Commerce Riff with Sri & PVSB - October 13, 2026

PVSB 0:57

It's October 13th, 2026, and this is the Commerce Rift brought to you by the CPG guys. Ten minutes of the news stories that matter in commerce this week. I'm your co-host, PVSBM, joined as always by Papa Raj, the father of Pop Stars, co-founder of Think Blue Consulting. Sri, how is the fall treating you?

Sri 1:14

So far awesome, Peter. I actually just got back from the airport. I dropped Laj off at LAX. She's headed all the way to Dallas for some work, and then she comes back this weekend for um Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in between. She's got two shows, Miami and Atlanta. Busy fall for all of us.

PVSB 1:32

Via's launch is pending. Indeed they are, Shri. Busy for both of your girls and for the CPG guys. We're slowing down our travel as we head towards the end of the year. All right. Four stories this week that cuts right to the heart of where commerce is headed. A convenience giant borrowing its playbook from Japan. Mars' vision for the next decade of shopping. A Western consumer giant cracking the code on China's social media shoppers. And DoorDash putting its global media business in the hands of WPP. Let's get right into it. Let's start with convenience because 7-Eleven has a new leader in a very clear thesis, and it's one every CPG supplier selling into the channel should understand. Borizio Leva became CEO of 7-Eleven's North America arm in August. He's a consumer industry veteran, most recently group president at Kirig, Dr. Pepper. He plans to revamp the brand in the U.S. and Canada is simple. Mirror what has worked in Japan. In his words, we're stealing with pride. And what is he stealing? Well, attention to detail and a focus on quality, which he says North America desperately needs to enhance. He points to iconic store staples like 7-Eleven Japan's egg salad sandwich. If you haven't had one, they are the dreamiest, dreamiest sandwich. I actually have. They melt in your mouth. There's nothing like a like a 7-Eleven egg salad sandwich. He also points to extensive food variety and easy-to-open packaging. Parent company 7i Holdings has tasked him with an ambitious overhaul. Modernizing stores, expanding private label brands across North America, and scaling the 7Now delivery platform. And he's candid about the shopper. Leva said store transactions are keeping up in frequency, but not in size of basket. Value and quality will stay as important as ever, he said, but in an accelerated way. There's a capital markets angle too, Shri. The planned IPO of 7 Eleven Inc. has been pushed back and now isn't expected before fiscal 2027 at the earliest. 7 and I CEO, Stephen Dakis, said the objective is not to do an IPO, it is to increase shareholder value. He also said a lot of the oxygen has been sucked out of retail listings by AI because that's where all the money's going. The IPO is also a defensive measure after the long-running $47 billion takeover campaign by Circle K owner Kouchtard, which was ultimately withdrawn. And Dak has added that 7 and I has probably outsourced too much and could expand in-house production expertise. Our lens, a bigger private label push plus a handful of iconic in-house staples, means more of the convenience basket could shift to 7-Eleven's own products. If you're a branded supplier, you need a clear answer on why you earn the space. And if frequency holds while ticket size shrinks, the brands that win are the ones that justify a premium on both value and quality. One more connection for our listeners, Benoit Veterra of Liquid Death, who we recently had on the show, built digital to retail campaigns for 7-Eleven and his earlier company, Mammoth Media. Convenience is a channel where media and shelf are tightly linked. Thank you, Peter.

Sri 4:45

And I got a fun, let's say, quote unquote, sweet story for us. Let's talk about a piece of research that we think every brand team should read because Mars just published his vision for the future of shopping in retail. And it's built on a ton of data. Mars partnered with Cantar and Synthesis to analyze more than 180,000 data signals across four continents. Shopper and channel publications, podcasts, and expert perspectives, on behalf of, of course, its snacking business. And the research lands on two detailed futures. The first, shopping stops being a chore, agentic assistance handle the mental load, building lists, restocking, even pivoting when an item is out of stock. Those who are skeptical about this, let me assure you, in the study that I've been doing in Think Blue Consulting on behalf of Coca-Cola's Retail Research Council with seven retailers, NGA and FMI, it's here. AI is in the middle of the shopping and it's very much occurring today. The second, shopping becomes an experience with the functional role of shopping handle, physical stores become ops for discovery and collection. Retailers need to pay attention. Mars says shoppers everywhere asking for the same three things make shopping efforts. Make it personal, make it experiential. And the numbers behind those are actually worth noting. Consumers using AI to discover e-commerce brands at more than seven times the rate of a year ago. That opportunity is projected to grow to $788 billion by 2035. 39% of consumers already expect personalized online experiences. Personalized commerce is projected to be worth $427 billion by 2035, up from $189 billion in 2025. And 22% of US digital buyers already shop via livestream, which is no surprise. Reynolds, Mars Snacking's global chief custom officer, says Mars has the insights and the commitment and is ready to work with retail customers and partners to lead this big transformation. Over the next five years, Mars says it will invest to imagine snacking and help retailers position snacks where consumers will discover that. Now here is a fair caveat from us. This is Mars own research. So you can treat it as a point of view, but it's a well-sourced one. AI is real. The CPG lands from our side, the line that jumps out is this one. Brands must go the extra mile to earn a spot on the automated grocery list of AI. If an assistant builds the list, the shelf is the algorithm. That puts a premium and marketplace data, ratings, availability, retailer citations, and content. It's the word of it's uh it's the world Scott Needham of Smart Scout works in every day. He's been selling on Amazon since 2013 and his team cracks category share across Amazon and TikTok shop. If you want to know whether you're winning your category, the algorithm is wow. This conversation is a great place to start. Check out Smart Scout, who is actually one of our latest episodes. Peter, I think you're gonna talk to us about something very interesting.

PVSB 7:37

Yeah, Sri, let's shift to China because the Wall Street Journal has a story about Western consumer giant that is doing something most Western brands haven't been able to do there. Grow. Rackett, the master, the maker of Lysol, has posted 12 consecutive quarters of double-digit sales growth in China. It started around 2022 when the China team asked CEO Chris Lick for funds to get ahead of a trend. Licht assumed they were talking about China's equivalents of Amazon and Walmart Plus. No, they weren't. As he recalls that he was told e-commerce was a yesterday technology, and the new venue was social commerce. People scrolling through social media apps for entertainment and buying after seeing an ad. So Wrecket went all in. It built 18 studios inside a five-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai. Crews broadcast live for 12 hours a day with employees selling viet hair removal scream, Detol, Lysol's International Equivalent, and other Wrecket goods, while shoppers bombard them with comments and questions in a chat that dominates the screen. At other studios, staffers join guest actors and influencers to film quick comedies and mini dramas about domestic life. In one, a parent argues with teenagers about smelly shoes, and Detal comes to the rescue. The scale of the opportunity: some 800 million of China's 1.4 billion people use social media like Duyen and Guaishu every day, spending about 90 minutes a day on short videos and half have bought items on the platforms. Wreckit's short form video team drove 40 million new customers last year. Wow. From videos viewed 15 billion Sreed. That's with a B billion times. Emerging market sales grew 8.5% in the first half, compared with just 0.8% in North America and 3% decline in Europe. And Wrecket has begun replicating the playbook in Brazil, Mexico, and Malaysia. Our take? This model, entertainment is the sales channel, and the brand has to operate like a media company, studios, talent, real-time optimization. Social commerce is starting to catch on in the U.S. too, with shoppers buying through TikTok and Instagram links and live shopping streams on apps like whatnot. It echoes something Benoit Vertare told us about Liquideath, an entertainment company that happens to sell water. Wreck it is proving the same idea works for disinfectant. The question for U.S. brands is whether you're willing to build that capacity and be patient while it scales. Wow, Shri. Let's close it out, shall we? Absolutely, Peter.

Sri 10:25

Don't you love that guy, Ben Wawater? One of the most, I would think, prolific CMOs of our time. Anyway, I'm gonna jump over to a delivery service and a media partner. So let's close this week with what we love here, agency stories, because DoorDash just made a big move on the media side and it says a lot about where platform media is headed. DoorDash is named WPP Media, its first global media agency partner, following a very competitive review. WPP has worked with DoorDash since its start-up days, but the relationship is expanding beyond existing territories like the US and Canada to more than 40 additional international markets beginning next year. Remick covers the full DoorDash portfolio. The namesake platform, UK focused delivery at Volt, which operates in dozens of European and Asian countries. DoorDash said it elected WPP Media for capabilities and differentiated data, technology and measurements, understanding of local market dynamics, and the strength of the work over an eight-year relationship. WPP has Doordash on its first national use ad campaign in the lead up to its initial IPO, initial public offering, late 2020. DoorDash bought Volt in 2021 and completed his nearly $4 billion acquisition of delivery last year. The account rely on DoorDash's proprietary data and insights to support WPP Open. WPP's AI-powered operating system and DoorDash runs its own ad business informed by customer transaction data, which of course it has access to every day. For WPP, it's part of a push to build existing client relationships and grown. Estee Lauder appointed WPP Media, its first global media partner in April, in the same month Wendy's handed its US media duties to WPP. Retaining business and giving clients a more unified view have been mandates this year for a company that is trying to return to growth. It's like for like revenue less pass-through costs, decline 2.8% in the second quarter. CPG guys Lannis, this is another data point in the agency consolidation story we've been tracking, including the recent one with PepsiCo's move to Publicis. And it shows that platforms sitting on transaction data are choosing partners on data, technology and measurement, not just reach. Doordash is a media business now, and with delivery and bolt under one roof, the retail media conversation for any brand selling through deliveries going global. If your measurement and your creative on will to travel across markets, please listen to us. Start now.

PVSB 12:49

Go on, Peter, close us out, please. Thank you, Sri. That's a wrap on this week's Commerce Riff. A quick reminder to catch up on our recent episodes. We had two great conversations. You don't want to miss. We referred to them in today's Riff, Scott Needham, founder of Smart Scout, and Ben Wavater, Chief Media and Digital Commerce Officer at Liquid Death. Both are essential listening for anyone thinking about how brands win, where the algorithm and the shelf meet. Links are in the show notes. If anything we covered today sparked a thought, drop it in the comments. We read everyone. And if you're not following us on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube yet, forget about MySpace. I joke about it, but ain't nothing there. Well, now's the time. We'll see you next week. Bring on the Brewers.