Retailgentic | Consumer Behavior & Retail Trend

Danny Smith is the Global Agentic Commerce Solutions Lead at Stripe, where he runs technical go-to-market (think pre-sales architect, not engineering) for Stripe’s agentic commerce products. One of his first projects was adding the payments layer to Amazon’s Rufus shopping assistant, and three years ago he got on stage at Stripe Sessions to talk about agentic commerce. We recorded this one live from day two of RetailClub in Huntington Beach. It was a little overcast, which after a day of baking in the sun, we didn’t mind at all. Jason Goldberg joined me as co-host, and we grabbed Danny between meetings. It was his first time at the show. Danny’s a first-timer, both on the pod and at RetailClub. This week’s episode is a product deep dive: Stripe has been shipping agentic commerce products at a pace that makes three months ago feel like ancient history. Danny walks us through what’s live, what launched last Monday, and what’s coming soon, including how the checkout Scot kept seeing inside Meta’s new Muse app actually works. Jason brings the payments-industry history. It goes back to when card-not-present transactions were illegal and runs up to Stripe’s jump from developer darling to incumbent. We also get into the thing that’s still breaking agentic commerce today, and it isn’t the agents. Along the way there’s a hallucinating agent, a leather jacket, and a Cheeky Pint swag request. Hit play. Highlights 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗪𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: A skill you teach any agent (Claude, GrokBot, your homebrew Hermes agent) so it can pay “in a guarded and secure manner.” Details at link.com/agents. “𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗔𝗣𝗜 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲”: Developers really do stop Danny at conferences to ask for a photo. Stripe’s founders’ mantra: “Let’s win all startups, and then let’s go win them again.” 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘆: Changing payments at an enterprise is “like open heart surgery.” Jason adds that it’s open heart surgery while you’re running a marathon. 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱’𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻: Stripe’s shared payment tokens launched with OpenAI, and Etsy was the first merchant. Link wraps them as a single-use virtual card capped at the amount you budgeted, so the merchant doesn’t have to be on Stripe. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: Launched last Monday and built on WebMCP, it makes human checkouts machine-readable at the same time. Stripe merchants on hosted checkout or invoices get it with no extra work. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝗠𝗖𝗣 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: 42% fewer tokens burned, 38% fewer tool calls, and 39% faster checkout. “Three seconds is annoying to a human, 800 milliseconds is beyond annoying to an agent.” 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗲𝗯 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰: Through the Agentic Commerce Suite (ACS), some merchants have doubled their web traffic in three or four months just by getting their catalogs in front of agents. Instant checkout on Gemini is expected around late October. 𝗗𝗼𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝘃𝘀. 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿: Most merchants are bouncers that block all bot traffic, and bots were already 53% of internet traffic in 2024. Stripe is working on protocols to tell good bots from bad ones. Stripe is building both sides of the agentic transaction, and Danny is the one out there getting retailers across the line. Enjoy the conversation. Timeline 00:27 Welcome to Retailgentic 01:44 Live from Retail Club, day two 02:05 Meet Danny Smith, Stripe 02:38 From cloud architect to Stripe 03:48 Adding payments to Amazon's Rufus 04:55 Stripe launches agentic commerce 06:08 Jason on payments history & developer-first Stripe 07:40 "Your API changed my life" 08:40 Enterprise payments = open heart surgery 09:05 Meta Muse and the Link checkout 10:25 What is Link Wallet for Agents? 11:00 The weekend Meta scramble 12:20 GrokBot, Instinct & the pipeline 13:55 How Link works at non-Stripe merchants 14:35 The model airplane story 15:40 The world's first agentic token 16:05 Stripe Checkout for Agents & WebMCP 17:10 Two sides of the same coin 17:55 Agentic Commerce Suite & doubled traffic 20:55 WebMCP numbers: 42% fewer tokens 22:10 The leather jacket that got blocked 23:50 Doorman vs. bouncer 25:10 Danny's first Retail Club 26:30 Wrap 👉 Connect with Danny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-r-smith/ 👉 Learn more about Stripe: https://stripe.com 🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along: 📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai 📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

This week’s episode is a platform deep dive with one of the longest-tenured companies in e-commerce. Elastic Path has been building commerce software for 26 years and Bryan is now steering the company straight into the agentic era. It’s part founder-journey (craft brewing to CEO is not a typical path), part product deep dive, and part industry-shift conversation about what AI does to the economics of running a commerce platform. Highlights: 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗘𝗢: Bryan spent eight years as a professional brewer, with an actual brewing degree, at a brewpub across from Fenway Park. "Everything I learned in my career that really moved the needle for me, I learned as a brewer." 𝟮𝟲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲: Elastic Path's claim to fame was building the store for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the birth of its self-managed commerce product. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 $𝟱𝟬𝟬𝗞 𝘂𝗽𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲, 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱: Elastic Path built an AI updater so one developer can upgrade a self-managed platform in about two weeks, replacing what used to be a half-million-dollar annual project. 𝟭𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: where typical platforms cap out at 250 variations per item, Elastic Path supports 10,000, plus bundles of up to 1,500 items. 𝗦𝗶𝘅 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱: Bryan's prediction… AI takes re-platforming from a 6-month-to-2-year, $500K–$3M digital transformation down to a setup fee. "That's the place we're gonna see the biggest impact of AI in commerce." 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟴𝟬-𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗣𝗗𝗙: in a world of AI discovery, every product needs the equivalent of an 80-page PDF of data to train the LLM on when to recommend it. (Scot's line, which Bryan says he "steals with credit" as often as he can.) 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗻 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: a UK custom greeting-card seller saw conversion jump 40% almost immediately after adopting Elastic Path's checkout 𝗡𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘀: customers are asking about UCP and ACP, discovery, and the long tail, not chatbots. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹-𝗽𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗱: Bryan's framework for where AI lands first… well-understood patterns like checkout, front ends, and reorders, not judgment-heavy edge cases. Bryan is a product guy after our own heart, and this one gets satisfyingly deep, from CPQ to protocols to the future of re-platforming. Enjoy the conversation. Timestamps: 03:20 Welcome Bryan + podcasting since 2009 04:05 Internet Retailer booth memories 04:55 From craft brewing to software 07:35 The Acquia and Drupal years 08:20 Moltin, Neural Magic, joining Elastic Path 11:05 Elastic Path history: the Olympics store 13:20 Two products: SaaS + self-managed 13:45 The AI updater: killing the $500K upgrade 14:50 80 people, profitable, constraints breed innovation 17:00 Customer base and the B2B focus 19:15 CPQ, PXM, and 10,000 variations 22:45 Serena & Lily case study 24:10 The MACH Alliance backstory (spicy) 29:55 Vibe coding the front end + Shopify as fintech 33:20 AI re-platforming: six weeks and $100K 39:00 The ReFiBuy partnership + the 80-page PDF 40:55 AI roadmap: workflows, promotions, analytics 43:20 B2B agentic commerce and EDI 47:10 UCP, ACP, and the long tail 49:05 Predictions: where the roads are well-paved 51:20 What's next for Elastic Path 👉 Connect with Bryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhouse/ 👉 Learn more about Elastic Path: https://www.elasticpath.com/ 🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along: 📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai 📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

This week’s episode is a little different. We’ve has been noticing vibe-code platforms quietly showing up all over digital retail… at trade shows, in conversations with retailers and brands, and on the platforms’ own commerce pages. So we went to the source. This is a platform deep dive with Vercel, the enterprise company behind v0 and Next.js, on what a “vibe coding” company is actually doing in our world of commerce, and it turns out the answer is: a lot more than you’d think. Highlights 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟬𝟬-𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗵: A Deloitte Digital + Google study cites clients found 100ms of load-time reduction drives a 7–8% lift in e-commerce conversion. “If the thing is faster, you’re gonna convert more. It’s just math.” 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻’𝘀 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: The Kontoor Brands-owned retailer cut load times from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds on Vercel, grew conversion 20% year over year, doubled its A/B test velocity, and blew away its Black Friday/Cyber Monday plan. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹-𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵: Vercel in three phrases… a developer tools company, an infrastructure provider, and an open-source software factory. 𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗹: walmart.com and target.com run on Next.js, and Under Armour, Crocs, Buck Mason, PetSmart, McAlister’s, DeWalt, Clorox, and even Meta.ai are Vercel-delivered applications. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿: Vercel doesn’t do product catalogs, inventory, or order management. It’s the storefront layer on top of your commerce platform. “We help you own your storefront and own your destiny.” 𝘃𝟬 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗳𝘆: v0 is now deeply integrated with Shopify, so you can customize your storefront in plain English 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗱: Custom storefront projects that were planned for a year are landing in six months, six-month plans in three. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿: Next.js 16 was built to be readable and manipulated by Cursor, Claude, and Codex, “now we have this new customer, this agent customer, who wants to interact with your code base.” 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁-𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗯 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Jaime’s conversion story: feeding 50-page client 10-Ks into ChatGPT in early 2023 and realizing everything about go-to-market, and the factories that make software, was about to change. This one really lifted the veil on what the vibe-code platforms are actually doing in retail, and I think we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Enjoy the conversation. Timestamps: 05:29 Welcome Jaime Sorgente 06:08 Jaime's path to Vercel: ChatGPT and 10-Ks 12:29 Utilities vs. builders 15:00 What is Vercel? The cocktail-party pitch 17:10 Why retail as a vertical 21:20 The Helly Hansen story 24:05 Vercel's other verticals: digital natives and marketing 26:45 Enabler, not competitor: where Vercel fits vs. Shopify & Salesforce 29:35 Beyond the storefront: clienteling and staff apps 30:45 Agents everywhere: Crocs, Amazon image annotation 36:05 v0 + Shopify: customize your storefront in English 37:45 Next.js 16: built for the agent customer 39:20 Custom storefront timelines, halved 40:35 Does owning your storefront de-risk replatforming? 42:20 The 100-millisecond study 44:30 The compounding effect: 4X feature velocity 46:45 Next.js explained: the stage manager analogy 52:20 Framework-defined infrastructure 54:30 Vercel vs. Lovable, Replit, and Base44 58:15 Where to learn more + wrap-up 👉 Connect with Jaime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsorgente/ 👉 Learn more about Vercel: https://vercel.com/for/retail 🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along: 📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai 📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

This week’s episode is a deep dive into personalization, a huge category in e-commerce that’s getting rebuilt from the ground up for the AI era. FERMÀT is an AI-native personalization platform that sits on top of your e-commerce platform and customizes the site experience based on a visitor’s behavior, not their identity. That distinction sounds subtle, but it turns out to be the whole ballgame and it connects directly to agentic commerce because agents show up with intent, not an identity. We also pick up Rishabh’s founder journey and some very candid company-building advice along the way. Highlights 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬% 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘁: FERMÀT's data shows personalizing on behavior alone, even for fully incognito visitors, converts roughly 20% better than personalizing on identity and past purchases. 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲: the marketer's dream of one-to-one was "a lack of imagination", the same person is a different shopper on Instagram, Google, and ChatGPT. 𝗗𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁, 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱, 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲: instead of humans watching a sample of session recordings and shipping site changes months later, agents trained on commerce watch every session, recommend changes, and generate the new experience. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗺𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: identity-based personalization was state-of-the-art 10 years ago. Rishabh's take on the incumbents: if nothing changes, "their 3 to 400 million of revenue will become 2 to 300." 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗱, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗗: even when an Instagram visitor is anonymous, the ad they clicked carries demographics, performance history, and frequency data… context most brands never use. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁: an agent is only as good as the feedback, context, and iteration speed you give it and every "actually, I also care about the collar" update is behavior data. 𝗦𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲: Platforms are using AI to verify your pages and truth gets rewarded, not dinged. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 ≠ 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁: support agents should stick to facts and policies; shopper agents should infer. Rishabh is one of the clearest thinkers I’ve talked to on where personalization goes in an agent-first world, and his founder advice at the end is worth the listen on its own. Enjoy the conversation. Timestamps: 02:44 Welcome Rishabh 03:37 Rishabh's backstory: physics, Wall Street, PhD 06:33 Building three businesses at LiveRamp 07:56 Founding story: Apple ATT and iOS 14.5 10:33 Detect, recommend, generate 12:27 Where FERMÀT sits in the stack 13:57 Many-to-one personalization 15:22 The Bloomreach question 19:00 Does current behavior beat past behavior? 21:18 The data: a 20% conversion lift 22:34 The agentic commerce connection 23:44 The real estate agent analogy 25:41 Reading intent from incognito traffic 26:28 Into the weeds: mining a Meta ad for context 30:37 Side quest: the SEO cloaking myth 33:47 Writing for agents, bots, and humans 34:49 On-site shopper agents 39:40 Company building: know your why 42:38 Where to find Rishabh + the 1 to 100 podcast 👉 Connect with Rishabh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishabhmjain/ 👉 Learn more about FERMÀT: https://www.fermatcommerce.com/ 👉 1 to 100 podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6WAB5oOzco9oWrQmYmuFZ6 🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along: 📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai 📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

This week’s episode is a data deep dive… two of them, actually. Salesforce just dropped a back-to-back data release: the latest edition of its State of Commerce report and its Holiday 2026 predictions. Caila Schwartz, Salesforce’s newly minted Head of Agentic Commerce Shopper Insights, walks us through both. Think of it as a rearview mirror on the first half of 2026 and headlights into the holiday season, with agentic commerce showing up in nearly every number. Highlights: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟬% 𝗷𝘂𝗺𝗽: 15% of shoppers now start their buying journey with an LLM or agent, up from 5% last spring. 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗳 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀: About 50% have used a general-purpose LLM, social media agent, or branded agent somewhere in their buying journey in the past 12 months, a 67% increase over last year. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴: Agentic search traffic converts at roughly 2.5–3.5%, about 2–3x overall conversion and far above social’s sub-1%. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: 74% of shoppers trust agent recommendations, and over 80% feel more confident in purchases made after interacting with a brand-owned agent like Rufus or Sparky. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁: Discovery is happening inside conversations that never send a click back to the brand site. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮 𝗙𝗶𝘃𝗲: Salesforce’s Holiday 2026 predictions: non-human traffic, branded agents everywhere, social commerce acceleration, the store’s new hybrid role, and the free-shipping squeeze. 𝟮𝟬% 𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰: This holiday, Salesforce predicts about one in five e-commerce visits will come from crawlers and agents, not people. 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲: About a third of B2C orgs have agents deployed today, over half plan to deploy within six months, and by Cyber Week one in three e-commerce sites will have a branded agent on site. 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝟵𝗫: Social commerce is predicted to grow nine times faster than traditional e-commerce this year, and it’s high-income shoppers, even more than Gen Z, saying they’ll buy in-app this holiday. 𝗛𝘆𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆: 37% of holiday dollars will be “hybrid sales” that rely on both digital and physical to close the deal, 80% of shoppers use their phone while standing in your store. 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗸: Four in five commerce pros say their tech stack grew over the last two years, making data unification the #1 barrier to good agents. Caila brings the receipts, real numbers on a shift most of us are still trying to eyeball. We’ll get her back in the fall when the actual holiday forecast drops. Enjoy the conversation. Timestamps: 06:30 Interview begins, Caila's new title 07:20 Caila's role and 12 years at Salesforce 08:30 Two reports: State of Commerce + Holiday predictions 09:30 State of Commerce methodology 12:50 What's new in this edition 14:45 The agentic discovery shift: 50%, 200%, 15% 17:25 Who's losing share in discovery 19:00 Faster than mobile or social ever moved 22:20 The measurability problem 25:20 Conversion: 2–3x better than average 27:10 Why shoppers lean on agents, by income 29:30 Trust: 74% and the 80% confidence stat 32:00 The branded-agent race 34:30 The #1 barrier: data unification 40:20 Caila Five #1: 20% non-human traffic 42:30 #2: One in three sites get a branded agent 43:15 #3: Social commerce grows 9x 44:25 #4: The store's new role 37% hybrid sales 46:20 #5: Free shipping and the K-shaped economy 47:30 Decoupled transactions deep dive 53:10 Top recos: unify data, turn on ACP 👉 Connect with Caila: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caila-schwartz/ 👉 Learn more about Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ 👉 Check out the State of Ecommerce: https://www.salesforce.com/commerce/resources/state-of-commerce/ 👉 Look at the Holiday 2026 Predictions: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/holiday-retail-predictions-2026/ 🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along: 📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai 📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic