Andrew Youderian joins Phillip and Brian to break down the 2026 eCom Trends Report: a decade in the making, 300 brands surveyed, and a lot of conventional wisdom overturned. The data reveals a diverging landscape where gross margins are climbing but net margins are shrinking, Amazon's dominance is quietly unwinding, and AI's productivity promise hasn't quite arrived – yet.

• Paid advertising isn't the problem, but your P&L structure might be
• Amazon's share of community revenue has fallen to 2017 levels, despite record seller counts
• AI adoption isn't moving the financial needle. 2026 may be the inflection point
• Lean operations (sub-20% overhead) consistently separate the optimistic from the pessimistic
• Raising prices remains the fastest, highest-impact lever operators chronically underuse
• Andrew's thesis: we're entering the era of the small, durable brand — slower, sturdier, built to last

• [00:12:14] "Quality product is no longer the moat. Attention is the moat. But the problem is attention is expensive and easily diverted." — Brian
• [00:14:22] "The future is going to be the era of the small, durable brand — fewer brands that scale quickly, more brands that build slowly the old-fashioned way." — Andrew Youderian
• [00:27:24] "I think 2026, 2027, we're going to see those AI-adopting brands start to pull away — but I don't think it has delivered yet on what it's promised." — Andrew Youderian
• [00:35:34] "There's nothing I have done across multiple businesses that has ever had as much impact, as quickly, and that I have regretted waiting as long to do, as raise prices." — Andrew Youderian

• eCommerceFuel 2026 eCom Trends Report (Blueprint)
• eCommerceFuel

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How does a 76-year-old legacy retailer reinvent itself as a tech-powered ecosystem? Lisa Horton, Chief Communications & Creative Officer at David’s Bridal, dishes on the company’s grand modernization and how they’ve expanded to accommodate the next generation’s Gen-Z-sized aspirations.

• David's Bridal's "Aisle to Algorithm" pivot puts AI at the center of everything — from merchandising to internal communications.
• The Style Squad ambassador program bridges employee creators ("Dream Makers") and external influencers, offering the most aggressive affiliate commission in retail at 20%.
• David's captures 90% of brides who enter their ecosystem — a first-party data advantage few retailers can match.
• The definition of "influencer" is broadening: word of mouth is influence, and everyone is influential.
• David's is building beyond bridal — eyeing the post-wedding household, where the majority of purchase decisions are made.
• [00:00:54] "We're basically a startup inside of a 76-year-old retailer." - Lisa Horton
• [00:12:09] "We have shifted in the last 12 months from being a legacy retailer to a 360 degree wedding planning ecosystem." - Lisa Horton
• [00:13:12] "Word of mouth is influence. And everyone is influential." - Lisa Horton
• [00:22:06] "Everything that we do moving forward is always going to come from a place of how do we mitigate her stress? How do we make her feel excited and seen and celebratory in every moment." - Lisa Horton

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Recorded live on the Shoptalk Spring show floor, Phillip and Alicia sit down with Leah Logan, VP of Retail Media Transformation for Inmar Intelligence, and Andrew Lipsman, Founder & Chief Analyst at Media, Ads + Commerce, fresh off a spirited on-stage debate about agentic commerce. We debunk AI Traffic Apocalypse predictions and make the case for creators as a critical yet overlooked retail media channel.

• AI referral traffic currently accounts for just 0.1–2% of retailer traffic; it has also led to eCommerce site traffic growth, not decline.
• Consumer intent data, not bottom-funnel ads, is where LLM advertising will find its footing.
• Creators are a media channel that predates the hype, and the measurement has been there for years.
• Retail media's growth depends on graduating from ROAS to incrementality — the sooner, the better.
• [00:11:08] "The next big trend already exists. People just haven't really wrapped their heads around it yet." — Andrew Lipsman
• [00:26:09] "We have to stop looking at CPMs and start looking at investments." — Leah Logan

• Retail Confessions Podcast
• Buy STRATA

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Oreos are Baptist, Biscotti are Anglican, and we're losing our minds. Cookie theology, meme reality, mass hallucinations, the price of attention, and more on the full After Dark episode – accessible to Future Commerce Plus members.

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Recorded live at Shoptalk, Phillip and Brian sit down with Heather Rivera, Chief Business Officer at Wing (an Alphabet company), to talk about how Wing has crafted our five-minute delivery future. Spoiler: the novelty of drones wearing off might be the best thing that ever happened to the industry.

• Wing's fastest recorded delivery: 2 minutes, 37 seconds. Average is under five minutes.
• 25% of Wing customers order three times a week – habit, not novelty.
• Wing just announced its largest residential drone delivery expansion yet, with Walmart, covering 270+ store locations.
• ~70% of Walmart SKUs fit in Wing's current delivery box – roughly 50,000 products.
• Wing recently doubled its payload capacity from 2.5 lbs to 5 lbs, opening new SKU and category possibilities.
• [00:20:39] "I want this technology to become unremarkable for people because it just becomes part of the way they go about their lives." – Heather Rivera
• [00:13:09] "I predict there's gonna be whole sets of new companies that design existing products to fit into the five pound baskets." – Brian

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Recording LIVE from the show floor of Shoptalk Spring 2026, the Future Commerce team brings our hottest takes and deepest insights from this year’s event. PLUS: We celebrated the launch of our newest zine, STRATA Vol. 001, with over 150 of our favorite people (including Snoop Dogg?). Get your copy at futurecommerce.com/strata.

• AI was the headline theme, but the humanity angle landed harder with attendees.
• In-booth content creation has become the industry standard; Future Commerce pioneered it in 2017.
• FedEx's Jason Brenner reframed logistics as a brand trust moment, not just a last mile.
• Victoria's Secret CEO Hillary Super showed what vision-led turnarounds actually look like.
• Curious people will always find leverage. AI just multiplies what they were already doing.
• “Maybe by this time next year, we will see OpenClaw-specific agencies on the show floor.” – Phillip
• "If you're inherently curious and someone who likes to problem solve...AI is gonna help you, totally, without a doubt." – Alicia

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Armand Wilson, Chief Revenue Officer at Whatnot, joins Phillip and Brian to unpack why live shopping finally took hold in the West. Drawing from Whatnot’s recent 2026 State of Live Selling Report, we trace the platform's origin from a niche Funko Pop marketplace to an $8B GMV juggernaut after landing $225 million in Series F funding.

• The barrier to entry for live selling is far lower than traditional eCommerce.
• 80% of Whatnot buyers return the following month, compared with approximately 30% in traditional eCommerce.
• Live selling lets brands tell their story in ways a static product page never can.
• Whatnot raised $225M in Series F; the platform did $8B in GMV last year.
• Live commerce is quietly revitalizing small businesses and local brick-and-mortar.

[00:09:00] "It's clienteling in almost a digital way, blurring the line between parasocial relationship and actual relationship between seller and buyer." — Brian Lange

[00:12:00] "It could cost you a hundred thousand dollars to open up a comic bookshop. It costs you $0 to open up a comic bookshop on Whatnot." — Armand Wilson

[00:31:45] "It's really hard to tell your story in an authentic way when you're just telling it on a couple of lines of text on a product page." — Armand Wilson

[00:41:30] "80% of our customers come back the next month, whereas traditional eCommerce is, on average, maybe 30%." — Armand Wilson

• Whatnot’s State of Live Selling Report

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As ChatGPT pulls back on native in-app checkout, malls becomemainstream again. Is agentic commerce ready for primetime, or are consumers seeking more analog experiences? PLUS: Dick's Sporting Goods' loyalty loop that turns steps into spending power, and a dystopian new platform that rents out humans for AI agents that can't operate in the physical world. Everything old is new again.

• ChatGPT is stepping back from native in-app checkout, but the commerce protocol it built with Stripe lives on
• 77% of shoppers prefer clicking through to a website over buying directly via AI
• The mall remains a societal favorite third space, even as stores become shoppable content studios (just ask John Lewis)
• Dick's Sporting Goods' movement-linked rewards program is quietly building one of retail's stickiest loyalty ecosystems, making it a viable competitor to AI apps
• "Rent-a-Human" platforms signal a strange new frontier: AI agents outsourcing tasks to people in “meatspace”

• How 2,000 consumers used AI to shop
• Gen Z Is Going to the Mall Again — WSJ
• Rent-a-Human
• Join us at Shoptalk Spring 2026!

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