Unpacking the Digital Shelf

In an ever changing eCommerce environment both brands and retailers need to collaborate together in order to align on initiatives and goals that are beneficial for both sides. Many of these conversations happen during Joint Business Planning (JBP), but it is often not standardized across retailers, and brands might not know the right questions to ask or data to bring to the table to have the most beneficial conversation. This is a podcast rebroadcast of a webinar hosted by Lauren Livak Gilbert and featuring Lynsey Sweales, Partner & Global Omni-Channel Strategist at Cognitive Union. Listen in as they discuss best practices for JBP planning and how to prioritize working with your retailers.

G’day Mates! That’s right, listeners, today we are going down under, to dive deep into the intricacies and opportunities for brands in the Australian market. Our expert on the ground is Teresa Sperti, Founder & Director at digital commerce advisory and education consultancy Arktic Fox, and even if you’re not considering Australia as a market you’ll want to listen for her super sharp commerce insights and amazing accent. And be introduced to a little AI sprite called Olive.

For our listeners who sell direct to their consumers or buyers, a composable tech stack is pretty much a necessity these days to keep up with the buying experiences your customers expect. And in the next era, it will be essential to achieve the kind of more niche and personalized experiences that will be necessary to drive growth and win market share. James Semple, Product Management Director at Salesforce and self-proclaimed “Evangelist of the Composable Ecosystem, joined the podcast to discuss the current and future states of contextual omnichannel commerce.

Our listeners have a love/hate relationship with retail media and every organization continues to wrestle with how to organize, execute, and measure it while keeping up with the vast amount of change coming from the big players in the market. And what about all the others? We invited Russ Dieringer, Founder and CEO of Stratably, back on the podcast to use data and his brain to prognosticate what the retail media market is going to look and feel like in 2025. Heads up: it don’t seem like it’s going to get much easier on you and your teams in the year to come.

Product innovation has been around for centuries, ever since cave dwellers invented the first club to make dinnertime easier. In this new commerce era, however, with digital upstarts, algorithms, influencers, and other disruptors of consideration sets and shopping journeys, product innovation must change as well. Ash McMullen, Head of Ecommerce at Advantice Health, works with internal and external partners every day to redefine how product innovation is executed, starting with an understanding of audience and content that inspires the product, not the other way around. She joined the podcast to unpack this vital process transformation.

Getting clear answers to critical questions about your return on ad spend is, let’s just call it - a freaking nightmare. There are as yet no clear standards to compare retailer media apples to apples, no easy path to ROAS or, even more importantly, incremental ROAS, or iROAS. With the data being all over the place across retailers, and the incentives often at odds, the chain of trust on your media investments is broken. Not irretrievably so, but that’s where we are now. Andrew Criezis, President at NIQ, joined the podcast from the front lines of this battle for clear omnichannel ROI, and offers his best advice for how brands can organize and optimize for measurable omnichannel success.

Sometimes talking about the Future of Shopping, in capital letters, can be so annoying. Well, thanks for telling me someday we will be flying like the Jetsons, look it up GenZ, but what good does that do me now? That’s why it was so satisfying to talk about the near future of shopping - the cool, impactful experiences that are being created now by early adopters, with Nat Pavic, founder and host of the Salesforce Commerce Cloud Innovations Podcast, and product marketer at Salesforce. Take a listen - maybe the next best thing for your company is nearer than you think.

Every quarter, the ecommerce education consultancy Allume Group consolidates the output of expert conversations, annual reports, and the latest data to create their Allume Insider report, or AIR. 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 with the takeaways from Q2 based on their research.

A few weeks ago, Spencer Millerberg, Founding Partner at DetailPage.com was on the podcast talking about the latest in SEO trends in digital commerce. But we invited him back for a deeper dive on Amazon AI, as they are the bellwether of where SEO will go in the next few years. The changes are ones no brand should sleep on, and the opportunities to win market share based on the right product page content to feed that hungry beast Rufus will be considerable. For example, Amazon has added hidden fields to fuel some of this new SEO. And only 7% of brands have them filled out. Sure, SEO is just a game, but this time rules are REALLY changing. Spencer joined the pod to talk about what’s happening, and what’s ahead.

The pressure to achieve omnichannel growth profitably is on, and it’s changing the way brands need to operate. Jamie Schwab, now Vice President, Global Digital Commerce at Colgate-Palmolive, has lived through the stages of ecommerce from being the secret side show to its role as a driver of growth at companies like Unilever, Newell, and Dole. Now he leads a center of excellence for the people, process, data, and tech that will achieve the expected profitable omni results through enabling the best omni consumer experiences. It’s an exciting and challenging journey, and Jamie joined the podcast to share the details.