Retailers don’t know what’s in their stores – and it’s holding commerce media back

However as these channels mature, the extra consequential query is now not how manufacturers purchase commerce media on-line. It’s what occurs subsequent – and more and more, the reply sits on the store ground.

We caught up with SMG at CES 2026, the place a lot of the noise was about AI, automation and effectivity. But right here the dialog returned to one thing extra fundamental and tougher: bodily shops.

“Only a few retailers truly know what their shops seem like inside,” says Ollie Shayer, senior director of world technique and innovation at SMG. “They don’t know what fixtureization they’ve, what stock exists, or what may even be monetized.”

That lack of knowledge is changing into a constraint. Digital commerce media has already taken the low-hanging fruit. Development now means coping with bodily actuality: 1000’s of shops, inconsistent layouts, legacy methods and environments that have been by no means designed to perform as media channels within the first place.

SMG has spent years working in precisely that hole. Based within the UK in 2008 by Matt Lee and Joel Hopwood, each early figures within the monetization of loyalty knowledge by Dunnhumby, the enterprise was constructing in-store, at-till and shopper media lengthy earlier than “retail media” grew to become a boardroom phrase.

That have shapes the way it reads the present US second.

“Retail media right here grew up digital-first,” says Sean Crawford, managing director, North America at SMG. “On-site and off-site have been the simplest {dollars} to take. Now retailers are asking a tougher query: if I need to continue to grow, the place does the subsequent wave come from?”

More and more, the reply is the shop – however not within the simplistic method it’s usually mentioned.

“There’s a bent to cut back the shop to a display screen,” Crawford says. “However the retailer is a complete atmosphere. Screens, audio, sampling, print, experiential – all of those are nonetheless purchased in silos within the US.”

That fragmentation creates friction for manufacturers. Shopping for in-store media usually means stitching collectively a number of distributors, measurement frameworks and incentives – all whereas hoping execution traces up with what’s taking place elsewhere within the plan.

“What will get misplaced,” Crawford provides, “is any sense of purchaser mission.”

That is the place the US finds itself at an inflection level. Digital commerce media is well-understood, well-staffed and well-automated. In-store is none of these issues. It’s operationally tougher, much less standardized and way more bodily.

But it surely’s additionally the place most buying nonetheless occurs.

In markets that encountered this earlier, the lesson was not that in-store is glamorous, however that it must be handled as infrastructure.

“Earlier than you speak about media,” Shayer says, “you must know what you’ve truly obtained. What stock exists in your shops? What might be commercialized? What wants to remain for buying and selling or model messaging?”

Solely then do questions of expertise and measurement comply with.

“There’s been an over-fixation on one-to-one measurement,” he says. “However in-store is a one-to-many channel. You don’t measure out of doors the identical method you measure social – and but that’s what folks maintain attempting to do.”

His view is intentionally pragmatic. “You don’t want excellent, one-to-one measurement to get an in-store retail media community operating. There’s sufficient upside and sufficient proof from test-and-control to show incrementality. Ready for perfection simply slows development.”

That pragmatism extends to expertise. In-store doesn’t should be theatrical in every single place to be efficient anyplace.

“You don’t do that throughout your whole property,” Crawford says. “You choose flagship shops. Cities the place manufacturers need to present up. The influence is disproportionate.”

Examples vary from Tesco wrapping a retailer reverse Wembley Stadium for the Champions League last, to Kroger turning a pedestrian crossing into Oreos, to Boots creating experiential areas designed to stay past the shop through stay streaming and content material.

“One retailer can generate column inches value their weight in gold,” Shayer says. “For manufacturers, for retailers, and for the retail media community itself.”

The tougher half is making all of this buyable. “Programmatic is simple for company teams,” Crawford says. “Non-programmatic in-store media shouldn’t be. Retailers need to construct the pipes that permit their stock to be found, deliberate and transacted by the methods businesses already use.”

With out that, commerce media dangers recycling the identical budgets slightly than unlocking new ones. “If we don’t make it straightforward,” he says, “incremental cash received’t come into the business.”

That is additionally the place AI begins to matter – not as hype, however as plumbing. “Retail media continues to be a really people-heavy enterprise,” Shayer says. “It doesn’t scale by simply including headcount. AI helps automate the toughest components – quicker planning, real-time optimization, adapting inventive to context like climate or occasions.”

The deeper shift, although, is cultural. “There’s way more openness to partnership now,” he says. “Retailers are realizing they’ll’t construct every thing themselves. They want orchestration slightly than possession.”

For US retailers, the message is changing into unavoidable. Digital commerce media alone won’t ship the subsequent section of development. That development sits in shops – messy, bodily, inconsistent, and nonetheless profoundly under-engineered.

As Shayer places it: “Any touchpoint that hyperlinks again to a degree of buy might be retail media. In that sense, all media is retail media – and all retail media is simply media.”

The subsequent chapter of commerce media received’t be received by shouting louder about digital sophistication. Will probably be received by retailers lastly taking the shop critically – not as a relic, however as the toughest and Most worthy a part of the system.

Commerce media is shifting quick. The Drum Awards for Commerce Media are right here to acknowledge the work maintaining tempo – and setting the usual. Be part of us in Miami in April as a part of The Drum’s year-round Commerce Media program. Learn more and enter.