Tim Costello from UST Global joins Mike to discuss the role that future seamless checkout plays in the future of retail.  Tim has years of experience at Walmart running stores, Amazon running warehouses and now is leader at UST global exploring the retail technology of the future.   

Hello, my name is Mike Graen. And I'm extremely

excited to talk to Tim Costello. I've known Tim for a long, long

time. He spent over 12 years with Walmart in store operations

and various stores in the Northwest Arkansas and Oklahoma

area. So he had a lot of experience up to including the

store manager. He then left Walmart and spent a couple of

years at Amazon working on their warehouse operations. And now he

has left them to go to a company called UST Global, where he is

working on automated store technology. I can't think of

anybody better to talk about store operations and the

technology to support that then my good friend Tim. Welcome,

Tim.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you appreciate that fine

introduction. And as a way of remembrance, my Walmart retail

career, my whole retail career began when I was 49 years old.

But you look 49 now, Tim, so how does that work?

When you work for Walmart, they don't allow it.

It's not part of the SOP.

So the Walmart experience and then the Amazon

experience and now you're UST Global actually started, you

started that path when you are 49. Well, what do you do before

you were 49?

So before I was 49, out of high school, I spent

12 years in the Navy poking holes in the submarines out

there in the world. And I was a missile technician working on

the Poseidon and Triton submarines and missiles. After

that I got out I found a dove into a sales.com career

because.com was coming along. And I grew that for a whole

bunch of stuff. So I carried a bag and sold a lot of third

party services down into the dark commerce throughout San

Jose and everywhere else on the West Coast, living in Salt Lake

City at that time. After that, I found that I was a decent

operational mind and started consulting a number of years.

And then that consultation grew into business structuring and

asset protection and not the kind of asset protection that

Walmart does. But multimillionaires who are

looking to structure their assets so nobody can file a

lawsuit against them in a court of law. So it makes it hard to

get to their assets. So we did that for a while. And then I

retired. And then we moved to Bentonville, Arkansas for Carrie

my wife to get her career going after raising the kids. And I

was literally, you know, became a master gardener and Benton

County and just hung around did a bunch was Davis County. I

can't remember what county was there now. But beyond that I got

bored.

So I applied to Walmart, and I couldn't get in the home office

for about a year. And I didn't want to work for anyone else

because I didn't have a Fortune 5 company on my resume. So I

said I'm gonna go work for Walmart. Finally Carrie wakes up

one day and says, hey, just go work in a store. And I said me,

we're going to store what would I do? I don't know anything

about that. Literally. Other than a shopper, I knew nothing

about retail. Well, I you know, did what she said applied. The

next day 2741 there across from NWAC gave me a call wanting me

to be an overnight stalker. And I asked her the personnel person

isn't that illegal? And she didn't get it. So I said, Yep,

I'll be over.

A very fine friend named Matt. Harold gave me my first

interview. I think he's a market manager somewhere up in Missouri

now. Fine fella and I began my Walmart career as an overnight

stalker at 2741.

Did you have to spell stalker to make sure that

they were clear which one you meant?

No, sir. There was no test after my job.

That's awesome. Wow. Well, first and foremost, I had

no idea about your Navy career. Thank you so much for your

service. I don't think we say that enough for all the people

who are suffering and making the ability for us to be able to

live a safe lives, etc. We take some of that stuff for granted.

But number two, you had you did have an interesting career

before Walmart. But I do know, you spent a number of years in

store operations and I really want to get your perspective on

you've worked for a couple of really big retailers one being

Walmart and one being Amazon different roles obviously but

now you're working on kind of future technology for stores

itself. So I want to start off with first and foremost you

know, based on your previous experience, the first question

we ask people is we are always involved interested in retail

but I'm interested in any perspective you have. Have times

you not as a store person but as a customer have been

disappointed by a retailer. You thought you were gonna get

something and you end up not getting it. You got any stories

because I think these stories helped help the store operations

and retail understand the pain that's created from a customer

who gets disappointed any any, any stories like that.

Too often. Like every single one of us have gone

to the store and we want to put together something. Either it's

a dinner or a picnic or a celebration, whatever it is. And

we are, we have found ourselves frustrated, because we were

gonna go to this store, get everything we needed, and be

done, right one hour trip, you're all good to go. And you

can go plan and do the rest. But then you end up spending two or

three more hours, that particular day or the next day,

wandering around trying to find the things that you wanted to

find it that one store, or there's been bad enough routines

where I've just left the basket set. And I just went to the next

door. Right, so now that store has lost my wholesale, not part

of it. Because I just didn't, I didn't have time to go to many

visits. So yes, it's extremely frustrating to get into a store

expect normal items to be there. I'm not talking about you know,

unicorns, I'm talking about things you'd normally buy. And

when they're not there, it's extremely frustrating.

So you spend enough years in stores, working stores:

as a customer, when I come in, and I'm looking for the five

items for my barbecue, or whatever I'm going to go and you

don't have two have them. I get frustrated, obviously. But I'd

like to know from a customer perspective, why? Why is it so

hard to keep items in available for a customer to purchase?

It is a ongoing battle, to maintain the process

in a retail store. If the store manager is not checking on that

process, every single step of the way, which means that store

manager now needs to know every part of the process. They're not

going to be as good at doing that process as their associates

because their associates become masters of that product. And

they know the synergy of how that all works. But you're going

to know all the checkpoints along the way as to what you

should see when that process is done well. Right. So you rely

upon your associates. So one you got to teach, you got to train

them, and you've got to keep them going in that process. Or

you will be out of stock. And if you're out of stock, like Sam

Walton said, you know why that shelf is empty? And everybody

looks quizzically at him? I don't know. Cuz the customer

bought it all. Now what do you do? And they get all the

shoulder shrugs? I don't know, order some more. Yeah, right,

fill it up. Now, that was the old Kanban system to keep that

filled, so that the customer doesn't have to look at an empty

shelf.

The supply chain is so complicated, is again, if you

put your store manager hat on running a brick and mortar

store, let's say you got several 100,000 items that are in a

store. And the products are not in the store. What are some of

the challenges you mentioned training is one but one of the

other ones that I know that we've talked about a lot is

perpetual inventory accuracy, which is it says I have five but

I don't have any and therefore I don't sell any I don't order

any. That may be one of the opportunities. Is there others

that you can think of that, that the product is is physically not

in the building?

So we Walmart and many others, Amazon, et cetera,

they're all very focused on that last mile delivery. Right? How

do I get it from my distribution center, my fulfillment center or

my store to the customer? The customer is going to come pick

it up and all those are fine thoughts. And our friends at

Walmart doing a great job I know some of right but the reality is

that next to last mile delivery because that's how you're going

to fulfill the last mile delivery with all the items that

customers ordering. I can tell you I've ordered online

sometimes and I've done them all Instacart Walmart target the

whole bit right? Every single one of them shorts me a product

every single time I ordered. If I'm doing a roast and they short

me a roast, what else was everything good for? So so that

next to last mile delivery, as I'll paraphrase it because I

think nobody else is talking about that. But it's in stock,

right? Oscar score, Walmart cars, everybody else calls it in

stock, whatever you want to call the process to keep that shelf

full, so that your online grocery pickers can pick it,

your customers can choose it, et cetera, is crucial. Absolutely

crucial. And that will never change in retail. It will always

be keeping the shelves full.

But I think one of the competitive advantages at

least from my perspective and people that I've talked to as I

can't remember a time where I ordered something from from a

pure play online fulfillment retail like an Amazon and I got

to I got it out of stock. Didn't happen.

You know why? Because it doesn't matter what

you order. That product is in stock somewhere. And my time in

Amazon, I'm telling you I have never seen a more complex

customer delivery model than they employ. Literally, you

could order five items, and let's just say that your

fulfillment center happens to be OKC one, the one that I ran,

right, and you only three of the items are in that fulfillment

center. The system knows it the minute you place by, right. So

now it immediately employs a mechanism that's going to go

find it wherever it is, get it picked at that facility, dropped

into a tote, that tote go to a special truck called reactive,

right? And that reactive freight moves within a couple of hours

to the next fulfillment center, like DFW to OKC one, or FTW,

six, to OKC one, see, one are told to to, you know, whatever,

you're moving that in there. And as an operations manager at OKC

one, I had five hours when that truck arrived to get that item

stowed into a bin, right. So that's Priority Freight, we get

that stone is customer orders, right? Yeah, once that's stowed

in the system now it says, oh, all your five items are now

here. Put them together, pick them, send them downstairs, put

them in a package, send them out on the truck to one of the

delivery centers. And then boom, all of a sudden, you get it. And

to you and me, it's like magic. You can imagine the physical

effort going on behind the scene for hundreds of millions of

products. Every single day, I would get six or seven reactive

trucks into my center every single day.

Wow. Wow. Well, here's the other big interesting

thing is we don't have these things called customers coming

in and stealing product and Associates stealing product and

third parties coming in here and moving product. You don't have

those in an Amazon warehouse, right. So you've got a much

better controlled environment. So a retailer like Walmart, how

do they win in that environment against Amazon? Because they are

winning. And they're doing very well, because they have these

4600 locations that are within 10 miles of a store. How do you

compete against an Amazon model when you're a retailer like

Walmart?

So that's a very interesting question. I just

happened to be on LinkedIn this morning. And my distant friend

Carissa Sprague, who knows the SVP over there ecommerce

delivery, I see her taking photos in a distribution

fulfillment center, and it looks just like the Amazon ones,

yellow guardrails, concretes. Shelves the whole bit, right.

That's how you compete. Walmart didn't didn't sleep. Right. I

remember Doug McMillon, five years ago at a conference for

all the store managers right store manager meeting, I forget

whether it was year beginning or holiday meeting. I don't know

which one it was. But he sort of portrayed the graph of retailers

that don't make that jump. Right. And he intimated that,

you know, Walmart could be one of those retailers that doesn't

make that jump. But of course, he has seen too, with lots of

smart, talented people to create this exact same thing. So as

they're tying this together, as Walmart builds their

marketplace, Walmart is very well positioning themselves to

just run right alongside because quite frankly, I believe Amazon

has peaked. I believe they are, they're going to build a few

fulfillment centers. But they're done building 65 a year, right?

We're running out of cities, they might expand around the

world somewhere, but here in the US, they're pretty peaked.

They're going to build a new one to move new technology into it,

but they're going to abandon the old ones are using for some

other purpose. And Walmart's ramping it up. But Walmart has,

you know, 5000 stores. And when Greg Friend was in my store one

day, he asked me a question, what do you think, Tim? I said,

You know what, Greg, I think you ought to take about two thirds

of a supercenter, right, shrink it down to about 60, something

thousand square feet, but the most moving brick and mortar

skews in that area, and use all the rest for a fulfillment

center is now you've got you know, 3500 fulfillment centers

around the country that you can now fulfill out and some of

that's come true. They've, you know, Salem, New Hampshire, they

retrofitted a place. They're doing the drone delivery out of

my old store and a couple others. So they are trying

everything. And like Greg, for instance, I don't care if you

fail, just try, right. Let's give it a shot. Right? See if it

works, because it might work and might work and true leaders are

never afraid of failing, right? It's just one more way that

didn't work. Keep on going.

That's right. That's right. Well, I am going to put

my money on Walmart for sure. And it's not because I've spent

40 years working with them. But here's the reality. I can now

get on my computer, order everything I need. And within

two hours, it's sitting on my doorstep. I don't know that

Amazon's ever going to be able to compete with that. So I like

their chances. But there's a lot of process stuff that has to

happen. So let's switch gears a little bit. I mean, I couldn't

think if I was UST I couldn't think of a better person than

you who've had all this experience running store

operations at Walmart and then with Amazon, to say, Tim blank

What is the retail tech going to look like

to support what we need to do for our customers? Walk us

through some of the cool stuff that's going on at UST. And what

do you think is the top of the list for some of these retailers

to consider?

Excellent. So number one is frictionless

commerce. That's what it's called now, right? Don't make

your customer work too hard for them to give you money. When I

ran my store, I literally pictured people walking into my

store with fistfuls of money, daring me to trade them, right?

You got what I want, I want to give you some money. 99% of 1%

we'll talk about later. But those things are never going to

change. Right? brick and mortar is not going away. In fact,

you'll find Amazon's moving towards brick and mortar. So

we're trying to figure out how to make brick and mortar better.

Right? So it's down to shrink into the most number of skews

that moves. You know, the neighborhood market does that,

well, they could use some GM enhancements to get some stuff

in there. But they're doing really well with that. So let me

let me stop here real quick, because I hear people go, Oh,

with E commerce, everything's gonna delivered to your house,

you never even have to go into a brick and mortar store, you

obviously think that's not gonna happen? brick and mortar is not

going away. Okay? I mean, I may not live long enough to see my

prediction come true. But 50 years from now, brick and mortar

still gonna be here. Yeah, brick and mortar has never changed

from the general store right. Now, back in the general store,

everything was behind the counter. So he his shrink was

really good, right? He had everything accounted for, and he

gave you in charge you. But now we have very open stores. And

we're trying different mechanisms to keep most of the

merchandise in the store until it's paid for, and account for

all the inventory that's coming into the store, as we can get it

stocked, right. So keep your keep your nest together. So that

brick and mortar is never going to go away. Right? That's just

going to stay through some notes out here that with brick and

mortar, there now has to be a way to take care of it.

So when they converted my store to 100% self checkout on the

front end some of the complaints from the customers were where's

my W2 for bagging my own groceries? And after a while, I

thought of a good response that was sort of funny and sort of,

you know, ease the tension a bit. And that was: Did you stop

driving because you had to pump your own gas? It worked on a few

not all of them, right. But they were more concerned about the

cashiers. Where's my cashier? Where's the one that took care

of me all the time. And there's still some that I'm friend on

Facebook with that were in my store, right? And they're

wonderful people, they show up to work, they take care of the

customers. They didn't go away. What they did in my store was

take all of those hours and shift them into that ecommerce

world. Right? So they made it run more efficiently. Yes, the

customer can now check themselves out. In fact, Walmart

has done such a great job of reducing the cash registers on

the front end to all the self checkouts that now they don't

have enough self checks. Yeah, that's true, literally, that now

you're in line at the self check, right? So if you use

their scan and go, and you're running around the store

scanning, now you'd have to wait in line at a self check to get

up there to bag your groceries, checkout, that kind of stuff to

figure that out. But now they have lines self check. Could you

imagine? Yeah, it's amazing. So brick and mortar is not going

away. So with frictionless commerce, the idea is twofold.

One is, how do I keep my inventory in the building till

it's paid for? How do I detect when it's picked up? How do I

properly put that into a virtual basket? Right? And how do I

assign that virtual basket to someone I know and who's going

to pay for it. So in some of the smaller stores I'm working on

there's a turnstile that lets you in the store. Right, and you

scan your QR code, the door is open. We know who you are. We're

tracking you with cameras and sensors. And then they're doing

3D modeling to know where your arm is up and down from the

shelves. And then the shelves are scaled so that it knows what

you pick up. It puts that in your virtual basket. When you're

done shopping, you go to the turnstile, you walk out, it

opens within eight or 10 seconds, you get a receipt. What

if I change my mind, I pick something up and I look at it I

decided I want and I put it back. You can put it down

anywhere in the store. Why? Because of the scale of shelve.

It knows what was in your basket, how much it weighed.

When you pull that out of your physical basket and place it on

a shelf somewhere in the store. Couple of things happen. One,

the store manager app gets a notification that has a

misplaced item. And at Walmart that might be like the Keystone

Cops running around trying to put the store back together,

right? But it doesn't sit there long because you know it's there

and you got to clear the alarm.

The second thing is it knows what it weighs. So unless they

put it on the floor, right which doesn't have a scale; as long as

they put it on a shelf that scaled, it knows where it goes.

Now there is some technology a little bit in its early

advancement, where we don't need any scaled shelves, and we can

detect and see items with all these cameras takes a tremendous

amount of computing power, as you might imagine, and that's

being developed. But we're deploying it here and there to

try it out and check it right. The whole idea is have your

customers walk in, tell you who they are, shop, whatever they

want, and then leave, and then you get a receipt. So obviously,

for the folks who are listening to this podcast, they have seen

the Amazon Go commercials way they call it just walk out

technology. Yes. Zooming that says what you're referring to,

that is part of the technology. Correct. I visited that store in

Bellevue, Washington in the Factoria square. And I spent

four hours in that store one afternoon to check out all the

technology, I wanted to know everything that was going on, I

talked to the associates, how do they stock the service counters

is the cool technology because they're slicing meat and all

that cheese and stuff. And then when they had right before they

hand it to you, they scan it with a barcode scanner, because

it's got just the typical label, then they hand it to the

customer and the systems pick up who that customer is right. And

then they go about their business. Now they've got two

types of customers in that store, which is really cool.

They have a traditional shopper, and then they have a just walk

out shopper. So if you want to traditionally shop, all the

events that you're creating in that store by lifting items, and

all that kind of stuff are tracked but not attributed to a

basket. Right when you get to the cashier, you do the normal

cashier thing, they bag it up and out you go. But if you're a

just walk out customer, you do all your picking and grabbing,

and then you get to the front of the store. And there's a

turnstile. You scan your QR code or palm or whatever you've got.

And then it opens and it starts generating your receipt. Now,

Amazon does have humans in the loop. So nothing's leaving the

store, they're going to make sure the the because it's so

technology technologically beginning that they're trying to

make sure the receipt is accurate, because an accurate

receipt is the ultimate gift to the customer. Right and to you.

So they've got humans in the loop. So you might not get your

receipt for two or three hours. But when you get it, hopefully

it's correct.

Well, I've done that in the Seattle store. And I was

a little bit surprised when I walked out. It probably took not

two hours, it probably took 45 minutes before I finally got a

receipt and an actual debit from my account. I was like, Well, I

wonder what it took so long. I should have done it right away.

found out later they were doing an audit process to make sure

that that was in fact correct. Because I don't I'm assuming the

world's worst thing is somebody who didn't buy something and

gets charged for it. And then the PR that goes with that.

Right?

It gets charged for three of them.

Yeah, good point. Good point. Yeah. So where do

you where do you see this going? So clearly seamless technology,

because the front end is probably the number one. I mean,

well, it's probably a lot of things, dirty parking, lots

dirty bathrooms, you know, product that's out of stock. But

I hear more than people anything waiting in line to check out

either self checkout today, or main checkout is the most

frustration. Your technology sounds like it's game changing.

Why isn't it everywhere?

It's expensive. Right? It's not cheap, per

square foot. Right?The most of the stores we're doing are sub

1500 square feet. Because they're sort of the bleeding

edge. They're the early adopters. We're working all the

bugs out there and all the features and trying to make it

work seamlessly because frictionless can't create more

friction, correct and called the enemy called frictionless,

right? So you got to take care of the customer.

To do something like a Walmart store, it'll have to be an over

ceiling retrofit more than every scale on the shelf type of

thing. Correct, because it would be so tremendously expensive.

And then you get to items clothing, right clothing hangs

on a hanger. Now you got to have some kind of scaled hanger RFID

helps there a lot, right. Do you segment up your store? Do you

divide it into chunks and make people checkout three times?

Again, that's not frictionless. So all of us are trying to

figure out exactly how that does. Now, us t is a systems

integrator. Okay, so we bring all the different hardware

together. And we write the back end to make it all sing. Right.

So that's our function, we build it and we make it work

altogether, right? And so, so it's an expense type of thing.

You remember when you're in my store Naira and putting the ESL

is in? Yeah, it was a huge expense, just to put the

electronic shelf labels all around a neighborhood market.

Right. And I don't know if they're even still there,

because I've been gone from that store for three years. But you

know, don't know.

Well, I can tell you, I can tell you, I think

there was a brief pause but I think if you would go to the

store 4108 in Elm Springs, Arkansas, the new Walmart kind

of future store, which includes a lot of things, which is right,

you're gonna see electronic shelf labels in that entire

Supercenter. So I think they're, they're coming back to that

because it makes sense. It just eliminates one more task for

associate to do a bunch of price changes and things like that.

Nobody, nobody liked doing price change.

Nobody liked changes. So let me ask you a

question. Let's talk about USD a little bit. I wasn't one

planning on going here. But I think you open up the door for

something because I'm a firm believer, if you're going to be

in retail these days, especially in a brick and mortar

environment, you have to know two things: you have to know

what you have. And you need to know where it's located all the

time? Do you really want to participate that level?

Unfortunately, as we talk to many different technology

suppliers, somebody goes, well, I've got the answer. It's RFID.

Not for everything. It's not. I've got the answer. It's a

robot with a scanner. Not for everybody. It's not, I've got

the opportunity, which is a fixed camera over you know,

dairy, not for everybody. It's not, oh, I've got an up me

algorithms. There's all these other things. So what is the

future? And that will you and I didn't talk about this question

before, but the future is multiple sensors based upon the

category type, which allow you to know what you have and where

it's located for both on shelf availability purposes, but also

from a seamless checkout. If I've taken one, you can tie it

to me. I think that's possible. I don't think it's possible

tomorrow. But I think it's possible to figure out how that

seamless checkout experience you does us t play a role to

integrate that kind of stuff together.

We do. I was just on a conference call the other

day with a company who I won't mention yet. But they have

something that goes on a shelf that will tell you your instock

level. So it's measuring the can a can of vegetables only weighs

so much, right? If you've got an average, and then you've got a

bunch of these on the shelf sitting on that particular mat.

Now it tells you you have 12 of that thing.

Excellent. Because usually it's either binary, it's

either I have it or I don't have it, which is helpful. But it's

not real helpful. Because by the time you know, you don't have

it, you've got an out of stock, right?

That's correct, okay, or somebody else, put

something on that mat in the wrong spot, you should get an

alert, hey, this thing weighs 79 grams instead of 65 grams, right

might be the wrong product, you could run around the store and

fix those type errors. But on shelf availability, is the

number one focus for many retailers worldwide that I

visit, no matter what the technology is, no matter what it

is on shelf availability, is it in fact, we talked to one, and

they said if they could simply get on the shelf, what they've

got through distribution, you know, and get it to the store

and get it on the shelf. Their sales, top line revenue would

increase five points. Into the size this retailer that is

billions of dollars.

Wow. That's huge.

So I mean, Walmart's the same right? When I

was at Walmart, if if I go visit this Walmart over here in

Georgia, where I'm sitting and I say where I'm at, right, but But

I can tell you, I can walk around that store. If you give

me about eight weeks in that store, I'll increase the sales

in that store three points, just by getting in stock. And you

know, sometimes it's just zeroing out something that you

think you have that you don't have. Revenue matters.

What's interesting, Tim, is that's what this podcast

is all about. The only thing that we want to talk about is

this concept of on shelf availability. And first off,

it's not something that you can measure very easily because the

way you measure on shelf availability, for a high volume

thing may be an algorithm like Oska. For apparel, that doesn't

work, because I may sell one pair of jeans every two weeks, I

can't tell if it's not on shelf. And frankly, they all look like

the same size and color combination. So I think it's

going to be multiple different sensors, algorithms, fixed

cameras, robotic cameras, RFID, all working together. But

somebody's got to figure out how to put all that together to

really say what do I have and where is it located? Because to

your point on shelf availability is not an option anymore for

customers, because here's the deal. If I go to a Walmart and

they don't have it, I'm pulling out my phone, I'm using Walmart

Wi Fi to order it from Amazon. Congratulations: you just had me

switch over to Amazon, and then you would make it worse as you

used your Wi Fi to order it from him. Right, which is really

good.

It is is a double edged sword, you know, for the

customer, so you gotta be installed. That's what everybody

is talking about worldwide all the time. That's right.

Well, this has been fascinating. Tim, here's the one

final question for you. What have I not asked that I should

have what's burning in your mind that the boy, I sure wish he

would have asked this question because I think that would be

really helpful to hear. What do you think the future looks like?

So no matter what we do, and I was actually on

LinkedIn reading a couple of Sam Walton letters that somebody had

posted up that he wrote in 1980, about taking care of the

associates, right, who take care of your customers, he never said

a bad word. But he said, our associates make the difference.

And that's an associate anywhere, right? If you're in

retail, and you're an associate, you are the frontline soldier

with that with that customer.

As a store manager and a leader, the only thing that I would love

to tell other store managers and leaders is how to empower your

people. And Walmart gives you a number of these right? Number

one is a tool, right? We call it a TC 70. We call it a RFID

scanner, whatever. And then along with that tool, you have a

process, right? So now I got a tool, I got a process to use

that tool could be a number of processes. And then you give

that associate a strategic vision of why that process is

used with that tool and what the ultimate goal is, all of a

sudden, now, they are empowered to make decisions that you don't

have to make, they are empowered to take care of your customer.

So all you need to do as a store manager after a couple of years,

once everybody's perfect in your store, which never happens, is

kiss babies and shake hands. That's the ultimate goal, the

store manager is to have nothing to do. Because the associates

are that awesome. So brick and mortar is not going away. Retail

associates are not going away. Stocking associates,

distribution associates, they're not going away.

Tremendous. And let me just throw out one more

compliment to you because you and I worked together at one of

your the Neighborhood Market store when we were doing

electronic shelf label process. I specifically heard you more

than more than a number of times: teach, coach, ask

questions. And one of the things you always asked is "What does

help look like?" "How can I help you?" "What can I do for you?"

And little did I know that two minutes later, you're driving

around in a floor cleaner. Now why is the store manager

cleaning the floor? That's somebody else's job? No, you

decided that was one thing that you could do. And somebody said

that could look like help. You're driving around the floor

cleaner. So you embodied servant leadership, when you ran stores,

you ran really, really good stores. They were every time I

was at the home office, they said yeah, to go over check out

Tim's store because he's really on it. He knows exactly what's

going on.

Is it and I'm not telling you that just because we're on the

podcast, but you were always very well thought of in the home

office. You know, if you want to go to a store and really figure

out what's going on, go to Tim store. And it was if you didn't

have the biggest store the biggest volume and the most

number of customers or center but you had a store that people

trusted you are running the process and treating your people

with respect and kindness. And I think that's what really

matters. So, Tim, I appreciate your time so much. We'd love to

have you back on a future podcast because the future of

technology to your point is going to be how do you make that

more of a seamless experience? How do you make sure that all

the products that the customer wants when they come in are

there and available for them so you don't disappoint them and I

think you're spot on with the work you're doing at UST.

It's a lot of fun, a lot of fun and the reason I

work at UST because it's bleeding edge.

Awesome. Well, thank you very much safe travels my

friend and I appreciate all your time.

Thank you, Mike. Always a pleasure.

We'll see you later. Bye bye