Retailgentic | Consumer Behavior & Retail Trend

Scot Wingo | Retail Trends Analyst

Retailgentic explores consumer behavior and retail trends to help brands and retailers innovate. Join Scot Wingo for expert insights, actionable news, and ecommerce innovation strategies to navigate the future of retail and agentic commerce.

  1. The Infrastructure Behind Agentic Commerce: How Arjun Bhargava Is Building Checkout for AI at Rye

    15 HR AGO

    The Infrastructure Behind Agentic Commerce: How Arjun Bhargava Is Building Checkout for AI at Rye

    Everyone is focused on how AI helps people discover products. But what happens after that? In this episode of Retailgentic, we go deep on the missing layer of agentic commerce: checkout, payments, and fulfillment. Because it turns out, the hardest part isn’t finding the product. It’s buying it. Rye is building what they describe as the “Stripe for commerce.” It connects AI agents, apps, and platforms to merchants handling: Checkout and order placementPayment orchestrationFulfillment across retailers like Amazon and ShopifyIn short: if an AI agent decides what to buy, Rye helps it actually buy it. Highlights  Checkout is the real bottleneck: Discovery is improving fast, but actually placing an order across fragmented systems is still incredibly hard.Rye enables real AI purchasing: They connect agents to merchants, allowing products to be bought directly from platforms like Amazon.Amazon is a critical unlock: Most bots are blocked, but Rye’s API-based approach allows real transactions to go through.Protocols won’t solve everything: Even if UCP/ACP take off, long-tail merchants and major players won’t fully standardize.B2B is the sleeper opportunity: Complex procurement decisions are a perfect fit for agent-driven commerce.AI reduces returns: More context leads to better decisions, driving return rates extremely low.We’re still early, but close: One breakout use case could flip massive volume into agentic commerce quickly.Agentic commerce isn’t just about what gets recommended—it’s about what actually gets bought. Timestamps:  02:00 — Meet Arjun Bhargava and Rye 04:00 — Founding story and early vision 08:00 — Contextual commerce → agentic commerce 11:00 — What Rye does (simple explanation) 14:00 — How AI agents place orders 18:00 — The rye.com story 22:00 — Amazon integration and why it matters 26:00 — Payments, tokenization, and infrastructure 30:00 — UCP vs ACP debate 35:00 — Why protocols won’t cover everything 40:00 — Where agentic commerce is heading 42:00 — B2B opportunity and procurement 46:00 — Real-world AI agent example 47:30 — Closing 👉 Connect with Arjun: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjunbhargava/👉 Learn more about Rye: rye.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

    48 min
  2. The AI Ad Gold Rush: Inside ChatGPT’s Ad Test, Retail Media’s Next Battle, and the Rise of “AI Media” with Debra Aho Williamson

    2 APR

    The AI Ad Gold Rush: Inside ChatGPT’s Ad Test, Retail Media’s Next Battle, and the Rise of “AI Media” with Debra Aho Williamson

    In this episode, Scot sits down with Debra to unpack what might be the most important shift in digital advertising since social media. This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening right now, and brands that don’t understand it risk getting left out of the new chain of commerce. Highlights  Why ChatGPT’s ad rollout is just the beginning, not an experimentThe tension between trust vs. monetization in AI interfacesHow retailers are both excited and terrified of AI shopping agentsThe emergence of “AI Media” as a new category (like social + retail media before it)Why current ad formats are “boring”… and what comes nextHow companies should actually prepare (hint: it’s not just media buying)The shift from advertising to agent influence, and what that means for the futureWe’re still early, but not that early. The rules of digital advertising are being rewritten in real time, and for the first time in decades, the winners aren’t obvious. The question isn’t whether AI will reshape commerce. It’s whether your products, and your data, are ready to compete when agents decide what gets bought. Timestamps:  02:19 – Meet Debra Aho Williamson   05:00 – From social media to AI: spotting the next shift   09:00 – What “AI Ad Economy” actually means   11:00 – Are we at a social media–level inflection point?   13:00 – ChatGPT ads: early signals and what matters   16:00 – Why current AI ads look like search ads   18:00 – Trust vs. monetization: the line platforms can’t cross   23:00 – Why retailers are leading AI ad adoption   25:00 – Google’s AI ad strategy vs. ChatGPT   29:00 – Perplexity, Copilot, and the fragmented landscape   33:00 – Where Meta fits (and why it’s surprising)   35:00 – New ad formats: sponsored prompts + conversational ads   38:00 – Reddit, TikTok, and emerging players   40:00 – How brands should prepare for AI media   43:00 – Why structured product data is critical   45:00 – The future: ads for agents, not humans 👉 Connect with Debra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debrawilliamson/👉 Learn more about Sonata Insights: https://www.sonatainsights.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

    50 min
  3. Retailgentic Exclusive: Live from the Shoptalk AI Stage - The First Shoptalk Debate: Will AI Agents Transform Retail?

    26 MAR

    Retailgentic Exclusive: Live from the Shoptalk AI Stage - The First Shoptalk Debate: Will AI Agents Transform Retail?

    Today we’re dropping a surprise podcast that is different than anything we’ve done before and a first of it’s kind! Scot Wingo was invited by Ben Miller, VP of Content and Strategy to participate in the first ever shoptalk debate format talk. The topic - Agentic Commerce Will AI agents transform retail? On the pro agentic side we had Ekta Chopin, CDO at ELF Beauty and myself.  If you’re not familiar with Ekta, she’s a thought leading CDO and has a great substack for other CDOs. On the ‘anti agentic side’ we had Sarah Marzano, Principal Analyst, Retail Ecommerce and Retail Media at Emarketer and Andrew Lipsman - independent analyst and consultant for media, ads and commerce. Before the show, Scot asked and received permission from Shoptalk and all the participants to turn the raw audio into a podcast. In the AI era, speed matters so we are getting this in your hands only 2 days after it happened. This debate took place at 12pm PDT on Tuesday March 24th at Shoptalk’s AI Stage. Timestamps00:01 – Why this episode is different from anything Retailgentic has done before 01:28 – The Shoptalk debate topic: Will AI Agents Transform Retail? 02:04 – Meet the debaters: Ekta Chopra, Andrew Lipsman, and Sarah Marzano 07:48 – The first big battle: how should agentic commerce be defined? 10:25 – Scot’s argument: consumers are already changing behavior faster than many retailers realize 13:16 – Sarah’s pushback: brands need clarity before making big bets 15:18 – Consumer adoption: how much automation will shoppers really accept? 17:16 – Why product data and offer-card visibility matter now 19:05 – Andrew’s argument: shopping still requires human decision-making 23:05 – Ekta on brand visibility, content readiness, and why this matters for beauty 24:49 – 2030 predictions: will 10% of e-commerce be bot-to-bot? 27:03 – Does agentic commerce threaten retail media? 29:11 – Sarah’s case for why AI referrals may actually help retailers 32:22 – Ekta on why rich product data matters more than media for e.l.f. 33:06 – Scot’s case that traffic decline is already starting in some categories 37:16 – What brands and retailers should do over the next 6–18 months 40:25 – Why Sarah says brands should test, but not overreact 42:11 – Scot’s closing case for why this shift is fundamentally different 43:22 – Andrew’s closing warning against fear-based decision-making 🧠 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

    45 min
  4. Ashish Gupta, VP/GM of Merchant Shopping at Google: UCP Deep Dive, Nerding out on Product Data Feeds, the importance of Product-Level Context PLUS Google's Vision for Agentic Commerce

    19 MAR

    Ashish Gupta, VP/GM of Merchant Shopping at Google: UCP Deep Dive, Nerding out on Product Data Feeds, the importance of Product-Level Context PLUS Google's Vision for Agentic Commerce

    This episode explores the shift from traditional search and ecommerce flows into a new agentic commerce environment where shoppers are using AI surfaces to discover, compare, and increasingly delegate parts of the buying journey. Ashish explains what Google was seeing internally that led to the development of UCP, why the protocol was designed to be open and ecosystem-wide, and why the ambition goes far beyond checkout. He also shares how Google is thinking about discovery, conversational product data, merchant readiness, and the long-term role of AI across the shopping journey. For retailers, brands, marketplaces, and commerce tech teams, this conversation is a helpful window into what Google believes is changing now, and what foundations businesses should be investing in before the market fully shifts. Highlights  How Google’s large-scale ad and data systems shaped his approach to commerceWhy UCP emerged now, and the two major trends that inspired itWhy Google believes agentic commerce needs an open, ecosystem-wide standardWhy the future of UCP extends far beyond checkoutHow discovery is starting to take shape within the protocolWhy richer, more conversational product data matters in AI shopping experiencesWhat retailers need to do now to improve visibility on AI surfacesHow Google is thinking about the relationship between agentic commerce and advertisingWhy agentic commerce is still early, but already moving from concept to realityAgentic commerce is still early, but this conversation makes one thing clear: the infrastructure decisions being made now will shape who gets discovered, considered, and chosen in the next era of shopping. Timestamps2:32 — Welcome and introduction to Ashish Gupta 5:01 — Building Google’s data infrastructure and declarative querying at scale 9:43 — AI at Google before the current wave 11:32 — What it means to be an Engineering Fellow at Google 14:00 — Balancing technical leadership and operational leadership 16:10 — Why Ashish moved into merchant shopping 17:41 — The origin story behind UCP 24:58 — Why Google chose an open protocol approach 27:50 — Responding to skepticism around Google’s commerce efforts 32:30 — Discovery, catalog search, and where UCP expands next 35:39 — Multi-item and multi-merchant cart support 37:43 — New protocol capabilities and partner onboarding 38:42 — Why product data quality matters more in AI shopping 43:22 — How shoppers are using AI surfaces in more complex ways 47:47 — Agentic commerce and advertising 50:10 — Where agentic commerce may go from here 51:46 — Closing thoughts and where to follow Ashish 👉 Connect with Ashish: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashishgupta98/ 👉 Check out UCP announcement: https://www.retailgentic.com/p/flash-googlenrf-announces-universal 🧠 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

    47 min
  5. Inside Vendee Labs: Darryl Carlton and Ross Gardiner on Building Buyer-First Agentic Commerce

    12 MAR

    Inside Vendee Labs: Darryl Carlton and Ross Gardiner on Building Buyer-First Agentic Commerce

    In this episode, we take a deep dive into what buyer-side agentic commerce could actually look like. The conversation explores the origins of the company, why Darryl and Ross focused on reducing friction for buyers, and how that unexpectedly opened up solutions for sellers, payment providers, and enterprise procurement teams as well. The episode also features a live demo of Vendee Labs’ platform, showing conversational discovery, real-time product retrieval, multi-vendor carting, and a multi-item ACP checkout flow.  Highlights Why Vendee Labs is approaching agentic commerce from the buyer’s perspectiveThe founding story behind the company and the friction that inspired itHow ChatGPT and Claude changed the direction of the productA live demo of conversational commerce across real merchantsWhat a multi-vendor, multi-item ACP checkout could mean for online shoppingWhy autonomous commerce needs legal and governance frameworks, not just AIThe vision for a Universal Protocol Bridge across ACP, UCP, and future standardsHow strong permissions and audit trails could reduce chargebacks and disputesWhy poor product data creates broken outcomes in agentic shoppingWhere Vendee Labs sees opportunity across consumer, B2B, procurement, and white-label use casesVendee Labs is betting that the future of commerce won’t just be agent-powered—it will be buyer-centered, trust-driven, and built to work across whatever protocols come next. Timestamps: 00:06:09 — Ross shares his background in global technology planning and delivery 00:07:23 — Darryl shares his background in retail IT, telecom, AI, and governance 00:08:53 — Darryl reflects on AI before and after the ChatGPT moment 00:10:03 — Discussion on LLMs, explainability, and true intelligence 00:11:26 — The founding story behind Vendee Labs 00:13:13 — How the product evolved into its current form 00:16:06 — The Vendee Labs pitch: changing how the world buys 00:17:06 — Why solving buyer friction also solves seller-side pain points 00:20:18 — Live demo begins 00:21:10 — Running shoes search and conversational discovery demo 00:25:42 — Multi-vendor cart and checkout walkthrough 00:31:06 — Why richer product data is critical for agentic commerce 00:35:46 — Consumer, B2B, procurement, and white-label distribution paths 00:38:46 — Team size, bootstrapping, and current company stage 00:40:39 — Ross outlines roadmap, buyer taxonomy, and MVP plans 00:42:15 — Scot and Darryl discuss adoption speed in agentic commerce 00:44:18 — Darryl’s theory on trust events and adoption 00:45:34 — Governance-by-design versus fixing broken outputs later 00:47:46 — Where to learn more and try the demo 👉 Connect with Darryl: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrylcarlton/👉 Connect with Ross: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossgardiner/👉 Check out the demo: https://vendeelabs.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

    50 min
  6. Exploring the Intersection of OpenClaw and Agentic Commerce:lobster: - the Retailgentic Podcast OpenClaw Deep Dive

    5 MAR

    Exploring the Intersection of OpenClaw and Agentic Commerce:lobster: - the Retailgentic Podcast OpenClaw Deep Dive

    In this episode of the top Agentic Commerce Podcast we explore the powerful shopping powers of the OpenClaw open-source agent. Can the Claw shop on Amazon, shop locally and use the VisionClaw system with META Ray-Ban’s to buy a very hard to search for dog treat? Tune in to find out! Highlights: What OpenClaw is (and why “persistent” changes everything)The real difference between OpenClaw vs. ChatGPT/Claude as toolsHow OpenClaw runs (Mac Mini vs. cloud VPS like DigitalOcean)Why “no guardrails” is both the innovation and the riskRisk mitigation: limiting blast radius with single-use virtual cardsWhy browser-driven commerce is riskier than server-to-server protocols (ACP/UCP)The “skills” layer: how OpenClaw becomes extensible like Lego bricksWhy SERP-style APIs beat slow webpage crawling for shopping tasksLive demos: product search, local inventory, and frictionless checkoutUsing Slack as the agent interface (channels for shopping, health, etc.)The sci-fi moment: Meta Ray-Ban glasses + VisionClaw + Gemini for visual shoppingOpenClaw isn’t the final answer for agentic commerce, security and architecture matter, but it is an incredible preview of where the UX is heading. If you want a glimpse of the “always-on shopping agent” future (and how people are hacking it together right now), this one’s for you. Happy agentic commerce.🦞 Timestamps: 01:38 — OpenClaw takeover begins: why Scot called Ryan as a lifeline 05:26 — What OpenClaw is: persistent agent, open source, “unhinged,” and why that matters 08:21 — The “gigantic loop”: always-on agent behavior (old-school “cron jobs,” new-school autonomy) 09:26 — The killer feature: OpenClaw keeps working after you close your laptop 12:33 — Read-only Gmail as an assistant: catching missed emails + reducing cognitive load 14:35 — The trap: spending time building automation to “save time” (catch-22) 15:33 — Why OpenClaw-style commerce is riskier than ACP/UCP: browser manipulation 18:02 — Gateway Dashboard tour: where OpenClaw is configured (channels, skills, cron jobs) 20:30 — Skill spotlight: Rye for agentic Amazon-friendly purchasing 22:39 — Skill spotlight: SERP API for faster product search + ratings without crawling 24:30 — Skill spotlight: Buy Anything for context-filled checkout (address, identity, card) 28:19 — Demo: “Find me the 5 best-rated 65-inch TVs” (online + local) 35:20 — Live purchase demo: finding USB-C cables, choosing Anker, and the agent checks out 37:05 — “Most frictionless checkout”: no login, agent already knows everything 37:31 — What this means for Alexa: why “available 24/7” changes habits 39:07 — Meta Glasses demo setup: first-person vision commerce  40:24 — Vision commerce in action: identifies product + searches best price automatically 41:34 — Multi-store results: Amazon + Chewy + Walmart links dropped into Slack 👉 Connect with Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryaneade/ 🧠 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

    44 min
  7. Kiri Master's Round 2: The Ad Wars Come to Agentic Commerce

    26 FEB

    Kiri Master's Round 2: The Ad Wars Come to Agentic Commerce

    Retail media has been a profit engine for retailers, especially onsite sponsored product ads with massive margins. But what happens when shopping shifts from browsing and searching to AI agents that “decide the SKU” before a shopper ever hits a retailer site? In this episode, Scot and Kiri map the collision course between retail media networks and agentic commerce, walk through emerging ad formats from Google, Amazon (Rufus), and LLMs, and dig into the hardest problem of all: monetizing AI attention without breaking trust. What’s Covered: Why agentic shopping compresses the journey, and shrinks onsite ad inventoryThe “two threats” to onsite retail mediaHow offsite retail media depends on audience signals that may dry up as browsing declinesWhy in-store media may be the most resilient channel Google’s “Direct Offers,” the rise of an agentic storefront, and what it unlocksThe emerging idea of “Agentic PLAs” and retailers bidding at the SKU level (Buy Box vibes)Kiri’s wishlist: multimodal ads (video/try-ons), offsite audience extension, and contextual targeting over “creepy” behavioral retargetingAgentic commerce won’t kill advertising, but it will force it to evolve fast. The winners will be the platforms that can monetize attention without sacrificing trust, and the brands/retailers that learn to show up in these new surfaces early. Timestamps 00:05:04 — Meet Kiri Masters + Retail Media Breakfast Club00:08:01 — The three buckets: onsite, offsite, in-store retail media00:10:01 — Why onsite is the money machine (and most vulnerable)00:11:11 — Offsite retail media + closed-loop attribution00:14:23 — In-store media: small today, resilient tomorrow00:16:11 — Are retailers already seeing traffic shifts? Category matters00:19:27 — ChatGPT ads: early signals and why it’s still rudimentary00:21:22 — Scott’s framework: ad formats + Instant Checkout incentives00:23:06 — Google’s “Direct Offers” and the agentic storefront idea00:25:10 — Collaborative bidding: retailer + brand split the spend00:28:11 — Google testing new units: “Agentic PLA” / paid retailer placement00:33:14 — Trust vs monetization: don’t break the golden goose00:34:04 — Amazon Rufus: sponsored prompts as a new surface00:39:08 — Instacart’s ad playbook + trade dollars as inspiration00:40:38 — Why it’s not a race to the bottom: service layers + loyalty00:43:24 — The big hope: context-based targeting over creepy retargetingk00:46:52 — If Kiri ran ChatGPT ads: offsite + multimodal + new formats00:48:04 — Virtual try-ons + “throw away the sponsored product textbook”00:50:00 — Closing + follow Retailgentic👉 Connect with Kiri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiri-masters/👉 Learn more about Retail Media Breakfast Club: https://www.retailmediabreakfastclub.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

    50 min
  8. True Fit Announces Agentic Commerce Agent To Solve the Fit/Sizing-Driven $850B Returns Crisis Facing Fashion Online Retailers

    17 FEB

    True Fit Announces Agentic Commerce Agent To Solve the Fit/Sizing-Driven $850B Returns Crisis Facing Fashion Online Retailers

    True Fit is evolving from a static “what size should I buy?” widget into a conversational agent that can handle the nuanced questions shoppers actually ask: comfort, flattering fit, fabric behavior, and edge cases like petite proportions. We also dig into how vertical agents (like True Fit) can accelerate horizontal super-agents via Model Context Protocol (MCP), and why the future of agentic shopping will be built on clean, structured, prioritized proprietary data, not scraped internet sentiment. Highlights True Fit’s specialized size + fit agent (and why it matters now)Why 70% of fashion agent questions are about size/fitThe “Fit Passport”: from form-filling to natural conversation profilingWhat generic agents miss: real-time sales + returns behavior, not just PDPs/reviewsVertical vs. horizontal agents, and how True Fit uses MCP as an accelerantThe unglamorous moat: data cleaning, normalization, canonicalizationTrue Fit scale: 80M active users, hundreds of millions of profiles, ~100K brands, ~500 retailersIf agentic commerce is collapsing the funnel, fit is one of the biggest friction points left, and True Fit is making it a first-class agent powered by the kind of data most models will never see. Timestamps 01:44 — Breaking news episode + guest intro (Jessica Murphy, True Fit) 03:12 — True Fit announces a specialized size + fit agent 04:20 — From static widget to agentic shopping assistant 05:47 — Why fit-related returns are so brutal in apparel 07:02 — What the agent experience looks like 08:05 — “Fit Passport” and conversational profiling 09:07 — Where checkout happens (and what’s coming later) 10:17 — Why generic agents break: stale info + limited context 11:35 — The moat: structuring + cleaning sizing data 12:30 — Vertical vs. horizontal agents 13:29 — MCP as an accelerant for super-agents 15:18 — Top-of-funnel value: narrowing choices to “most likely kept” 16:10 — Who might use TrueFit’s MCP (LLMs + agent builders) 16:37 — Availability: March partners, April target GA 18:01 — Founder story: why Jessica started True Fit 19:41 — Fundraising reality + “it’s a data problem” 21:16 — True Fit scale + global complexity of sizing 👉 Connect with Jessica: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-murphy-68a8b8/👉 Learn more about True Fit: https://www.truefit.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

    24 min
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Retailgentic explores consumer behavior and retail trends to help brands and retailers innovate. Join Scot Wingo for expert insights, actionable news, and ecommerce innovation strategies to navigate the future of retail and agentic commerce.

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