The rise, death, and return of in-store retail media as lived by Mike Hiatt.

Around 2010, the in-store retail media screens inside Walmart's stores were bringing in more revenue than Walmart.com. By 2015 the network was gone.

Mike Hiatt, Founder & President of Dynamic Retailing, built it. He came to Bentonville to take over Walmart TV, which at the time meant 27-inch screens bolted up in the rafters playing audio that fought with Walmart Radio and lost. He rebuilt it as the Smart Network: eye-level screens, category channels, and five media endcaps that sold out every time they went to market. At its peak it had the reach of a Super Bowl each week. It was a retail media network before the industry coined the phrase.

Then it came apart. Marketing owned the network, merchants owned the space, and nobody had built a way to cut the merchants in. Walmart pulled it out around 2015.

Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden get Mike to walk through what really happened, why in-store retail media is working now when it stalled then, and what his book Timing the Desert says about being right too early. Ricardo spent that same era at Hughes delivering managed digital signage to retailers, so this one gets personal and specific fast.

This is a story of what was, what could have been, and the lessons every retail media network leader today should learn from the original in-store media network.

In This Episode, You'll Learn

·       Why a retail media network inside Walmart's stores out-earned Walmart.com and still got deinstalled

·       How the fight over trade funds, national ad dollars, and shopper marketing budgets stalled in-store retail media for a decade, and what Amazon did to end it

·       Why DSIQ, an ex-Microsoft team out of Seattle, built an ad server for store screens before the industry had the term, and why the company never scaled past Walmart

·       The difference between a salesperson and a business development person, and why sending the wrong one into a retailer kills the deal

·       Mike's five A's of in-store content: accessible, appropriate, adaptable, attractive, assembled

·       Why he argues for localization over personalization, and what it means to treat 2,000 stores as 2,000 super customers

·       Who he thinks reaches the in-store retail media cereal moment first

·       Why in-store retail media will never be as lucrative as online, and why every retail media network is heading there anyway

Support our sponsors.

This Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub.

From the founders of Shoptalk and Groceryshop, RetailClub AI Festival brings together 2,000 industry leaders from September 22 to 24 for three days fully outdoors in Huntington Beach focused entirely on how AI is transforming retail. Through the Breakthruprogram, you can shape your experience before you even arrive. Request 15-minute, double opt-in meetings with the people you want to meet, join small-group conversations on the biggest questions in AI and retail, choose from more than 100 experiences, and connect over curated networking dinners. Retail and brand leaders can attend free, plus receive up to $1,750 toward travel and hotel. The Breakthru registration deadline has been extended to September 2. Register now at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast.

W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University.

ASU is a leading public research university and its W. P. Carey School of Business is the largest in the United States. AI-Enabled Supply Chain Strategy is a 3-day executive program running October 5-7, built by the #2-ranked Supply Chain Management department. The program is designed for senior leaders setting AI strategy across procurement, logistics, and operations.

Register at https://specialevents.asu.edu/878064 with ID Code retailrazorasu for $1,500 off.

Subscribe & Follow.

How much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

Featured guest.

Mike Hiatt. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehiatt/

Founder & President of Dynamic Retailing. https://dynamic-retailing.com

Author. Timing the Desert. https://a.co/d/07IJTQQS.

Mike Hiatt is the president of Dynamic Retailing. A retail media consultancy focused on helping technology solutions providers work more effectively with retailers and assisting retailers better execute retail media strategies inside their stores. He is on the advisory boards at Venvee and Blue Zoo; he recently authored the business book Timing the Desert: A Front-Line perspective on Retail Media, Readiness, and Scale, which focuses on Hiatt’s experiences working at Walmart, Triad Retail Media, and Sam’s Club as well as key insights about where in-store retail media will land in the future of retail. Hiatt graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Advertising Management.

Chapters.

00:00 Teaser 

00:40 Intro 

05:29 Welcome & Introduction 

06:36 Early In-Store Media & Walmart TV 

08:38 Building the Smart Network 

12:22 Merchants vs. Marketers Friction 

17:54 Timing the Desert: The Book 

24:39 Being Early: DSIQ and the Ad Server Story 

31:08 Business Development vs. Sales 

38:27 The Retail Media Cereal Moment 

44:54 In-Store vs. Online Media Philosophy 

46:52 The Five A's, Localization & AI's Future 

56:47 Show Close

Meet your hosts.

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Episode Music.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

Hank Crawford of Blue Collar Robotics and Paul Harker, retired CCO of Woolworths Group, on grocery store robotics a retailer can deploy today.

There are 280,000 people walking the aisles of US grocery stores right now picking somebody else's order, and grocers cannot hire fast enough to keep up with the growth.

That number comes from Hank Crawford, Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Collar Robotics, and it frames the whole conversation. Online grocery keeps growing. Labor keeps getting harder to find. And the two big swings the industry took at eGrocery fulfillment, the centralized fulfillment center and the micro fulfillment center, both left grocers with high CapEx, duplicated inventory, and people still picking most of the order.

Hank is joined by Paul Harker, retired Chief Commercial Officer of Woolworths Group, Australia's largest retailer, who joined Blue Collar Robotics as a strategic advisor. Together with Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden they work through the economics of eGrocery fulfillment from the operator's side of the table: why the warehouse answer collapsed, what grocery store robotics has been getting wrong, and why a purpose-built robot with a remote operator behind it can drop into a supermarket that already exists.

The mechanism is the interesting part. Blue Collar Robotics sells the picking as a service. A grocer pays a cost per pick, which moves the spend from CapEx into OpEx. The robot handles packaged center-aisle goods using vacuum suction, which is roughly 65% of a typical order, and store associates get redeployed to fresh, where care actually shows up in the customer's bag. Blue Collar reports eGrocery fulfillment cost reductions of as much as 50%. This is Season 6, Episode 10.

In This Episode, You'll Learn

•       Why centralized fulfillment centers failed for grocery on four separate counts: volume density, distance from the customer, fresh, and CapEx

•       What Paul Harker says micro fulfillment centers still cannot solve, including duplicated inventory and picking "the uglies"

•       Why over 80% of a grocer's business is still the in-store customer, and how eGrocery growth quietly degrades that experience

•       The case for a human behind every robot, and why it is now standard practice for anything operating in an unstructured environment

•       What robot etiquette means in a store aisle, and what China's hotel delivery robots taught Hank about how not to do it

•       How the grocery store robotics buying conversation changes when the customer has no robotics team of its own

•       Why grocery store robotics took this long to find product-market fit in a supermarket, and what changed

•       Why the labor argument runs backwards here: there is no line of people waiting for picking jobs

•       How remote operation opens picking work to people who could never physically do it, and opens a 24 hour picking clock for the store

•       What Hank says is actually slowing adoption, and it is not the technology

Support our sponsors

This episode was brought to you by RetailClub. 

Retail and brand leaders can attend RetailClub AI Festival completely budget-free, plus get $1,750 toward travel and hotel. From the founders of Shoptalk and Groceryshop, it's three days fully outdoors in Huntington Beach, September 22 to 24. Spend time with 2,000 senior leaders working through how AI is transforming retail. Register by August 28 at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast.

The W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. 

Arizona State University is a leading public research university known for innovation, access, and impact. Its W. P. Carey School of Business is the largest in the United States, with more than 25,000 students. AI-Enabled Supply Chain Strategy is a three-day executive program running October 5-7. It's built by W. P. Carey's #2-ranked Supply Chain Management department. The program is designed for senior leaders setting AI strategy across procurement, logistics, and operations. Register at https://specialevents.asu.edu/878064 with ID Code retailrazorasu for $1,500 off. Preview it in our three-part Data Blades podcast mini-series this September with Professor Brett Duarte.

Subscribe & Follow

How much did you love this episode? Drop us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

Featured guests

Hank Crawford. https://www.linkedin.com/in/hank-crawford-a4a9755/

Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Collar Robotics. https://bluecollarrobotics.ai

Hank Crawford is Co-Founder & CEO of Blue Collar Robotics, where he leads the company's mission to make in-store grocery picking affordable for retailers through purpose-built robots delivered as a service, pairing AI-driven autonomy with human-assisted teleoperation. A technology entrepreneur and commercial leader with more than 35 years of experience in advanced composites, global manufacturing, and robotics, Crawford has founded companies in the United States and China including PURE Material Science, a Guangzhou-based pioneer of continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites and has helped scale advanced technology businesses in senior engineering and commercial roles at Performance Materials Corporation (acquired by Toray), Daimler Trucks in both North America and China, TRB Lightweight Structures, and Avient. He holds multiple patents in composite materials and manufacturing.

Paul Harker. https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-s-harker/

Retired Chief Commercial Officer, Woolworths Group. 

Strategic Advisor. Blue Collar Robotics.

Paul Harker has more than three decades of senior leadership experience across Australia’s retail and FMCG sectors, including 33 years with Woolworths Group. Most recently, Paul served as Chief Commercial Officer for Woolworths Group, where he was accountable for the $51 billion Australian Food commercial portfolio. In this role, he oversaw commercial practices across more than 1,000 stores and helped lead large-scale enterprise transformation initiatives, including the modernization of digital systems and the integration of data-led analytics across complex supply chain networks. Paul’s earlier executive roles at Woolworths included leadership across Replenishment, Supply Chain, and Store Operations, giving him a broad understanding of the full retail operating model – from store execution to enterprise-level commercial strategy.

Chapters

00:00 Teaser 

00:48 Show Intro 

05:34 Welcome Hank and Paul! 

06:37 Why Warehouses Failed 

09:02 Store Picking Tensions 

10:28 Amazon Threat Reality 

14:47 Robotics Hype vs Reality 

16:34 Human in the Loop 

18:34 Blue Collar Robotics Intro 

19:46 Service Model Economics 

22:35 How Store Deployment Works 

25:48 Comparing Other Models 

30:50 Automation and Jobs 

32:35 Scaling Labor With Robots 

33:43 24 Hour Store Operations 

35:09 Accuracy And Quality Standards 

36:48 AI Regulation And Safety 

40:18 Robot Etiquette In Aisles 

41:36 China Robotics Lessons 

45:19 Selling To Risk Averse Grocers 

49:36 Five Year Outlook And Jobs 

52:19 Wrap Up And Where To Learn More 

53:40 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

Mark Ryski explains why store traffic is a critical retail metric and how in‑store environments convert far higher than online. Hear data comparisons (in‑store up to 70% vs online 3% and Amazon 10%) and why 77% of shoppers left big‑box stores despite intending to buy (no help, long lines). Practical insights for retail leaders to boost in‑store conversion and checkout experience. This is Season 6, Episode 9.

77% of shoppers who walked out of a big box store without buying told exit interviewers they came in to buy. They couldn't find help, wouldn't wait in line, and left empty-handed. Mark Ryski has spent almost 3 decades measuring that gap, and his new book gives it a name: Store Traffic Is A Gift, and most retailers waste it.

This episode, Ricardo and Casey sit down with Mark Ryski, founder and CEO of HeadCount Corporation, to dig into retail's most misunderstood metric: in-store conversion. Physical stores convert 20% to 70%+ of their store traffic. Typical online sites convert under 3%, and Amazon converts about 10%. The store converts several times better than any other channel, yet 84% of retail sales (US Census Bureau, March 2026) still get managed as if online were winning, and in-store conversion gets treated as a vibe at the end of the day.

In This Episode, You'll Learn

•       Why a store can get more traffic and sell less, and what conversion data reveals.

•       The exit survey result that changed a big box operator's mind about service.

•       The single fastest conversion win, and why most chains schedule it backwards.

•       How super converting stores hit 75% while sister stores in the same chain sit at 30%.

•       The CFO conversation: what 100 basis points of conversion is worth in top-line sales.

•       What BOPIS, curbside, and Amazon returns really do to store traffic and conversion.

•       Why accurate store traffic data is the demand signal AI needs before anything else.

Support our sponsors

This Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub.

Join 2,000 retail leaders at RetailClub AI Festival, September 22–24 in Huntington Beach. Dive deep into how AI is reshaping retail while soaking up the sun at a fully outdoor, beachside venue. Decision-makers from retailers and brands can attend with free tickets and up to $1,250 in travel reimbursement. Head to retailclub.com to learn more. https://retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast

Subscribe & Follow

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

Featured guest

Mark Ryski. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ryski-8826601/

CEO, HeadCount Corporation. https://headcount.com

Author, Store Traffic Is A Gift. https://a.co/d/00VI3Uuj

Mark Ryski is the founder and CEO of HeadCount Corporation and one of the retail industry's leading authorities on store traffic and shopper conversion. For more than 20 years, he has helped retailers—from independent stores to large national chains in over 20 countries—convert more store visits into sales and make better operating decisions. He is the author of three books on retail performance, including Store Traffic Is a Gift: The Retailer's Guide to Converting Visits into Sales, Conversion: The Last Great Retail Metric, and When Retail Customers Count, the first book dedicated to the study of store traffic. Mark is a longtime BrainTrust contributor on RetailWire and has been recognized as a Rethink Retail Top Retail Expert in 2025 and 2026.

Chapters

00:00 Teaser

00:32 Show Intro

05:06 Welcome, Mark Ryski!

10:28 Traffic Is a Gift

13:09 Origin Story - Counting Traffic

16:45 Conversion Numbers and Fast Wins

23:16 Exit Surveys Reveal Missed Sales

26:22 Proving Payroll Pays Back

28:08 Inside Super Converting Stores

31:57 BOPIS And Amazon Traffic Trap

38:23 AI Needs Clean Traffic Data

44:52 Optimism For Physical Retail

48:03 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

BONUS S6E8 A Zebra ZONE 2026 recap on pragmatic AI, on-device AI, super apps, and giving store associates their day back

Ricardo Belmar just got back from Zebra Technologies’ ZONE 2026 conference in Nashville, where pragmatic AI was the main theme. In this special bonus episode of The Retail Razor Show, he and Casey Golden unpack what it all means for retail’s frontline workers. This is a story about pragmatic AI, the kind that gives store associates and warehouse teams their day back instead of promising the moon.

The headline from ZONE 2026? Zebra is no longer telling a devices story. It’s telling a frontline platform story, anchored by on-device AI that runs with no cloud, no tokens, and no waiting. Ricardo brought back two exclusive interviews, with Zebra CTO Tom Bianculli and Mobile Computing chief James Poulton, plus a notebook full of stats, demos, and hallway conversations that deliver the full pragmatic AI story.

We get into why frontline workers are drowning in 70 to 80 apps when they only use about a dozen, the super app built to fix it, real-time translation running live on a device, and why “tokenless” pragmatic AI became the word of the week. If you want to understand on-device AI and what it delivers for frontline workers, this episode is your shortcut.

In This Episode, You'll Learn

•     Zebra’s three big software announcements: Nucleus, Workcloud IO, and Workcloud BI

•     The 80-apps problem and the super app designed to collapse it down to one experience

•     Why on-device AI, tokenless and at the edge, beats cloud round trips for frontline use cases

•     Real-time translation in any language, live on the device

•     Micro-learning, the “TikTok of learning,” and tackling 70 to 80% frontline turnover

•     Picture proof of delivery: how a second and a half scales into tens of millions of dollars

•     The octopus organization, and why intelligence belongs at the edge of the org

•     James Poulton on why large language models are overhyped for the enterprise

Why it matters

We’ve spent years on this show arguing that your associate experience is your customer experience. ZONE 2026 felt like the technology industry finally catching up to that idea, treating frontline workers as the most under-invested asset in retail and giving them on-device AI that augments rather than replaces. Pragmatic AI wins on the accumulation of small moments, and that is the thread we pull all episode long.

Subscribe & Follow

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

Featured guests

Tom Bianculli, Chief Technology Officer, Zebra Technologies

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-bianculli-9053892/

James Poulton, SVP & GM, Mobile Computing, Zebra Technologies

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespoulton/

Chapters

00:00 Teaser

01:01 Show intro

02:12 What Zebra announced at ZONE 2026

04:00 The 80-apps problem and the super app

06:53 Real-time translation on the device

08:55 Tokenless, on-device AI explained

11:46 Best moment: the octopus organization

15:43 Interview: Tom Bianculli, CTO Zebra Technologies

35:50 Recap: pragmatic AI and returning time to workers

40:27 Interview: James Poulton, SVP & GM Mobile Computing

53:21 Big takeaways from ZONE 2026

59:32 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

BONUS S6E7 8 retail trends for 2026 including AI-assisted shoppers, why people are the new luxury, and the grey swans most retailers are ignoring

Casey Golden and Ricardo Belmar spent two days at The Lead Summit in New York City with the operators, founders, and analysts actually running retail right now, and they walked out with a clear read on the retail trends 2026 will be built on. Instead of a session-by-session recap, this bonus episode pulls out the eight cross-cutting themes that showed up no matter whose stage they were on, from Anthropologie and Talbots to Hey Dude, Olaplex, Loop, and Coterie.

The headline: every AI experiment built to replace people was a failure story, and every one built to extend people was a winner. From there the conversation runs through the rewired store, the rise of the AI-assisted shopper, why human connection is becoming the new luxury, and the grey swan events most retailers can see coming but refuse to plan for. If you want the retail trends 2026 leaders are quietly betting on, plus what to do about it Monday morning, this is the episode.

In This Episode, You'll Learn

•       Why AI augmentation beats AI replacement, and the customer service "40% ticket deflection" stat that fell apart under real measurement

•       How the AI-assisted shopper is already changing product discovery, and why generative engine optimization (GEO) is getting 80% of the attention on 5% of the traffic

•       Why "people are the new luxury" may be the one theme still defining retail trends 2026 a year from now

•       What Talbots' 35-of-100 transactions stat says about store KPIs beyond sales per square foot

•       How community beat audience for breakout brands, and why your brand story now has to teach the LLMs who you are

•       The grey swans hiding in plain sight: GLP-1, the aging of America, and single-geography supply chain risk

•       The Monday-morning move to make before the AI-assisted shopper takes a bigger bite of your holiday traffic

Notable Moments & Quotes

•       "AI won't sit down and have a cigarette with me." The line that summed up why people still matter.

•       "Listening is a capability, but hearing is a skill."

•       Rainbow Shops: a vendor's 40% ticket deflection collapsed because customers just hung up and called back for a human.

•       Talbots' Concierge clienteling went from reaching 300,000 of 750,000 eligible customers to all of them, while keeping the calls human. AI does the volume, people do the moments.

•       Loop Earplugs grew from $1M to $250M in five years, obsessing over one question: where did you first hear about us?

•       MoMA Design Store: "We're not Amazon, and we don't want to be."

•       Randa Apparel's grey swans: GLP-1 (roughly 8M users today, potentially 100M by 2030), more Americans over 65 than under 18 by 2028, and the warning that "a business built around a single geography isn't lean, it's exposed."

Subscribe & Follow

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

Chapters

00:00 Teaser

01:01 Show Intro

03:18 The BIG Recap - Our 8 Themes form The Lead Summit

05:49 Theme 1 - The Augmentation Imperative

09:49 Theme 2 -  People are the New Luxury

14:17 Theme 3 - The Rewired Store

18:40 Theme 4 - Get Ready for the AI-Assisted Shopper

24:19 Theme 5 - Community Over Audience

30:57 Theme 6 - Brand Discipline and the Power of Saying No

35:22 Theme 7 - Multiplatform & Multigenerational Reality

40:23 Theme 8 - Grey Swans: The Conversations Most People Aren't Having

45:39 Key Take Aways: What Should Listeners Do Monday Morning?

48:53 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E6 Campari America's Allison Varone on mindful drinking and the new rules of beverage brand building with Gen Z

Everyone keeps repeating that Gen Z doesn't drink. The data tells a far more interesting story about mindful drinking and this episode unpacks it.

In this episode of The Retail Razor Show, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with Allison Varone, Head of Marketing at Campari America, for a genuine masterclass in beverage brand building. With more than 20 years across the wine and spirits industry, Allison leads marketing for one of the most iconic brand portfolios in the world: Aperol, Campari, Wild Turkey, Courvoisier, Grand Marnier, Espolòn Tequila, and the newly US-launched Crodino, a non-alcoholic spritz beloved in Italy since 1965.

This conversation goes beyond the headlines about the spirits industry to explore the cultural shifts, strategic bets, and marketing instincts behind some of the most recognizable drinks in the world, and what they mean for anyone building consumer brands in 2026.

What We Cover

·       How Gen Z is redefining drinking culture, and why mindful drinking is a growth opportunity for the spirits industry rather than a threat

·       The "zebra striping" trend: how consumers now bounce between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages depending on the occasion

·       Crodino's US launch and the strategic timing behind Campari America's move into the non-alcoholic spirits space

·       Why occasion-led marketing has replaced category-first brand thinking across the beverage industry

·       What Aperol's Coachella activation and Negroni Week reveal about experiential marketing ROI

·       How Wild Turkey's "Don't Change a Damn Thing" campaign keeps a heritage brand culturally relevant on TikTok

·       The real playbook for challenger brands trying to break through a crowded beverage market

·       What premiumization actually means when consumers are cautious, and how Espolòn Tequila balances premium with accessible

·       Inside the Campari Academy and how bartender education becomes a competitive advantage

·       A bold look at the spirits industry in 2035: more inclusive, more occasion-led, and centered on human connection

A Standout Idea from This Episode

Allison's advice to brand strategists was refreshingly direct: focus less on categories and more on how consumers are actually evolving. Lead with the occasion, then figure out where your brand fits into that moment. That is brand strategy advice that travels far beyond the spirits industry.

Whether you work in retail, brand marketing, CPG, or you are simply curious about how culture shapes consumer behavior, this episode delivers insight you can use immediately.

This Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub.

Join 2,000 retail leaders at RetailClub AI Festival, September 22–24 in Huntington Beach. Dive deep into how AI is reshaping retail while soaking up the sun at a fully outdoor, beachside venue. Decision-makers from retailers and brands can attend with free tickets and up to $1,250 in travel reimbursement. Head to retailclub.com to learn more. https://retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast

Subscribe & Follow

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About our Guest

Allison Varone, Head of Marketing, Campari America. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-varone-4650901/

https://www.camparigroup.com/en

Allison Varone is Head of Marketing at Campari America, a growing powerhouse group in the U.S. spirits market. A seasoned executive, leader and strategist, she has more than 20 years of experience driving growth, market share and profitability for both large and small brands. She joined Campari America in 2024 and previously served as Vice President of Channel and Customer Marketing, where she lead Campari America to some of its greatest partnerships and campaigns, including Negroni Week for Campari, SKYY Vodka for PRIDE, Courvoisier Bring Your Own Courvoisier campaign and Aperol as a sponsor of the U.S. Open and the official Spritz Partner at Coachella.

Chapters

00:00 Opening Teaser

00:49 Show Intro

06:02 Welcome Allison Varone

07:23 Gen Z & Mindful Drinking Culture

09:09 Non-Alc Innovation & Product Strategy

12:46 Occasion-Led Marketing & Coachella

14:39 Shifts in Consumer Behavior

17:02 Spanning Generations Across the Portfolio

19:26 Measuring Activation Impact

21:27 Advice for Challenger Brands

24:33 Honoring Heritage Brands

26:22 Premiumization & Value

28:18 The Campari Academy & Elevated Experiences

30:53 The Spirits Industry in 2035

33:17 Advice for Brand Strategists

35:27 Wrap-Up

37:23 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E5 What Retailers Must Know About Prompt Injection, Rogue Bots & AI Agent Security Before It's Too Late

Your AI shopping agent just drained your bank account. It's not a glitch — that's the objective it was given. Welcome to the new reality of agentic commerce, where autonomous AI agents shop, transact, and negotiate on behalf of consumers and brands — and where cybercriminals are already waiting to exploit every crack in the system.

In this must-listen episode of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with Dr. Aaron Estes, VP of Product & Engineering at Binary Defense, to unpack the retail cybersecurity crisis that most retailers haven't even started preparing for. With half of all internet traffic already coming from bots and 1 in 8 AI-related breaches now involving a rogue agent, the agentic commerce era is creating attack surfaces we've never seen before.

Dr. Estes brings 20+ years of hands-on cybersecurity expertise, including penetration testing at Lockheed Martin and advisory work with leading retailers. He breaks down exactly how AI agents differ from traditional e-commerce threats, why prompt injection attacks are the new frontier of retail cybersecurity, and what practical guardrails every retailer needs to put in place right now.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why AI agents are fundamentally different from human users — and why they'll "very confidently spend all your money" to hit their objective
• How prompt injection attacks trick AI agents into leaking sensitive data
• Why every AI agent needs its own identity, login, and role-based access controls — just like an employee
• The "bots watching bots" architecture that's becoming the new standard in agentic commerce security
• How AI shopping bots are already exploiting loyalty programs, gift cards, and rewards systems
• Why retailers must rethink retail cybersecurity assumptions as autonomous shoppers replace human ones
• How to identify rogue chatbots and fraudulent AI agents impersonating legitimate brands
• What "human-in-the-loop" oversight really means — and where it's non-negotiable in agentic commerce

This Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub.

Join 2,000 retail leaders at RetailClub AI Festival, September 22–24 in Huntington Beach. Dive deep into how AI is reshaping retail while soaking up the sun at a fully outdoor, beachside venue. Decision-makers from retailers and brands can attend with free tickets and up to $1,250 in travel reimbursement. Head to retailclub.com to learn more. https://retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast

Subscribe & Follow

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About our Guest

Dr. Aaron Estes. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronestes777/

email: aaron.estes@binarydefense.com

Binary Defense. https://binarydefense.com/

Dr. Aaron Estes is the VP of Product & Engineering at Binary Defense, a 24/7 cybersecurity watchtower specializing in cyber threat intelligence, dark web monitoring, digital channel fraud, and breach response. He holds a doctorate in software engineering with a concentration in cybersecurity, teaches at UC Berkeley and Southern Methodist University, and previously spent ~15 years in penetration testing at Lockheed Martin across defense, energy, retail, and entertainment sectors.

Chapters

00:00 Teaser 

00:49 Show Intro 

07:26 Welcome Dr Aaron Estes! 

09:31 Why Security Matters 

14:00 New Attack Surface 

17:57 AI Identity and Access 

22:09 Adoption Speed and Oversight 

26:51 Bots Watching Bots 

31:34 Orchestrators and Rival Bots 

34:06 Bots Gaming Rewards 

37:13 AI Shoppers Rise 

38:29 Ads Inside Agents 

44:08 Rogue Bots And Trust 

48:09 Risk Versus Reward 

50:48 Kill Switch Reality 

52:55 Ecommerce Lessons Repeat 

54:26 Closing Thanks And Contact 

56:21 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E4 Exploring the rise of performance TV, off-site retail media, and what it means for retailers and brands.

Retail media is evolving fast, and if you're still stuck in 2022, you're already behind. In this episode of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with retail media expert Andrew Lipsman to explore how Retail Media Networks(RMNs) are expanding into Connected TV (CTV) and off-site retail media to drive growth in 2026 and beyond.

From Amazon and Walmart’s bold moves into performance TV to the rise of off-site retail media as a full-funnel strategy, this episode is packed with insights for retailers and brands navigating the next wave of retail media strategy. Andrew breaks down the challenges of measurement, the myth of ROAS, and why CMOs and agencies need to rethink their approach to retail media.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why connected TV is the next frontier for retail media networks
• How off-site retail media is growing 3x faster than on-site
• The real story behind ROAS and why it’s often misleading
• How Amazon and Walmart are dominating performance TV
• What smaller RMNs can do to compete through partnerships
• Why CMOs and agencies must evolve their retail media strategy
• How to build a full-funnel retail media approach that works

Whether you're building a retail media network or buying ad space for your next brand campaign, this episode is packed with the sharp insights you need to stay ahead.

Subscribe & Follow

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About our Guest

Andrew Lipsman. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-lipsman-10b2162/

Analyst, Consultant, and Founder - Media, Ads + Commerce.

Andrew Lipsman is an independent analyst and principal consultant at Media, Ads + Commerce. His industry coverage specializes in retail media—which he is known for anointing as “digital advertising’s third big wave”—and other areas of the digital media, advertising, and commerce ecosystem. He has published more than a half dozen articles in the Journal of Advertising Research and is frequently quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Financial Times, and Advertising Age.

Media, Ads + Commerce. https://mediaadsandcommerce.substack.com

Media, Ads + Commerce is a consultancy providing strategy and insights for companies in retail media and the broader media, advertising, and commerce ecosystem.

Chapters

00:00 Teaser Open

00:51 Show Intro 

04:19 Welcome Back Andrew Lipsman! 

06:12 How Retail Media Evolved 

07:56 Closed Loop And ROAS Limits 

10:57 Retail Media Connective Tissue 

15:24 CTV Goes Performance 

21:19 Partnership Paths To CTV 

24:53 Trade Desk And Agency Gap 

27:32 Offsite Media Growth Drivers 

29:27 Onsite Relevance First 

30:40 Connected TV Landscape 

31:46 Inventory Quality and Fraud 

33:02 Target and Nordstrom Playbook 

35:34 Full Funnel Measurement 

36:33 CMO Perception Gap 

38:09 Brands and Merchant Alignment 

41:49 CTV Attribution Reality 

44:06 Rethinking ROAS Metrics 

46:17 Last Touch Misleads 

47:59 Inefficiency as Opportunity 

50:15 Talent and Org Alignment 

53:21 2026 Priorities and Mindset 

57:13 Where to Follow Andrew 

58:00 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E3 PayPal’s Mike Edmonds breaks down agentic commerce and how it redefines trust, loyalty, and the merchant‑of‑record future

Agentic commerce is no longer theoretical. It’s already reshaping how shoppers discover, evaluate, and buy products. In this episode, we sit down with Mike Edmonds, VP of Agentic Commerce & Commercial Growth at PayPal, to break down what agentic commerce really means for retailers right now and how agentic AI is transforming the entire shopping lifecycle.

We explore the three major use cases of agentic commerce, how AI shopping agents are changing product discovery, why payments and trust are now central to the agentic commerce experience, and how retailers can maintain control of customer relationships through merchant‑of‑record models.

If you’ve been trying to understand how agentic commerce works, how agentic AI fits into the retail ecosystem, or what retailers must do in the next six months to stay competitive, this episode delivers the clarity and direction you need.

What You’ll Learn

• What agentic commerce actually is; and why it matters now
• How agentic AI is reshaping product discovery, checkout, and loyalty
• The three core use cases: CUA, agentic checkout, and autonomous agent‑to‑agent shopping
• Why payments, identity, and trust are the foundation of agentic commerce
• How merchant‑of‑record models protect data and customer relationships
• The role of loyalty programs in an agent‑driven world
• Catalog readiness and the challenge of integrating with multiple LLMs
• How close we are to the universal cart
• What retailers must do today to prepare for the agentic shift

Why This Episode Matters

Agentic commerce is moving faster than most retailers realize. As agentic AI becomes embedded in browsers, apps, and everyday workflows, retailers must rethink how they manage trust, identity, payments, and customer experience. This episode gives you the frameworks and real‑world examples to understand how agentic commerce will reshape retail in the months ahead.

Subscribe & Follow

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About our Guest

Mike Edmonds. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeledmonds/

VP Agentic Commerce, Commercial Growth at PayPal. https://www.paypal.com/us/business/ai

Mike Edmonds is VP of Agentic Commerce, Commercial Growth for PayPal, responsible for global commercialization, go-to-market, and operational execution across PayPal’s portfolio of AI-powered and agentic commerce products. Mike brings deep expertise having joined PayPal from Microsoft where he led AI and ecommerce strategy for Microsoft’s worldwide retail and consumer goods industry team. Prior to Microsoft, Mike was an agency operator, entrepreneur, and product leader driving digital transformation across B2B, DTC, and marketplace business models spanning a range of verticals including retail, CPG, high tech, industrial manufacturing, automotive, and foodservice across the US, Europe, and China.

Mike is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University teaching Kellogg MBA, MS in Design Innovation, and MS in Product Design and Development students through the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Chapters

00:00 Teaser 

01:00 Show Intro 

04:04 Welcome Mike Edmonds 

05:22 Mike’s PayPal Role 

07:14 Defining Agentic Commerce 

14:40 Real World Agentic Checkout 

19:33 Trust Merchant Data Loyalty 

26:16 Loyalty As Differentiator 

27:21 Travel Points And Agentic Commerce 

28:32 Trust KYA And Liability 

34:46 Skills For Future Commerce Careers 

41:54 2030 Multimodal Future And Wrap 

48:40 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E2 The Retail Growth Strategy Retailers Need for 2026 with Today’s Economic Realities, Tariffs, Fed Moves, and Consumer Shifts

In this powerful episode of The Retail Razor Show, Dr. Rebecca Homkes, London Business School lecturer, Duke faculty member, high‑growth strategy advisor, and author of Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times, joins Ricardo and Casey to break down what retailers must understand about the economic outlook in 2026, shifting consumer behavior, and the strategic moves that separate winners from laggards.

Rebecca explains why uncertainty is not a threat but a catalyst for growth, and how her Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) framework helps leaders stabilize quickly, reset strategy intelligently, and execute a retail growth strategy that works even in volatile conditions. She also unpacks the realities behind sticky inflation, tariffs, the no‑hire/no‑fire labor market, and the rise of the K‑shaped consumer economy.

If you want to build a retail growth strategy that thrives in the face of market shocks, this episode gives you the playbook.

What We Cover

• Why the economic outlook in 2026 is full of contradictions, and what that means for retail
• How the SRT loop helps leaders stabilize, reset, and thrive
• Real‑world examples of companies using SRT to turn crises into growth
• Why averages hide the truth about consumer sentiment
• The rise of the K‑shaped economy and the death of the “everyman” consumer
• Value vs. price: why consumers will still pay more for what they truly value
• How retailers should think about store formats, assortment, and experimentation
• The must‑win battles for 2026
• Where AI actually moves the needle in a retail growth strategy

Key Takeaways

• Uncertainty is the best time to grow: because customers, partners, and employees are more honest about what they value.
• Value ≠ price. Consumers want their dollar to go further, not necessarily cheaper products.
• The middle of the market is the danger zone. Retailers must choose: differentiated premium or true value leadership.
• Retail growth strategy in 2026 requires testing, iteration, and abandoning legacy assumptions.
• Economic outlook in 2026 signals a decoupling between GDP strength and consumer reality: leaders must plan accordingly.

Subscribe & Follow

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About our Guest

Rebecca Homkes, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-homkes/

https://www.rebeccahomkes.com

Author, Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times. https://a.co/d/0aXECIB2

Rebecca Homkes, is a high-growth strategy specialist, CEO and executive advisor. After more than a decade of advising her clients on developing, executing and innovating on strategy, Rebecca is sharing her proven and practical playbook in Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times. She is a Lecturer at the London Business School, Faculty at Duke Corporate Executive Education, Advisor and Faculty at the Boston Consulting Group focused on AI and Climate and Sustainability, and a former fellow at the London School of Economics Centre for Economic Performance. A global keynote speaker and recognized thought leader, she is also the global Faculty Director of the Active Learning Program with the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), leads several fintech accelerators, and serves on the boards of many high-growth companies. She earned her doctorate at the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar and is now based in Miami, San Francisco, and London.

Chapters

00:00 Teaser

01:10 Show Intro

04:40 Welcome Dr Rebecca Homkes

05:46 The Survive Reset Thrive Framework

08:04 Real World SRT Success Stories

12:55 Macro Economic Outlook for 2026

17:38 Understanding the K Shaped Economy

19:39 Value vs Price Strategy

24:06 Differentiation and Competitive Advantage

26:41 Store Strategy and Expansion

30:37 Consumer Experience and AI

32:34 B2B Software Experience Gap

34:04 Financing and Inventory Strategy

36:28 Supply Chain Robustness

38:10 No Regret Moves

40:40 Defining Right to Win

43:45 Hard Reset Strategy

45:51 Strategic Center of Gravity

48:24 Must Win Battles

49:34 Closing and Contact Info

51:36 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E1 Retail Media’s New Reality: DSP Shifts, Agentic Commerce & Brand Strategy for 2026

Season 6 of The Retail Razor Show kicks off with a deep dive into one of the most important topics in commerce today: retail media. Ricardo and Casey sit down with Jeff Cohen, Chief Business Development Officer at Skai, to unpack the newly released 2026 State of Retail Media Report, created in partnership with Stratably.

This episode explores how brands, versus retailers, are navigating the rapid evolution of retail media. From DSP shifts and CTV growth to AI adoption and agentic commerce, measurement challenges, and the widening gap between leaders and laggards, this conversation delivers the insights every brand marketer needs heading into 2026.

What We Cover

• Why retail media now commands nearly 30% of US digital ad spend
• The rise of retail media maturity and what separates leaders from laggards
• Why organizational structure is now a top predictor of retail media success
• The growing importance of Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC)
• How brands should evaluate incrementality, attribution, and ROI
• Why CTV and sponsored brand video are accelerating
• The role of AI and agentic commerce in shaping future shopping journeys
• What brands must do in 2026 to stay competitive

Download the 2026 State of Retail Media Report (free):

https://skai.io/reports-and-whitepapers/2026-state-of-retail-media-report/

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

About our Guests

Jeff Cohen, Chief Business Development Officer, Skai

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreycohen/

Jeff Cohen leads global business development at Skai, overseeing partnerships and innovation across the commerce media ecosystem. A recognized thought leader, he is focused on uniting brands, agencies, retailers, and publishers around the next era of growth. Previously, Jeff was Principal Evangelist at Amazon Ads.

Chapters:

00:00 Preview Teaser 

00:53 Show Intro 

03:45 Welcome Jeff Cohen 

06:24 Retail Media Maturity and Brand Strategies 

08:30 Leaders vs. Laggards in Retail Media 

12:12 Organizational Structure and Retail Media Success 

17:35 Amazon Ads and DSP Insights 

24:36 Evaluating Performance Across Platforms 

27:45 The Shift to Full Funnel Advertising 

29:46 Challenges in Measurement and Attribution 

30:50 The Role of AMC in Retail Media 

33:01 Incrementality and Budget Constraints 

35:45 AI's Impact on Retail Media 

37:10 Strategies for Brands in an AI World 

42:54 Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts 

48:21 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and AGI, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Management, Careers, and Transformation, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Digital Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

Agentic Commerce, Retail Media, and the Human Experience: Season 6 Preview

Season 6 of The Retail Razor Show is here, and we’re diving into the future of retail through the lens of Agentic Commerce and Retail Media. In this trailer, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden introduce a season built around the collision of technology, content, and the human experience. As Agentic Commerce reshapes how consumers discover and buy products, Retail Media becomes the environment where every decision is influenced, measured, and optimized.

This season builds on the momentum from Season 5, where we explored resilience, digital marketing, sustainability, resale, marketplace strategy, and leadership in an AI saturated world. Now we move into a new era where AI agents may shop on behalf of consumers, and retailers must understand how Agentic Commerce changes engagement, loyalty, and the path to purchase. At the same time, Retail Media continues to expand as a core revenue engine and a critical part of the customer journey.

You’ll hear from innovators who are building systems powered by Agentic AI, leaders redefining Retail Media strategy, and operators proving that frontline teams can thrive when technology is designed to support them. This season explores how Agentic Commerce transforms merchandising, planning, and customer experience, and why the human connection still matters more than ever.

Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, iHeartMedia, YouTube, and Goodpods. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn, Blue Sky, Threads, and Instagram.

If you want to understand where retail is heading in 2026, this is the podcast for you!

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

Chapters:

00:00 Cold Open 

00:23 Intro to Season 6 

00:50 Reflecting on Last Season 

01:38 Introducing Agentic AI 

01:51 The Role of Media in Retail 

02:09 Human Connection in a Digital World 

03:02 The Era of Agentic Commerce 

04:03 Looking Ahead: Innovators and Leaders 

04:44 Stay Connected and Engaged

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and AGI, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Management, Careers, and Transformation, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Digital Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

S5E14 2025 Retail Year in Review - AI, Consumer Shifts, and the Future of Commerce with Guest Host, Alicia Esposito!

In this Season 5 finale of The Retail Razor Show, guest host Alicia Esposito (Future Commerce) sits down with Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden for a deep, unfiltered 2025 retail year in review. Together, they unpack the biggest trends shaping the industry, from AI’s accelerating influence, to the emotional needs of today’s consumer, the rise of resale, the evolution of marketplaces, and the shifting definition of value.

Across the Retail Razor Podcast Network - The Retail Razor Show, Blade to Greatness, Data Blades, and Retail Transformers - this year’s guests revealed a powerful through‑line: retail is no longer just about convenience or price. It’s about culture, community, emotion, and the human experience.

This episode explores:

• How AI is reshaping leadership, decision‑making, and personalization
• Why consumers—especially Gen Z—are craving analog joy and emotional shopping
• The rise of marketplaces like Temu and AliExpress
• Retail media’s evolution and the coming disruption from agentic commerce
• The loyalty shakeout and why brand equity matters more than ever
• The explosive growth of resale and secondhand shopping
• Holiday shopping behavior and the psychology behind “perpetual shopping lists”
• The keywords that will define 2026: velocity and joy

If you want to understand where retail is heading in 2026, this is the episode you can’t miss!

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

About our Guest Host

Alicia Esposito, Director, Content + Media Strategy - Future Commerce

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciaesposito/

Alicia is the head of content and insights for Future Commerce. At Future Commerce we are big on dissecting the intersection of culture and commerce and not just covering what's happening today, but also what are the ripple effects for tomorrow, and for the future. Future Commerce delivers consumer insights for e-commerce and retail brands. Newsletters, essays, podcasts, and research. For the risk-takers in Commerce! Future Commerce helps brands manifest vision and create goals which lead to future-altering impacts for their customers, and for the world around them.

Chapters:

00:00 Preview

01:06 Introduction and Host Introduction

03:02 Balancing Automation and Human Intuition

06:57 Consumer Behavior and AI

10:18 The Evolution of Retail Experiences

18:21 The Importance of Brand Value

24:14 Challenges in Fast Fashion and Marketplaces

28:23 The Future of Commerce

31:36 Retail Media Evolution

36:50 Consumer Behavior and Shopping Trends

41:09 The Impact of Resale and Sustainability

50:12 Personalization and AI in Retail

53:16 The Keyword That Will Represent 2026

55:45 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, & AGI Thought Leader, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers Thought Leader, a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S5E13 Future of AI-Powered Consumer Insights with Trevor Sumner & Stan Sthanunathan

In Season 5, Episode 13 of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden tackle one of retail’s biggest blind spots in consumer insights: the consumer sentiment gap. For decades, brands relied on surveys to understand shoppers. But what people say doesn’t always match what they do.

Enter AI-powered shopper insights!

Joining the conversation are Trevor Sumner (CEO of i-Genie AI) and Stan Sthanunathan (Executive Chairman of i-Genie AI, former EVP at Unilever and VP at Coca-Cola). Together, they reveal how billions of unfiltered signals — from searches, reviews, and social posts — can be transformed into real-time, actionable consumer insights that reshape retail decision-making.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why traditional consumer surveys are breaking down
• How AI and natural language processing uncover real customer behavior
• The role of empathy vs sympathy in understanding consumers
• How disruptor brands are reshaping competitive landscapes
• Why augmented intelligence (AI + human insight) is the future of retail strategy and consumer insights

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

About our Guests

Trevor Sumner, CEO, i-Genie.AI - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevorsumner/

Trevor is a NYC-based entrepreneur, product and marketing executive and recognized startup advisor and angel. Trevor is the CEO at i-Genie.ai, the leading AI platform for consumer insights, revolutionizing an industry that had been dominated with antiquated survey methodologies by synthesizing tens of billions of searches, social and video posts, ratings and reviews and market data for industry leaders like Kenvue, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Bayer, Clorox and more.

Previously, Trevor was Head of AI and Data Platform products for Raydiant, a leading VC-backed digital experience platform that is transforming over 250,000 digital touch points across 4,500 clients with AI, computer vision and data.

Trevor came to Raydiant when it acquired Perch, a recognized leader in in-store Product Engagement Marketing, interactive retail displays and augmented reality, where Trevor served as CEO. Perch was named a Top Tech Company to Watch by Forbes, a Top 10 Retail Technology company by CIO Review and has won numerous Clio, Fast Company, Edison, Bloomberg and Digi awards.

Stan Sthanunathan, Executive Chairman, i-Genie.AI - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-sthanunathan-1ab4035/

Stan Sthanunathan joined Unilever in July 2013 as Executive Vice President of Consumer & Market Insights. As chief provocateur, he headed up the insights function globally based in London. He retired from Unilever on June 1, 2021.

Post retirement he has started an AI/ML enabled company called i-Genie.AI focused on delivering near real time insights and ideas to help business identify Next Big Thing. Prior to joining Unilever, he was Vice President of Marketing Strategy & Insights for The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, heading up the function on a global basis.

Stan co-authored a paper on Building an Insights Engine that was published in Harvard Business Review, Sept 2016. He has also co-authored a book titled AI for Marketing and Product Innovation.

He was awarded Lifetime Achievement award at TMRE 2022 event.

Chapters:

00:00 Previews 

01:23 Show Intro 

04:43 The Consumer Sentiment Gap 

05:37 Welcome Trevor Sumner & Stan Sthanunathan 

06:30 Backgrounds of Trevor and Stan 

09:11 Challenges in Understanding Consumers 

16:58 The Evolution of Influencers 

18:32 Limitations of Surveys and the Need for AI 

25:46 Augmented Intelligence: AI + Human Insight 

31:46 Challenges in CPG Innovation 

33:02 Innovate: A Data-Driven Product 

34:42 AI and Predictive Analytics 

36:21 Democratizing Data Access 

38:07 Mindset Shift for Rapid Actions 

40:46 Adopting AI in CPG 

48:16 Retailers and Data Utilization 

52:59 Future of Brand Understanding 

57:23 Conclusion and Contact Information 

58:15 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, & AGI Thought Leader, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers Thought Leader, a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S5E12 The Future of AI in Merchandising & Buying with Noah Herschman and Jeff Fish

In Season 5, Episode 12 of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with Noah Herschman and Jeff Fish of Intelo.ai to explore how agentic AI is revolutionizing retail merchandising and buying. From the art and science of retail merchandising to the persistent challenges of planning and allocation, this episode dives deep into how collaborative intelligence empowers merchandisers, planners, and buyers to make smarter, faster, and more creative decisions.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why merchandising is the “hub of the wheel” in retail success
• The balance between creativity and analytics in buying decisions
• How agentic AI enhances human judgment without replacing it
• Real-world examples of AI improving in-season planning and merchandising financial plans
• Why spreadsheets aren’t going away, but AI agents make them smarter
• The future of retail technology and how Agentic AI delivers superpowers to retail merchandisers

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

About our Guests

Noah Herschman. Senior Industry Advisor, Intelo.ai

Noah is an ecommerce strategist who’s been shaping online retail since the 1990s. He’s held leadership roles at Amazon, eBay, and Groupon. As a Microsoft Senior Retail Industry Architect, he has worked with more than 150 global retail & CPG clients. Noah has lived in China for 15 years and fluent in Mandarin, Noah operates out of Hong Kong. He is currently a Senior Industry Advisor for Intelo.ai

Jeffrey Fish, Co-CEO, Intelo.ai

Jeffrey Fish Co-Founded the Chatly platform serving global retail & hospitality brands targeting the China market (exited to Salesforce in 2020). He then led Salesforce China in partnership with Alibaba Cloud. Now he's scaling up Intelo's Collaborative Intelligence Agentic Merchandising & Planning Platform.

Chapters:

00:00 Previews 

01:39 Show Intro 

04:13 Welcome Noah Herschman & Jeff Fish 

04:37 Guest Backgrounds and Expertise 

07:33 The Importance of Retail Merchandising 

11:41 Challenges and Solutions in Modern Merchandising 

16:25 The Role of Agentic AI in Merchandising 

23:09 Future of Agentic AI and Merchandising 

40:04 Practical Steps for Retailers 

41:36 How to Reach Out And Contact 

42:10 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, & AGI Thought Leader, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers Thought Leader, a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Allianceadvisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S5E11 ThredUp’s Resale Revolution: Holiday Shopping & Gift Giving Trends with Alon Rotem

The holidays are here and resale is at the center of this year’s shopping story! In this timely episode of The Retail Razor Show, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with Alon Rotem, Chief Strategy Officer at ThredUp, to unpack the company’s 2025 Holiday Shopping Report. From surprising insights on resale gift giving to how shoppers are embracing sustainable fashion and circular economy models, this conversation reveals why resale is becoming a mainstream holiday shopping strategy.

We also explore ThredUp’s evolution from a secondhand marketplace to a Resale as a Service (RaaS) leader, powering branded resale programs for fashion retailers. Alon shares how ThredUp’s AI-powered innovations — including image search, natural language search, and personalized curation — are transforming the secondhand shopping experience and driving conversion.

If you want to understand how resale, sustainability, and AI are reshaping holiday shopping in 2025, this episode delivers insights every retailer, brand, and shopper needs.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

About our Guest

Alon Rotem, Chief Strategy Officer & General Counsel, ThredUp

Alon Rotem has served as ThredUp’s Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel since September 2024. Alon has also served as Chief Legal Officer since February 2021 and Secretary since March 2017 and previously served as General Counsel from January 2017 to February 2021. From September 2013 to November 2016, Alon served as the General Counsel of Rocket Lawyer Inc., an online legal technology company. From June 2010 to August 2013, he was an associate at Goodwin Procter LLP, a global law firm. Alon holds a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Managerial Economics from the University of California, Davis.

ThredUp 2025 Holiday Report - https://newsroom.thredup.com/news/thredup-2025-holiday-report

ThredUp Resale-as-a-Service - https://www.raas.thredup.com

Chapters

00:00 Previews 

01:13 Show Intro 

04:51 Welcome, Alon Rotem - Chief Strategy Officer, ThredUp 

08:38 ThredUp's Evolution and Resale as a Service 

15:51 Implementing Resale Programs with ThredUp 

21:31 Challenges and Successes of Going Public 

25:36 AI Innovations in ThredUp's Shopping Experience 

33:06 Insights from the Holiday Report 

35:25 Consumer Behavior and Secondhand Gifts 

36:24 Top Gifting Trends in Resale 

39:49 The Role of Data in Resale 

41:32 Consumer Funding for Holiday Shopping 

47:21 Luxury vs. Mid-Market Resale 

51:05 Sustainability and the Future of Fashion 

55:11 Future Outlook 59:47 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, & AGI Thought Leader, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers Thought Leader, a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Allianceadvisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

BONUS - The Retail Razor: Data Blades Season 2 Trailer

Data Blades Returns: AI, CX, and Retail Media for Executive Leaders

Welcome to a special cross-release of the Season 2 trailer for The Retail Razor: Data Blades—the podcast that slices through complex retail research to deliver sharp, actionable insights and retail strategies for executive leaders in the AI era. 

In Season 1, we cut through the clutter with data-backed insights to identify strategies for:

• Inflation’s uneven impact across age groups—where seniors felt the pinch more than younger shoppers.
• Shifting shopping habits—like 74% of consumers using lists to control spending.
• The power of values in loyalty—with 77% of consumers saying brand values matter more than discounts.
• Self-checkout and employee experience—where well-informed store teams drove a 27% increase in average spend.

Now in Season 2, we’re going deeper. Hosts Ricardo Belmar, RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert & NRF 2025 Retail Voice, and Casey Golden, RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert, preview what’s ahead:

• Exclusive insights from TruRating and top retail analysts to hone your data-driven retail strategies.
• A focus on three pillars: Customer Experience, Retail Media, and Employee Experience.
• How AI is reshaping retail strategy—from predictive personalization to AI-powered workforce tools.
• Revisiting themes of trust, transparency, and loyalty with fresh data and new perspectives.

If you're a VP, CMO, COO, or CEO in retail looking to make smarter, data-driven decisions for AI-first retail strategies, this is your podcast. Subscribe now in your favorite podcast player and stay ahead of the curve with insights that drive conversion, loyalty, and operational excellence.

New episodes drop starting tomorrow!

👉 Stay Sharp. Be Data-Driven. Harness AI.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About your hosts::

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail & AGI, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers, and a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader. Plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Allianceadvisory council member. Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Tech Lore from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

BONUS - The Retail Razor: Blade to Greatness Season 2 Trailer

Retail Executive Leadership & Coaching Insights for the AI Era

Welcome to a special cross-release of the Season 2 trailer for The Retail Razor: Blade to Greatness — the podcast where retail leaders sharpen their edge. Hosted by Ricardo Belmar & Casey Golden, this series explores the essential skills & qualities every retail executive needs to lead boldly, stay sharp, & stay human in the AI era.

In Season 1, we uncovered the fundamentals of great leadership:

• how intrinsic motivation and autonomy unlock innovation
• why positivity is fuel, not fluff
• rethinking hiring, career development, & investing in people

Season 2 takes it further with new retail executives & coaching experts—to share actionable insights on:

• Building resilient & adaptable leadership cultures
• Leading through disruption & transformation in the AI era
• Practical coaching strategies for executives & C-suite leaders

If you’re a retail leader, this season will help you sharpen your leadership blade & lead with clarity. Subscribe to The Retail Razor: Blade to Greatness show in your favorite podcast player!

New episodes drop starting tomorrow!

👉 Stay Sharp. Lead Boldly. Stay Human.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About your hosts::

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail & AGI, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers, and a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader. Plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Allianceadvisory council member. Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Swag, Tag and Brag from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno.

S5E10 From Task Overload to Customer Focus: AI Solutions for Retail Associates

Retailers are asking store associates to do more with less—shorter staffing, longer task lists, and higher customer expectations. In this episode of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden explore how AI is reshaping frontline retail teams from overwhelmed to empowered.

Joining the conversation are:

•  Jeff Strasser, General Manager of AI Business Solutions for Retail & Consumer Goods at Microsoft

•  Nolan Wheeler, CEO & Founder of SYNQ Technologies

Together, they dive into:

•  The biggest challenges facing frontline store associates today: task overload, reduced staffing, and customer service trade-offs

•  How AI can automate and simplify corporate task lists, freeing up time for customer engagement

•  Why voice-first, hands-free AI is a breakthrough for associates, with SYNQ’s solution connecting two-way radios to Azure OpenAI for instant answers in the aisle

•  The importance of integration and governance when deploying AI at scale in retail operations

•  Real-world examples of AI reducing friction, improving training, and accelerating onboarding

•  How to measure success with the right KPIs: time-to-answer, customer satisfaction, and associate productivity

•  What’s next for AI in retail over the next 24 months—and how retailers can prepare their teams today

This isn’t about replacing people—it’s about augmenting store teams with AI-powered tools that make their jobs easier, improve morale, and elevate the customer experience.

If you’re a retail leader, innovator, or operator, this episode is packed with insights on how to start small, scale fast, and empower your frontline workforce with AI.

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube

About our Guests

Nolan Wheeler – CEO & Founder, SYNQ Technologies

Nolan Wheeler founded SYNQ in 2015 after a successful multi-decade career in retail. With experience in asset protection, store operations, and store transformation, Nolan founded SYNQ with a vision for transforming how retailers think about operations and merchandizing. Nolan lives in Victoria, BC with his young family, spending as much of his time on the water as possible.

Retail Clinic on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@RetailClinic

SYNQ Technologies - www.synqtech.com

Jeff Strasser – GM, AI Business Solutions for Retail & Consumer Goods, Microsoft.

Jeff oversees Microsoft’s AI Business Solutions portfolio for the US Retail & Consumer Goods enterprise customer segment. Jeffrey’s organization supports clients’ business priorities to grow revenue, optimize costs and deliver customer and employee satisfaction through AI led solutions. Recently, Jeffrey has been leading discussions on the application of generative AI to improve the efficiency of work and operations, accelerate decision-making, and support client leadership with strategies to build an AI first culture and deliver on business impacting solutions.

Microsoft Cloud for Retail - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/retail/microsoft-cloud-for-retail

Chapters:

00:00 Previews 

00:54 Show Intro 

04:27 Welcome Jeff Strasser & Nolan Wheeler 

07:29 Challenges Faced by Frontline Store Teams 

14:14 AI Solutions for Retail Operations 

19:59 Voice AI and Real-World Applications 

25:34 Data-Driven Retail Insights 

30:55 The Power of Voice Agents in Retail 

32:05 Integrating IoT and Voice for Seamless Operations 

34:22 Building Effective AI Agents 

38:21 Starting with AI: Metrics and ROI 

41:18 Overcoming Barriers to AI Adoption 4

7:24 Future Capabilities and Getting Started 

54:01 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, & AGI Thought Leader, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers Thought Leader, a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Allianceadvisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S5E9 Retail's Best Kept Secret: Discover How RetailROI Transforms Children's Futures

In this special replay episode of The Retail Razor Show, we shine a spotlight on the incredible work of the Retail Orphan Initiative (RetailROI)—a nonprofit transforming lives of orphans and foster children through the power of the retail industry. With a fresh introduction for 2025, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden revisit a heartfelt conversation with Greg Buzek, President of RetailROI, Vicki Cantrell, board member and retail legend, and Jeff Roster, former Gartner & IHL analyst and top retail expert, as they share the origin story, mission, and global impact of this powerful retail charity.

Learn how RetailROI’s Super Saturday event at NRF has become the most meaningful gathering of the year, where retailers, tech vendors, and solution providers come together to help fund clean water, education, and life skills training for thousands of children worldwide. Hear inspiring stories of transformation, including previous keynote speaker Darryl McDaniels of Run DMC, and discover how just showing up at Super Saturday can help change lives.

Whether you're a retailer planning for NRF, a technology supplier and potential sponsor, or simply passionate about retail’s role in social responsibility, this episode will move you to action. Join us in celebrating RetailROI’s rich history and accomplishments and learn how you too can become a RetailROI Champion.

👉 Learn more and register for Super Saturday at NRF 2026 at http://retailroi.org/super-saturday

🎧 Subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods to help us amplify this message of hope and impact!

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About our Guests

Greg Buzek, President, IHL Group & President, RetailROI https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregbuzek/

Vicki Cantrell, CEO, Vendors in Partnership https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickicantrell/

Jeff Roster, Former Gartner & IHL analyst, top retail expert

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-roster-8828b8257/

Retail Orphan Initiative (RetailROI), https://www.retailroi.org

The Purpose of the Retail Orphan Initiative (RetailROI) is to raise awareness and provide real solutions for the more than 400 million vulnerable children worldwide.

RetailROI has 3 primary goals:

Bring Awareness to the enormous needs of orphans worldwide

Encourage companies (Retailers, Vendors, Manufacturers) to create programs internally for their companies to help with the need

Raise Funds through to help “feet on the street” charities who are making a real difference

00:00 Previews 

01:16 Show Intro 

06:43 I am a RetailROI Champion 

17:53 RetailROI Discussion 

20:03 How RetailROI Began 

23:08 How RetailROI Works 

26:57 Accomplishments 

36:44 The Trips 

44:06 Getting involved 

51:35 Finding Charities 

55:47 A little goes a long way to make a difference 

01:02:53 Fundraising 

01:06:08 More Great Work 

01:13:32 Show Close

Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail Thought Leader, Top 50 Management Thought Leader, & Top 100 Digital Transformation Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.