The Retail Razor Show Podcast

Cutting through the clutter in retail strategy, retail technology, and executive leadership. Welcome to The Retail Razor Show — your go-to podcast for bold strategic insights and real-world innovation in the retail industry. We spotlight the trends transforming retail, from agentic AI for frontline retail, agentic commerce, and retail media networks, to the human connection that drives exceptional customer experience and maximizes employee satisfaction. Hosted by RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert, Thinkers360 Top Thought Leader and one of NRF’s 2025 Retail Voices, Ricardo Belmar, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert, retail tech startup founder, and CI&T North American Leader, Casey Golden. Episodes feature: Executive leaders from top retail brandsInfluential industry analysts and retail strategistsStartup founders driving innovation in retail technologyCase studies of successful retail tech deploymentsStraight talk on strategy and innovation Whether you’re a retail executive, frontline store team leader, tech innovator, product junkie, or customer experience champion, this show delivers actionable strategies to help you lead your business and your teams with clarity, adopt emerging AI and media technologies, and stay ahead in a constantly evolving retail industry. Subscribe Now in its sixth season, The Retail Razor Show is part of the Retail Razor Podcast Network. Stay sharp. Stay human. Stay ahead. 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 Follow The Retail Razor Podcast Network on LinkedIn: https://go.retailrazor.com/IN BlueSky: https://go.retailrazor.com/Bluesky Instagram: https://go.retailrazor.com/insta Threads: https://go.retailrazor.com/threads Facebook: https://go.retailrazor.com/Facebook About your hosts Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, a Top 25 AGI & Careers, a Top 50 Agentic AI & Management, & a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Transformation Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 & 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 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 a 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! 

  1. 6d ago

    280,000 Pickers: The eGrocery Fulfillment Math Nobody Fixed

    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 sponsorsThis Episode is 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, with 2,000 senior leaders working through how AI is transforming retail. If you're shaping AI's future in retail, budget shouldn't be why you miss it. Register by August 28 at retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast. Subscribe & FollowHow 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 guestsHank 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. Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    280,000 Pickers: The eGrocery Fulfillment Math Nobody Fixed
  2. Jul 15

    Store Traffic & Conversion Rates: Why In‑Store Converts up to 70%, with Mark Ryski

    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 sponsorsThis 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 & FollowIf 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 guestMark 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. Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    Store Traffic & Conversion Rates: Why In‑Store Converts up to 70%, with Mark Ryski
  3. Jun 13

    Pragmatic AI for Retail’s Frontline: Tokenless & On-Device

    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 mattersWe’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 & FollowIf 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 guestsTom 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/ Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    Pragmatic AI for Retail’s Frontline: Tokenless & On-Device
  4. May 29

    Retail Trends 2026 - 8 Signals From The Lead Summit

    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 & FollowIf 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 Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    Retail Trends 2026 - 8 Signals From The Lead Summit
  5. May 27

    Shaken, Not Stirred — and Maybe Non-Alcoholic: The Future of Beverages & Spirits

    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 EpisodeAllison'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 & FollowIf 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 GuestAllison 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. Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    Shaken, Not Stirred — and Maybe Non-Alcoholic: The Future of Beverages & Spirits
  6. Apr 24

    AI Agents Gone Rogue: The Cybersecurity Risks Retailers Are Ignoring in Agentic Commerce

    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 objectiveHow prompt injection attacks trick AI agents into leaking sensitive dataWhy every AI agent needs its own identity, login, and role-based access controls — just like an employeeThe "bots watching bots" architecture that's becoming the new standard in agentic commerce securityHow AI shopping bots are already exploiting loyalty programs, gift cards, and rewards systemsWhy retailers must rethink retail cybersecurity assumptions as autonomous shoppers replace human onesHow to identify rogue chatbots and fraudulent AI agents impersonating legitimate brandsWhat "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 & FollowIf 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 GuestDr. 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. Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    AI Agents Gone Rogue: The Cybersecurity Risks Retailers Are Ignoring in Agentic Commerce
  7. Mar 27

    Off-site Retail Media & CTV - Andrew Lipsman on Retail Media’s Next Frontier

    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 networksHow off-site retail media is growing 3x faster than on-siteThe real story behind ROAS and why it’s often misleadingHow Amazon and Walmart are dominating performance TVWhat smaller RMNs can do to compete through partnershipsWhy CMOs and agencies must evolve their retail media strategyHow 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 & FollowIf 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 GuestAndrew 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. Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    Off-site Retail Media & CTV - Andrew Lipsman on Retail Media’s Next Frontier
  8. Mar 10

    What Agentic Commerce & Agentic AI Mean for Retailers Right Now

    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 LearnWhat agentic commerce actually is; and why it matters nowHow agentic AI is reshaping product discovery, checkout, and loyaltyThe three core use cases: CUA, agentic checkout, and autonomous agent‑to‑agent shoppingWhy payments, identity, and trust are the foundation of agentic commerceHow merchant‑of‑record models protect data and customer relationshipsThe role of loyalty programs in an agent‑driven worldCatalog readiness and the challenge of integrating with multiple LLMsHow close we are to the universal cartWhat retailers must do today to prepare for the agentic shift Why This Episode MattersAgentic 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 & FollowIf 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 GuestMike 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. Chapters00:00 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 hostsHelping 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!  MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

    What Agentic Commerce & Agentic AI Mean for Retailers Right Now

Trailers

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About

Cutting through the clutter in retail strategy, retail technology, and executive leadership. Welcome to The Retail Razor Show — your go-to podcast for bold strategic insights and real-world innovation in the retail industry. We spotlight the trends transforming retail, from agentic AI for frontline retail, agentic commerce, and retail media networks, to the human connection that drives exceptional customer experience and maximizes employee satisfaction. Hosted by RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert, Thinkers360 Top Thought Leader and one of NRF’s 2025 Retail Voices, Ricardo Belmar, and RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert, retail tech startup founder, and CI&T North American Leader, Casey Golden. Episodes feature: Executive leaders from top retail brandsInfluential industry analysts and retail strategistsStartup founders driving innovation in retail technologyCase studies of successful retail tech deploymentsStraight talk on strategy and innovation Whether you’re a retail executive, frontline store team leader, tech innovator, product junkie, or customer experience champion, this show delivers actionable strategies to help you lead your business and your teams with clarity, adopt emerging AI and media technologies, and stay ahead in a constantly evolving retail industry. Subscribe Now in its sixth season, The Retail Razor Show is part of the Retail Razor Podcast Network. Stay sharp. Stay human. Stay ahead. 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 Follow The Retail Razor Podcast Network on LinkedIn: https://go.retailrazor.com/IN BlueSky: https://go.retailrazor.com/Bluesky Instagram: https://go.retailrazor.com/insta Threads: https://go.retailrazor.com/threads Facebook: https://go.retailrazor.com/Facebook About your hosts Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, a Top 25 AGI & Careers, a Top 50 Agentic AI & Management, & a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Transformation Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 & 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 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 a 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! 

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