In this 5 Insightful Minutes episode, Marybeth Hays — a former Walmart merchant executive, trusted board member, and colleague of Chris and Anne's at Simbe — joins Omni Talk to discuss the dramatic evolution of retail merchandising.

From unified online and in-store assortments to AI-powered shelf intelligence, Marybeth breaks down how modern merchants are becoming true category experts, why trusted real-time data is finally eliminating age-old friction between merchants and operators, and how technologies like RFID, digital shelf labels, and Simbe's Tally robot are improving how retailers understand customer behavior.

If you've ever wondered how merchandising is and will continue to transform, this episode is for you.

🔑 Topics covered:

• The shift from separate online/in-store merchants to unified responsibility
• How narrower product focus creates deeper category expertise
• Why trusted, real-time data changes everything for merchants
• The Blue Moon Beer and orange slice story—and what AI would have caught
• Navigating the historic tension between merchants and operators
• Why shelf intelligence requires cross-functional executive sponsorship

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#retailmerchants #shelfIntelligence #retailtech #omnitalk #smartretail #AIinRetail #retailinnovation #simbe #tally #retailpodcast #merchandising

Foreigning us now for five insightful minutes is Mary Beth Hayes.

Mary Beth is a former Walmart merchant executive, a trusted board member, and now a colleague of Ann's and mine at Simbi.

And she is here to discuss the ongoing evolution of merchandising, a subject you all know is near and dear to our hearts here at OmniTalk.

Mary Beth, welcome to OmniTalk.

Let's get started with this.

What is different about merchandising now relative to even five years ago?

My favorite topic, merchandising.

One major change that I've seen is that merchants now have responsibility for both in store and for the online assortment instead of having two organizations.

This is such a relief for suppliers I work with a lot now who are often caught between two merchants.

It's better for the customer because the product assortment itself hangs together better.

Right.

And it's certainly better for the merchants because they can gain an even deeper understanding of customers and purchase behavior.

Not to mean that it's easier because as any merchant will tell you, a hit online may not transfer in store and vice versa.

Well, Mary Beth, as merchandising teams are trying to kind of stay on the cutting edge, how would you recommend that they kind of try to capitalize on this new way of working?

The new way of working with having responsibility for online and in store typically comes when that change is made with a narrower product responsibility.

So this should allow the merchants to truly become experts in the product, everything about that product category from the brands, the need for a private label, what most matters to customers and they can really become technical experts in the category and partners to suppliers and bringing new products to market.

And Mary Beth, I imagine this comes with even more data now than than ever before.

They were already getting inundated.

But how do you recommend that now with a narrower product focus that they, they use the data that they're getting to be successful.

There's always been in my mind two issues with data.

And one is can you trust it?

And two is that for so long, I mean, hundreds of years of organized retail, it's always been backwards looking.

Right?

Right.

So now that you know, they're deploy their technologies rather that are being deployed such as digital shelf labels, RFID and certainly Simbis Tally that we get to collaborate on, we're finally entering an era where the data can be trusted.

Right.

So we can eliminate that pain point.

And since it can be trusted, we can now turn to AI to mine that data for trends that no human's going to see.

And like here's here's my favorite story.

If we had had this technology way back when, this would be different.

Story of Blue Moon beer, which we always enjoy with an orange slice.

Yeah, well, when that beer came out like that, what.

The orange slice wasn't a thing yet.

And the retailer that I was with, like some really, really smart store manager observed that in his or her community, came back to the store, did a, you know, pallets of the product together, and it was a hit that went up through the district.

And then finally, you know, nationally, we were asking the stores, please do that.

Right.

Where your liquor laws, you know, make that, allow that, but think about that.

That's.

Oranges are in produce.

And then of course, you've got the adult beverage buyer.

They're never going to see that connection.

So it feels to me like AI and shelf intelligence is just bringing us out of like the merchandising equivalent of getting smoke signals, you know, from, from each retail store.

Yeah, the vodka buyer might be talking to the olive buyer, but the beer buyer's definitely not talking to the orange buyer.

That's for sure.

Right.

Yeah.

But the other point that raises too, which I think is also important to think about, you know, as you take that up a level, take it up to say, the chief merchant level, which is what you were in your previous, you know, and you previously in your career, like, there starts to become some territorial overlap between the opera people that own the operation.

So let's, let's say for sake of argument, the COO side of the organization and the chief merchant side of the organization.

What advice do you have for navigating that blurring of lines, so to speak?

You know, the relationship between operators and merchants?

I think it's like cats and dogs, like, since the beginning of time, like, it's, it's full of friction.

But a lot of that friction is really productive.

You know, operator Ally is going to be the first one to tell you when, like, this set isn't working or you're missing something.

The, the packaging is just, it's, it's horrible.

It's, it's not good for the stores.

Right.

And then the merchants are always just, they just want to see their set executed.

And, you know, and the sales happen and they want their inventories, like, always corrected and adjusted.

But then the poor operator takes that adjustment.

It can look like shrink, right?

It looks like their shrinks out of control.

So the endless quibbling over good faith, receiving execution and inventory levels is just, it's just unproductive.

Right.

So just like, you know, I mentioned earlier, we're over the debate about online business killing the stores shelf intelligence like, like Simbi and our friend Tally is going to move the industry past that squabbling and providing, helping the operators and the merchants and supply chain provide what the customer needs and when they need it.

So my advice to retail executives in this day and age is that when you deploy technology like Simbi and Tally, please do that, but cross functionally.

It's an enterprise level project that will maximize the investment will when it has executive sponsorship from the chief merchant, the chief operator and the head of supply chain to maximize the investment and utilize the data and take advantage of the whole suite of products that are available now.

So welcome to the future.

Well, thanks, Mary Beth, that was great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.