October 20th, 2025: Walmart Partners With OpenAI, Cannot Hold Back the Tide, S&P Global Puts Tariff Costs at $1.2T This Year, Salesforce Partners With OpenAI, and Saks Struggles to Deliver in Q2
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It’s October 20, 2025 and this is the Watson Weekly - your essential eCommerce Digest!
Today on our show:
Walmart Partners With OpenAI, Cannot Hold Back the Tide
S&P Global Puts Tariff Costs at $1.2T This Year
Salesforce Partners With OpenAI
Saks 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.
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To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
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[PAUSE]
BUT FIRST in our shopping cart full of news….
Walmart Partners With OpenAI, Cannot Hold Back the Tide
The momentum of OpenAI appears to be unstoppable at this point, with almost every partnership you can imagine being created.
We are witnessing the birth of a new scaled Internet giant, the likes of which we haven't seen since Google. In fact, we are mostly witnessing a Google replacement being born before our eyes.
And still I feel that Google is flat-footed in its response so far -- primarily due to the pace of OpenAI announcement.
What Walmart does say:
* You will be able to buy Walmart and Sams Club items in OpenAI Instant Checkout.
* Walmart will offer OpenAI certifications to its employees. This is a sneaky clever move.
What Walmart does not say:
* Will their marketplace items will be a part of OpenAI or will it be only 1P items. It actually doesn't say anything about the available selection.
* How will OpenAI deal with Sams Club membership? I can't even see the price of Sams Club items on their own website without signing in. OAuth?
What this means:
* If the scaled retail platforms will participate, there is really nothing stopping the tide. In other words, OpenAI is already the new (better) Google Product marketplace.
* OpenAI simply has a more aggressive vision:
1 - certifications and training to win over corporate American workers
2 - the world's largest catalog (already)
3 - a checkout experience that keeps the merchant in control rather than wrest control from brands
Simply, Google is facing an existential threat here, and I am not seeing enough fire and motion from Google's side yet to hold back the tide. Google results are clunky, and the Gemini tools are simply not as good or differentiated enough as the first-mover OpenAI.
Hiring Fidji Simo and Jonny Ive will turn out to be key roles to make the product experience better.
One last note, I still do feel the death of the typical merchant storefront is still largely exaggerated. Merchants need a home base, you need to a place to publish and display definitive information to both humans and robots, and the checkout remains one of the biggest functions of any platform. Which, I have to say, this validates a lot of Shopify's own investments in Shop Pay which has consumed many of their resources for years.
If you're an Enterprise merchant convinced that your front-end site does not matter, and you could implement Shop Pay in a month, is there a reason you wouldn't want to do this? Asking for a friend. I believe this is an uncomfortable question that Salesforce needs to answer, and quickly -- even if the platform is great, how does it get the sale?
Not saying it's your whole strategy, what could it hurt
>> closer
[References:]
Our Second Story
S&P Global Puts Tariff Costs at $1.2T This Year
A recent CNBC story out talks about a new study from S&P Global which puts all the costs of the tariffs at over a trillion dollars this year.
It’s unclear to me where these estimates are coming from. I’m not sure prices have gone up that much. From my experience working with companies, so far customers have been shielded at least two-thirds of the total tariff costs by brands and retailers taking costs out of their supply chain.
Wherein, the study says the opposite in that consumers are bearing two-thirds of the cost. Whether that can be sustained long-term is the question. Companies could be forced by investors to return to their pre-tariff era margin profiles, and that would mean raising prices to consumers once all the cost-cutting is done.
[References:]
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/16/tariff-costs-to-companies-this-year-to-hit-1point2-trillion-with-consumers-taking-most-of-the-hit-sp-says.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202025-10-17%20Retail%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:77923%5D&utm_term=Retail%20Dive
Our Third Story
Salesforce Partners with OpenAI
Last week, Salesforce officially went agentic up the wazoo, seemingly rebranding almost the entire company into AgentForce as part of its announcement with OpenAI.
First, Salesforce Commerce Cloud is no longer. Now it’s AgentForce Commerce. OK great. Is this what passes for innovation? Rebranding?
Second, Catalogs for merchants will show up in ChatGPT. Which seems fine until you realize that most platforms are never good at any kind of channel integration. And this is coming from someone who has been doing these kinds of integrations for their entire career.
Finally, Salesforce has announced their support for Agentic Commerce Protocol which was developed between OpenAI and Stripe.
It seems at this point clear that all platforms will forced to support OpenAI Instant Checkout, and OpenAI seems to have momentum with the Walmart announcement as well.
The only question really remains is - will Amazon be directly supporting ChatGPT? I am predicting in some form or fashion, the answer will be yes. And why not? Amazon is a logistics company at the end of the day and OpenAI is not a merchant of record. That’s Amazon’s job.
[References:]
https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2025/10/14/openai-partnership-expansion-announcement/
[PAUSE]
And Our Last Story
Saks Struggles to Deliver in Q2
Well another month, another sad story at Saks. RetailDive is reporting a few facts about their most recent quarter:
Too much inventory, inability to pay vendors and lower gross margins. The company reports that its vendor concessions and marketplace models are working well, but obviously when the company needs to buy and hold inventory it’s struggling.
Some management hopes were pinned on a new unified merchandising platform, which to me is a little troubling.
Software is often seen as a necessary component of transformation, but often it’s more often it’s not sufficient on its own. At the end of the day, better software is sometimes a nice to have if people aren’t buying the inventory you have, does it even matter what software is tracking the inventory you now need to mark down?
[References:]
https://www.retaildive.com/news/saks-global-q2-revenue-slumps-amid-inventory-woes/803065/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202025-10-17%20Retail%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:77923%5D&utm_term=Retail%20Dive
It’s That Time Friends, for our Investor Minute. We have 5 items on the menu today.
First
Guess Goes Private in $1.4B Deal with Authentic Brands
Guess has announced that its co-founders and CEO, in partnership with Authentic Brands, will take the brand private in a transaction valued at $1.4 billion, including debt. Authentic Brands will acquire 51% of all Guess' intellectual property. Guess' existing shareholders will own the rest.
Second
Lowe's to Acquire Foundation Building Materials for $8.8B
Lowe's has announced an agreement to acquire building products distributor Foundation Building Material (FBM) from American Securities and CD&R for $8.8 billion. This acquisition enhances Lowe's offering to Pro customers.
Third
Claire’s $140M Private Equity Takeover Pauses Store Liquidations
Mall-based accessories store Claire’s and its intellectual property have been acquired by private equity firm Ames Watson for $104 million in cash plus a $36 million seller note. The retailer has paused closing stores.
Fourth
AI Marketing Platform Bluefish Raises $20M in Series A Funding
AI marketing platform Bluefish has raised $20 million in Series A funding that will be used in product development and help scale engineering and customer-facing teams.
Link: https://www.adexchanger.com/marketers/ai-marketing-platform-bluefish-raises-19m-in-series-a-funding/
AND FINALLY …
Specialized Equipment Marketplace Garage Raises $13.5M in Series A Funding
Garage, a marketplace and auction platform that helps essential employees and government employees to purchase essential equipment, has raised $13.5 million in Series A funding, which will be used to hire talent.
Link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/20/yc-backed-garage-raises-13-5m-to-help-firefighters-buy-equipment/
[PAUSE]
Did you know that RMW Commerce has another podcast? Check out The Watson Weekend for an unfiltered and lively eCommerce chat each week with me, Rick Watson, my co-host Jess Lesesky, and an array of interesting guests and topics. All focused on eCommerce. You can find the Watson Weekend by searching for it on iTunes, Spotify, or Youtube.
That’s all for this week! Till next time Watsonians.....
[PAUSE]
Hi, I’m Rick Watson, CEO and Founder of RMW Commerce Consulting and host of the Watson Weekly podcast - your essential eCommerce Digest.
To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
