Hello friends! I have an important update regarding the Watson Weekend. To make it easy for you to keep up with everything happening in commerce, we're consolidating our shows. We're officially moving the Watson Weekend into the Watson Weekly podcast feed. This completes our new lineup. Mondays, we contain your essential eCommerce digest. On Wednesdays, it will be deep dive interviews with industry leaders. And Fridays, the Watson Weekend show with Rick and Jess - you already know and love. So please, head over to your podcast at search bar type in The Watson Weekly and subscribe to that feed today. The link is also right here in the show notes. Thanks for listening and catch you this Friday on the Watson Weekly.

Watson Weekly – Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-watson-weekly-your-essential-ecommerce-digest/id1577388393

Watson Weekly – Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3oJL7jnlDFwJdqQPYD1oS5

The first episode of the new Watson Weekly Friday edition, featuring Rick Watson and Jessica Lesesky, debuts a new format focused on news and commentary related to e-commerce and retail. The new format includes three stories in the "Headline Hangover" section and one main story.

In this episode:

Amazon’s Luxury Nightmare: Why a $475M investment in Saks Global went to zero and why Amazon is calling it "financial malpractice."

Gap’s Hollywood Move: Gap hires a Paramount heavy hitter as its first Chief Entertainment Officer. Is brand-as-media the future of fashion?

The $63 Billion Ad Leak: New data reveals massive levels of invalid bot traffic across TikTok and LinkedIn.

OpenAI’s Ad Pivot: The "ChatGPT Go" plan is here. Rick and Jess discuss why OpenAI is finally embracing ads to combat their $12B burn rate and what this means for the future of Google Search.

Format Update: Guest interviews are moving to Wednesdays, and our hard-news deep dives will drop every Friday.

The Watson Weekly Friday Edition is sponsored by Mirakl.

Chapters:

0:00 – Introducing: A New Format for the Watson Weekly

1:15 – Headline Hangover: Amazon’s Luxury Disaster

3:42 – Why Amazon is Calling Saks "Worthless"

5:50 – Gap Hires a Chief Entertainment Officer: Genius or Gimmick?

8:15 – The $63 Billion Ad Fraud Problem (TikTok vs. Meta)

11:30 – Main Story: OpenAI Officially Launches Ads

14:05 – ChatGPT Go & The New Sponsored Search

17:20 – OpenAI’s $12B Burn Rate vs. Revenue

20:10 – The Future of AI Search: Will it Kill Google?

22:45 – Closing Thoughts & New Show Schedule

#watsonweekly #openai #advertisingfraud #amazon #saksglobalchapter11 #googlesearch

The first Watson Weekend show of 2026 serves as a post-mortem for the NRF conference, where Rick Watson and Jessica Lesesky recap the live event held at the Asylum in New York City and share "Nostradamus-style" predictions for 2026.

The overarching theme for the coming year is "be bold," urging businesses to move past the economic hesitations of 2025.

The show highlights three major industry shifts:

The AI Wars: The hosts predict that Google’s Gemini will maintain its adoption momentum over OpenAI due to Google's vast data ecosystem, its integration into Android and Samsung devices, and its move to become the "default layer of intelligence" for the internet via the UCP protocol.

Nike’s Innovation Deficit: Despite a leadership change, Nike is criticized for losing its "cool" and "shelf dominance" by over-prioritizing Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) strategies at the expense of wholesale and its core running category. The hosts note that Nike’s margins are significantly lagging those of competitors like On.

Shopify’s Evolution: Shopify is seen as transitioning from a "storefront company" to an AI and payments powerhouse. With heavy investments in "agentic commerce," 2026 is expected to be the year these AI announcements deliver tangible results.

The episode concludes with a critique of the NRF conference itself, noting that while the industry is hopeful, many vendors are still failing to articulate the actual impact and data behind their AI products.

Housekeeping: Rick Watson is reorganizing the content for Watson Weekly and Watson Weekend, with an increased focus on the newsletter. There will be weekly interviews on Wednesdays, and the Watson Weekly remaining on Mondays. The Watson Weekend will move under the Watson Weekly banner as the weekend edition.

#watsonweekly #shopify #nike #shopify

The Watson Weekend Festive Jeoparty is a special holiday podcast episode featuring a Jeopardy-style quiz among four e-commerce and retail podcast teams: Team NYC (Rick Watson and Nick Kaplan), Retail Razor (Ricardo Belmar), Future Commerce (Philip Jackson and Brian Lange), and OGs Scott Wingo and Jason Goldberg.

The game involves answering questions about retail trends, e-commerce, industry buzzwords such as agentic commerce, BNPL, retail media networks, and consumer behavior in 2025.

Jessica Lesesky moderates the chaotic but fun competition, with rules including buzzing in and timed answers.

Throughout the game, participants discuss key retail events and trends of 2025, such as consumers' unexpected resilience amid economic concerns, the plateauing of e-commerce growth, and the evolving role of commerce in culture.

The episode ends with reflections from the participants on 2025 as a transformative year in retail, the announcement of the winners (Scott and Jason), and an invitation to join Rick Watson at the upcoming NRF event. The show closes with a festive dance party.

Chapters

Introduction of the Watson Weekend show - 0:00

Introducing the podcast teams - 2:21

Festive Jeoparty quiz - 6:40

Festive dance party - 43:23

Live taping of the Watson Weekend show at NRF 2026.

Watson Weekend Live at NRF 2026, Presented by Radial

Sunday, January 11, 2026

4:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Asylum NYC

RSVP here: https://www.rmwcommerce.com/nrf-2026

The Watson Weekend is sponsored by Mirakl.

“In commerce, you don’t need another tool. You need a growth partner. The Mirakl platform is powering the next era of retail for the brands and retailers ready to move. Powered by AI and built for what’s next."

#watsonweekend #festiveseason #jeoparty #ecommerce #retail

In this special episode of the Watson Weekend, Rick Watson is joined by Scott Silverman, Co-founder of CommerceNext and Principal of Scott Silverman Associates, to talk about e-commerce leadership themes he is seeing.

E-commerce leadership is being structurally devalued

Senior digital and e-commerce leaders are increasingly sidelined. Compensation for roles like VP of E-commerce has fallen sharply compared to five years ago, leading many experienced leaders into fractional or interim roles rather than full-time executive positions. This reflects a reduced willingness by companies to invest heavily in seasoned digital leadership.

Hollowing out of the middle and loss of institutional expertise

Organizations still maintain C-suite digital ownership (often under CMOs), but the layers beneath are increasingly filled by leaders new to e-commerce. Many veterans who helped build digital retail during its formative years are no longer embedded inside companies, creating a gap in applied experience, pattern recognition, and innovative mindset.

Innovation risk in the age of AI and agentic commerce

With AI, LLMs, and agentic systems posing existential strategic questions, the lack of empowered internal digital leaders is concerning. Consultants can advise, but they lack political capital and long-term accountability. True innovation requires internal leaders willing to take risk, own transformation, and push bold strategies—something currently missing in many organizations

Interim leadership has limits

While interim CMOs or fractional executives can help stabilize or transition organizations, this model can dilute innovation if overused. Transformation requires leaders with “skin in the game,” not rotating or part-time executives whose tenure and authority are inherently limited

Talent turnover and short executive tenures compound the issue

CMO turnover has long been high, but the combination of short tenures and interim leadership further weakens long-term brand and digital strategy. This environment makes sustained innovation especially difficult for legacy retailers trying to modernize, rather than for new digital-native entrants

#watsonweekend @leadership #ecommerceleadership

This week's Watson Weekend episode features hosts Rick Watson and Jessica Lesesky, who deliver a news analysis in an entertaining Headline Hangover, plus holiday advertising commentary you do not want to miss.

The show reflects on a turbulent retail year, previews a memorable holiday Jeopardy-style episode, and features an in-depth interview with James Lang, Head of Marketplace at Ulta Beauty.

Holiday Advertising Recap

Underwhelming holiday ads in 2025, with many brands recycling familiar creative.

Notable highlights:

The Farmer’s Dog: emotional, pet-focused storytelling that resonated strongly.

LEGO: creative anti-doomscrolling message that celebrates play and imagination.

Amazon: reused a proven holiday ad, reinforcing speed, convenience, and family moments rather than novelty.

Headline Hangover

Major retail headlines discussed:

Uber + Shopify: Partnership enabling one-hour delivery for millions of merchants, intensifying last-mile competition with Amazon.

Walmart: Expanded drone delivery pilots (Atlanta and other metros), following earlier success in Dallas–Fort Worth.

Saks Global: Deep financial distress highlighted by delayed vendor payments, revenue declines, EBITDA losses, and aggressive discounting—raising concerns about long-term viability.

Urban Outfitters: Adoption of an AI-powered supply chain compliance platform to manage regulatory complexity, traceability, and supplier data.

James Lang, Head of Marketplace, Ulta Beauty, joins the show to discuss Ulta Beauty’s marketplace, which launched in October 2025.

Ulta Marketplace Strategy

Positioned as the “second floor” of Ulta’s digital store, not a separate experience.

Fully integrated: one cart, one checkout, loyalty rewards, and easy returns.

Invite-only marketplace with curated, brand-direct sellers (no resellers, no buy box).

Core Principles

• Guest-first mindset: trust, consistency, and ease matter more than fulfillment mechanics.
• Brand protection: brands do not compete against themselves; authenticity is non-negotiable.
• Asset-light, margin-accretive model: reduces inventory risk while expanding assortment.

Internal Alignment

• Strong executive sponsorship and cross-functional buy-in.
• Marketplace seen as a strategic growth lever, not a side experiment.

The Watson Weekend is sponsored by Mirakl.

“In commerce, you don’t need another tool. You need a growth partner. The Mirakl platform is powering the next era of retail for the brands and retailers ready to move. Powered by AI and built for what’s next."

Chapters

Introduction - 0:00

Headline Hangover - 7:39

Introducing James Lang - 19:21

Show ends - 57:13

#watsonweekend #marketplace #retail #ultabeauty

Watson Weekend host Rick Watson is joined by Nick Kaplan for the week's retail and e-commerce news. The headline hangover contains results from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and Amazon is testing 30-minute deliveries. The company's AI assistant Rufus continues to make headlines. There is also a discussion on the closing of Omnicom's IPG acquisition.

The week's special guest is Trevor Testwuide, CEO and Co-Founder of Measured, who talks about marketing measurement being broken, incrementality, and the problem with ROAS.

Holiday Recap: Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Black Friday delivered stronger-than-expected results; Cyber Monday was surprisingly muted with fewer real-time pundit updates than usual. Shopify’s admin and checkout systems experienced downtime during Black Friday, creating chaos for brands needing to adjust promotions or track performance.

Changing consumer behavior: Traditional Black Friday “doorbusters” and in-store frenzy continue to fade. Promotions now stretch well before and after the holiday.

Amazon Headlines

30-Minute Delivery

Amazon is piloting 30-minute delivery in select cities using micro-fulfillment centers, targeting high-frequency, convenience-driven categories (snacks, coffee, toilet paper, household essentials).

This pushes deeper into Instacart/DoorDash territory and raises expectations for ultra-fast delivery nationwide.

Rufus AI

Amazon’s shopping assistant continues expanding across the site. The hosts question whether Rufus drives incremental sales or merely accelerates discovery for customers who would have purchased anyway. Strong use case: summarizing product info, filtering five-star results, and translating reviews into clearer insights.

Agency Consolidation: Omnicom × IPG

The Omnicom–IPG deal closes, continuing the “big gets bigger” trend in advertising and media agencies. Thesis: scale enables more efficient data use and technology investment, but real-world synergies rarely reach the promised levels.

Rising AI adoption places mid-market agencies at risk, amplifying consolidation pressure.

The core of the episode is a deep discussion between Rick Watson and Trevor Testwuide on marketing measurement, attribution, and incrementality.

Why Marketing Measurement Is Broken

For years, the industry relied on Last-touch attribution, in which the channel closest to the sale gets 100% credit.

Multi-touch attribution (MTA) tries to map every impression and click across the buyer journey. MTA became unreliable after 2016 due to privacy walls and tracking limitations. Many brands still rely on outdated methods because they’re easy, familiar, and embedded in reporting workflows.

Incrementality: The Modern Standard

Incrementality answers the real question:

Did this ad actually cause additional sales, or would they have happened anyway? It isolates causal impact from correlated behavior—critical when high-intent shoppers convert regardless of ads.

Media Mix Modeling (MMM)

MMM provides long-term correlation analysis but not causality. Measured uses MMM combined with incrementality experiments to calibrate and improve accuracy.

Problem With ROAS

ROAS is simple but misleading—especially for bottom-funnel channels that “harvest” demand. Replacing ROAS with incremental ROAS or incremental contribution margin gives more truthful signal.

Why CFOs Love Incrementality

It speaks the language of finance: causal return, marginal contribution, efficiency. When incremental data confirms executives’ intuition about overspending in low-value channels, support for change accelerates.

The Watson Weekend is sponsored by Mirakl

“In commerce, you don’t need another tool. You need a growth partner. The Mirakl platform is powering the next era of retail for the brands and retailers ready to move. Powered by AI and built for what’s...

Rick Watson, Jessica Lesesky, and Nick Kaplan warm up the show with jokes about last week’s performance and introduce the episode’s segments. They highlight Jeoparty, Headline Hangover, and the week's special guest, Kelly Goetsch.

Headline Hangover: The team guesses blacked-out words from recent retail and e-commerce headlines.

* Levi’s chooses Microsoft to deploy AI- and agentic-commerce solutions internally to improve efficiency and collaboration.

* Lowe’s builds out its $8.8B wholesale business as DIY slows, reflecting macroeconomic pressures, rising material costs, and softening home-improvement demand.

* Whatnot looks like “all of commerce” — The livestream shopping platform is booming:

~$6B GMV, 140+ categories, 20M minutes of live content viewed last week, strong traction with younger audiences, and zero legacy tech debt → accelerated innovation with AI tools like Snap List.

Rick “wins” Headline Hangover—the group jokes that this is a rare event.

Kelly Goetsch from Pipe17 joins the show to discuss the launch of The Order Network Exchange (onX) and the Commerce Operations Foundation.

The industry lacks a standard for connecting selling channels to fulfillment systems. Every OMS, WMS, 3PL, and marketplace uses different formats, leading to slow integrations, high operational overhead, fragile point-to-point connections, and fragmented inventory visibility.

The Solution

onX Standard + MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Defines standard tools and resources for order, inventory, and fulfillment data.

Allows AI agents to consistently query backend systems.

Gives vendors interoperability without bespoke APIs.

Makes OMS and 3PL systems more “swappable

The Commerce Operations Foundation has 62+ members, including major OMS vendors like Manhattan, IBM Sterling, Kibo, Fluent, etc.

Goal: Full standard published by January 1, 2026, with implementations rolling out in Q1–Q2 2026.

MCP allows AI heads (GPT, Claude, etc.) to speak directly to order systems:

“How many orders today?”

“What’s the inventory of pink socks?”

Reduces dependence on hacky webhooks.

Jeoparty Part Deux:

A retail spin on Jeopardy with categories such as:

* Chapter Eleven (Nick Kaplan's love language)

* Did Tobi really say this?

* Sam Alt-Delete (AI & Sam Altman themed)

* M&A

* New kids on the block (e-commerce edition)

* Easy pictures

Memorable Answers

Joanne's bankruptcy

TikTok Shop / Shein confusion

Tariff schedules with a wreath

“Year of the Discount”

Walmart + Vizio acquisition

GEO → the new SEO

The Watson Weekend is sponsored by Rithum

In commerce, every second counts.

Rithum connects every channel with AI automation and insights,

helping brands grow profitably across marketplaces, dropship, and retail media.

Learn more at rithum.com

#watsonweekend #ai #jeoparty #onx