Digital Shelf Insider

India is seeing a major shift toward functional foods, but building a brand in this space isn’t simple. In this episode of Digital Shelf Insider, host Shreshta Joy sits down with Sudarshan Gangrade, Founder of Lo Foods, to unpack what it really takes to create a health-focused food brand that lasts.

From tackling India’s protein gap and rising lifestyle diseases to navigating marketplaces, quick commerce, and repeat purchase beh...

Consumer-first is a long-gone buzzword. It is the baseline for brand survival in 2026.

This week on the Digital Shelf Insider, Shreshta Joy is in conversation with Jermina Menon, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Knowetic, to break down what being truly consumer-first looks like today and where most brands get it wrong. Her framework is simple but sharp. Know your customer. Know your core. Know your competition.

She exp...

E-commerce in the GCC is digital-first, ultra-convenient, and brutally competitive, and that changes how brands think about growth, profit, and loyalty.

This time, our host, Shreshta Joy, is in conversation with Lina Gallagher, Founder and Managing Director of Emerce Consulting, to break down what really drives e-commerce success across the GCC in 2026.

From government-led digital infrastructure to the realities of quick comm...

Fashion in India is no longer just about trends. It’s about identity, speed, value, and conscious choices. But is sustainability really driving buying decisions, or is it still secondary to style and price?

Our host Shreshta Joy and Himi Khandelwal, Associate Director, Founder’s Office at Virgio had an insightful conversation to break down how Indian fashion consumers, especially Gen Z, are thinking, shopping, and discovering br...

Everything is starting to look like a toy: bags, beauty packaging, even food. But this isn’t just an aesthetic trend; it's a key signal to what consumers are craving. What’s really driving it, and what changes in 2026 when people are tired of AI noise and want genuine human connections?

In this episode of Digital Shelf Insider, our host Shreshta Joy is in conversation with Nourhan Wahdan (Founder & Creative Director at p...

Price wars are everywhere. Amazon sellers you don’t recognize keep undercutting you. And everyone claims they have a “MAP policy,” but very few know if it actually holds up under U.S. law.

In this episode of Digital Shelf Insider, Shreshta Joy is joined by Michael R. Murphy, Partner at K&L Gates, to clear up one of the most misunderstood topics in e-commerce: pricing enforcement in the United States.

Michael explains why ...

Amazon is no longer behaving like a traditional search engine. With Rufus, it’s becoming a shopping agent; one that remembers your preferences, interprets your intent, and decides which products deserve to be surfaced before you even scroll. That shift is quietly redefining how discoverability works for every brand on the platform.

In this episode, our host Shreshta Joy sits down with Max Sinclair, Founder & CEO of Azoma, to...

Quick commerce is reshaping how CPG brands think, create, test, and scale new ideas. From sachets designed for impulse moments to flavours inspired by regional cravings, platforms like Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy, and more are turning into real-time innovation labs.

In this episode, host Shreshta Joy sits down with Radhika Butala, Founder and CEO of The Better Collective, to unpack how brands are using quick comm...

In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, host Shreshta Joy sits down with Martin Heubel, Strategy & Amazon Consultant at Consulterce, to break down what's really happening inside Amazon’s vendor negotiations and why so many 1P brands are feeling the pressure.

Martin explains how automation, shrinking buyer support, and aggressive margin targets are changing the rules for vendors and what brands can actually ...

Inflation may be cooling on paper, but consumers are still behaving like value hunters; trading down in some places, trading up in others, and using social proof more than ever to justify what they buy. In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, host Shreshta Joy is joined by Barry Thomas and Rachel Dalton from Kantar to unpack how US shoppers are resetting their expectations in 2025.

They explain why private label and ch...

AI is no longer just assisting search; it is becoming the place where product discovery begins. In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, host Shreshta Joy is joined by Prasanna Dhungel, Managing Partner at GrowByData, to uncover how LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are changing the digital shelf.

Prasanna explains how consumers are shifting from traditional Google search to conversational, AI-led discovery,...

The way leaders make decisions can shape the success or failure of a brand team. In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, host Shreshta Joy is joined by Eric Staples, Director of Growth Strategy at Bluedog Design, to explore how leadership styles and decision-making frameworks influence team performance.

Eric shares the Head, Heart, Gut framework, a practical tool for understanding how individuals and organizations ...

The holiday season is almost here, are your strategies ready? In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, Shreshta Joy sits down with Morgan McAlenney, VP of Commerce Growth & Business Development, and McCord Chapman, VP of Commerce & Omni Planning at Public Label, to unpack what US brands can expect this holiday season.

They explore how economic uncertainty, tariffs, and social platforms like TikTok are changing c...

Diwali is around the corner, and are your campaigns ready? In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, Shreshta Joy chats with Bindu Sharma, Founder, and Hans Vivek, Co-Founder at World One Consulting, about how brands in India can grab festive shoppers’ attention and drive real sales.

They dive into the proven strategies D2C brands can use to convert festive shoppers, why bundle deals and urgency triggers work like magic,...

Is AI search the next big disruptor for e-commerce? In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, Marc Hubbard, E-Commerce Sales Leader with over 20 years in the CPG space, unpacks how AI, product discoverability, and retail media are rewriting the rules for brands.

Marc explains why Amazon’s dominance continues, how retail media networks are evolving, and why brands are struggling with fragmented benchmarks and data overloa...

Welcome to a special MetricsCart insider episode of the Digital Shelf Insider podcast! We're doing things a little differently and taking you inside the world of MetricsCart with one of our own, Rohan Paul Philip, Lead, Product Strategy.

Ever wonder what it takes for a brand to truly stand out online in a world of AI chatbots and endless data? Rohan breaks down how the game has completely changed. We're talking about moving ...

Is TikTok Shop the next major force in e-commerce? In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, John Ghiorso, Co-Founder and CEO of VantaFive, breaks down how TikTok Shop is transforming from a Gen Z trend into a serious retail channel.

John shares why US social commerce finally has a shot at scale, what makes TikTok Shop different from other platforms, and how brands, both legacy and challenger, can build real success with...

How does a small skimboarding brand become the #1 seller in Amazon India's water sports category? In this episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, Francis Kurien, the founder of SkimB, shares his journey of building a niche brand from scratch. He talks about how he built the brand with authentic customer reviews and user-generated content to create a loyal community and drive growth, despite competing against larger player...

Welcome to another episode of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast by MetricsCart. In this episode, host Shreshta speaks with Kaushik Boruah, Business Head of CPG and Hospitality at LatentView Analytics, about how top CPG brands are turning smarter data into a competitive edge in 2025.

Kaushik dives deep into the most overlooked data blind spots in omnichannel execution, the shift from demographic to behavioral and contextual micro-seg...