Talk Commerce

Bobby Stephens of Deloitte Digital on the 2026 B2C commerce research, why the gap sits in checkout and returns rather than anything exotic, and why only 10 to 12% of companies use agentic AI in customer facing commerce.

Show Notes

Bobby Stephens leads the US retail and CPG practice at Deloitte Digital, and he came on right after his team published their 2026 B2C commerce research, Bridging the commerce divide, which surveyed 550 B2C commerce leaders and 1,000 consumers and found the two groups describing what sounds like two different businesses.

The gap is not in anything exotic. It sits in the table stakes, in finding a product, confirming it is in stock, checking out, getting an order update, and making a return. As Bobby puts it, merchants think they are doing a better job at checkout than customers think they are. The reason it persists is that customers benchmark a retailer against every experience they have, including the apps on their phone that exist for fun, rather than against the competitor down the street.

In this conversation: the attribution gap that opens up when nobody can tell a human visitor from an agent, what that does to anyone selling audiences through a retail media network, why only 10 to 12% of companies use agentic AI extensively in customer facing commerce, why he is cool on the segment of one, why retailers are further along than brands, why agentic buying lands in B2B before B2C, why the website is not going anywhere, and the proposition that has decided every shift since ecommerce started, which is save me time and save me money.

Guest: Bobby Stephens, Head of US Retail & CPG, Deloitte Digital (Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP)
Report: Bridging the commerce divide
His podcast: That Makes Sense (sense spelled C E N T S)
LinkedIn: bobby-stephens-digital

What is Talk Commerce?

Talk Commerce connects the commerce community through conversation, with host Brent W. Peterson talking to the founders, developers, agency leaders, and merchants who build and run eCommerce businesses on Shopify, Magento, Adobe Commerce, and B2B platforms.

Two segments run alongside the full interviews. Agentic Commerce episodes run 10 minutes or less and take on one topic at a time, from AI shopping agents to the product data those agents read. Running Commerce covers the running and athletic industry and the brands, retailers, and race organizers who make it work.

Episodes also cover eCommerce marketing, retail, and growing a team, along with live reporting from events like eTail, Shoptalk, and The Running Event. Read the show notes and the daily blog, and sign up for the newsletter, at https://talk-commerce.com