The Unofficial Most Interesting Retailers List (April) | Reimagining Retail
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Hello, listeners. Today is Wednesday, April 30th. Welcome to Behind the Numbers, Reimagining Retail, an e-marketer podcast made possible by Connective Media by United Airlines. This is the show where we talk about how retail collides with every part of our lives. I'm your host, Sarah Lebo. Today's episode topic is our April unofficial most interesting retailers of the month list. ♪

Before we get into that, let's meet today's guests. Everyone is in studio with me today. Joining me first up is Arielle Fager. Hey, Arielle. Hi, lovely to be here. Great to have you also with us, Blake Drosh. Hey, Blake. Hello, good to be back. Good to have you. And finally in studio is Susie David Canyon. Hey, Susie. Least but not last.

Don't say that. You just said finally. Not least but not last. You switched it. It's last but not least. Oh, shoot. Least but not last would be like...

Guys, I'm having one of these days. Last but not least is what I wanted to say. Please start from the beginning. Definitely keep that in there. No, in the outtakes, but not. Certainly keep that in there. No, talk about my LinkedIn profile posts. Thanks for having me, Sarah. Thanks for being here. Let's jump into the unofficial most interesting retailers of the month list. So

Arielle and I, we're the committee, will present our list in the first half of the episode. And in the second half, Blake and Susie will have the opportunity to edit our list. So here is Arielle and my list for April. At number eight, we have Hershey's. Hershey's is following in the steps of Mattel to make a movie directed by the director of Mean Girls, the original one.

But unlike the Barbie movie, this one I think is a biopic telling the story of founder Milton Hershey. This made the list because I personally thought it was pretty interesting. Yeah, I like it. I think it's fun. I would be interested to see how it comes out. The director of Mean Girls, that's an interesting take on it. So we'll see. Well, and they have some relatively well-known people doing it. I think they're leaning into the love story. I didn't know what this was, so I looked it up.

They're leaning into his love story, and it's a bit of a tragedy love story, which I think is much more, it'll be much more movie friendly than just the history of Hershey's. But it is definitely an expensive way to stay top of mind. It is. The talent I recognized was Alexandre Daddario. I did not recognize the male actor. I thought it was a kid from Stranger Things, but it's actually a different Finn. He's been in a lot of movies. There weren't ones that I knew. Okay. I just think I'm different.

Yeah, it's an expensive advertising play. So fascinating. At number seven, QVC, which launched the first ever 24-7 live shopping stream in the U.S. on TikTok. This is interesting to me because for a while we talked about TikTok as like the new QVC, almost as if they were rivals, although clearly TikTok...

more attention, although it's attention from different age groups. This shows us that TikTok is a distribution channel for QVC. So they can have a symbiotic relationship and TikTok is that almost like a network for QVC. Yeah, I think it makes sense. I think it's a smart move. It is clever that they're doing a live stream there and they're trying to bring people to this platform and they're using the network effect. What I think is the

Most interesting part about this is that with the looming ban, they're still leaning in super heavily and they're probably thinking like, whatever, we'll give it a try. If not, we'll at least introduce ourselves to this whole new generation who may then come to our TV. TikTok and its partners are behaving like there is no ban. TikTok is readily hiring in the US. They're just...

operating business as usual for the most part. Number six is Target. Arielle, why'd we put Target on the list? So this is kind of an interesting and maybe a not so great way. So as of April 7th, Target had its 11th week of foot traffic

declines according to Placer AI data. Now, the CEO, Brian Cornell, did meet with Reverend Al Sharpton, who is a civil rights leader, to kind of discuss the company's DEI policies. Sharpton apparently called the meeting very constructive and candid. So, I mean, obviously Target's taking steps to try to rectify this, but I am not 100% sure it's really going to work.

Yeah. Target hasn't had its identity-related messaging right in a couple years now. They had a whole Pride fiasco where they leaned into Pride and then leaned out of Pride last year. They abandoned DEI this year.

foot traffic diminishing has been attributed to that. So yeah, this one's on the list less because of something Target did. Well, the DEI backup is something Target did, but more because of the impact that it's had. Number five, Ben & Jerry's. Arielle, tell us about this.

So this is actually kind of interesting opposite almost to Target. Ben and Jerry's part of Unilever currently, but they want to be separate from Unilever. They are trying to find some investors to buy the Ben and Jerry's brand to separate. And this is all kind of stemming from a lot of disagreements about politics and where they stand on certain social issues.

And I just think it's really great to see a brand that is so, you know, social justice is embedded in what they do, really standing up for themselves and for the messaging they produce.

want to put out there. Yeah, progressive politics has always been part of Ben and Jerry's brand, a classic Vermont brand. They're like the Bernie Sanders of ice cream. Something that our colleague Emmy said to me was she was like, I wonder if Ben and Jerry's can get away with more of this behavior because it tastes so good. I think that's an oversimplification, but I also don't think it's wrong. Like people who are brand loyal to Ben and Jerry's because they like the tonight dough

Might not stop eating it even if they disagree with the politics because they like the flavor. Yeah, I think Ben & Jerry's has such a loyal cult following that, you know. It is interesting that Target probably thought the same and it didn't work out for them. That's true. Yeah. I'm just surprised it's on the list because Ben & Jerry's is a quick service restaurant.

Just saying. Ben & Jerry's is a food brand. They're a food brand. I would call that a food brand. Would you? Yes, I would. Chipotle sells mayo. They're sold in stores. I'm sure Chipotle sells random CPG things. No, Blake? But Ben & Jerry's is a very well-known, well-documented brand.

product in stores. Just asking for a friend. I appreciate yours. The debate we're having here is that we try to avoid having quick service restaurants on this list. Susie's accusing us of breaking our own rule. We'll move on. Number four, Walmart. Now I'm definitely going to lose. You're welcome. Walmart's retail media network, Walmart Connect, is now letting advertisers buy on CTV inventory from Vizio, which it bought last year. This was

Yeah, not...

not a surprising move, but certainly a very powerful move and something that's going to serve Walmart's retail media business well. Interesting timing, though, because there's a lot of speculation that CTV ad spending is going to be hit pretty hard by the impact of the tariffs as advertisers shift to really hammering performance over brands. So it could be not super ideal, but definitely a longer term play.

Yeah, I think for Walmart, it's okay. You know, Walmart's got no shortage of money to kind of pull out from, you know, invest in these types of things. I would say if it was a smaller network, I would be a little more concerned. But I think for Walmart, you've got to have kind of all of your bases covered. And CTV is certainly an important base. We should check back in on CTV in a couple of months because...

We're not projecting it to be hit as hard as linear, which is not surprising. And I was told by someone on our research team that what's happening with CTV is incredibly complicated right now. And then I did not get a follow up on that. So we should definitely check back in and see how it's reacting.

Number three, Sephora. Sephora partnered with WNBA team the Golden State Valkyries for advertising. Marcus talked with Nielsen on a podcast a few weeks ago about the WNBA's ad potential, which is really strong.

We're seeing this with Sephora. We're also seeing this with Coach, which became the unofficial handbag of the WNBA. The other reason Sephora is on this list is it took the top spot among Gen Z teens as a beauty brand on Piper Sandler's semi-annual Taking Stock with Teens survey. That happened even as Ulta and Target lost share with that group. Yeah, women's sports, it's hot.

It's what's now makes sense. And I love it. If you haven't listened to that episode with Marcus, you should give it a listen. Something that Charlene Polite Corley from Nielsen said that was interesting is that they have data that shows that while there are fewer WNBA viewers than the NBA, those WNBA viewers are more engaged with advertising and more likely to react to ads they see. Number two, we have Timu and Sheehan. We also broke our rules by putting two brands on the list. Arielle, why did we do that?

So as of last Friday, Timu and Xi'an are raising their prices to combat the rising cost of imports and any tariffs that are going to be applied to Chinese goods coming into the U.S. It's a really interesting question because the reason that so many consumers have really flocked to these markets

marketplaces is because of their low prices and it's really we don't know what was going what's going to happen if now the prices are rising will consumers still stick with these will they still shop there um so

It's a good question. Yeah, I'm not really sure why they would. Timu and Shien's advantage is that their prices are so cheap. But the goods take a while to get here. And they're not particularly high quality. Once the prices go up, there's not as much reason to shop there. So you could argue that everybody's prices on that random tchotchke will also go up. So why not get it from here? Instead of being $2, it'll be maybe max $4 if we go with 200% increase. I do wonder, though. I mean...

Or 100%. Obviously. Take out my math, please. I wonder, though, if there's going to be a more U.S. forward sentiment that plays into this as well. I mean, obviously, Timu and Shein have Chinese associations. Amazon's products also from China, but because Amazon is a U.S. company, I'm not sure if that's going to make a difference in how people shop. It's such an interesting point.

because we were talking about this the other day when we were prepping for something else, that there are many more, including Walmart commercials talking about American made or manufactured here or American branding.

But at the end of the day, I really think if there is a recession and people's budgets are tight and they need a pot, a plastic pot, and it's cheaper at one of these companies, I think they're going to have no choice but to do it or forego the pot altogether. Yeah, I think you're right. I think the question is going to be who can who can offer the cheapest price.

Some of these American-made or American-manufactured companies are also under fire, Tesla most recently, for saying their Cybertrucks are manufactured in America? Assembled in America. That's what it is. Because even if they're assembled in America, what does that mean about the materials?

Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of just raw materials that are simply just impossible to source in the US even if they wanted to. So these companies that are continuing to rely on maybe American manufacturing so they can slap a tag are still going to be susceptible to tariffs on the raw goods that are coming into the US. So it's not necessarily going to make--

the end cost for the American consumer any cheaper because those tariffs are already happening plus the additional labor costs that are associated with things being assembled in America is going to

mean that basically that manufactured in the USA label is going to come with a pretty hefty price tag along with that. Okay. Number one, we have Amazon. Arielle, why Amazon? So Amazon's testing a new feature. It's called Buy For Me. And so essentially what this feature is, is if a user goes on to the Amazon mobile app and types in, you know, Hanes,

Some of them now will get a button that says buy for me and that essentially will buy, make a purchase for the consumer that is off of the Amazon site. And so it's using agentic AI to process their size and all of that and then fill in the payment details. The mailing address consumer just has to check if it's right and then say buy.

This is so like the future is here. And I get that. I wrote a piece last week on machine to machine marketing, which you should check out on our website. At the same time, is this not just the I'm feeling lucky button, but for buying a good on Amazon?

I guess it's not because it doesn't give you the first thing. It gives you the thing that's tailored for you. Yeah, I think it's a little more personalized, but I do agree that there could be some trial and error that happens. I think that's why it's currently in testing mode. But this does build on their other tests that they have been doing, which is including outside links in their search results. So it does seem like they're really just trying to get everyone to start their shopping search

on Amazon whether or not they're actually making that purchase there. But I agree. It's like, how much time is that realistically going to save? Because when I go on Amazon now, I can basically find the product I want and buy it within one click because it already has all of my information. And a lot of the time, if it's something that I'm restocking that I've already purchased, and it requires even less time for it to find it. So I see maybe there's a world where

okay, Amazon knows what type of toothpaste I use because I bought it there before. So I type in toothpaste and it buys it for me, which is saving me a couple of seconds out of my day, which sort of like seems like pretty marginal when you think about, you know, all of this potential that we're talking about with agentic AI. It's like the use case in its practicality right now doesn't really seem that revolutionary. Yeah.

Let's keep moving into our second half. This is the time where Susie and Blake get to tell us where we went wrong.

Each of them will have a chance to move a brand up or down our rankings and to add a new company entirely. Also in our honorable mention spots, we have Costco for actually having foot traffic pick up as they hold strong to DEI and Michaels for introducing party goods, which is interesting as Party City files for bankruptcy. So Blake, why don't you go first and make a move? My first move would be to take the QVC TikTok collaboration off the list. To me, that seems like kind of something that...

QVC should have done two years ago instead of now. And it's like a little bit too little too late. I also don't really understand what QVC is really bringing to the table here because their brand is not super well known among TikTok users, I would imagine. And it's not something that is like really super alluring. They're not...

necessarily bringing like, you know, recognizable personalities onto the platform. So I'm just really not sure how fruitful this partnership is going to be unless, you know, TikTok live shopping really continues to ramp up and QVC can sort of ride that wave. But I don't know if that's really a certainty at this point still.

So I actually wonder if they're doing it now and not two years ago because TikTok didn't want them on, right? They weren't cool enough for TikTok. But now that the ban is looming and potentially there are people walking away from, by people I mean brands, walking away from TikTok, this is like a no-brainer for them. There's the potential of a new audience that's not already coming to TikTok. Plus QVC is getting maybe, although unlikely because it sounds like even though it's net new original content, it's still not quite...

Gen Z and Alpha. Yeah, the reason I would argue to keep QVC on is first of all, because it could help bring more boomer women to TikTok. And also because this is something that Sky, our colleague, is really bullish on is TikTok adopting live shopping in the US the way it's been successful in China. And the 24-7 aspect of that is really important to that, I think. So if you are scrolling in the middle of the night,

And you see that the only content on in the middle of the night is QVC. You might be watching it. I don't know. I am a little more on Blake's side. I do think that this is something that they should have done two years ago. To Susie's point, maybe it wasn't possible for many other reasons. But I just...

I don't think that the audience that scrolls on TikTok in the middle of the night is going to be the same audience that's going to buy something from a QVC live stream. I don't know. Boomer women are having trouble sleeping often. But why do they need to change the medium if they're already watching it on TV? Yeah, I mean, that's fair.

I am fine with moving QVC down to eighth place and moving Hershey up. Okay. All right. I'll allow it. So QVC has been moved down. Susie, make your move. I would like to take Ben and Jerry's off.

because I think trying to spin yourself back into your wholly owned company has kind of like been there, done that. Lots of brands try and do that for many different reasons. But I would really like to move Walmart up to number one because although yes, the Vizio ads is interesting to see what they're doing. I don't know if you guys caught that they're doing two in the recent weeks, they're doing two really new things that I think are really important to highlight. They're

ramping up their beauty event. It's not new, but they're trying to elevate the beauty category at Walmart, which is not known for through their marketplace, but also getting some premium brands that are part of their core assortment. And they're implementing virtual try-on for colors. They're doing sampling. They're piloting a 40-store sort of like

truly elevated experience with sampling and experts and a bunch of other things. And I thought that was very, very cool. And it's from April 18th to May 31st. So there is some sort of sense of urgency to go see it. And they're also doing a whole new thing. I don't know if you saw the delivery where they're doing some sort of grid thing

Whereas before it was... Yeah, the beehive. Yeah, whereas before... I didn't see this. Tell me about this. So before, one store delivers and then it's probably a distribution center. But now they have this separate...

sophisticated technology that's new that helps close the gap so that if you have three Walmart stores that are within a radius, but one store doesn't have everything you're looking for, they can ship it for multiple stores instead of going out to a distribution center, which is very different than the way they were doing it now, which means that you'll have access as a shopper, if you shop Walmart, you'll have access to way more SKUs for same day delivery than ever before.

okay, Susie's breaking the rules by trying to do two things. We've broken the rules though already. We broke the rules already. I stand behind Walmart moving up to number one. I think they're doing some very cool things. Let's talk Walmart.

I don't have much to say other than that you convinced me with all that. Yeah, I think all of those things all add up to some really interesting stuff. Less on the beauty sale itself, but definitely on the more experiential in-store stuff and the delivery faster. Because I think fast delivery is one of the places Amazon really still holds fast.

power over Walmart and so if Walmart can speed that up, it could make a big difference. - Okay, so Walmart's up to number one, knocking Amazon, Timu and Shein and Sephora down a peg. That's fine with me.

Let's now hear what your wild cards are. Susie, what is your wild card? So I wanted to add Lids, which I know very well because they have shop and shops at Macy's, but they're also doing some very cool things. A couple of years ago, they launched a hatdrop.com website that was all about limited editions and collectibles that they have now turned into physical stores and they just opened one and are planning to roll out 20 completely new items

custom hub sort of so it's like two different types of stores that they're leaning into these like customization hubs where they understand that people who are buying for the most part sports memorabilia are probably not super budget conscious and so they're willing to pay for more personalized items that are localized that are really part of a whole experience and

And that are like the space. If you saw the pictures, I sent the article to Sarah. If you guys see the pictures, it looks so sleek and so easy to navigate and it screams energy. And I just think it's cool. I'd be interested to see some research on if people are wearing hats as much as they used to. I feel like it's less. I mean, why do you think people are wearing hats less? I feel like you don't see. Is it because they're all getting hair transplants now?

- You don't, maybe, but I feel like you just don't see as many people wearing baseball hats as you used to. - I'm always wearing a baseball hat. - Around the city, it's really only Europeans wearing Yankee and Dodger hats. - But you know what, it's an interesting question 'cause their HD, the hat drop concept, is all about hats. So they started online, they're clearly getting enough traffic that they're putting it into stores.

And they did a lot of research. Like the whole piece that I read in, I think it was Chain Store article. Age. Sorry, Chain Age. Was around how they use their customer research to see what are the different adjacent categories too. So the store isn't just about the sports merch, but also like this new concept store, which I didn't catch the name of the new store. But...

this is like very hard for me to weigh in on because I'm not super familiar with sports wear or street wear. Podcast producer Stu, does this sound exciting to you? Yes. Oh. Stu said yes if you didn't get that. I've also noticed that podcast host Marcus Johnson wears less hats than he used to as well. But he is European but he lives in the US. Not on the continent though. For me,

For me, my like, and this is like, I know we don't judge things on how successful they could be, but I feel like this time period, I mean, I know you said, you know, people who are enthusiasts of sportswear are not necessarily going to be budget conscious because that's how they're choosing to spend their money.

But considering like where we're going in terms of tariffs and budgets, it just feels like kind of an extravagance that I don't know if it's going to really take off. It's also why it's interesting, though. And the store looks so nice. You know what I thought maybe the objection would have been that like how many Yankees hats do you need, which is where I was going to come in and say, but they're personalized. So that's going to make you keep buying more raincoats.

And there's also the sports leagues are constantly like, there's this new thing in the MLB over the last couple of years. It was called the city connect Jersey, which is basically an alternative Jersey that they wear. It's a whole new reason to go out and buy. I'm always buying memorabilia from weird minor league sports teams. So the fact that we've been talking about this for a while, I'm going to say, let's put them at number eight and knock off QVC. Honestly, it was Stu saying yes, that, that,

made this happen. Blake, what is your wild card? My wild card is, so what is currently eight right now? Eight is Lyds. Okay. I feel, I almost feel conflicted because I think Susie put forth a really good argument for Lyds.

So, can you tell me what's seven? Hershey's. Okay. Hershey. I kind of like predicted that in my 2025 retail trend saying that brands are going to use more of their intellectual property to create premium video content. So, I kind of have to keep that in there. What's six? Target. Oh, that's... All right.

See, this is even more confusing. Tell us what you want to put on the list. I wanted to talk about ButcherBox and selling on Target, which I think, so I'm going to keep Target where it is, but I'm going to say the reason is I'm going to turn the negative into a positive. Whoa.

and say that ButcherBox collaborating with Target was a good mutually beneficial move for both companies because ButcherBox, which is a subscription meat company, subscription e-commerce has been on the outs for a long time. People just do not want to pay for these subscription prices, for these routine deliveries that they don't want to commit for.

to I think, you know, economic hardship is going to probably fold it, pull down this industry even more. But ButcherBox actually is doing fairly well, given, you know, the economic climate for subscriptions. They have 400,000 subscribers, which is a lot. Is it like Omaha Steaks? Yeah, it's basically Omaha Steaks. It's just meat delivery. But

They had these subscribers, but now they want to grow by going on DoorDash and Target's marketplace and not having any subscription aspect. You can just go on one off by the box, which I think is smart for them, because if you look at eMarketer forecast, frozen and fresh foods, e-commerce is the fastest growing segment of food and beverage.

And on Target's side, they've been sort of struggling a little bit in the digital grocery race and having a more diversified offering can really only help them. And it's a marketplace offering. So I thought it was interesting. I mean, it's not going to be a huge needle mover, but something that's just like a good example of a partnership that adds a little bit of value to both sides.

I'm saying yes to this for two reasons. The first one is you found a back doorway to get it on the list without really shifting anything around, which was just good strategy. Really a theme of this episode of Breaking Rules. The second one is that we put Costco in the honorable mentions as like a juxtaposition for Target on DEI.

I was at my parents' house a few weeks ago, and I discovered that once a month or so they go to Costco and they buy so much frozen meat to put in the freezer. And this is like kind of a play against that by Target. So I think it's a smart move. So, yeah, I'll give it to you. Yeah, it's a yes for me.

Okay, so that gives us a final list with honorable mentions Costco and QVC at the bottom. Then we have number eight, Lids. Number seven, Hershey's. Number six, Target slash ButcherBox. Number five, Ben & Jerry's. Number four, Sephora. Number three, Timu & Shien. Number two, Amazon. And number one, Walmart. Wow, so once again, Walmart and Amazon take the top. Yeah.

What a world. Thank you so much for being here, Susie. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Blake. Always a pleasure. And thank you, Ariel. This was fun. Please give us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you to our listeners and to our team that edits the podcast. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Reimagining Retail, an eMarketer podcast made possible by Connective Media by United Airlines.

And on Friday, join Marcus for another episode of the Behind the Numbers show. And if you're my parents, sorry I brought up your Costco shopping habits.