In an era where consumers gather inspiration everywhere else, branded eCommerce sites face an existential crisis: prove your utility or become irrelevant. This episode examines how consumer expectations have shifted toward "get me what I want, when and how I want it," with 58% finding returns the most frustrating aspect of online shopping. We dissect why guest checkout remains a universal pain point and how brands can differentiate through seamless utility rather than flashy features.

• eCommerce sites have evolved from discovery engines to confirmation engines—customers arrive with pre-baked decisions seeking reassurance, not persuasion.
• Speed, clarity, and consistency are the new table stakes. Flashy features mean nothing if your site is slow, your checkout is clunky, or your shipping policy is unclear.
• Personalization should be engagement-based, not identity-based. Customers want relevance without creepiness—focus on their behavior in the moment, not invasive tracking.
• AI is an enabler, not the answer. Use it to understand cross-platform touchpoints and customer frustrations, not as a magic bullet for conversion.
  
• [00:04:06] "By the time they land on your site, they have pretty much created an idea of who you are, of what you offer, of what your product is. It's more on the choice confirmation bias...they don't want to be challenged. They just want to be reassured that they made the right decision." – Felipe Pose
• [00:14:00] "The role of the website has become more about clarity and reassurance, and not about communicating everything that you are, everything that you do, everything that you provide." – Felipe Pose
• [00:20:33] "I think that is one of the most powerful insights that we have gathered from many reports...they don't want to be really over targeted. They don't want identity based personalization. It's more based on what I want in this moment. What do I need from you? It's personalization based on engagement." – Felipe Pose
• [00:29:11] "If you are playing like a Jenga game...if you don't have a really strong foundation, if you don't have a site that is working correctly, a site that has some really slow pages, you have an unclear shipping policy...those are the things that will end up moving the needle the more." – Felipe Pose
• [00:32:46] "It's all about being prepared for the future and really understanding. Do I have everything I need today to be prepared for that? Because if you are on a really slow platform, something that is not scalable, you will not have a good experience today, even more so in 2026." – Felipe Pose

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As retail sheds its four walls, technology must follow. Jason James (CIO, Aptos) and Nikki Baird (VP of Strategy & Product, Aptos) join us to explore how brands like New Balance deploy 90+ registers at the NYC Marathon—then dismantle them just as quickly. The conversation reveals how point-of-sale systems built on next-generation databases enable everything from parking lot pop-ups to van-based fitting experiences, all while maintaining enterprise-grade security in environments where network connectivity is more hope than guarantee.

• New Balance transforms NYC Marathon into 100-store chain for one weekend
• Offline capability: transactions continue when networks fail, sync when connectivity returns
• In-person acquisition yields stickier customers with higher lifetime value
• Retail ranks third most-attacked sector; mobile commerce increases threat surface
• Store associates need intuitive systems for high-pressure, temporary deployments
• "If they're able to pull this off in the middle of a parking lot, I'm probably a hell of a lot more likely to go in the store next time." – Jason James on how ephemeral retail builds store trust
• "A customer acquired through an in-person, in real life experience is stickier, has longer lifetime value, is ultimately more loyal than a customer that's acquired online." – Nikki Baird on the power of physical engagement
• "God forbid a retailer gets hit back at headquarters with ransomware and it takes down their core network. We can still transact." – Jason James on offline resilience
• "It's not just you put products on racks or on shelves and you wait for people to walk in the door. Events are coming into stores too." – Nikki Baird on stores as experience hubs

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Mani Fazeli, VP of Product at Shopify, joins the show to explore how agentic commerce is fundamentally transforming retail. From Sidekick's co-founder capabilities to Sim Gym's buyer simulations, Shopify is democratizing enterprise-level AI tools for merchants of all sizes. The conversation reveals why friction isn't always the enemy, how discovery is evolving beyond blue links, and why structured data is the new SEO.

• Discovery has evolved from a one-shot search to multi-turn conversations
• Friction has value: Some purchases deserve complexity, others need speed
• Structured data becomes critical for agentic commerce success
• [00:32:56] "Let's make special what's actually worth being special. And then let's be okay with the fact that the rest of it gets streamlined."
• [00:49:57] "Structured data becomes the new SEO. Every brand is going to have to worry about whether they have clean, well-structured, and well-understandable schemas."
• [00:04:20] "Utility above being flashy. Go right for the heart of what makes a difference in the merchant's life every single day."
• [00:33:39] "Until these systems become emotion aware, it's highly unlikely that they are completely eradicating the entire idea of manual human intervention in commerce."

• Shopify Winter '26 Editions

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A quarter of Gen Z and Millennial consumers now trust AI recommendations more than human ones, marking the arrival of retail's first post-human interface. Sharon Gee, VP of Product at Commerce, joins us to explore the paradox of digital intimacy: why consumers will bare their souls to ChatGPT about shopping needs yet abandon carts when brands ask them to create accounts, how LLMs are becoming intimate commerce companions, and what this means for the collapse of traditional commerce funnels and brand discovery in an AI-mediated world.

• 27% of millennials trust AI recommendations more than humans, yet abandon carts when forced to create accounts: the trust paradox.
• Merchants must shift from channel management to model management: optimizing for how AI interprets your brand, not controlling distribution.
• Answer engine optimization isn't gaming algorithms. It's ensuring your brand shows up with authority when AI agents search on behalf of consumers.
• Three-party commerce is here: consumer, brand, and AI intermediary. The customer is the channel, and data is the new storefront.
• [00:01:42] "Our customers are having to shift their mindset from channel management to model management... The old game was distribution. The new game is intelligibility. And brands that win are gonna be the ones that understand the model and understand how they can adapt their message to the new modes of interacting with consumers." – Lindsay Trinkle
• [00:41:02] "Customers are the channel and the data is the storefront. And so what we need to be able to do is make sure that we understand at each interaction point when you show up with your brand. How is your data representing you?" – Sharon Gee

• New Modes Research: How AI is Shaping New Commerce Contexts and Expectations
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Coach's SVP of Global Visual Experience Giovanni Zaccariello reveals how the brand transformed from heritage accessory house to Gen Z cultural force by treating retail as community infrastructure. From hospitality-infused Coach Play stores to strategically sustainable holiday displays, the conversation explores how physical experience became Coach's competitive advantage in an increasingly digital marketplace.

• Gen Z seeks human connection and community, not just product transactions
• Coach studied consumers in their homes to understand life, not just buying behaviors
• Experience per square foot matters as much as sales per square foot
• Using the same holiday tree for five years reduced waste while building brand consistency
• Physical and digital spaces should converge, not replicate each other
• "Putting bags on shelves was no longer an option because everybody during the pandemic, including my mom who is 89, can buy online. They're coming to the stores and they want more." - Giovanni Zaccariello [00:06:37]
• "The next few years are going to be years of what I call experience maximalism where literally new things are going to be mundane because consumers are so much more connected now on social, and they see what's going on." - Giovanni Zaccariello [00:44:50]
• "It's about the consumer talking to us instead of Coach talking to the consumer. It's a much deeper dialogue." - Giovanni Zaccariello [00:45:46]
• "When things don't work, we don't just move on. We've created this honest feedback loop where we learn from things. If we don't learn, what's the point of testing and learning?" - Giovanni Zaccariello [00:41:17]

• Explore Coach Play concepts
• Coach coffee shops
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Black Friday naysayers have been predicting its demise for years, but Adyen's Holly Worst has data proving the shopping holiday is far from dead—it's gone global. From Denmark's 6.1X surge to America's mobile wallet awakening, this year's numbers tell a story of transformation, not decline. The real shift? How we pay, when we shop, and why contactless finally caught on in the US.

• Black Friday generated $43B globally with 837M transactions across Adyen's platform
• US contactless payments jumped 23% YOY and mobile wallet usage doubled to 30%
• Denmark saw a 6.1X increase in transaction volume on Black Friday, and Spain 4.5X—Black Friday is officially a global phenomenon
• Peak shopping hit at 1 pm in-store and noon online (digestion first, deals second)
• 46% of US consumers abandon checkout without their preferred payment method

• Check out Adyen’s BFCM data here
• See our full recap of BFCM results
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The traditional linear shopping journey has collapsed. Commerce now happens everywhere, and consumers are navigating this omnimodal reality with unprecedented fluidity.

Phillip Jackson and Lindsay Trinkle sit down with Melissa Minkow, Global Director of Retail Strategy and Insights at CI&T, to unpack findings from her Retail Tech Reality Check research. Together, they dissect how different platforms serve distinct purposes in the buyer's journey, why "omnichannel" is more relevant than ever, and what happens when everything becomes shoppable but commerce itself becomes invisible.

In this episode, we explore how the expanded digital ecosystem is fundamentally reprogramming how consumers engage with content, community, and commerce. With 74% of US consumers now using AI tools in their path to purchase, brands can no longer control the narrative—instead, they must embed themselves intentionally into customer-led conversations across multiple contexts.

• Each social platform serves a distinct purpose: Facebook for purchasing, YouTube for discovery, Reddit for research. Context matters more than channel ubiquity.
• The invisible transaction wins: TikTok succeeds because it's entertainment-first. The less commerce feels like commerce, the more consumers buy.
• Attribution is broken: Traditional linear models can't capture circular, contextual journeys. Focus on conversion, repeat purchase, and brand awareness—the only metrics you can trust.
• Search remains unsolved: Basic functionality like filtering furniture by dimensions is still missing. Data quality and search methodology are foundational competitive advantages.
• Micro-influencers drive outsized impact: 45 passionate referrals matter more than 45,000 followers. The persona of the referrer (picky, experimental, passionate) outweighs reach.
• AI will reshape holiday 2025: Gifting anxiety makes AI particularly valuable. Consumers use it to avoid looking stupid and navigate uncertain return processes.

• Melissa Minkow - Global Director of Retail Strategy and Insights, CI&T
• CI&T Retail Tech Reality Check Research
• New Modes Research

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It’s a Black Friday special! Phillip and Brian explore how capitalism commercializes everything it touches, as exemplified beautifully by community-driven Buy Nothing groups facing trademark enforcement and Walmart's WhoKnewVille campaign, which misses the point of Dr. Seuss entirely. They examine Mariah Carey's evolution from background music to Sephora partner, the disturbing rise of skincare for toddlers, and why new media's infinitesimally short news cycles are reshaping how we consume culture itself.

PLUS: Get Plus! Use code BLACKFRIDAY for a year of Future Commerce Plus at our lowest rate ever.

• Buy Nothing chooses to wage its trademark battle during the SNAP benefits pause.
• As long as digital channels and Kris Jenner continue to thrive, Black Friday will never die.
• Mariah Carey’s “It’s Time” video is sponsored by Sephora. Finally!
• The new media ecosystem demands we live in the immediacy of the moment. Media cycle half-lives grow shorter by the day.
• “Mel Gibson was for Boomers what Johnny Depp was for Gen X, and I get the same feeling about Timothee Chalamet for this generation.” –– Brian Lange
• “Any gift you give or receive is actually a flaming fireball in the sky of your identity.” –– Brian Lange
• “Let he who is without screen time cast the first stone.” –– Phillip Jackson
• “Buy Nothing groups disintermediate the knife fight.” –– Phillip Jackson, Craigslist knife fight survivor

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