Retailgentic | Consumer Behavior & Retail Trend

Kevin Indig, growth advisor, SEO and AI-visibility expert, and author of Growth Memo, explores how shoppers behave when AI guides their buying decisions. He discusses why top-ranked recommendations win, trusted brands can overturn the shortlist, and few people verify AI suggestions. He also examines query fan-outs, Merchant Center, agentic checkout, and the future of ecommerce visibility.

Oscar Rundqvist, eComID founder and former H&M digital experience leader, shares the company’s $17.4M funding news and vision for a shopper-owned passport. They explore portable size and preference data, AI’s missing context, smarter search, lower returns, trust in agentic commerce, and eComID’s expansion from 70 brands into the U.S.

Personal AI agents feel refreshingly free of ads, but history suggests that may not last. The discussion explores how Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Amazon shifted toward advertising, why AI could follow the same path, and whether subscriptions or transaction fees offer better alternatives. It also examines emerging AI ad formats, retail media, and the risks of hidden steering versus transparent, relevant offers.

Justin Bomberowitz, Wilde Brands’ senior CPG leader, joins retail strategist Jason Goldberg to unpack how challenger snacks break through crowded shelves. They discuss Costco’s high-stakes rotations, TikTok Shop and Whatnot, faster delivery, ZIP-code-level demand, and Wilde’s unified data lake. A crunchy live recording explores how AI agents could reshape retail media and omnichannel growth.

Ekta Chopra, e.l.f. Beauty’s Chief Technology and AI Officer and author of the AI Chef newsletter, joins retail strategist Jason Goldberg for a candid look at AI’s next phase. They explore e.l.f.’s three-pod model, hiring for agentic commerce, balancing experimentation with governance, making the investment case, fixing bad data, AI-powered supply chains, and preparing for agent-driven shopping.

Erik Van Buskirk, an AI search and SEO researcher and founder of Clickstream Solutions, explores how people shop through ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode. They unpack why product cards beat written answers, how carousel position and first offers shape choices, why AI ads can feel useful, and how reviews, trust, and accurate merchant data influence AI commerce.

Danny Smith, Stripe’s Global Agentic Commerce Solutions Lead and former AWS and ServiceNow cloud architect, joins retail expert Jason Goldberg. They explore Link Wallet for secure agent purchases, bounded virtual cards, WebMCP and machine-readable checkout, catalog distribution to AI platforms, and why bot defenses can block high-intent shoppers. Along the way: Amazon’s Rufus, Meta’s Muse, hallucinating agents, and Stripe’s evolution from startup darling to payments powerhouse.

This week’s episode is a platform deep dive with one of the longest-tenured companies in e-commerce. Elastic Path has been building commerce software for 26 years and Bryan is now steering the company straight into the agentic era. It’s part founder-journey (craft brewing to CEO is not a typical path), part product deep dive, and part industry-shift conversation about what AI does to the economics of running a commerce platform.Highlights: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗘𝗢: Bryan spent eight years as a professional brewer, with an actual brewing degree, at a brewpub across from Fenway Park. "Everything I learned in my career that really moved the needle for me, I learned as a brewer."𝟮𝟲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲: Elastic Path's claim to fame was building the store for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the birth of its self-managed commerce product.𝗧𝗵𝗲 $𝟱𝟬𝟬𝗞 𝘂𝗽𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲, 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱: Elastic Path built an AI updater so one developer can upgrade a self-managed platform in about two weeks, replacing what used to be a half-million-dollar annual project.𝟭𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: where typical platforms cap out at 250 variations per item, Elastic Path supports 10,000, plus bundles of up to 1,500 items.𝗦𝗶𝘅 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱: Bryan's prediction… AI takes re-platforming from a 6-month-to-2-year, $500K–$3M digital transformation down to a setup fee. "That's the place we're gonna see the biggest impact of AI in commerce."𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟴𝟬-𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗣𝗗𝗙: in a world of AI discovery, every product needs the equivalent of an 80-page PDF of data to train the LLM on when to recommend it. (Scot's line, which Bryan says he "steals with credit" as often as he can.)𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: a UK custom greeting-card seller saw conversion jump 40% almost immediately after adopting Elastic Path's checkout𝗡𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘀: customers are asking about UCP and ACP, discovery, and the long tail, not chatbots. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹-𝗽𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗱: Bryan's framework for where AI lands first… well-understood patterns like checkout, front ends, and reorders, not judgment-heavy edge cases.Bryan is a product guy after our own heart, and this one gets satisfyingly deep, from CPQ to protocols to the future of re-platforming. Enjoy the conversation.Timestamps:03:20 Welcome Bryan + podcasting since 200904:05 Internet Retailer booth memories04:55 From craft brewing to software07:35 The Acquia and Drupal years08:20 Moltin, Neural Magic, joining Elastic Path11:05 Elastic Path history: the Olympics store13:20 Two products: SaaS + self-managed13:45 The AI updater: killing the $500K upgrade14:50 80 people, profitable, constraints breed innovation17:00 Customer base and the B2B focus19:15 CPQ, PXM, and 10,000 variations22:45 Serena & Lily case study24:10 The MACH Alliance backstory (spicy)29:55 Vibe coding the front end + Shopify as fintech33:20 AI re-platforming: six weeks and $100K39:00 The ReFiBuy partnership + the 80-page PDF40:55 AI roadmap: workflows, promotions, analytics43:20 B2B agentic commerce and EDI47:10 UCP, ACP, and the long tail49:05 Predictions: where the roads are well-paved51:20 What's next for Elastic Path👉 Connect with Bryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhouse/👉 Learn more about Elastic Path: https://www.elasticpath.com/🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

This week’s episode is a little different. We’ve has been noticing vibe-code platforms quietly showing up all over digital retail… at trade shows, in conversations with retailers and brands, and on the platforms’ own commerce pages. So we went to the source. This is a platform deep dive with Vercel, the enterprise company behind v0 and Next.js, on what a “vibe coding” company is actually doing in our world of commerce, and it turns out the answer is: a lot more than you’d think.Highlights 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟬𝟬-𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗵: A Deloitte Digital + Google study cites clients found 100ms of load-time reduction drives a 7–8% lift in e-commerce conversion. “If the thing is faster, you’re gonna convert more. It’s just math.”𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻’𝘀 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: The Kontoor Brands-owned retailer cut load times from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds on Vercel, grew conversion 20% year over year, doubled its A/B test velocity, and blew away its Black Friday/Cyber Monday plan.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹-𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵: Vercel in three phrases… a developer tools company, an infrastructure provider, and an open-source software factory.𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗹: walmart.com and target.com run on Next.js, and Under Armour, Crocs, Buck Mason, PetSmart, McAlister’s, DeWalt, Clorox, and even Meta.ai are Vercel-delivered applications.𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿: Vercel doesn’t do product catalogs, inventory, or order management. It’s the storefront layer on top of your commerce platform. “We help you own your storefront and own your destiny.”𝘃𝟬 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗳𝘆: v0 is now deeply integrated with Shopify, so you can customize your storefront in plain English 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗱: Custom storefront projects that were planned for a year are landing in six months, six-month plans in three.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿: Next.js 16 was built to be readable and manipulated by Cursor, Claude, and Codex, “now we have this new customer, this agent customer, who wants to interact with your code base.”𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁-𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗯 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Jaime’s conversion story: feeding 50-page client 10-Ks into ChatGPT in early 2023 and realizing everything about go-to-market, and the factories that make software, was about to change.This one really lifted the veil on what the vibe-code platforms are actually doing in retail, and I think we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Enjoy the conversation.Timestamps: 05:29 Welcome Jaime Sorgente06:08 Jaime's path to Vercel: ChatGPT and 10-Ks12:29 Utilities vs. builders15:00 What is Vercel? The cocktail-party pitch17:10 Why retail as a vertical21:20 The Helly Hansen story24:05 Vercel's other verticals: digital natives and marketing26:45 Enabler, not competitor: where Vercel fits vs. Shopify & Salesforce29:35 Beyond the storefront: clienteling and staff apps30:45 Agents everywhere: Crocs, Amazon image annotation36:05 v0 + Shopify: customize your storefront in English37:45 Next.js 16: built for the agent customer39:20 Custom storefront timelines, halved40:35 Does owning your storefront de-risk replatforming?42:20 The 100-millisecond study44:30 The compounding effect: 4X feature velocity46:45 Next.js explained: the stage manager analogy52:20 Framework-defined infrastructure54:30 Vercel vs. Lovable, Replit, and Base4458:15 Where to learn more + wrap-up👉 Connect with Jaime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsorgente/👉 Learn more about Vercel: https://vercel.com/for/retail🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

This week’s episode is a deep dive into personalization, a huge category in e-commerce that’s getting rebuilt from the ground up for the AI era. FERMÀT is an AI-native personalization platform that sits on top of your e-commerce platform and customizes the site experience based on a visitor’s behavior, not their identity. That distinction sounds subtle, but it turns out to be the whole ballgame and it connects directly to agentic commerce because agents show up with intent, not an identity. We also pick up Rishabh’s founder journey and some very candid company-building advice along the way.Highlights 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬% 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘁: FERMÀT's data shows personalizing on behavior alone, even for fully incognito visitors, converts roughly 20% better than personalizing on identity and past purchases.𝗠𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲: the marketer's dream of one-to-one was "a lack of imagination", the same person is a different shopper on Instagram, Google, and ChatGPT. 𝗗𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁, 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲: instead of humans watching a sample of session recordings and shipping site changes months later, agents trained on commerce watch every session, recommend changes, and generate the new experience.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗺𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: identity-based personalization was state-of-the-art 10 years ago. Rishabh's take on the incumbents: if nothing changes, "their 3 to 400 million of revenue will become 2 to 300."𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗱, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗗: even when an Instagram visitor is anonymous, the ad they clicked carries demographics, performance history, and frequency data… context most brands never use.𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁: an agent is only as good as the feedback, context, and iteration speed you give it and every "actually, I also care about the collar" update is behavior data.𝗦𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲: Platforms are using AI to verify your pages and truth gets rewarded, not dinged.𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 ≠ 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁: support agents should stick to facts and policies; shopper agents should infer.Rishabh is one of the clearest thinkers I’ve talked to on where personalization goes in an agent-first world, and his founder advice at the end is worth the listen on its own. Enjoy the conversation.Timestamps: 02:44 Welcome Rishabh 03:37 Rishabh's backstory: physics, Wall Street, PhD06:33 Building three businesses at LiveRamp07:56 Founding story: Apple ATT and iOS 14.510:33 Detect, recommend, generate12:27 Where FERMÀT sits in the stack13:57 Many-to-one personalization15:22 The Bloomreach question19:00 Does current behavior beat past behavior?21:18 The data: a 20% conversion lift22:34 The agentic commerce connection23:44 The real estate agent analogy25:41 Reading intent from incognito traffic26:28 Into the weeds: mining a Meta ad for context30:37 Side quest: the SEO cloaking myth33:47 Writing for agents, bots, and humans34:49 On-site shopper agents39:40 Company building: know your why42:38 Where to find Rishabh + the 1 to 100 podcast👉 Connect with Rishabh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishabhmjain/👉 Learn more about FERMÀT: https://www.fermatcommerce.com/👉 1 to 100 podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6WAB5oOzco9oWrQmYmuFZ6🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic