The future of commerce hinges on agility, but most brands remain stuck at spreadsheet speed. Louis Camassa, Director of Product Management at Rithum, breaks down findings from the 2026 Commerce Readiness Index and reveals why data quality, inventory latency, and algorithmic visibility matter more than channel expansion. We’re uncovering the infrastructure bottlenecks threatening AI's potential, and what it actually takes for brands to compete when algorithms decide what gets discovered.

• 63% of commerce teams face data quality issues affecting business decisions
• Inventory latency remains a competitive differentiator in agentic commerce experiences
• Zero-click phenomenon reducing referral traffic by 9% across e-commerce channels
• AI compute costs compressed 10x in one year, matching traditional search
• Energy infrastructure, not algorithms, poses the greatest bottleneck to AI advancement

• [00:02:04] Lou Camassa: "Most companies, whether you're a retailer or brand, you're moving at spreadsheet speed. That's just not the way of the future."
• [00:10:55] Lou Camassa: "We don't want to take from the past and just push it into the future. When we go into a chat experience, we don't want to drop somebody onto a homepage with a banner and categories. Let's think about this differently."
• [00:18:58] Lou Camassa: "We're seeing drops of about 9% across e-commerce in general on referral sources from Google because data is just being propagated in the AI overviews."
• [00:24:04] Lou Camassa: "Inventory latency is going to be a big game changer. It helps us get faster shipping and creates a competitive factor, specifically in LLM search, where everything else is commoditized."

• Check out Rithum’s 2026 Commerce Readiness Index
• Learn more about Rithum’s offerings.
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Shipping frozen premium meats and prepared meals requires precise logistics that most marketplaces aren't built to handle. But Denys Gorbatiuk saw an opportunity where others saw impossible complexity. Grumpy Butcher became Temu's first frozen food seller and proved that operational excellence can break down expansion barriers and create a competitive advantage.

Within five weeks, Temu accounted for over 12% of Grumpy Butcher's online sales. Yet the real story isn't just about velocity, it's about reaching younger demographics and using real-time data to fundamentally rethink product creation and curation.

From corporate attorney to food industry innovator, Denys shares how mastering the operational challenges of frozen logistics, leveraging platform analytics, and partnering strategically with Temu transformed Grumpy Butcher from a pandemic-era startup into a fast-growing business that redefined how Americans shop for gourmet perishables.

• Being first in a hard category pays off: Pioneering frozen food on Temu positioned Grumpy Butcher as a category leader and innovator.
• Direct feedback and engagement with shoppers on Temu enabled product development, revealing stronger resonance with younger customers and reshaping the broader business strategy.
• Mastering complex logistics is defensible: Streamlining frozen food delivery and tackling common challenges helped Grumpy Butcher establish its core competitive advantage.
• Platform partnership means strategic collaboration: Temu provided operational support and guidance that went beyond transactional seller-marketplace relationships.

• Learn more about Grumpy Butcher’s journey on Temu
• Explore Temu's seller services and marketplace solutions

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Jessica De Gennaro didn't know what a succulent was when she launched Shop Succulents. But she knew how to solve operational challenges, work agilely, and move product quickly on marketplaces. She tapped into the pandemic’s succulent boom and built a multi-marketplace operation shipping hundreds of thousands of live plants every year.

But how do you scale across regions when you’re shipping succulents to consumers across different time zones with varying expectations, living in different climates?

And what happens when Temu’s scale and network efficiencies across third-party logistics partners help make fulfillment more cost-effective and sustainable for low-cost products that were previously constrained by fulfillment economics?

Jessica shares how Shop Succulents grew from 50 to 500 SKUs on Temu in months, leveraging platform-specific catalogs, vertical integration of growing operations, and continuous creative innovation to stay ahead in the highly competitive marketplace landscape.

• Marketplace success requires constant product innovation: The sea of sameness demands creative catalog curation, strategic bundling, and staying ahead of copycats selling competitive products for lower prices.
• Temu’s scale and network efficiencies across third-party logistics partners help support more cost-efficient fulfillment for low-cost products, unlocking new catalog opportunities.
• Owning your supply chain optimizes margin: Shop Succulents now grows plants in-house to control costs, differentiate its catalog, and ensure product quality.
• Platform partnerships should drive collaborative problem-solving: Working directly with Temu's team solved live plant-specific challenges. By directly addressing customer concerns and inquiries, Jessica and her team maintained customer satisfaction and loyalty.

• Learn more about Shop Succulents’ journey on Temu
• Explore Temu's seller services and marketplace solutions

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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After being laid off in 2014, Toyiah Marquis turned her passion for patches into a thriving business built on cultural representation and authentic connection. Patch Party Club started as an in-store experience and single-product experiment on Temu. But it quickly evolved into a scalable business model that now reaches audiences Toyiah never expected to serve.

How do you transform personal passion into global reach? And what happens when a marketplace's algorithm becomes your best marketing tool?

We sit down with Toyiah to explore how she leveraged Temu's platform to test, learn, and scale strategically, while sticking with her mission and vision as a founder. From creating a special patch for customers battling cancer to discovering unexpected demographic opportunities, Toyiah's journey shows how marketplace success comes from staying true to your brand ethos while remaining flexible enough to evolve.

• Starting small works: Toyiah launched with one product on Temu, using marketplace dynamics to test viability before scaling strategically.
• Temu's marketplace exposure brought her patches to a diverse audience beyond her traditional target market, revealing unexpected growth opportunities.
• Emotional connection drives commerce: Products created with genuine care and cultural representation resonated deeply, building loyal customer relationships at scale.
• Marketplace testing provides real-time validation: Marketplaces like Temu can serve as laboratories to gather data insights before committing to broader expansion.

• Learn more about Patch Party Club’s journey on Temu
• Explore Temu's seller services and marketplace solutions

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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The Future Commerce team reflects on their favorite podcast moments from a year of extraordinary conversations. From haunted dolls and architectural rhizomes to debates about capitalism and idealism, these episodes challenged conventional wisdom about how brands influence culture and why efficiency alone won't save us. (Feat. Rory Sutherland, Dami Lee, Andrew McLuhan, Nick Susi, Kunle Campbell, Ana Andjelic.)

• VISIONS 2025 brought together Dami Lee, Andrew Huang, and more creative pioneers to explore the future of culture through the lens of commerce and its effects on humans
• Spooky Commerce pushed our limits: Jolene the doll elevated spooky season to performance art
• Idealism struggles to scale under capitalism's efficiency demands
• Heritage isn't always precious—sometimes it needs critical interrogation
• Technology transforms humanity whether we contemplate it or not
• Marketing success occurs beyond the attribution window we measure
• Rory Sutherland’s conversation was our most-downloaded episode of 2025, for good reason. 
• "It's really hard to be idealistic in a capitalist society or period." — Brian Lange [00:13:12]
• "We're not measuring other forms of what makes things successful. Are we just letting technologists, efficiency ops and finance run the world? I don't think it leads to the greatest outcome where we're all happiest." — Phillip Jackson on Rory Sutherland's marketing critique [00:36:13]

• Listen to Dami Lee’s VISIONS presentation on architecture, the structure of our lives, rhizomes, and more.
• Listen to Kunle Campbell’s conversation with Phillip at K:LDN on capitalism vs. idealism and meaning.
• Listen to Ana Andjelic’s episode on the throughline that connects brand culture to operations, merchandise, on-the-ground events, and more.
• Listen to Andrew McLuhan’s 2-hour feature unpacking his grandfather Marshall McLuhan’s predictions and insights on media, technology, and what technological development will do to our future. 
• Listen to Nick Susi’s Halloween special on the true story behind the War of the Worlds mania (and the media war that drove it).
• Listen to Rory Sutherland’s episode on the fat tail of marketing and what cultural shifts marketers of tomorrow should be preparing for.

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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The brands that will thrive in the next era of commerce understand that context drives everything, from platform choice to storytelling and trust formation. As a result, success hinges on a brand’s ability to serve customers across multiple contexts rather than controlling single experiences.

For the season finale, Commerce CEO Travis Hess joins Phillip and Lindsay to explore what it means when "the customer is the channel." The conversation tackles designing for AI agents alongside humans, reaching customers across surfaces independent of purchase location, and balancing data-driven marketing with authentic storytelling. Travis shares why brands must embrace agentic commerce now, and the mindset shifts required for 2026, synthesizing the season's insights into actionable guidance.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Omnimodal commerce shifts focus from channels to surfaces where customers engage across contexts.
• Design for agents, not just humans. Agentic intermediaries will shape future commerce experiences.
• "The customer is the channel" requires reaching consumers wherever they want to engage.
• Balance data-driven performance marketing with authentic human storytelling to preserve brand equity.
• [00:37:35] "Brands need to go where their customers want to engage them across different surfaces—whether they're buying through that channel or it's influencing purchase through a different channel you may or may not own."
• [00:39:15] "Brands need to design for agents, not just humans and agent intermediaries. They're the ones who are going to show up and ultimately win. It's not like the old days, where we just assumed humans were coming to our channels."
• ibution and surface and signal more than probably the traditional commerce side."
• [00:33:55] "There's nothing more important than the brand, than the narrative, than the story, than the equity that is there. That is the power. I very much see that being controlled still by humans and maybe informed by AI."

• New Modes Research: How AI is Shaping New Commerce Contexts and Expectations
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Phillip and Brian forecast the year ahead, from Walmart becoming America's healthcare provider to prediction markets reshaping news, autonomous vehicles hitting critical mass, and the consumerization of everything. 2026 brings economic correction, political realignment, and consumers seizing control from institutions.

• Walmart will emerge as America's front-line health system through accessibility and affordability
• Predicted losers in 2026: Target, Family Dollar, and middle-class brick-and-mortar retailers
• Self-sovereign health brands will win as consumers self-diagnose and optimize
• Prediction markets will replace traditional polls as the new pulse of public sentiment
• Autonomous vehicles will reach an inflection point with infrastructure support coming
• OpenAI will lose enterprise ground to Anthropic and Gemini as trust erodes
• Economic correction will trigger a political anti-AI platform for midterms
• Craft and analog work will become a cultural rebellion against synthetic content saturation

• "2026 is the year that consumers and companies are shifting from relying on institutions to relying on themselves." – Phillip [00:06:21]
• "John Furner was the head of Sam's Club. You know who Sam's Club had to compete with? Costco. This is the guy who had to build a business that was up against the best business in the world and was successful at it." – Brian [00:12:26]
• "Walmart is that front door for most Americans because you can diagnose your own health issues...It's going to be the point of most convenience for you. It's also gonna be the place that's most affordable." – Phillip [00:16:22]
• "The consumerization of health care is the trend of the year." – Brian [00:16:52]
• "Brands dependent on borrowed authority—any brand whose legitimacy depends on that credentialed expert or an editor or celebrity or institutional validation rather than measurable outcomes will suffer." – Phillip [00:37:38]
• "We have become the United Pottersvilles of America. The idea that communities are at the center of things is the fairy tale." – Brian [00:53:16]

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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In their ninth year of annual predictions, Philip and Brian revisit bold calls made in late 2024 that proved remarkably prescient. From mega-brand consolidation and Costco's international dominance to Google's stunning comeback and the rise of Anthropic, they dissect what they got right (most of it), what they got wrong (GameStop stands stubborn), and why being months ahead of conversations about tariffs, de minimis rules, and AI supremacy matters. 

It is no surprise that culture drove commerce’s biggest shifts.

• Mega-brand M&A dominated 2025 as regulatory shifts enabled massive retail restructuring (+10 pts to Phillip!)
• Costco expanded internationally while battling Trump administration on tariffs and DEI (+10 pts to Brian!)
• China-direct retail faced existential crisis as de minimis loophole closed (+10 pts to Brian!)
• Creator-led brand exits to holdcos marked parasocial commerce era (+10 pts to Phillip!)
• Gamestop survived (-10 pts to Phillip!)
• Google executed the comeback of the decade with Gemini's ascent (+10 pts to Brian!)

• LORE - Future Commerce's 280-page book on brand worldbuilding
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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In an era where consumers gather inspiration everywhere else, branded eCommerce sites face an existential crisis: prove your utility or become irrelevant. This episode examines how consumer expectations have shifted toward "get me what I want, when and how I want it," with 58% finding returns the most frustrating aspect of online shopping. We dissect why guest checkout remains a universal pain point and how brands can differentiate through seamless utility rather than flashy features.

• eCommerce sites have evolved from discovery engines to confirmation engines—customers arrive with pre-baked decisions seeking reassurance, not persuasion.
• Speed, clarity, and consistency are the new table stakes. Flashy features mean nothing if your site is slow, your checkout is clunky, or your shipping policy is unclear.
• Personalization should be engagement-based, not identity-based. Customers want relevance without creepiness—focus on their behavior in the moment, not invasive tracking.
• AI is an enabler, not the answer. Use it to understand cross-platform touchpoints and customer frustrations, not as a magic bullet for conversion.
   
• [00:04:06] "By the time they land on your site, they have pretty much created an idea of who you are, of what you offer, of what your product is. It's more on the choice confirmation bias...they don't want to be challenged. They just want to be reassured that they made the right decision." – Felipe Pose
• [00:14:00] "The role of the website has become more about clarity and reassurance, and not about communicating everything that you are, everything that you do, everything that you provide." – Felipe Pose
• [00:20:33] "I think that is one of the most powerful insights that we have gathered from many reports...they don't want to be really over targeted. They don't want identity based personalization. It's more based on what I want in this moment. What do I need from you? It's personalization based on engagement." – Felipe Pose
• [00:29:11] "If you are playing like a Jenga game...if you don't have a really strong foundation, if you don't have a site that is working correctly, a site that has some really slow pages, you have an unclear shipping policy...those are the things that will end up moving the needle the more." – Felipe Pose
• [00:32:46] "It's all about being prepared for the future and really understanding. Do I have everything I need today to be prepared for that? Because if you are on a really slow platform, something that is not scalable, you will not have a good experience today, even more so in 2026." – Felipe Pose

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
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• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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As retail sheds its four walls, technology must follow. Jason James (CIO, Aptos) and Nikki Baird (VP of Strategy & Product, Aptos) join us to explore how brands like New Balance deploy 90+ registers at the NYC Marathon—then dismantle them just as quickly. The conversation reveals how point-of-sale systems built on next-generation databases enable everything from parking lot pop-ups to van-based fitting experiences, all while maintaining enterprise-grade security in environments where network connectivity is more hope than guarantee.

• New Balance transforms NYC Marathon into 100-store chain for one weekend
• Offline capability: transactions continue when networks fail, sync when connectivity returns
• In-person acquisition yields stickier customers with higher lifetime value
• Retail ranks third most-attacked sector; mobile commerce increases threat surface
• Store associates need intuitive systems for high-pressure, temporary deployments
• "If they're able to pull this off in the middle of a parking lot, I'm probably a hell of a lot more likely to go in the store next time." – Jason James on how ephemeral retail builds store trust
• "A customer acquired through an in-person, in real life experience is stickier, has longer lifetime value, is ultimately more loyal than a customer that's acquired online." – Nikki Baird on the power of physical engagement
• "God forbid a retailer gets hit back at headquarters with ransomware and it takes down their core network. We can still transact." – Jason James on offline resilience
• "It's not just you put products on racks or on shelves and you wait for people to walk in the door. Events are coming into stores too." – Nikki Baird on stores as experience hubs

• Learn about Aptos
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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