Deck Commerce CEO Chris Deck on AI order orchestration, the missing execution layer, and why order management drives growth. One online order. Five boxes. One customer. Chris Deck, Founder and CEO of Deck Commerce, ran a couple weeks of an apparel brand's inventory and sales data through an AI order management simulation and found that order could ship in two boxes. Split shipments dropped by 3X, and four zones came off the shipping distance. Recorded live and in-person at RetailClub AI Festival in Huntington Beach, this episode of Data Blades points AI at the part of retail that rarely makes the keynote: AI order management. Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden talk with Chris about how AI order orchestration starts with a human in the middle, why B2B and DTC teams now share the same meetings, where brands get stuck when they ask an ERP to run modern commerce, and what Black Friday scale requires from every system around the order. What you'll learn in this episode.•       How an AI simulation on a couple weeks of order data found 3X fewer split shipments and four fewer shipping zones, with results in about a week.•       Why Chris calls that tool version one of agentic order orchestration, and why a person still approves the changes.•       Why B2B teams still working in EDI, spreadsheets, and fax are studying how DTC order management works.•       What the "execution layer" is, and why systems of record like ERP and WMS make a poor stand-in.•       What Black Friday scale demands: finance close, loyalty updates, payment capture, and real-time order status, all in sync.•       Why a "where's my order?" chatbot treats the symptom only.•       The four-part case Chris makes for order management as "the engine of growth for the next wave of commerce" (jump to 18:18). Support Our Sponsor.Deck Commerce. https://www.deckcommerce.com/Deck Commerce helps growing brands solve what happens after the buy button.As order volume, channels, inventory, and fulfillment networks get more complex, Deck provides the intelligent orchestration layer that connects it all, helping brands make smarter order and fulfillment decisions, automate operations, and deliver a better customer experience at scale. Subscribe & Follow.Love this episode? Drop us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Don't forget to like and subscribe to The Retail Razor: Data Blades for more episodes on customer experience, retail marketing, AI in retail, and data‑driven transformation!Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utubeAbout Our Guest.Christopher Deck. https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-deck/Founder and CEO, Deck Commerce. https://www.deckcommerce.com/ Chris Deck is the Founder and CEO of Deck Commerce, an enterprise order management platform built to help modern brands manage the complexity of digital commerce, omnichannel fulfillment, inventory visibility, and customer service. With more than 20 years of experience across eCommerce, retail operations, and enterprise technology, Chris has spent his career helping brands connect the front-end customer experience with the operational systems required to deliver on that promise. His work sits at the intersection of commerce platforms, ERP, warehouse and fulfillment networks, stores, marketplaces, and customer service systems. Under Chris’s leadership, Deck Commerce has become a trusted OMS partner for leading retail and consumer brands navigating growth, modernization, and operational scale. The platform supports high-volume order orchestration, complex fulfillment logic, distributed inventory, customer service workflows, and integration across the broader commerce technology ecosystem. Chris speaks frequently about the future of commerce infrastructure, including omnichannel operations, inventory optimization, AI-enabled order management, and the emerging role of intelligent systems in helping brands make faster, more accurate operational decisions. His perspective is grounded in the belief that the next era of commerce will be defined not only by better digital experiences, but by the operational intelligence required to fulfill them profitably and reliably.Chapters(00:00) One Order, Five Boxes: How AI Cut It to Two(00:37) The Unglamorous AI Play Retailers Are Overlooking(03:45) The AI Simulation That Cut 4 Shipping Zones and 3X the Splits(07:10) B2B and D2C Stopped Fighting. Here's Why(10:54) Why Brands Get Stuck: The Missing Execution Layer(14:36) Black Friday Scale Is About More Than Order Volume(16:09) Stop Building Chatbots for "Where's My Order?"(18:00) Order Management Is the Engine of Growth(20:27) Stay Sharp: Follow Data BladesAbout your HostsHelping you cut through the clutter in retail data insights:Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and eCommerce, a Top 25 Thought Leader in Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI, AGI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in AI Ethics, Marketing, Digital Transformation andTransformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! MusicIncludes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Tech Lore from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.