The latest edition of the retail industry's leading podcast features an in-depth conversation with Jason Buechel, CEO of Whole Foods Market and Vice President of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores, who shares Amazon’s rapidly expanding grocery ambitions. Already surpassing $100 billion in gross sales, Amazon is leaning into grocery as a strategic category driven by frequency, loyalty, Prime stickiness, and the potential to unite all household purchasing into a seamless digital and physical ecosystem.

Buechel explains how Amazon is transforming grocery shopping—a category in which consumers currently visit four to five retailers a month—into a single, unified experience. With more than 1,000 same-day grocery delivery locations today scaling to 2,300 cities, store-level innovations such as Whole Foods Daily Shop formats, and the integration of perishables directly into Amazon baskets alongside electronics or apparel, the company is erasing long-standing channel barriers. He also outlines the “one grocery” operational vision: unified supply chains, technology stacks, and customer journeys across banners, while preserving the brand trust and standards that Whole Foods customers demand.

The episode opens with co-hosts Steve Dennis and Michael LeBlanc breaking down early holiday results. This year’s hottest retail storyline, however, may be the sudden emergence of agentic AI. Tools such as Amazon’s Rufus and ChatGPT are now influencing search and conversion decisions, helping fuel what the hosts dub “the most agentic Christmas yet.” With traffic gains from AI agents multiplying, the shift from traditional search to intelligent assistants is poised to accelerate dramatically in 2026.

The discussion then turns to Kohl’s, and the decision to name interim CEO Michael Bender to the permanent position. The hosts frame this as symptomatic of a deeper issue: a retailer with declining relevance in a shrinking total addressable market.

On the heels of new quarterly earnings reports they also spotlight the theme of “profitless prosperity”—brands reporting modest sales improvements but sliding EBITDA as tariffs, promotions, and supply chain pressures erode margin—the overarching message: top-line growth is not victory unless gross profit dollars follow.

The episode concludes with the remarkable rise of Google's AI game, and Sears inexplicably still operating a handful of stores (though likely not for much longer).

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About Us

Steve Dennis is a strategic advisor and keynote speaker focused on growth and innovation, who has also been named one of the world's top retail influencers. He is the bestselling authro of two books: Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption and Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior retail contributor and on social media.

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur.  He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. 

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google.  He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fourth year in a row, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer.  If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.