Ep. 15 - Scraping Explained: Data Secrets for E-Commerce with Blake Taylor

The “easy” part of e-commerce ended years ago. Now brands are expected to deliver perfect product content, navigate an increasingly crowded digital shelf, and prove performance across retail media while the rules keep changing underneath them. I’m joined by retail commerce expert Blake Taylor to break down what’s actually working right now and what’s quietly becoming non-negotiable for the next wave of digital commerce.

We talk through why content is still the foundation of e-commerce success, not just to answer shopper questions on the product detail page, but to feed the systems that increasingly shape visibility. That leads into scraping, data availability, and why retailers’ first-party data and clean room capabilities are changing how brands plan and measure. We also dig into Walmart-specific shifts like Scintilla insights moving closer to the store level and what that could mean for availability, assortment, and conversion when online demand meets in-store reality.

From there, we get honest about the state of the digital shelf: more sponsored placements, more competition for premium real estate, and a growing “retail media tax” that forces brands to pay to be seen. Blake shares practical guidance on building a real Walmart Connect strategy instead of dumping budget and hoping for magic, plus why chasing first-time buyers can beat obsessing over ROAS alone. We close by exploring AI’s role in commerce, from personalization and data orchestration to AEO and GEO, and even a bold prediction about whether search grids survive the agentic shopping era.

If this conversation helps you rethink your e-commerce strategy or retail media approach, subscribe, share it with someone on your team, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intro

Blake’s Path Into E-Commerce

SPEAKER_01 0:08

What's up, Party People? BV here, and welcome to another episode of Retail Media Vibes, a doing business in Bentonville podcast. We are recording live at Podcast Video Studios in Rogers, Arkansas. And today we've got a great conversation lined up. I have with me a retail commerce expert with Blake Taylor. Blake Taylor has been in this space for quite a while, and we're going to hear a little bit about him here in just a minute. And so got to meet Blake. He's he works with me at adfury.ai. So it'll be great to talk about e-commerce and everything that's happening in that space. With all that out of the way, let's get into it. Well, Blake, welcome to Retail Media Vibes. Great to have you. Yeah, thanks, man. Excited to be here. So we like to start with a little vibe check so the audience can get to know Blake a little bit, a little bit better. So, you know, how you how you feeling? How are you doing? Yeah, feeling good. Excited. It's gonna be a good conversation now. Great. Um, all right. So give us a little bit about your background and how you found yourself and and where you are today. Yeah, great question.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Um, maybe a little bit of a somewhat unconventional road, but but we're here nonetheless. Um, I guess going back probably about six-ish years now, right around, I guess, the time that COVID was kind of starting. Um, nothing really to do with e-commerce. We're gonna do business. All right, so you work with physical metal to buying stuff online. Exactly. All right. Normal transition, right? Yes, of course. That's uh but grew up here in the Northwest Arkansas area and obviously had uh a lot of respect for Walmart. And honestly, at one point in my life, probably thought I was never gonna be smart enough to work for someone like Walmart. Um but uh I guess again, stars aligned, found the right path here, had some great connections with people, uh, and ended up working with White Spider back in about 2020. Yep. And spent the last five and a half years kind of on that white spider journey with that team where they went through a couple of uh kind of growth periods and an acquisition uh into Flywheel. And so spent the last five and a half years there um developing some of our Walmart retail or digital shelf capabilities.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Yeah, we'll talk we'll talk about digital shelves, so that's great. Absolutely. Right up uh hopefully my wheelhouse there. Um and then even dabbling into retail media a good bit as well, especially as we made that transition into Flywheel, uh, one of the premier retail media agencies around right now. Got a lot of experience um hands-on with media and executing media. Yeah. So really excited to talk about how those worlds converge um between that kind of digital shelf and maybe organic and content optimization into retail media and how those play well together. So spent the last five and a half years doing that um and then recently made the move over to Ad Fury. Um, whenever I heard the opportunity to work back with the team who kind of started White Spider was really excited about that opportunity, but maybe even more so to kind of stay on that cutting edge of what is digital commerce. And digital commerce is starting to uh be synonymous with AI in so many ways. Um, and I didn't want to miss that opportunity as well. So I'm really excited to be with this new team and kind of getting that kicked off.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

So it sounds like you got into e-commerce. So I always think of things like pre-pandemic, post-pandemic. Yeah, right. And so you sound like you got into it right at that pandemic time period. Is that right? That's spot on. Yeah. And so I think that's a very interesting time to come into this space because there was such an acceleration of e-commerce because you know, people were not absolutely shopping in stores, even though a significant number of people were still shopping in stores, but obviously e-commerce was was uh a huge growth engine for so so many retailers like Walmart, of course, and and Amazon and others. Yeah. So it must have been a really interesting time because not only were you getting into an industry that was new for you personally, right? You were getting into it at a time where it was just taking off. And so, you know, how did you keep up with that?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think luckily it was pretty new for a lot of people at the time. Yeah. We think about like the the little trial and error, exactly, right? Uh when you think about the teams around here, the the brand teams, like nobody was set up for e-commerce and ready for that wave. Yeah, uh, Amazon was well ahead of the pack, and everyone knew Amazon and they kind of sure corner on the e-commerce market almost. Um, but I don't situations changed, and we had a global pandemic, and everyone had to change the way they shopped and got product to their homes. Right. Um, and so it was kind of a uh everyone's thrown into the fire at once trying to figure this out. Um, and so yeah, I I don't feel like I was necessarily behind coming in, uh, which is a good thing. Yeah. But at the same time, we had to put on our our big boy pants and figure out how to do this uh faster than anybody else and build a company and build a team at White Spider that that could be uh kind of first to market in a lot of capabilities. So we're really proud of what we did.

New Dad Life And Zoo Dream

SPEAKER_01 4:49

So yeah, no, I love I love hearing you know how people it kind of ramp up into something that you know they weren't doing before, and then having the pressure of the pandemic and everything growth of e-commerce during that period, it must have been especially fun. Sure. Right? Maybe challenging, but fun. Absolutely. Um, all right. A couple of little personal things. Uh I understand that you're a new dad, so tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah, it's feeling less and less new every day. Yeah, as we're coming up on seven months now, which is crazy to think. Yeah. Um, but it's been it's been awesome. Uh incredibly blessed with a sweet little girl um and a great wife that uh is a good mother to her. Awesome. Um, so couldn't ask for anything better there. Um, she's as sweet as can be, and we're incredibly lucky. Um, we're starting to get a little more sleep, which is nice. Yeah, I feel like I'm returning back to normal self a little more, but right uh that's the the tax of parenthood early on, uh, and it's well worth it. Yeah, yeah. Cool, cool.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

So just uh so a little hypothetical if you weren't doing what you're doing today, what would be an alternate universe career for you?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Good question. Um I'll give you a big curveball way out there. So um always grown up loving animals. Yeah. So if I could pick one thing, I would I would open a zoo in Northwest Arkansas. A zoo, all right. Yeah. I think uh if if the Walton Family Foundation out there is listening or anyone wants to uh partner on a zoo, uh it wouldn't be hard to pry me away from what I'm doing right now. Oh well, I hope they're not gonna give me a ring because I really enjoy working with you. No, I I I've always thought that would be a really cool thing. I think we have a really cool environment and kind of community uh that I think would really lean into that. And then some of the cool conservation efforts and kind of syncing up with nature. Uh, I think we have a cool community that would really lean into some of the cool elements of that. So yeah, that's uh that's my kind of secret job, desire.

Walmart Scintilla Data Goes In-App

SPEAKER_01 6:44

That's fun, man. Uh uh one day may hopefully blow me away. I would have I would have not not guessed that at all. Yeah. Uh but great to get to know you a bit, Blake, and um get ready to you know hit hit into the our our topics for today. Cool. All right, Blake, before we get into the main topic, we're going to hit a few quick stories that are, you know, impact our world to some degree. Depends it depends on how you want to look at these, uh, look at these stories. But you know, the first one we're gonna talk about is you know, Walmart is expanding their scintilla platform and connecting it directly into the Walmart app so that suppliers can access store level insights physically in store, right? So there is this, there's always this conversation that takes place about online data versus in-store data and the marrying of both. You know, so what I understand, and I'm not the necessarily the expert here, but what I understand is like a brand manager or a field field rep is going to be able to walk into a Walmart store, opening the app, and then they can see the data that is actually tied to that exact location, stock levels, you know, back room, you know, stock, et cetera. Um, they can look at how products are performing, you know, they're looking at you know how the uh assortment is is maybe working, maybe some shopper behavior because it's you know tied to that scintilla platform. Sure. Now I I think this exists in other apps, and I think even some brands have their own apps that they do a similar thing, but it's sounds like it's the first time that this is really being tied directly into Scintilla. So, you know, do you think that really is going to benefit, you know, the Scintilla data set, if you will, or how do you see this really benefiting uh brands um and Walmart for that matter?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, it's it's a great question. Um I think a little bit of time will tell in like what data becomes available in this. Is it kind of a specialized tool that is being now made available? Yeah. Uh is it adding to the richness of the data that that's already in Scintilla? Um, I think either way, it's showing that Walmart has leaned into the continued board lines of Omnichannel and bringing this digital environment and this physical environment, which is what makes them unique in this industry still, um and blurring those lines even more. So um it it's it feels a little bit like a obviously a reskin of some tools like Molt. Um but hopefully there's expanded capabilities that uh maybe marketers and retail media can even tap into, right? Um obviously Walmart is looking for ways to make their physical shelf healthy and match up to the digital um shelf. So whenever someone is is purchasing online, um, there isn't that gap in the assortment in store. Whenever uh marketers are running offsite ads uh that are less so tied into a specific store, they're more regional based or audience based, whatever it may be, um, we're not having gaps where people are converting on ads but not able to convert on product. Right. Um so the ability for that data to flow up the chain into marketers, into agencies even um and get up and be actionable.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah. Yeah. So I was um at a retail event yesterday, uh hosted by Breaktime Media. Shout out to Breaktime Media, Chris and Josh and Ivana that ran that event yesterday was it was great to connect, but it was one of the one of the fewer times or maybe more recent times I would say that people are actually saying how valuable scintilla data is. Yeah. And I I I found that I found that to be really, you know, interesting because, you know, I think a lot of times people look at, you know, the data and what is the value of the data, can you get insights out of the data? Does it really move the needle? Sure. I do think that this is an opportunity to augment that data. Absolutely. And, you know, even make it more valuable so that you're when you're building audiences and and doing your planning, it can be more much, much better. So I I definitely, you know, I think this is probably more of a minor change, but I also think that if you think about Walmart's, we'll call it a retail operating system as a whole, like things like this is what makes it more robust, right? All of these different data inputs that uh can build that data lake that then you can pull insights out of is anything that is provided there that's obviously accurate, yeah, is is gonna be super helpful.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Can agree more. I think a lot of brands continue to uh have the we'll call it a fight almost, so justification of that centilla price point. It's steep. Um, so Walmart continues to invest in making it uh a worthwhile investment for brands, uh, which is exciting to see. Yeah. Yeah.

Burger King Tests AI Manners Scoring

SPEAKER_01 11:12

All right. We're gonna change some direction here. We're gonna talk about Burger King. Ooh, Burger King. Yes, uh, a little QSR. I love QSR. Um, I always think what they do is really fun from a marketing perspective. But uh Burger King is now using AI to track workers' manners. All right. So um they're testing an AI system that analyzes employee interactions with customers to evaluate things like politeness and service quality. So the system analyzes audio from the drive-thru and in-store conversations. So just imagine microphones and they're they're basically in your ear and scores workers uh and uh as they're using, you know, friendly behavior, not friendly behavior. So yeah, I don't I don't want to say this is like Black Mirror because in a way, like this this has always sort of existed. Sure. Like you ever call into a customer service and they say this may be recorded for quality assurance purposes, right? So in a way, but this is like feels like more real time, right? So, you know, how how do you think about you know something like this? Would you want your boss or or an AI in your ear telling you what you should be doing or not doing or evaluating what you're doing in real time?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yeah. I mean, first thing is well, let's not tell Chick-fil-A this because they may be all over the um, but uh all that to be said, it's a interesting, I don't know, it's an interesting evolution that is happening of if it's used to measure employees, I hope that uh in real time. Yeah. If it's used to measure in real time, I hope that Burger King is also investing in a lot of AI and automation in the the back of house because I think a lot of people are gonna struggle with that invasiveness right now. It may still feel a little bit early for that. But at the same time, a lot of people are looking for those kind of assistance to come in and help them be better. Yeah. Um, so this is kind of teetering on that line of like, is this making them better or is this uh the the overwatch that is kind of pulling the strings and making you be a certain way at all times? Yeah. And it's a fine line to walk. Um, so I I think from a uh interaction standpoint, of of course, uh brands and leadership want people to interact with their brand in a pleasant way and have to set standards that that uh help people drive that behavior when they're working for your brand. Yeah. Um, but this this is again, it's a it's a weird kind of gray area of where is the line to cross here.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Right. Well, I think, you know, whether it be retail, QSR, et cetera, what you're trying to do is you're trying to provide a consistent experience for that customer, right? And obviously you want it to be a high, a high uh value interaction. You want to make sure that that that uh interaction with that customer is is is top notch, right? And so this is a way that you can coach that you know, somewhat real time in order to ensure that everybody is consistent on message, consistent with their behavior. Yeah, you know, because you know it's such a competitive landscape out there that you know somebody has one bad experience and that could turn into something even more problematic. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

And again, I think it's it's gonna feed well into a lot of the conversations we have later in the the talk of data, is it's just data, and you gotta figure out how to use it, and it can be used in the wrong ways or in the right ways, right? Um, and so I think it it's a really cool data piece that really good managers are gonna take advantage of and build better teams with. Yeah, yeah. Um bad managers and bad teams are just gonna be uh I think punished by it more so. Um but again, there's so many cool opportunities that that an AI can kind of bring into a kitchen environment and in something like a lunch rush, it can help you plan for that a little bit better, it can keep you on track a little bit better. Nobody wants to be stuck with a drive-thru line of 15, 20 cars and no fresh burgers ready to go out the door. So hopefully help you plan for that a little bit better.

Why People Hide Purchases

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah, you actually brought up a good point that I wasn't thinking about earlier. But you know, you when you look at the qualitative versus the quantitative, right? The things that you're talking about, how many customers you serve, how fast people make it through the drive-thru, et cetera, that's definitely very quantitative, right? But with this type of scenario, this is this is qualitative. Sure. Right. So you can you can evaluate, there's still some subjectivity, but you can still get to a qualitative um, you know, uh measurement of how you know how they're how the employees are are performing and help correct and and uh steer them in the right direction. Absolutely. Yeah, so awesome. All right. This third one's this one's a fun one. Um I I found actually I'm guilty of this one, so I'm I'll just throw this out there up front. But there's a survey that found that a surprising number of consumers admit they're hiding purchases from their partners or family members right now. Um, and a lot of that has to do with budget pressure, right? So somebody makes a purchase, whether it's a significant purchase or in or smaller purchase, they're not as open and transparent about that that purchase. Now, like I said, I'm guilty of this one. Sure. I have a a sneaker addiction. Um buy sneakers way too often. Um, I have little ways. Hopefully, my wife's not listening to this one. Um, I have little ways of how I manage how I spend my money on those things on those sneakers, um, so that she doesn't know exactly how much money I'm spending. So and I think this can happen in in you know, obviously a lot of different ways for a lot of different people. So, you know, what do you think is really you know making this happen, right? What why do you is it is it really just budget pressure? Is it what why do you think that this is happening right now?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah. I mean, maybe we should preface this section with anything we say is not necessarily financial advice. Yeah, yeah. Our own opinions today. Um I mean, uh again, there there is uh obviously a rising cost of uh uh of goods in our country, um, and people are feeling pressured by that. Um, but the desire for gratification of products and and buying things and that consumerism culture that has been built built uh is still very present. And it's kind of creating this weird uh kind of crossroads where people are having to decide what's more important to them, like their overall financial health of like their entire family or this short-term gratification of a purchase. There's also the group that I think there's a little bit of like, I don't know, retail nihilism of like things are just terrible right now. Like I'm just gonna go buy this because I can. I've got student loan debt, I've got all these other debts that I had to take care of. What's another$50 on this? So uh it's creating a very interesting like vacuum and kind of culture. And I think the the strange part is how do brands respond to this?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Well, I actually one time I had installed a Chrome extension that forced me to shop slow. Interesting. So when I added something in the cart and I was trying to go, it would actually put up timers and before you know to you know delay that and and ensure that and it was I don't use it today, but it was you know definitely an experiment. So there are you know, there are some things obviously if you really wanted to shop slower, you could shop slower, but it is it is interesting because in our world we talk about reducing friction and friction in the shopping process. We talk about that all the time, right? Um maybe we made it too easy, right? Maybe shopping is too easy. Maybe people that have some impulse control are buying stuff and then they have to hide it from their partner, right? So it's it's kind of a lot of interesting things if you really think of how a lot of layers to peel back, layers to peel back for sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

I think another interesting piece is obviously uh a big metric a lot of brands and retailers look at is like a household penetration number. And is this killing that off a little bit? And household penetrations are shifting to now back to individuals. Like you you truly have to look at individuals as shoppers versus an entire family unit. Yeah. Yeah. As some of these purchases may or may not be part of the family unit or the family finance uh plan. Yeah. So yeah, it'll be uh interesting to see continue evolve because I don't think we're gonna see much cost relief coming anytime soon.

What It Takes To Win Today

SPEAKER_01 19:25

I yeah, I I feel that for sure. Yeah. Um, I'll try to do better. Um, thanks for walking through some of our quick kick stories. Next, we're gonna get into the main topic. All right, Blake. So now we're going to zoom out a bit and we're gonna talk about e-commerce. Um, we're gonna talk about it broadly, we're gonna get into it probably in some detail. You know, it feels like e-commerce, as we think about the future of e-commerce, is it is it the really the future or or are we living the future today? All right. And so there's just such another shift. You know, we talked earlier about when you got into this space, it was during the pandemic, and that was a huge e-commerce shift. It feels like there's a lot of a lot of change currently that's happening in the e-commerce space. But you know, it and it can be a little bit overwhelming, but there's a lot of potential, a lot of opportunity, I think, for for brands. And, you know, I think you can uh help a lot there. So let's just start off with a real simple but probably complex question, which is you know, what does it really take to succeed in e-commerce today, from your point of view?

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah. I mean, it it is a big complex question. Right. There isn't gonna be a one size fits all answer for everybody, of course. Um but I I would say it it requires a little bit of looking back and looking forward at the same time, right? I think uh e-commerce is a unique environment where it feels almost building block-ish, right? A lot of the fundamentals that were there whenever e-commerce first started getting off the ground, those fundamentals still exist today. And sure, yeah, just more layers to it, and there's more beyond the fundamentals than what we had five years ago. Yep. Um, we'll take content kind of as that core fundamental, right? Whenever digital commerce was launching, we'll take Walmart, for example. Like the goal was to make the digital shelf look more or less identical to the physical shelf. So they were a seamless experience as shoppers moved to Walmart.com to or whatever the site was at the time, yeah, that there was no disruption between someone who could walk down an aisle and someone who could walk down a digital shelf.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Um, and so content was the most important thing. Can you get the right image on there so that someone can see what it looks like in store? Can you have the right title and the description so some quick information about the product? That still exists today. And as we're going to talk about, like probably becoming even more important than ever as that information is not just living in retailer sites anymore, it is going out and it is being captured by uh third party tools and uh accessories that are going to change the way that we shop entirely. So I think that is uh my Stance of if you aren't doing the fundamentals right, which again I'll correlate back to just content as the core fundamental, um, it's gonna be really hard to be successful in the future, which is gonna be AI and agentic search and and what the future holds in terms of digital commerce.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah. I also like to think about it from you know a shopper psychology perspective to a certain degree, right? I think one of the things that's important is you need to understand your shopper and you need to understand your product and you need to understand what your shopper is looking for from your product, right? And so I I think sometimes we get too wrapped up in making sure we've got a certain number of images or we've got a certain title length and we've got a certain that are we really truly answering the questions that a shopper would particularly have when they land on an item page? Sure. It doesn't matter what retailer it is. If you're answering the questions of your core shopper, your likelihood of conversion, which is the ultimate goal, yeah, is is going to be is going to be successful.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Absolutely. And uh again, it's uh it's an interesting space in that you have to appease to human shoppers, of course, today. Um, people who are landing on pages and are looking for questions to be answered and looking for confidence in your product as they're purchasing it. But you don't even get that opportunity if you're not appeasing to robots and uh systems that are just scraping information more or less. Um, and so it's kind of this dual game that we're having to play today and will become emphasized even more as we go forward. Of you don't even get into consideration for customers, for human customers, if you aren't appeasing to robots and getting that checked off first.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

There was well, there's a term that you just use. I want to make sure it's clear for the audience because I think sometimes it's misunderstood. But the word scraping, right? So I think you hear that a lot, and I think people throw that word around scraping. Can you just define for the audience essentially what scraping really is? Yeah, I'd probably overgeneralize, use it as well. No, it's okay. Yeah, that's okay. I don't need we don't need to get into ones, ones and zeros, right? Just right.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

The way I kind of uh the way I use it more or less is a a bot or robot, uh, a part of something is going out and collecting the data off of the website. Maybe it's the metadata. It's it's doing the the I don't know, you you're inspecting the page where everybody looks at and goes, I don't know how to code, I don't know what any of this means. Right. It knows how to go and extract the data out of that page code to understand what is making up this page, what is making up this product, what is the back end of this, and then collecting it and putting it into nice little tables and formats or however your uh data engineering team is kind of collecting that and and core or I guess pulling it together. Um, and so that's the way that I think about scraping. Is that correct? Maybe not. Uh maybe not the the technical term, but that's the way. No, no, I think I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah, I think a simple explanation is is typically the best. And what kind of information is typically valuable in that scraping process from your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

I mean, it depends on obviously what part is being scraped, right? If you're scraping an entire keyword and you're looking at searching and results pages, you want to know how many items are here, what items are here? Are they sponsored or are they organic? What are the price points of those items? Um, and you can extract a lot of insights out of just understanding who is showing up on what keywords. Or if you get into individual item pages, it's item detail, it's attributes, what attributes are filled in, what attributes are not. Um, what is the ratings or reviews on these items, right? You can extract a lot of that information out, uh, price points, tags like rollbacks or bestseller flags or whatever it may be. Right. Um, so again, anything that is more or less visible on the page can absolutely be extracted out and be pulled off by a scraper per se. Um, but there's even unseen information that a lot of people maybe don't tap into and don't see. Um, and I think a lot of brands who understand that and and can tap into that better than others will will see a benefit there. Right.

Scraping And The Data Shift

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yeah. No, I I again I think that word is used quite quite a bit, especially I know in our in our world. And so I think you know, it was helpful to get a definition on that. So coming back to the the conversation a bit, like what what have you seen really change in the last couple of years when it's come to you know come to e-commerce? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Um I want to say what hasn't changed, but there's some easier to say what hasn't changed. There, there's things that have stayed uh relatively consistent. I think the biggest ones for me are gonna be data, um, data availability. Um, as you look at all of these different uh retailers, they're rolling out clean rooms with data that was never thought possible in the previous world. Walmart in store would never be able to attribute data the way it has created now. Right. Um the the traceable tender usage has gone up over the years and therefore creates really cool ways to track shoppers and create audiences. So I think data's a huge shift. Um, obviously the shopper journey is a big shift. You see more and more people moving online, you see new avenues starting to spin up, you see agentic surge, you see agentic uh agents doing the shopping for you. Yeah, um, so I think the shopper journey is obviously changing pretty dramatically. Um, and then retailer expectations, I think, is a huge thing that oftentimes kind of gets forgotten about in what's changing in this world. Right. Walmart, as an entire retailer, like their revenue structure is changed tremendously over the last five years, right? Not just e-commerce and the shift over to e-commerce, it's all the auxiliary functions around e-commerce. It's uh it's scintilla and brands having to pay for scintilla, it's Walmart Connect and the media pay for ads, yeah. And it's it's membership for shoppers having to have a Walmart Plus membership, it's all these other components. It's Walmart Fulfillment Services. If you're uh if you're a brand that's trying to sell third party on Walmart, you want your product to be sip shipped in two days. Yeah. That that's another tax or fee that that Walmart is now collecting and changing their revenue structure. So expectations are changing. And I think Walmart sees a lot of benefit in moving people online because they get all these other kind of revenue streams that come from that. Um so they're not afraid to move shoppers online and kind of move out of the store format a little bit. So I think those three are the first couple pieces that come to mind of what's changed in this everything. But those.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah, and I think it's I think it's it's interesting from you know a Walmart perspective because you know, obviously they want to build a marketplace with a great assortment at a great price, you know, and obviously having the convenience to be able to get that product uh clearly uh in a short period of time, right? But it's a their their their doorstep. Um and so you know, I think you know, there is there is that benefit of making the shopping experience easy. And if they you know if they can do that for the shopper, the shopper will come back, they'll buy more through Walmart, you know. So I think there are there are a lot of strategies that I think Walmart is executing on right now to you know grow that assortment, grow, grow the base, you know, assortment extension, absolutely, et cetera, right? Because inevitably, if I'm going and I'm looking for something and I don't find what I'm what I'm looking for, I'm going to go somewhere else. Sure. And I may not come back. Yeah. Right. And so that there's there's that opportunity. So it's it's that trying to make it sticky, I guess, is really what I'm thinking about here is that that stickiness. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

I mean, Walmart is pushing brands to have their full assortment on Walmart.com. So even if Walmart doesn't want to take it on their shelves, uh, if you're these big national brands that are accustomed to just kind of having those items that are in stores be your focus, uh, Walmart has kind of changed the rule book a little bit and said, we want your entire assortment, whether it's on our shelves or not, it needs to be available to be shipped to customers.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Um, they're courting more and more third-party and marketplace sellers come in and add their assortment to the mix. They just changed their open call, their infamous once-a-year kind of big open call event. And now it's going to be multiple times a year and it's going to kind of lead up to this big macro event. But there's more of those events taking place as they continue to court innovation and new people and sellers coming into their ecosystem.

Digital Shelf Clutter And Paid Pressure

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah. Yeah. So you've been talking a little bit about shelf. So let's talk about like the digital shelf. Yeah. You know, how important is that digital shelf? So we obviously the in-store shelf, you know, you walk down the aisle, you can, you know, see that assortment. You get to the, you get to the digital shelf, and obviously it's not the same, you don't see it the same way, right? And so, you know, your position, how you come across to the shopper, you know, are you looking at it through a mobile phone? Are you looking at it through a computer? Uh it there's a lot of variation there that impacts the digital shelf. So, you know, how important is that? You know, will shoppers just continue to find what they're looking to find until they find it, or is it really important just to make sure that that digital shelf is really structured and organized properly?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yeah. It's incredibly important. And again, when you think about structuring the digital shelf, right, is that more of a responsibility of the brands or the retailer to get that right? Um, and it falls on both in some degree, right? Brands are responsible for their products and making sure that they're set up to win. And obviously, uh you said earlier, we're in a capitalist society, everyone's a little bit greedy and wants to go and and make their money.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

And so brands have a vested interest in making sure their PvP are set up for success and can win on the digital shelf. Meanwhile, Walmart is maybe less focused on individual brands' success. They're looking at the whole, they're looking at the category, they're looking at this keyword. How do they make it as successful as possible and getting the right mix of items into the digital shelf? Because you're exactly right. People aren't going to scroll forever to find what they want. They're going to probably give it a couple scrolls if they don't see what they want, if they're not in the right space. Yeah. They're going to research today. They're going to go type in a different keyword, right? In the future, as we continue to move towards uh different methodologies here, there is no necessarily like research, right? There is a process that is going to have more understanding of what you're looking for. It's going to take in more of your preferences and your personalization. It's probably going to have a better, hypothetically, a better yield in the return that it brings back to you.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Um, so yeah, the digital shelf is you know, here's my here's my observation of the digital shelf today is it feels more cluttered. We've added in more sponsored sponsored placements, whether it's you know, uh a sponsored product or whether it's a search brand amplifier or sponsored video. And like it just feels like now the shelf, you know, it's there's a there's a concept in store called clean store, clean aisles, sure, clear um in and and action alley, and obviously down the aisle, like much cleaner um experience for the shopper makes it easier for them to make it through the store and hopefully buy more products as they work their way through the store. I feel like we need to go to a clean, clean shelf strategy for e-commerce. But my concern is, you know, how much we're throwing into that that shelf and making it even more friction laden for the shopper to find what they're looking for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Whereas the uh the ad blocker for sponsored products and all this stuff. Um yeah, it it has become cluttered and and messy in a lot of ways, and and brands are still trying to figure out how to navigate, right? These items that are typically at the top of these search results because they're some of the best performing items, they're getting suppressed more and more and more. And those same items that had a right to win previously now have to pay to have that right to win. Right. Yeah. And items that are buried further in search grids, uh, the only way to get forward now, oftentimes, is to pay. Um and those aren't commensurate like the amounts, right? Walmart and other retailers are very smart and savvy and say, hey, just because you want to sponsor here doesn't mean it's a it's a flat fee. Right. Right. You're gonna have to pay more because we're taking a risk putting you that's buried in our search results up into this really premium real estate. So we're gonna have to more or less collect our fee up front a little bit uh to have the risk of putting you up there and degrading our search grid sum. Yeah. Uh and I say degrading, obviously, like it may be a great product and it may actually deserve to be there and you need that retail media to help it get there. Um, but according to an algorithm, it's not the best fit for this this keyword. And so uh it's taken that risk when you're there. And so it has created a retail media tax uh across the board. Um, the the saturation of paid placements is a little bit out of control, in my opinion. Um, but brands keep doing it and they keep paying it. And so well, yeah.

AI’s Role From Search To Agents

SPEAKER_01 34:34

I mean, you have no choice, you know, in in a lot of cases, in order to compete. Absolutely. Right. So all right, let's talk a little bit about AI. Right. And so it's funny, we've probably been, you know, talking for 15, 20 minutes, we haven't gotten to AI yet. Um, but you know, AI is definitely having a huge impact on on e-commerce. Like, you know, what do you what do you think? If you just think about the holistic approach and practice of e-commerce, what role do you see AI playing in that practice?

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yeah, I mean, there's a that's probably a a today, a short-term term type answer to each of these. Um, I think today you're starting to see um AI in the terms of um product research in a lot of ways. Yeah. Um, you see people going to AI, kind of asking questions and kind of helping them figure out what they want to purchase. Hey, what is what is the best skin care for me? What is the best fill in the blank? Yeah. Um, and you see AI starting to get have a better understanding of the user that it's answering the question for, and therefore able to return better products and able to have that conversation along the way instead of trusting that the user will use the right filters along the way. Right. It is able to do a lot of that product research and and give you some better information. So that's where I see it like today, today. Obviously, you see it dabbling in uh agents starting to do search or starting to do purchases for you. Right. Um you see them lean into it and then you see them lean out of it. Yeah. And there is a lot of say, let's let's try to figure this out, and then maybe it doesn't work as well as it should right now. And so they they quit kind of backtrack a little bit. Sure. It's gonna go that way. Right. There's no doubt that at some point, like we're going to be offloading a lot of that shopping to assistants that know you and can purchase for you and know your your purchase cycles and how fast your family goes through uh a box of I don't know, whatever it is, a box of whatever it is. Yeah, uh, it's gonna know that and be able to better uh support your purchasing habits in in that way. Yep. Um so I think that that's kind of the shortish to long term. The long, long term is is there even like shopping sites in the future, or is there agentic workflows? Is there just an agentic platform that you're kind of managing this system that is going to a, I don't know, almost like a warehouse environment versus a like true search grid, right? We talked about the digital shelf being this kind of uh the the the digital impression of the physical store, right? As we move into this um agenc world, is that site even necessarily needed anymore? Is that front-facing digital store environment even really a uh a need state? Yeah, so that that'll be interesting to see how that evolves and as traffic maybe declines in those places uh how that works. But obviously you've got the the retailers that are gonna be defensive of that. They want people on their site, they get money from that, they get the the benefits of that. Um so it'll be interesting to see how the the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world partner with the open AIs, the opic, the Google Geminis of the world to uh not pull traffic away from them. Um so I don't know. Yeah, it it's a very like it's a gray area still.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

What about as a supplier or brand, right? How how are you as a supplier brand, how are you using AI in e-com in the e-commerce sense? Like what are the opportunities there? What do you see from that standpoint?

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Yeah, I think um data data aggregation and and kind of the the synthesization of data uh it becomes a lot easier with an AI um system. Uh the challenge there is data cleanliness. And the data you get from Walmart doesn't always match up to the day that you have at Amazon and the day that you have at Kroger and fill in the blank. Like everyone has their own way of structuring it. And so the ability to maybe have an AI system clean that for you and put it into legible formats and digestible formats will will be crucial. And I think one way that a lot of brands will lean into AI tricity.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Um, I think you got the content creation side. I mean, yeah, a shameless plug a little bit for forgiveness, right? Um that's kind of the bet that we're we're placing on the market is eventually the the need to create content at scale, the need to create personalized content. As um before retailer sites maybe go entirely away, they're gonna continue to evolve. And maybe the content that I see on a PDP is different than the content you would see on a PDP. And the ability to create that at scale um or have tools that can maybe even build it in the moment. Like I don't know, that seems crazy. Uh that that maybe that that would exist and you could put legal barriers around it. Um, but it can build content in the moment that is tailored to you and to me and to other shoppers. Um, so I think that there is a lot of ways that you can start to think about content creation from an AI standpoint. Is it totally there yet? Not necessarily, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:28

We we feel that in a lot of ways in some. What do you mean? I just I could just put it whatever I want into Chad GPT, and it's gonna give me a description, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Right. It's gonna be perfect, at least it's gonna be perfect.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Uh so related to that, so let's talk about AEO and GEO, the the ego twins. So they're triplets if you add in SEO, right? So we've got that, right? But you know, can you explain from your perspective, AEO, GEO, and you know, how does that how would brands really care about that when it comes to e-commerce?

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Depends who you're referencing in terms of uh AEO and GEO. It feels like there's still a a little bit of uh a lack of authority on the the subject. There is correct, yeah. Um a lot of people uh have similar perspectives, like it's not just like the total Wild West and we're all trying to figure this out. Um, but there isn't necessarily governing, like this is exactly how we do GEO, this is exactly how we do AEO. At the end of the day, yeah, I think it's it's summed up in a way of AEO is going to be that kind of next step beyond SEO. SEO is getting those couple keywords and making sure that your titles and descriptions have those most impactful keywords in there. AEO is gonna kind of take it to that next step of being very descriptive, and it's going to give you uh the answers to what is the best, I don't know, uh hyaluronic acid face cream for for me. Right. Um, and it's gonna start to be able to tie together multiple attributes to understand uh what a product is, and so it's gonna be that next kind of level description. Um, and so this is gonna be a little bit more in that kind of realm of almost keyword stuffing. I don't like to use that word. I don't know if I don't think it's the right way to describe it, but you want to have rich data behind your items. You wanna make sure that all your attributes fields are filled out, not just checking boxes to make your Walmart content quality score good, um, but making sure that every attribute that is applicable to your items that somebody could somehow search to try to find your item uh is filled out, making sure that your descriptions and key features and your titles aren't just checking boxes in terms of make sure you have this one keyword in there, make sure you have this one attribute in there. Right. No, it's a richness and it is going to feed an engine that is going to uh be looking for more than just one keyword. Uh GEO is then kind of the authority side. So it's gonna be looking for those claims and those things that that make your product uh unique and kind of stand out in the market and gives it credibility um and builds trust and and lets a uh AI tool or agent have a high level of confidence in this product. Yeah. Um so GEO is gonna be more claims. So the more that you can get out there and kind of get unique components to your your product and unique claims about your product, uh, the better there. Right. And that's gonna help kind of feed um whenever someone starts to look for specific um what we'll say certifications or specific um qualities of products beyond just maybe like a general attribute. Right. Um, so that's kind of the the the rough sense of the two. Again, probably not doing them justice in their full sense. Um, but that's where a lot of brands are trying to sit right now, is trying to balance between retailer standards, like a Walmart retailer standard is still pretty heavily probably SEO-based. Sure. And you have to build content across an entire catalog of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of items, right? Uh, and have to kind of build guidelines across all of those different product types. And it takes a lot to make changes to those standards. Right. Um, and so they're probably still a little bit more in that SEO world of this is how we want you to build content according to our style guides and according to our connect quality scores. They're quickly going to move if they're, I mean, I can almost guarantee you behind the scenes, they're already moving on updating those standards and what does the future look like and how do we need to write content on our site to make sure that we are scrapable, that we are uh a site that AI agents and AI tools will reference. Yeah, we're AI friendly. Right. Exactly. That's what I would say. Um, and so you'll see those rollouts. So brands are kind of stuck between a little bit of that rock and a hard place. Right. We have to adhere to Walmart style guides, we have to adhere to Walmart content quality scores, but we know we could be doing more and we may be missing out on the future. So finding that line to walk is a little bit tricky. Um, I would tell you, for each brand, it's probably going to depend on that merchant relationship and what they're prioritizing and what their goals and objectives are. You see the swing from time to time of content quality scores are the most important thing you could possibly spend your time on right now. Uh, to now, I feel like that has been. And there isn't as much pressure on brands to get their contact quality scores in a certain uh to a certain level. Sure. Um, but as they roll out new standards, as they start to think about the future of commerce, that's gonna change. And you're gonna see that contact quality score hopefully match up to the new thing. It could be even a totally different number. It you know, absolutely could, a different measurement. It it could be an additional measurement on top of a contact quality score.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Yeah, I think it's I think we're at a very interesting space because you know, you read the trades, you read, you see media, everybody's talking about AI, everybody's like, you gotta prepare for it, you gotta prepare for it. People are going from ChatGP2 to your site to, you know, and it's driving traffic. So you've got to optimize for that. And I do think that there's obviously a certain amount of that, but I have not seen anything that has really at this point shown me that shopper behavior has fully changed over to using agents, LLMs, etc., in order to do their shopping yet. And I and I don't I'm not saying that you don't have like your playbook or you start to work on your playbook, but I think today to say that we're going to you know optimize our item page to a specific EO, yeah, right, engine optimization of some sort, AOE GEO, sure, is is a little I don't say it's premature because you should always be testing and learning. So I like I'm not discrediting that. I but I do think like sometimes there's a little bit of too much hype that's been that's been fed into some of these things. And until Walmart or Amazon says to support our AEO and GEO strategies, these are the requirements in which until that happens, it's gonna be a guessing game. Yeah. And you're gonna be pivoting every, you know, probably every single day for that, for that matter, because they're all working on something.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Sure. You're spot on there. Um, the one thing that I think pushes my I I guess the one thing that I would call out there is you look at maybe like the Apple App Store today and what the top five most downloaded apps are on the app store. It's gonna be Gemini, it's gonna be cloud, it's gonna be Open AI, it's gonna be even Grok is up there and like the top couple uh downloaded apps. So these AI apps are permeating everybody's choices at this point, and and nobody is really shying away from it at this point. I think there was uh about a year long of people getting over that, maybe a little bit of fear around AI and what's to come. Uh and now it's a part of most everybody's lives in in some way or fashion. And so uh you're exactly right. The shop behavior has not changed today, but with that amount of saturation of AI tools into people's lives, I think it I think it'll move quick. Right. Um obviously it's not like an overnight thing, but I wouldn't be surprised by the end of the year, by the uh by next year, you're starting to see a very different way of searching for products.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can see that, but just think about how long it's really taken for e-commerce shopping online to even achieve, let's just say, just to be generous, 20, 25 percent of the market is e-commerce, right? The other 75 to 80 ish percent is in store, right? We like we've been shopping in store for a long time. Yeah, and and and just that behavior change just to get to e-commerce, it took the pandemic to get there. And again, I I am as bullish on AI as anybody you'll ever talk to. Sure. So I'm not I'm not saying that AI is not going to have an impact on shopping. But what I do think is like it's going to take a long time. Sure. I think for the common consumer that doesn't understand AI, it it's going to take some inflection point that it we cannot see at this point that is going to drive that behavior change. Yeah. You know, I think about it like I used to talk about this, it's the killer app, right? There used to be this concept, or it's probably still a concept called a killer app. Yeah. And a killer app, and I think about it from the standpoint of I go, I go way back, I go to Xbox, right? The killer app is software or an application of some sort that mo that is so good that it motivates people to do something outside of of buying that software. So in this case with Halo, people bought Xboxes just to play Halo. Sure. Right. And so Halo was a killer app, right? The QR code, the QR code was a joke, right? There was a website called people scanning QR codes. You go to the website, there's a blank page. Yeah. Right? Until what? Until the pandemic happened. Now QR codes are back. Like you cannot go anywhere without a QR code. Yeah, there's QR, yeah, there's QR codes in this in this room. Like, I think there, you know, I I can't anticipate what that inflection point has to be for AI-based shopping to take over. I think AI informed shopping will be part of that. I don't I don't go to shop and I don't look for shopping for my kids' birthday uh ninth, ninth uh nine-year-old birthday party every single day. Right. But I sure as heck shop for, you know, the the the staples that I need, bread, milk, butter. Like I don't need AI for that, right? And so I think there's there has to be some thought that goes into where AI AI plays into shopping, the shopping journey and where is it best suited and optimized for for that? Because I don't want to ask a question, what is the best milk to buy? I'm I don't need to do that. No, no, no. Right? Yeah. I know I buy I buy fair life, and that's yeah, that's what I get, and I, you know, and that's I add it to my cart every single time.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Yeah. I I think you're it's an interesting point of where will it permeate first? Is it gonna do the kind of low emotion shopping? Like, is it gonna go buy the milk?

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Because you don't no, I don't think it will. I don't I I I don't think nobody's nobody's using this is my this is my point. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

Nobody uses AI to buy toilet paper. I totally agree with that statement of I don't think anyone's doing product research around those things with AI, but I'm I think that you're gonna see adoption of the low emotion categories a little bit quicker with an AI tool. I don't even have to think about what milk I'm gonna buy. So an AI tool can go do that for me. Right. Versus I'm gonna use an AI tool to go and do my research and make sure that I get the right TV, the right sound system, the right all these components that work together and use an AI system that can connect all those dots because this is a big purchase for me. Yeah. Versus uh again, that that low commitment. I don't even have to worry about this. Even if it sends me the wrong milk, so what? I don't really care that much. Right. Um, so I don't know. This is this is the world we live in. Yeah, I know, right? There is so many differing philosophies of how this is gonna crack in first, right? How it's really gonna find a foothold. Uh, and is a very fair point of look, maybe even a year is way too bullish. It probably is too bullish. Yeah. Um, but I think you're gonna see shifts, and I think it's it's adoption, right? I think so many people have it integrated in their lives, and that's also just the world of like technology. It moves faster. Every technological advance moves faster than the last one. Oh, 100%. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

This is uh it's unfathomable how how fast it's it's moving. I just don't think that you know Joe Shopper cares enough to use AI. I think here's what I think. I think AI will power the back end of shopping systems, whatever it is, whether you're starting on a Google Chrome browser or you're going to Walmart.com, or even if you're let's just say even you're using ChatGPT, yeah, AI will be working behind the scenes in order to help facilitate the best results possible. Yeah. It's it's not necessarily going to be the shopping application for all reasons, all parties for every every single situation.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yeah, I I totally agree. And I think um I think personalization will be kind of an interesting layer to that. Yeah. Right. Retailers have, but are even more so now starting to layer in personalization to their search results and the ability for AI to again collect all this data about shoppers and build the right search grids for them to make conversion better and easier and and what makes AI great is context.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Yes. Right? The better your context, the better the AI will deliver on your needs. So there has to be a huge push into building that context for around a shopper, around an occasion, whatever, yeah, so that there is a more positive result.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Yeah. It'll be interesting, uh, or I guess it would be very interesting to look at the Amazons and Walmart. It's almost like memory layer of you and what then the system thinks of you. For sure. I think there's almost like this trend going around of like asking OpenAI or Jim and I to like describe me based on our chats. Like, yeah, what would that be like if you were asking your retailer to describe you based on uh purchases? Right.

Best Practices And First-Time Buyers

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Yeah. Maybe you should try that with Sparky. There we go. Hey, Sparky, what kind of shopper am I? All right, as we wrap up the main topic, so some what are some best practices that you think you know brands should use to you know improve their e-commerce today?

SPEAKER_00 53:29

Obviously, content is still king and we have to be focused there. Um content is king, who's queen? Uh retail media, okay, all right, is queen. Um and I specifically put strategy in there because I think uh a lot of brands still too often just kind of put money in the jukebox and hope that that is what gives them the acceleration that they need. Yep. Um and retail media is incredibly complex and incredibly fast moving to where I don't think that works anymore. And I think you're just letting money go out the back door if you're just putting money into the system and hoping it figures it out. Right. Um, it takes a very intentional strategy. So I think what brands should be doing, and again, we talked a lot about content today. I'll flip some of these back over to like retail media. I think chasing uh that first time purchase and being extremely aggressive with your retail media is something that is maybe a little bit underrated today and a little bit undervalued. Um, there's sometimes too much focus on what call like some vanity-ish metrics of CPCs and grow ads and making some hitting these targets. And while there's good guardrails there, you're oftentimes maybe missing an opportunity to go and capture that first-time shopper. And knowing that personalization is becoming increasingly important, the ability to get a shopper into kind of your spoke, into your world, yeah, where your items will become part of their personalization is almost impossible to quantify because uh it brings them closer to your brand and brings them closer to repurchasing your products. Um, and so I think a lot of brands maybe miss the opportunity to invest really heavy. I even hesitate to say like new to brand because new to brand is such a muddy metric right now, especially as you look across different channels, right? If if someone truly new to my brand, if they're buying my brand across Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, HGB, like all these different retailers. Again, that's the messiness of first-party data and nobody really wanted to share their data across the board. Um, but within these individual ecosystems, neodle brand is a really important metric to be chasing and making sure that you're you're chasing those first-time shoppers. Um, of course, new brand has its limitations in terms of how it attributes and how it kind of quantifies that. But yeah, I think first-time purchase is a really valuable metric that pays a lot of dividends that maybe people don't realize. Awesome. Awesome.

Bold Vibes Rapid-Fire Takes

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Well, I appreciate you sharing your your insights. I've obviously learned a lot and great great conversation around e-commerce. I think I obviously as we look at you know where e-commerce is today, there's still gonna be a whole lot that it will be happening in the not too distant future. So uh thanks, thanks for your insights today. Yeah. Um, are you ready to talk some bold vibes? So one your gut reaction on these uh on these statements. All right. Gut reaction. You ready? Here we go. So all right, I'm gonna throw out these prompts and you just tell me your quick take, all right? Okay, all right. Overrated e-commerce metric. Roas. That's too easy. I know, right?

SPEAKER_00 56:26

Everyone's gonna choose how about underrated e-commerce capability. I'm gonna go with budget fluidity. Yeah, the ability to move budget between tactics, between channels. Man, I've been on the wrong side of that one.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

That's a tough one. All right. Uh e-commerce trend that everyone should be paying attention to. Uh, I'm gonna say personalization.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

E-commerce trend that is overhyped. Uh I'm gonna say anything to do with like AR and VR right now. I think we've I think that should already pass.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

I think that should pass. Has everyone punted on that one already? What is the most important capability e-commerce teams will need in the future?

SPEAKER_00 57:08

Um I'm gonna say like data orchestration or like the syncing of data. Uh, I think that is one of the hardest things right now, and hopefully AI agents help make that a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

What is your bold prediction for the future of e-commerce?

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Oh man. I'm gonna go back to the woe a little bit here and say, I think that at some point we may not have like search grids, like shopping grids of products, right? I don't think there's gonna be a like search environment per se. Uh that may that may be way far-fetched, but how much of uh our shopping will be done by again an agent that understands what you need already, yeah, and then more or less you have a conversation about what else is of interest, or this this agent is gonna surface a product that you may like versus having to constantly go and like search yourself and find things yourself. So maybe the death of search engine or uh search results.

Community Plug And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_01 58:04

All right. Hiding a purchase from your significant other is definitely okay. Uh definitely uh a gray area. Okay. And then what's BB with shoes? Finally, everyone should have a listening device in their ear to tell them when they are messing up and what to do to correct it. I don't know if I can get on board with that one, but uh there's potential for uh for some good out of it. Yeah, that's the last thing I need is something you know, somebody in my ear. Right. I screwed up this podcast somehow. All right, awesome. Well, thanks for for playing bold, bold vibes. Yeah. All right, that's uh wrap on this episode of Retail Media Vibes. Uh huge thanks to Blake for joining the show today and giving us his perspective on the future of e-commerce. Uh before we go, Blake, do you have anything you want to shout out or anybody you want to plug or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 58:55

Man, honestly, I I I thought a little bit about this of uh where I want to go, what I want to plug. And yeah, I don't have anything specific. I think it's just kind of a general push to all of us and this community to continue to get out and build connection with people. Um I think uh the world is changing rapidly, and uh as we think about AI and as we think about macroeconomic factors, like there's risk for a lot of people to continue to kind of hermit up and be a little bit more uh anti, we'll call it anti-social in a lot of ways. Uh and I think humans crave connection. And so that's my general plug is uh encourage everyone like continue to be a part of communities, continue to be a part of uh your world.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's I think that's a great point because you know, I think the the ability to have that human connection and and and that's why I like this podcast, to be honest. Like I have an opportunity to uh talk with people and you know, we talk about things and we have that connection to uh that comes together around retail media and topics related to retail media, but it's really about the time that we spend together to talk about these things. And so I highly encourage those of you out there to do the same thing with people that you know and and you trust. So um, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to give us a like, share with somebody in the industry, or drop a comment. Um, it really helps people find the show. And I'd really like to you know get a few more people listening. Um, but uh I also want to say a huge thank you to the listeners. I've had um a lot of feedback out there in the wild from people who have come up to me and said how much they've loved they love the show and some of the guests that I've had on and how great the conversations have been. So I I want to thank those those people that uh is encouragement that really keeps this podcast going, to be quite honest. And uh, but I I I do thank all of those, uh, all those people, including my wife. My wife actually just started listening to the show a couple of episodes ago. So uh, you know, uh honey, uh, thanks for for for listening. And so uh, but I do appreciate the encouragement. So um with that, thanks for listening. And as always, I promise to do better next time. V V outfit,