A little over a year ago, our founder Ricardo Belmar left Microsoft to go all in on a simple belief. That retail deserves sharper conversations, and an independent voice on a retail podcast cutting through the noise that fills this industry. The flagship show, The Retail Razor Show, had been running since October 2021. A few more shows had grown up around it over the prior couple of years. The real leap was the decision to bring them together, give them a name, and run them as one retail podcast network.
One year in, we want to share what The Retail Razor Podcast Network accomplished, and say THANK YOU to the audience that made all of it possible.
The YouTube surge.
Video became the heartbeat of the network this year, and the recent run has been remarkable.
We crossed 500,000 total YouTube views on June 20, and we are now just under 515,000, with close to 150,000 of those coming from Shorts.
We posted three straight months of more than 100,000 video views each.
Our channel passed 3,370 subscribers and keeps climbing.
vidIQ placed the network in the top 5% of all creators in the 1,000 to 5,000 subscriber range, after a single week of more than 65,000 views, our best week yet.
The episodes audiences loved.
One show stands out in the retail podcast data: Data Blades. Four of our five most watched episodes come from it, and every one of those hits comes from season two, the first season we published under the network banner.
Our top five episodes, trailers aside:
Data Blades, S2E7, “Only 9.1% of Retailers Have This, And It’s Reshaping Retail,” 23,000 views
Data Blades, S2E8, “The 97% Hiring Gap Nobody’s Talking About,” 18,600 views
Data Blades, S2E6, “Agentic AI Is Already Reshaping Retail, Here’s What’s Actually Happening,” 18,000 views
Data Blades, S2E4, “The Customer Experience Gap Nobody’s Talking About,” 17,000 views
The Retail Razor Show, S6E5, “The New Attack Surface Retailers Can’t Defend Yet,” 16,000 views
Our Shorts found their own following too, led by “Retailers Have Been in Keyword Jail for 20 Years and Didn’t Even Know It,” at 13,200 views, from Retail Transformers with Scot Wingo. The topics drawing the biggest crowds point to where retail’s attention is heading: agentic commerce, the augmented store associate, and store intelligence powered by AI, with retail media building right behind them.
Who is watching.
The retail podcast network reaches about 65,700 people a month, and more than 80% are brand new viewers.
New audiences tend to find us through Data Blades, while regular viewers watch The Retail Razor Show the most.
Our viewers skew experienced, spread fairly evenly across age groups above 25, with roughly a third between 25 and 54 and roughly a third between 45 and 64.
More than 80% of the audience is in the US and Canada, and we reach people in over 27 countries.
About 80% of views happen on mobile.
Across social, about two thirds of our followers hold senior titles: director, VP, CxO, or founder.
Topping the Goodpods charts.
Audio is where this retail podcast network began, and our four shows have charted across category after category on Goodpods:
Retail Transformers and Data Blades have both reached the top 2 on the weekly Top Indie Business Podcasts chart, and the top 5 of the weekly Top Business Podcasts chart more than once.
Retail Transformers, Data Blades, and The Retail Razor Show appear repeatedly in the top 5 of the monthly Top Indie Business Podcasts chart.
All four shows have landed in the top 5 of the monthly Top Management Podcasts chart, and the top 4 of the monthly Top Indie Management Podcasts chart. Data Blades and Retail Transformers have held the top 2 on the weekly Top Management Podcasts chart.
The Retail Razor Show sits at number 5 on the all time Top Indie Management Podcasts chart!
The Retail Razor Show and Data Blades land consistently in the top 5 of the weekly and monthly Top Marketing and Top Indie Marketing Podcasts charts.
Blade to Greatness and Retail Transformers have reached the top 5 of the weekly Top Careers and Top Indie Careers Podcasts charts, plus the monthly Top Indie Careers Podcasts chart.
The newsletter and the recognition.
Our newsletter has become its own community on both Substack and LinkedIn. More than 114 issues sent, readers across 31 countries, and an open rate above 35%. Along the way, the retail podcast network earned recognition we are proud of:
Three time finalist and honorable mention for The Retail Voice Award at the Vendor in Partnership (VIP) Awards, in 2023, 2024, and 2026.
Named to FeedSpot’s 100 Best Retail Podcasts.
Included in the Thinkers360 Top 125 Podcasts from Thought Leaders for 2025 & 2026.
Thank you, and what's next.
None of these numbers happen without an audience that chooses to spend its time with us. To every guest who shared their insight, and to everyone who hits play, THANK YOU!
You turned a bet into a network. The conversations ahead, on agentic commerce, the augmented associate, AI in the store, and the future of retail media, are the ones we are most excited to bring you.
Here’s to year two! 🥂
