Commerce Riff with Sri & PVSB - September 1, 2026

PVSB 0:01

It's September 1st, 2026, and this is the Commerce Rift brought to you by the CBG guys. Ten minutes of the news stories that matter in commerce this week. I'm your co-host PVSB, and I'm joined as always by Papa Raj, the father of pop stars, co-founder of Think Blue Consulting Shriek, craziest travel period of the year for the CBG guys, has just kicked off. We're back from Chicago where we attended the Ace Hardware Red Vest Media 2027 Upfront, which we'll cover in a story later. But what else is on our dance card for September?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

So literally Tuesday, day of this release of this episode, I am at Walmart Celeste Marketplace event. I have multiple Walmart executives. I'm recording a founder of a very scaled toy box company. Then you and I are both going to the Walmart Data Ventures Inspire event at Benville. We're hosting an Happy R. We got grocery shop right at the heels of that. I want to mention, then we have AdWe coming up right after that. Then I go to Austin for Stibo Systems live conference. You're headed all the way to the West Coast for Amazon Unbox. I mean, the list is actually pretty long, Peter. Like I could write a thesis on how Q4 is going to end. And somewhere in between all of that, I'm going to Cat's I tour in Europe and then in the U.S. So it's going to be a wild Q4 for me. It's not going to be any less for you, though.

PVSB 1:28

No, in fact, I'm also attending the Flywheel Coffee and Commerce event in New York City on September 10th. So I've got one more item on the list. But somewhere in there, we'll find our way to record some more episodes and reconnect with our audience. We love doing that. Dollar General beats and raises on the value retail wave. Creator Commerce platform Levanta closes a $22 million Series B. Walbert extends its Centilla data platform to Sam's Club. And Ace's Red Vest Media unveils a fresh slate of retail media innovations at its first ever upfront. Value retail had a big week. Dollar General posted second quarter sales up 5.2% to $11.29 billion ahead of the $11.2 billion analysts expected with same store sales up 3.5%. Also better than Wall Street modeled. Profit came in at $550.3 million, up from $4.11.4 million a year earlier. An EPS of $2.48 blew past the $2.01 analysts were looking for. That performance gave management the confidence to raise full-year guidance. EPS now expected at $7.80 to $8, up from $7.20 to $7.45, with net sales growth guided to 4% to 4.3%, and comps to 2.5 to 2.9%. Todd Vasso, CEO, said most notably, higher and more volatile fuel prices have forced customers to further prioritize purchases with a focus on value and affordability. The big lever? More $1 SKUs are coming for fall and holiday alongside stepped-up marketing. Management is also reinvesting tariff-free funds directly into price, not just margin, moved Jeffries analysts credited to underlying execution rather than a one-time tariff windfall. Two dollar store operators, same playbook, rural close to home, convenience plus, radical price certainty in a fuel and affordability squeezed environment. Shri, what do you have?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Thank you, Peter. Create a commerce infrastructure got a fresh vote of confidence. Levante, the platform that helps brands find creators, ship them products, set up affiliate commissions, track sales and payments, announced a dollar 22 million series B led by Volition Capital, which also led the company's 20 million series A back in 24. That brings Levant's total funding north of 43 million. The new capital goes towards creative commerce technology and go-to-market activity and towards bringing dozens of additional retail marketplaces onto the platform. Levante already spans Amazon, Shopify, Walmart with other major marketplaces to be announced soon. We're seeing a broader shift of brands and marketplaces increasingly look to creators and affiliates as measurable drivers of demand beyond their own channels. Larry Chang, founding partner at Volition Capital, said so. CEO Ian Brody says the business has been profitable at break-even since launch. So this race is about speed and scale, not the runway indeed. Levante now has more than 90,000 vetted creators on the platform with access to millions more through social discovery, building what Brody calls creative commerce media infrastructure not just for brands, but for the marketplaces themselves. Most retail marketplaces have not yet enabled their sellers to get involved in creative affiliate marketing. Levante has created the infrastructure connecting those two sites, enabling the partnerships, economics, attribution, payments, reporting, and everything in between, said Ian Brody, the CEO of Levante. The plan. A dozen additional marketplaces, thousands of new brands, while continuing to accelerate traffic to existing Amazon, Shopify, and Walmart sellers. Worth flagging for CPG and retail media folks as more marketplaces open the door to creators. Expect affiliate and creator attributed sales to become a bigger line item in retail media conversations and not just a side channel.

PVSB 5:41

Thank you, Shree. Walmart is bringing its commerce intelligence platform Cintilla to Sam's Club. Starting in 2027, Sam's Club merchants and suppliers will get access to the same system that's been running inside Walmart's own operations, pulling shopper data, cross-channel sales performance, and broader business results into one place. Everything starts with the member and understanding what they need, what they love, and what they're looking for next. Scintilla will help our merchants and suppliers listen better and act faster, says Sam's Club Chief Merchant Myron Fraser. This builds on Walmart Data Ventures rollout of Scintilla Insights activation back in 2024 and the more recent Scintilla Media Data Feed, an API that lets advertisers pipe roughly 500 operational and retail data points covering digital transactability, item level attributes, and cross-channel sales directly to their agency and tech partners. Instead of relying on one-off exports or custom workflows, partners can now access consistent near-real-time signals directly within their tools and platforms of choice, said Linda Lomolino, VP of Product for Data Monetization and Ads at Walmart Data Ventures. Sam's Club runs 600 clubs across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, so this isn't a small extension. It's Walmart standardizing its retail media and commerce intelligence stack across its entire portfolio, and suppliers should expect Sam's Club to start asking for the same data-driven collaboration. Walmart's banner already demands. Free, close it out, would you?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Live from Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. There were two gentlemen standing on top of the dugout of the actual Cubs team. I wonder who they were, but Ace Hardware's Retail Media Network, Red Vest Media held its inaugural upfront event this week and came out swinging. They pulled off what I would call an amazing upfront event one year after inception of the actual media network led by Molly Jam. New measurement, audience solutions. We just talked about social influencer capabilities. Well, Levante raised 22 odd million. Commerce media innovations backed by partners, DoorDash, Pacview, Epsilon, and Instro Marketplace. Sometimes I feel Peter not having had a retail media network for 10 years, starting at a year ago, they went from zero to 100 in one year. We're particularly thrilled to announce significant partnerships in social and influencer. A newly announced DoorDash partnership will help advertisers drive discovery, engage new customers to the DoorDash platforms, said Molly Jam, C VP and head of Redfest Media. CVP, of course, is corporate VP. Measurement. Incremental measurement for off-site media, new brand reporting, expanded insight sharing. Social influencer, the social amplification of existing creative, Aceaded Creative Partnerships through Influential. Then comes DoorDash. Sponsored ads, sponsored brands inside the ACE, hardware storefront and DoorDash, reaching customers as they build and order. Then these the audience library connects brands to ACEs, do-it-yourselfer and homeowner base beyond first-party targeting alone. Weather-triggered programmatic advertising, retailer reach, category driver campaigns, all built around ACES locally on store model, home improvement seasonality. Dreadbest Media is, of course, a brand building tool that puts the power of more than 80 million ACE rewards members, over 5,300 store locations, and ACE's hyper-local relevance in the hands of our vendor community, said Kim Lefko, CMO of ACE Hardware. Worth watching how quickly this scales, the audience library alone is described as a multi-year build-out through 27. Some capabilities carry investment thresholds, so expect this ecosystem to keep expanding well past this week's announcement. And we know Molly Jam will lead the way and break a bunch of glass ceilings, doors, so that this keeps advancing for Ace Hardware. Look for episode coming soon, recorded live from the dugout at Wrigley Field, featuring Ace CMO Kim Lefko and Red West Media's. Molly Jam, before we close this one up, Peter, I want to personally call out and thank you, Kim Lefko. Say thank you to Kim Lefko, CMO of Ace Hardware. She made a bucketless moment come true for you and me. We actually stood on the dugout of Wrigley Field. Not only that, our name was up on the scoreboard multiple times. We get the best welcome possible. Thank you, Ace Hardware.

PVSB 9:52

And Sri, lest I forget, got to mention Molly Jelm, those boots she was wearing, they were made for walking. Make sure to check out our video and photos from the event. She was killing it. Anyhow, that's a wrap on this week's Commerce Riff. If you haven't caught it yet, go back and check out our recent episode featuring our dear friend Nick Modi, owner of one of the CPG guys five-timer varsity jackets. He's, of course, from RBC Capital Markets. It's a great conversation on trends that CBG manufacturers really need to be addressing. If anything we covered today sparks a thought, drop it in the comments. We read every one. And if you're not following us on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube yet, well, now is the time. Shri, as we mentioned, is at the Walmart Sellers Summit. Today and tomorrow we'll be together in Northwest Arkansas, September 15th to the 17th for the Walmart Data Adventures Inspire event. We'll be in Las Vegas September 21st through the 24th for grocery shop. I'm going to be at Amazon Unbox September 28th to the 30th. Shri will be in Austin, Texas for Steve O Connect at the same time. We'll see you next week.