Shownotes
This segment from the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five podcast, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso, explores Target's bold move to enable shopping through ChatGPT just days before Black Friday.
Anne sees it as a necessary first step into LLM-powered commerce and applauds Target for testing publicly. Chris calls it a "big nothing burger"... questioning why Target launched an incomplete beta feature during their busiest week, especially when their own site search isn't optimized yet. Who's right?
#target #chatgpt #aicommerce #llmsearch #conversationalcommerce #retailtech #targetapp #innovation #retailAI #voiceshopping
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Transcripts
Speaking of Target, and believe me folks, I'm not done ranting on this yet either.
Speaker A:Target yesterday enabled mobile shopping in chatgpt according to Chainstorage and launched just yesterday.
Speaker A:The Target app is now connected to ChatGPT and lets users ask for help, search and purchase products using conversational language.
Speaker A:Target will offer a complete shopping experience through its app in ChatGPT with the ability to purchase items in a single transaction, multiple items, I should say, in a single transaction, shop fresh food products and select drive up, pick, pickup or shopping fulfillment options.
Speaker A:And are you buying or selling Target's feet first foray into chat GPT mobile shopping this holiday season?
Speaker B:I'm buying and I think I would be no matter which retailer would be making this move.
Speaker B:I know I'm going to be called probably a Target apologist for this podcast, but I do think that, that every one of every retailer everywhere needs to be thinking about how they're going to go first into LLM enabled commerce.
Speaker B:I think it's important to note that this is still in beta.
Speaker B:They just launched it, so we've been playing around with it a little bit.
Speaker B:Sure, there's still some things that need to be worked out, but what I think is the biggest news is that Target's actually talking about this.
Speaker B:They're talking about it in the industry in ways that we haven't seen Target start or talk about some of the things that they've been deploying in stores or on E commerce in years past.
Speaker B:So I think this is not going to hit customers very strongly.
Speaker B:It's still very much in the trade media.
Speaker B:So I think as they continue to develop this beta version of their large language search, I think that customers will start to see, we'll start to see more adoption from customers.
Speaker B:But, but number one, right now I think Target is starting to get out in front of and start to talk about how they're making moves to try to course correct based on the earnings that we just talked about in the last story.
Speaker B:So I'm, I'm in for it.
Speaker B:I think there's a lot of, of, of development still and I'm just glad that Target's actually getting in and doing something to start to compete with the likes of Amazon and Walmart.
Speaker B:But what do you think?
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So did you try it out?
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Did you.
Speaker A:Do you think it makes your life better?
Speaker B:I think it, I think that it's.
Speaker B:Yes, it will make my life better.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I think I'm still trying to figure out all of the modes and methods that you can shop using these LLM search models.
Speaker B:I didn't even realize.
Speaker B:So for those listening, you know, when you go into ChatGPT, you have the ability on the left hand side to select a GPT.
Speaker B:So this is saying, you know, the way that Target's approaching this is that you go into it, you select the target GPT and that's what you're using to help you find and pull together orders.
Speaker B:So it's a different method, but I still think that there's a lot of testing that needs to be done to, to figure out how we're going to go about doing this in the right way, that serves the right customers who are using this, this methodology.
Speaker B:But you use it too, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, the way, the way I would summarize it is basically, it basically simulates the Target app experience in ChatGPT, which I just kind of ask myself, like, why do I need that?
Speaker A:But especially when the traffic is going to be small to it.
Speaker A:But yeah, I mean, I'm in 100% disagree with you on this one.
Speaker A:100%.
Speaker A:I mean, I think this experience actually shows just how desperate Target is to sound like they're doing something innovative.
Speaker A:First off, first off, why launch this two days before Thanksgiving if you're going to do it?
Speaker A:It should have been in the works and working long before two days before Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Speaker A:Second, because of that fact alone, and then also because you announced it on earnings day when results are bad.
Speaker A:It also sounds a little desperate to me.
Speaker A:And third, which I was hitting at too, the experience kind of is lame.
Speaker A:Like, I had a former Target employee me text me yesterday.
Speaker A:He's like, this is a big nothing burger.
Speaker A:Like, why would I want an app inside of another app?
Speaker A:It's like, you know, so it's something that's just basically approximating the experience we already have.
Speaker A:So I'm like, okay, so it's going to have no impact on sales.
Speaker A:Target's likely going to try to spin it that it's going to have a positive impact when they report on the next quarter, even though materially it won't impact earnings.
Speaker A:So they're going to feel fine doing it.
Speaker A:Which goes back to my point that I bring up at the beginning.
Speaker A:It's, it's, it's not a good experiment.
Speaker A:The opera, the order of operations here is Matt, here matters, I think, you know, first, like we've said on the show multiple times, you got to figure out natural language search on your own site first.
Speaker A:Then as we heard from David Dorf at AWS say.
Speaker A:The second thing is you have to decide if you want to integrate with ChatGPT at all.
Speaker A:Is there a strategic value to doing that?
Speaker A:And you're not going to really understand that until you understand that your own site is ready and active to be searched in this way.
Speaker A:And I don't think Target's effectively done that, at least when you look at its peer set.
Speaker A:And then you dip your toe slow once you get those two things figured out, I think then you dip your toe slowly into the right categories, not your whole experience.
Speaker A:You look at how Walmart's doing it.
Speaker A:Walmart's.
Speaker A:Walmart.
Speaker A:Walmart says they're going to do it.
Speaker A:They haven't even launched anything yet and they're being very deliberate with what categories they're going to put into the experience.
Speaker A:They're saying they're not going to do grocery, for example.
Speaker A:So the roadmap to me is already out there and Target is leaping ahead in a way to try to sound like they're doing something, when in reality.
Speaker A:I agree, it is a big nothing burger.
Speaker B:I, yeah, I think, I think there's a few things that are, that we don't know.
Speaker B:One, we're not in the four walls of Walmart, of Target, of any of these, these retailers.
Speaker B:And I don't know that you and I have done enough shopping in the, in this, this, these multiple pathways that get you to what the best LM search model is going to be.
Speaker B:I think you're making an assumption that Target is not.
Speaker B:The products are not ready for LLM search when they, they have to be testing this and they have to be putting this out so that they have to have something there.
Speaker B:So I don't think it's fair to say that there's nothing that's been in place.
Speaker B:They have to have their products be searchable using this format.
Speaker B:So whether it's searchable on the target.com site, it, it's searchable on the target or via ChatGPT, they're still working on it.
Speaker B:And I think the other part of this is it's beta, Chris.
Speaker B:It's beta during the highest traffic time of the season.
Speaker B:So I don't have a problem with them launching it this week.
Speaker B:I think if anything they're going to get, if they get any traffic to it, which again, this has not been, it's not on cnbc.
Speaker B:This is not on like any, it's all in trade publications right now.
Speaker B:So my guess is if you ask the average Target consumer, do they even know this exists?
Speaker B:Right now they don't.
Speaker B:And all that Target's doing is getting testing information this week so that they can help continue to evolve the model to figure out what the right user experience journey is for the target consumer to get to this spot.
Speaker B:So I think there's still a lot of unknowns to be making this a definitive no, this is a terrible idea.
Speaker A:All right, well, my only, my only retort to that is I, I could agree with those points.
Speaker A:Why do it over Black Friday?
Speaker A:Why put your engineering teams through, through the hell of trying to make this thing work over Black Friday?
Speaker A:Why not just wait?
Speaker A:Why not wait?
Speaker A:What's the big deal of doing that experimentation in November versus waiting to do that experimentation in January?
Speaker B:I think you did bring up a good point of the earnings report.
Speaker B:And this does show that they're doing something to course correct.
Speaker B:So I, again, I don't have a problem.
Speaker B:I don't think it seems desperate.
Speaker B:I think it shows action being taken instead of just saying, again, you know, we're relying on Target to get us through the holiday.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:They're showing that they're investing in other methods that are the future of shopping so that they can contend with the Walmarts and the Amazons.