This episode was recorded live at the RetailClub AI Festival in Huntington Beach (Sept 22–24), where Jason Goldberg and I set up shop to record with retail and e-commerce leaders between sessions. You’ll hear a few nods to the festival in the conversation, and if there’s a little extra crunch in the audio, blame the snacks.
We start with a quick tour of every CPG brand Justin has worked for, and the very scientific method he uses to pick the next one. From there it turns into a crash course in how challenger brands actually grow: the brutal economics of the physical shelf, why big brand houses are reshuffling their portfolios, and what it really takes to get into Costco and stay there.
There’s also a snack reveal and a crunch our audio engineer will never forget. Hit play.
Highlights
- 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗶𝘀 𝘇𝗲𝗿𝗼-𝘀𝘂𝗺: “We haven’t added any square footage into a shelf.” When an emerging brand earns its way in from the innovation aisle, something else has to come out.
- “𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴”: A year ago Justin would have said TikTok Shop would never be a main part of his job. Then came “a tsunami of interest,” and today Wilde runs live selling on TikTok Shop and Whatnot.
- 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗰𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱: Landing a Costco rotation is the moment brands post the hype video. If you miss the sales threshold, you don’t get a repeat, and the regional buyers talk to each other.
- 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀: “Conversions go up the faster you get delivery.” Justin says ship-from-store is the fastest-growing part of Walmart digital, and if your product isn’t in that store, the conversion you paid Walmart Connect for disappears.
- 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲, 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗭𝗜𝗣 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲: With two years of Amazon sales mapped by ZIP code, Justin can see that barbecue over-indexes in the Southeast and sea salt and vinegar in the Northeast. With AI, building creative for those regions is now quick.
- 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺: Instead of building agents on top of separate data silos, Wilde built a data lake. Target store data, Roundel media, Shipt, Instacart, and DoorDash data all sit in one place, so a sales lead can ask a small language model what to do next.
- 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗼-𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁: When a retailer’s promotion drops a price on Instacart, one of Justin’s agents spots it through the API and flags it. He then decides whether to push ads to new-to-brand shoppers or pause them for 30 days and let the promo do the work.
- 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗮𝗹𝗹: Justin builds mostly in Claude but stays LLM-agnostic, trying Grok, Muse, Kimi, and NVIDIA’s open models. “Don’t let your frame just get put into one.”
- 𝗗𝗼𝘇𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀: “I have dozens of agents that I’m working with. That is the new norm.”
I learned more about how CPG actually works in 30 minutes with Justin than I have in years of nodding along when Jason explains it. Grab a bag of something crunchy and enjoy the conversation.
Timestamps:
01:47 Disclosure: Justin is on the ReFiBuy advisory board
02:00 Every CPG brand Justin has worked at, and the spouse test
03:00 How challenger brands grow: from D2C to Walmart, Target, and Costco
03:55 Acquired or spun off: why CPG portfolios are reshuffling
04:10 Turns and the zero-sum shelf
05:10 PopCorners and the protein pivot
06:10 Social commerce is here: TikTok Shop and Whatnot live selling
06:50 Snack reveal: "I was wrong" about TikTok Shop
08:40 Plot twist: chips made of chicken breast (plus the crunch)
10:00 Making it in Costco: pallets, thresholds, and regionality
11:10 The Justin playbook: it starts with Amazon data
12:55 DoorDash comes to Costco, and why Instacart vs. DoorDash isn't zero-sum
14:00 Jason's take: another nail in the coffin for Costco?
15:05 Ship-from-store, speed, and conversion
17:15 Who gives brands better data: Amazon, Walmart, or Target?
18:15 Every sale by ZIP code: flavor geo-targeting with AI
19:15 How AI changed everything: one data lake for Target, Roundel, Shipt, and more
21:35 Walmart's 4.7-petabyte data lake and Code Puppy
23:00 The AI cheerleader and climbing the agent ladder
24:05 Instacart media and the promo-watching agent
26:00 Claude, Grok, Muse, Kimi: use them all
27:45 What's next for CPG: dozens of agents
28:45 Wrap-up
👉 Connect with Justin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-bomberowitz-%F0%9F%90%94-07030414/
👉 Learn more about Wilde: https://wildebrands.com/
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