We’re joined by two interview guests this week—first is Rod Sides, the vice chairman and leader of U.S. retail for Deloitte, who speaks to details surrounding their 2021 Retail Industry Outlook and insights from leading retail executives on the year ahead. Then, Shash Anand, VP of Product Strategy at SOTI, joins us to address what a positive technology experience looks like for the 2021 consumer and areas retailers need to be cognizant of as they scale up in-store tech. In our news segment, we discuss a yearly convenience store report and how ownership is shifting in that retail space ..read more

Our interview guest is Mike Provance, the CEO of 3X3; Mike joins the show to discuss the state of beer, wine, and spirits retail in 2021, trends in the space, and how independent store operators managed to keep pace in 2020 with chain competition. In our news segment, we look at Target’s stellar holiday season sales and Nordstrom’s sales moving increasingly to digital. Finally, we discuss Petco’s IPO ..read more

Our interview guest is Tobias Buxhoidt, co-founder and CEO of parcelLab; he discusses the importance of post-sale communication in e-commerce and why retailers should take ownership of the process rather than relying on third-party logistics firms. In news, we look at L Brands’ holiday sales updates and news that Lowe’s is expanding their outlet store concept. Additionally, we glance at news of Ahold Delhaize’s acquisition of FreshDirect ..read more

Our interview guest is Sajag Agarwal, the Founder of Movley. He discusses the current state of inspections in China of goods bound for U.S. retailers, present shortcomings of the process on the macro level, and areas in which the process could or should be improved to reduce retailers’ risk. In our news segment, we discuss early holiday spend numbers from Mastercard SpendingPulse data and we close by looking ahead to small and mid-sized market retail sales in early 2021 ..read more

Our interview guest is Dr. Santiago Gallino, Assistant Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He discusses some of his research and work with retailers regarding onboarding and training associates, and how retailers can look at data differently to determine appropriate staffing levels. Our news segment is led by a Retail Feedback Group study that suggests U.S. customers are overwhelmingly happy with their retail grocery experience, and we look ahead towards Rite Aid and Kroger’s list of potential breakthrough foods in 2021 ..read more

Our interview guest is Melissa Wong, CEO of Retail Zipline. Melissa joins the show to talk about ways in which communication within retail organizations has changed, challenges in communication posed in 2020, and why it is important for the corporate branch of a retail company to have a consistent two-way dialogue with individual stores. Our news segment looks at U.S. retail sales data for November, and we look ahead to JD Sports’ acquisition of Shoe Palace ..read more

Our interview guest is Keith Cohn, founder and CEO of Candy Club, who offers specialty confections direct to consumers and wholesale to retailers in the U.S. He speaks about the state of confectionary retail, trends to watch for, and employing impulse buys outside of the front end. In our news segment, we discuss Academy Sports + Outdoors, who revealed stellar sales numbers as the sporting goods retail sector continues to surge. And, we look ahead to warehouse club membership sales and Chewy’s continued autoship growth ..read more

We’re joined by two interview guests in this episode. First is Karl Haller, Consumer Center of Competency Leader at IBM, who joins us to discuss how retail shoppers are continuing to increasingly make purchase decisions based on their values. Then, Vidya Peters, Chief Marketing Officer at Marqeta, addresses their latest data regarding mobile wallet adoption by consumers. In our news segment, we look at CBRE’s latest reverse logistics report to gain insight on what the returns landscape may look like after the 2020 holiday season ..read more

Our interview guest is Cheryl Sullivan, President of DemandTec; Cheryl looks ahead to 2021 regarding retail pricing and private label market share. Speaking of private label, Kroger set a company record in Q3 in the number of private label products released and were also incrementally profitable on the digital side of their business—we discuss them and Goldman Sachs numbers regarding consumer saving during the pandemic ..read more

Our interview guest is Adam Halim, the Senior Vice President of Business Development at Flipp. Adam discusses the current state of flyer readership in North America as it pertains to retail, and where the advertising medium is headed over the next several years. In the news segment, we glance at Deloitte’s annual pre-Thanksgiving pulse survey as a means to determine how traffic may be falling this Thanksgiving weekend. Finally, we look ahead to a leadership change and slight merchandise shift at Dick’s Sporting Goods ..read more