Let’s talk through the future of brand manufacturing in the digital age. Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf. For more commerce content for all brands CPG & beyond, visit us at www.digitalshelfinstitute.org
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June 15, 202635 min
You are the Agent of Your Own Future, with David Goodtree, CEO and Founder at Foodgraph
The leadership guru James C. Maxwell said “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” Feels apt to this moment, doesn’t it? People are anxious about the impact AI will have on their lives and careers. The pace and intensity of the change around us is likely to continue, so it is incumbent upon each individual to find their way through - to be their own change agent. David Goodtree, CEO and Founder at Foodgraph, joins the podcast to talk through some of the best approaches to assess the opportunity and imagine your growth path.
June 8, 202639 min
Building the Right Mindset and Motivations for Successful AI in Ecommerce, with Joanna Lambadjieva, Founder and CEO of Amazing Wave
As always with the three-legged stool of people, process, and technology, it’s the tech that gets all the buzz while it’s getting the other two legs right that really determine success or failure. Jo Lambadjieva, Founder and CEO of Amazing Wave and author of the AI in Ecommerce newsletter, invests all of her energy in helping ecommerce brands focus on enabling people to transform their processes using the right AI tooling for the job. She shares her advice 4 times a week with 70,000 newsletter readers and now, with all of you.
June 2, 202637 min
Inside Digital & eCommerce 2026: What Retailers & Brands Need to Know, with Teresa Sperti, Arktic Fox & Gill Smythe, Salsify
In this episode, we unpack the key findings from the newly released Inside Digital & eCommerce 2026 report from Arktic Fox & Six Degrees Executive.
The report is a deep dive into how Australian retailers and brand manufacturers are navigating the next era of digital commerce, drawing on insights from more than 100 senior leaders across retail, eCommerce, marketing, digital and retail media. The conversation explores how AI and agentic commerce are reshaping the digital shelf, why loyalty is becoming a bigger strategic priority, and how marketplaces, quick commerce and retail media are intensifying execution complexity for brands.
We also examine the growing importance of product content and data foundations in an AI-driven discovery environment, the widening gap between ambition and capability, and where retailers and brands remain misaligned in the race to deliver better connected commerce experiences.
From AI readiness and retail media investment to omnichannel execution and product data collaboration, this episode is essential listening for leaders shaping the future of retail and eCommerce in Australia.
Download the full report here: https://www.arkticfox.io/inside-digital-ecommerce-2026
June 1, 202624 min
Driving Growth through Omnichannel Presence and Product Innovation, with Aaron Zagha, CMO at Newton Baby
When last we met on the podcast in 2022, Aaron Zagha, CMO at Newton Baby, was selling some amazing baby mattresses through DTC. 4 years later, and a lot has changed - they’ve gone full omnichannel, expanded their product portfolio, and built a community of parents that are sticking with them, and their email list, for years. Managing all that change takes a ton of rigor, controlling the bottom line while fueling topline growth. Aaron walks us through this journey on today’s podcast.
May 25, 202639 min
Wielding the Levers of Growth at a Challenger Brand, with Matt Kreuger, SVP Digital Commerce and Marketplaces, Buffalo Games
By the time he landed at his current Private Equity-led company, Matt Kreuger had 15 years under his belt building out ecommerce from scratch, growing global operations, and learning what it takes to drive growth across all different routes to the consumer. But as he says, “what was”doesn’t mean “what is”. Everything is always changing, and Matt, from his seat as SVP Digital Commerce and Marketplaces at Buffalo Games, is engineering growth with a lean and agile team and processes that are continually refined for today’s opportunities, and preparing for tomorrow’s. In addition to all the tech and the processes though, he finds more often than not that his secret weapon is empathy.
May 18, 202627 min
Parents and Carers: Driving Challenger Brand Growth Through Connection and Content, with Emily Jones, Ecommerce Channel Controller at HiPP Organic
Being a challenger brand in the highly competitive baby formula category is not for the faint of heart. To the contrary, at HiPP Organic it takes a lot of heart, built from the family founders who needed a formula that their own child could tolerate. They now own 7% of the formula milk category in the UK and growing. Emily Jones, Ecommerce Channel Controller at HiPP Organic, joined the podcast to walk us through the omnichannel journey that is intensely focused on the needs of the parents and carers that they strive to connect with, wherever and however they want.
May 13, 202635 min
The 5 Key Principles of Best Practice in Retail Media with Bethanie Blanchard, Head of Strategy & Planning, Coles 360
Retail media is attracting more investment than ever. Budgets are increasing. Networks are expanding. Expectations are rising. But one big question still sits underneath all of it: what actually drives performance?
Because for many brands in the APAC region, retail media still feels like a black box. There are metrics. There are case studies. But there isn’t always clarity on what actually drives growth and which levers brands need to pull to shift performance.
To answer that question, Coles 360 partnered with Circana to test a series of hypotheses around what truly drives retail media performance. Through the research, they identified eight potential growth drivers. Five were proven through the data and are now shaping how Coles works with suppliers across planning, scorecarding and growth.
That’s exactly what today’s episode is about.
Download the full Retail Media Best Practices Playbook:
https://www.circana.com/perspectives/retail-media-best-practices-playbook-breaking-the-myths-and-building-the-future
May 11, 202638 min
Taking the DSI Community to the Next Level, with Jamie Clapper, Community & Content Manager at the Digital Shelf Institute
After one of the first gatherings of some ecommerce leads that I helped put together around 10 years ago, I will never forget what one of the attendees said to me - “thanks to this, I found my people.” From that sentence, the seeds of the Digital Shelf Institute were born. The desire to unite a community to figure all this stuff out together. Now the DSI is most fortunate to have another leader from ecommerce join our ranks to put her expertise, passion, and energy to work on growing and inspiring the DSI Community. Our guest today is Jamie Clapper, who brings almost two decades experience in omnichannel commerce to the DSI as our new Community & Content Manager. She has some things to say.
May 4, 202636 min
Closing the Actionability Gap with AI, with Sunny Jiang, CEO and President at EyeBuyDirect Inc. and Sonal Gandhi, Chief Content Officer at The Lead
EyeBuyDirect sells millions of pairs of glasses every year on their website, which makes every instant a shopper spends on their site a moment of truth. Sunny Jiang, CEO and President at EyeBuyDirect Inc, saw the potential of AI to use data to bring the insights of those millions of consumers to actionable life for every corner of the site and for every employee at EBD. She joins the podcast along with Sonal Gandhi, Chief Content Officer at The Lead to outline the details of an AI strategy that is laser focused on taking AI action for measurable results.
April 27, 202634 min
Uncork Some Context to Drive Growth in BevAlc, with Bailie Duncan, Product Manager, Marketing Systems at Jackson Family Wines
The beverage alcohol industry is a complex beast with an intense regulatory environment and shifting consumer preferences. The foundational fuel for driving sales is product content that is always accurate and increasingly adaptive to the consumer’s context - an occasion, a specific meal, their budget. With 700 - 1000 new SKUs a year, Bailie Duncan, Product Manager, Marketing Systems at Jackson Family Wines has rallied a small but mighty digital shelf team to make data a secret weapon that meets the consumer where they are, and steers them toward the right product at the right time.
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