Latest / Retail Media Breakfast Club / NRF 2026: Why Retail’s Future Belongs to the Experimenters (Not the Five-Year Planners)
Transcript
- 2026 NRF: Navigating Rapid Retail Change === [00:00:00] Kiri Masters: I was sitting in the opening session of the NRF Big show on Sunday, listening into a fireside chat with Bob Eddie, chairman, and CEO of BJ's Wholesale Club and Ed Stack, executive chairman of Dick's [00:00:15] Sporting Goods. [00:00:16] I watched the session. I posted a sprightly post on LinkedIn citing a great management lesson from Ed and I promptly left the keynote stage to [00:00:30] catch up on some real work in the hallway. In doing so, I inadvertently skipped the history making session that happened immediately after. In the very same [00:00:45] room where Google Chief stood up, AHAI announced the introduction of the Universal Commerce Protocol or UCP, which is a new open standard for a agentic commerce. [00:00:57] Designed to facilitate seamless [00:01:00] AI powered shopping experiences across various platforms. What a miss. And that's when the palpitating anxiety of being left behind really hit me. It's [00:01:15] hard getting back into the swing of the new year. I don't know what's worse, a slow and drudge a start or one which is dominated by the anxiety of being left behind. [00:01:28] [00:01:29] Kiri Masters: [00:01:30] While I was ostensibly on at the center of the retail universe for a few days, taking in all the announcements and case studies about new technology and how retailers are adapting to it. I still feel woefully [00:01:45] inescapably behind. Surely it can't just be me, and thank goodness it's not even the people who are actually in charge of technology at these retail companies can't see the future. [00:01:57] Here's some comments I took in from [00:02:00] various stages at NRF from Angie Brown, the Chief Information Officer at Home Depot. She says. We don't look at it like we have to know exactly how this is going to take off. For us, we look at [00:02:15] it like it's the next evolution of search and from Fiona Tans the chief Technology Officer at Wayfair, she says. [00:02:23] For us, it's still experimenting and testing and learning. It's probably not going to be one thing where we're [00:02:30] suddenly going to completely disrupt how shopping is done online and from Ed Stack, the executive chairman of Dick's Sporting Goods, he said, not many of us really understand where it is going to take us, but we know that it's going to [00:02:45] change the world. Miracle Ads is the Ad Tech solution trusted by Rakuten and over 50 global enterprise retailers. That's because [00:03:00] Miracle Ads was built with both three P Marketplace sellers and one P suppliers in mind. Both advertiser audiences demand a seamless advertising journey from onboarding to reporting. [00:03:12] You can offer everything from sponsored products [00:03:15] to video ads all in one solution. Learn more@miracle.com. That's M-I-R-A-K l.com. [00:03:24] [00:03:25] Kiri Masters: And the management consultants furiously whipping up forecasts and models for these [00:03:30] retailers. They can't see the future either, which is why 2026 is the year we leave brash confidence behind. The retailers who are getting buzzed right now aren't the ones with five-year plans and [00:03:45] confident predictions. [00:03:46] They're the ones experimenting. Zigging while others are zagging. Take Costco's retail media chief, who made the unheard of move of revealing the retailer's tech stack, which you can read [00:04:00] more about in one of my recent columns for the drum, which we'll link up to in the show notes. [00:04:05] Or as Mike Edmonds, who is PayPal's VP of Ag, agentic Commerce, put it waiting and seeing, I think is a really tricky position to [00:04:15] have. If the first two weeks of 2026 are anything to go by retailers, consumer brands and the ecosystem that supports them will need to be adaptable this year. Strong opinions loosely held, [00:04:30] partnerships and technology that are flexible and composable an explicit expectation for partners to collaborate rather than draw battle lines. [00:04:40] Define the destination, but stay flexible on how you get [00:04:45] there. The only thing certain this year, more than any other is that change will be constant buckle up. [00:04:54] And one more thing, just on a personal level. It was great running into so many friends [00:05:00] from the industry at NRF and a question I got frequently was about my. Process and getting so much content out the door every week, and maybe I'll get into more of the mechanics of [00:05:15] that in a later episode and newsletter. [00:05:17] But I did want to share one thing that I did in 2025 that I'm really proud of, which helped. Dramatically to help me unwind after a big day of thinking and [00:05:30] talking and work related stuff is to get into bed and read a real book. And so I have put together a list of my favorite fiction books from last year because I found that reading [00:05:45] fiction was really important rather than learning from nonfiction, which is also very important, but just not the best bedtime reading, at least for me. [00:05:52] Um, so I have put together a list of my favorite novels that I read last year. If you're interested in checking that out, we'll put a [00:06:00] link to it in the show notes. [00:06:01] That has been one of my hacks for disconnecting at the end of the day, making sure I get a really good sleep. So if you're a reader like me, check out my list and I'd love to hear your fiction novel. [00:06:15] Recommendations too. Catch you next week. [00:06:17]