The Modern Retail Podcast

As an official sales partner for Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Best Buy is rethinking what it means to deliver experiential retail in the age of AI.

This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels sat down with Best Buy's executive vice president and chief revenue officer, Patrick McGinnis, to go behind the scenes into the development of the new 30-by-30-foot Meta AI shop-in-shops rolling out in select stores.

It’s the latest example of how Best Buy is looking to position itself as a destination for cutting-edge technology — and it's also a case study into how legacy retailers can rethink the store experience for new audiences. Best Buy plans to have 50 stores selling the new Ray-Ban Meta frames by the end of the year, with the hopes of increasing that to as many as 200 or more by the end of next year, McGinnis said.

The company knows there's demand for people to check out the specs in person; its own survey data shows that more than 50% of Best Buy customers say they want to see the Meta glasses in person before making a purchase. And since the retailer first launched smaller displays in 100 stores last October, more than 175,000 customers have completed a demo in a Best Buy store.

But beyond creating a destination for people to try out cutting-edge tech in person, the shop-in-shop provided an opportunity for Best Buy to revamp its store layout, McGinnis said. It aims to have more flexible space for experiential retail, including for more AI-powered products, on the horizon.

For many U.S. retail startups, expanding international distribution is the ultimate goal to establish themselves as a truly global brand. In the era of digital storefronts and globalized social media presence, selling a product in foreign countries could pay off exponentially. But betting on this global growth means navigating all the friction that cross-border retail can bring.

Bloom Nutrition, which has been growing its energy drink line over the past year, is launching in multiple foreign markets that include Australia, France and the U.K.

Joel Contartese, the vp of global growth at Bloom Nutrition, joins the Modern Retail Podcast to discuss the advantages and challenges of distributing beverages in other countries. In this interview, he discusses:

Why the beverage startup is betting on international consumers for longterm growth.

Navigating ingredient regulations in the European Union and South America, which differ greatly from the U.S.

Learning to tweak branding and flavors to localize for each international market.

Nutrition and supplement company AG1 famously built a $600 million business off of a single SKU. Then, in 2025, the brand made major leaps by introducing new flavors and a sleep supplement. CEO Kat Cole speaks with Modern Retail’s Melissa Daniels about how the brand grew its next generation of products from its own scientific research, and how it’s looking to scale through retail beyond its DTC roots.

In honor of July 4, this week the Modern Retail Podcast is revisiting an episode featuring P.F. Candle Company, which produces its candles in Los Angeles. Co-hosts Gabi Barkho and Melissa Daniels talked to founders Kristen Pumphrey and Thomas Neuberger about the advantages of and challenges of making products in the United States. Last year, the made-in-America debate was heavily tied to importing tariffs. But interest in American-made products is still high, as the founders highlight in the conversation on domestic production.

Few areas of digital marketing have exploded in recent years as much as affiliate marketing. What's more, it's actually proving effective: eMarketer in September said that affiliate marketing would drive more than $210 billion in US e-commerce sales that year. By 2028, that figure is expected to hit over $287 billion.But with that growth comes a myriad of questions about implementation and how brands can actually get results.This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, co-hosts Gabriela Barkho and Melissa Daniels answer listener questions around affiliate best practices and how it's changing amid changes in shopper behavior and media consumption.The conversation gets into:

How to ensure authenticity in partners

How AI is reshaping affiliate marketing

The role of Substack and new media channels

Balancing workload across channels