The Retail Roundup - Bye-Bye Rufus, 30-Minute Deliveries, and LinkedIn CTV - Episode 434

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Julie Speer: Hello and welcome to the E Commerce Brain Trust podcast. I'm Julie Speer, Head of Retail Marketplace Services at Acadia alongside my co host, host Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Account Management also at Acadia. And today we have our monthly retail roundup where we have our trustee panel, Pat on Media and Armin on all things ops and non media, um, to dig in and talk us through all of the changes, updates and newsworthy items from the past month. So Pat Arman, thrilled to have you back with us today. Lots to dig into for the the past month. We're recording this at the end of. Hi.

Armin: Good to be back.

Julie Speer: Okay. Your enthusiasm was overwhelming.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah, sort of like uh, just allergies of May descending worldwide upon us.

Julie Speer: Free 5 day fatigue is setting in, but we're gonna power through and you know, I know what will get the energy going is digging into, um, all things AI. So we'll kick things off with our AI Corner new feature in our retail roundup. Um, and let's start with maybe a moment of silence for our dear friend Rufus. Rufus started the month with potentially big news with Amazon, like merging Rufus into the search bar. And then all of a sudden, where'd you go, Rufus? It's Rufus has now been rebranded, um, with, to merge with Alexa and it's Alexa for Shopping. I do need to submit a comment card somewhere to Amazon for this. Personally, I loved the name Rufus. Alexa for Shopping does not roll off the tongue as easily. And we also saw news that Amazon is staffing up, um, an engineer team that's tasked with integrating their commerce with third party agentic platforms via the Universal Commerce Protocol. Get real specific and technical there. So there's uh, a few nuggets for us to dig into. Pat, do you want to kick us off and share your take and what this is telling us and why it matters?

Pat: Yes, absolutely. It's a good place to start and I agree with you. First up, I thought Rufus just was becoming, getting some brand equity. It was memorable, it was different. Wasn't just uh, uh, a female name like a Siri or Alexa. Uh, so it had some spice to it. The way Amazon is framing this is that Rufus has not technically gone away, but as you mentioned, that Amazon has brought together Rufus and Alexa plus to create Alexa for Shopping. Although who wants to say I Used Alexa for shopping the other day.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah, it's not going to happen.

Julie Speer: Is it going to just become afs? Okay, uh, maybe.

Pat: I don't.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah,

Pat: I think, I think people will end up just probably calling it Amazon AI honestly um, because it's Amazon's AI and that's what they're probably, they call it. What's interesting is what Alexa for shopping does. Uh, and again this is powered by Rufus and with Cosmo. The brain of all this is it combines deep product knowledge that uh, Amazon has obviously from their own catalog in depth information from across the web. Which I think was interesting because it's showing that what this is taking into account in terms of its responses is not just product catalog information on the marketplace but across the web as well. Uh, and in powerful shopping capabilities with personal preferences. I think that one's going to actually be interesting because the forum of us could do the same search or ask the same question or ask ah, Amazon AI or Rufus or um, Alexa for shopping to like put together a uh, list, a shopping list or a vacation list and we're all going to get different things. And part of that that's interesting for brands is it's, it's going to change this concrete way of thinking about like ranking. Where do I rank? Do I rank 1 or 3 or 5? Like the idea of ranking is going to become very diluted and murky quite quickly. So uh, as you mentioned customers can use Alexa for shopping to ask questions directly in the main search bar. And I think the LinkedIn hot take artists like to do the search is dead. Search is dead. No one's searching anymore. I think this doesn't mean search is dead. I think what Amazon is basically making available is an option for everybody, all ah, all different customer types based on how they want to search. So you can go to that search bar and m, you can still do the quote unquote old school keyword search term. You can type in dry dog food for senior dogs. That's how I'm still shopping on Amazon, always have. But it can now also accommodate folks who are saying please compare the top selling dog foods over the last month. What's a, I have a border collie. What's a great food for her fur? Um and you get all those different things that Alexa for shopping can do. So I don't think search is dead. I think Amazon is just making both modalities available within, within the search bar for brands. Thinking what has actually changed here like from a Rufus optimization perspective? Nothing really. Like it's still the same knowledge graphs, it's still all that back end metadata. Uh, it's still making sure that product content is speaking to the prompts and the actual use cases and the USP of your product. So keep going there. Um, if you've done that. And uh, I think kind of how I'm thinking about this is Amazon is essentially positioning their Alexa AI shopping agent as the best in class shopping assistant. The same way that people are now automatically starting to think of Claude Cowork as like the best in workplace productivity. I think Amazon is basically trying to do this for shopping.

Jordan Ripley: The other thing Julie that you mentioned is that wonky update around the Universal Commerce protocol or ucp. But I think this is interesting as well. Amazon has historically been such a walled garden around any of the interaction between external AI agents and the fact that both on platform Rufus or whatever current iteration is going to be fully integrated with the search experience. Much as we've seen Google search experience be heavily AI enabled and organic. So um, the same way I feel like Amazon's opening uh, up to this remains to be seen but potentially other um, LLMs so that like Amazon still owns the AI enabled search within the shopping experience on Amazon but they're open to interacting with, you know they won't own all knowledge in the world.

Julie Speer: Right.

Jordan Ripley: Like that can be a cloud, that can be a gemini and other LLMs. Um, but then when it comes to AI enabled shopping that's where Amazon can, can win and I feel like they're coming around to that reality.

Julie Speer: The walled garden has a one way gate now.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah,

Julie Speer: information beyond the walls. It's just that outside the walls cannot access within the walls.

Pat: So very Amazon.

Julie Speer: Yes. Armin, what's your take here?

Armin: Yeah, so Jordan stole my thunder. So I'll just speak about uh, the most important thing which is uh, Alexa for shopping. I mean that name will not stick. I think people will just call it Alexa and be done with it.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah.

Armin: One of the features that I love the most is like how Alexa is now your deep product research tool as well around the web so you can use it not only to research Amazon and do your Amazon research for products or solutions, it can just go online and look for stuff. Same as ChatGPT, Gemini perplexity and then the point that Jordan touched on. So Amazon has this dual strategy which you know they are always we have the main plan but then the plan B, C and D like you know, are all in place. So you know, if you stay with Alexa for shopping it keeps you captive inside, you know, Amazon's ecosystem. But then if you leave still like, you know, with these 40 engineers that Amazon is hiring, the UCP and all the integrations, they still are open and probably will be forced to be open to external traffic as well. Uh, and they'll be able to, as Jordan said, keep the transaction, keep the customer information within themselves, which is the main goal for them. It's kind of like they first block the uh, bots from, from their, from scraping the data off of their site. Now they're realizing, okay, this is just beyond our control, we have to play the game and are kind of letting in a bit. Uh, I would say at the end of the day, I think it's also about execution. So, you know, you can use whatever AI you want for casual conversations, research or whatever, but when it comes to purchasing, it's the catalog that dominates and then also the delivery and the network that Amazon has, uh, to actually reach each customer's doorstep.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah, that's the thing. I think you hit on an important thing here, which is the retention of the merchant of record. Right. Even though the UCP can direct traffic, Amazon remains the retailer that remains merchant of record. And I feel like that's why you've seen such adoption from Shopify, Walmart, Etsy. Right. A competitive player like Google can get buy in because they're not taking that order away from the retailer. So, um, yeah, I think encouraging, I think, I don't know. In a weird way, the last piece

Pat: about intent I think is important too that Armin mentioned is like people go to Amazon for shopping. That's like, that's what the brand has been, that's what they've been doing, that's what they've been trained to do. And so just because you can do it on ChatGpta doesn't mean you're necessarily just going to. If you've already made hundreds or thousands of purchases on this other platform, it knows you inside and out.

Jordan Ripley: Absolutely. Uh, in our general shopping convenience, uh, neediness, I think we'll shift to not quite the, uh, we'll get out of AI coordinator. We'll go to you, Armin. Um, another big. This is not, um, transformational as much as it is iterative on Amazon's processes. Is this official large rollout of Amazon now? Um, Amazon now being of course the service that delivers something to your door in 30 minutes or less in a lot of the major hubs, Atlanta, Dallas, Philly, Seattle, et cetera. Um, but plan is to get this to tens of millions of households and metro areas by the end of the year. Last time we talked about Walmart like store as a warehouse and their proximity of fulfillment center to end customer, um, and store to end customer being like a core advantage here. Um, does this change that perspective a little bit? Armin, like what do you take as the meaning of this development?

Armin: I mean it's as you said like last time we talked about Walmart and how they started using their smaller shops and facilities to fulfill these uh, quick orders. And now we have the same piece of news basically from Amazon. And I always say this like Amazon and grocery, that's the single point and the single pain point for Amazon and they want that business so hard and so bad. So with this move, basically as you said like delivered to thousands, thousands of fresh groceries to household and household essentials under 30 minutes which is, I mean mind blowing. And it's also 247 so whenever you need it, it's there. And they're basically mimicking m what Walmart is doing. So inst of having those massive regional warehouses you now have these smaller networks, localized fulfillment centers that are placed close to dense urban areas uh, to minimize uh, travel distance. On the user side you would basically see a 30 minute delivery banner next to the product that need to buy. Uh and of course Amazon is focused on very urgent high velocity categories. So fresh uh, produce, dairy, health, baby pet care, personal care, etc. So if you need a printer very urgently, you know it's not a thing you'll find that easily uh, potentially later on in terms of how this works for customers. So you do pay uh, a fee to have these delivered. So it's uh 4 bucks for prime members and then again the Amazon threshold of $15. It's always been around if your order is below that 1, uh hundred ninety nine is what you pay extra and then non prime members of course pay more. From the brand side. Amazon hasn't officially like published anything in terms of how you apply for this and I will assume like just 100% automated uh, and algorithmic. So Amazon will select your products based on the data they have in terms of, you know, they look at your zip code, uh, what products are frequently purchased here, uh, what those categories are and then try to place these products near the customers. What the brand could do for example use uh, the automated inbound placement. So uh, use Amazon split shipment, uh, and inventory placement features. So you can basically give your inventory to Amazon to distribute as they see fit. And then also always being stock, like being flawless in this has been the story of this game for like two Three years now as Amazon rolled out the uh, regional network fulfillment centers. And then if you really want to be like tactical strategic around this, I do feel, and let me step into pet zone here on media, you could like do some geotargeted Amazon DSP ads to spike sales on a, you know, in a given location where uh, Amazon has these services so you can actually try to qualify with these specific products.

Pat: I was even thinking that as well in terms of time of day where even like right, right before, right before dinner time potentially you could start surfacing ads in grocery from when people are like oh no, I'm out of, I'm out of garlic or I'm out of bread or I needed a pouch for my toddler's dinner. That's happened to me many times. And you could potentially see those because the urgency in this as well, right. Is like, hey, I need this thing right now. I'm willing to pay a premium for it. It's interesting. I've already, I'm in San Diego, which I don't think is one of the supported markets, but I've already seen this start to pop up a little bit where even if I buy something not 30 minutes, it'll, it'll say do you want to add something that can be, you know, delivered right away basically. And so they're not, they're not shy about it.

Julie Speer: None of this is helping us uh, with delayed gratification managing if we're raising a generation where they expect everything instantly as well. But that's for another conversation.

Jordan Ripley: Their own pouch in 30 minutes.

Julie Speer: Well let's, we'll move out of that a bit and then into one of your favorite topics. Pat, we're going to talk media. Um, and Amazon just announced dynamic TV creative for Prime Video. So you know, no longer will the four of us have the same creative when we're watching the Jack Ryan movie on Prime. Uh, it'll be customized to our preferences and our search behavior. So we've talked a lot about how Amazon is really upping the ante with their CTV ad stack and everything. This is I think a very significant sign of progress as well. Can you talk to me a little bit more about how this works and what it means for brands that are really focusing on video and upper funnel and their strategy?

Pat: Yes, I agree with you. I think actually uh, in particular for non endemic brands that need to be able to not just have a one size fits all approach, um, this would be particularly important. We can get to that in a minute. But yes, as you mentioned, dynamic TV is what Amazon is calling an Amazon intelligence layer for TV video ads where one creative upload, so you take one creative upload, one base creative becomes quote unquote infinite personalization. So as you mentioned, the four of us would not receive the same ad experience. Um, you upload. Once Amazon optimizes the CTAs, the headlines, the images, the product displays for unique viewer segments on Prime Video, it will customize. You can provide headline variations, you can also let Amazon auto generate those headline variations. Uh, and then when you're setting up this campaign you would activate toggle the dynamic TV creative in your campaign setup. Uh, this is only available for endemics now, so I know I mentioned non endemics in the open and that will be a future state. I should mention this is currently in beta. Uh, um, and in July 2026 there'll be the phase two of this beta with multi async carousels. And so Julie, yeah, for brands trying to tie the upper funnel streaming budgets directly to real time purchase outcomes, I think what's great about this is first off it reduces some of the creative load and some of the decision making that uh, the brand and the advertiser has to make in terms of like what audience gets what creative and when and a B testing and when should I do this and all this can now happen in real time. I also think the scale of customization, so if customization used to be okay, I have four different versions of this creative and so I have these different options that audiences are going to see if it's now infinite as they put it, or essentially endless. If hundreds of different people are getting the exact type of ad and creative served to them, that's specific to what their shopping behavior indicates. The expectation that we would see on the media side is increased performance, more efficient media budgets. And so I think like with anything, it's a trust but verify and that verification comes in the form of tested learning. And so what I would suggest and what we'll be doing is doing some testing and seeing what does the data show. How good is this customization for what audiences is it performing the uh, best?

Julie Speer: I'd be curious what the data sharing actually looks like too. Do you have any insights on what the reporting would look like or on the advertiser side?

Pat: Not yet. I think that's something maybe we can circle back to even on this pod. It's just in beta and pretty brand new but that is something that we're doing. Definitely excited to kind of dive into.

Julie Speer: Well, we're going to put a placeholder for that for next month.

Armin: Right.

Julie Speer: We talk about the reporting, customized reporting

Jordan Ripley: especially like that's because the call to actions can vary like the examples they give. It's like one might say add to cart. The next is like visit brand store. Ah, once send a phone. So like those are pretty different outcomes that you're going to want. And I get like in an ideal world it's adjusted to how exposed that customer is to this particular brand and you're adjusting it accordingly. But you are putting a good bit of trust of like, well I'm going to not serve a conversion focused CTA and instead um, you know, leave it up to sending them to the brand store. It's, it's a trade off.

Pat: It reminds me a little bit of the like the rec ads, the reactive e commerce ads in that way as well where it's like oh well, one person really likes to read reviews. So the CTA on that is going to be check out the reviews. Another person is really coupon focused so we're going to put a coupon for them. You used the word trust there though, Jordan. I think that is what we are seeing. At the beginning the initial reaction was like, I need some control over this. I don't want Amazon just running with this. And now there's like, well they do have the trillions of data points and so maybe I let the leash out a bit.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah. And why the reporting will be important. Cool. Armin, I would love to go back to you for another. Like I would see this as yet another one that feels iterative and monumental at the same time, which is this concept of Amazon, Amazon Supply Chain Services, which I think is a bit of a branding move to bundle up a ton of things that already exist and bring it to a new market. So without again stealing all of your thunder, uh, for the second time in this episode, Arvi, walk us through what this whole ASCS thing is. Um, and what's the play here for Amazon in terms of rolling this out?

Armin: Yeah, so I feel like this is identical to the AWS strategy that they had. So Amazon built this massive internal infrastructure uh, to solve its own problem problems. They perfected it and then achieved unmatched economies of scale and now it's just being rolled out to everybody in the world. So it's interesting how they kind of uh, in the, in the post they had, they have these four brands as case studies. So P and G being one of them. They're using Amazon Trade Service to transport raw materials to production facilities and move finished goods across its Distribution network. Then we have this brand 3M. They're using the services to move products from its manufacturing sites to distribution centers worldwide Lands end. They're uh, using this unified inventory pool within Amazon's network to fulfill orders across multiple sales channels. And then the uh, American Eagle outfitters, so they're using Amazon Parcel shipping network to deliver online orders from their website directly to consumers. So it's like four different cases and it hits what brands will want to use these services for uh, and what Amazon is trying to achieve here. So of course like during the pandemic Amazon overbuilt uh their physical footprint and now it's time to monetize that. So they're opening up for everybody basically non Amazon Commerce is up for grabs. They're turning this massive fixed cost burden into a high margin uh, recurring B2B revenue engine. Also if we look at the global supply chain. So Amazon is no longer just trying to dominate the last mile as they used to with uh, their dot com. So by handling raw materials for companies like P and G and 3M Amazon is basically inserting themselves into the entire global trade pipeline from factory floor to end user. Then the data of course Amazon is always happy to have more data on brands and what they're doing and how they're uh, using it, where are the raw materials going, how are they sourced, where are you selling and things like that. And lastly the more they use these uh, capabilities the lower their cost per unit is so the more efficient they become and you know, the more competitive they can be for, for other brands that use these services. On the brand side I feel like you know, if you don't know what you're doing like you know this just radically simplifies everything for you. Just use one service provider, don't need to like juggle five different contracts, you know, ocean freight, custom brokers and whatever. Amazon just does everything for you. Uh, you can also have a better cash flow. So instead of having four or five different locations you can just have one pool of inventory uh, that Amazon then uses to ship to multiple locations. And also like they can, they offer you this advanced forecasting from their end that predicts basically where your inventory will be needed. So they're close to the shopper. And of course as we said like uh, in the previous topic, Amazon works 24, 7. Another thing they like to do is seven days a week. So any time of the day or any day in the week they will ship your parcels. Be like you know, very quick, two to five days, uh, max and then Also, what they promise during peak season will be on time as well. Uh, which is, you know, something that's a pain point for all the FedEx and USPS users. On the other hand, you know, if you put all your eggs in one basket, it becomes a risk as well. So if as a brand you're only using Amazon for everything you manage, if you have one issue with them, like, you know, everything stops basically. So I think that's a big risk. Uh, and then also as we talked about data and how Amazon loves gathering information about what brands are doing. So imagine you having like a very, a high velocity product that now Amazon knows where you source it, how you make it, just the whole process that's very easy for them to duplicate and then start, uh, their own private label brand for that.

Julie Speer: It's a whole other lens to look at this through. Right there.

Jordan Ripley: Yeah. To me it's interesting. Almost none of these services are net new in terms of each touch point throughout the supply chain. But it is, I think the expansion of Amazon to a sort of tertiary market where it's like they probably hit a sort of asymptote of the number of sellers they can get selling on fba. And then they've been pushing by with prime awd like those further expansions into the service touchpoints off of Amazon and now it's this third stage of okay, you don't even need to sell on Amazon and we'll own, uh, end to end supply chain. Obviously they would want that right, as an end game. But now almost any level of engagement already with Amazon M Logistics can become a part of your business.

Armin: Yeah, everybody's invited to the party now.

Julie Speer: That's so generous. Well, speaking of invited to the party, um, nice segue. Way to tee it up. LinkedIn and Amazon DSP are now going to be pals at the party. So what we learned in the past recent weeks Anyway is that LinkedIn and Amazon DSP are teaming up to bring LinkedIn's audience signals into streaming TV through AdSP. So for B2B marketers, this sounds very compelling on paper. Um, but Pat, I'm curious for your take, what, what stands out to you with this partnership? Are advertisers going to jump at this? Is this a meh? What's the so what here?

Pat: We'll get to the men and the hype meter.

Julie Speer: Okay, I was trying to jump the gun there. Forget that's okay.

Pat: Normally you're getting me to not jump the gun. Uh, but yeah. So just unpack a little bit. What you brought up here so listeners understand. So the partnership brings LinkedIn's first party audience signals to streaming TV. That's through Microsoft Monetize, which is Microsoft owns LinkedIn. And so that's Microsoft's SSP. And so they're a preferred partner of Amazon's DSP. And if you've listened to this podcast, I think you've heard us talk a lot about Amazon's DSP expansion and partnership with other platforms and properties to reach those audiences. And so this is the continuation of that. What this means is that DSP advertisers can now reach B2B audiences in those streaming TV environments by using LinkedIn's data. So even we had a question in our team, someone was confused, was like, hey, does this mean I can put ads on LinkedIn now through Amazon DSP? No, that's not what this is. This is you can use LinkedIn's signal audience signal data to target shoppers. So uh, you can use what types of signals does LinkedIn make available for targeting data? So job title, Industry Seniority. LinkedIn claims to have a billion plus members. I don't know how many of those are real or active, um, accounts. Right. I'm sure there's a lot that are dormant but the reach and the scale that LinkedIn has is, is undeniable. And I think it made me think about this when Armin was just talking about the supply chain and logistics solution is this theme that keeps coming up with all of these things that Amazon has built, including Alexa. Having um, Rufus incorporated into it is this idea of simplicity. And so we've talked about in the past, one of the things that makes DSP truly special and differentiated is that it's a simplified unified media buying platform for a media buyer to reach audiences everywhere. So past state was I had to use eight different DSPs and I had to go over here and I had to do LinkedIn to reach people here. And it become really, really difficult to do that modeling and to split that budget across those disparate buying platforms. And so what this means is that you can another example of how Amazon is establishing one of their tools. ADSP is a one stop shop for marketers to reach these highly valuable audiences from that single buying platform, um, which makes measurement much easier and which uh, uses Amazon's uh, trillions and trillions of shopper behavior data too. So it is something that's truly differentiated from let's say like a trade desk or something like that. From a tactical standpoint, brands will still want to make sure they're Testing before they're jumping in two feet. Like we can look and say, oh, this is exciting because LinkedIn's a big name and we're um, on LinkedIn and so therefore it must be valuable. But we, we don't know yet how well that audience will perform. It's one thing to reach them, it's another thing of how well will they perform. And from a tactical standpoint too, you want to make sure there's a match between the product service that you're advertising and the LinkedIn cohort. Like just because you have a garlic press or a coffee grinder doesn't mean that like, oh, if I put this in front of VPs in the uh, technology sector that that's going to sell well. I could see this being super powerful for non endemic B2B services, like for SaaS platforms, for business credit cards, for other professional services to be able to reach those specific audiences. I could see this being really, really powerful.

Julie Speer: We hit on the garlic industry a couple times on today's.

Pat: Yeah, spice spicy.

Jordan Ripley: That poor VP of garlic sales always getting looked over, catching strays.

Julie Speer: Well, uh, I tried to preempt it to get you to share like the hype piece and you did touch on it a little bit, but for both of you. So looking at the news that we walked through this past month, from this past month, ah, what ranks high on your hype meter and what kind of ranks at the meh? It's news and then we can move on. Armin, why don't you start with us?

Armin: So I'm personally super hyped about the uh, Alexa not just emerging but how this will evolve over time. Now Amazon kind of signaling they'll be opening up for the rest of the world. It's kind of exciting and scary and intimidating and everything. So just kind of watching that closely and then the lowest, I mean the supply chain update is a meh. Like it's a good update but again, uh, not something that a lot of brands will be using in my opinion right now.

Pat: My hype meter specific to the media topics we talked about. I think dynamic TV could in the future be exciting. I do think it's original rollout is like it's still a piece of static creative and like yes it changes in its dynamic but I think that's kind of the, they're really the minimum and minimum viable product is doing some heavy lifting there I think in that. But I do m. It's like a stay tuned and what's to come there. I do think the LinkedIn audience targeting could be really exciting. That's going to get my. My hype for this one. Obviously it's a tbd. It could be a complete dud. But that, that's a really interesting partnership to me and a really highly valuable, valuable audience cohort if you can get the right, um, message in front of them.

Julie Speer: Interesting. I'm not gonna lie. I thought that was gonna be a meth, but tbd. Tbd. We'll see. Well, thank you both. I think biggest news to me was, was the change of name from Rufus to Alexa for shopping. The most consequential of all.

Jordan Ripley: I like to live in the world where like companies could still have like cute, dumb things that they were doing and not just like corporate, corporate, corporate.

Pat: But think you can think of all of us agencies who have to control f all of our SOPs and finally we say Rufus, come on.

Julie Speer: I have already started doing that. Uh, well, arm and Pat, thank you for coming back to join us for another retail roundup and looking forward to digging in next month to see where the reporting is for the dynamic creative, how big LinkedIn and Amazon DSP actually are together. All of this and more. Thank you both.

Armin: Thank you.