Podcast Summary
What does a winning digital shelf strategy actually look like when your teams are siloed, your data is fragmented, and the shelf itself changes 300 times a year? That’s the question at the heart of this episode. It’s the one that most consumer brands are wrestling with right now.
In Season 2, Episode 3 of the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast, MetricsCart host, Shreshta Joy, brings together Mark Koster, Domain Lead Digital Shelf at VML, and Rohan Paul Philip, Lead, Product & Strategy at MetricsCart. They go beyond surface-level advice to map out exactly how global brands can turn their digital shelf from a cost center into a competitive advantage.
Mark brings decades of experience helping global brands navigate the organizational complexity of digital shelf transformation. As part of VML’s center of expertise, Mark is the person brands call when they know they need to level up but aren’t sure where to start.
Rohan approaches the digital shelf from the product and data side. His focus is on ensuring that MetricsCart not only collects data but also becomes indispensable to everyday decision-making. Rohan’s perspective is shaped by constant conversations with clients; from data scientists who want raw API access to brand managers who just need to know what’s broken on their top 50 SKUs.
Episode Highlights
02:47 The Most Common Digital Shelf Challenges Brands Face
06:15 Platform Adoption: Why Brands Aren’t Logging In When It Matters
08:21 The Data Access Problem Nobody Talks About
14:16 Understanding Workflows Before Building Dashboards
16:01 What VML Looks for in a Digital Shelf Analytics Partner
19:38 Which Conversion KPIs Should Brands Actually Prioritize?
21:19 Price Monitoring, MAP Violations & Brand Perception
24:14 Building Brands for the Future
29:13 AI in E-Commerce & Agent Commerce
34:00 How Brands Should Approach AI in Strategy & Planning
Key Themes
Here are some of the topics that stood out in the conversation:
The Bridge-Building Imperative
One of the most resonant ideas in this conversation is Mark’s insistence that digital shelf strategy has to start by speaking the language of people who grew up in offline retail. Senior stakeholders already understand eye-level placement, in-stock rates, and promotional endcaps. The digital shelf has direct equivalents for all of these, but if you can’t draw that line clearly, you’ll never get the cross-functional buy-in you need.
Platform Adoption Is the Silent Strategy Killer
Rohan highlights a challenge that doesn’t get enough airtime: brands invest in digital shelf analytics platforms and then don’t use them when it matters most. A top SKU goes out of stock while the brand is running ads for it. An unauthorized reseller quietly violates MAP. A newly launched product picks up early negative review signals. These are the moments where the platform pays for itself, but only if someone’s actually paying attention.
The KPIs Most Brands Are Missing
Beyond the usual suspects, search rank, content quality, and reviews, Mark introduces two KPIs that deserve far more attention. OTIF (On Time In Full), borrowed from supply chain, measures whether your content is launch-ready when the product goes live. Miss that window, and you’re leaving sales on the table from day one. ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline) captures the impact of the digital shelf on physical store sales, which, for most brands, remains the larger revenue channel.
From Quick Fixes to Capability Building
VML’s philosophy is clear: they’re not in the business of updating your PDPs. They’re building the organizational muscles, data, governance, supply chain integration, and connected technology, so brands can sustain shelf excellence over time. In the client example Mark shares, this meant mapping the entire product launch process, bringing together people from departments who had never been in the same room, and producing over 100 tangible, ready-to-execute projects in just 6–8 weeks.
AI Agent Commerce and the Trust Equation
The conversation takes a forward-looking turn when it gets into AI co-pilots and agent-to-agent workflows. Early on, a MetricsCart client said something that reshaped the team’s entire approach to AI features: “If it’s AI, I never take it at face value. I treat it as a highly informed second opinion.” That framing now guides how MetricsCart builds AI capabilities. Every recommendation surfaces the reasoning behind it. And underneath all of it? Data governance. As Mark puts it, don’t start with which AI tool to deploy. Start with which data you must trust and govern so that AI can actually do its work.
Quick Takeaways for Brands
Here’s what you can do to build strong foundations for your brand’s digital shelf strategy:
- Tie every initiative to the P&L. Every digital shelf project should translate into a line on the income statement, either increasing revenue or reducing costs. That’s the language that gets budget approved and keeps stakeholders engaged across departments.
- Invest in capabilities, not one-off fixes. A single PDP update is a band-aid. Data governance, cross-functional processes, clear ownership, and connected technology are what let you win consistently. Build the system, not just the output.
- Know your baseline before you prioritize. Your starting point determines where you should invest. If reviews are already strong, doubling down there is wasted effort. Use digital shelf analytics to find where the real gaps are, then build your roadmap around those.
- Factor in the ROPO effect. Your digital shelf influences in-store purchases more than most brands realize. Even conservative estimates of ROPO impact can double the strength of your business case and bring offline-focused stakeholders into the conversation.
- Get your data right before you deploy AI. AI is only as reliable as the data you feed it. If any of the product, asset, or inventory data is fragmented or ungoverned, the AI outputs will be too. Building a single source of truth is the prerequisite for everything that comes after.
This episode is built for brands that have moved past the “should we invest in the digital shelf” question and are now asking, “how do we do this properly?”
Mark and Rohan come at the problem from different angles: organizational strategy and product intelligence. But they land in the same place. The brands that will win in 2026 are the ones that stop treating the digital shelf strategy as a siloed e-commerce function.
The technology is there. The platforms are there. But it all starts with the fundamentals and with getting the right people in the same room.
Disclaimer: The content shared in the Digital Shelf Insider Podcast by MetricsCart is for general informational and discussion purposes only. The insights, opinions, and perspectives expressed by hosts and guests are their own and do not constitute professional advice, recommendations, or endorsements by MetricsCart or any affiliated entity.
