SHOPTALK FALL 2026, DAY 2 MORNING

1. Marketplaces Add Customers, While Brands Guard the Relationship

Reach and its price

Three companies reported that marketplaces and TikTok reached customers they did not already have. At Sally Beauty Holdings, 75% of delivery-marketplace business is incremental. It expected delivery customers to buy low-stakes items such as lashes, but it sells a lot of hair color to people who need it within 30 minutes. DoorDash orders spike at 5:00 p.m. on Fridays, when customers are getting ready to go out. Few marketplace shoppers were already customers of RG Barry Brands’ own direct-to-consumer channel, so the marketplaces brought it net new consumers. TikTok brought QVC Group 1 million new customers in 2025, a mix of existing fans and first-time shoppers.

Retailers must share some control of the experience on marketplaces, said Natalie Lockhart, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer at Sally Beauty Holdings: the customer decides where to buy, and the job is to satisfy them there. Drivers spend only four minutes in a store, so accurate pickup in that window is a differentiator. A marketplace sale is a win when the customer connects with the product, and a bonus if that customer later moves to the retailer’s ecommerce site or stores. Her advice to retailers is to use the marketplaces personally and to test opportunities that seem unlikely.

The marketplaces own the customer relationship and the data, said Sharon Leite, CEO at The Vitamin Shoppe. The retailer added DoorDash and Uber Eats for convenience, then began delivering from its own website, aiming to beat Amazon on speed, so the data stays with it. Content has to differ by marketplace, because what works on TikTok differs from what works on DoorDash. The retailer also holds a firm line on accurate ingredient and manufacturing information wherever it sells. Store specialists still matter, because customers want human guidance.

Brand Strategies for Leveraging Marketplaces
Source: Shoptalk Fall

Platforms set the rules

Marketplaces are not one channel, said Corinne Baker, SVP, Ecommerce DTC and Marketplaces at RG Barry Brands. Some reward frequent new items, while others raise a product’s visibility as sales accelerate, so the choices on assortment, pricing and media matter most.

On the video and social shopping panel, selling style did not carry from one market to another. At Kind Patches, aggressive selling and urgency lifted engagement and sales in the US, whereas UK audiences responded to a calmer style. “Just try it and push all your energy into trying something and pivot, pivot and pivot,” said Magnus Hjörne, Co-Founder and CEO at Kind Patches.

QVC runs TikTok Shop as a full retail business, not a marketing channel, and checks each new product 28 days after launch: if it has not reached mass velocity, it may be a dud. Live shopping takes far more operating investment than switching on a platform AI feature, so retailers interested in it should start before demand matures, said Joe Yakuel, Founder and CEO at WITHIN, on a different panel.

Innovations in Video and Social Shopping
Source: Shoptalk Fall

Rebuilding the relationship

All three loyalty vendors advised connecting customer data and experiences in ecommerce, stores, wholesale and social channels, rather than leaving loyalty on a standalone rewards page.

A community-based loyalty program can capture preferences, behavior and advocacy as first- and zero-party data, said Regan Jayne, Co-Founder and CEO at Rediem. Transactions and discovery are now spread across marketplaces, wholesale, retail and social, so brands no longer own the whole relationship. Her “logo swap” test is simple: swap in another logo, and if the page would fit a dog-food maker or a cosmetics brand, the program is too generic.

Christine Lee of Talon.One warned of a “discount trap,” in which promotions erode margin and teach customers to expect lower prices, and named access, aspiration and advocacy as the alternatives. Her example was rewarding participation in the Hand Me Down DÔEN resale program with early access in place of a markdown.

Angela Clark, Founder at Eclipse Advisory Group, said brands should try an “invisible launch”: build the program, quietly invite the most engaged customers, watch what they use and refine it before spending on marketing.

“People love brands and they love products and they love sharing them,” said Allison Tepley, Head of Global Audience Marketing at Reddit, who cited Walmart’s work amplifying individual shoppers’ content, which brands have traditionally not promoted. Brands can seed and amplify conversation across many communities, though they do not control what those communities say.

Designing New Approaches to Digital Discovery
Source: Shoptalk Fall

BRUNT Workwear asks customers which trade they work in, whether indoors or outdoors and in what weather, then combines the answers with purchase data to move boot buyers into apparel. On TikTok and Meta Reels, organic content now reaches viewers by niche interest, so a customer’s post about a product in their field can land in prospects’ feeds, said Christopher Pond, Chief Growth Officer at BRUNT Workwear.

We believe the digital discovery panel points to a discovery model built on trust, data and deliberate design. Retailers and brands should invest in programs that surface and amplify real customer content and advocacy across platforms instead of depending on any single algorithm, and collect zero-party data to combine with behavioral data for personalization across categories and the lifecycle. They should also use AI for customer research and listening, not only for promotion, and avoid optimizing every journey for speed at the expense of inspiration.

2. Panelists Call Agentic Storefronts Overhyped

Hype and readiness

Agentic storefronts are overhyped for now, said Yakuel, because autonomous shopping agents account for little conversion compared with the attention they get. He would put the effort into discoverability through large language models and conversion through existing sites and channels.

The panel still agreed that retailers should get their infrastructure ready. Product data and feeds already supply Google Shopping, performance media and social platforms, and the same work readies a retailer for AI discovery whether or not shopping agents arrive. Human review stays standard before content made with AI goes live.

Low-cost pilots are worthwhile because the questions shoppers ask reveal unmet needs, said Laura Cantor, VP, Marketing and Ecommerce at New York & Company. One test showed shoppers asking about outfits for occasions, like a yacht party.

Third-party coverage also shapes AI search, Yakuel said: editorial and “best of” citations can determine whether a retailer appears when shoppers search a category without naming a brand, and the sentiment in those sources colors how the brand comes across.

Cantor said optimizing for AI search can quickly become complicated and expensive, so she has favored easier platform tools and catalog optimization.

What unclean data costs

Baker said RG Barry Brands set out to price roughly one million SKUs automatically, but the run did not account for empty margin cells in its data. Items priced at $400 sold for $50, and thousands of orders went unfilled. The company now cleans its data before automating further, because automation does not make data safer.

Vibe coding shortens the path from idea to prototype, but a prototype that serves employees or customers at scale still needs security, privacy and maintenance work, said Rebecca Maffei, Chief Information Officer at Fashionphile.

Panelists split on whether a company needs a Chief AI Officer: one view saw a clear lane for governance and investment, the other a signal to colleagues that AI is someone else’s job.

Using AI to listen

Sonia Biddle, Chief Product Officer at Depop, said her top advice is to use AI to “talk and listen to your customers constantly and at scale” rather than to hurry shoppers through the funnel. In fashion, brands should create friction on purpose, so shoppers “get stuck a little bit.”

3. Pitch Session Advises Starting From the Funding Decision

A pitch as a decision tool

Start with the funding decision, then work back to the proof, earned insight and investor fit behind it: a pitch is “a decision-making tool,” not a sales tool, said Joy Allen-Altimare, President at Vella Bioscience. Daily Crunch raised part of its Series A from a state-backed fund after food and beverage funds set minimums near $20 million.

We believe the session’s advice, although aimed at startups, applies to anyone making a funding or budget case, including internal pitches to a CEO or board. Founders and executives should open with the decision requested and replace broad market claims with specific operating data and customer evidence, since the stage of the business sets how much is needed. They should also choose funders for strategic fit as well as capital, planning for a relationship that lasts years, and treat follow-up as part of the pitch, with a repeatable cadence that keeps prospects informed even after a “no.”