Wendy L. 00:09

Hello everyone. I'm Wendy Liebmann, CEO and chief shopper at WSL Strategic Retail, and this is Future Shop. I'm not going to do the big, long spiel, because my guest is often my guest today, my guest today, who is dialing in from London, is Justin Honaman, and his title just keeps getting bigger, global head, retail, restaurants and consumer goods, business development growth, Amazon Web Service. Is that right?

Justin H. 00:35

That's it. I mean it. It's simple, retail restaurants and consumer goods, and how do we grow their business? Bottom line

Wendy L. 00:43

Sounds like, everything. So, before we get started, don't forget, as always, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, please do that. I hate to keep nagging you, but some of you still have not any way you get your podcast. Now, let's get on to my interview. Welcome Justin, nice to see you. It's been a while.

Justin H. 01:10

I know I always look forward to these. I think the last time you actually spoke to our customer advisory board, which was a lot of fun to have you come talk to our group of customers, that was a blast.

Wendy L. 01:20

Yeah, they were, they were also for everybody. This was a wonderfully diverse group that Justin brings together, all very focused on new technologies across industries. Really great. I mean, I learned as much as I hopefully shared. So, thank you for having me for that, and I look forward to meeting them again soon, somewhere in the in around the world?

Justin H. 01:42

No, it was great. You actually came. We host a retail customer advisory board and then also a consumer goods version of that. Yeah. I mean, it's been an excellent and interesting way to help them to connect in the industry, connect with their peers, share ideas, especially technology is moving so fast right now, and the digital pieces are moving so quickly, and having people like you come and give perspective on the market and insights was super valuable.

Wendy L. 02:09

Yeah, yeah, and great for me to learn from the other side. So anyway, thank you. Thank you for that. Well, I know you're in London. I feel like it's, it's a global, crazy world. Much is going on. But there's, you know, a lot going on economically. You know, the retail sales just came out. And you know, on the one hand, shoppers tell us, in our all our new How America Shops® work, soon to be published, that they're increasingly pessimistic about the future of their finances and their family finances. And on the other hand, they were out shopping, at least in the US this last month. What are you seeing in that in that space now, as you look across all your businesses,

Justin H. 02:50

yeah, it's interesting. I could share a couple of big buckets of focus for our customers in these industries that you highlighted earlier. The first would be mentioned, we're not hearing as much about inflation. There's still some talk of tariffs and the potential impact, but the what's the impact of commodity prices on margin for a consumer goods brand, and then those prices on product to retailers and then to consumer so there's still a lot of discussion and analysis, and I'd say some tension there, although a lot of that has somewhat calmed down a bit, but we see a lot of customers now investing in technology to get better access to insights, right? The second is supply chain, and I tell our customers, they should just always expect there to be the next disruption like so how do you prepare for that? And so, whether that be doesn't matter if it's a barge that gets stuck, or geopolitical tensions, there's gonna be challenges. So how do you get better at forecasting, planning, inventory, visibility, of course, AI, I mean, and we'll talk about AI in a few minutes, but it's just changing, like weekly it feels like, and many customers don't know what to do or what to think, or where to focus. And then the last area is interesting. Like, loyalty is hot, personalization and search are top of mind. Tail and then this whole idea of, like, how do you engage customers across channels and keep up with their movement and and stay in front of them? Those are some top-of-mind topics.

Wendy L. 04:15

Yeah, yeah. So interesting. You say that. So, this new work that's literally just out of the field, and now we're making sense of it all in our latest How America Shop® study, which we have titled, working title, How America Shops® in Chaos. It addresses so many of the things that you just talked about, because it's as if it's this normalization of chaos, the anticipation that shoppers have, like you're advising your clients, to think about is that this has been going on for a long time, the slow boil of chaos. I mean, we went back and looked at 2008

Wendy L. 04:28

the advantages of longevity, which was this sort of moment in time when you woke up in the morning, seven, 2007-08, and the world had ended financially, and it was. A massive adjustment coming off, September 11, coming right to all of, all of the chaos that came out of 2007-08, the wars, and then we came to COVID. So these quote, unquote, black swan events that were just massive overnight, but through all this, people are telling us or showing us that really, they're adapting to the chaos, and it's part of this wave of how they deal with things now and then, all the tools, all the things you're talking about, the level of information, the level of search they can do, all the places they can buy, you know, to get a better price or better accessibility. So, it's a really interesting tension, but it's like the never normal has become the now normal, the everyday, you know, so it just all we're seeing,

Justin H. 05:51

yeah, and most leaders and most organizations, regardless of industry, are are now leaning into that idea. And how do I be prepared for not five years out, like a five-year plan. When I hear someone say that, I go, I kind of cringe, like, how about two or three years because, and we've, you know, some of these digital topics we've discussed on your just since I've known you, have shifted dramatically and just less than a year or two so, but more seeing more leadership teams lean then and be very interested in new thinking and breaking down silos of work that are there traditionally and like in a consumer goods environment. And I think that that's leading to, you know, it's starting to differentiate customers in the marketplace and with their customer.

Wendy L. 06:35

Yeah, it's interesting. You say that as well. Is that couple of weeks ago, as you know, we were in Boston, where we co-sponsored with the Emerson Group one of their Future of Commerce 2030 events. And we had on the panel, one of the panels, the head of digital for food service at PepsiCo. And so, all their food service businesses and Andre talked about having like these 10 tests going on at once, because you don't know how things are going to change in the next year or two years. So, you need to begin broadly, and then, as you learn something, you say that doesn't work. Get rid of that. Add something, you know, and refining it, refining it, refining it, till maybe you've got five tests going on in innovation, data, digital marketing, all of these things. And it was such an interesting framework. It's based on what you just said, the speed of change and a five year plan the way we used to construct it, you know, it's not really realistic anymore.

Justin H. 07:32

Yeah, so a couple of thoughts there. I mean, you have a PepsiCo, that a strategic customer of ours, as you know, and they have the scale and scope to try many different things, right? And have the people and the you know, in when you're in, when you're in the cloud, for example, you can try things, turn them on, turn them off. On the other side, though, there are smaller brands, smaller retailers, that don't have the resources, the people, the the the entire IT team, the data team, the AI team, the ML team, like they're operating on spreadsheets today, making pricing decisions. And so, you do have this dichotomy of, like, you know, the larger companies having the scale and scope to try and many different things, but the the mid-size, even to smaller, I think that's a struggle,

Wendy L. 08:17

yeah, well, and even to your point about, you know, tariffs and the chaos from that. Just talking to somebody in the children's apparel business, and, you know, they don't have the resources to be able to live with the, you know, the the wave, again, of chaotic times, and trying to figure out, how do you deal with that? How do you, you know, think about supply chain. How do you move from one company to another, quickly, all of those things? So, it does feel like, from a shopper perspective, people are sort of figuring it out for themselves at this moment. But as you say, from a company perspective, there is that, you know, big companies versus small, medium and all of that. Are you seeing industries better able. Is it an industry, or is it a size, or is it a leadership What are you seeing there would frame up some of this, how they're managed.

Justin H. 09:11

Yeah, the digital native brands or the E commerce pure plays certainly can flex more quickly because they don't have the legacy debt of a major 100-year-old, 100 plus year old retail brand, or a consumer goods brand. We got a lot of different systems and antiquated and difficult, quite frankly, to move or to think different. And then I would say, depending on like, if you go into the consumer goods industry, you see innovation happening in different in different ways. Some is around product innovation. Some is around delivery and Supply Chain Innovation, which I think we'll talk about a little more today. And then some is around, like, they're accelerating their tech and digital stack. But then there's others that that is just not a priority right there. They're trying to just run the business and manage what the race. Resources that they have. On the retail side, the retailers that are really focused on customer experience, on our that are diversifying their channel mix and product by channel, in terms of how they go to market, how they sell, how they engage customers. Yeah, like they're the ones that are, are really doing well right now, and they're able to serve the premium market, also, those that are kind of want to be premium, that are on the on the curve towards that. And then, of course, in the retail space, like discount, you look at, you know, the TGX companies and others like that, I mean, doing extremely well, right? Because of how they how they serve their customer, and the product mix and pricing,

Wendy L. 10:34

yeah, yeah, being on the road and, you know, like, you're always spending time in stores, I marvel at the speed of somebody like a TJX, that corporation. But I also, you walk into like a Five Below, and they take a trend. They all the dupes in beauty and fat. You know, beauty, how they replicate that in about two seconds, how they, you know, add categories that they didn't have before, thinking about beverages. I mean, the speed at which they're adapting to trend, even in that basically physical space, or, you know, the growth of Aldi’s and Lidl they're just, I just noticed up here market 8^th Avenue, at 28th street, there's a Lidl opening, you know. I mean, whatever, right, so all of that in what you're saying in terms of adaptability and speed, big or small? Yeah, really, yeah, really interesting.

Justin H. 11:28

Amazon, yeah, look at Amazon, where, actually, we just announced we're opening more physical stores, so many the Amazon Go stores and Fresh where you're focused on the experience and blending in, kind of the digital experience with the physical experience in those stores.

Wendy L. 11:44

Yeah? Yeah. I mean, I was at the airport again, and there was a, you know, if it wasn't a go store, it was a Go technology, right? And then, to and then, to your point about more physical stores, but also, obviously, Amazon's announcement that they're going to be delivering groceries fresh, more of fresh to more markets. I can't remember if I like was 1000 markets, but a lot of places very fast. And that whole issue of, to your point about access customer experience within that access what's accessible to people today that feels like it's a whole, that it's not just affordability, it's accessibility, right?

Justin H. 12:21

Yeah. I mean, we work with not only our own grocery, of course, at Amazon, in the physical space, but also the online space. And then the vast majority of grocers, both physical and like the delivery companies worldwide, run their business on Amazon's technology. So yeah, it's an area that's exploding. It's, quite frankly, customers are expecting delivery, food delivery through your app. As you all know that I just dropped on the floor my phone and expecting that to be fast. And in some markets, it's like 15 minutes. And, I mean, like some countries, it's crazy. And so, in other markets, it's not quite that. But you know, getting what you want, when you want when you want it. Be able to pay for that is certainly a customer expectation, and it's only being amped up more and more through the use of, like, better AI tools and whatnot to to enable that experience.

Wendy L. 13:12:59

Yeah, yeah. I was having that conversation with somebody today who was talking about how he had, he was out of his favorite Jiff peanut butter and wasn't sure that if you get to the store, I said, well, you know, there's an app for that. I have a very strange bundle of odd things sitting on my desk here that you can't see, an adapter, a new book, and, oh, a skincare product that I'm about to at lunchtime, hit Amazon, or they will all show up in a minute, and that'll be it. They'll be like, that’s a motley crew of things, but they're all things I need in a hurry and they will show up in the next day

Justin H. 13:48

or so well. And then in very dense cities like that, you know, you really have an opportunity to do unique delivery capabilities. But, I mean, you know, even I live in Atlanta, if I need some, if I want something today, between two and five. It's not too late, you know? That's right. And that's pretty incredible, you know? And that's becoming an expectation, right? When I go to a store and out of stock on something, and I look at my app, it's like, I could have it two o'clock today. Why would I come back to that store?

Wendy L. 14:13

back to that store? That's it. And that's that is another conversation, I think. I mean, you talked about Amazon opening more physical stores as well for the experience side, but those retailers who have built their strategy on, you know the accessibility, the real estate on the corner, and you know that we can just drop into, pick up the milk, pick up whatever, that model, be it a convenience store, a drugstore, we really have to think twice about now, right in terms of the kinds of delivery options that we have.

Justin H. 14:42

Yeah, it's not just grocery I mean, they're across categories. There are some retailers struggling with their physical store economics. I'll say. What's interesting is we often think about, and I said this on our last podcast, I think you know North America, but you get outside of North America, and. Malls are booming in the Middle East. You wouldn't believe it. Malls are booming in parts of the Asia Pacific. Malls in Atlanta are empty, except for the new one. walkable, livable, restaurant. You know that those types of malls, it's really interesting from a retail strategy perspective. You know, your physical store strategy has to match the market, and the market is different, and not just North America centric. And I just feel like sometimes we, we collective, me and team, have to be careful not to catch ourselves into this mark, into the North America, view only,

Wendy L. 15:30

yeah, and I think that's always been interesting to me, because, you know, we go to other events and conferences around the world. And, of course you and I have the luxury of, you know, traveling around the world and seeing this, I always remarket something like being in Japan, where there's the 7-Eleven home of and that convenience model of what that looks like there, and then going into some amazing either flagship Shiseido store, or, you know, Takashi-Maya it Is and seeing that very high end experience and lots of people and technology and service. And you're out here, you know, you can walk through most malls or department stores and not see anything. So, it seems very different. Yeah, right, yeah. Well, you're in London. I mean, you look at, you know, the Battersea Power Station that they've turned into an extraordinary shopping experience, in addition to high street, you know, Boots and Tesco, and all the others are Marks & Spencers. So, yeah, tights, as we've always said, really important to get out and not just assume that we know it all because we're here. So, one of the one of those anyway,

Justin H. 16:35

anyway, yeah, got to get in the market to, it's like, as I have said earlier, if you want to be involved in retail and consumer goods. You've got to be involved in the industry. You can't just pretend like, you know, or read an email newsletter every week. If you want to be involved in the market with your customers, you got to be there with your customers. You can't pretend like, you know what's going on Dubai or Abu Dhabi, or, you know, Bangkok, or you know, Singapore. To understand that market in our world, you got to have, you got to be invested in there with your customers. Yeah,

Wendy L. 17:03

Yeah, I think a really good example is Aldi and Lidl again, because, you know, those of us who had the luxury of either traveling and watching those companies grow, and look at it in Australia, where they took, like, 20% of the grocery market overnight, virtually, and you look at that dynamic, and you say, Well, no, that doesn't apply here. And

Wendy L. 17:33

now it does, right. So, you're right. Tremendous, tremendous learning. I think, talking to the Costco people not so long ago, and just thinking about how they've adapted to all these countries, it's mind boggling. Anyway, all of that. The other thing that struck me is there was a there was a conversation, I think it was in the New York Times, about AI and really seeing the impact of AI and that it being a very long-term view from the point of view of some of the major CEOs of big companies. Are you? How are you seeing people view AI again, on this journey we've been on over the last year or two. It's

Justin H. 18:01

It's interesting, you know, you and I did the Emerson Industry Days event. I think it was a year and a half, two years ago, and that was my topic then. And it was so it was early days even then. But I think even then, I, you know, went into our large language model and asked it to write a song based on the theory of the event, and, you know, and I had lyrics, and about 35 seconds, right? And so, you know, that was like, so mind blowing. Then, then we kind of moved into, if, for those that have been around the space for a little bit, you know, kind of went from AI, machine learning has been around since the 50s, to generative AI really came out in the last two and a half three years. Kind of became big. And now you hear this word agentic all parked out just for a moment. But so where is it real? Continues to be very real in things like, like, if you're on your E commerce listings, your AdWords, your your titles, the summarization of reviews, the ability to write copy. I mean, you all know that. I'm hoping, because you probably already have tools for it. And if you don't, you could have the tools very easily in the marketing space. Of course, images, like, there's no reason anymore for anyone just have an image with a white background. Like, sure, you could have that, but you could put those products in so many different places now, with many different types of models. Amazing. You know, early this year, I thought the big thing for the year was going to be video, short form video. And it has we seen some amazing like, ads created by ad agencies actually using these large language models to create ads without, I mean, there's unbelievable, incredible takes, you know, dollars, not millions, right? Seeing 1000s, not millions, to do this. So, these are the places where it's really working and it's paying, playing out in the IT space. Any IT person watching this should know, and they probably already do that coding using like text to create applications unbelievable, like accuracy. Those are where disruptions happening. That's where it's where it's real, this whole idea of agenda. Take, we won't get technical here, but like, until January, I don't know that many any really knew much about what that even is, let alone, you know, most companies were like, Wait, I thought I was just getting into generative. Ai right now, is this new thing? So, yes, there's a lot of excitement around this whole idea of agents, agents doing shopping, agents doing supply chain. And yes, there's a lot of great potential there. I think we should park that for a future discussion where we can really dive into some examples. But, you know, six or seven months into the year here, that has become like the word to bring up. But then when you start digging deeper. Most companies are, they're still, you know, kicking the tires on what it really means and what it could mean for them.

Wendy L. 20:47

Yeah, yeah. I must say, I was scratching my head the other day working on our new study with our new research director, and of course, he's not totally familiar with everything we've done over the last number of years. So, I'm like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. What study was that in? I don't know. Did we ask the question that way? I'm like, oh, listen, here we go. We could we know how to solve that fast? But yeah, they're things like, you know, the my our virtual librarian, that can say yes, yes. This was the question. It was in this, all of those things where, where you certainly see in our world. And also, our associate producer of this podcast, Crysta who's in the behind the scenes. Yes, she, does some amazing things for us on, you know, Instagram, social media, where incredible we're talking heads, and she's got amazing video behind us and imagery behind us, and all of those things. So certainly, the companies are our size, there's tremendous value, as it was in the days of, you know, I'll Google that before, in the very beginning of I'll google that. I'll say

Justin H. 21:49

I'll say this. In the last 12 months, more line of business leaders has been wanting to dive in, and I think that's a great thing. Typically, marketing and supply chain, their line of business leaders wants to like, they want to know, and they want to explore, and they want their analysts to try and test and just just have access to the tools. Look, most of the companies that are watching this or listening to this, and I'm talking to you guys, not Wendy, just for a moment, your companies probably have access to these tool sets, and and you can use those within your environment. You should test them out. Let let your analysts run crazy. Let them put them spreadsheets and whatnot into your internal large language. Large language models, like within your environment, so it's secure and safe, but like, get those analysts. Shopper marketing, customer insight, consumer insights, BI teams, analytics team, whatever you call them, get them in there, let them start testing these out. It's pretty powerful.

Wendy L. 22:43

Yeah, I marvel. I've just been playing around, as you have suggested, for some time now, and I listen beyond what Maryann, who is our producer and head of creative services, and many other things behind the scenes here today. You know, this, just playing around with things like Perplexity versus Chat versus, you know, all of these resources. And, you know, you play around, and it is quite extraordinary. So yeah, and listen to what Justin says, whatever level you're at. Take half an hour on a Sunday afternoon and play because otherwise,

Justin H. 23:19

let me read. Let me read a couple of stats for you. These are not from these are from Adobe analytics. Like this came out just to a quarter ago through or this is in we're recording this, by the way, in summer 2025, in case you listen to this later. So, this is a couple months ago, 1200% surge in AI driven traffic to retail sites. Okay? So, what that means is consumers or shoppers that are looking for product that traditionally would have gone to a search engine, are using one of the apps you mentioned, or other that are AI powered to find product, okay, to and then landing on a retail site. Okay? Of that 23% lower bounce rate of those people that come to their site to then convert, okay, and then the conversion gap, like, it's gone from 43% to 9% I mean, this is unbelievable. Like, if you think about retail shopping, the way you shop, how the tools you use to shop and search, and then like, and then, I think that's amazing to think about. But then think about the brands that sell on different platforms. Okay, if these agents are so good that I'm looking for this one set of shoes and this size, it can go look across all the platforms and find that shoe and the size at the best price without me having to go to all of them. Okay, what does that mean for your pricing strategy? What does that mean for like, I mean, think about all the implications of that. So traditional e commerce, I think, is right for disruption.

Wendy L. 24:55

Yeah, no, I so agree with you on that. It is really stunning. I remember several. Well, maybe even before you and I started to speak about this, somebody had said to me, they had just used an AI tool. It was probably Chat in the day, because there was not much else out there. And I remember her saying, I found the perfect pair of shoes. I just put in the prompt. It wasn't brilliant. I didn't learn how to prompt yet, but I put it in, and I found the right pair of shoes to go with the right outfit. You know, all of the above, right? Now, the only thing I will tell you, I am struggling to find a new couch. So, I don't know, my prompts are not good, and then, you know, I have to go and sit on it. But I have this I'm in this journey, before New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve, to find a new couch, a new couch. So, I am going to be Perplexity whoever else that's out there. I'm going to be doing a lot of searching,

Justin H. 25:46

you know, for those who don't know, Wendy lives in the city, like in a, you know, like the couch has got to be a certain size. It's not a house in the out the suburbs of Atlanta with big double doors. And right? So, it's got a got certain requirement,

Wendy L. 26:02

indeed, and certain height. Because, you know, as we get more mature we need certain height, we need whatever's, will it go with this? Will it go and, more importantly, will it be delivered? Not in 25,000 weeks. So, the requirements are very specific, but I am now on a journey to use agentic AI to find my perfect couch, so then I can go and sit on it somewhere and make sure it's fine before I buy it. But I need to do all that homework first that's all

Justin H. 26:30

that's all available now, like, not only the couch, but things that could recommend going with it. And where, you know, do you want me to go ahead and order that for you, you know, and have it delivered? I mean, yeah. And these are, again, you know, I said this back in the Emerson thing. I thought, this is the first inning. You know, we're Year Zero. I still feel like that, even now, like it's just, it's changing weekly, biweekly. And the opportunity, though, for those that are listening, for consultants, for tech companies, is, you know, these, these companies who need help. Like, they don't know what's best for which use case and like, so the advisory piece of this is going to be significant. You think about the idea of, you know, we have this big company brand. We're not experts at the AI thing. We're, you know, we're good at making product and selling product. Can you guys, you guys being, you know, consultant XYZ? Can you guys just be our AI, COE like, you, just come in and be that, because we don't know, like you guys are best at that. So, I think the OP model and the business model for the big SI’s, is changing the tech companies too, but this is where they're going to have to find where they can add value, because it's not going to be in doing a business case on a brand. I can do that in about two minutes right now, right, right? One of these

Wendy L. 27:42

hours, it's so interesting that you said that, because I do recall speaking of Emerson, the Emerson Group, who we all love, is that they had their interns. A year ago. We were celebrating the 90th anniversary of NACDS, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, and it was who are all the companies that might be of interest to invite, and literally, their interns went away and came back within that afternoon and had the cheat sheet for every one of these companies and senior management like, how did you do that? And they were like that. So, there you go. So, all of those things, yes, from

Justin H. 28:19

accountable to be perfect. So, people might say, well, it's not perfect. Okay, I'll take 80 or 90%

Speaker 1 28:45

that's right, you know, in a minute, then I'll, you know, right? And up. So yeah, you still need human in

Justin H. 28:49

the loop and all that. But anyway, so there's a lot of excitement energy around this topic, still, but there's a lot of other things too, that our customers are working on and that the industry's focused

Wendy L. 28:41

on. So, what do you, what's, what are you hearing lately as we wrap up, what, what's on your mind? What's on your customers minds, as you're thinking about, you know, coming to, you know, back to school is pretty much done, yes, of the country, and then heading into Christmas, what are you in the holidays? What are you? What's, I'm curious to see what inventory

Justin H. 28:59

curious to see what inventory be curious to see inventory positions for retailers. You know, were there issues in getting right product for for holiday or not? I think that'll be very telling. Do we see price take into are their real price impacts from the all the tariff discussion and what? I'm not sure there were in some markets. There was a lot of discussion about it. No impact from it. So, you know, will we see that? Will we see inflation continue to decrease in most markets? Or are there some areas where we see that continue to be a challenge? A lot of companies are rethinking their people architecture, their people structure, right? The talent that they need, the skill sets you need to hire. So, as we go into the new year, you know, what are companies looking for? Are they preparing for the next two or three years? Are they, are they still looking in the rearview mirror and kind of backfilling roles because somebody left or because there was a hole? So, I think that's going to be really interesting to

Wendy L. 29:52

watch. Yeah, I and I do think your point about inventory and price, obviously, there are certain categories that are very, you know, that. That are very important to holiday and whether it is toys or fashion or technology, things like that. And so thinking about those, and how people, how some of the bigger and smaller companies have been able to adapt to the changes to the tariffs, you know, with their supply chain, and then who's picking up the load, if there is a load, or are people going to hold off until the new year and then say, Okay, well, we, you know, we were good soldiers, but we can't hold off price increases any longer. But it does feel like it's very category specific as well, yeah, which I think is the other issue, right?

Justin H. 30:38

Yeah. I think that, you know, there's been a lot of talk about dynamic pricing, which, you know, there's tension in the market about the views on that, but that's gonna be really interesting when you start thinking of this whole idea of, I've gotta manage price across platforms. When do I discount? When do I When do I not discount? If I have to manage same price or consistent price across platforms, how do I do that? Yeah, there's a lot to be to be thought or there's a lot to think about in that, in that framework. And I just another whole area of consideration as we go into the new year, because it that will be here sooner than we know. It, just like we were saying a year ago, images were just okay. Now they're incredible. A year ago, we were able to make video, okay. It's going to be, it's already incredible. The ability to make decisions on pricing recommendations and and whatnot, and this, our space will be significant.

Wendy L. 31:26

Yeah, that that feels to me like something you and I will talk about a lot moving forward, that the whole issue about pricing consistency, not consistent, what's a value? What are people willing to pay for accessibility? My colleague, who is just passionate, you know, I don't, I think he'd almost not care about what the price is to make sure it's in his fridge, or wherever you put your peanut butter. I don't need peanut butter, but anyway, you put peanut butter in the fridge, not me. I don't know. I put everything in the fridge. I don't know whatever it would take me a year to I don't know, I don't need peanut butter unless it's in chocolate ice cream with peanut butter chips. Yeah, well, there you go. I didn't grow up with peanut butter. What can I tell you? Anyway, here we are at the end of another journey where we've covered lots of territory. So, I want a global view when you come back, since you've just been in London. But also, we really, as we think about what the year looks like and some of the new tensions, and then we'll share some of our new research, and you'll have lots more to talk about across your many and growing areas of control and experience.

Justin H. 32:33

expertise. Yeah, it's exciting. It's an exciting time to be in our industry, and it sure is nice to see people leaning in and wanting to learn.

Wendy L. 32:42

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, as always, it was a pleasure.

Justin H. 33:10

Of course,

Wendy L. 33:11

travels easy, travels home, and then we will talk from this side when you get here.

Justin H. 32:50

I can't wait. Be great.

Wendy L. 33:40

So with Justin, it's always a wonderful conversation because we just riff over the major topics that he is hearing in his broad platform around the world. As he as he told us he was in London today as we spoke, you know, just think about some of these conversations. Yes, we've talked, been talking a lot about AI. Yes, we continue to do that. And will on our upcoming podcast the end of October, we're going to talk more about agentic AI and some of the case studies he will bring. But we talked about accessibility. We talked about speed to market. We talked about a lot of the things that companies are now doing, beyond having a physical store on a corner to get delivery, speed it up, whether it's, you know, Amazon improving its delivery, whether it's an Aldi or a Lidl, moving into neighborhoods so people have access quickly. Of course, the AI tools, which allow us to find the right product for what we want really fast. And as he always tells us, there is an Amazon option click here. All of that is coming so fast. And even though we can't necessarily identify the value proposition right today, we all need to be experimenting in this space, and whatever area you are in insights, in marketing, supply chain, all of those areas, we all need to be experimenting to see what role this intelligence, this artificial intelligence, can play in our work. The other thing we talked a lot about was, was pricing, and the complexity of pricing as we move, not just through issues of tariffs and no tariffs, but also being on multiple platforms, where now I can shop and have my agent find me the best product at the best price, right for me right now, and click and have it delivered. So that whole challenge of how we think about pricing in the future is something he and I are going to talk about even more on different episodes, because it will become an incredibly important issue as we think about everywhere everybody shops all the time, right? The movie title, “Everything everywhere, all at once”, is exactly the retail world we now live in. There's a. Going on here, including our upcoming How America Shop® study, How America Shops in Chaos. Lots of great learning there. So, stay tuned, lots of future coming at you. See you then. Cheers for now. You.