The Watson Weekly: eCommerce Strategy & News

Today on our show:Walmart Holiday Plans Shows There Will Be BloodUPS Gains Margin, Plans Strong Peak, But Remains Mired in UncertaintyAmazon All In On Agentic - Reports Great EarningsShopify Merchants Go Live with ChatGPT Instant Checkout- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Rithum.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

Today on our show:Commercetools CEO is out, so what’s next?Bigcommerce partners with Paypal to improve monetizationWill the new Ulta Beauty marketplace cook?Shopify and Lovable Integration Shows a Fire and Motion Strategy- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Mirakl.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

Today on our show:Walmart Partners With OpenAI, Cannot Hold Back the TideS&P Global Puts Tariff Costs at $1.2T This YearSalesforce Partners With OpenAISaks Struggles to Deliver in Q2- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Mirakl.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

Today on our show:Process Re-Engineering Is a Key Skill in the Age of AIStripe Link Moving More Consumer FacingIs OpenAI Building a Super App?Shopify CRO Bobby Morrison Forced Out- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Mirakl.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

In this second episode of The CEO Spot, Rick Watson sits down with Matt Harris, Founder of Harris Digital. The interviews were conducted at Shoptoberfest 2025, discussing the state of B2B e-commerce and the challenges of 'hard commerce' faced by manufacturers and distributors.Harris explains that many companies struggle with legacy ERP systems, analog data management, and complex pricing models involving tiered and customer-specific discounts. He emphasizes the importance of product information management (PIM) systems in cleaning and centralizing data before launching e-commerce platforms. Harris shares his background, starting in the 1990s, with early e-commerce projects and how his agency helps mid-market manufacturers (with up to $1 billion in revenue) modernize sales by augmenting—not replacing—existing ERP systems. He discusses the friction caused by generational mindset shifts and private equity consolidation in these industries. On AI, Harris notes that while small-scale AI and analytics are useful, most enterprise AI projects fail to deliver revenue due to siloed data and unrealistic expectations; he advocates for building unified data lakes and warehouses as a foundation for future AI-driven business improvements.

Today on our show:ChatGPT Is Actually The Ultimate In Influencer-Driven CommerceOpenAI x Stripe Agentic Commerce Protocol Has Makings of Silicon Valley Catfight- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Mirakl.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

Today on our show:What the Hell Will Happen At Tiktok?Ryder Releases New eCommerce StudyKlaviyo Innovations Made Possible By Different Ecosystem ApproachOpenAI Announces They Are Pursuing Ads- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Rithum.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

Today on our show:Google and Paypal Announce New Commerce PartnershipFireside Chat With Andy Jassy at Amazon Accelerate ConferenceThe First Q4 Holiday Predictions Appear- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Rithum.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

We have a special episode of the podcast this week. Today we preview a new podcast from RMW Commerce — actually a Youtube Exclusive, called “Oh Shift! Where SaaS Meets AI”.In this week’s episode, I interview the Shailesh Kumar, the SVP Of Engineering at Salesforce Commrece Cloud to talk about the company’s approach and pilots in the world of AI and Model Context Protocol or MCP.  To be clear, this is not any kind of sponsored interview.  It’s just an exploration of how the platforms - and I have asked them all to come on the program - are approaching AI and MCP, and what implications it has for brand and merchants.Today's episode is sponsored by Rithum.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly

Today on our show:Shopify Betting Big on DesignAmazon Still Stuck Muddling Through Day 2Why Software Sales Is Still Hard in 2025A New Podcast where SaaS Meets AI: Oh Shift- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.Today's episode is sponsored by Mirakl.https://www.rmwcommerce.com/ecommerce-podcast-watsonweekly