Rethink Retail

Welcome to another edition of Retail Roundup, your weekly brief helping retail leaders decode the biggest shifts in retail, AI, and commerce.

This week, Jeremy Goldman is joined by Martin Bailie (MWB Advisory) and Ricardo Belmar (Retail Razor) to discuss the race to own the start of the shopping journey, from warehouse automation to AI assistants to the payment networks behind them. After the break, Salem Collins (DecisionPoint Technologies) brings the conversation back to the store, where those digital promises depend on accurate inventory and reliable technology.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Walmart doubles down on automation

Walmart has committed $6 billion to Symbotic, the robotics company that took over Walmart’s own robotics unit, to automate how its warehouses move and sort merchandise. Part of the goal is narrowing Amazon’s logistics lead.

Alexa wants to be the front door

Amazon says 400 million customers used Alexa for Shopping over the past year, with interactions up 570%, while adding more than 100 new capabilities. The bigger question is where shopping starts. If it begins in ChatGPT or Gemini, Amazon becomes the fulfillment option, and its ad business has the most to lose.

Mastercard bets on the rails

Mastercard is partnering with OpenAI and exploring a deal with Tencent to build payment infrastructure for AI agents. Whichever assistant shoppers choose, Mastercard wants every agent-led purchase to run through its network.

After the break: Many store tech rollouts look flawless in a pilot, then stall at scale. Salem Collins (DecisionPoint Technologies) explains why so many pilots never reach every store, and how retailers can modernize with the technology they already have.

Listen above to hear why owning the front door means little if the store can’t deliver on the promise.

Retail supply chain leaders arrive at industry events with a problem to solve and a deadline to meet. Most of those problems come back to three things: AI, cost, and people.

Stéphane Tomczak (DELIVER), whose events have connected thousands of retail and supply chain leaders with partners across Europe, the US, the Middle East, and Asia, joins Lavina Suthenthiran on this week’s Global Lens to share what those leaders are prioritizing, market by market.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

AI is being put to work

AI is paying off first in planning, helping teams avoid disruption without overstocking. It’s also optimizing warehouse picking and delivery choices in real time, saving a few cents per order that add up fast. The retailers getting the most from it invest just as much in their people, so teams see AI as support.

Resilience now means speed

With tariffs, costs, and demand shifting all at once, predicting the future has gotten harder. Resilience now depends less on planning and more on deciding quickly what to absorb, what to pass on to customers, and what to change.

Every region feels a different pressure

In Asia, the word is complexity, with customs rules that vary country to country and a focus on the first mile. Dubai is moving fast to become a bridge between Europe and Asia. European shoppers push hardest on sustainability, while US conversations center on tariffs, cost, and predictability.

Also in the episode: why making returns easier helped one apparel brand grow its orders, and how the pre-loved market is changing shopping habits.

Listen above to hear why knowing your cost drivers, product by product, may be the fastest way to make better decisions in 2027.

In UK grocery, 80% of customers still shop in stores, so retail media can’t live only on a website. At Nectar360, the retail media business behind Sainsbury’s and Argos, we treat a store entrance and a homepage as the same moment for a brand.

Alice Anson, who built Nectar360’s digital retail media business from the ground up, joins Drew Cashmore (Vantage and Chair, MiR) on this episode of Media in Retail to discuss what it takes to connect stores, screens, and data into one retail media network.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Data underneath, channels on top

Retail media has two parts: channels the retailer owns, like stores and websites, and the first-party data beneath them. When that data connects every channel, brands can plan, buy, and measure a campaign in one place. Nectar360 built its own platform to do exactly that, and found that campaigns combining in-store and digital touchpoints deliver more than the same channels run separately.

Media budgets separate from trade

At Sainsbury’s, the buyers who negotiate stock, price, and shelf space don’t handle media. Nectar360 plans media with brands separately and starts every year with a zero-based budget, so media has to earn its investment. Because that spend isn’t tied to sales volume, brands can grow beyond their current market share.

Stores shape the UK market

UK shoppers often have several grocery chains within a short walk, each with a distinct identity. That mix of choice and store-first shopping helped retail media in the UK and Europe grow more varied than in the US, where most spend flows to Amazon and Walmart.

Listen above to hear what it takes to make retail media easier to buy, measure, and remember.

Welcome to another edition of Retail Roundup, your weekly brief helping retail leaders decode the biggest shifts in retail, AI, and commerce.

This week, Jeremy Goldman joins Aidan Mittra (OrderGrid), Avani Oswal (Catalyst Ventures), and Brittain Ladd (Independent Advisory) to discuss DoorDash’s deal for Instacart, Anthropic’s IPO filing, and the lawsuit over Dollar General’s checkout prices. After the break, Brenda Higuchi (Exchange Solutions) turns to another cost retailers often overlook: loyalty spend that rewards purchases that would have happened anyway.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Who should own the grocery customer?

DoorDash just agreed to buy Instacart for about $17 billion, putting one company between grocers and a huge share of their online shoppers. The bigger question for grocers is whether to keep renting that relationship or build their own.

Anthropic’s filing puts AI economics on display

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has filed to go public after reporting $16.3 billion in revenue for the first half of 2026, up from $1.2 billion a year earlier, while its operating loss narrowed to $693 million. For retailers building AI into service, marketing, and operations, the filing offers an early look at whether the platforms they rely on can sustain their spending.

Price trust at the register

The FTC and 20 states are suing Dollar General, alleging it charged more at checkout than its shelf and ad prices across more than 21,000 stores. The allegations haven’t been proven, and one store check found mismatches in both directions, pointing to execution problems. Either way, a retailer built on affordability depends on shoppers trusting the price on the shelf.

After the break: Retailers spend heavily on rewarding customers, yet much of it pays for purchases that would have happened anyway. Brenda Higuchi (Exchange Solutions) explains how AI can identify whose behavior an offer can actually change, and when recognition, access, or no offer at all is the smarter move.

Listen above to hear what retailers are really paying for their customers, from delivery apps to loyalty programs.

A single TikTok video in Poland can take a beauty product from 100 sales a day to 10,000. No forecast can see that coming, so the supply chain has to be built to respond.

Rad Jha (Flaconi), who oversees supply chain for more than 50,000 products from over 1,000 brands across 12-plus European markets, joins Lavina Suthenthiran on this week’s Global Lens to discuss how beauty retailers can handle viral demand, and what that takes market by market.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Build for response, not prediction

Small luxuries like beauty keep selling when budgets tighten, and social media makes demand swing fast. Rather than chasing a perfect forecast, Flaconi focuses on sensing spikes quickly and working with suppliers that can scale with it. That approach cut its out-of-stock rate from 15 - 20% down to 2 - 3%.

Purchase history predicts supplier problems

Years of weekly purchase orders reveal patterns most retailers never look for. A brand might struggle to deliver every October, for example, because of a recurring glass shortage for perfume bottles. Spotting those patterns lets retailers order ahead and stock up before the disruption hits.

Supply chain as a growth driver

Costs can only be cut so far, while growth has no ceiling. In one market, Flaconi’s cheapest delivery partner was holding back growth, and switching to a slightly more expensive one brought customers back. Automation follows the same logic: fix people and processes first, because automating a messy process only makes it messier.

Listen above to hear why trust, with shoppers, suppliers, and teams, is the foundation of a supply chain built for the unexpected.

Most retail media still runs on catalog images and repurposed TV ads, which gives shoppers little reason to stop and look. Content that helps people choose, whether it comes from creators, real-world sampling, or in-store experiences, is what can change that.

Leah Logan (Recess), who spent nearly a decade leading retail media transformation at Inmar Intelligence, joins Jeremy Goldman on this episode of Media in Retail to discuss how retail media networks can make content the common thread across every campaign.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Content does double duty

Creator campaigns deliver both reach and a library of content. Bringing that content into retail media as ad creative gives brands something native to run, and lets them measure its impact with retail media’s closed-loop data. Many networks still lack creative that fits their formats, which is part of why social media makes up only about 2% of retail media spend.

Creative should meet the shopper’s moment

A 30-second TV spot dropped into a sponsored video slot does little for someone choosing a toothbrush. A trusted voice, like a dentist, explaining which brush suits sensitive teeth does far more. Asking whether an ad adds value for the shopper at that moment is the first test of a strong content strategy.

Sampling becomes a media channel

Recess places product samples in everyday spaces like fitness studios, zoos, and schools, so people can discover brands in person. Through partnerships with Dollar General, Walmart, and CVS, those experiences now run as retail media products, scaled across hundreds of markets and paired with on-site ads. Because sampling is meant to bring in new buyers, its success shows up in new households, a result short-term ROAS can’t capture.

Listen above to hear why content may be the advantage that sets retail media networks apart, both online and in stores.

Welcome to another edition of Retail Roundup, your weekly brief helping retail leaders decode the biggest shifts in retail, AI, and commerce.

This week, Jeremy Goldman is joined by Suzy Davidkhanian (EMARKETER) to discuss Walmart’s new joint membership, Google’s AI shopping cart, and what’s really behind this year’s holiday forecast. After the break, Adam Moyer (Planalytics) explains how weather shapes demand, and why AI agents need to account for it.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

A membership built for data

Walmart is bundling Walmart+ and Sam’s Club into a joint membership, pairing delivery perks with warehouse club value. With only about 10% of Walmart shoppers also shopping at Sam’s Club, the bigger payoff may be data, since seeing a shopper’s full basket across both banners opens new retail media opportunities.

Google wants to hold the cart

Google’s new Universal Cart lets shoppers save items from multiple retailers, track price drops, and see which payment method earns the best rewards, across Search and Gemini. It isn’t seamless yet, but if AI tools start comparing prices on shoppers’ behalf, retailers will need distinct products and a clear distribution strategy to protect their margins.

A holiday forecast with a catch

NRF expects November and December sales to grow 4.2% to $1.013 trillion, but roughly half of that growth reflects higher prices. Retailers should watch unit volume and profit alongside sales, and reach shoppers early, before holiday budgets run out.

After the break: Weather shifts billions in retail demand every year, and it can make a strong campaign look like a flop. Adam Moyer (Planalytics) explains how turning weather into clear demand signals helps retailers and their AI tools make better inventory and marketing decisions.

Also in the episode: the iPod turns 25, Wet Ones’ cheeky Just for Hands campaign goes viral, and Ahold Delhaize restores its US grocery sites after an eight-day cyber incident. For more from Suzy, check out her EMARKETER podcast, Reimagining Retail.

Listen above to hear how retailers can look past inflation and weather to see what shoppers are actually buying.

Amazon runs full operations in 22 countries, yet shoppers in more than 100 countries buy from it. Deciding where to invest next comes down to reading what those customers are already doing.

Kasturi Pal (Amazon), who leads worldwide marketing for Amazon’s international cross-border business, joined Jeremy Goldman at Shoptalk to discuss how to read customer signals across very different markets, and what they led Amazon to do in Colombia.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Let customer signals choose the market

Growth across Latin America is fast but volatile. Colombia stood out, holding steady despite regional headwinds, and its shoppers behaved differently from those in Brazil, Mexico, or Argentina. They wanted more selection, faster shipping, and better prices, so Amazon launched Prime there with its full shopping and entertainment benefits, making it the only market to get them without full in-country operations.

Keep asking why

Data only helps when teams keep questioning it. When a campaign’s click-through rate beats expectations, the next step is asking what drove it, whether it was new, and why it didn’t work before. Repeating that habit reveals patterns and teaches teams how deep to dig and when to stop.

Small teams, simple problems

Many Amazon teams start with fewer than four people and sometimes less than $1 million, so focus matters. State the customer problem in a single sentence, bring in only the people needed to solve it, and keep everyone else informed.

Listen above to hear how customer curiosity can guide where a brand expands next.

Online now makes up more than 19% of US grocery sales, and most of those orders are still picked off store shelves. That gets grocers online quickly, but it brings missing items, substitutions, and picking that’s hard to speed up or automate.

Petr Lizner (Veloq & Rohlik Group) and Dalibor Patek (Rohlik Group) joined Jeremy Goldman at Groceryshop to discuss when micro-fulfillment makes sense for US grocers, and what it takes to make it pay off.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Volume decides when to move

Moving fulfillment into a dedicated space beside the store, covering 70 to 80% of the assortment, gives grocers more control over accuracy and speed while the store handles the rest. Around 300 online orders a day is a reasonable point to start exploring it, and around 600 is when automation enters the conversation. Geography matters too. Delivery suits dense markets like the Northeast, while pickup remains popular across the more spread-out Midwest.

Automation is only half the investment

Grocers tend to focus on choosing the right robots and underestimate what it takes to run them. Staffing, inventory, picking, and last-mile delivery all have to work together every day, and that coordination is where many operations fall short. Rohlik Group spent 12 years building those systems, a reminder of how much of the work sits beyond the hardware.

Consistency is the real test

A fulfillment site built around its best-case capacity can look strong on paper and still disappoint customers daily. Some grocers new to online have seen double-digit error rates on orders, while experienced operators like Rohlik hold errors below 1%. Hidden costs shape the experience too. In the US, tips and fees that rise with order size can discourage bigger baskets.

Listen above to hear what changes when grocers treat fulfillment as a driver of growth.

Retail media replaced the printed flyer, but the way brands plan for it hasn’t changed much. Budgets still roll over year to year like a trade expense, split across teams that each chase their own numbers.

Wendy Salisko (WADE Advisory), who spent 22 years in enterprise CPG before co-founding a firm that advises challenger brands, joins Drew Cashmore (Chair, MiR) on this episode of Media Mondays to discuss what it takes to turn retail media into a source of growth.

INSIDE THE EPISODE:

Siloed budgets work against the brand

Trade, shopper marketing, brand, and retail media dollars usually sit with different teams, each optimizing for its own KPI. The person buying retail media often has no say over the endcap or the depth of a discount, so no one can move the next dollar to where growth is. Brands that pull their investments into one view, or set aside a shared budget for experiments, give themselves room to try something new with retailers.

Discovery now drives the choice

Shoppers have grown numb to constant promotions, and in categories like beauty and wellness, more of them pick a brand based on what they discover, often before they reach the store. Many brands now build that demand on TikTok first and land on shelf later, yet shoppers often don’t know the brand is available there. Retail media can close that gap by telling shoppers what’s new in store.

Challenger brands are the best test partners

Retailers looking to innovate in retail media should start with challenger brands. These fast-growing brands move money across teams freely, worry less about immediate measurement, and are eager to co-create. Their budgets are smaller, but they let retailers test new formats, like creator campaigns, and prove them out before offering them to larger brands.

Listen above to hear why smaller brands and retailers, the ones closest to shoppers, are likely to change retail media first.