Reclaiming the Merchant’s Role in a Tech-Obsessed Retail World

Algorithms can rank, bid, and predict, but can they choose with taste? We open the door to a candid look at the merchant’s role in a retail world obsessed with technology, marketplaces, and media networks. From assortment strategy and pricing judgment to supplier relationships and inventory flow, we unpack the timeless skills that still separate a curated experience from a crowded feed—and how to protect them.

I share why the craft hasn’t changed as much as the environment around it, and how today’s tools—POS analytics, review mining, social sentiment, and inventory dashboards—should serve as force multipliers rather than replacements. We explore the art of weighting signals, spotting real trends versus noisy spikes, and using data to inform human intuition instead of steamrolling it. We also dig into the upside and downside of marketplaces and retail media: expanded access and new revenue on one hand, and the risk of turning merchants into listing managers and publishers on the other.

If differentiation, customer connection, and profitability matter, the merchant’s voice must anchor the strategy. You’ll hear practical ways to keep a clear point of view at scale, build supplier partnerships that create exclusivity and relevance, and align metrics with meaning so short-term gains don’t dilute long-term trust. Subscribe, share with a teammate who lives in dashboards, and leave a review—what’s your take: curate or compute?

Chapters

• 0:07 Welcome and Topic Setup
• 0:43 Tech Hype Versus Merchant Craft
• 1:25 What Merchants Actually Do
• 2:37 Data, Intuition, and Over-Automation
• 3:38 Marketplaces, Media, and Mission Drift
• 4:33 Metrics, Differentiation, and Final Call

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Well, hello everyone, and welcome to Scott's Thoughts. I'm Scott Benedict. You know, uh I wanted to talk about something uh today that's that's close to my heart, and and that is, in my view, the increasingly forgotten uh role of the merchant in in modern retailing. Now, full disclosure, I'm a merchant by training. I I did uh merchandising for more of my career uh than anything else or any other function. So I may not be a completely objective uh viewer on this, but here's what made me want to talk about that today. And that is in today's environment in retailing, so much energy uh and investment is flowing into technology, into marketplace platforms, into retail media networks. And don't get me wrong, those are powerful tools that are reshaping how consumers shop and how retailers generate sales and revenue uh from their business. But amid all of that buzz, all of that focus, the merchant, the person who decides what products a retailer carries, how they're priced, how they're merchandised, how they're promoted, my view, uh often gets lost a little bit in the shuffle. At its core, a merchant's job hasn't really changed all that much. It's about selecting the right products at the right time, at the right price, aimed at the target consumer. What that means is that developing a merchandising strategy that aligns with the retailer's brand and their customer promise is still very important. Building supplier relationships, sourcing neat new products and negotiating terms, still very important. Forecasting inventory needs and the flow of merchandise to hit certain dates in which you want that product in or off your shelf, whether it's a physical shelf or digital shelf, and watching what the competition is doing, studying trends both in products and in consumers, and applying consumer insights to what your product offering is. All these skills are timeless. They require judgment, intuition, the ability to negotiate, and a deep understanding of the customer, but they're now enabled by more advanced technology than ever before. And in fact, technology has transformed how merchants do their jobs in some really, in my view, exciting ways. Merchants have access to more data than ever before, whether that's point of sale data, readings and reviews, social media sentiment, uh, inventory dashboards, a number of different tools. But the challenge is not just having the data, but how to weigh and utilize each of the data points that a merchant has to make good decisions and to inform human intuition. Retailers uh can lean too far, in my view, into automation and risk losing the art of merchandising, the ability to see around corners and what trends are going to emerge, to understand a consumer's emotional drivers of a purchase and to build product offering, product assortments that really inspire consumers to shop with them. Marketplaces have expanded product asset uh access and have reduced the risk for retailers because they don't have to own all of that merchandise. Retail media has created entire new revenue streams for retailer. And both of these trends, in my view, if unchecked, can reduce merchandising ability to become more than just a manager of listings or someone who's selling eyeballs or visibility. In my view, that's not retailing, that's that's publishing. Merchant's voice is one that ensures that a retailer's offering stays curated, even in a digital setting, but has a point of view and has a customer need uh uh really at their focus. Without strong merchants, in my view, retailing becomes clutter, not clarity. Retailers measure buyers' performance, the merchant's performance by things like revenue, profitability, the positive flow of the inventory, and competitive set assessments, how are you doing against your competitive sets? Now these mer these metrics are only as strong as the merchants shaping the offer. If we allow, in my view, technology and media to eclipse merchandising, retailers risk losing their differentiation, their connection with their target customer, and ultimately their profitability. So my message today is simply this let's not lose sight of the role of the merchant. In modern retail, technology and media are essential, but they are force multipliers. They are not replacements for merchants. The merchant is still the one who brings together data, consumer insights, and supplier partnerships to deliver something meaningful to a shopper. Retail has been and always will be, in my view, about people making great choices on behalf of the customer. And a merchant's role in making those choices remains vital and always will. That's what I've been thinking about. I'm Scott Benedict.