Grocery From Her Seat, Insights for Independent Grocers
Grocery From Her Seat
Welcome to "Grocery From Her Seat," the WGA podcast offering a unique perspective on the independent grocery industry, as seen through the eyes of remarkable women who shape and lead.
Your host, Kristin Popp, President of WGA, will bring to light the inspiring stories, triumphs, and challenges of the women serving the industry of independent grocery.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a young person considering the profession, a woman making your mark in the grocery industry, an industry vendor or simply intrigued by the stories of powerful women, "Grocery From Her Seat" will be a source of education and inspiration for you
Grocery From Her Seat, Insights for Independent Grocers
Anne Feder: Setting Boundaries Personally and Professionally
Anne Feder, Senior Vice President of Client Growth and Product with eGrocery, shares her journey from psychology grad to grocery tech leader and how she balances career ambitions with motherhood of three children.
• Managing client services from implementation to day-to-day operations for eGrocery's white-label SaaS platform
• Starting in mortgage banking during a recession before moving through automotive, pharmaceutical, CPG and eventually grocery tech
• Taking a three-year career break to be a stay-at-home mom before gradually returning to the workforce
• Finding passion in grocery during the pandemic by seeing how e-commerce technology helped essential workers serve communities safely
• Setting firm boundaries and asking for help to balance professional responsibilities with family priorities
• Addressing women's leadership challenges including data bias and the tendency to over-internalize negative feedback
• Emphasizing the importance of representation through organizations like Women Grocers of America
• Advocating for e-commerce as essential for independent grocers: "It's like putting on your tennis shoes to play basketball"
• Seeing opportunity for independent grocers to reclaim market share through community connection and technological innovation
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Host: Kristin Popp
Producer: Rachael Melot
Welcome to Grocery From Her Seat. The WGA podcast, offering a unique perspective as seen through the eyes of remarkable women who shape and lead in the independent grocery industry. Your host, Kristen Popp, president of WGA, will bring you exclusive stories and insights from the women serving our industry, From presidents to CEOs, to entrepreneurs and students. This podcast is your source of information. Now listen, take notes and welcome Kristen Popp.
Speaker 2:I am your host, Kristen Popp, and today I have the opportunity to chat with Anne Fetter, Senior Vice President of Client Growth and Product with eGrocery. Welcome to Grocery from your Seat, Anne, and thank you so much for sharing your time with us today. So I touched on your title, but can you kind of dive into within your organization what that actually means, kind of what your day-to-day and responsibilities are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 3:At eGrocery I am responsible essentially for any interaction any of our retailers or their shoppers might have with eGrocery.
Speaker 3:My team leads client services, which is everything from the implementation, you know, the onboarding of the technical side of our business to the day-to-day operations and then certainly the promotion and growth of our platform for our retailers as a white label SaaS provider for them, the product part of my job.
Speaker 3:I am very closely listening to the voice of our retailers and their shoppers, that true voice of customer, to influence what it is we do for the development and enhancement of our product. We keep a pretty balanced set of activities within our platform we try and do. 60 percent of our time is dedicated to strategic, 40 percent is market demand and then we have a small portion of our schedule broken out for retailer specific requests and then anything that's like a break fix or a maintenance need up, systems upgrade. So we work really closely with our customers to make sure that not only our vision and strategy for our organization meets what we want to do as a business, but also that what we're doing makes sense for our end user, and I think that's what's really led to a lot of the success we've had here is keeping that front and center as we go through our development roadmap planning.
Speaker 2:Well, in e-commerce, especially coming out of the pandemic, you know, it heightens so much during that time and then it's continued for convenience or whatever that customer has top of mind or going on in their personal life. And as you relatively recently joined the grocery industry, can you share that with us and how you've arrived where you are today?
Speaker 3:I actually think I have kind of an interesting journey, starting out, just you know, in college my degree is in psychology, so my intention was always to do something where I could make a difference for people in their day-to-day lives that really matters to me and facilitating the processes that get people there, because there's so much information that you need to be successful. When I came out of college I'm a millennial I walked into a recession, took the only job I could get in Detroit, which was working as a mortgage loan officer at Quicken Loans, and let me tell you, little 22-year-old Ann had no business trying to tell people how to finance their homes, but it was a really cool learning experience. I talked to so many people across the country trying to get mortgages and learning the sales side of the business in terms of how do I convince somebody to trust me, how do I give them an elevator pitch, how do I ARP, how do I ARC, how do I follow up on a lead successfully. I did all of those things and I will tell you I was not a good mortgage banker, but I had so many at-bats because of how good of a lead flow that company has and their training that they have that. It was really one of the most beneficial things I think I could have done coming out of school if it wasn't an internship or something like that, and then from there, you know, I just continued to grow my network.
Speaker 3:I got kind of lucky to meet some cool people in the Detroit area that were just very into meetups at the time or I think they used to call them tweet-ups back in the day and so I started doing these networking organization things, and, as I kind of made my way through the beginnings of my career, which was financial, I met people who worked in marketing, and when I met people who worked in marketing, I started doing experiential marketing for a local firm that worked for Ford, and then I just started meeting more and more people. I worked for Ford, and then I just started meeting more and more people, and as I kind of went through that role which experiential marketing is cool, but I'm not really about doing these installments, you know, across the country I did like the technical deployment side of it, though, which was how do you administer these things? How do you create drive routes? One of the tours I did was taking the F-150 when they first put it on an aluminum body across the country. So how do I find the customer? How do I get the truck to them? How do I make sure someone makes it through a Nebraska snowstorm, all of those things that went along with it.
Speaker 3:And through that opportunity I moved to another project with Ford that was incredibly technically heavy, that had a global survey portion of it, it had a back-end portal, it had a front-end customer-facing experience. But it also tied in my background in psychology, which was the program really focused around making your experience as a dealership employee the best, because if you had really satisfied employees, you'd have really satisfied customers and those customers would keep coming back over and over again. So it kind of blended my natural love of technology, which I've always been the person in my family that's like can you help me set up my new phone or connect my printer? That's always been who I am. And then I got this really cool opportunity to work with a program that took technology to reach everybody, nationally and then eventually globally over in Europe and Asia Pacific and everything, and blend the two together.
Speaker 3:And then from there I just kept finding opportunities that pushed my boundaries. I'd master something and I'd either look internally to grow my role or I'd find my next opportunity, and I did that repeatedly across industry. So I've worked in automotive as a Detroit native, I think most people here have and then I worked in pharmaceutical and then I worked in CPG with Keurig, green Mountain, coca-cola, frito-lay, pepsico. I took a brief stop at Mars Agency well before they sold to Publicis recently. I was doing shopper marketing there and then I found my way over to a little company called Dialogue Direct and Dialogue Direct is much larger now but for them I did a whole host of I call it omni-channel marketing solutions. But it was standing up the entire tech stack, using platforms like NetSuite or Teradata to do lead flow manipulation, call center servicing, special order fulfillment out of warehouses, all kinds of things across many different verticals insurance, cpg again, automotive again but this really blending these really big, complex problems and solutions into one system.
Speaker 1:And that's actually how.
Speaker 3:I met our CEO, pat Hughes. He ended up leaving right before I had my first baby and when I had my oldest daughter, samantha, I didn't come back. I decided to be a stay-at-home mom for a while. So it kind of took a pause, you know, and I was nervous about that. I've been so career-driven and focused for so long. And then, you know, I just had this sweet little baby and I couldn't bring myself to leave her. So I stayed home for three years and then, slowly as ever, I had my second, my little guy Teddy. I started doing consulting work and eventually Pat had an opportunity that he thought I'd be a great fit for, and that was e-grocery. And when I came into e-grocery I kind of dipped my toes in the water part time and worked my way out back into a full time solution where I've optimized and grown Team Grow, which is our consultative group of project managers, and I've taken on product as well, and I had a third baby in the mix of all of that. So yeah, it's kind of been a journey.
Speaker 2:Just so many things to call out there. I mean it's very inspiring to hear you tell your story and your path and how you've gotten. It's very inspiring to hear you tell your story and your path and how you've gotten. I love how you start off with little 20 or two year old, had no business selling mortgages, but really learn the ins and outs of everything, it seems like in every role that you've had up to where you are today. So what a what an experience. Very inspiring to hear that you took a break and kudos to you for that. I commend that. It is when you're career driven, to step away again outside of your comfort zone, and what does that mean and what does that look like. But I applaud you for that. Pat, your CEO reaches out to you, gives you this opportunity. Is there anything? Was it him that drove you into grocery?
Speaker 3:Honestly, I liked working with Pat was probably the first step where I wanted to start working again, but I wasn't sure how I was going to go about doing it. And in talking to Pat, you know, and having worked with him previously, I had comfort and confidence that I would get a level of support starting back in a corporate position. I was very open with him about, you know, what I was looking to do in terms of not being full time yet, and they really supported me. I don't know that I was interested in grocery specifically. I'm always interested in something which is like a pro and a con of who I am as a person. That kind of had to hone in.
Speaker 3:So coming into grocery wasn't necessarily my goal. I just like learning new things and I think people hear me talk about e-grocery now and they're like, wow, she's really passionate about e-grocery. Well, it's not that I'm passionate just about e-grocery. I've worked with a lot of technology and we do something really, really well that serves a what I think is kind of an underserved market in the independent grocer space in a way that is beneficial to our retailers.
Speaker 3:And there's so much good business to be done in this world. When you do good by people, you know like you don't need to be unscrupulous or unfairly priced or anything like that to really create a great relationship where everybody's growing and everybody's achieving that and we have this really beautiful marriage of business and client service where everybody seems to get the benefit out of it. So I kind of learned to love grocery. You know, I started in 2020 with the pandemic and you're taking a look around and I've got these two little kids at the time I had a four and a two year old and I'm going out trying to do the grocery shopping, you know, in those big two week spreads, like they they had told us all to do at the time, and you're just watching the world go around. And when I got involved in grocery at the time, I was like wow, like what I'm doing is really helping people.
Speaker 3:These grocery employees are able to still sell groceries, still have a job, still serve as a customer. People can get what they need because it is an essential industry, but they're reducing the risk and exposure to everybody. They're optimizing things. They're genuinely making it better through this technology and that's the part that I'm passionate about helping people and serving people in a way that is really, really meaningful and essential to their everyday lives. You can't replace an independent grocer, you cannot replace the people that work in grocery stores, and I'm so glad to service those people. It's doing something much more meaningful, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:No, 100%, and I think well, kind of full circle right With your degree in psychology and you're coming back to how can you really help others and help people in whatever capacity they need that. But you talk about the independent grocery thing coming out of the pandemic. It did give us a little bit more identifiable value in what we do, but I think it is somewhat taken for granted sometimes too. The independent grocer, the local, the heart of the community, everything that we're there. So I appreciate somewhat what you're saying and your passion absolutely shines through and it all ties together in what led you to where you are today and I think that's an all inclusive passion around the technology, the service that you're providing, the end user that you're helping in some capacity.
Speaker 3:So thank you.
Speaker 2:You know, not starting in grocery and being newer to the industry, your CEO gave you, has given you some insights on how to help navigate. But is there anybody else that has helped you navigate the industry or help you understand things that maybe you weren't as fully aware of or didn't have that knowledge on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I mean. So what's saying with any of the grocery world? You know, john Schelsky is our CEO here and he didn't start in grocery either, but he had a wonderful background in consulting and he is somebody who has such a wonderful attention to detail. Without his ability to dive in and understand things at the level that he does first, and then to share that information and train that with me, like I, I would be struggling. There are times where I'm still I call him and I just, you know, sanity check things. He's a wonderful help.
Speaker 3:And then soon, networking events and getting to know different vendor retailers. We're always looking to build partnerships, ok, but they're not necessarily like a direct partnerships in terms of, like, I'm going to integrate with you and we're going to resell this or whatever. It's just partnerships and knowing people. So in getting to know the other vendors in the industry, I've gotten to know more and more about how this all works. And that was, you know, I think, when I did NGA the first year two years ago and I was interviewed by Lasia. She said you know, what do you like most about getting to NGA as your first time here? And I said you know, it's the chance to get to see everybody face to face and say thank you.
Speaker 3:And it really is that because I know a lot about technology. I didn't know a lot about how this would all directly impact our grocers downstream, but through technology I've gotten to know data vendors, especially because I work heavily in data with what we do at e-commerce. I've gotten to know people at VR Data, truno, rds, a few people at NCR just across the country, knowing them and knowing how these solutions work, great data all that kind of stuff has been great. And then getting to know retailers. We're always looking to grow and always looking for an opportunity, but beyond that, when I get to meet a group of retailers and hear their story and about how they came to where they are whether it's a large organization or even just a single source or a couple of stores there's a lot to learn in having those conversations and people are really willing to share that information if you're willing to listen. And so I've really focused on talking to those people and learning from what they've done and what their struggles are to figure out what the right solution is for them.
Speaker 2:Looking at your career as a whole to date, what are some of the key achievements or milestones that you are most proud of?
Speaker 3:I'm proud of how much you know I've done at eGrocery to streamline and onboard, or streamline our onboarding services. Really, you know, when I began our process was much longer. I'm proud of my team certainly as well. I don't think there's a better team in the industry that does client services and that's certainly taken a lot of effort to build up. There's a number of awards I've won over the years. When I was with Ford I was a winner of a gold award for service provider of the year. You know I don't I'm always looking for the next thing to do that Sometimes I don't pause to reflect, so I'm having a hard time answering that question. I don't know. I'm also proud of myself for taking a pause when I was a stay at home mom. That was scary, from this big career trajectory to just being with this little baby and they don't give you a lot of positive reinforcement when they're tiny right All you get is that their weight went up right.
Speaker 3:So I went from like from you can see your account growing and you know your clients are happy to. You know, is this child meeting their developmental milestones? It was a big change and I struggled with it. In the beginning. I just wanted to make sure that I did good by her, and then I got used to it and coming back with another one too. I think every time you make one of those shifts having the courage to say I've done what I can here, where's my opportunity for growth? And taking the leap into the next position that takes a lot of courage and I think I'm most proud of myself for being brave enough to do that.
Speaker 2:A hundred of myself for being brave enough to do that 100%. It takes a lot of courage, but I think you've definitely shown that it benefits for you, although it probably doesn't make it any less intimidating along the way. Right, can we talk about your role as a mother, a wife, a professional? And I say, how do you find balance? Loosely, because I don't think there is any. Just me personally. I think you have to find what works for you, but how do you maintain all of those roles?
Speaker 3:That is a evolving answer. I think that was one of the first things I said to you when we met the first time. I was like I feel so apologetic sometimes because I'm at capacity and I just don't feel like I can do all the things that I want to do, and it's just. I look at you, kristen, and this is not a total brown noser moment, but you do a lot right and I know you have children and a family of your own and I'm just. How do you get everywhere you need to be and serve all the different roles that you have? And I think we all struggle with that to your point. Sometimes it's as simple as setting a firm boundary. You know, if I know that my kids have their spring concert, I put that on my calendar and it's blocked out and I tell my teams and I say you guys, from 4 to 8 pm on you know, april, whatever I am not available and I am full gear, loving every minute of these kids singing off key and doing their dances Right With work.
Speaker 3:What I think is actually really nice about working in technology is my schedule can be somewhat flexible. Is actually really nice about working in technology is my schedule can be somewhat flexible. I have to be available as needed, certainly, but I can schedule meetings essentially globally because we work with global teams, both at eGrocery and across our partners that meet my needs basically. So if I have to step away at 4.30 to start dinner, I know that I can pick back up at 7 o'clock. If I need to take a later start to the day, I know I can work into the evening, and those things can be tricky too, because sometimes it feels like your day never ends.
Speaker 3:But it's really just finding those boundaries and I think that's almost an exercise in confidence. If you lack confidence to know that you've done your best or you are doing your best, I think that's when imposter syndrome creeps in and you start to worry like am I doing enough? Am I competitive enough? Am I going to keep this role, all those things. But when you're confident, you can say I truly have done what I can for this day and I'm going to pick it up tomorrow.
Speaker 3:The other part is asking for help and that's something I have to say I've worked very closely with my husband on, because I am a fiercely independent person. So I've really had to say like we have three games this weekend and a parent teacher conference. How are we going to tackle this and then be willing to wait for their response to balance the load of parenthood? Certainly you know as a wife, between my husband and I we schedule time. You know I was so resistant to that in the beginning to say like we have to schedule our date nights or we've got to look ahead, but if you're not making a priority it doesn't make it onto the calendar. So we've really had to work at that.
Speaker 2:I remember our conversation that we had when you and I first met and you did ask me that question how do you balance it all? How do you do it all? And it looks different for each of us and we have to find what works for us individually and be confident and comfortable that that's okay. What mine looks like and what yours looks like are different. That's not bad. It's what works for each of us independently.
Speaker 2:And asking for help, I mean yeah, I can't shout that out loud enough I think sometimes there's no superhero power right. Asking for help is okay. You want to be intentional with your time. That's the way I look at it. So, like you said, when you go to those concerts and the off-key singing and the dancing, I wouldn't miss it for the world, and my kids know that I am there for them and I always will be. But they also know and those are real conversations I also have a career and when I'm there, I have to be there. You and I may have similarities and we can talk about ideas and things that we do and we may take nuggets of information, but at the end of the day, you do what works best for you.
Speaker 3:To your point, like when I'm at work. I'm at work, you know when I'm, especially when I'm traveling. You know mom, mom can't be there, but you know I hear my daughter play and she's very into her American Girl doll right now and hair accessories, and so her friends were over for her birthday party not too long ago and they were playing hair salon, but it wasn't like they were just doing hair. One of them was the accountant, one of them was booking appointments. Of them was the accountant, one of them was booking appointments.
Speaker 3:The other one was checking customer satisfaction, so like you hear, these are three different girls, you know and they're going through it and you're like that's really cool to hear. And my kids pick up on these things. You know Sam and Ted, my two older ones. They have a Play Fancy Nancy telephone like old school rotary dial and they'll put it on the table between them sometimes and they'll pretend that they're having meetings. So it's also a really good example, as hard as it can be.
Speaker 2:They must be watching mom often.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, my husband and I both work from home, so I think they have two pretty good role models to look at.
Speaker 2:There you go. That's really cool to hear how they've taken that and applied it and how they can role play with that. We talk about work-life balance and what that looks like, but what other challenges in leadership maybe specifically with females do you see in today's environment?
Speaker 3:You know, I would say that there's two things basically data bias and how it presents to women. I think a big part of the reason why I personally don't land a message the way I want to all the time, as I'm doing presentations, is because I'm not speaking the language of men as it's traditionally spoken, with numbers and that sort of thing, and so I'm actively working to understand what that looks like from a woman's perspective and how to translate that. So I'm communicating to all audiences because at the end of the day, man, woman, it doesn't matter, it's got to make sense. So I'm working on that. But I think there's a real difference in the way that it's kind of feels like a stereotype to say it, but like it's intuitive, versus very black and white analytical numbers. You know, I know things because I just feel like I know them, whereas other people need to see the hard math behind it. So I'm trying to bridge that gap, to make sure that I can explain myself entirely From a woman in management perspective and this is with different people that I know in the industry too is, I think that women struggle more, like if one person says to you that you didn't do a good job or that the way you manage them was ineffective.
Speaker 3:Women hear that and they internalize it and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm awful. This person thinks I was a micromanager. This person didn't enjoy working with me. And there has to be a thicker skin for management, because there is a difference between taking a constructive piece of feedback, hearing it and deciding what you're going to do with it, and there's another piece of just hearing general feedback and saying that that defines you because one person said it and it's something that we all have to work on.
Speaker 3:At some point you get to decide in your career the feedback that's worth taking and the feedback that would just miss the mark, and how are you going to move forward from there?
Speaker 2:That is such an excellent point on letting something define you, sometimes letting it shut us down Great call-outs there. I love that.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Just shifting a little bit, Anne. In your opinion, you've recently become involved somewhat with the Women Grocers of America and that organization, but what role do you feel organizations like that or similar ones have in the industry and how will that impact our future Sure?
Speaker 3:You know, I think I actually just had one of the parents on my daughter's soccer team was able to attend an event where they're talking about the Olympics and the shaping of women's sports, ok, and what it means to see women in those positions, and one of the comments that came out of it was if you can't see it, you can't be it. You know like you can't imagine yourself there. So when you're with a group like the WGA and you get to see a woman and Christian, you're the president. So it's going to again sound like brown nosing, but when I see someone like you, who doesn't feel that different from me, it gives me a hope that I can achieve those same things. But also as a leader outside of that, for the much larger group is inspiring.
Speaker 3:And so I think when you see those people, when they're willing to share their information in a way that's not like it's not tied to the nuts and bolts of us doing business, it's just intended to inform and elevate us all, because I think I really do believe when we all, when someone succeeds, we all succeed, right, like that matters. So it's really, really important to speak with people who aren't going to look at you and you know, kristen, when I looked at you I said how do you balance all of this? You didn't say, oh poor Ann, she's got so much going on. You said, no, this is a real issue and let me tell you it's got cycles to it. You know, we're here, we're there, we're everywhere and we all just do what's best for us. And I think that's so important to hear from people in positions of authority that are similar in background, so that you feel the confidence to achieve similar things.
Speaker 2:If you can't see it, you can't be it, and so also get very excited about getting students at universities involved in things that we do, because the future of our industry relies on it. Right, if we can't bring in individuals to help us form the next, where do we go? And to be able to bring a student into a room you know with individuals like yourself and other CEOs and presidents and vice presidents, and you know directors, and let them see these are women in the industry. This is what you can be and we are all very similar.
Speaker 3:When you're in an open group where you can talk freely, like you can in the WGA. It gives you the insight to know that you know whether it's me, I'm just a mom from Michigan at the end of the day, like that's what matters most. So like it's great that I know technology, but if I'm not there to for school pickup, that's a problem. You know, it's very humanizing. It makes makes it really, I think, comfortable for people to start envisioning themselves in those roles.
Speaker 2:Funny story too, to to bring reality into who we are and we live. Our day is similar, as I'm the mom that sent my kids to school on the day that they didn't have school. You know things happen and sometimes you miss something on the calendar. You know things happen and sometimes you miss something on the calendar. And when I'm at my desk and getting a message or a phone call from my nanny saying do the kids have school today, I have to check. Let me get back to you. And the answer is no. How about if you take them back home and spend the day with them? That'd be great.
Speaker 3:That's fantastic, I love that.
Speaker 2:We talk about others that are aspiring to join the industry or continue their career forward. What is some advice that you would share that we haven't already touched on?
Speaker 3:Even when you don't get your dream opportunity, there's an opportunity. I think that's one of the things you know. Like, my career was kind of haphazard in the beginning. Like I said, it was a recession. I just needed a job, I needed to be able to pay my student loans and move on. So I just took whatever came my way until I finally had the experience to kind of dictate the direction that I took.
Speaker 3:So any opportunity is an opportunity and if you're doing something at the start that you know doesn't fill your cup fully, take from it what you can. You know, and a network is certainly always something that you need. I never want to have a burned bridge anywhere. I want to know somebody and know we're not all best friends, but I do want to feel comfortable with all the people that I meet, that I did good by them in my best. So that way, should I meet them again or should I have a need in the future, I'm able to call them or speak with them confidently, ask for referrals, recommendations or hey, what would you suggest? Have you heard of anybody hiring? That's really, really important.
Speaker 3:The other thing I would say is similar to how I started out with my psych degree. I had a business management minor, mind you, but I had a psych degree to start. But then, you know, I went into banking. I was pulling people's credit reports and running loan debt calculators. All of that Didn't see those things going together but at the end of the day I did my best and I learned a lot from it.
Speaker 3:So just not being afraid to jump into something that seems totally outside of your wheelhouse and taking that leap of faith and seeing where it takes you and then not letting it deter you from eventually getting back on course or choosing your destiny. The last thing that I think is really impactful in what I've done in my career is not being afraid to ask questions. First started out, I was so worried that everybody in the room knew more than me and then, as I went down the line and kind of met more and more people, I figured out that the odds are, if I don't understand something, someone else in the room probably doesn't either, and it's better for me to vocalize that question. Get true understanding so that I can apply the knowledge that I need or something, or fill a gap that I need to learn and move forward with true expertise so that I can really grow in that role.
Speaker 2:Absolutely great advice. I think everybody should hear that because I think every piece of advice that you gave there is solid and can help tremendously in somebody's career path forward. So, as we look at the industry as a whole, what trends do you see now that we should be keeping an eye on?
Speaker 3:For grocery specifically. It's a weird time in grocery. You know the things that I see. There's a lot of buzz around AI.
Speaker 3:I think for independent grocers it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it's so important to keep the pulse of who we are as a industry front of mind and that's that you know your customers in a way that I do think that e-commerce, specifically, is a must do. I know there's concerns around operational labor support and those sort of things, but it's kind of like if you want to want to be in the game, it's like putting on your tennis shoes to play a game of basketball. You got to do it, you know. But beyond that, I mean, there's a ton of growth here in grocery.
Speaker 3:I think our independent grocers can specifically fill a niche role in their communities, whether it's because of the donations that they provide to local organizations, the groceries you provide locally, the ease of access, the understanding of your community needs and the product mixes that your community wants is very, very important. It's really easy to find the retailer that has what you want. So being ever present in an online environment to be competitive is a must. And kind of going back to what I said about someone starting out like, even as a retailer, even as a seasoned retailer, you should be asking questions about how this is going to be done, why it's going to be done, and then really pausing to understand what the benefit and the costs are to your organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think we wish we all did have that crystal ball, but you touched on some very important topics and key things that I think we're all trying to keep an eye on and understand how that impacts us in our businesses individually. What excites you the most about the future of the industry?
Speaker 3:You know the opportunity for growth.
Speaker 3:Certainly, there is a huge upside for our independent grocers to take back market share from some of the big competitors in the market.
Speaker 3:I think people are going to see that value in the coming years and I think there's going to be a lot of growth for our independents. I also think there's some really cool partnerships that are happening out there in the market whether they're at eGrocery or others that are going to optimize supply chains, getting things to people in a more timely manner and having specific items in stock at the right time. I do think that's one thing that AI is going to do really well is the data lake work and surfacing all that information and trends you know, and just the continued competition, I think, among competitors drives innovation, and I do think that, specific to my portion of this, with e-commerce, it's very, very competitive. Some organizations have been bought up, Some are still out there trying to figure out what's next, but as we shrink our pool of options in terms of companies that provide this but also grow due to acquisitions, because all of a sudden you have this ability to scale, the innovation is just going to be very, very cool over the next five to 10 years.
Speaker 2:Thank you for those insights, Anna. If you were writing a book or creating a podcast about the industry today, what would the title be?
Speaker 3:The title of it, I'm not sure the subject matter would probably be satirical. You hear so many different conversations from potential partners or new things in the industry, and sometimes they're just funny. Again, going back to psychology, we're all human. I had a psych professor my freshman year that said the human experience isn't unique. But what makes it unique is we all think we're alone in experiencing it, whether it's an idea we're being sold about the latest greatest piece of tech or just funny conversations. Because I'm sure you've had many in the past where you walk into a meeting and it's just kind of the same song and dance about something that's supposed to be new, but it's really the same over the ages. So I would probably go with something satirical in that manner.
Speaker 2:There's many times where I start off with remember when we thought X, y or Z would be a good idea, and thank you so very much for sharing your time and your thoughts with us today. I appreciate you, your story and your contribution to the industry. Thank you for your valuable insights and I look forward to continue watching you make a difference in all you do. Well, thank you so much, kristen. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today and to our listeners, thank you so very much for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you enjoyed the discussion as much as we did. If you find value, be sure to subscribe to never miss an episode and leave a review on your favorite listening platform to help others discover Grocery from Her Seat. Till next time, keep making a difference in all you do.
Speaker 1:On behalf of the Women Grocers of America, we thank you for listening to our podcast today and ask that you subscribe, leave a five-star review and share with a friend. If you have a suggestion for a guest from the industry, mention them in the comments. Episodes are released every other week and they are sponsored by NGA, hosted by Kristen Popp, president of WGA, and published by Rachel Milo with SWA Marketing.
