All the Latest Walmart Scoop, with Russ Dieringer, Founder and Claire McBride, VP of Research and Education at Stratably

Transcript

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Lauren Livak Gilbert (00:00):
Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where industry leaders share insights, strategies, and stories to help brands win in the ever-changing world of commerce.

Peter Crosby (00:24):
Hi everyone, Peter Crosby here from the Digital Shelf Institute selling at Walmart. Then this podcast is for you with two of the sharpest brains in the e-commerce business, Russ Dieringer, founder, and Claire McBride, VP of Research and Education from Stratably. All the latest data on their quarter and the trends, pressures, and opportunities that are coming your way out of Bentonville. Russ and Claire, welcome to the show. We are so excited to have both of you, the amazing minds behind Stratably content on today's show. Thank you so much.

Russ Dieringer (00:58):
Thanks

Claire McBride (00:58):
For having us.

Russ Dieringer (00:59):
Thanks, Peter. Yeah, thanks Lauren.

Peter Crosby (01:01):
I feel like it's almost too much smarts for us, but we'll do our best to take the incoming brilliance -

Russ Dieringer (01:07):
I

Peter Crosby (01:07):
Don't know. For the next 40 minutes.

Russ Dieringer (01:09):
We're a good company. The tag team Walmart, big topic.

Peter Crosby (01:15):
It is a very big topic. There's just been so many changes with Walmart and content, their assortment, their new AI approach. But why don't we start, Russ, with you in the most recent quarterly results. What did it tell you about the business?

Russ Dieringer (01:30):
Yeah, so as analysts, this quarter's been really interesting and really kind of pushed our analyst skills because everything from Prime Day shifting into the second quarter to we had these policy related shocks like tariff refunds and pharmacy regulation flowing through. So we had to sort through and sift through all these numbers to try to get at a good underlying read of not just Walmart's business, but Target's, Amazon's and so on. Walmart, headline numbers there, comps decelerated from roughly in the four percentish range the last several quarters all the way down to 2.6%. So at first blush we though, oh wow, pretty big deceleration. But if you strip out some of these exogenous shocks to their business, it wasn't quite so bad. So the big one was this policy around pharmacy pricing and that really weighed on their business. If you were to strip out that impact according to them, comps were around 3.85%.

(02:37):
So in the range, a little bit lower, both transaction and ticket were helping that comp, so that's a positive sign. Inflation relatively subdued, sub 2% for Walmart. What's leading the way for them from a category perspective is grocery. So they continue to do particularly well there, especially in e-commerce, which I know we're going to get to. Health and wellness was a drag, that's where that pharmacy business is. But if you were to strip that out, it was still growing nicely. And then general merchandise, relatively kind of stable, low single digit type trends there, not much change over the last several quarters. One of the big things they announced was implementing towards the end of the July quarter an enormous number of rollbacks, 11,000 rollbacks

(03:32):
On items in their store. I think it might be a record or at least certainly a recent record in terms of the number of rollbacks that they put through. Again, coming at the end of the quarter. So those will impact the current quarter that we're in more so, but they put them through in July, leveraging those tariff refunds that they got. And they talked about making as many of those rollbacks as permanent as they can. So that's always something for brands to be thinking about is, hey, if you put items on temporary rollback, you got to be careful so to speak, if you don't want them to be permanent because that doesn't -

Peter Crosby (04:11):
They may take you up on it

Russ Dieringer (04:13):
Permanently. Yeah, exactly.

Peter Crosby (04:16):
So how did this net out compare to the rest of the market or what does it tell you about what's happening out there more generally?

Russ Dieringer (04:24):
Yeah, I mean Walmart's been a perennial outperformer really the last several years. I think this quarter the results were fine, but not spectacular. They raised their guidance, but it was largely on the back of the first half results and even the guidance raise suggested a sort of conservative outlook, relatively conservative outlook for them in the second half of the year. So good but not great. And it also came interestingly in the same quarter when Target demonstrated a second quarter of positive results. So two quarters in a row of good rebounding performance at Target. There's signs of life in Minneapolis. I don't mean that in a demeaning way at all, but it's great to see because Target's back and they're competing and they're making Walmart and Amazon pay attention to them. And then for context to Amazon, Amazon grew in the mid-teens, reported number, but if you strip out Prime Day, it was high single digits, which is again, relatively stable to the last several quarters.

(05:36):
So Walmart around 4%, Target a little bit above that, and then Amazon about double that if you were to normalize for Prime Day in terms of Walmart's competition this past quarter.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (05:50):
What about e-commerce on the Walmart side? How did that turn out?

Russ Dieringer (05:55):
Yeah, and I think this is where it gets interesting is when you start thinking about the channels and their relative contribution to Walmart's growth. And when we talk about e-commerce just as a refresher, we're talking about it in the same way that Walmart reports it. So an e-commerce sale is anything that where a consumer is buying the item on their phone or on their computer, it's irrespective of how the item is ultimately fulfilled. As we know, many much of their e-commerce orders are fulfilled from their stores off the shelves or in back storage areas and fulfilled technically from the store, but that's still an e-commerce order if the consumer's buying it online. So e-commerce in the US was up 24%. That's a big number, largely in line with what it's been doing in recent quarters. Digital penetration up 390 basis points now at 23.7%. They just keep growing that digital penetration number quite quickly.

(07:02):
Digital penetration there now is higher than even Target, and this comes despite Walmart having a bigger grocery business. So they're growing. They grew and are growing that digital business really fast, so much so that e-commerce now for the last three quarters has accounted for all of Walmart's total dollar growth. And even if we go back the last six quarters, essentially all, even if you go back in time, it was like 80, 90% of the incremental growth at Walmart is coming from digital channels. And so what I mean by that is, or what the implication I guess for that is that e-commerce is growing really nicely, but it's physical stores like consumers driving there, going into the store, picking items off the shelf, that piece of the business is actually stagnant to declining for them right now.

(08:07):
We would think that's concerning to the folks in Bentonville at Walmart. I guess there's an argument to be made, maybe they don't need a thriving physical store channel because e-commerce is kicking so much butt, but I think they would like both channels to be doing really well. So that sort of divergence between e-commerce channel and physical store channel is a trend that we continue to watch and see how that shakes out and see if management can come to the table with a really clear vision of, "Hey, this is our plan to catalyze growth inside of stores."

Peter Crosby (08:52):
And Russ, do you think that they're doing anything in particular in the way they do e-commerce itself as the channel experience or is it more it's just freaking convenient and that's how people like to get their shopping?

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:06):
And cheaper.

Russ Dieringer (09:07):
Yeah, I think they have a great value proposition along the lines of convenience and really competitive prices. And over the last really several years, particularly as Target struggled to grow during that time, they were able to win many higher income consumers that otherwise were not going to be shopping inside of a Walmart. They didn't have to, they could just buy online. And I think that's been one of the drivers to their digital growth. And of course, just the general and the macro trend here of consumers increasingly spending more of their share of wallet online, benefiting Walmart, benefiting Amazon and just e-commerce more broadly.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:52):
And when it comes to assortment, oftentimes Walmart's like, "Hey, give us what you are putting on Amazon." And they're asking brands to launch online before going in store. So Claire, what are you seeing brands do to handle these changes and navigate the dynamic between the different retailers there?

Claire McBride (10:11):
Yeah, it's a tough one. I would say based on our research, it's almost unanimous that Walmart is asking suppliers for more assortment or even all assortment, particularly items that Amazon has that Walmart does not yet have, and it goes the other way. So Amazon is asking vendors to do the same thing for items inside a Walmart store that Amazon doesn't yet carry. So in general, we're seeing retailers really push for this assortment parity, which is in complete contrast to what brands would like to do for a variety of reasons. With Walmart, typically brands are pushing back. So Walmart's asking for those larger pack sizes, that's more common for an Amazon or a marketplace. Walmart's asking to add those items to the marketplace or to their 1P fulfillment centers, like you mentioned, Lauren, as opposed to putting them in store and then also having them online.

(11:10):
If you are in particular a grocery brand or a CPG brand, store-fulfilled assortment is driving the growth, particularly delivery, like Russ mentioned. And so for those categories for call it established large to mid-sized brands that are doing business with Walmart, that's where the growth is coming from, not online only assortment, not marketplace. So when these brands do add the assortment, they're simply just not seeing any volume. And so it's technically filling the assortment gap. It's maybe keeping Walmart happy, but it's not doing anything to drive the brand's growth. And in many cases, it's not profitable either because those fulfillment costs are a lot more expensive than the in-store fulfillment model. Now, we know at a high level marketplace is growing fast for Walmart, but that is typically concentrated in general merchandise categories that don't have a ton of distribution in store already, like furniture or some segments within apparel as an example.

(12:20):
So again, those larger established first party businesses with Walmart are not the ones benefiting from marketplace growth. They're not seeing 1P online fulfillment center assortment taking off, and so they're not super excited to do it. We've heard a couple examples, I would say, of where an established brand will launch some expanded assortment online. It gains traction and does eventually expand to in-store distribution, which is the idealist of ideal outcomes. But I would say for every one example we hear of that, we probably hear 10 more brands say, "Hey, this online only assortment is just not working for us." Now I say that, but it's a delicate dance because at the end of the day, Walmart's likely your biggest customer. They're asking for this. You don't just want to say no and reject it outright. So that's what's driven brands to test a little bit here.

(13:18):
And then that small test is, in some cases, enough to be like, "Well, hey, we tried putting these 20 online only items on the site. They're not really doing anything. This doesn't make a ton of sense." So small tests are happening. In many cases, brands are just saying, "No, we can't satisfy this request of yours." They'll bring shopper insight to Walmart to say, "Hey, there's nothing within our consumer data that's telling me that the consumer would actually buy this item." Or they'll walk through the unit economics to say, "The math just is not mathing to make these items work on the marketplace or in these fulfillment centers." So I would say Walmart is unanimously asking, brands are not unanimously responding, but we have heard, interestingly enough, that Walmart has a centralized merchandising team. This is separate from the merchants that vendors are doing day-to-day business with, that will send an Excel file saying, "Hey, we want X, Y, Z items from you." In some cases, if the brand does not respond to that request, the Walmart team will auto-create items and actually place POs under some estimated cost that Walmart comes up with.

(14:43):
So that goes to show you how aggressive Walmart can be in obtaining this assortment. Now, nine out of 10 times, the vendor just rejects those requests or rejects the POs if they do come through. So it's not necessarily driving a huge impact on the business, but again, it's just a pain and it's this back and forth you have to deal with with Walmart as they keep asking for this assortment and brands typically are just telling them, "This doesn't work, this doesn't work. No, no, no." But trying to do it delicately.

Peter Crosby (15:14):
Particularly, Claire, aren't a lot of the reasons, and tell me, that they would have different, some at Amazon, some at Walmart, is so that they don't get into a pricing thing that just is a race to the bottom for their value. And so it's a really difficult position to be in, I would imagine, for these

Claire McBride (15:35):
Brands just trying to make a little

Peter Crosby (15:36):
Money.

Claire McBride (15:37):
Absolutely. The price matching challenges only get worse. I mean, we've been hearing, of course, about price matching since e-commerce started, and I would say the algorithms and the tenacity in which these retailers have to price match has just only increased each quarter each year. So that's never been more aggressive, which again, is pushing brands toward, "Hey, we want product differentiation." Again, for a few different reasons. I mean, in many cases, there is a clear, brands tell us, there is a clear difference in shopping occasion and ambitions among consumers. So in many cases, it might not make sense. Again, particularly grocery, it might not make sense even to have those items, but for very logistical reasons, very practical reasons, "Hey, this price matching is going to kill us." So it's a tough environment as retailers are asking for more, more, more, we want the same assortment across the board.

(16:40):
Marketplaces have really allowed just so much assortment and pricing transparency that brands never had to deal with before e-commerce became so large. So yeah, that's why I say it's a dance. It's a push-pull. It's tough.

Peter Crosby (16:56):
Well, let's turn to maybe a happier topic. I don't know. We'll find out. My favorite AI mascot is Sparky. I just love the name, super spunky, but is Sparky doing any good?

Claire McBride (17:13):
What's going on with it? Funky

Peter Crosby (17:14):
Sparky. Yeah. What's going on with Spunky Sparky these days? Is it bad for brands?

Claire McBride (17:19):
It depends on who you talk to, I think. Oh, I

Peter Crosby (17:22):
Hate that.

Claire McBride (17:23):
If you talk to Walmart, of course, Sparky is the greatest AI agent and the greatest mascot. And so they're quick to share a lot of very positive stats around Sparky engagement growing. So they've said consumers using Sparky is up 70% year-on-year. Sparky users have higher average order values to the degree of 40% more, which is a big stat. Again, they're giving all these stats in a vacuum and you don't have a ton of context. The biggest context you're really missing is volume. So engagement is up year on year. This is a small base as we know, so big percentages, but still off of a small base, but there's no volume disclosure. And our best estimates based on the limited disclosures that Amazon has given us on Alexa for shopping or Rufus is that the AI agent environment is accounting for about 1% of their gross merchandise value.

(18:26):
So there's a lot of buzz. It's very, very small, and we would expect 1% of GMV, something similar or even smaller for Sparky.

(18:39):
So that's despite Walmart really talking it up. Now, when you talk to brands, they're not noticing an impact directly, and I would say they're also not doing much to influence Sparky yet, for better or worse. Our benchmarking shows a very small minority of brands are strategically making PDP updates for Sparky. Very few are testing with sponsored prompts or the advertising side of Sparky. And part of that is because, one, it's very early and brands are just not doing much with agentic commerce yet broadly. But two, when we talk about Sparky specifically, brands that are working on the Walmart accounts that are kind of playing around and testing as a consumer would say that Sparky is missing a lot. So missing, for example, exact keyword matches on very niche PDPs, very niche categories, or spitting out results that are full of 3P no-name brands, even though there's established first-party brands with great products, with great PDPs that Sparky could be surfacing.

(19:49):
So brands have been left disappointed with the way that Sparky is driving discovery. On the consumer side, brands are bringing these issues to their merchants without clear recommendations in return on how to fix it. So all of that, I think, has left brands to feel a little lukewarm on it, honestly.

(20:16):
And so little action, I would say, has been taken to date and brands are seeing little impact to date. I mean, that benchmark, I think it was less than 20% of brands doing really anything for Sparky specifically as it relates to PDPs, that was based on 370 branded manufacturers. So big, big sample size that kind of cuts through, again, the headlines that you'll hear from Walmart and all the buzz that you hear in the industry. If you really look at the average brand or you benchmark a whole bunch of them, it's still really, really early. It's important. It will grow in importance, but not much is being done yet or even no impact is really being seen yet.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (20:59):
Yeah, no, I think it's interesting because I think we saw that a bit with when it was Rufus versus Alexa for shopping, and I think we're kind of seeing the same trend around Sparky, but it takes time, to your point, for the brands to figure out what they need to do, update their content, work internally to get there. So it'll be interesting to see how quickly it does ramp up if it does become another focus area for brands. And it is clearly a focus area for Walmart based on how much they're talking about it.

Claire McBride (21:27):
Yeah, I think it's only a matter of time. And we've done similar benchmarks on Alexa where action taken is maybe double that of the type of action that brands have taken with Sparky, still relatively low compared to, again, compared to what the industry suggests or maybe compared to where brands should be in air quotes today. But we know with the consumer, I mean just consumer adoption and Amazon has just been farther along with Rufus and with Alexa for shopping. So Walmart will follow, it will come, but I would say it's early days for Amazon and it's even earlier days for Walmart and Sparky.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:08):
So Russ, we talk about Walmart and Amazon together a lot, right? They're two of the biggest players, and we talked a lot about the dynamics between how brands handle a Walmart and how they might launch a new product, and same with Amazon and price matching. How are you suggesting brands deal with a lot of these dynamics that are happening right now, whether you're launching a product on one or you're price matching or you're trying to figure out your assortment, what should they do differently on each?

Russ Dieringer (22:37):
Well, I think you're trying to win on both. Most of our clients, all of our clients are probably their top customers Walmart and then Amazon would be almost priority 1.B or whatever. So those are really the two, I think, highest priority customers inside of at least our client base because of the size and then the growth trajectory, particularly with Amazon. And even the whole discussion around assortment, Walmart's pushing for this assortment and Amazon's pushing for the same assortment because they're just locked in this battle of these two giants. So it is really challenging. I mean, to Claire's point on the assortment piece, it's sort of this delicate dance or a balance that you're trying to achieve. I think a new product introduction, it's same thing. It's ever evolving. You're going to have some new product launches on Amazon for a period of time and on Walmart a different set, but then eventually the assortment's going to merge.

(23:47):
So these two are just competing so fiercely and brands are almost in a sense, I don't want to say caught in the middle because they're riding this wave as well, but the size of Amazon and Walmart, they have a lot of leverage over the brands. So brands have to try to figure out, hey, how do we keep both of them happy while also maintaining a decent P&L for our own business? But price matching has only gotten more sophisticated over time. To Claire's point, advertising has only gotten more complex over time, but both retailers are seeing growth in their advertising business. Walmart Connect is growing faster than Amazon Ads, but it's off a much smaller base. When we think about it from a percentage of GMV perspective, Amazon's actually getting more share of ads. So it's a mix of different strategies that you need, but the goal is can we win on both of these because these two are the ones really winning at least over the last several years and based on our projections are expected to continue to do quite well.

Claire McBride (25:05):
The result that we see in further benchmarking is like, yeah, it's Amazon and it's Walmart. And a lot of times we want to talk about one versus the other. It's typically both. And then therefore the loser, so to speak, in, well, growth, but then also just investment and attention among brands is essentially everyone else. So our retail media benchmarking as an example, it's like Amazon and Walmart number two, their share is staying the same or growing of total media budgets. And so then it's all of these other networks that are sacrificing because Amazon and Walmart are so important and just growing so fast relative to the market.

Russ Dieringer (25:43):
It's actually kind of challenging for us as analysts because the retail market is a vast thing. It's filled with dozens and dozens of really large substantial retailers. Many of them are doing really interesting. They have many interesting initiatives around whether it's integrations with AI or even their own retail media initiatives. But then on the other hand, it's like the client questions that we get are almost all centered around Amazon and Walmart. And those are such dynamic customers that it ends up monopolizing, frankly, a lot of our time in some respect.

Peter Crosby (26:21):
Yeah. I was wondering, with the e-commerce growth being, at least in this case in Walmart, all their growth, are you finding that that's giving e-commerce teams or leaders more voice back in the manufacturers? Because they've always sort of fought for attention and it's always been a growth driver, but often in-store still gets all the love inside manufacturers. I'm wondering if you're seeing the power dynamic shift a little bit there at all, or is it is what it is?

Russ Dieringer (26:57):
Yeah, I think certainly versus five years ago, even I guess that's around the pandemic kind of timing. But if you were to go back maybe a little bit before that, let's say 2019 to get out of that COVID period, certainly e-commerce teams have more, I think, say inside the organization. There's more interest from the C-suite in supporting it. I think Agentic Commerce especially has really gotten senior leadership teams focused on e-commerce broadly. But I would say that as we sit here in 2026, I would've thought that e-commerce teams would have even more say than what we find. In many organizations, e-commerce is still sort of. There isn't a full appreciation that it's driving the growth and that the store channel is relatively stagnant. I mean, we talked about Walmart when I was sharing those numbers before about Walmart, but if you were to look at, let's say, the CPG industry at the brand level, at the CPG level, you look at their growth and how that's arising, by our estimate, and you have to do some analysis here, so it is an estimate, but by our estimate, 100% plus of the incremental growth is coming from digital channels.

(28:27):
And there's no real, in our view, some clear catalyst coming to catalyze the physical store channel that these brands really grew up on. And I don't think that most leadership teams have not accepted that reality. It's

Peter Crosby (28:50):
Going to take a generational change, you think?

Russ Dieringer (28:52):
I'm thinking back to the Salsify event. When was that, Peter? In 2015 or 16 or something, and we were saying, hey, the e-commerce leaders are going to be the future CEOs, and in some places that has played out, but 10 years later, we're still in an environment where physical stores continue to get the majority of investment and focus despite the growth dynamics that are happening.

Claire McBride (29:19):
Another miss is, one, not enough appreciation for where the growth is coming from. But then two, I think another big gap is not as much of an appreciation for the differences between what it takes to drive a successful e-commerce business versus brick and mortar. So e-commerce is very complex, very dynamic as us four, and those listening on the call understand and appreciate the C-suite. Again, because we don't have enough e-com native professionals inside the C-suite yet, I suppose, there isn't an appreciation for that. So even if it's like we hear plenty of brands say, "Hey, We have the buy-in among the C-suite and the C-suite knows that this is where the growth is coming from and that we have to lean in, yet they don't really know what it takes. And it's really hard for us to influence that with all of the resources, investments, education internally, all of those different pieces that are actually required given the unique nature of e-commerce versus the legacy brick and mortar business.

Russ Dieringer (30:29):
And I just would just add a point too. A lot of times, initially companies were thinking about digital penetration as the metric. It's only 8% or 12% or whatever. You think about Walmart now 23.7% and growing 300, 400 basis points year over year. But we always felt like digital penetration was underselling it. So then we started thinking about digital share of growth, which is what we were talking about on this call. But then you think about second order effects. And what's different in 2025, 2026 going forward is that merchants at these omnichannel retailers, they're increasingly interested in the brands that are doing best online. So incumbent and bringing them inside on the shelf and displacing established incumbent brands. So e-commerce, it warrants, it's big enough, it warrants investment in its own right, but there's also this second order of fact or this risk that physically distributed brands are increasingly facing where if you're not winning online, you're putting your store shelf at risk.

(31:43):
And that was a little bit theoretical a few years ago. I think you're seeing Target merchants bring hot online brands and you're seeing Walmart merchants ask and reach out to Walmart marketplace brands that are doing really well. So I think for a decade we've been trying to preach the gospel here of e-commerce investment. I don't know what it's going to do. I'm not

Peter Crosby (32:07):
Giving up, Russ.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (32:10):
It's not optional anymore though. I agree. It used to be like, oh yeah, if you get it right, it's fine, but your physical store will carry you. That's not the case anymore, especially from a challenger brand perspective who are eating the lunch of these bigger players. It's not an option to not pay attention to it anymore, which we feel, but I still have conversations like I'm sure both of you do with brands where I'm like, let's talk about the importance of the digital shelf.

Russ Dieringer (32:34):
And there's so much interest because of agentic commerce, but really that's just a subset of e-commerce. And possibly a small subset. I mean, it depends on how you measure it and that sort of thing, but it's just a subset of it. So if we're so excited about that piece, let's get excited about figuring out the assortment strategy or figuring out marketplace control for the price matching or right sizing retail media budgets, all of these really foundational things. Figuring out TikTok shop for a lot of these brands that haven't done that. There's a lot here. It's not low hanging fruit because all this stuff is challenging, but there's a lot of opportunity that brands have in front of them, but it competes. It competes in a vast sea of other investment priorities inside these big brands. And so having a clear multi-year view, five-year view of where's the growth going to come from and then developing an investment plan around that is critical.

(33:34):
And again, I would just encourage brands to really take a hard look and think about where are we betting growth is going to come from when we look at our investment allocation. Nine out of 10 are going to be, I think, surprised if they look through that lens at how much is betting on or assuming store growth of some decent amount. But most EBGs, they have mid single digit top line growth goals. Stores are not growing mid single digits. E-commerce can help them get there, but not unless they win there and win share there.

Peter Crosby (34:12):
Which is increasingly difficult and as you said, crowded by the barbarian swarm coming in stealing market share in small little chunks. So it's a complicated business. Listeners know, I think Laura and I, all of us respect so much what our listeners do every day. It's such a hard job. And to have folks like you, first of all, just how valuable Stratably is when you're a client because we've heard about it whenever, and certainly Russ, whenever you deign to appear at our conference, he just missed last year.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (34:55):
2027 Orlando, Russ will

Peter Crosby (34:57):
Be there. And Claire, you both show up for this industry and that's really important. And we are so grateful that you make the DSI one of your stops. So thank you so much for sharing this and both of you being on. It's an honor to have both of you at once and delighted. And Russ, you and Claire usually have some really cool cooking that would help our listenership. Do you have anything on tap that they might

Russ Dieringer (35:27):
Be able to - Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for all those kind remarks and we're looking forward to going back to the DSI event in 2027. So thank you for inviting us back and having us on today. For those that are interested in Walmart, so we put together a comprehensive strategy workbook typically every quarter or thereabouts. And so if anyone's interested in diving into Walmart in a deeper way, they can reach out to Claire and myself, russ@stratably.com, claire@stratably.com or reach us on LinkedIn and we're happy to provide that and just help brands as much as we can on Walmart. And then of course we do research on Amazon and all the other retailers too, but given the focus of this podcast, Walmart certainly keeps us on our toes with all the things that it's doing in e-commerce and beyond.

Peter Crosby (36:23):
Well, thank you so much both of you again for being here. We're really grateful. And I think at the next conference we should all bring our dogs.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (36:31):
Yes.

Peter Crosby (36:33):
How

Lauren Livak Gilbert (36:33):
Do I get Dewey on a plane?

Russ Dieringer (36:36):
I'm now feeding my dog. I've fed my dog approximately 25 treats in the last five minutes to try to keep her embarrassing.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (36:46):
We've all done it. We've all done it. Thank you so much Russ and Claire.

Russ Dieringer (36:50):
Thank

Lauren Livak Gilbert (36:52):
You guys.

Peter Crosby (36:53):
Thanks to Russ and Claire as always for the genius. Speaking of genius, be one yourself by becoming a member of digitalshelfinstitute.org. Thanks for being part of our community.