Greg Pulsifer on Sam's Club Approach to Digital Innovation & AI | NRF 2025
In this episode, Omni Talk speaks with Greg Pulsifer, SVP of E-commerce at Sam's Club, live from the VusionGroup Podcast Studio at NRF 2025. Greg dives into Sam's Club's strategies for digital innovation, from AI-driven personalization and omnichannel optimization to its game-changing Scan and Go experience. Learn how Sam's Club uses data insights to connect online and in-club shopping and hear Greg's take on the future of retail technology.
Key Moments:
- 0:06 - Introduction to Greg Pulsifer and his role at Sam's Club.
- 0:40 - Greg's career journey in e-commerce, from the 90s to Sam's Club.
- 3:46 - Responsibilities of the Sam's Club e-commerce team.
- 5:22 - Strategy for omnichannel assortments and online-only categories.
- 7:46 - Personalization through data and AI integration in Sam’s Club.
- 10:21 - Real-time data insights and the impact on retail operations.
- 12:47 - Measuring success and optimizing digital member experiences.
- 18:42 - AI’s role in personalization, search, and marketing content.
#nrf2025 #ecommerceinnovation #retailtech
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Transcript
Welcome back, everyone.
Anne Mazinga:This is omnitalk Retail.
Anne Mazinga:I'm Anne Mazinga.
Chris Walton:I'm Chris Walton.
Anne Mazinga:And we are here live still.
Anne Mazinga:Chris.
Chris Walton:Yes.
Anne Mazinga:Still live.
Chris Walton:Still live.
Anne Mazinga:Still live.
Anne Mazinga: Kicking in booth: Anne Mazinga:Come stop by the booth.
Anne Mazinga:You can see us.
Anne Mazinga:Will still be here today and tomorrow, and we'd love to see you and come say hi.
Anne Mazinga:Thank you to everyone who's passed by already and checked in.
Anne Mazinga:It's been so great to see everybody and hear from everyone.
Chris Walton:It always means a lot whenever you guys stop by.
Chris Walton:So thanks to everyone that has.
Anne Mazinga:But now it's time for us to introduce our guest.
Anne Mazinga:Here, sitting between Chris and myself, is Greg Holzfer, Sam's Club's SVP of E Commerce.
Anne Mazinga:Greg, welcome to Omni.
Greg Holzfer:Thanks for having me on.
Greg Holzfer:I listen to your show all the time.
Chris Walton:Thank you, Brad.
Greg Holzfer:The Omni Awards is my favorite.
Greg Holzfer:My favorite episode.
Anne Mazinga:It's our favorite episode.
Greg Holzfer:You guys do awards throughout the.
Greg Holzfer:You guys do awards all the time?
Chris Walton:Yeah, every month.
Chris Walton:Yeah, we do.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Chris Walton:The Omni stars the true people making a difference.
Greg Holzfer:I think it's great.
Greg Holzfer:For sure.
Chris Walton:All right, so let's start out.
Chris Walton:We always ask this question 10 when we start these conversations, but want to learn about your background and your role, so.
Chris Walton:And we'd love to hear about your background.
Chris Walton:We ask that question a lot.
Chris Walton:Sometimes people tell us, sometimes they don't.
Chris Walton:Sometimes they jump right into the role.
Greg Holzfer:Let's hear it.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, I.
Greg Holzfer:I could probably fill the whole thing up with my background, but I'll be.
Greg Holzfer:I'll be relatively quick.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:So I have been in ecommerce for a long time.
Greg Holzfer:I started in the late 90s.
Greg Holzfer:I kind of fell into it.
Anne Mazinga:Wow.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:Worked at a software company and we made software where you could translate Mac files on a PC, which is 19.
Anne Mazinga:That was revolutionary.
Greg Holzfer:This was revolutionary.
Chris Walton:The front door.
Greg Holzfer:No, for sure.
Greg Holzfer:And then what?
Greg Holzfer:The way it would work is you would mail us a check and then we would send back an activation code.
Anne Mazinga:This is like bcg, like music house stuff we're talking about here.
Greg Holzfer:You know, we were young and we was like, hey, like, why don't we just let people put their credit card online?
Greg Holzfer:I've been reading about this E Commerce thing, and they're like, greg, that's stupid.
Greg Holzfer:No one's ever going to put their credit card online.
Greg Holzfer:It's not safe.
Greg Holzfer:So we were like.
Greg Holzfer:But like, you know, you guys figure it out.
Greg Holzfer:So a bunch of us got together after work and figured it out, and I.
Greg Holzfer:And I really, I fell into E commerce.
Greg Holzfer:I feel fortunate for that.
Greg Holzfer:So I've been in E commerce for a long time.
Greg Holzfer:After that I worked mostly in direct to consumer environments at branded manufacturers.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:So very early on at Puma we brought E Commerce.
Greg Holzfer:We were back.
Greg Holzfer:This is going to be like a bingo of old technology.
Greg Holzfer:But we brought our, we onboarded our e commerce businesses on Yahoo Shopping.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:Yahoo Shopping had a separate platform.
Greg Holzfer:We brought that on board.
Greg Holzfer:And then from there worked at New Balance.
Greg Holzfer:I was in the Boston area, so there's a lot of forward apparel.
Greg Holzfer:Worked at New Balance in a digital marketing environment.
Greg Holzfer:Actually back then it was called interactive marketing because digital wasn't a word.
Anne Mazinga:I was just talking about interactive with somebody yesterday.
Anne Mazinga:It was like I was an interactive producer.
Anne Mazinga:That's how I got on the projects at Target.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:And then from there went to North Face, launched E Commerce at North Face to track the consumer environment and it was, was rocket ship.
Greg Holzfer:Business was super fun job.
Greg Holzfer:Still remember our first order.
Greg Holzfer:I won't tell you her whole name, but her name was Sarah.
Greg Holzfer:She placed it on August 8.
Greg Holzfer:She bought a Borealis backpack.
Greg Holzfer:Just like that's seeing that happen.
Greg Holzfer:Not that I needed any more motivation for like this is a cool thing, I want to get involved in it.
Greg Holzfer:But that was like a shot of adrenaline.
Greg Holzfer:So did that for around 10 years.
Greg Holzfer:Spent a little bit of time in CPG and most recently was at Apple on the online store side.
Greg Holzfer:And now I'm at Sam's club and Wednesday is my one year anniversary.
Anne Mazinga:Congratulations.
Chris Walton:Happy anniversary.
Greg Holzfer:Celebrating it with you.
Chris Walton:Yes, Celebrating with us.
Greg Holzfer:Yes.
Chris Walton:Friends of Omnitalk.
Greg Holzfer:So what I do now.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg Holzfer:So right now my team and I are responsible for the end to end digital experience at Sam's club.
Greg Holzfer:So everything from downloading the app to the experience that members have when they land on the app or on the homepage, wherever they land on the site, making sure that those experiences are curated, personalized.
Greg Holzfer:And then what I call like nuts and bolts, like navigation has to work.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:Search has to work.
Greg Holzfer:Getting you to the product detail page, making sure there's rich content, making sure that the product descriptions are right, making sure that member reviews are positive and helpful.
Greg Holzfer:Then getting you into the checkout and through the checkout and ultimately making sure that the order is delivered perfectly.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Chris Walton:So are you kind of the product head for E Commerce then?
Greg Holzfer:No, I'm the business lead.
Chris Walton:But we work.
Greg Holzfer:But it's a great question.
Greg Holzfer:I mean I feel like the best organizations, we're locked arm in arm with our product organization.
Greg Holzfer:They're in all of our meetings.
Greg Holzfer:I'm in all of their meetings.
Chris Walton:Okay, so, so does.
Chris Walton:Do you have merchandising too then?
Chris Walton:Or does merchandising.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, so it's a great.
Greg Holzfer:So interesting structure.
Greg Holzfer:So we have a merchandising organization.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:Who they're omni merchants and they're responsible for buying products for.
Greg Holzfer:For all channels.
Greg Holzfer:We have digital merchants as well who bring those to life.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:So our Omni merchants, we have a, you know, Sam's club.
Greg Holzfer:We have a curated assortment of items.
Greg Holzfer:Make sure that those items can be purchased in any channel, wherever the member prefers.
Greg Holzfer:So curbside pickup, ship to home or delivery.
Greg Holzfer:And our E commerce merchants kind of bring that to life in partnership with our overall merchants.
Chris Walton:Got it.
Chris Walton:Okay, cool.
Chris Walton:All right, good.
Chris Walton:Gotta ask that question.
Anne Mazinga:And is the assortment that you're pulling together then is that a separate assortment then for in store versus online?
Anne Mazinga:I mean especially I think as it's feels like more consumers are used to shopping Sam's.
Anne Mazinga:I feel like in the store, in the club, they're used to going in that way.
Anne Mazinga:But now so much more has kind of started like your shopping experience has started online.
Anne Mazinga:And there's other things available that you can offer like extend the aisle online.
Anne Mazinga:How do you think about kind of the curation of both of those assortments and identifying what should be where?
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, I love this question.
Greg Holzfer:We are an omnichannel retailer, so our merchants are buying wherever we want to support our member however they want to shop.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:And I've got a great.
Greg Holzfer:This is an Omni Talk discussion.
Greg Holzfer:I have a great Omni stat for you.
Anne Mazinga:Let's have the stats.
Chris Walton:Omni stat.
Anne Mazinga:Why are you holding back on us, Greg?
Chris Walton:Sound effect for this.
Chris Walton:So Omni stat.
Greg Holzfer:More than half.
Greg Holzfer:And this is a good one too.
Greg Holzfer:I don't know.
Greg Holzfer:I'm not overselling this.
Anne Mazinga:Okay.
Anne Mazinga:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:You're in the know.
Greg Holzfer:So more than half of our E commerce orders are fulfilled from a club.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:So the definition of omni.
Greg Holzfer:So going back to your point of where does like how does the assortment work?
Anne Mazinga:Right.
Greg Holzfer:It works in ultimate convenience.
Greg Holzfer:However, our members want to get that item.
Greg Holzfer:We want to make sure that we can support them for that.
Greg Holzfer:Now we do have an online, a smaller online only assortment like Treasure Hunty we know members love and that has really driven my team on the digital merchant side.
Greg Holzfer:Sure plays a large part in that.
Greg Holzfer:So we're doing research.
Greg Holzfer:We have a new category called new and trending.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:So we're looking at social Media, we're looking at member feedback through search, we're looking at what's going on and we see if we can source those items.
Greg Holzfer:And we have an online only assortment that is an opportunity for us to just again, differentiate from what we're doing across the rest of the organization and give members that like, again, that treasure hunt opportunity and excitement, freshness, bring people back to the site every month.
Greg Holzfer:So, you know, retail fresh is super important.
Anne Mazinga:How do you think about driving people to that assortment?
Anne Mazinga:Like, because it's got to be different than, you know, especially if you mentioned like social and if this might be outside of kind of where you oversee things.
Anne Mazinga:But how do you think about like getting people one to the site and then two to kind of help inspire that treasure hunt when they're not walking through a club and they're like sampling something or whatever.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:I think this is the beauty of Sam's, where all of our arms are locked together.
Greg Holzfer:So we have a membership team.
Greg Holzfer:When the membership team, there's an onboarding component.
Greg Holzfer:When someone becomes a member.
Greg Holzfer:Part of that onboarding component is, hey, do you have the app?
Greg Holzfer:Right.
Greg Holzfer:You should download the app.
Greg Holzfer:And then downloading the app is a tool and Scan and Go is a big part.
Greg Holzfer:I've heard you guys talk about Scan and Go before.
Greg Holzfer:We can talk about that in a minute if you'd like.
Greg Holzfer:But that element of getting our members digitally engaged happens right from the beginning.
Greg Holzfer:And then our strategy going forward is again making sure that we're creating personalized and curated experiences on the site so new and trending may show up in different parts of the merchandising flow based on how you engage.
Anne Mazinga:Buying behavior is.
Anne Mazinga:Right.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:So basically you're trying to funnel the traffic wherever it's most important to that particular customer.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:And then we use data and AI to try to figure out, like, are there any insights based on your purchase frequency, your purchase behavior that would make you more inclined, like not distract you from your mission, but also maybe send you a little wink, like, hey, have you seen this?
Greg Holzfer:And we use our.
Greg Holzfer:Again, a lot of the marketing messaging that we have and a lot of the tools that we use to draw awareness around that.
Chris Walton:Especially the engaged Scan and Go customers too.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, I was going to say that's got to play into it too.
Anne Mazinga:The fact that you're paying people back by enabling Scan and Go experiences in store gives me more incentive to download the app when I'm becoming a member too.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:Scan and Go is unbelievable.
Greg Holzfer:Our members love Scan and Go.
Greg Holzfer:It has a 90 NPS.
Greg Holzfer:Wow.
Greg Holzfer:Which is pretty incredible.
Greg Holzfer:And when we talk about scan and go internally, a huge opportunity for us is that.
Greg Holzfer:Again, I have another omnistat for you.
Greg Holzfer:I'm gonna bring this one up.
Anne Mazinga:I mean, we two in one joke.
Anne Mazinga:We do need some sort of graphic.
Greg Holzfer:Right.
Anne Mazinga:You should have warned us that you were gonna bring the stat.
Greg Holzfer:I will tell you that.
Greg Holzfer:I think this one's even better than the first one.
Greg Holzfer:Storytelling.
Chris Walton:First one was pretty good.
Greg Holzfer:I'm building.
Chris Walton:All right.
Greg Holzfer:So our members are extremely omni.
Greg Holzfer:Right?
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:We just talked about the fact that we buy for wherever the member wants to get.
Greg Holzfer:So 41% of our in club shoppers.
Greg Holzfer:So people walked in the club, have visited our site or app a week before making a purchase.
Greg Holzfer:Which is cool, right?
Greg Holzfer:Which is.
Greg Holzfer:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:Wow.
Greg Holzfer:Drives 37% of our in club business.
Greg Holzfer:So pretty incredible, right?
Greg Holzfer:So to be able.
Greg Holzfer:These are all.
Greg Holzfer:This is like behavior that you're like.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, well, of course, people like research online to be able to back it up with data.
Greg Holzfer:And then what gets measured gets managed.
Greg Holzfer:So then you can start to say, okay, well, if we know this is the behavior that our members want, you know, they don't see the org charts.
Greg Holzfer:They see Sam's.
Greg Holzfer:They don't see channels.
Greg Holzfer:Right.
Greg Holzfer:They see Sam's.
Greg Holzfer:So how do we start to use that data to start to create those amazing experiences for members?
Greg Holzfer:And no convenience.
Greg Holzfer:We.
Greg Holzfer:If you want to get that item shipped to home, we can do that.
Greg Holzfer:If you want to have it come from a club, we can do that.
Greg Holzfer:But the combination of the two and using scan and go as that connective tissue between the digital and the physical world, where we can start to give you personalized recommendations based on what you're doing online.
Greg Holzfer:Literally, in your hand when you're in the club is like the definition of omnichannel.
Greg Holzfer:And you can do that.
Greg Holzfer:And that's pretty cool.
Greg Holzfer:And then I'll end with the final part of that is it's like a flywheel.
Greg Holzfer:It fuels all of that in store data that we're collecting.
Greg Holzfer:And the behavior from our members is fueling what we want to do going forward from a personalization engine.
Greg Holzfer:So next time you're researching that product online, you're gonna get a personalized recognition based on what you did in the club and vice versa.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:That's what's always been really impressive to me, is the data that you guys are collecting about how people are actually shopping both online and in store, which is fundamental to, like, scan and go at its core too.
Chris Walton:And the Usage rate, they said yesterday.
Chris Walton:We had Todd on yesterday, Todd Garner.
Chris Walton:He said the usage rate is 30%.
Greg Holzfer:30%?
Greg Holzfer:Roughly one in three.
Greg Holzfer:Todd's a great partner, by the way.
Greg Holzfer:Work with him on talking about that.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, you gotta say that.
Anne Mazinga:If you don't.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, he will.
Chris Walton:All right, so let's shift gears here a little bit.
Chris Walton:So you're at nrf.
Greg Holzfer:Yes.
Greg Holzfer:You.
Chris Walton:You just came off stage, right?
Chris Walton:Just came off stage, yes.
Chris Walton:What did you share?
Chris Walton:What did you tell the audience?
Greg Holzfer:So we gave an update on personalization.
Greg Holzfer:So we talked a lot about AI and how AI is driving our personalization.
Greg Holzfer:Talked a lot about omnichannel, talked a lot about Scan and Go.
Greg Holzfer:So it was a nice opportunity to get the word out there on those capabilities.
Chris Walton:And what can you tell us more?
Chris Walton:Like, what specific things did you say to the audience?
Greg Holzfer:I think for us, the framework of personalization, I think personalization is like a nebulous term.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:Digital personalization.
Anne Mazinga:Don't get Chris into it.
Anne Mazinga:It's a very sensitive term.
Greg Holzfer:Will we personalize?
Greg Holzfer:Okay, well, what does that mean?
Greg Holzfer:So I really have a webpage.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, exactly.
Greg Holzfer:I wanted to make sure.
Greg Holzfer:And it's like.
Greg Holzfer:And it's just, like, really good retail, too, right?
Chris Walton:It is, yes.
Greg Holzfer:But I was, you know, did a lot of planning for it, and I really wanted to try to break it down for the audience.
Greg Holzfer:So I love frameworks and structure.
Greg Holzfer:I'm a huge fan of, like, breaking things.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg Holzfer:So just briefly broke it into three parts.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:Acquisition, experience, and retention.
Greg Holzfer:On the acquisition side, probably the toughest part for us because we don't really know you yet, but we do know what works for our members.
Greg Holzfer:So then we try to tailor that message to our members based on what we know works for other members.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:Once we get you and we can engage you, we personalize everything from the message to the imagery to the tone in which we speak to you, which is pretty.
Greg Holzfer:Pretty cool.
Greg Holzfer:With a goal of getting you engaged, and then on the retention side, making sure that we're keeping you engaged, keeping you retained, rather by leaning into.
Greg Holzfer:To convenience and making sure that the members are getting the most out of their membership based on their personal actions.
Greg Holzfer:And then with a goal of that, the membership is going to pay for itself multiple times over.
Greg Holzfer:So we look at breaking it out into those three is a pretty easy way to digest from a communication standpoint to our teams to our leadership.
Greg Holzfer:And then from a member standpoint, I talk to the team all the time.
Greg Holzfer:What gets measured, gets managed.
Greg Holzfer:And breaking it out into Those three steps and having strategies around each of those and data to form those strategies has been a big win for us.
Chris Walton:That was going to be my next question for you actually.
Chris Walton:And I think I know the answer is having talked to other Sam's Club executives over the years, but how do you measure, what measurements do you use to evaluate how you're doing along those three steps?
Chris Walton:Because we love the retail executives learn from you guys.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, well, so we're, we're, you know, we're super unique.
Greg Holzfer:Right.
Greg Holzfer:People pay to shop with us.
Greg Holzfer:So we're a membership based business.
Greg Holzfer:So everything is about membership membership.
Greg Holzfer:So at the highest levels we look at like new members and retain members or we know if we give people a great experience, they're gonna, they're gonna be like this is a, this membership is like I mentioned on the retain side.
Greg Holzfer:Like the membership should try to pay for itself multiple times over.
Greg Holzfer:So we look, ultimately look at that and then a lot of times honestly it's, it's the standard metrics that you would look at for success like click throughs, conversion rate, spend units per transaction, net promoter score.
Greg Holzfer:And that's what you measure.
Chris Walton:Always talk about, which I'm always impressed.
Greg Holzfer:Totally.
Greg Holzfer:I think.
Greg Holzfer:And I've, like I said, I listen to your show all the time and you've had other Walmart folks on and you talk about it.
Greg Holzfer:But we, what's impressive about our organization is we measure every part of the buy flow, every engagement.
Greg Holzfer:So from the second we talk to you to the second your order arrives, there is a metric and a stat.
Greg Holzfer:Some of them are standard metrics that you look at and some of their proprietary metrics based on things that we do inside based on unique data that we have that's a competitive advantage secret sauce that we can look at each of those steps of the way to see if there's a problem.
Greg Holzfer:We meet on Mondays.
Greg Holzfer:We are completely exposed.
Greg Holzfer:Our slide goes up on the screen in front of our CEO and our leadership team.
Greg Holzfer:With every metric that we have, there is nowhere to hide.
Greg Holzfer:So each of those steps of the way, if there's a metric and our business has been great, we report on this.
Greg Holzfer:It's been, it's been an awesome year.
Greg Holzfer:And we report on each of those metrics in that meeting.
Greg Holzfer:And the ones they don't really want to talk about the good metrics, they want to talk about the ones to fix.
Chris Walton:Yeah, yeah.
Greg Holzfer:So the I always go the rest always something retail.
Greg Holzfer:There's always something to chase.
Greg Holzfer:It's a forever optimized business.
Anne Mazinga:Yes.
Greg Holzfer:Retail is detailed.
Greg Holzfer:Another one of my favorite lines.
Anne Mazinga:Well, Greg, I wanna touch on something that you mentioned specifically around personalization and the Scan and Go experience.
Anne Mazinga:How are you doing that?
Anne Mazinga:Or I guess what's different about how you are serving up content when I'm shopping online, like you said, I'm preparing for my Sam's trip and then the Scan and Go experience when I'm on my phone shopping in the store.
Anne Mazinga:I'm sure there's some minutia there that we can get into here about how you're doing that.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:I'll just explain it at a high level.
Greg Holzfer:I think right now we know you're in the club, we can identify what club you're in.
Chris Walton:Right.
Greg Holzfer:And that's a big win.
Greg Holzfer:We also have gentle cues along the way in the shopping experience where there'll be an extra discount if you Scan and Go.
Greg Holzfer:I'm sure you've seen it in our clubs.
Greg Holzfer:Right.
Greg Holzfer:It's an extra.
Greg Holzfer:Could be like a promotion based on using Scan and Go, which is a great way to get people to adopt it and use it.
Greg Holzfer:But it's also collecting data.
Anne Mazinga:Yes.
Greg Holzfer:We know we're in the club that they're scanning it.
Greg Holzfer:We know what they're scanning it.
Greg Holzfer:And then that can help with the personalization piece.
Greg Holzfer:Because.
Greg Holzfer:Because if we know one item is next to another item, then maybe there's an opportunity to show that on a digital format.
Anne Mazinga:Right.
Anne Mazinga:And even I would imagine, like, how much incentive it takes to get somebody to pull up Scan and go.
Anne Mazinga:Right?
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, 100%.
Greg Holzfer:Right.
Chris Walton:So I want to nerd out for a little bit.
Chris Walton:Just go on my E commerce back because you still get the chance to talk to folks like you.
Chris Walton:So I'm curious, like, is there anything.
Chris Walton:So when I'm like when I'm in with the Scan and Go app as an E commerce leader, is there anything that you're particularly focused on that's more important to get right than say a traditional E commerce experience?
Chris Walton:Like, traditional e commerce experience, you gotta get checkout, right?
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Chris Walton:You gotta have an awesome pdp.
Chris Walton:Is there anything in the.
Chris Walton:In.
Chris Walton:When I'm in the store with that app, is there anything you have to get right?
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:Love it.
Greg Holzfer:So cool.
Greg Holzfer:You love, like talking about optimization and the key parts.
Greg Holzfer:So I would say some of it, like on a website.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:You want to make sure it loads quickly.
Chris Walton:Right, Right.
Greg Holzfer:Like, doesn't get talked about a lot, but there's significant data that shows the longer it takes to load a page.
Anne Mazinga:The lower the conversion, doing the yeah.
Greg Holzfer:It'S not that different for scanning.
Chris Walton:It's gotta look quick.
Greg Holzfer:So if you think about this, right, like cell reception is critically important, we have wifi in the clubs, but you're.
Anne Mazinga:Still in a concrete box.
Greg Holzfer:So I look at from a standpoint of when I look at the data I scrutinize in one of the key metrics I look in is the load time.
Greg Holzfer:Like how quickly is it gonna come?
Greg Holzfer:And then from there it's the same thing.
Greg Holzfer:In E commerce, we're reducing friction.
Greg Holzfer:So how easily can it be knowing that if you're think about a, the three of us are gonna go shopping, we're pushing a carriage, we may or may not have kids, we may or may not have friends with us.
Greg Holzfer:It's gotta be super easy.
Greg Holzfer:If I'm holding a phone in my hand, it has to be simple.
Anne Mazinga:I love that you said that it.
Greg Holzfer:Has to be simple.
Anne Mazinga:That's not something that people think about is how even with like the carts that you see, it's like people are not just coming in hands free doing this anymore.
Greg Holzfer:So it's gotta be super simple.
Greg Holzfer:We look at honestly like your thumb, like where is your thumb?
Greg Holzfer:Where is the reach of your thumb?
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:On the, on the, on the phone and where are the buttons based on where your thumb can reach and try to make that, reduce that.
Chris Walton:So there's really two things there then.
Chris Walton:So there's the load time and then like being able to manipulate everything with one hand.
Anne Mazinga:Like the human centered design that you keep talking about.
Chris Walton:Yeah, A term for making it as adaptable as possible to imagine.
Chris Walton:Right.
Anne Mazinga:Okay, you're at nrf.
Greg Holzfer:Yes.
Anne Mazinga:What technology are you looking at?
Greg Holzfer:Well, if I don't say AI, do I get kicked out of the.
Chris Walton:Not from us.
Anne Mazinga:No, no, you're fine.
Chris Walton:We're all about pragmatism here.
Chris Walton:Yes.
Anne Mazinga:Let's be real.
Greg Holzfer:I'll say from an AI standpoint, not on the technology side, but like use cases I think are pretty cool.
Greg Holzfer:I mentioned that more than half of our business is fulfilled from a club.
Greg Holzfer:So anything like club fulfilled.
Greg Holzfer:There's got to be innovation around curbside and delivery.
Greg Holzfer:So look into that.
Greg Holzfer:The other thing I will say is that I love.
Greg Holzfer:And then this is like old school but just like plain data.
Greg Holzfer:But I love real time data.
Greg Holzfer:So we have, my team will tell you we have a dashboard that we created that we look at that shows the real time data across a lot of our key metrics.
Greg Holzfer:It's not that you're going to action on it right now, but it Gives you a view into how the business is doing and where some of the problems are.
Greg Holzfer:So I haven't seen a lot of technology around real time monitoring and real time data, but I love it.
Greg Holzfer:It's like theater.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:Like, especially during like busy days, like busy days of the week and during the holidays.
Anne Mazinga:I mean, you remember what Sarah's.
Greg Holzfer:I remember Sarah's backpack order.
Greg Holzfer:It was white, white, white Borealis backpack.
Greg Holzfer:She lived in North Carolina.
Greg Holzfer: This is in: Greg Holzfer:That's awesome.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, awesome.
Chris Walton:All right, since you brought it up, let's get you out of here on this.
Chris Walton:You brought up AI.
Chris Walton:So we, we, we'd lose our, our media card if we didn't ask you this question.
Chris Walton: ness in your role the most in: Chris Walton:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:I'll start off by saying that AI is absolutely going to permeate every part of the business.
Greg Holzfer:That sounds like cliche, but it's true.
Greg Holzfer:It's going to happen for us right now.
Greg Holzfer:The, the biggest, I'll give you two, the biggest area is around personalization.
Greg Holzfer:It quite literally is the personalization engine that we have.
Greg Holzfer:We use AI, so we're doing that.
Greg Holzfer:As mentioned, we just gave a speech on that.
Greg Holzfer:The other one is on search.
Greg Holzfer:So our on site search using AI to do.
Greg Holzfer:To predictive, you know, get a better predictive estimate of what people looking for.
Greg Holzfer:We're a curated assortment business, so we're not going to have everything.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:But if we can start to use AI to make a connection, we may not have this, but we do have this.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah, like those are the types of things that we're using for right now.
Anne Mazinga:Oh, I was just gonna say are you using some of the generative AI technology that Walmart has used too, in search?
Anne Mazinga:Like is that part of what you'll be looking at?
Greg Holzfer:We're looking.
Greg Holzfer:Yeah.
Greg Holzfer:So on the.
Greg Holzfer:Everything's on the.
Greg Holzfer:Like, like a forever optimized business.
Greg Holzfer:Everything's on the roadmap.
Greg Holzfer:I think from a generative AI standpoint for us right now, one of the things we do use AI for is for the subject lines for our marketing messages.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Anne Mazinga:Okay.
Greg Holzfer:Which is which I have another stat for you if you want.
Greg Holzfer:So along those lines, talking about performance, the.
Greg Holzfer:The AI generated subject lines for our marketing messages outperforms humans at a rate of 95%.
Chris Walton:Oh, wow.
Chris Walton:Wow.
Chris Walton:That's crazy.
Chris Walton:That was going to be similar to my question for you.
Chris Walton:Follow up would be, you know when you say AI is going to impact personalization.
Chris Walton:I'm curious on what angle of the personalization you expect to see the impact the most.
Chris Walton:Is it like on the insights?
Chris Walton:Is it on helping generate more content against the insights?
Chris Walton:Is it yes.
Chris Walton:And like, how do you think about it?
Greg Holzfer:I think it's yes.
Greg Holzfer:And it's I think you have such a small window of opportunity to get someone's attention.
Greg Holzfer:So it starts with getting their attention and then you can lose it if you don't have a great recommendation.
Greg Holzfer:If you're like, this isn't relevant to me or I already bought this, why are you showing me this?
Greg Holzfer:So it's really again going back to like nailing the basics and the fundamentals of it.
Greg Holzfer:Just because it's AI doesn't mean that you lose the retail fundamentals.
Anne Mazinga:Right.
Greg Holzfer:Of driving the good business.
Anne Mazinga:Awesome.
Anne Mazinga:Well, Greg, thank you so much.
Anne Mazinga:I know Stats, you brought the real time data.
Anne Mazinga:You showed us how your impeccable memories.
Anne Mazinga:Thank you so much again, Greg Pulsar from Sam's Club.
Anne Mazinga: ive content coverage from NRF: Anne Mazinga:Stay tuned.
Anne Mazinga: can come see us here in booth: Anne Mazinga:And until then, be careful out there.
