Commerce strategy for the changing shelf.
Unpacking the Digital Shelf tracks how brands, retailers, and commerce teams adapt when shoppers, algorithms, and media networks keep changing the store. Its conversations favor practical evidence: customer signals, conversion friction, first-party data, and what operational teams should do next.
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Unpacking the Digital Shelf is a commerce strategy interview show focused on the practical work behind digital transformation in retail. It is interested in the shelf as a system. Search results, product pages, retail media, AI prompts, loyalty data, store aisles, warranties, marketplaces, and brand storytelling all sit inside the same commercial puzzle. Recent episodes spend a lot of time on AI, but the show is careful to separate momentum from hype. Agentic commerce is treated as exciting, unstable, and operationally complicated. Questions about Amazon's Rufus, Walmart's Sparky, OpenAI partnerships, fraud, purchase errors, and liability lead back to trust and control. That is the show's recurring center of gravity. Shoppers may be more empowered, but brands still need to earn attention, reduce friction, and make every touchpoint useful. Retail media conversations follow a similar pattern. Tesco Media's work becomes a way to examine relevance, inspiration, incrementality, and whether a perfectly relevant ad can still waste a valuable slot. Brand-side episodes widen the frame. Ryobi's customer experience work is about owning the relationship even when another retailer owns the transaction. Whirlpool's digital shelf story becomes a case study in product content, metrics, internal change, and helping consumers choose with confidence. CVH Spirits brings storytelling and data into the conversation, using distillery experiences and customer relationships as a defense against disintermediation. The AI prompting episode is more tactical, turning abstract enthusiasm into a repeatable framework for business teams. Mars brings the fundamentals back into view: influence, conversion, global-local execution, and the next best action. The format is polished without becoming glossy. Guests get room to think, while the questions keep returning to what changed, why it matters, and what a brand or retailer can actually do with the information. It is best for listeners who live close to commerce execution and need a steady read on where digital retail is moving.
Made for: Built for brand, retail, e-commerce, CPG, retail media, martech, and customer experience teams who need practical context for fast-moving commerce changes. It especially suits operators translating AI and digital shelf trends into workflows, metrics, and investment decisions.
What sets it apart: The show keeps hype accountable to shopper behavior, data, and execution. Its strength is the way commerce guests connect big shifts, including agentic AI and retail media, to concrete decisions about content, measurement, trust, and conversion.
Let’s talk through the future of brand manufacturing in the digital age. Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf. For more commerce content for all brands CPG & beyond, visit us at www.digitalshelfinstitute.org
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Detailed practitioner interviews connect commerce technology and marketing trends to the operational choices facing brands and retailers.
Unpacking the Digital Shelf turns digital commerce into a series of practical operating questions. Peter Crosby leads detailed interviews with brand, retail, marketing, and strategy figures, pressing beyond broad claims to ask how customer experience, retail media, social…
Amazon's Rufus sales claim gets a methodological eyebrow raise; you get commerce talk with its calculator out.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear-eyed look at how shopping agents are changing control, accountability and commerce strategy.
AI shopping agents promise an easier checkout, but they also blur control and accountability. Peter Crosby talks with IAB's Caroline Gigerich and Colin Colburn about what shoppers do with AI, how retailers are handling agentic commerce, and who may be responsible when an agent…
Relevance can close the basket; inspiration creates room for one more sale.
Retail media has a tougher brief than nudging shoppers toward items they already planned to buy. This PlayNext review frames the episode around the useful tension between relevance and inspiration, with Florian Clemens drawing a clear line between a Gillette shaving-blade ad…
A grounded look at how manufacturers can shape customer experience beyond the retail sale.
This episode looks at a practical problem for manufacturers: how to influence the customer journey when the sale itself sits with a retail partner.
A sober read on Amazon's Rufus, agentic commerce hype, and what the numbers may really signal.
Agentic commerce gets a more sober read as Russ Derringer, founder and CEO of Stratably, weighs the opportunity against the hype. The conversation centers on Amazon's Rufus, which Amazon says is used by close to 300 million users and drove around $12 billion in incremental GMV…
A grounded case for treating AI prompting as a conversation when the first answer misses the mark.
Lauren Schiavone treats AI prompting as a process problem, not a clever wording trick. Drawing on her background in brand management, e-commerce building, Wonder Consulting LLC, and work across process, tech, organizational experience, and AI, she pushes teams to think beyond a…
TikTok Shop's promise is clear, but creator fit and unpredictable virality make execution the real test.
TikTok Shop is where product discovery and checkout collapse into the same scroll, and this episode looks at what that shift means for brands.
A clear account of the operational work behind expanding into third-party marketplaces.
Third-party marketplaces can give brands another sales channel, though the harder question is whether they can keep control of listings, prices and stock as operations spread.
Tech talk with everyday skepticism.
Stephen Dubner tests bourbon economics, Alzheimer's research, and money advice against hard data.
Daily business news with Kai Ryssdal, tracking Fed policy, oil shocks, and private credit.
Galloway rotates Office Hours Q&A, Raging Moderates politics, and China Decode geopolitics weekly.
Lauren Livak Gilbert and John Harding discuss a DSI report on how IT and business teams must collaborate for growth in 2025.
Peter Crosby and Lauren Levack-Gilbert from the Digital Shelf Institute interview Ben Rey, Chief Revenue Officer at Teikametrics, about TikTok Shop's impact on social commerce.
Peter Crosby hosts Jordi Vermeer, VP of Revenue at ChannelEngine, to discuss operationalizing third-party (3P) marketplace strategies.
Lauren Lee interviews Mike Black about Profitero's 2025 e-commerce organizational benchmark report, focusing on what sets leaders apart in building an omni-channel organization.
Heather Campain discusses the evolving role of shopper marketing and its identity crisis in the digital age.
AI shopping has moved into the checkout lane.
Florian Clemens, Director of Strategy, Proposition, and Measurement at Tesco Media, talks through how Tesco connects search, display, in-store screens, offsite partnerships, and Clubcard CRM across about 25 ad products.
Vera Skocic, Head of Customer and Strategy at Techtronic Industries for Ryobi, describes how an Australian power-tools brand can shape demand without owning the sale because Bunnings owns the transaction.
Marilia Moreira, Digital Marketing Director at Whirlpool, discusses how the company transforms its digital and agentic product experiences to meet modern shoppers across all touchpoints.
Dave Stamp discusses how CVH Spirits uses storytelling and curated experiences to deepen consumer relationships and drive loyalty across all touchpoints.
Russ Dieringer of Stratably and Peter Crosby of the Digital Shelf Institute push back on the “hype” around agentic commerce, including OpenAI’s checkout pullback and Meta’s headlines.
Lauren Schiavone, founder of Wonder Consulting and former P&G brand manager, argues that AI adoption stalls when companies hand out tools without training, role-specific context, or business integration.
Swagat Choudhury discusses the evolution of digital commerce and the role of AI in leveraging data for better consumer and marketer outcomes.
Teresa Sperdi introduces the APAC Edition of Unpacking the Digital Shelf and previews a discussion on the growth of retail media in Australia with Paul Brooks.