The Commerce Collective Podcast

In this month's episode, Emma and Danny Hoffman (Senior Director, Global Retail Strategy) break down three commerce topics brands should have on their radar right now: what Joybuy’s launch in Europe could mean for competition and for brands, why more advertising dollars may keep moving toward retailer DSPs instead of other media environments, and how AI is starting to change the way shoppers discover products and how brands show up.

What does it actually take to grow on TikTok Shop? In this episode, Deren Baker, CEO of Flywheel Ventures, explains why brands need to treat TikTok Shop as a creator-led sales channel, not just another social platform or traditional marketplace. He breaks down how to match the right products, creators, and content to the way people shop in-feed, and why that shift is critical for turning views into real, profitable growth. To go deeper, download TikTok Shop Unlocked: The ultimate brand playbook for turning views into profitable growth.

In this episode, Emma and Patrick break down three pressure points every brand should be watching. First, they tackle the performance vs. transparency tradeoff in media buying. What's the balance between log‑level data and control, chasing opaque performance, and using transparency to actually change how and where you buy?Then they unpack The Trade Desk’s latest earnings and what its slowdown (and supply‑side growth elsewhere) signal about where spend is shifting across DSPs, CTV, and the open internet.Finally, they dig into the rush of vendors promising “LLM performance” measurement, covering how pricing is already collapsing, how little real differentiation there is, and how brands should approach contracts, trust, and experimentation in this new category.

Off‑platform doesn’t have to mean more complexity. Emma is joined by Instacart’s Head of Off-platform Strategy, Adam Silverblatt, to break down how brands can use Instacart’s first‑party data beyond Instacart.com. This looks like building high‑intent audiences, activating them via partners like The Trade Desk, Roku, Pinterest, and TikTok, and closing the loop with sales measurement. They dig into what makes Instacart’s audiences truly incremental, how to avoid double‑paying for the same shoppers, and what brands should be asking every retail media network about incrementality and accountability.

In this month’s episode, Emma and Patrick unpack what Andy Jassy’s AI comments really mean for where Amazon is betting on growth in his recent "The Information" interview, and how that could reshape the tools brands get for search, ads, and measurement. Next, they dig into Walmart’s latest AI moves with Gemini and the challenge of who owns shopper traffic, as well as highlight areas where Walmart is set up for growth. To close it out, they break down Amazon’s decision to shut down Go and Fresh stores and double down on Whole Foods and online grocery delivery, and what that means for your assortment, trade terms, and supply chain. You’ll walk away with a clearer view of where the big platforms are headed next, and what your brand should start changing now so you’re not playing catch‑up in 12–18 months.

In this episode, Emma and Jason O’Toole (Head of Connected Commerce at Hanesbrands) dive into the evolving world of commerce strategy. They cover everything from building commerce-focused organizational structures to the unique challenges of selling apparel online. You’ll hear how Hanesbrands approaches SKU complexity, 3P competition, and brand protection, plus how they’re building connected commerce teams to meet the demands of today’s omnichannel landscape. Jason also shares his perspective on the agency of the future, and why adaptability matters more than ever.

Digital commerce is shifting fast, and ten big “trends to prepare for” can feel overwhelming. In this conversation, Emma and Hannah Donoghue (SVP, Commerce Intelligence at Flywheel) walk through Flywheel Retail Insights’ “Digital Trends to prepare for in 2026” report and translate it into concrete next steps. From agentic commerce and data clean rooms to value cycles, private label pressure, consolidation, and CTV, Hannah explains what changed, why it matters now, and how to build a focused 2026 plan instead of chasing every headline.Read the full "Digital Trends to prepare for in 2026" report here.

In this episode, Emma Irwinand Patrick Miller close out the year by unpacking Black Friday Cyber Monday fatigue and how Amazon's asynchronous basket building and robust supply chain stand out. They dig into ChatGPT and Google Gemini, analyzing what truly has time, signal, and points of distribution, and how retailer partnerships with LLMs will shape shopping. Lastly, they cover what the potential Netflix x Warner Brothers deal means for consumers and advertisers. As a bonus, Patrick also names his retailer of the year, the most overrated story, and the one thing advertisers should leave behind in 2025.

In this episode, Emma sits down with Mike O’Donnell, SVP Innovation and Business Transformation at Flywheel, to break down the real impact of AI-powered search on consumer behavior and brand strategy. Mike shares why consumers are embracing generative tools like Amazon’s Rufus, how brands can adapt their content and measurement strategies for the new world of AI search, and what mass personalization means for the future of commerce. The conversation covers why consistent product data matters more than ever, how clean rooms and AI are unlocking audience-led advertising, and what Flywheel is building to help brands move from channel-based thinking to true return on consumer. Packed with practical insights, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to stay ahead in the evolving commerce landscape.Read the white paper, "From powerless to proactive: How brands can own the AI search revolution" here.

What’s the real impact of your advertising - and how do you know when you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns? In this episode, Emma sits down with Iñigo Gutierrez Fernandez, Analytics & Insights Associate Principal at Amazon Ads, for a behind-the-scenes look at the science powering smarter budget decisions.Iñigo unpacks Amazon’s holistic measurement framework, from pinpointing the “tipping point” for ad efficiency, to understanding both immediate and long-term campaign impact, and even tracking omnichannel results through the Amazon Shopper Panel. You’ll learn how to move beyond guesswork and use data to identify when your investment is working, which channels drive lasting value, and how to build a strategy that fits your brand’s goals.

Every brand wants to drive stronger results - and truly understand what’s behind them. In this episode, we’re live from unBoxed at the Partner Content Studio with Paula Despins, VP of Campaign Measurement, Planning, and AMC, for an inside look at Amazon’s latest launches that are transforming campaign development, optimization, and measurement. Amazon's new Ads Agent empowers advertisers to build smarter audiences and campaigns, and democratizes access to AMC insights that further help understand what's driving real growth for your business.

Emma Irwin and Flywheel’s SVP of Commerce, Mike Feldman, are live from Nashville for a rapid-fire recap of Amazon unBoxed 2025. In just 20 minutes, Emma and Mike unpack the announcements shaping the future of retail media - from unified ad platforms and the latest in video innovation, to full funnel AI-powered campaigns and the evolving role of AMC. Hear candid takes on what’s truly new, which launches matter most, and why the human touch still sets agencies apart as automation accelerates.

ROAS has long been the standard in retail media, but it leaves brands with an incomplete picture of shopper value. In this episode, VP of Product Gabe Fishbein joins Emma to reveal our "Return on Consumer Dashboard," a new solution that puts the entire consumer journey in focus.Gabe explains how this dashboard goes beyond campaign-level metrics and helps brands understand shopper value at every stage, from first interaction to loyalty. Discover where consumers drop off, where your investments make the most impact, and how to turn insights into growth.If you're ready to move beyond guesswork and truly see what drives value for your brand, this conversation is for you. Listen in for how our Return on Consumer dashboard gives you a clear path to smarter decisions and stronger results.

Patrick Miller (Co-founder, Flywheel) and Emma jump into this month’s recap with insights on Amazon’s latest earnings and what they reveal about the company’s expanding grocery ambitions. They also explore Amazon’s new AI-powered “Help me decide” feature, discuss Walmart’s plans to transform a Pennsylvania mall into a mixed-use retail destination, and wrap up with a candid look at what it takes to succeed as a CPG manufacturer as industry pressures continue to mount.

In this episode, Emma sits down with Chris Rueckert, SVP of Commerce at Flywheel, to explore how shopper media is evolving and why it matters more than ever. Chris shares details on Flywheel’s new Shopper Media offering, highlighting the importance of connecting data, strategy, and the in-store experience.Listen in to learn how we're helping brands bridge the gap between retail media and shopper marketing, and why a holistic, consumer-centric approach is key for driving sales. Interested in learning more about our Retail Insights AI assistant? Let's connect: https://www.flywheeldigital.com/contact-us

What happens when a retail giant puts member value at the center of its advertising strategy? In this episode, Emma sits down with Mark Williamson, Assistant Vice President of Retail Media at Costco Wholesale, to explore how Costco is building its retail media business without compromising on its core principle: delivering value to members. Mark shares insights from Costco’s journey, including the challenges and opportunities of unifying omnichannel data, the importance of identity fidelity, and why member trust outweighs short-term ad revenue. If you listened to the episode and want to learn more about Flywheel's Shopper Media offering, click here.

In this episode, Emma and Patrick dive into OpenAI’s new instant checkout feature with Etsy, discussing how AI-powered commerce is reshaping product discovery and the shopper journey. They additionally further unpack the recent streaming partnerships news and what it means for advertisers, and wrap up discussing new tools for sellers coming out of Amazon Accelerate.

Gabe Fishbein, Flywheel's VP of Product, sat down with Alan Lewis (Director of Product, AMC, Amazon Ads) at Amazon Accelerate 2025 to discuss AMC’s expanded accessibility, new user-friendly features, and how brands of all sizes can use AMC for actionable insights. Listen in to learn how the platform is evolving and walk away with creative use cases, and what’s next for AMC.

Product detail pages (PDPs) are back in the spotlight, and for good reason. In this episode, Emma welcomes back Russ Dieringer, founder of Stratably, to dig into the state of the PDP in 2025, what brands are actually doing with their PDP content to win on Amazon, and how AI is changing the rules for content, search, and discovery. Register for Stratably's webinar, "From SEO to GEO: Mastering the New Rules of AI-Driven Commerce" with Flywheel's Mike O'Donnell here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/804566983527944792?source=fly

What does the modern omnichannel organization really need to succeed? Emma sits down with Lauren Livak Gilbert, executive director of the Digital Shelf Institute, to unpack the findings from DSI’s “Reinventing for Omnichannel Success” report. Lauren shares why old org structures fall short, the urgent capabilities brands must build, and how cross-functional collaboration and mindset shifts are key to driving change. Read the report here.

In this episode, Emma and Patrick break down Walmart ending its exclusive partnership with The Trade Desk and explore what that means for DSPs and advertisers. Next, they tackle the end of the de minimis tax exemption, unpacking the impact for global marketplaces, sellers, and small businesses. Finally, they debate whether agentic AI is truly the future of commerce or just the latest tech mirage.

What is AWS, and why should retailers, brands, and marketers care? In this candid conversation, Amazon’s Justin Honaman joins the show to demystify Amazon Web Services and its growing role in commerce. From cloud infrastructure and clean rooms to AI-powered analytics and real-world case studies, Justin explains how AWS is transforming legacy tech stacks, powering business agility, and unlocking innovation for companies of all sizes.

In this episode, Patrick & Emma cover high-level Prime Day observations, what Amazon and The New York Times really get out of their new AI deal, and what Amazon pulling out of Google PLAs means for Amazon, Google, and brands.

In this episode, Emma and Danny Hoffman (Head of Global Amazon Strategy, Flywheel) dig into the power of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) for brands looking to unlock a deeper understanding of their business. Discover how AMC helps you measure long-term value (LTV), new-to-brand (NTB) acquisition, and the true point of market entry (POME). Hear real-world examples of how these metrics can shape smarter strategies, build brand loyalty, and drive sustainable growth.

Flywheel's annual whitepaper, The Big Shift, is back! In this episode, Patrick and Emma (co-authors of the paper) explore how forward-thinking brands are leveraging SKU+CID data to maximize their return on consumer across each retailer, every campaign, and the entire portfolio. Listen in to discover why the future belongs to brands that verticalize ROI, treat CIDs like annuities, and use real behavioral signals to fuel long-term growth. Download the full paper here: https://www.flywheeldigital.com/guides/the-big-shift-redefining-roi-with-return-on-consumer

Flywheel Retail Insight's "Future Retail Disruption" report is live, and Hannah Donoghue (SVP, Consulting) and Emma are here to break it all down. They cover what’s driving change across the industry, exploring the biggest forces shaping retail, the assumptions you should make about the future, and the capabilities brands need to build or enhance to stay ahead. Hear how this year’s trends compare to past editions, and get practical insights to help your organization win in a rapidly evolving landscape.Subscribe to Retail Insights here.

In this episode Patrick and Emma start by covering how Flywheel's recently launched CLTV Dashboard helps brands turn insights from AMC's 5 years of purchase data into impact. Next, they touch on the key themes from LUMA's State of Digital 2025 report as well as Ben Evans' annual predictions presentation, "AI Eats the World."Register for the "Future Retail Disruption" webinar presented by the Flywheel Retail Insights team here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7664520082946280029

Megan Harbold, VP Marketing Strategy at Ampd joins the show to reveal why connecting Google and Meta ads directly to retailer shelves is the smarter way to drive sales, optimize media, and finally move beyond clicks, impressions, and the limitations of chasing first-party data.

In this month's episode, Patrick and Emma cover how recent tariffs are affecting retail inventory and consumer behavior, plus the impact of Gen AI on product discovery and search. We're seeing retailers pull forward inventory and consumers showing surprising resilience, while AI is reshaping traditional purchase funnels - though as Patrick notes, successful brand building remains "same as it ever was."

The Commerce Collective podcast traveled to the land down under for this episode to cover all of the need-to-knows of Australian commerce. Mo HeidariFar, Managing Director of Flywheel ANZ joins the show to talk through what makes Australian shoppers and the Australian economy unique, who the major retail media players are, and how Australia has acted as the testing ground for extended deal events for major retailers like Amazon.

In this episode, Patrick and Emma start with diving into the impact of AMC Audiences for Sponsored Ads and what Flywheel has built to maximize precision and efficiency with this extended capability. Next, they cover a recent article on JBPs that's all about RMN efficacy and how brands and retailers need to solve issues in order for JBPs to reach their potential. Last up, how to make sure advertiser's dollars are reaching human eyes vs. bots through closed-loop, deterministic measurement.

In this episode Keith Legro, VP of Key Accounts at Fender covers what it takes to be successful online while selling musical instruments - a category where the feel and sound of the products is often critical. Tune in for lessons on who is shopping for instruments online vs. in-store and how Fender works to reach consumers at every stage of the purchasing journey.

In this episode Patrick and Emma first cover what a zero-click shopping world driven by generative AI and LLMs means for shoppers, advertisers, and retailers. This is followed by a discussion on what consumers in 2025 want out of ecommerce deliveries (hint: it's not always speed) and then quick coverage of the impending tariffs.

In this episode Jamie Williams, Retail Media Lead at Glanbia walks through two specific AMC analyses conducted in partnership with the Flywheel team. We start with using AMC to help answer questions around how top items in the portfolio drive NTB, profitability, and loyalty and conclude with talking through a tentpole analysis done to dig into how the brand performs across different tentpole events in order to evaluate future investments. From the objective to the analysis to the results and following actions to drive growth, this episode has it all.

The year is off to a booming start and Emma and Patrick cover it all. This episode first touches on Flywheel's first-to-market agreement with Amazon to extend the AMC purchase data lookback window to 5 years and of course what this actually means and unlocks for brands. Next, they cover Amazon selling its adtech to other retailers and where it makes sense for brands to test and learn. And lastly, they cover the buzz around AI agents and the impact there may or may not be on the future of commerce.

Hannah Donoghue, SVP Consulting at Flywheel breaks down everything that’s going to shape the commerce landscape in 2025. From supply chain transformation to social commerce to retail media to AI, listening to this episode will leave you prepared for what’s to come.

In this episode (our last episode of the year!), Patrick & Emma cover what happened during BFCM 2024 and what it means for brands and retailers - think personalization vs. discovery, low-cost marketplaces, and the competition between the biggest retailer players. You'll want to stick around for the end - where we get into a rapid-fire style, full-year recap. Happy holidays and we'll see you next year!

Matt Leigh, VP Retail Operations at Syndigo breaks down the current state of digital content in this episode - looking at increasing regulatory pressures and how brands need to adapt, what motivates retailer data upload methods and requirements, and the need for sophisticated and specialized content data management and expertise.

You might hear "retailer earnings" and think about investors, but you shouldn't underestimate the power of understanding the important pieces of a retailer earnings report and how each quarter's performance can impact your business. In this episode, Eamon Kelly of Edgewater Research Company joins us to teach us how to decode the critical elements of these reports as a brand or agency and understand what actually drives share prices for retailers.

This month’s episode is continued coverage on the competitive low-cost marketplace environment. Patrick and Emma discuss Shein’s struggles to IPO, Temu’s mission to sign on as many merchants as possible while navigating a potential end to the De Minimus tax exemption, and Amazon’s shadowboxing to stay in the game. But with prices so low sellers will have to determine when it’s time to invest in growing as a brand (or not).

In this episode recorded live from unBoxed 2024, Gabe Fishbein, VP Product at Flywheel covers the power of Sponsored Ads across the full funnel, which has come to life in new ways due to changes in how Amazon calculates advertising eligibility. This change forces advertisers to re-evaluate their profitability matrix and ad type mix, which overall provides an opportunity to further seek deterministic measurement all the way down the funnel.

Recorded live at Amazon unBoxed 2024, this episode features Kiersten Smith, Director of Marketing at Megababe who covers how Flywheel helped strategize a full funnel approach to increase NTB sales, marketshare, and brand awareness utilizing a variety of Amazon Ads products. Listen in for how this challenger brand, in a tough category, with finite resources was able to meet its goals.

In this quick episode of the Commerce Collective Podcast’s unBoxed coverage, Donte McCrary-McClain gives us a speedy overview of multiple new product launches related to AMC, some of which Flywheel had the opportunity to beta test prior to the conference. We’ll cover bid boosting for SP and SB with the help of AMC and a variety of measurement enhancements to AMC itself. Tune in to learn more about what these products are, how to strategically use them, and how Flywheel has been able to bring these to life for a few advertisers via our early testing access. 

Recorded live from unBoxed 2024 in Austin, we talk to Kelly MacLean, VP Amazon DSP at Amazon Ads about finding relevant audiences with ADSP, what we mean by relevance, and the power that exists for advertisers when AMC audiences and APC signals overlay - and we’ll even touch on all of that in relation to CTV buys. You won’t want to miss listening in to this episode, and be sure to check out every episode we publish from unBoxed 2024!

eB2B is one of the fastest-growing ecommerce channels - currently growing faster than eB2C itself! This means that now is the time to research this channel, seek out opportunities, and begin investing in test and learn opportunities. Nick Everitt, Director of Consulting at Flywheel teaches us about the foundations of eB2B, the main platforms, and how brands should be approaching their eB2B channel strategy.