New podcast and newsletter will equip brands with original research and actionable playbooks for agentic commerce on Amazon, Walmart, and beyond
RALEIGH, NC / ACCESS Newswire / June 24, 2026 / ReFiBuy, the company that coined Agentic Commerce Optimization and built the platform to operationalize it, today announced the launch of RetailPlaybook, a new media channel designed to equip brands for agentic commerce on Amazon, Walmart, and beyond.
Hosted by Andrew Bell, who joins ReFiBuy as VP of Research, RetailPlaybook will deliver original research, practical guidance, and actionable playbooks for brand, ecommerce, retail media, marketplace, and digital shelf teams adapting to retailer shopping agents.
Retailer shopping agents are rapidly reshaping how products are discovered, compared, and recommended. Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping, formerly Rufus, reached more than 300 million customers in 2025, with monthly active users increasing more than 115% and engagement rising nearly 400% year over year. Walmart has also reported that customers using Sparky generate average order values approximately 35% higher than those who do not.
As Amazon, Walmart, Target, and other retailers embed AI-powered shopping experiences directly into the customer journey, brands face a new set of operational questions: What product information do these systems use? Which products do they surface? Why do they recommend one product over another? And which catalog signals influence visibility and performance?
RetailPlaybook is designed to help brands answer those questions through original research, agent teardowns, and practical playbooks. The channel launches today with its first episode, Alexa for Shopping: The New Playbook for Agentic Commerce Optimization on Amazon, opening an ongoing series focused on brand strategy, agent behavior, and what teams can do to compete in agentic commerce.
Bell is one of the leading independent researchers studying Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping and how brands can optimize for AI-powered discovery on retailer platforms. His original frameworks and analysis have been featured in Forbes and widely referenced across the Amazon seller and retail technology ecosystem. He published the original Alexa for Shopping Blueprint, authors the LinkedIn newsletter Amazon Science Made Simple, and has developed proprietary frameworks for examining how retailer shopping agents interpret, compare, and recommend products. His research is grounded in direct Amazon operator experience, including work with brands selling first-party on Amazon and leading Amazon strategy for NFPA.
“Retailer shopping agents are already powering new search and discovery experiences in unprecedented ways across behemoths such as Amazon and Walmart,” said Andrew Bell, VP of Research at ReFiBuy and host of RetailPlaybook. “RetailPlaybook’s mission is to become the central hub for Agentic Commerce Optimization knowledge and strategy across Alexa for Shopping, Walmart Sparky, Target Shopping Assistant, and beyond.”
RetailPlaybook expands ReFiBuy’s research and media platform and complements Retailgentic, the company’s existing newsletter and podcast covering the broader agentic commerce landscape. While Retailgentic tracks the evolution of the market, RetailPlaybook focuses on helping brands develop the strategies and capabilities needed to compete within it.
“The top request we get at ReFiBuy is for more information and practical guidance on retailer-hosted shopping agents like Alexa for Shopping and Walmart Sparky,” said Scot Wingo, Co-founder and CEO of ReFiBuy. “We did deep research on the top minds in this area, and all roads led to Andrew Bell. With Andrew at the helm, RetailPlaybook will deliver meticulously researched playbooks to help merchants optimize across retailer agentic commerce surfaces. Andrew’s playbooks will lay the foundation for where ReFiBuy is taking its product roadmap next.”
The insights and frameworks developed through RetailPlaybook will inform ReFiBuy’s product roadmap as the company expands its capabilities for retailer shopping agents. Its Commerce Intelligence Engine operationalizes Agentic Commerce Optimization across every SKU, continuously evaluating, enriching, distributing, and monitoring product data so brands can improve AI readiness, visibility, and performance across agentic commerce surfaces. Additional capabilities for retailer shopping agent optimization are planned for release later this year.
To subscribe to RetailPlaybook and listen to the first episode, visit retailplaybook.ai.
About ReFiBuy
ReFiBuy is the company behind Agentic Commerce Optimization, helping brands and retailers prepare product catalogs to be understood, compared, recommended, and purchased by AI shopping agents. Its Commerce Intelligence Engine is the world’s first agentic-native, closed-loop platform built for commerce teams to compete and win the AI shelf. Founded by veterans from ChannelAdvisor (now Rithum), Walmart, and MikMak, ReFiBuy is trusted by leading brands and retailers across beauty, fashion, electronics, CPG, and home goods. Learn more at refibuy.ai.
Media Contact
Brian Chapman
VP, Growth
ReFiBuy
[email protected]
SOURCE: ReFiBuy
