Shopless

Before "retail media" was a buzzword, Mark Heitke was selling TVs at Best Buy, supporting the blue shirt life and accidentally helping invent an industry. We unpack his gloriously nonlinear career from filmmaking to coding, from in-store TV networks to IAB standardization debates. Plus, a rapid-fire round, movie picks all in the key of Minnesota nice.

What does Domino's, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have in common? If you answered "Moloco's Artist in Residence" you'd be right. Curious? You should be. Pat Copeland, technically a software "guy" has helped engineered some of the most prolific online media platforms in our retail media history at their most rocket ship like points. Hear how he's caught those takeoffs, what he's working on now at Moloco and what that has to do with pizza.

*Originally recorded January 2025*The man, the myth, the retail legend, Mark Stamps sits down as one of our very first guests and outlines a 26-year career in retail. From Walmart IT to the brand side with Skittles to media agency and retail media technology, Mark has seen a lot and asked a lot of great questions around measurement, brand needs and insights along the way to some of our most prolific partners in the industry.

*Originally recorded July 18, 2025*In this episode of Shopless, we welcome retail media legend Cara Pratt for a very fun, very nerdy walk through her career, from stocking deodorant and accidentally ordering way too much Chapstick, to helping build some of the biggest data and retail media businesses in the industry.We get into Cara’s career path along with conversations around clean data, retail media, AI, measurement, and the future of commerce. Cara also shares great career advice on curiosity, relationships, and why saying yes(!) to scary opportunities can completely change your path.We also talk why human connection still matters in an increasingly automated industry. A great listen for anyone who loves retail media, commerce, data, or hearing how the people shaping this industry actually got here.Stay tuned for Part 2 when we catch up with Cara!

In this episode of Shopless, we sit down with retail media strategist, writer, speaker, and professional industry truth-teller Colin Lewis for a conversation that goes from Dublin garage bands and fruit jam deliveries to airlines, e-commerce, marketplaces, and the future of commerce media.We talk about Colin’s early days driving around Ireland trying to get marmalade onto shelves, what airlines can teach retail media about attach rates and ancillary revenue, and why understanding the basics still matters even when the industry gets buried in buzzwords.Colin also gets into career advice, pattern recognition, writing as a way to think, why people struggle with abstract ideas like “retail media,” and why defining the thing you’re talking about is half the battle.