Watson Weekend host Rick Watson is joined by Nick Kaplan to discuss this 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 discusses 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.

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.

Barriers to Adopting Better Measurement:

Organizational inertia

Difficulty replacing long-standing metrics

Busy teams avoiding disruptive change

Channel biases and internal politics

Chapters

Introduction - 0:00

Headline Hangover -

Introducing Trevor Testwuide -

Show ends -

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 #amazon #omnicom

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

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

Levi Strauss & Co. chooses Microsoft to deploy AI- and agentic-commerce solutions internally to improve efficiency and collaboration.

Lowe's Companies, Inc. 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 (https://commerceopsfoundation.org/).

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.

The Commerce Operations Foundation has 62+ members, including major OMS vendors such as Manhattan Associates, IBM Sterling , KIBO, and Fluent Commerce.

.

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

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

“How many orders today?”

“What’s the inventory of pink socks?”

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), and 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

Chapters

Introduction - 0:00

Headline Hangover - 02:38

Introducing Kelly Goetsch - 10:58

Jeoparty Part Deux - 26:45

Show ends - 38:58

The Watson Weekend is sponsored by Rithum.

#watsonweekend #ai #jeoparty #onx

The Watson Weekend hosts, Rick Watson and Jessica Lasesky, and guest Nick Kaplan discuss retail and commerce trends for Q4 and 2025. This week’s headline hangover includes the resurgence of Toys R Us, Airbnb's pilot kitchen stocking service with Instacart, and the integration of AI to enhance efficiency rather than replace humans.

The Big 2025 “Jeoparty” Retro Game

Jeoparty host Jessica Lasesky uses the Watson Weekend version of the popular TV game show Jeopardy to try and confuse or showcase the brilliance of Rick Watson and Nick Kaplan. What did the previous Watson Weekend guests have to say about categories/topics such as Riddle Me RMN, Culture Club, AI Illuminati, Marketplace Mayhem, and Things Rick Said That Shouldn’t Be on Record?

AI & Tech Themes (AI Illuminati)

AI will not replace humans — it will reveal them

from • Beyond the Hype: The Future of Commerce, A...

Shopify Summer ‘24 Edition is described as “AI for AI”

A running joke that it was peak AI hype, - from • Shopify Editions Recap Conversation With S...

Kristen Wiley: Half of AI tools were built to write… LinkedIn posts - from • Influencer Marketing Should Be A Car That ...

What AI still cannot automate: “judgment” (or taste) - from • How a 115-Year-Old Company Uses A Framewor... and • Beyond the Hype: The Future of Commerce, A...

Culture & Leadership Themes (Culture Club)

“No courage in consensus.”

Jo Baker From • BigCommerce Marketing Needs Help Says Indu...

“Empathy doesn’t slow performance — it scales it.”

Donna Felix from • The Watson Weekend Live Show: Ep. 61 w/ Do...

The winning blend of traits: IQ + EQ + adaptability (AQ)

Donna Felix from • The Watson Weekend Live Show: Ep. 61 w/ Do...

Marketplace & Retail Themes (Marketplace Mayhem)

“Everyone’s a disruptor… until the invoice shows up.”

From • The $36 Trillion B2B Commerce Revolution: ... - VC perspective: marketplaces sound utopian until the economics hit.

Sellers say marketplaces “empower sellers”—but sellers call it:

“Commission with extra steps.

Marketplace guests:

Michael McCluskey, from Lowe's - • Lowe's VP Reveals How They Built a $[___] ...

A discussion of:

Ulta launching a marketplace and a future episode.

Beauty brands rising through TikTok

Need to balance seller and buyer incentives

Logistics & Ops (Flexport Says What)

Delivery is the last touchpoint with the customer

John Shea from • The Amazon Power Play: John Shea Breaks Do...

Golden rule: “Over-communicate and never miss a promise date.”

Nate Skiver from • Shipping Smackdown: Nate Skiver on the Par...

The team jokes about Rick’s spicy-wing “emotional memory” during the Auctane interview.

Favorite Rick Quotes (Things Rick Said That Shouldn’t Be on Record)

These were turned into trivia questions:

“Vibe-based forecasting”

(Describing certain retail forecasting styles)

Agency attribution = “Kabuki theater”

(Paid media taking credit for brand-driven performance)

To Dave Finnegan’s ‘curiosity is strategy’: “That’s a KPI I can respect.”

From • From Orvis to Dinosaurs: A Conversation wi...

To Josh Carter: “Every cult says that.”

From • Social Commerce Showdown: Josh Carter on T...

(Context: influencers, brand community building)

Advertising and Retail Media Networks (Riddle Me RMN)

The word Kiri Masters swore she’d never say again in 2025 - Incrementality

From • The Internal Conflicts Retail Media Networ...

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

Chapters

00:00- Introduction

02:24 - Headline Hangover

08:32 - The Big 2025 “Jeoparty” Retro Game

41:37- Show ends

#watsonweekend#ai#marketplaces#leadership#retailmedianetworks#jeoparty

The Watson Weekend hosts Rick Watson and Jessica Lesesky discuss the most important retail and e-commerce news from the past week. In the Headline Hangover, they discuss retail's Q4 challenges, AI's impact on brick-and-mortar stores, and retail media trends. They highlight Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's view that AI will accelerate the decline of physical retail, and discuss ThredUp's new peer-to-peer selling model. The hosts also address concerns about agentic commerce liability and Coca-Cola's use of generative AI in advertising.

The episode includes an interview with Liam Fuller, an 18-year-old entrepreneur from Ireland who founded three companies and now runs Source, an AI operations tool for retailers. Liam explains how Source integrates with legacy systems to help operations teams access data and perform tasks more efficiently.

He discusses the challenges of entering the US market, attracting engineering and sales talent, and balancing product development with business growth. Liam emphasizes the importance of product-market fit, cautious scaling, and targeting mid-market brands with complex back-office needs.

He notes the rapid advancement of AI models and the mixed reactions among retail executives, ranging from fear to enthusiasm.

The conversation concludes with advice for new founders and reflections on the evolving retail technology landscape, underscoring AI's transformative potential and the need for startups to innovate within traditional verticals,

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

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction

02:50 - Headline Hangover

15:17 - Introducing Liam Fuller

21:15 - How do you pitch brands?

24:42 - Hiring developers in France

26:11 - Evaluating sales talent

33:50 - Focus for the next 6 - 12 months

36:40 - Product market fit

41:50 - Go to market

44:49 - What does Source do?

51:26 - Too many AI startups?

54:27 - AI and retail trends

57:20 - End of show

#watsonweekend #ecommerce #ai #erp

The Watson Weekend Halloween Special hosts Rick Watson, Jessica Lesesky, and Nick Kaplan discuss 2025 retail and tech headlines with a Halloween twist. Think of it as the e-commerce and retail news version of Saturday Night Live, but it happened on a Friday.

The headline hangover features criticism of Pinterest's AI-powered personalization as a rebrand, analyzes Amazon's 14,000 job cuts as a culture and organizational issue rather than AI-driven, and discusses the growing role of AI agents in e-commerce,with retailers expected to adopt them. Target's holiday marketing includes bringing back Hot Santa. Comcast is innovating with programmatic ad buys that include linear TV, while WPP launches an AI platform aimed at SMBs to simplify marketing without agencies.

The hosts then play a game of retail trick-or-treat, which highlights ongoing retail struggles, including store closures, a resurgence of counterfeit goods, challenges with chatbot customer service, and aggressive price competition that threatens margins. They foresee a difficult holiday season with margin pressures and potential bankruptcies.

The Watson Weekend is sponsored by Mirakl. Growth isn't just about speed; it's about direction. Mirakl gives you the infrastructure to scale. smarter, not just faster, with marketplace, dropship, retail media, and a seller platform powered by AI and built for what's next.

00:00 - Introduction

04:37 - Headline hangover

26:06 - The scariest stories of 2025

30:12 - Who wins in Q4

33:42 - A Halloween dance

33:54 - Show ends

#watsonweekend #halloween #retailclosure #counterfeit #chatbot

Watson Weekend podcast hosts Rick Watson and Jessica Lesesky cover retail industry news, including Target's struggles and layoffs, potential large tariff refunds pending a Supreme Court ruling, and merchandising challenges for Netflix's hit series K-pop Demon Hunters. They discuss Amazon's launch of AWS RTB fabric, a cloud infrastructure for programmatic advertising.

Rick interviewed Michael McCluskey, VP of Marketplace at Lowe's, three months ago on the Watson Weekend ( • Lowe's VP Reveals How They Built a $[___] ... ) and attended the Lowe's Marketplace Seller Summit this past week. and was recovering from a visit to Bojangels in North Carolina..

The main feature is an interview with Emma Spagnuolo, CEO of Caddis Life, and Sophie Marchesue, Chief Customer Officer of Mirakl. Emma shares how she transformed Caddis Life, a stylish eyewear brand targeting an underserved older demographic, emphasizing brand authenticity and expanding through marketplaces with Mirakl's support. Emma also discusses her personal breast cancer journey and its influence on her compassionate leadership style. Sophie explains how AI improves marketplace catalog management and the emerging role of agentic commerce via large language models.

The Watson Weekend is sponsored by Mirakl. Growth isn't just about speed; it's about direction. Mirakl gives you the infrastructure to scale. smarter, not just faster, with marketplace, dropship, retail media, and a seller platform powered by AI and built for what's next.

Support Sloan Kettering here: https://secure2.convio.net/mskcc/site...

Welcome to The Watson Weekend - 00:31

Headline Hangover - 04:44

Introducing Emma Spagnuolo and Sophie Marchesue - 20:46

Caddis mission and eye wear 21:25

Assortment mix on marketplaces - 34:01

Building the brand -36:29

Servicing an underserved demographic - 37:30

Potential opportunities - 40:34

Emma's cancer journey - 42:58

Ai and e-commerce - 54:00

Show ends - 01:01:44

#watsonweekend #target #tariffs #netflix #aws