Need a retail expert on deadline?

I’ve appeared on NBC Nightly News, CNN, and CNBC, and I’ve been quoted by AP, NPR, Fortune, Business Insider, Forbes, and most of the retail trade press. I answer media requests the same day, I talk in plain English, and I bring my own data. Available for print, digital, radio, podcasts, and on-camera.

Reach Out

Summary

I’m Jason Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis Groupe, where I advise many of the largest retailers and brands in the world. Before that I spent 30 years inside the retail business, launching e-commerce at Blockbuster, Best Buy, and Target back when that was a strange thing to do. I write a column for Forbes, co-host The Jason & Scot Show podcast, sit on the board of a publicly traded retailer, and the National Retail Federation named me one of the 25 people shaping the future of retail.

What that means for you: I’ve seen most of the industry from the inside, I’m familiar with nearly every retailer, brand, and vendor in the space, and I can usually tell you not just what happened but why it happened and what comes next. I’ve been doing this long enough to have a point of view, and I’m happy to share it on the record.

How I work with reporters and producers

I know what a tight deadline feels like, so here’s what you can count on:

  • Same-day response. I answer every media request the day I get it, usually within a couple of hours. If I can’t help, I’ll tell you fast so you can move on, and I’ll try to point you to someone who can.
  • Quotes you can actually use. I speak in complete, plain-English sentences that don’t need translating for a general audience. No jargon, no hedging into three equal possibilities. If you want a take, you’ll get one.
  • Real numbers with real sources. I cite data constantly, and I name the primary source every time: Census Bureau, company filings, earnings calls. I’ll also tell you when a widely quoted industry statistic is a vendor’s marketing dressed up as research, which happens more often than you’d think.
  • On the record, on background, or just a gut check. Happy to go on the record. Also happy to help you pressure-test a premise, find the right number, or sanity-check a claim before you print it, with no expectation of a quote.
  • On camera and on air. Based in Chicago with a home studio set up for remote TV and radio hits. Available for in-studio appearances in Chicago and wherever I happen to be traveling that week, which is most weeks.
  • No sales pitch. I’m not going to steer your story toward Publicis or a client.

Case in point: the Tuesday before Thanksgiving last year, an NBC News producer emailed at 12:37 p.m. looking for TikTok Shop data for a story airing that night. I was in a car on the way to my in-laws. By 1:45 she had the numbers, by 3:15 we’d recorded a Zoom interview from my phone, and the piece ran on NBC Nightly News that evening. That’s not a brag about the holiday week. It’s what “same day” means.

Topics I comment on

I’m most often asked about major retailers, retail earnings, and whatever the current shopping season is. But the list is long:

  • Retail earnings and results: what a quarter actually says about a retailer, and what it doesn’t
  • Amazon, Walmart, Target, Costco, and the shift of share toward the biggest retailers
  • Holiday shopping: forecasts, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Prime Day, and the post-mortem
  • U.S. retail sales data: reading the monthly Census numbers, e-commerce share, and how much growth is inflation versus real
  • AI and shopping: ChatGPT and agentic commerce, what consumers are actually doing with AI, and what retailers are doing about it
  • Social and creator commerce: TikTok Shop, creator-built brands, live shopping
  • Retail media networks: who’s winning, why the math is hard, and what brands are getting for their money
  • E-commerce operations: shipping, returns, fulfillment, and the cost of fast delivery
  • Store closures, bankruptcies, and turnarounds
  • Direct-to-consumer brands, and why so many ended up in stores
  • Owned brands and private label
  • Grocery, digital grocery, and delivery
  • Consumer behavior: how people decide what to buy, trust, reviews, and the gap between what shoppers say and what they do
  • Retail technology, from CES gadgets to the stuff that actually gets deployed
  • Marketplaces, platforms, and the Amazon third-party seller economy
  • Advertising and shopper marketing, including the agency side of commerce

If it’s about how people shop or how companies sell, there’s a good chance I have a view on it. If I don’t, I’ll say so and point you to someone who does.

Where I’ve been quoted

Recent print and digital

A few recent pieces I’ve been quoted in, newest first.

On air

If I can’t help on your deadline

Sometimes I’m on a plane or on stage. If you need someone now, these are people I’d call myself, and they’ll give you a straight answer:

  • Neil Saunders, Managing Director, GlobalData Retail
  • Scot Wingo, my podcast co-host, on marketplaces, agentic commerce, and e-commerce technology
  • Rick Watson, RMW Commerce Consulting, on e-commerce operations and strategy
  • Bryan Guildenberg, Managing Director, Retail Cities North America and former Chief Retail Knowledge Officer at Kantar
  • Sucharita (Mulpuru) Kodali, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research

Contact Me

Email: jason@retailgeek.com
Call or text: +1 503.804.84140
Time zone: Central (Chicago)
Pronunciation: GOLD-berg, and “Retailgeek” is one word.
Headshots, B-roll, and short and long bios
Fastest way to reach me on a deadline is a text. Second fastest is email with “MEDIA REQUEST” in the subject line.

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