Consumer Omnichannel Insights & Engagement with Walmart's Seth Dallaire

PVSB 0:01

Welcome to another episode of the CPG Guys Podcast. Our co-hosts, Shri Raja Kapalin and Peter V.S. Bond, explore how brands and retailers engage with consumers online, in store, and everywhere in between. And now, here are Shri and Peter. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this incredibly special episode of the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm PVSB, one of the aforementioned CPG Guys. And when I'm not podcasting, I am, of course, the Vice President of Partner Strategy and Development at Fetch Rewards, a mobile loyalty platform. Today we are celebrating the release of our 200th episode. It is hard to believe that just a short two years ago, my friend and I were conceiving of this journey and how it has transformed our lives is remarkable. And as I mentioned, my co-host joining me in co-hosting this incredible celebration is my BFF, my co-pilot, my ride or die on this journey to explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in a digitally driven world is the man with one name. No, I'm not talking about Bono or Eminem or even Fabio. I'm talking about the Lord of Los Angeles, the man known as Shree. Shree, how you doing? You got your sparkling cider on ice ready to ready to celebrate here? What's going on? The key is it's non-alcoholic.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

It is for both of us. Episode 200, Peter. When we had this conversation in March 2020 that we should do a podcast, we pivoted from writing articles, making YouTube videos, just talking to each other, to an actual episode called Consumer Engagement in an Omnichannel World to later that year, I think late that year we came up with CPG guys. Wow. I can't believe I'm 200 episodes deep in this world with you, Peter. And to 300 more episodes as we keep going.

PVSB 2:12

Do you remember how we came up with our name? I remember it was literally the first words that came out of your mouth. Welcome to exploring consumer engagement in an omnichannel world. And I thought, okay, that's what we'll name it. Uh and then we kept saying it. It was like, well, it's a little bit long and it's a little bit, and I'm like, yeah, we've got to find something. But but you know, we we settled on where we are today, and uh, I'm so incredibly proud of the work that we've produced, the community that we fostered, Shri, over 12,000 followers on LinkedIn. My goodness, have we created a group of people that are just so enthusiastic about educating themselves on this transformation that's come across our industry over the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Couple of things I'll point out, Peter. Not too shabby for a bunch of hacks, huh? And uh, you know, it's extraordinary, Sri Hack. 200 episodes, I think, we're way past hack in this at this stage. And uh, you know, the top of what comes to my top of mind is when we started this journey, we said we're gonna do two things. One is we're gonna learn a lot and listen to people, which we've played out to the bone. And the other thing we said we'll do is we'll share. And the the objectives of the podcast have stayed remarkably consistent. And to the day, our objective is we learn, we share, we want to give back education. That's why we do this. A lot of people ask us, you guys have tough day jobs, you guys do other things, you have family, still have young kids. How do you do it all? We love what we do, which is we love to share.

PVSB 3:50

Yeah, and I would add to that, Sri, that not only have we created a community of followers and listeners, but just among the podcasting industry, the relationships we've built and how we've fostered the creation of the FMCG guys, our friends Daniel and a friend, um, Rob Gonzalez and Peter Crosby at Unpacking the Digital Shelf, Wendy Liebman at Future Shop, our friends at eFundamentals who created and uh produced the uh the digital shelf cast. We're we're a very tight-knit community, and we're we're about raising each other up, not competing with each other and tearing each other down. And that I'm incredibly proud of, Shri.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

And Peter, this is precisely the reason we share a list of must-listen podcasts, and there's so many on that must-listen, because we've had the opportunity to listen to those and learn from those podcasts ourselves. Again, the mission is learn and share, educate. So the mission's not gonna change at this stage.

PVSB 4:52

Well, Shri, I am, as I said when I opened, so incredibly grateful to be on this journey with you in particular. You are uh you keep moving up my list of most important favorites on my phone. You know, you're like, I'm not gonna say where you are, but you're you're in the family zone. Let's just say that, my friend. You're right there, and I I love you very much. And you and your family mean so much to me, as as do you to my family. So really happy to be on this journey with you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Thank you to you too, Peter, for those watching the video. Here are the ones pinned to mine, and you can see who's right up top on mine. Uh you're right up there on mine, man. Read the name, please.

PVSB 5:32

Read the name. I I don't know who that is, Shree. I I don't know who it is. But I can tell you you're right there in the middle on the top for my right there.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

DVSB and streaming.

PVSB 5:43

Yeah, yeah. We're in inextricably linked. We don't just stay together for the kid, Shree. You know that. We kid about that, but thank you so much. And of course, we're it's a great year, 200. Our baseball teams are killing it on the field. There's so much to be thankful for, and I'm just so happy it's that I'm doing this with you, Shri. So I want to remind all our audience that our content now 200 episodes strong. You can find it by visiting cpgguys.com. You can find us on 40 plus platforms. You can find our social media accounts there as well, our LinkedIn profiles. And of course, if you're not following us on LinkedIn, please open up your mobile app or go to a web browser, type in LinkedIn. When you get there in the search box, type in CPG Guys. You'll come to our page. If you haven't already done it, click the blue follow button. That way you're privy to all of the great content that we're producing. Of course, it's all free, right? So everyone can afford free. I think three will agree with me on that. And we're also incredibly proud on this journey to be partnered with Next Up, formerly known as Network of Executive Women, which has been rebranded. And in the middle of every Wednesday episode, we hide a little Easter egg with message about Next Up, some of the things that are happening and how you can participate in events and virtual or physical. And of course, our good friend Sarah Alter, the president and CEO of Next Up, she's got her own podcast. It's called Advancing All Women. We've been guests on it recently. We think it's very well worth a listen. A lot of people from our industry appear on that podcast, not always talking about CPG stuff, but about things we deal with as professionals. So we highly recommend that you do that. We're we're honored to be allies in the cause for advancing all women. And of course, we want to thank, as I mentioned earlier, our 12,000 LinkedIn followers that just keep growing and growing. So incredible. And of course, we mentioned earlier our friends Efrain and Daniel, the FMCG guys, they're taking our format across the pond. They're talking with fast-moving consumer goods and retail thought leaders from a European perspective. So please go to FMCGguys.com and check out their podcast. There was no question that for our big bicentennial episode, we required a celebrity caliber guest to match this momentous occasion. And Sri, we have delivered. He joined us for a conversation last year and has since established that episode as the most downloaded from among the 199 that we have published prior to today. Wow. You may have even seen his name in the lead spot of the top 10 episodes list we published on our LinkedIn page a few weeks ago. Last October, he joined Walmart as chief revenue officer, overseeing three business units, Walmart Connect, where we have discussed numerous times in this podcast, most recently with Kara Russo, VP of Marketing, Walmart Data Ventures, which has commercial responsibility for Walmart Luminate, and of course the Walmart Plus Consumer Membership Program. Please join Street and me in welcoming back to the CPT Guys podcast, Seth Delaire. Seth, how are you back? How are you doing, Seth?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Thanks for having me, guys. And and congratulations on uh making 200 episodes. It's awesome and and I'm flattered to be here and chosen as a guest again, a repeat guest, even.

PVSB 9:16

We we are honored to have you back. And yeah, no one's more surprised about 200 episodes than the two of us. We we thought we would have broken up long ago, and here we are, staying together, working through it. I'm telling you. Just to be clear, we're we're staying together for the kids. The kids. We only stay together for the kids. Um uh when are they going to college, Shree? We got to send them. That's it's gonna be a while. But anyhow, uh hey uh Seth, before we get to the questions that we've prepared for you, you want to share with our audience an overview of your portfolio responsibilities as the chief revenue officer at what my co-host would best describe as the world's most elite retailer.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Well, uh again, thanks for having me. Um in my role as chief revenue officer at Walmart, I look after uh three pieces of business. Uh the first one being Walmart Connect. And as you mentioned, Peter, that's been discussed on the program a couple of times. That's our retail media business and advertising business that many of your listeners are already pretty familiar with. I also have responsibility for data monetization, which is the Walmart data ventures business, and that is inclusive of the Walmart Luminate product suite. And then uh lastly, I also have a responsibility for membership. So that's the Walmart Plus program. And all of these businesses are uh like really exciting for me to lead. Um, some of them are uh relatively new for Walmart, in terms of Walmart uh plus and and data ventures. Some of them are more mature, like Connect. All of them have a ton of opportunity uh for Walmart to grow and to help us do more for uh customers, but then also for our suppliers and advertiser customers as well.

PVSB 11:01

Thanks for that, Seth. Uh, we're going to include hyperlinks in the digital liner notes of this episode to your LinkedIn profile and each of the uh sites for the three solutions that you mentioned. So that audience, you don't have to write them down, you don't have to Google them. Just go to the digital liner notes and you'll you'll find the link to Walmart Luminate, to Walmart Connect, and of course Walmart Plus. So um so with that, I want to say to our audience, before we get to the questions, we're going to ask Seth to answer two additional questions that you're not going to find in this podcast episode. So if you want to hear them after you're done listening to this, go to our LinkedIn page and look for the special in the no post that'll be coming later on in the week that this episode is released. So the only place you're going to see them is there. It's our little after show. I think you'll find it interesting. They're different than the questions we're going to ask Seth in this session. So please do join us on LinkedIn. And while you're there, click the follow button. You got to follow us on LinkedIn. We're big. All right. So let's get to let's get to the question, shall we? Um, I'll kick it off, Seth. One of your responsibilities at Walmart is for a group known as Walmart Data Ventures. Now, I know quite a number of the people in that group. We we crossed paths professionally in the past. So I'm really excited to talk about this because we haven't spoken with anybody about this. While most people in the audience are not likely going to be familiar with the name of this group, vendors who are selling through Walmart have become familiar with the term Walmart Luminate, which is a customer-centric suite of data analytics and insights. So can you please double-click down and give us an overview of what Walmart Luminate is? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

And uh you covered a bit of it at the high level there, Peter. It is a proprietary suite of products and capabilities, and um it's proprietary to Walmart. And the purpose is to deliver actionable, customer-centric uh insights and data to our merchants internally, but then also to our supplier partners to help them make better business decisions. Um so much of our business is conducted across these different channels, so the online piece of business, uh, of course, e com, uh, but then also in-store. And being able to have data and insights that bridges the gap or helps uh suppliers uh and leaders understand um how customers are shopping or how their products are being merchandised or sold and how successful they are relative to uh you know the competitors or or you know their their performance on the shelf. Those things are really important. And uh they're areas of development for us uh at Walmart in terms of understanding them, making sure that we get them in the right place, um, and that we uh permission them in ways that that are appropriate. And there's really three core capabilities within the Walmart Luminate product suite. The first one is the uh shopper behavior uh capability. And this is really what I would call uh the the what, if you will. Um we have a what, a where, and a why component to the Illuminate product suite. Shopper behavior is really the what. Uh shopper behavior capability enables our suppliers to drill down into profiles and behaviors uh that customers are exhibiting in their category and with their brands. And so they suppliers will get access to a number of different detailed reports about loyalty, about switching, um basket composition, substitutions, a whole host of really rich data signals that can help the supplier and and brand manager understand how the Walmart customer is interacting with their brands, and then ultimately, how do we help them sell more stuff? How do we help them be more efficient? So that's the shopper behavior uh capability. The second capability that we have is called customer perception. Customer perception is what I would really classify as the why. Like, why are customers behaving certain ways? What are the attitudes they have towards particular brands or particular products? And the through customer perception, we're able to deliver to suppliers really robust panels of verified Walmart shoppers that can give feedback on demand to suppliers about their products or their brands. Um, and through this tool, suppliers can facilitate really interesting and in-depth interviews and conduct user testing, concept testing for innovation products, um, and get real-time feedback. And this is at a level uh or scale where the panel size uh really benefits from the scale of Walmart's retail business uh at large. So it's a really exciting capability that we're bringing that we think is going to help brands understand more about why uh customers and consumers are responding to their products the way that they are, or ideally predict ways that they could improve response in the future. And then finally, there's channel performance. And this is really what I would consider the where of the product suite. So with channel performance, we're allowing brands to unlock insights into their performance uh across the digital shelf, the physical shelf. Um, it'll allow the supplier to uh work on forecasting, uh, understand things like market share or category share, and uh do it in a way that is specific to Walmart, where we observe these uh signals and provide them back to the supplier with high recency and low latency. So the three products just to review, because I said a lot, uh, are the uh shopper behavior, which is the what, the customer perception, which is the why, and finally channel performance, which is the where.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

What can get better than that, Peter? What, why, where? That's like the answer we all seek as human beings to everything in life, right? So, and then some of the MVP words on the show shopper behavior, customer perception, channel performance, and that too, the 360 bringing it together as omnichannel. If that's the type of answers we're gonna get today, Peter, we're gonna this we're gonna get to episode 500 soon. This is gonna be a good podcast. So let me welcome. We're both honored and thankful and grateful, Seth, that you chose to join us and be our celebrity like guest, as Peter said, for the 200th episode of the CPG guys. So thank you for that. And uh, I'm gonna continue with this thread of Walmart, Luminate, because Luminate is a word that was born in the industry approximately a year and a half or so ago, maybe January, forget the exact time, but about a year and a half ago. And um now consumer brands are starting to understand what Walmart Luminate is, and I think you've just articulated very clearly it's the what why wear of shop omnichannel shopping. What matters most is the consumer at the end of the day. So I'd love to go back to your inspiration on the what-whyware. Like what was the inspiration for standing up Walmart, Luminate in the first place? And then we always like to look future forward on the CPG guys. What's the future vision for it?

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Well, I mean, historically, um Walmart has had a ton of data about consumers, um, could be transaction data, uh, it could be data about category share, um, it could be data about innovation sampling. Um, and much of this data existed in silos, some of it still does. And and so while I wasn't here at the origin or the launch of the data ventures uh team, um, I came shortly after. Um, it is one of the things that got me most excited about joining Walmart in the first place, is that the from my experience working in e-com and and in retail, uh, there's just no one that has as much scale or as much uh capability to help manufacturers or suppliers understand how their products are moving, how customers are responding to the products or the types of products that they may want in the future. Um, whether the the company, uh, Walmart, you know, have the ability to provide that type of insight in a way that a supplier or even internally that a merchant could use. Um I think you would find across Walmart that there's general agreement that we could do a better job there and bring more data forward in ways that would help suppliers operate more efficiently, which then helps us do more things for the customer. Um, it helps us help them save money, save time, live better, which you know, that's our mission. So um the the opportunity to work on that effort and to find the parts of uh the data signals across the business that are most valuable to suppliers was was really exciting to me. And in my prior roles, I had some experience doing that and just saw how powerful it could be uh when suppliers had access to it. Um but the scale was much smaller than what uh than what Walmart could bring to market. And so now um we're just starting to really uh bring these three capabilities forward. Um we're we've had a tremendous positive response to these products, and we're we're actually learning with suppliers as we're uh as we're bringing these capabilities forward about all of the different ways that they're using the information. They're already making requests for more capability, could be more capability from a measurement standpoint in terms of the types of signals they're seeing or the number of signals that they're seeing. And then also uh we're getting requests for very sophisticated delivery methods. So it could be you know, can you give me this data in an API? Can you give me this data in some way that I can ingest it back into my enterprise in ways that reduce latency or increase the frequency with which we can see it? Because the the one thing that's really been humbling for me. Um coming over to Walmart, it's just the size of the business is so large. And um the the number of transactions that we have with uh consumers in the U.S. is just it's it's staggering. I mean, as many as 90% of Americans have shopped at a Walmart in the past year. Um, you know, weekly we see over 100 million shoppers in the US. And at that type of scale, if you can provide some type of signal about what those shoppers are buying, how they're behaving in ways that suppliers can then use to inform their businesses and then help us provide everyday low prices and do great things for customers for their lives, then it's a pretty powerful uh and exciting uh team to help lead and bring to market. Um so the future of that is that we're going to try and meet all of the uh supplier-led uh demands is maybe not the right word, but supplier-led interest. Like, hey, can you help us understand this? Can you help us get these types of signals so that we can improve the way that we operate with with Walmart? Um, we're gonna continue to do that. So these three, these three capabilities are really just the beginning. Um, the next couple of features that we bring forward um will be heavily informed by suppliers and our existing subscribers to these uh to these data products. So it's really exciting. Um and for me as a retail media, I guess, pro, someone that's dedicated most of my career to retail media, the adjacency of these types of signals, even though they're not directly uh causal necessarily to retail media investment, having them available make has the potential to not only improve the in-store experience and the e-com experience, but also make retail media investments more performant. So I'm really excited about uh not only bringing more capability to suppliers, but then also how is it that the data that we're bringing through Walmart Illuminate or any other type of data product that we bring forward, um, how are they contributing to making retail media investments, whether they're in our dot com or in the app or actually in the store itself, perform better?

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Again, I just love that the focus of Walmart. Illuminate was built on day one to be omnifocused, that it includes you know what I what I feel is a powerful part of the equation, which is the in-store piece of this. Because she's still very much in-store browsing, shopping. The keyword is she's also browsing. And um one of the things I'm sure the industry would love to know, especially brands would love to know, is who can get access to Walmart Luminate? What um what will does Walmart really make visible to subscribing vendors all products in the category, which means they can get to share? And uh, do you have to be a category captain in a certain category to get access, or can any vendor sign up for this and get access to the true omnichannel understanding of the where, why, what as you described earlier?

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah, so subscribers to uh Walmart Illuminate have access and visibility to all products within their category. And the category level insights that are available in uh in those are the things that are available, chopper behavior. And all all vendors in a category are able to subscribe to to Walmart Luminate, they're not exclusive to uh the the uh category captains.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

So, folks, you heard it here on the CPG guys, your share problems have been answered. You want to find out your omnichannel share. The keyword again is omnichannel share on Walmart. You heard it right here? All products in the category. You don't have to be a category captain. If you're doing business in that category with Walmart as a vendor omnichannel, you can definitely get access to it should you choose to. Thank you for that, Seth.

PVSB 26:17

All right. I think we have explored uh Walmart Luminates uh to a great degree. Let's shift to one of his other portfolio responsibilities. Seth, you your responsibility also includes Walmart Plus, which was launched, if I do my math correctly, about 18 months ago. Would you please provide our audience with an overview of Walmart Plus from a consumer perspective? What is the core value proposition for subscription and membership?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Sure. So Walmart Plus is our membership program that includes free delivery from the store, free shipping from Walmart.com, uh, as well as uh contactless checkout with Scam and Go. Uh we offer uh Walmart Plus members early access to products like PS5 gaming consoles. Those have been really popular as part of our early access program. And then we're also uh including benefits that are third-party benefits. Like we recently launched a Spotify premium uh six-month membership for free for members. And then last week we offered a fuel benefit in partnership with ExxonMobil, where we're offering uh plus members up to 10 cents off every gallon of gas that they buy at uh 14,000 participating ExxonMobil stations nationwide and Walmart and Murphy stations if you're if you're buying gas at a Walmart or Murphy store. So um that is a particularly timely benefit. Uh since last week we've seen a significant uptake in terms of uh members' uh subscriptions and trials based on that benefit alone. Uh the program itself costs $98 a year or $1,295 a month. And members save on average about $800 a year for with free delivery from store and as much as $75 or more on fuel. So uh the math on membership of the program versus savings uh really works out. It's over you know, 8x the savings, um 30 save eight times as much as you would pay for the membership. So it's a really exciting area, and as you mentioned, Peter, it's it's 18 months old, so it's still relatively new. But uh what we're learning about Walmart Plus uh members is that they are our most valuable customers. The way that their shopping is omni, uh the amount of uh share of budget that we get from a Walmart Plus member is very high. They uh they tend to spend more money, their shopping behavior changes, or they will spend more money with Walmart across our entire categories, grocery, for instance, consumables, and general merchandise, once they become members of the program. So it's a strategic focus for us because we think A, it helps our most valuable customers save time, save money, live better, but then also it helps us introduce and get closer to them and learn more from them and help them meet more of their consumer needs uh throughout everything uh from grocery to general merchandise.

PVSB 29:26

Well, Seth, thank you for that. I'm pleased to report that I've been a member of Walmart Plus since day one. Thank you. And I can say that the and I it's you're welcome. And I can also say that the scan and go capability has fundamentally transformed my relationship with Walmart. It has dramatically increased Walmart's care of Walmart in the bond household. So I want to remind I want to remind our audience that today Triana are speaking on this special 200th episode with Walmart's chief revenue officer Seth Delaire.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

The Raj Huzzle did not want to get left behind. So the Raj Huzzle also ended up subscribing to Walmart Plus on day one it was made available. And our favorite is home del free home delivery because we take advantage of even though we live four miles from the Walmart. I love that I can drive up to the curb and have it delivered in my vehicle as well as home delivery for urgent stuff, and it's working to a precision here in California. When I say precision, I mean precision, and because my daughters happen to be in the business of music and entertainment, the Spotify Plus. Uh uh the Spotify Plus membership is an added bonus for us and for our audience listening in. Uh, we may know one other show that's on Spotify Plus. Do you know what that is, Peter? It's the CPG guys. So um, all jokes apart, all kidnapping part over here. You know, Walmart Plus, as you clearly indicated, between the gas uh savings that you can get with the newly announced program ExxonMabel or Mobile, the Walmart Murphy Partnership, and then um the Spotify as well as the free delivery, you know, this you're living into the motto of the company, right? Save money, live better, etc. And again, I want to jump a little future forward, right? As you look forward, what's your Walmart Plus strategy for the year ahead? And then and there are is there a particular area or the many areas you could look into where your team is actually leaning in to continue to provide value to uh customers who are subscribing to Walmart Plus?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah, that's a great question, Shri. Um and we're really focused in four areas with Walmart Plus this year. Uh the first is uh one area that you mentioned in is delivery. Um and that's really the core experience and the core benefit is around delivery savings. And making sure that we nail that for members is really important. So as we see more and more people electing to begin a trip occasion or or a grocery shopping occasion online, whether they're doing pickup or having that basket delivered, that experience is nailing that experience is really important, especially when that's the core benefit of the program. So um we're gonna work to continue to be great at that, whether you're driving to the store to pick up or whether you're electing to have us deliver the groceries to your doorstep. Like it's really important that we nail that experience for the customer. And then um, we want to make sure that we're we're also understanding our members' needs and what drives their shopping behavior so that we can serve them better. So, like we know uh that when you're a member, um, you're logged in, um we can uh get a really rich signal of the types of categories that you're shopping for and the types of occasions for which you're shopping. And then we can help uh learn from uh those experiences or from those signals to help make things better for you. Uh it could be that uh the assortment that we're providing is greater. So, how is it that we're earning not only the grocery shop occasion, but we're also earning uh and winning that sort of asynchronous general merchandise occasion? So, you know, for many people who are members, we see very strong adoption of our uh online pickup and delivery service. Um, and then we're using that, if that's the primary occasion, like how is it that we bring you into some of our other general merchandise categories and which would look more similar to the way that you might shop the physical store? So uh that's that would be one example. But then also in-store. So, Peter, you had mentioned scan and go being important. Like, how is it that there's real utility for a member when they're in the store if that's how they're preferring to shop? So, what do we do to help make make that in-store shopping experience better for the consumer? And then what can we learn about it? There's a whole host of rich data that we could could learn about the customer experience in store and really and how to improve it and make it easier for them to buy and easier for them to save money and save time so that they're not uh standing in line or that we can expedite the checkout experience there. Those things are really important to the consumer experience. And then third, we want to bring um membership to life in the store. So Walmart Plus uh in membership may be uh have a heavy uh reliance on uh digital uh in in terms of the way that you generate or begin uh your shopping occasion uh for groceries, for instance. But um, as we as I just mentioned, so many of our customers shop in the store. And so many of their shopping occasions still occur in the physical store itself. And we know that we have you know over a million associates in the U.S. who are in the store that can help uh educate the customers who aren't yet part of the membership program, like why they should become members. So uh having them explain you know the fuel benefits and ways that customers could save money if they don't already understand that that benefit is available. Those things in in this economic uh uh time are really important in ways that Walmart shows up for customers. So customers rely on us for everyday low pricing. They expect those things when they come in the store. If there are other benefits that they could access uh by being a Walmart Plus member that would help them save even more money or uh, you know, make their lives better, then we want our associates to be able to bring that to life in the store where we may see them most frequently or more frequently than we would online. And then um lastly, we want to continue to improve the program in terms of the types of benefits that we're bringing forward for members. So um he mentioned Spotify benefit, the fuel benefit we just talked about with ExxonMobil. Um, there are a whole host of different uh benefits that we're considering both in-store and uh with third parties that would make membership program uh or the benefits of the membership program much, much greater. And we're gonna continue to add those benefits into the program and learn from members about what benefits are most valuable to them so that we can improve that relationship that we have with them and ultimately help them save more money and live better. Um, the fun thing about working at Walmart is that with this particular program, those benefits could be things that are rooted very deeply in the physical store experience. There might be something about that experience that uh that of uh if it was reserved for a member, would be uh really transformative and and help improve the customer experience. And then there's a third, a whole host of third-party benefits that would be uh potentially nice to have that would uh make the program and staying in the program and renewing the program so much more attractive. So we're gonna explore both of those those factors as we as we move through the year.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

You know, there were there were two key words there, Peter, that really hit the uh spot for me right there. One was listening to Seth say, hey, we're looking at other areas, right? We'll wait to see what those are. But you know, in the constant optimization world here of you know, wanting more and more and more from a consumer perspective, it's great to hear that you're looking at new areas. And the other one is uh there's of course new areas, but there's also making existing ones better. And you also use the word you're trying to learn on what people are deriving from the existing benefits and trying to make it better. So it's a combination of both.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah, you can't we can't stand still, so we can't have the benefits just remain static. Um, you know, we'll there's we interact with so many of our customers' lives on a daily basis. Um there are going to be many learnings that we can take about you know from those experiences and those interactions that can help improve the experience that everyone across Walmart internally that I work with, my peer group, is very eager to learn about and understand so that we continue to serve the customer. I mean, there's particularly in this economic environment, like having some type of savings, like the fuel benefit, um, like those things matter right now. And they may not have availed themselves to us two years ago, uh, were we not in these types of economic times. So we're going to continue to iterate the program and the benefits that we bring forward to members of the program.

PVSB 38:45

It's undeniable that at the forefront of what we call the great retail reset that's transforming our industry is the explosive growth of retail media, both on-site and off-site, both online and in the physical world and stores. So at its core, what do you see as the value proposition that Walmart Connect offers to vendors looking to grow sales through Walmart platforms?

SPEAKER_01 39:15

This one is the area where I have the most experience career-wise, and uh it was really what got me most excited about coming over to Walmart. Um, Walmart Connect has the ability to uh provide first-party data, uh, observations that we see and observe ourselves in a closed loop, um, in the dot-com and then extending into omnichannel. Um, and that type of data and that those observations can help marketers get smarter about the merchandising that they put into our stores, whether they're physical or digital, um, and ultimately help them drive conversion and sell more stuff. And uh the scale that we have uh in both the physical stores and dot com is uh it's really difficult to match. And um uh we like any investments that we're making in improving those types of capabilities that we bring forward to a supplier about where they can promote their products or where they can uh uh speak to one of our customers. To me, that's super exciting because uh we we really historically um uh, at least in my observation, this is an editorial, have maybe not invested as heavily in that capability relative to other e-com platforms and and other retailers. And so um the past 18 months really have been transformative over here in terms of the investments that the companies put into those capabilities and really the results as well. And so I'm excited to come over here and continue to build on that momentum and to uh bring uh a whole bunch of experiences from other places uh and that I and other experiences that I've had that can help uh innovate and drive and bring even more opportunity to suppliers and brands, uh both in e-com and in physical retail. So that's super exciting to me. Um we you know, we have a lot of work to do in order to meet the uh the potential. And when we speak with suppliers, they're very open about the things that they want from us. Uh we want more of X or we want more of Y or we wish that you would do these things for us, or these, if you were able to provide these types of capabilities, we would this would be a big unlock for us in terms of our business. And we're listening to that feedback from suppliers and from their agents. Um, and and we're actually making a lot of progress in terms of the the capabilities that we're bringing forward. So uh that's my kind of preamble to connect, Peter. I'm super excited about it. And and even in the six months that I've been in the role, we've seen uh a tremendous amount of of progress uh from from the teams that were uh both on the engineering side and and on the the uh the supplier or advertiser facing side as well.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Thank you for the preamble in that case, Seth. And um I want to uh jump a little bit into the mobile app. You know, recent research shared by Walmart Connect, your team talked about the use of Walmart's mobile app in the physical store visits, highlighting it as an important correlation between digital engagement and physical shopping. Can you throw some more light on how this is coming together as omnichannel shipping, the use of the app in-store while browsing, resulting in a physical door funnel activation for a brand? And any findings you are aware of from this researcher you know of?

SPEAKER_01 43:09

I guess I'll start by saying, you know, in Walmart, we know that the majority of our customers shop both online and in-store. That's our it's what makes Walmart unique, you know, in addition to its scale, is that we can meet the customer, whether she wants to shop in the store or shop on her phone uh or on her in her laptop. And those are the the customers that shop with us in those in both environments are most valuable. And so uh we recently conducted research to learn more about them and uh and then to understand maybe how they're useful utilizing uh Walmart capabilities, digital capabilities uh on their phone in our app when they're shopping in the store. Uh in particular in the food and beverage categories where uh Uh, we have a lot of uh interest from our consumers and very strong position um in terms of uh online grocery. And we found that about 82% of Walmart customers surveyed used our site or app while shopping for food or beverage items in the store. And that number was surprisingly high. Um there the tasks that they're performing when they're in the store and and on their uh or in in the app in the store is that they're looking for new products. Uh they may be reading reviews or looking at a price to trying to understand uh how much money they would be saving. And so um that in itself is interesting, uh, is an observation of customer behavior. But what we also found was that they aren't just doing this like once. This isn't sort of a asynchronous behavior that they're doing, they're just doing it, you know, once on one particular product or one particular beverage item while they're in the store. They're doing it two to four times on average per trip. So they're they're trying to understand is this the right product for me, for my family, the right ingredient profile, the right price. Um, and this is really valuable for us because that transaction may not show up in the app if the item is right in front of the consumer when she's in the store. She will just put it in her basket and she'll ring it up in the store. So that uh the amount of influence that the content within the app can have on the customer experience in the store was was really um eye-opening and and is a great, great validation of the investments that we're putting into the shopping app. Um the the the ways that brands can interact with the customer then in those environments when they're checking, um that opens up a whole host of new opportunity as well. And that's really what the Connect team is bringing forward to suppliers and to marketers and agencies is to help them understand, well, if this is how the customer is behaving in the store with the app, um, and it's informing their in-store, sort of physical store purchases, like how does the brand activate or speak to the customer in that environment? Like, where are the areas where the customer is going? Are they going? Are they searching for these products? In which case you need to be really strong in terms of your paid and your organic listings within our store? Uh, is it browse activity that they're looking at? Or is there something in the purchase funnel that would get them uh to take an action either in the app or in the store? Um, are you uh giving like the type of content on your product detail page? Uh is it up to date? Do you have the right ingredient information of the right? Are you competitively priced? Like all of these things matter. And they're, I guess at this point, um they're well-understood data points for uh for brands that are operating in e-commerce environments. They know they have to have good content, they know they have to have uh competitive pricing. What we're learning is that while all those things are really important for the e-com transaction, they're also uh highly influential on physical in-store shopping behaviors as well. So if you don't have assortment in the app, but you have it on the shelf, those are the types of gaps or things that might avail themselves to us when we're looking at this research tree and maybe ways that we help suppliers sort of address uh how to speak with customers more effectively.

PVSB 47:54

Seth, let's close out our exploration of Walmart Connect. And indeed, this will be our final question for this episode. And this is around how brands are able to access the use of Walmart Connect's powerful retail media solutions on-site, off-site, and in physical retail. Is it entirely through your own proprietary platforms or or are they able to use, say, third-party e-commerce advertising platforms for some or all of your offerings?

SPEAKER_01 48:25

That's a great question. So um, and it it depends on the product. So with our search products, uh, you come to us for uh working in those environments, and uh we have we've been investing heavily in a team, uh, both in terms of our customer or advertiser customer facing teams within Kinect, but then also on the engineering and product side to make sure that we're continuing to ship new capability through our paid search uh uh offering. And all of that is done in house. So you come to us and we'll work with you, um, or we will work with the suppliers agents to help them get set up, to help them understand uh you know how to do as much business as they can with us in the in that search product area. Then in the display product area, we we have on-site display, graphical display products that uh we will sell directly to suppliers, but then we're also working uh with a third party, with the trade desk, to help the suppliers or marketers understand uh what signals they can use from Walmart customer behaviors on third-party inventory. And that partnership was uh launched uh just prior to me showing up. And we have had a ton of interest from uh brands who want to speak with Walmart customers while they're in the Walmart shopping environment, but then also uh they're they're very uh adept at using signals, shopping behaviors in third-party, maybe not retail contextually, uh like store environments, but on other third-party content sites in order to speak to those customers, certainly for higher consideration purposes or for mid or upper funnel uh marketing objectives and speaking to them outside of the walls of the store and in uh in other types of content, and then bringing them back into a retail environment. So the Trade Desk has been a great partner there. We're continuing to develop uh our capabilities with them. We've had some very uh specific feedback from very sophisticated users of programmatic display who are also providing us with counsel and helping us understand how to help them be more successful with this offering. So that would be a third-party uh partner with whom we're working and partnering to help bring all of the sort of scale of our uh customer uh signals that we see to bear on a whole host of content outside of our digital boundary of our store.

PVSB 51:18

I'd like to remind our audience that all of our content, now 200 episodes strong, available on over 40 different podcasting platforms, links to our social media accounts, our LinkedIn profiles, and so much more. It's all free. And it's available by just visiting cpgguys.com. And of course, if you think you have something to contribute to the conversation, boy, did we get some contribution today, Shri. But if if you're in the audience and you think you or your company has something to say uh about this conversation we're having, just drop us an email at contact at cpgguys.com and maybe you can join us for a future episode. You know, Seth, uh, Shree and I are incredibly grateful that you took time out to speak with us again, to share with us all the tremendous things that are going on at Walmart. Uh and it is such a great honor to have you with us today. And uh maybe maybe we'll have you back for episode 400, probably sooner than that. But I but but you know, if we say we're gonna stay together, I think I think three we can make in another in the 200. But anyhow, thanks for joining us, Seth. We really do appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

Well, thank you both for having me. It's been a pleasure. And we have a lot of things going on at Walmart. We're making a ton of investment over here in terms of retail media membership and the data and the way that we engage with both marketers and suppliers, and it's really exciting stuff. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak with your listeners about it.

PVSB 52:54

Hey, Shri, uh, I'm gonna ask you to summarize in a second, but I particularly want you uh uh to cover a number of things, what I heard that was new to me. First of all, customer perceptions, right? Behavior-based targeting for attitudinal information. That is a shopper insights professional's dream, right? As opposed to stated behavior, actual behavior driving the why behind the what. Really powerful. And of course, you know, focusing on having digital improve the in-store customer experience, really powerful conversations there. Really excited about it. What what were your big takeaways?

SPEAKER_00 53:38

You know, when Seth started with the what, why, where, like I think the episode had already laid itself a pretty good framework for what we were going to discuss. I love that we also looked future forward, that there are more things coming in the future, depending on how, of course, the economy evolves, I'm sure. Plus the fact that the three the clarity that there are three distinct benefits today, and one of them is actually very relevant in today's times of high gas prices, and then the Spotify Plus, the free delivery without a order constraint, things of that nature. Um, but I also like that when you go future forward, this is so much more about Walmart's motto and mission, which is save money, live better, and everything at the end of the day, no matter what's done, comes back to can people save money? Can as a result, when they save money, they can live better lives. That to me, the motto and mission has remained the same for a long time and it continues to be. And then we talked a lot about the app as well, right? How today's shopper is 360, and Sat gave the number of 82% are browsing before making a purchase decision. That's I have if you're in the digital marketing space on the e-commerce space, you've waited for this moment. 82% of your purchase locations are influenced by somebody whipping out an app, a customer, and actually browsing before buying. This is your heyday, folks. If you're in this space, make your heyday count. Partner, leverage, use luminate, sign up for Walmart plus yourself, but this is your moment. And then Seth answered the all-important question: who can get access to Luminate? If you're a vendor doing business with Walmart in a certain category, you can get access. And you can get all products, which means that all illuser share metric, if you're up for it, you can actually chase it. What can get better than that? You know, Peter, you and me come with a rich data background from our IRI days. You know the importance of actually getting a share metric that too in Walmart. Netnet, am I glad, Set, that you were kind enough to make time. And I want to thank um Walmart comes and Beth for the time she made as well to uh ensure that we can actually do this timely workaround, dates, times, all in all. This is one blockbuster episode. I can't wait for the audience to listen to it, Peter. And uh to 300 more episodes. You said 400, I said 500. You know, we're our kids have a long way to go to grow up, so let's not get impatient over here. There's the you know, there's there's many more episodes to come.

PVSB 56:14

Yeah, I that is just great. I'll I'll echo your comment. Walmart comes has been tremendous. The partnership with Beth Bruce and some of the other colleagues in that group and helping feature a lot of great Walmart guests on this podcast. We couldn't be more grateful for that. So thank you. Uh and three, personally, I'll say, you know, we teased each other about a lot of things, but I'm so honored that we've been on this journey together. Uh, I'll sign up for a couple hundred more if you're into it. Um, this has just been terrific.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Man, he keeps coming back to a couple hundred. I said three hundred more. Five hundred is the magic number. We're in for the kids, and they got a monthly code.

PVSB 56:54

Five hundred. Okay. Well, all right, Shree. I'm good with that. And to our audience, thank you for joining us on this journey. Two epit 200 episodes strong. It was great. We look forward to you joining us on the next episode of the CPG Guys podcast. Goodbye.