Welcome to Connected Commerce Decoded, the next evolution of ArkticBytes.
While the name has changed, our focus remains the same: helping retailers and brand manufacturers make sense of the trends, technologies and shifts shaping the future of digital, data and eCommerce.
As the lines between commerce, customer experience, retail media, loyalty, marketplaces and AI continue to blur, we wanted a name that better reflects the increasingly connected nature of the industry and the insights we’ll continue to bring you each fortnight.
One of the more significant commerce announcements this month may have flown under the radar.
Google revealed that Bunnings, Adore Beauty, Kogan, The Iconic and Petbarn will be among the first Australian retailers connected to its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), enabling product, pricing, inventory and loyalty data to flow directly into Google’s ecosystem.
On the surface, this sounds like another technology integration.
I think it’s much bigger than that.
For more than two decades, Google has helped shoppers discover products. Increasingly, it wants to help them buy them and eventually make decisions for them.
The introduction of UCP, combined with Google’s plans for a Universal Cart that follows shoppers across Search, YouTube, Gemini and Gmail, signals a future where AI doesn’t just help shoppers discover products. It helps them compare, shortlist and ultimately purchase them.
What’s particularly interesting is that Google is positioning itself at the centre of the next wave of AI-powered shopping, and it’s well placed to do it: shopping activity across its services happens more than one billion times a day, and its Shopping Graph holds more than 60 billion product listings.
However, with shoppers migrating to other AI consumer platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity and others, Google is no longer the only viable and dominant option to discover and shop. Shoppers now, and increasingly will, have multiple ways to engage in agentic shopping, and Google is likely to be one of several options used. Shoppers will decide which platform they trust most to manage their agentic shopping needs, and that won’t necessarily be Google for all shoppers.
For retailers, the introduction of UCP raises some important questions and legitimate concerns.
If product discovery increasingly happens through AI-powered experiences, visibility may become less dependent on website optimisation and more dependent on the quality of the data feeding those ecosystems. This means product content, inventory accuracy, pricing, promotions and loyalty data suddenly become even more important.
The role of loyalty will also be rewritten. In a world where agentic commerce engines make purchase decisions on a shopper’s behalf, factoring in their loyalty membership and the value it delivers, retailers need to start thinking about how loyalty programs are engineered to drive selection in an agentic shopping experience.
But perhaps the bigger question for retailers is this: if Google has the inventory and can execute the transaction, what happens to my online audience, and my ability to monetise it through retail media? Does the retailer simply become a supplier of inventory into what essentially becomes Google’s agentic commerce marketplace? In a world like that, brand promise and preference have never mattered more.
The market is changing fast, and many retailers are not moving quickly enough to keep pace. The real question isn’t whether to engage with agentic commerce. It’s whether retailers are solving for the right problems, and understand the magnitude of the change, in order to adapt their business model so it is ready for the AI era.
🤖 Google AI Max signals the next evolution of search advertising. Google has rolled out AI Max to Australian advertisers, moving keywords further from being strict instructions and more towards signals that help AI understand intent. Google claims advertisers are seeing up to 27% more conversions, while early case studies suggest stronger performance from broader query matching and AI-powered optimisation. The bigger implication is that search is becoming increasingly intent-led rather than keyword-led. As AI-powered search experiences continue to evolve, marketers may need to spend less time managing keywords and more time ensuring their content, products and landing pages provide the context AI needs to match consumers with the right solutions. The future of search advertising looks less like keyword management and more like teaching machines how to understand your business.
♻️ Vinted’s arrival is another signal that recommerce is becoming mainstream. European marketplace Vinted has quietly launched in Australia, partnering with Australia Post and entering an increasingly competitive second-hand market alongside eBay, Depop and Facebook Marketplace. While resale has traditionally been viewed through a sustainability lens, the growth of platforms like Vinted is increasingly being driven by value, affordability and circular consumption. In Europe, Vinted has grown into a multi-billion-dollar marketplace with more than €10 billion in annual sales. The bigger question for retailers is whether resale remains a niche category or becomes a permanent layer of the retail ecosystem. As cost-of-living pressures continue and younger consumers become increasingly comfortable buying pre-owned products, the line between new and second-hand retail continues to blur.
🛍️ Meta wants to turn product discovery into purchase without leaving the feed. Ahead of Cannes Lions, Meta unveiled a suite of new commerce capabilities including Live Video Ads, expanded creator affiliate tools and new checkout experiences designed to shorten the path from discovery to purchase. The most interesting development is the expansion of Live Video Ads, allowing brands to amplify live shopping content beyond existing followers and move closer to the highly integrated commerce experiences that have seen success in Asian markets. While live commerce has struggled to gain the same traction in Western markets, Meta’s latest moves suggest social platforms are still determined to bring content, creators and transactions closer together. The broader trend is clear: discovery, consideration and purchase are increasingly converging into a single experience rather than separate stages of the funnel.
Many brands spend years trying to earn their place on retail shelves. They pitch buyers, fight for space and hope their products will sell once they finally get there. But what if you flipped that model? What if you built so much demand online that retailers actually came looking for you?
That’s exactly what today’s guest has done. Jaimee Vilela is the Managing Director of Cooki Haircare, a fast-growing Australian haircare brand she acquired just a few years ago. At the time, the business was doing just four sales a day.
Since then, Jaimee and her team have transformed Cooki into a multi-million-dollar brand powered by a passionate community of customers and a strong digital-first strategy. That demand has translated into retail momentum, with Cooki now ranged across the Go Vita network across Australia.
In this episode, Jaimee shares the unconventional path from small eCommerce acquisition to national retail presence, and what it takes to build a brand that customers and retailers both want.
From four sales a day to a multimillion-dollar brand (03:44)
Why buying a tiny business beat starting from scratch (04:30)
The customer interviews that shaped Cooki’s growth strategy (09:13)
How a rebrand unlocked the next stage of growth (11:40)
Building a community of 3,000 superfans (15:01)
The power of replying to every customer like a human (17:05)
Turning unhappy customers into brand advocates (19:53)
How Cooki customers helped get the brand into Go Vita (23:06)
The accidental retail movement that drove national ranging (27:24)
Why digital demand is fueling in-store growth (30:32)
What big brands can learn from startup operators (33:29)
I’m an advisor, trainer and thought leader with 25+ years’ experience across digital, marketing, loyalty and commerce, working with consumer, FMCG and retail brands. I’m also the host of Unpacking the Digital Shelf – APAC Edition and have been recognised as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert (2026), and Top 20 CMO (2018).
Before you go…
🧭 Need strategic clarity or expert advice? Let’s chat.
🛠️ Looking to build capability in your team? Explore training & workshops.
🎤 Planning an event or offsite? Book a keynote or thought leadership session.
Get in touch at teresa@arkticfox.io or find out more here, and don’t forget to follow along on LinkedIn and Substack.
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