{"id":919,"date":"2021-04-23T10:28:18","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T10:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919"},"modified":"2021-04-23T10:29:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T10:29:44","slug":"walmart-exec-speaks-on-the-future-of-retail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919","title":{"rendered":"Walmart Exec Speaks on the Future of Retail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>CENTER VALLEY, Pa\n(April 23, 2021) &#8211; For Scott Eckert, SVP, Next Generation Retail and Principal\nof Walmart\u2019s Store No. 8, a typical week involves coming up with the next best\nidea.&nbsp; Eckert employs a team of people in\nWalmart\u2019s incubator Store No. 8 and of the many ideas that are tossed around,\nScott\u2019s role is to choose which ones have the best potential and bring them to\nlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On April 15,\n2021, Eckert spoke to a large audience via Zoom as part of The Council for\nRetail and Sales\u2019 Meet the Expert (MTE) series. &nbsp;MTE is a speaker-series\nin which each event in the series addresses an important topic in the retail\nand sales professions and features a subject matter expert(s). Event sponsors\nwere SCORE of the Lehigh Valley, the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Montgomery\nCounty, Textbook Media, the SBDC at Kutztown University, and of course,\nWalmart. Scott discussed trends in retailing and innovations at Walmart\nthat have and will disrupt the retail industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eckert began his presentation by talking about how U.S.\nretail consumer trends are accelerating. Today\u2019s consumers are looking for\ninstant, on-demand, and ultra-convenient options. They expect personalization,\nflexibility, and are focused on health and wellness while at the same time\nprioritizing concern for the environment. He noted that technology trends are\ncreating new opportunities for meeting those needs with tools such as voice and\nintelligent agents, digital and virtual environments, smart sensors and data\ncapture, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Walmart is responding to today\u2019s trends by testing in-home\ngrocery delivery, drone delivery for at-home COVID testing kits, and adding\nlocal micro-fulfillment centers to speed up delivery times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Store No. 8 was established in 2017 as Walmart\u2019s innovation\ntest bed with the goal of testing riskier ideas\nwith uncertain outcomes that could bring big potential. Store No. 8 runs\nalongside Walmart and hands the ideas off to stores once they are ready to\nimplement.&nbsp; Some of the themes that Store\nNo. 8 is focusing on are frictionless shopping, conversational commerce,\napplication of AI, extended reality, the future of food and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Scott-Eckert-headshot-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-889\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Scott-Eckert-headshot-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/thecrs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Scott-Eckert-headshot.jpg 533w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption>Scott Eckert&#8217;s role includes coming up with the &#8216;next best idea&#8217; for Walmart.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Scott\nis an experienced global technology executive and entrepreneur. He has a track\nrecord of turning innovative ideas into successful businesses and building them\nto scale, either within a large enterprise or as a stand-alone company. He has\nbuilt new companies and brought disruptive technologies to market. In addition,\nhe has extensive experience expanding businesses internationally including\nEurope, China, and Asia.&nbsp; Scott\u2019s past\nsuccesses include building the e-commerce business at Dell in the early days of\nthe internet revolution; building the world\u2019s #1 tablet PC company at Motion\nComputing as the tablet industry was forming and building the company that\ndefined the collaborative robotics category at Rethink Robotics.&nbsp; <br>\n<br>\nScott was selected as an Ernst &amp;\nYoung Entrepreneur of the Year in 2004.&nbsp;\nHe was also the inaugural winner of the Computerworld Smithsonian\nProgram\u2019s 21st Century Pioneer Award and was recognized in the Museum of\nAmerican History at the Smithsonian Institution.&nbsp; Scott has served on the board of the Robotic\nIndustries Association as well as arts and education non-profit boards.&nbsp; He is an active advisor and mentor to\nstart-up CEOs in various industries.&nbsp;\nScott holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in Quantitative Economics from Stanford\nUniversity and an MBA from Harvard Business School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CENTER VALLEY, Pa (April 23, 2021) &#8211; For Scott Eckert, SVP, Next Generation Retail and Principal of Walmart\u2019s Store No. 8, a typical week involves coming up with the next best idea.&nbsp; Eckert employs a team of people in Walmart\u2019s incubator Store No. 8 and of the many ideas that are tossed around, Scott\u2019s role&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meet-the-experts","tag-walmart"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Walmart Exec Speaks on the Future of Retail - The Council for Retail and Sales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walmart Exec Speaks on the Future of Retail - The Council for Retail and Sales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CENTER VALLEY, Pa (April 23, 2021) &#8211; For Scott Eckert, SVP, Next Generation Retail and Principal of Walmart\u2019s Store No. 8, a typical week involves coming up with the next best idea.&nbsp; Eckert employs a team of people in Walmart\u2019s incubator Store No. 8 and of the many ideas that are tossed around, Scott\u2019s role&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Council for Retail and Sales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-23T10:28:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-04-23T10:29:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Store-No-8-incubator-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"721\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"392\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elaine Thode\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elaine Thode\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919\",\"name\":\"Walmart Exec Speaks on the Future of Retail - The Council for Retail and Sales\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Store-No-8-incubator-image.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-23T10:28:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-23T10:29:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/#\/schema\/person\/6b064d21f025a9f2eb08db8fe4d36b68\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Store-No-8-incubator-image.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Store-No-8-incubator-image.png\",\"width\":721,\"height\":392,\"caption\":\"A man and a women looking at technology\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/?p=919#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Walmart Exec Speaks on the Future of Retail\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thecrs.org\/\",\"name\":\"The Council for Retail and Sales at Penn State Lehigh Valley\",\"description\":\"Introducing a comprehensive, better way to be part of retail &amp; 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