let's go back to the word leverage as they do in the grocery industry. Like, have you thought about that at all? 

[00:40:16] Ricardo Belmar: I have because you're right. I mean, there is a very unique kind of trade relationship in grocery between grocers and the CPG companies that, that have all, you know, all those products. That's a different dynamic. . Then you look at a department store, which is maybe the easiest, I guess, example to kind of look at here, where there's so many third party apparel products, right?

[00:40:34] Yes. There's private labels in, in your department store. Generally people are shopping there because of all the, the name brands that are available. So what's the say equivalent opportunity? I, I've actually been saying, department stores to me feels like probably the number one most untapped opportunity for this, because I think department stores, we all say the same things, right?

[00:40:53] They've sort of lost their luster a little bit, right. Just are shopping less at department stores, but what could department [00:41:00] stores do to make this more interesting? You know, I would say one of those is they have to increase the, just the overall experience in the store. And if you think of visual impression as a consumer walking into a department store versus, any an apparel store where you just see apparel hung on rack.

[00:41:15] In a department store. I think the merchandising opportunities are much bigger. And if you think about the in-store advertising they can do with digital screens, not the sort where, you know, oh look, there's a screen hanging on the wall showing a video clip about this designer and their products running.

[00:41:30] Not that right, because anyone can do that. And, and that's probably my, my number one least favorite example that anyone can do. And, and I've, I've been working with digital signage. Since more than 10 years, and, and Jeff is laughing because one of the comments I keep making about retail media is from the early days back in the, you know, maybe early 2010s when I was marketing digital signage solutions, we talked to retailers about creating this kind of media network.

[00:41:57] It for their brand in their stores. And [00:42:00] not one retailer ever executed it well. The only, they all never got as far as, let's hang a screen here, let's hang a screen there and then ask brands to give us content. And I suppose part of the, the conclusion we had is that you can't ask IT to run that operation.

[00:42:13] It really needs to be run by marketing, but. If you think about what you can do with screen technology now that you couldn't do then, you're not limited by the form factor of a traditional TV monitor type screen. You can have the screen shaped any way you want and you can have any sort of visual layout for it.

[00:42:29] And if you do that, then I think that opens up new advertising opportunities for those brands that the department store can work with, that feels more, you know, lifestyle oriented. It feels more aspirational for the apparel merchandise that's there, that they can build off of and entice customers that when you walk by it, you feel like, oh yeah, if I was wearing that jacket, I, I could be doing what this person's doing on, on that video.

[00:42:51] I'd be out on the mountain, you know, doing, doing this. And I think it, it just creates a different feel that even if you went to that brand store, you know, they may or may not be [00:43:00]doing that, but uh, it's different and it's a different experience. So that's why I think that's an untapped opportunity for department stores, and I think that's where that needs to go.

[00:43:09] And that's why I think, adding the in-store component to retail media is so important right now. I think that's why, that's where the, the real story is gonna start to surface in, in this whole concept. 

[00:43:18] Krystina Gustafson: It's almost like a And I, I, that was really helpful. Thank you for sharing that. But it, it, it sounds to me so different than the conversations that we hear about retail media today. Right. I. Know some friends who work for some large CPG companies, and it's more of a conversation of, you have to do this, but what you're describing is like a desire to differentiate your brand.

[00:43:35] It, it, it feels like a, a shift in, in, in the why.

[00:43:38] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:43:38] Jeff Roster: Don't you also think though, that with grocery groceries had slotting fees for forever mm-hmm. , and it just sort of seems like that's a logical extension of the, those co-marketing allows going back and forth where, actually, I don't even know this, but I don't think department stores really have slotting fees because the, the product is constantly changing.

[00:43:54] So you have other, you have other something, but I, I mean, but

[00:43:57] Ricardo Belmar: way. I mean, you, you have you know, a designer [00:44:00] like a Ralph Lauren may have an arrangement. The departments are based on how much space they get on the floor. and is allocated for them as a brand. And then that dictates, you know, what merchandise do they make available to that department store versus a competitive department store that might give them more space and they make different merchandise available to them.

[00:44:15] It's kind of negotiated that way. Not quite the same as the slotting fees that CPG is doing. Grocery.

[00:44:20] Jeff Roster: and I think the other thing that's the big drivers, the fact, I mean, just who was on the, who was on the the exhibit floor TikTok, and what were they doing? There was at least three or four live streamers. So the idea that we're all creating, we're all creating content and want to create content. , I mean, and that now we're finally getting to the point where retailers are comfortable maybe not having everything be so hyper produced.

[00:44:40] You know, I think the, the best example I have is I just love B n h photo. And if, if you don't know what that is, it's, it's a, it's the best photo shop in, in the world and super high-end skill photographers that, that are selling camera equipment. And my first experience with, I dunno if it's live streaming, it's one-to-one.

[00:44:56] Working with them. I mean, for a camera shop, the, the video quality was [00:45:00] not very high. I mean, it was a little shocking, but it didn't matter because the expertise and the engagement for me sitting in Silicon Valley to, to Midtown Manhattan and that experience was amazing. And if retailers just embrace that and let their associates create or do whatever they want and, and, and produce all this content to fill up all the screens, you're gonna see it's gonna be great.

[00:45:21] What I don't wanna see is it becomes so. So over, over marketed and just take the soul out of it because retail should be passion. I mean, I think, I think my dad back in the seventies, you know, in his, his butcher shop, I mean, it was all about passion. It was about this and that, and engaging up and down and da, da, da, da.

[00:45:40] And, and I think in some ways as we expanded retail, we've lost that a little bit of passion. And maybe this is an opportunity, maybe it's a nice thing, you know, post covid.

[00:45:50] We've now re-embraced and learned and knew what we missed. And man, let's just have this retail renaissance and let's get back to the business of having, having fun and having [00:46:00]people engage in this process that we call retail.

[00:46:02] And then you, and then, you know, all those years you pitched me, you know, with those whole digital signages, now all of a sudden everything's coming together. The infrastructure, the screens, the cheap, you know, the the screens, the abil, the, the equipment we have to, to create all this content. And we have now, we've taught almost everyone, you know, if you have something to say, turn on your, your, your phone and, and shoot something out.

[00:46:25] Well, when retailers unleashed that, holy smokes

[00:46:28] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And, and now we have all these tools. Kinda coming back to the whole immersive commerce idea. You know, I, I just gave an example of using, fancy screen design, but it could be much more tactile and immersive with all these sensor technologies available.

[00:46:40] I could pick up a product in a store and that triggers something on, on some sort of visual environment nearby that to give me a different bit of content about it because I interacted with the merchandise and that we couldn't do that before. Right. So, so that's another new, new approach that couldn't, I think, and again, it's, it's in-store media and I think that's why that's gonna be such a, an

[00:46:58] Jeff Roster: yeah, that's, it's just gonna be such an [00:47:00] insane category. I mean, I almost want to go back to my forecasting days and just start trying to build a model out of that, cuz it is gonna be a massive number. A massive number.

[00:47:09] The Evolution of Shop Talk

[00:47:09] Ricardo Belmar: Well, I guess maybe the last thing to kind of wrap us up here we, we talked a little bit before about just how the, how Shop talk is changing itself and you guys announced a new Fall Shop Talk for next year.

[00:47:19] So I mean, anything you can share with us about how Shop Talk itself is evolving.

[00:47:23] Krystina Gustafson: Well, we are taking on new challenges listening to customer feedback and just really kind of growing the brand in new and exciting ways. I'll let Ben kind of tell you a little bit about Europe, cuz that's in six weeks time, which is hard to wrap your head around. But that's that's gonna be really fun.

[00:47:38] And Barcelona, we've got 175 speakers. I'm stealing all your thunder. But, but a fantastic lineup. That's gonna be in Barcelona and then I think. You know, Ben kind of said it earlier with just the number of meeting requests that we saw in our platform. We recognize that doing this once a year just isn't quite fulfilling the appetite that people have.

[00:47:55] And so I think you'll see us lean a lot more heavily into the networking component. I think we have a [00:48:00] real differentiator there with the Meetup platform. You know, it's not something that other events in the retail industry have, and so it's a real competitive edge. The fact that it's powered by technology, you know, even if someone tried to do it there's just feasibly no way to do it manually. And so I think you're gonna see us lean really heavily into that. And I think, you know, to your point about getting back to business, we love content. We're the content team. We're always gonna talk about how fantastic the content is.

[00:48:22] But the p the reason people are here is to be part of our community, right? And so the more that we can do to enable that is I think really kind of the direction that us going in the future. And, and that's kind of the impetus behind the, the new events that

[00:48:33] Ben Miller: So it, it is not at all daunting that we are doing it all again and just slightly,

[00:48:38] Krystina Gustafson: We've tried to black this out. We're like, let's talk about this after

[00:48:42] Ben Miller: but you know, look, it's less less than six weeks now, 9 to 11th of May in Barcelona a fabulous, progressive and dynamic city, which is just where we want to be for our brand.

[00:48:52] And the challenge of how do you drive retail innovation through digital [00:49:00]transformation in a tough operating environment is as pertinent in Europe as it is in the US. What you've then got a layer on top of that is 30 plus different countries, e-commerce in different states of development, very local retailers.

[00:49:15] So, we think the opportunity for Shop Talk in even greater than it is here. And the reason for that is you've got in their own domestic who are trying to crack the same problems as somebody maybe only 200 kilometers away, but they don't have a relationship with, but they don't compete.

[00:49:29] So the opportunity for collaboration, for cooperation, for learning Immense. So we are really excited about what we are building in, in Europe what we're gonna build in Barcelona. And yeah, the show will open at 11:00 AM on the ninth.

[00:49:44] Krystina Gustafson: on May. 

[00:49:45] keep saying, are you guys ready? We're like, well, it's It's coming. So 

[00:49:49] Ben Miller: we've got, we've got incredible lineup. We, the, the European retail and brand community have lent into the event stronger than they ever have done.

[00:49:56] This is only our second year in Europe, but we've got an incredible lineup. [00:50:00] And it will be both from a speaker, but especially from a, a delegate perspective.

[00:50:03] The most senior Event that we've ever put and we are seeing

[00:50:07] people think, you know what, this is a great way to get our teams together, to bring our individuals from across Europe into a place to, to learn and be inspired. And, and we can be more excited to facilitate that. And can't wait to again, to the Spanish sun because I dunno where you, I dunno where you guys move.

[00:50:22] The heat of bar of Las Vegas, but this has not been what I was expecting.

[00:50:26] when I escaped the London winter. So hopefully the

[00:50:29] Jeff Roster: listen, I'm from California. I'm just glad the, the water's not coming down and it's been a long time since the California and said No more water Stop for a while.

[00:50:38] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. That's right. Yep. Well, I, I guess listening to you a Ben, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of gonna gonna say we're, we're back to the people element A again, from what you were saying. So it sounds like super exciting for what's to come and, and shop talk Europe.

[00:50:49] Fantastic. Well, Krystina, Ben, I wanna thank you so much for sitting down and spending all this time with us. It's been a fantastic conversation. I, I think we've all learned a lot and congratulations on a really [00:51:00] great event again, once again this year. I think content was fabulous of course and just the, the energy and like we've been saying now multiple times, that it really brought all the people together, and I think that's probably the most important part of it.

[00:51:12] Ben Miller: Okay. We really appreciate it and thank you for having us,

[00:51:15] Ricardo Belmar: Thanks again. Well, Jeff, I think that wraps us up. 

[00:51:18] Jeff Roster: think we're done. Another good show.

[00:51:19] Ricardo Belmar: Another good show.

[00:51:20] Show Recap

[00:51:20] Casey Golden: Wow, that was such a great discussion you guys had with Christina and Ben, and you covered so much ground. And no surprise you had to cover generative AI and retail media networks in there too.

[00:51:42] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, that's true. There's no escaping the impact of generative AI right now, and yes, it did kind of feel like last year's metaverse. I mean, it was everywhere at the show in the sessions and everything, but I think there's an important difference that we kind of touched on that metaverse at last year's shop talk was all about experiments, right?

[00:51:59] [00:52:00] Trying to see what consumers would like. How would you transform that into commerce? But with generative ai, the use cases are already out there. They're being implemented with real world results as we heard in in some of the sessions at Shop Talk. Plus, this doesn't really require consumer adoption like the Metaverse does.

[00:52:18] It's more about operations and efficiency so far, and that does include consumer benefits that just don't require the consumer to adopt anything yet.

[00:52:26] Casey Golden: Yeah, what about the retail media piece? I caught the shout out to Andrew Lipsman, our, our favorite retail media analyst.

[00:52:33] Ricardo Belmar: Well, probably another obvious one, right? I did find it telling that shop Talk picked up on what we've been saying here before, that retail media is just the start of a B2B path for retailers to sell services to other retailers and brands as a high margin way to improve profitability.

[00:52:51] Casey Golden: We definitely will need to revisit these two topics more in our next season.

[00:52:55] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely.

[00:52:56] Casey Golden: So what's coming next with, , you and Jeff?

[00:52:59] Ricardo Belmar: Well, we've [00:53:00] got a few super interesting startups that we talked with, and we'll cap off the series with another great discussion coming with a couple of fan favorite guests. Now, I'll just give one hint. It's a follow up to one of our N R F Live conversations.

[00:53:13] Casey Golden: All right. Well, I think I know who that is. I mean, obviously I know since I know what's on the show, but do our listeners.

[00:53:22] Ricardo Belmar: We'll just have to wait and see on that one. but now I do want to thank both Krystina and Ben for joining Jeff and me for this discussion. I know it was quite a feat for them to make the time for this on the last day of the show, just a couple of hours before they went on stage to give their official wrap up presentation.

[00:53:39] So thank you both so much for joining us.

[00:53:42] Casey Golden: So with that, Ricardo, it's time for us to wrap up this first episode in Our Shop Talk Live mini-series crossover with Jeff Roster and This Week In Innovation. It's a wrap. 

[00:54:00] Show Close

[00:54:00] Casey Golden: if you enjoyed our shows this season, please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player so you don't miss a minute. Plus, you can watch us, not just listen, on our YouTube channel and like and comment on this season there too.

[00:54:19] And of course, if you wanna know more about what we talked about today, including a full transcript of each episode. Take a look at the show notes and handy links for more deets. I'm your co-host, Casey Golden.

[00:54:30] Ricardo Belmar: If you'd like to connect with us and share your thoughts on this season, follow us on Twitter at Casey C Golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure and follow the show on Twitter and LinkedIn at Retail Razor for the latest updates. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar,

[00:54:45] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[00:54:47] ​

[00:54:50] Ricardo Belmar: and remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail if you cut through the clutter. Until next time, this is the Retail Razor Show. [00:55:00]