Unpacking the Digital Shelf

AI, Machine learning, I know, I know, give it a rest, Crosby! Sorry, we can’t. There’s just too much freaking potential in it, so there’s value in spotlighting use cases that show potential for making your jobs easier and your performance better. One of those is how to make your investments in paid and organic search more predictive and strategic through better data and new metics. Aisha Khan, VP Strategy and Insights at Momentum Commerce, joins the podcast to share the crystal ball for Amazon search that they have been building at Momentum Commerce, and how this kind of data could take budgeting, measurement, and performance in search to a whole ‘nother level.

Okay, yeah, so you need to pay attention to this AI thing. Steve Engelbrecht, Founder and CEO of Sitation, and his team have developed an AI tool that is capable of generating 15,000 product descriptions per hour for their enterprise customers, connected with their PIMs and the workflows to keep humans in the loop. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What does all this mean? Where is it going? What are the risks? Is this a job killer? Can it write my podcast intros? Steve provides some answers to all this and more in this episode.

More than ever, we are in an era of wanting to squeeze maximum omnichannel results out of every dollar spent and saved. That requires leaders in commerce to become a General Manager of the area they manage, driving incrementality across every level in the business. The team at CommerceIQ spends time with a lot of customers who are focused on the Great Squeeze, and Samir Bhavnani, VP of Sales, and Gopal Shah, Head of Product Marketing at CommerceIQ joined the podcast to share some valuable insights and case studies to inspire your journey in this next decade of the digital shelf.

Anyone who has spent any time following the ecommerce industry and particularly Amazon and Walmart is familiar with the journalism of Jason Del Rey, who spent a decade at Recode documenting the transformation of retail, and also through his podcast Land of the Giants: The Rise of Amazon. He has now come out with a deeply researched and incisive book entitled Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets, and he joined the podcast to share some insights of this most consequential era in retail, and where this clash of the titans might go from here.

Every quarter, the ecommerce education consultancy Allume Group consolidates the output of expert conversations, annual reports, and the latest data to create their Ecommerce Insider Quarterly report, or EIQ. It’s chock a block full of the most current insights into the present and future of ecommerce. Andrea Leigh, Founder & CEO of Allume Group rejoins the podcast for her takeaways from their Q2 research.

Omnichannel has always felt like an unsatisfying word, maybe slightly better than all the other bad options for describing what we are trying to achieve. Our guest today thinks of it from the consumer lens with the concept of seamless shopping. Michael Klein is a consultant who brings a wealth of experience as a retail buyer and merchandiser, and for the last 14 years at Adobe as Global Director, Industry Strategy & Marketing for Retail, Travel & Consumer Goods sectors. He joined us to talk about what is required for brands and retailers to turn the concept into action.

Wringing the most out of your paid search, organic search, and content excellence programs must be a group activity across all the teams and agencies responsible, or brands risk wasting the investment in any one of them by underperformance in the others. Amanda Wolff, Head of Marketing at Flywheel Digital, joins the podcast with the innovations she has been seeing among leader brands to ensure that these functions are operating more as one, and less as three.

Retailers all over the world are leaning into creating the next generation of store experiences that will drive increasing revenue. Global insight provider IGD recently published an in-depth study on the Stores of the Future that are happening today, centered on 5 themes of emerging trends in the grocery industry. Stewart Samuel, Director of Retail Futures at IGD, joined us on the podcast to lay out a few of the central themes and how the Future of Stores is coming to life today.

In this environment, every brand is evaluating the channels they use and the investments they make to ensure they are getting the most out of their resources. This is certainly true for DTC, whether you are considering beginning a journey there, or for those brands who are in the journey and evaluating their strategy. This is an audio version of a webinar featuring of course Lauren Livak, Director of the Digital Shelf Institute, and Carter Jensen, Senior Manager Global eCommerce General Mills. Carter and General Mills have been on a three year journey from “DTC is a threat to their traditional business” to running more than 35 sites a year. He generously shares the learnings and advice from that journey.

As new customer acquisition becomes more challenging, more brands are looking for ways to increase each consumers’ lifetime value. Earning and keeping the privilege of SMS messaging your consumers is one of those high potential relationships that can drive loyalty, repeat purchases, and premiumization. Megan Trinidad, VP, Executive Creative Director at digital design and advertising agency R/GA, joined the podcast to provide insights on the new best practices that are driving meaningful results for brands.