Walton's Weekly Wramblings

Business EN ↓ 8 episodes

Chris Walton's weekly podcast on whatever he feels like rambling on about retail for that week. chriswalton.substack.com

Author

Walton's Weekly Wramblings

Episodes

What This Year's Super Bowl Tells Us About The Future Of Commerce 14.02.2026 5:38

Three food delivery services. Two AI giants throwing punches. Multiple website builders promising instant entrepreneurship. One Super Bowl. And a clear message: the competition for your wallet is about to get brutal. Get full access to Walton's Weekly Wramblings at chriswalton.substack.com/subscribe

Why Most Retailers Will Never Transform With AI (And That’s Okay) 07.02.2026 8:40

Everyone is chasing AI transformation, but where should your AI dollars really go? Chris Walton gives his unbridled answer to that question. Get full access to Walton's Weekly Wramblings at chriswalton.substack.com/subscribe

The Five Trends From FMI 2026 That Actually Matter (And What The Merchants Were Really Saying) 31.01.2026 18:10

GLP-1 reshaping center store. In-store media becoming the third leg. Agentic commerce hitting a reality wall. Private brand opportunity widening but execution lagging. Shelf intelligence moving from edge to table stakes. Five major themes. More interviews than I can count. These were my lessons learned from FMI Midwinter 2026. Get full access to Walton's Weekly Wramblings at chriswalton.substack.c...

The Death of Optimization-First Retail: Four Lessons from NRF 2026 24.01.2026 16:07

Tariffs reshaping supply chains. AI's hallucination problem exposed. Just-in-time dead, just in-case case reborn. Warehouse clubs dominating omnichannel. Four major themes. Twenty executive interviews. These were just some of my lessons learned from NRF 2026. Hosted by Chris Walton, former Target executive and co-host of the Omnii Talk Retail Fast Five Podcast. New episodes of Walton's Weekly Wram...

All The Things I Think I Think About What I Got Right And Wrong About Retail In 2025 17.01.2026 25:20

A CEO fired in 100 days. A retail icon's stock down 49%. Membership clubs crushing every metric. Nine predictions. One year of chaos. How well did I call 2025's retail winners and losers? Get full access to Walton's Weekly Wramblings at chriswalton.substack.com/subscribe

Grocery's Uncomfortable Truth: Rich People Are Showing Us the Future 10.01.2026 14:32

Online grocery sales surged 29% in November to $12.3 billion. During inflation. During tight budgets. How is that possible? Higher-income households are driving explosive e-grocery growth – placing 3.1 orders per month with frequency climbing for 15 consecutive months. But they're not the endgame. They're the early warning signal. UBS predicts grocery will be the first industry disrupted by agenti...

My 2025 Superlatives: What This Year's Winners Tell Us About Retail's Future 13.12.2025 15:27

One giant integration announcement. A technology both revolutionary and catastrophically overhyped. An entire industry rushing toward a cliff like lemmings. Are we watching retailers accidentally create the monster that will devour them all? Chris Walton's 2025 superlatives definitely don’t disappoint. Brought to you with the help and support of Mirakl - The catalyst of commerce. Over 450 retailer...

Let’s Slow The Roll On Agentic Commerce 07.12.2025 15:14

Today’s wrambling is going to be exactly that, a rambling. We need to talk about generative AI. Because no doubt, like many of you, my brain hurts from trying to make sense of all the noise. So today I’m going to say something that might surprise you. I think we need to pump the brakes. I know, I know. That’s not the sexy take everyone wants to hear right now. After all, the headlines coming out o...