The Retail Journey
Welcome to the Retail Journey where we will cover important topics, interview industry stakeholders, and address emerging trends as we journey through our mission of helping our listeners thrive in retail. Your hosts for this show are CEO James Harris and CGO Charles Greathouse.
The Retail Journey
Navigating the Transition from DSS to Walmart Luminate: Insights and Opportunities with Charles Greathouse and James Harris
Are you ready to navigate the turbulent seas of data-driven decisions, especially the upcoming move from DSS to Walmart Luminate? Anchor yourself with our hosts, Charles Greathouse and James Harris, as we chart a course through the coming transition from DSS to Walmart Luminate.
We're here to help you understand the differences between basic and charter access, and the potential benefits of charter. We'll also share about the new innovations and advantages that Walmart Luminate has to offer! Hear insights from our time at Walmart and glean from our experience with clients, aiding you to make informed decisions about how to proceed.
Ever wondered how to better use data to understand shopper behavior? We dive into the changes in data reporting with Walmart Luminate, shedding light on opportunities and challenges. We also unveil and explain Pharos, our retail analytics suite, custom-built to enhance your decision-making process and deliver superior results.
Listen as we discuss the importance of involving analysts and customers in the development of tools that can provide comprehensive solutions. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for suppliers eager to navigate the evolving landscape of working with Walmart.
Hello and welcome to the retail journey podcast. I'm one of your hosts, charles.
Speaker 2:Greathouse and I am James Harris, and today Charles and I will be discussing Walmart Luminate and the transition that companies will need to make by March 1st of next year to either basic or charter.
Speaker 1:How about that? So let's jump straight into it. October 5th, it was announced that DSS is gonna go away. The DSS that we've known and loved, the DSS that, when I was at Walmart, I got to train most of, if not all of, the incoming merchants on how to use, how to pull queries, how to spell warehouse kind of my favorite little tagline there it's WHSE you spell it any other way, you're not getting data back. Dss has been here, had a good 30 year run and was basically unchanged for that entire time period and, as of March 1st, will no longer be available to suppliers. Indeed, what does that mean for you if you're a supplier? It means that, as of March 1st, you will not have access to your data at Walmart outside of Walmart Luminate, and Walmart Luminate has two very different ways of approaching it. So today we want to talk to you a bit about that, some of the decisions that people will need to consider, some of the implications for you know merchants and for suppliers. We're gonna talk about this from our experience.
Speaker 1:Neither one of us work at Walmart, that's right. I feel compelled to mention that I used to work at Walmart. I got to co-found the, the beginning stages of this entire journey by naming the group Data Ventures, by exploring what suppliers would want what kind of data if they could have access to everything. What would they actually want to see? And if they had access to that, what would they do with it. And that gives me a pretty unique perspective on Walmart Luminate and the future that exists there, and we have a group of clients that we've helped navigate retail here since 2007. That's right At high impact, and so from that context, we want to talk to you guys a little bit about all right, the retail journey is non-linear and a potential bump or a hill, which is great Because they will change in your data schema.
Speaker 1:This is a radical change that is forthcoming and there's now a timeline where, if this was something you were considering, consider it quickly. That's right, because things are changing.
Speaker 2:Should we break down basic versus charter? Yeah, just start things out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do that. So, from your understanding, as we get into the first days of having access to basic, you know at the highest level what are we looking at.
Speaker 2:We're looking at DSS minus a little bit and a different functionality of how you run the reports, how they come back, how they're returned, but primarily it's that there's going to be less metrics and less data points to work with than what we've had. Yeah, either two.
Speaker 1:Question. I've heard a lot. So basic do I? Do I still get Walmart Luminate? That's a good question. That's funny because it is Walmart Luminate. So there's two versions. There's a basic version that is free, at no charge and there's a charter version that is not free. Not free Based off a percentage of sales, and that's a number you'll get from Walmart Luminate themselves For any of their like official information. It's Walmart Luminatecom.
Speaker 2:But really just to reinforce, it is March 1st where all suppliers are on either charter or basic. Luminate DSS is no more and invitations started in October, that's right.
Speaker 1:So they first started coming out. If you go to the Walmart Luminatecom slash plans, which is their website, you can kind of see how that lays out and some of those time frames. When considering all right, do I do the free or I do the paid? You know you, typically you get what you pay for, right? That seems like that's going to ring true here with Walmart Luminate. What are some of the things that come to mind when making the decision of like all right, do I go basic, do I go charter?
Speaker 2:I think it's, I think it's largely your. You know, the starting point is your revenue. You know, if you're a small company, one item you're only selling online. Some of those things I think are qualifying legitimately for basic. If you don't have a need to see overall category performance and don't have the budget to do it, then basic is for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of things that happen with charter that are very different than how data has worked at Walmart in the past. We've we've talked about it briefly before. There are there are three core products in the charter version. In basic, there's just one and it's a. It's a different version than what's in charter, so you just have access to channel performance, which is the operational data which makes sense. It's the operational data that you need. So if you're just thinking about managing your business.
Speaker 1:maybe just maintaining where your business is at Walmart, you will have visibility, but that visibility is not quite the same.
Speaker 2:Right, so let's. So we know basics going to be free and a little less than we've got today. Let's jump into charter, because there there is a lot of new and a lot of better data. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a decision here between between basic and charter. So if you're, if you're already decided like, hey, I'm not paying for data, you know, stay, stay tuned. Listen. There is a lot of value that comes out of this, but data itself isn't valuable. Data is valuable by the decisions that you make that are different. Right, that's the entire business. That is high impact.
Speaker 1:That's why, in 2007, you're like, hey, let's take an entrepreneurial journey. It was to help folks that didn't have a major CPG presence, infrastructure and decision making tools to make better decisions using data To get the benefit of data driven decisions and now through lots of evolution. I think the way I've enjoyed describing what we do the most is we're a fractional top tier CPG team for, you know, for hire.
Speaker 1:If you want to have a Walmart and Sam's Club top tier CPG team. We can do that from anything from storing managing data to the reporting, to sales analytics, supply chain, category management, category centric growth, design, full service all of that. But enough about that. But it all comes down to the actual decisions that you're able to make, and so, when looking at it, basic keeps you just below the bar of today of where DSS has been, and the data available has evolved a lot. Customer has evolved a lot. The competitive landscape has evolved a lot. Your competitors as a you know, emerging brand or as a brand that's been around for a while, as you've seen, competitors are popping up out everywhere and there's data involved in the story. There's data involved in every aspect of that, and so nowadays there are a lot of reasons to need additional data to grow your business with Walmart. Let's talk about charter.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So first of all, we already said new data, better data, radically improve the understanding of the shopper. But what are some of the challenges that come along with now incorporating a new data lake instead of a flat file, etc. Etc. There's a number of things kind of behind the scenes to be aware of, and one of them is the changing, the change of the schema from DSS to Luminate. You can go to Retail Link and run a report in Report Builder as a charter subscriber, but that has reduced functionality to the API, and the API is the data that is streamed to you, for lack of a better term. You are responsible as a supplier to land that data, to build the engineering, the warehouse of how that data lives and, by the way, there's 36-ish files that come over.
Speaker 1:Up to 38 tables now in that feed. So I think Walmart Luminate has announced the first round of certified Walmart Luminate providers and that first round was based off of the API providers. This all relates to the channel performance data, which is the operational data. The API is only available to charter members. Api is very valuable. When we were having the discussions early days when I was still at Walmart, you know forming what this should look like as we talked to suppliers. If you could have access to all the data, what would you want? Api came up with almost every single conversation, because this allows you to have consistent delivery of the data in a way that can be used better internally. If you can have a data lake, you can do so much more with the data schema to make sure that it performs for you. You can do a lot of custom work. That's very different than how it worked before with the flat file, and so now, with an API, you have access to do all these things, but in order to actually do them, you have to do them.
Speaker 1:You have to be able to develop, you have to have data engineers understand how to protect data when it lands within your data lake, and that is why we've made the very important decision to take on a strategic partner in this space. That's right.
Speaker 2:Our good friends at Moocster. One of the five Walmart Luminate API certified providers is our strategic partner, is the owner of the back end of the warehousing, the engineering, the storing, the safety best in the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so to have a partner that day in, day out, all day, every day, is paying attention to data feeds, how they're flowing, whether or not things are on time, that everything is secure, has been a game changer. And over the last year and a half, as we've been working together, working with Moocster and developing our back end, we did all of that in preparation for the transition from DSS to the future of data with Walmart, which is Walmart Luminate. So that preparation cycle has been critical. That partnership has been critical for our current clients. It's a rest easy because we're ready, we know where we're going, we know how to get there and we're excited about that future with that operational data.
Speaker 2:And with our strategic partner, with Moocster. That covers both basic and charter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, question often asked like does this, can we still work with you? If it's, if we choose to go the basic route.
Speaker 1:And the answer is yes, as you'll find the visuals, the access to data in basic is limited versus both what was there in DSS and certainly dramatically different than what's available in charter, which those that are against the idea of paying for it I'd encourage you to think about If you hadn't ever paid for data or gotten it for free. When you look at the opportunity that exists for you at Walmart and the size and the scale and how your brands will be able to grow, think about it in that context, as a piece of running your business with Walmart.
Speaker 2:Right and knowing that most, if not all, of your competitors you know that's one of those things that's always floating in the back of your head.
Speaker 1:You can't really ignore that. If your competitors are looking at this, there's some things with shopper behavior that make it have FOMO start rising to the top. So shopper behavior is the second product. It is worlds different than what DSS has ever shared, so it's actually focused on shopper, anonymized, aggregated shopper based metrics that show you know repeat purchase over time, how customers are moving If they're new to a category, what incrementality looks like, clear visibility to assortment, deep dive, which is a product tool that helps you understand which items are going to be most incremental. If you can only have a certain number of items, or if you remove one item, where does that volume go? That helps you play with scenarios that, as a merchant, we had a hard time getting hold of. That just as a merchant, let alone on the outside, you know. Now there's a significantly increased visibility and that visibility includes access to every one of the items in the category that you play in not just your items.
Speaker 2:So the schemas radically change lake versus flat file. Another thing that we've discovered over the last year that we've built and planned for is the almost monthly changes to what data is in each of those files. So one month the column can be deleted. The next month three columns can be added. We've built, moocster has built, and they've engineered a system to be able to react within that without breaking all the links to reports.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even better than react, focused on catching changes before they get sent through in reports. So many different tables. Shopper behavior went from maybe a dozen 14 reports to now 22 reports available in shopper behavior as things keep getting tweaked and that's kind of a theme with what we've seen with Walmart Luminate the consistency that DSS had, which was stark in a little bit too much right. 30 years of just not changing is probably too long for it to have been the same. Consumers have changed a lot over that period of time.
Speaker 1:Stark contrast with Walmart Luminate, because it has changed more than once a month, every month, since it's existed, intentionally so, and so, as things continue to iterate, there is this need to have a deep focus on how those changes impact what you're using to operate your business, how those changes impact the decisions that you're bringing forward as your recommendations to merchants, where and how you expect to grow with Walmart.
Speaker 2:So those are some of the things that any supplier, whether you work with high impact or work with us in the future or not everybody has to make a decision by March 1. For those that work with us or those that we would love to work with, our solution for some of these coming changes is, in addition to our strategic partnership with Moocster, is the. Our first product launch, ferros, our reporting dashboard system that works with either basic and or charter as as your reporting platform.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if I rewind back to about a year and a half ago, when we first started having conversations and I get to join the high impact squad, one of the first things was all right, what's the tech stack look like? Where are what's our readiness for the future of data with Walmart? And at that point we started investing very intentionally on what does reporting look like. We've got a team of analysts supply analysts, supply chain analysts, replenishment analyst, category managers that are that are constantly as part of just how high impact operates, understanding data, understanding the implications of data and then taking that understanding into action, driving and influencing new decisions, trying to get you know if there's a replenishment setting that needs to be changed, getting that replenishment setting to change.
Speaker 2:Identifying what the setting needs to be, what form needs to be produced to get a change in the in following?
Speaker 1:Yes, leveraging data science to anticipate future routes and knowing which out have been resolved, which ones haven't All of that experience that our analyst team has used for years, founded in 2007. So there's a lot that is consistent about running retail with data is baked into the pharaohs retail analytics suite and we like to say built by analysts for analysts.
Speaker 1:And, as an analyst, you know when you walk into a report, that sure is pretty and you have to export that sucker to Excel and then do actual work with it.
Speaker 1:You know Ferris is built to get you from I don't know if I have any problems, to I finding problems, to understanding the root cause of those problems, to addressing the action plans you have to take to then solve those problems. So, at the end of the day, data doesn't create value. Better decisions creates value. So we're really excited for the first time, to productize our retail analytics suite and make it available to you. So Ferris is out there, it's available. You know, contact us on the website, reach out to us on LinkedIn, talk to any one of our clients to hear how it's helped them and helped our team empower better decision making with Walmart, therefore improving results, getting improved sales, and we really, we really tried to come at this to not only meet the changing need here you know, moving from DSS to Luminate but to build, like you've described, the best, from beginning, summary, understanding the business, down to the action steps that every different group on the team needs to be pursuing.
Speaker 2:We've done that by working ourselves right, talking to every member of our team what would, what should go here? Here's what we've got now. Now, what should go here? What are we missing? We've brought in many of our customers and asked for their feedback. We've worked throughout the community and we've got something that I think is really a game changer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, when you create something in a vacuum, you don't understand how it is meant to be used. It reveals itself. That's a well-known. You know, when you look at something, we're like, hey, they have no idea what I do, that's great, sure is pretty. This isn't that.
Speaker 2:And it's really fun to see the reaction. It's not executive only focused, it's not sales only focused, it's not supply chain only focused, or category. It's all four of those incorporated into the suites and dashboards and reports.
Speaker 1:And you think about the future. Ferros James, what are you most excited about?
Speaker 2:Just, being the lookout. I mean, we don't need to know and do everything, but we need to know and do everything that we can related to Walmart and Sam's Club and, specifically, data, and this is something that we're really proud of, that I'm really proud of, and I think it's a big part of the future of the company and the industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a really fun leapfrog moment for us as we get ahead of the curve and want to help our clients stay ahead. So we have a lot that's in Ferros today and much more to come as we continue to evolve, as Walmart data evolves, as we all get to go to this transition, march 1st, where it will only be coming from Walmart.
Speaker 2:Luminate. So what are some questions, common questions that we've been hearing, that you've been hearing, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So does Ferros work with basic and charter.
Speaker 1:And the answer is yes. Well, actually, we name one, you know, ferros Retail Analytics Suite Basic, and one is Retail Analytics Suite Charter. So you understand, because the tools look very different, because the data is very different, and the transition from DSS to Luminate is one that has been super helpful. One of the best practices we've seen is folks getting on to our Ferros Retail Analytics Suite prior to transitioning to Luminate, whether that's basic or charter, so that your team can get used to the way we approach root cause identification, analytics and solving problems, so that as you transition, you get to do one thing at a time instead of transitioning all of it at one time, because the data in Luminate is different than DSS and the reporting suite therefore has to be different. We built it from the ground up with that in mind and have seen, you know, clients that have gotten into it ahead of their access to Luminate have really enjoyed the ease of that transition and the speed to then getting value from their investment in the charter membership Right.
Speaker 2:Another common question is do I have to wait until March 1st? Absolutely not. I think the sooner the better and better.
Speaker 1:If you don't Sooner, the better. If you're considering charter, start the conversation with the Walmart Luminate team as quickly as you can and if you're, you know, decidedly going to go with basic, there's a couple of reasons why I would support that decision. There's other reasons why it's like hey, let's talk about what it takes to get the return from charter. You know different folks have different approaches here. I always like going after growth. If, given the choice of as a merchant, if you could give me a low budget and low resources or force me to have a really high sales budget and give me some resources to go get it, I took the high number, like let's go, yeah, let's get after it In retail, if you're not progressing, you're certainly at risk of going backwards.
Speaker 1:All right, there are some folks where Walmart's not a strategic partner and your goal isn't to grow with the Walmart platform. You've got other platforms there driving growth and it serves a specific need and in those scenarios it probably makes sense to spend as little as you need to to maintain the business. Just know that with data comes increased speed. With increased speed, increased competition and the future is not guaranteed. So we look at that very humbly as we work at helping our clients understand the power of the data in the context of the categories that they're in and really, ultimately, it's don't wait, whether you're initiating with Charter or not, reach out to us.
Speaker 2:hit us up through LinkedIn, come to our website, send us a message through the contact. We'd love to meet with you, answer your questions, help you navigate the road ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's areas from you. Know how do I manage my content score in this future? What does my access to Nova change? What happens to item 360? You know retail link isn't going away. A lot of times people call DSS retail link. Retail link is an entire website. Dss was how you got data from retail link and that DSS is going away. So the other tools within retail link largely remain there. When it comes to operating PO management, there is increased visibility in Charter. That makes PO management easier, makes forecast management way more dynamic, which has been really fun to build Significantly To build out the tools to really capture the power of billions of rows of data as you navigate forecast management with your Walmart team.
Speaker 2:It's one thing to know what your forecast is, it's another to know what it should be, and we help you know both of those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do I have to be like, should I pack up my bags and go home because everything's changing? And I'm used to DSS? Absolutely not. I've had so many people. They're just terrified of this change, and I don't think it's one you have to be afraid of. It's untradered, no puns, no puns intended. So when navigating, that's kind of changed. You know, james, what's your counsel?
Speaker 2:Stay calm, ask for advice and learn everything you can, whether it's us or somebody else. Get in the room with an agency that's been working on this, and we've been working on it with one of the people that built it for the last year and a half, so we invite you to reach out, and we'd love to be a part of your journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I couldn't say that better. So what's next?
Speaker 2:So March 1st is decision day. We advise you that if you're going to go basic, start now. If you're going to go charter, start now. Reach out again on LinkedIn, on highimpactanalyticscom, our contact page, and we'd love to set up some time with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do we do a lighting round?
Speaker 2:It's just us? I didn't think so yeah, great.
Speaker 1:Then let's not do a lightning round. So March 1st not quite is when it all. Dss goes away. I think there's going to be an office space style party and whoever used DSS the longest gets to take a swing at the server first. It's getting shut down and it's over. It's been good. It's been long, probably a little overdue past its shelf life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excited for the change of head. You know for you, if you're using data to make decisions at retail, then you know it's not linear. You know that there's things that you have to navigate. We only focus on Walmart and Sam's because we know there's a lot about this business that can impact your performance in a significant way. So, happy to be here, happy to serve, excited to talk to you all about your thoughts. If you're choosing basic, I'd love to know why you know reach out. I'd love to hear your thoughts about why you're going that direction. And if you're already in charter, we'd love to talk about getting the most out of what this data has to offer as we empower you to make some of the best decisions you can make for your business on a regular basis and get to see the results from it. Thank you very much.
.png)