We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Special Guest: George Shaw, CEO and Founder, Pathr.ai Spatial intelligence is supercharging merchandise and marketing teams. How? By transforming data into dollars. In-store teams are still at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing how their shoppers b…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Our Special Guests, MG2 Principals Melissa Gonzalez and Matthew Goelzer, AIA, LEED AP Consumers now expect seamless, unified commerce experiences where they can access products and information anytime, anywhere. This fluidity is reshaping how brands bui…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Special Guest: Michelle Crossan-Matos, Chief Marketing Officer, Ulta Beauty We’re experiencing a deficit in joyfulness; 85 percent of people wish they felt a high level of joy in their lives, but only 58 percent report feeling that way. Ulta Beauty’s mi…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! As the world’s number-one PC manufacturer, Lenovo’s mission is to deliver smarter technology for everyone. The company journey has transformed from a wholesale business to a DTC model supported by rich data and analytics delivering world-class experienc…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Special guest Bayard Winthrop, Founder and CEO of AmericanGiant has spent the last 13 years on a mission to change the world with American made high-quality sportswear and strengthening small-town manufacturing communities. Bayard inspired Steven Kurutz…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Data rules in the ecommerce digital world but is more challenging to collect in the physical world. But tracking millions of pieces of merchandise across your store floors so your customers and staff can find any product in real-time is now a reality. U…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! What does it take to turn around an iconic brand that started with humble beginnings? Creating a new vision may not be the best road to take and reinvigorating a brand may not be enough. The traditional checklist is outdated: cutting costs to profitabil…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! There was a time in retail when the route to the C-suite was from the sales floor, and future leadership was carefully groomed at companies like Lord & Taylor, Abraham & Strauss, and Macy’s. With many companies downsizing and eliminating training progra…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Nordstrom’s core mission is to make customers feel good and look their best. And the retailer is legendary for listening to the customer and delivering customer service that “is not defined by us based on our legacy practices. It’s defined by customers.…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Top headlines in retail reinforce the seismic shifts in the industry, including vertical integration, aligned brand platforms, private branding, new department store models, and updated workplace policies. It has all turned retail operations on its side…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Special guests Susan Vison, VP and executive director of REI’s Path Ahead Ventures, and Ed Chang, co-founder of Varlo, join Robin and Shelley to discuss how big companies can help elevate and support underrepresented BIPOC brand owners. An estimated one…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Special Guest: Charlie Youakim, Chairman and CEO, Sezzle The BNPL market has exploded over the past two years as consumers have ramped up this fintech alternative to credit cards. Competition is heating up; will only the strong survive? Special guest Ch…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! If Walmart, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase can’t figure out how to make healthcare work, then there is something seriously wrong with today’s U.S. retail healthcare model. In 2018 Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase announced…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The evolution of frictionless shopping in self-checkout continues to meet customer expectations and enhance the in-store experience. What’s behind the technology? Join Robin and Shelley to reveal the expanding role of RFID across retail industries and i…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Weather analytics and retail are connected. The most basic connection is seasonal changes prompt seasonal sales. But there’s more to it. Special guest Evan Gold, EVP of Global Partnerships & Alliances at Planalytics joins Robin and Shelley to talk weath…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The state of AI in retail today can be as confusing as it is exciting. But it is a board mandate for retail, without question. The opportunity to drive higher productivity and profitability is massive, yet it’s still a technology that needs to be driven…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Recent failures of Matches, FarFetch, and Net-a-Porter has left Mythersea as the last luxe multi-brand standing. High spenders prefer to buy directly from brand companies like LVMH, Christian Dior, Gucci, and Hermès. And these luxe majors would rather s…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Consumers are speaking out. A class action lawsuit has been filed by two Hermès shoppers in Northern California who are fed up with sales tactics used by this luxury powerhouse. They allege that the French luxury brand violates federal and California an…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Don’t dismiss the power play of the growing community of content creators, recognized as the cultural leaders of the 21st century. Proof? The creator economy market is expected to double to $480 billion by 2027. Join Julian Greene, Head of Creator Partn…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Here is a tale of four female CEOs with contrasting and compelling leadership styles. Take Mary Dillon, who led 288% revenue growth at Ulta but is now grappling with the past two years of slower growth at Footlocker. Contrast that with Fran Horowitz, CE…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Fashion ecomm has evolved from customers finding and visiting websites to seek out what they want, to search-enabled discovery, to today’s modern model of bringing fashion directly to you and replicating the excitement of impulse purchasing …online. The…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Tony Spring is creating a bold new chapter at Macy’s and he will inevitably face off with activist vultures. His strength as a strategic marketer should pave the way to a reimagined Macy’s. Join Robin and Shelley as they dive into Spring’s strategic shi…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! There’s a store across the street and thousands more just a key tap away. Consumers are addicted to the explosion of websites, marketplaces, and direct-to-consumer brands flooding cyberspace. The upside for consumers is lower prices and anything they wa…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! One of the hottest tickets this year is the much-anticipated annual edition of Shoptalk in Las Vegas. This year’s key topics will not disappoint, with a focus on how AI can transform your business, create unified retail experiences, harness brand power,…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Here’s a provocative thought: The sum of retail is greater than its parts. Historically, retailers benchmark individual store profit for physical retail as a mainstay of performance measurement. But in a digital marketplace, brick-and-mortar profitabili…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Returns have become a huge headache for retailers and a hassle for customers -- and the growth of online sales has exacerbated the problem. The cost of returns continues to skyrocket, impacting the bottom line, and at the same time, the negative environ…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The retail environment is moving at lightning speed, making C-suite succession planning more difficult. Case in point? Gap has had a revolving door of CEOs ever since trying to replace Mickey Drexler. Leading the retail industry in a digital marketplace…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! With the sheer number of retail startups at NRF, you’d think you were at the Big AI Show at the Javits Center in New York last week. Clearly, retail tech offers the partnerships, innovations, and solutions required to operate in a digital marketplace. A…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Gen Z and the Alphas right behind them are deeply influencing brands and workplace cultures. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are table stakes for the next gens who have a new set of values and are hyper-socially aware. Retailers and brands that don’t s…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The Robin Report Retail Radicals celebrate the icons and iconoclasts that are reinventing legacy retail. Each of these remarkable brands has a deep brand ethos, appeals to a multigenerational customer, and stays true to their brand strategy. They surviv…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Preemptive distribution is pushing retailers to go local with assortments, services, and indigenous products. Advances in retail technologies will enable localization with precise customer preferences and more relevant product assortments, while marketp…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Retail accounting provides a snapshot of real-time profit margins, but it may lead to an overstatement of profits since the practice is based on retail pricing. With fluctuations in selling prices, is cost-based accounting really a better measure of per…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! What’s the story behind organized retail crime? It has commanded national headlines and resulted in many stores being transformed into locked vaults. Join Robin and Shelley as they deconstruct the situation, discussing that the narrative about organized…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! What it means to be a brand today goes beyond the single dimension of yesterday’s mono-brand definition. Now, savvy brands use past successes and morph them into an evolved, multifaceted branding experience. Join trends expert Leslie J. Ghize, EVP of DO…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! How is Holiday 2023 going to end up? Even when customers are facing turbulent, unpredictable market trends and world events, they continue to spend. It could be just “Doom Spending” to cope with stress about the economy and external global factors. The …

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Black Friday Creep has moved over $5 billion out of November and December into October. Join Robin and Shelley with guest Angela Thompson, Principal of Thompson Marketing Consulting, as they look at the broader impact of Pre-Black Friday sales. Pressure…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The U.S. has one of the highest per capita consumption of plastics in the world, driven principally by packaging. Enter a Swedish inventor Åke Rosén with Biodolomer, an alternative that looks and acts like plastic, but is renewable, biodegradable, compo…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Prepare to have your perspective on multicultural marketing forever changed, as we unravel the vast potential and rapid evolution of diverse audiences in the retail marketplace. We're joined by none other than Imani Laners, the VP of Multicultural Partn…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Join Robin and Shelley and guest expert Dr. Read Hayes, leading criminologist and law enforcement pro, as they go behind the scenes of retail crime. Learn from Read how he has been using AI to help organizations worldwide, including Target, Home Depot, …

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Here’s a conundrum: Should bad behavior be tolerated when profits are soaring? The Ye and Adidas relationship is a cautionary tale about the temptation to trade erratic behavior for crazy revenues. During a near decade-long partnership between Kanye Wes…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Travel retail has been on the rise for the decade leading up to the pandemic, doubling its revenue, but like many things, the pandemic put a halt to travel and travel retailing. As the industry climbs back to where it was pre-pandemic, retailers need a …

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The iconic Vans brand is seeing its profits racing down fast as competition heats up in the sneaker category. What’s going on here? Vans innovation has stalled, and consumer demand is veering to more traditional sneakers. Join Robin and Shelley as they …

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! In the second half of our conversation, we learn from Lindsey the importance of the bigger brand work and how it could significantly reduce customer acquisition costs. She urges CMOs to challenge businesses around issues that matter to customers, like s…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Join Robin and Shelley with AI expert Lindsey Scheftic, Founder of The CMO Sidekick, for a candid conversation about AI in Part 1 on this topic. With in-depth marketing expertise at Amazon/Ring, Red Bull and Vans, Lindsey gets real about the future of t…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Traditional succession planning may be a thing of the past for retailers. The new trend is identifying the next CEO by looking outside the four walls and mining executives from different industries. And technology IQ is becoming a key skill required in …

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Spoiler alert: Costco has become dinner table conversation. It’s the hottest-selling wholesale haute couture brand in the U.S. market catering to its 120 million members, representing $227 billion in revenues. With a location strategy that hits higher-i…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Has the retail world gone mad? Acquisitions, partnerships, collaborations, buy-outs, and buy-ins. Some make perfect sense, and others make us say, "What were you thinking?" Just to get started: Gap and Macy's; Tapestry and Capri; Shein and SPARC. These …

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The data-oriented power of direct-to-consumer (DTC) models has a leading edge over traditional retail. The collection of all user data and interactions, along with their preferences, wants and needs becomes critical for increasing engagement with existi…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Retailers are facing a potential economic event, and the wildcard is predicting what consumers will do. Most Americans are in credit card debt, prices are higher than last year, pandemic savings are dwindling; and student loan repayments hit in October,…

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Tapestry is no LVMH or Kering in its acquisition of Capri. The aspiration to play in the luxe space is nearly impossible; for starters, Jimmy Choo and Versace are too niche and too small. Add to that Tapestry’s mainstream brands are outlet mall darlings…