For years, retailers have fought over where customers shop. Increasingly, the more interesting question is who controls the shopping decision before the customer ever reaches a store or website?
That question came up repeatedly in the October 23 episode of Retail Roundup, where I was joined by Suzy Davidkhanian, VP of Content at EMARKETER, and Adam Moyer, Chief Customer Officer at Planalytics. We covered Walmart’s new membership bundle, Google’s Universal Cart, the holiday sales outlook, and the role weather plays in retail demand. On the surface, that’s a pretty eclectic agenda. Underneath, it’s a conversation about who gets to understand the shopper—and who gets to act on that understanding.
Walmart isn’t just bundling benefits. It’s connecting shopping habits.
Walmart recently announced a combined Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus membership for $120 a year. For consumers, the immediate appeal is straightforward: more benefits for less than the two memberships previously cost together. For Walmart, though, the strategic possibilities go well beyond a more attractive subscription.
Think about the difference between seeing a customer’s weekly grocery run and understanding that same customer’s warehouse-club purchases, delivery preferences, and other shopping patterns. A more complete picture can potentially inform merchandising, personalization, and retail media. As Suzy and I discussed, the interesting question isn’t just whether the bundle attracts subscribers. It’s whether Walmart can translate those relationships into better experiences without making shoppers feel like walking data sets.
Google wants to be there before the retailer is
Then there’s Google’s Universal Cart, discussed in the episode as a way for shoppers to collect products across retailers, watch prices, and evaluate rewards across Search and Gemini. The implications are potentially enormous—even if the experience isn’t seamless yet.
Retailers have spent decades trying to become the destination. But if an AI-powered intermediary increasingly helps shoppers compare options and assemble a purchase, the destination may matter less than the product’s availability, value, and distinctiveness.
Here’s the tension: convenience for consumers can mean less control for merchants. If a platform handles more of the comparison and decision-making, retailers may have to work harder to defend margins and explain why their products deserve to win. Being easy for an AI agent to find is useful. Being meaningfully different is still better.
Holiday growth isn’t the same as healthier demand
The National Retail Federation forecasts 2026 November–December retail sales will grow 4.2% to $1.013 trillion. That’s a substantial number. But the episode also explored a critical caveat: roughly half the projected growth reflects higher prices rather than more goods being purchased.
That distinction matters. A retailer can report higher sales while moving fewer units, and a strong-looking headline can conceal pressure on households. Executives should be asking what is happening to volume, margin, and repeat purchases—not just celebrating a bigger revenue figure.
And yes, the weather belongs in your AI strategy
Adam Moyer brought a useful dose of physical-world reality to the discussion. Weather can change when people shop, what they buy, and whether a promotion succeeds. A forecast that looks smart in a spreadsheet can fall apart when temperatures or storms shift actual demand.
For retailers investing in AI-assisted forecasting, that is an important reminder: better algorithms won’t rescue incomplete inputs. If an AI system is making inventory or marketing recommendations without accounting for conditions that change shopper behavior, it may be confidently wrong.
My takeaway: The next era of retail isn’t simply about owning more channels. It’s about understanding customers across channels, protecting a differentiated proposition when intermediaries gain power, and making decisions grounded in what shoppers are actually doing. The shopping cart is becoming smarter. Retailers need to be smarter about what that means.
Listen: Google’s Universal Cart and the Weather Behind Demand — Retail Roundup (October 23, 2026).
Additional sources: Walmart’s October 20 membership announcement and NRF’s 2026 holiday sales forecast.