Retail Disrupted

The trust crisis in retail is real — only 1 in 3 consumers today believe what brands say about themselves. Philippe Gelder, President & CEO of Voted Product of the Year Worldwide , reveals how consumer trust became retail's most fragile asset — and why Europe is uniquely vulnerable just as Chinese retailers enter their third wave of expansion. 📺 Prefer video? Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/v8...

Asda's Tickled Pink campaign has raised a whopping £100 million over 30 years. This isn't just fundraising — it's embedding a cause into the culture of a business. 🎗️🩷 In this episode, I sit down with the team behind it all — Emma Betts (Asda), Rachel Carrington (Breast Cancer Now), and Jo MacSween (CoppaFeel!) — to unpack why this partnership why been so successful, both socially and commerciall...

What does the CEO of Morrisons actually think about AI, shopper loyalty, and the pace of change? Retail analyst Natalie Berg shares five direct learnings — then River Island's Tech Director reveals how fashion is fighting the same battle. In this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie shares frontline intelligence from the Richmond Retail and eCommerce Directors' Forum, including rare direct access...

Snapchat is no longer just a messaging app — it's Gen Z's discovery engine, digital changing room, and social shopping hub, and it's transforming how forward-thinking retailers must think about the purchase funnel. 90% of UK Gen Z are on Snapchat. Only 5% describe themselves as impulsive shoppers. And 73% still visit a physical store at least once a week. If those numbers challenge what you though...

Traditional ROI is broken. If you're still measuring success with quarterly numbers and like-for-like sales, you're flying blind into the next decade of retail. In this episode, host Natalie Berg is joined by Martin Newman — "The Consumer Champion", author of ROI Reimagined , and a 40-year retail veteran who has shaped strategies for brands like Burberry, Harrods, and Ted Baker. Together, they dis...

This CFO doesn't care about ROI. Instead, Vineta Bajaj (Holland & Barrett CFO) believes we should be asking: How will the customer's life change? Will they get a better assortment? Will they get better pricing? Will they get dynamic pricing? Will they get better personalization? If I invest this in tech, will my frequency go up? Will my conversion go up? Will my AOV go up? Will they keep coming ba...

While major chains struggle with closures and declining foot traffic, one category is quietly thriving: recommerce. And at the center of it is a surprising advantage - physical stores. In this episode of Retail Disrupted, retail analyst Natalie Berg sits down with Stephen Preuss, Co-Founder and CEO of PayMore, to unpack how a brick-and-mortar-first strategy is fueling the fastest-growing electroni...

Millions of people are already shopping with AI. It's rewiring how customers discover, browse, and buy products - and we're really just getting started. Deann Evans, Shopify's Managing Director, EMEA, joins Natalie Berg to share how Shopify is building AI into the fabric of commerce and what that means for retailers over the next 3–5 years.  We dig into agentic commerce, unified commerce, and how...

What does "luxury" mean when your brand is over 300 years old, your customers span Gen Z to Royal Households, and your products have to delight both online and in-store? In this Retail Disrupted episode, Fortnum & Mason's Director of Buying for Hampers, Fashion, Beauty & Home, Jo Newton, lifts the lid on how a heritage icon stays radically relevant. You'll learn: • How Fortnum & Mason defines mode...

What happens when a major retailer hands the reins to AI? In this episode, Natalie Berg is joined by Simon Ellis, Head of AI Transformation and Enterprise Architecture at Pets at Home, to unpack how AI is quietly reshaping the way we shop – from loyalty and personalisation to agentic shopping and AI search. We dig into how Pets at Home is using AI to: - Turn a traditional loyalty scheme into a rea...

On this episode, Natalie Berg welcomes Tim Payne, Managing Director of Charles Clinkard, a leading UK independent footwear retailer with over a century of heritage. Join us as Tim shares invaluable insights from the frontlines of retail, detailing Charles Clinkard's remarkable evolution from a 97% in-store operation to a diversified business that has successfully transformed for a digital era. You...

Delivery isn't a back-end operation anymore – it's a frontline customer experience. In this episode of Retail Disrupted, we unpack the psychology of delivery and why retailers are now held responsible for every knock, delay and "Sorry we missed you" card. District Marketing Director Morgan Rivers (UPS - UK, Ireland and Nordics) joins Natalie Berg live from The Delivery Conference to explore how ch...

The center of retail gravity has shifted. On this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie Berg sits down with Jonathan Reynolds, Associate Professor in Retail Marketing and Deputy Dean at Oxford's Said Business School, to dismantle the Western-centric view of retail innovation. They explore why the US and UK are no longer the primary testbeds for new concepts and outline the 3 Rules for Futureproofin...

Retail is entering the age of Agentic Commerce – where AI agents don't just recommend products, they autonomously sense, decide, and act to achieve customer goals. In this episode, sponsored by  NCR Voyix , Amit Acharya unpacks what this shift really means for enterprise retailers: why you must design simultaneously for two customers – the human in the aisle and the AI agent acting on their behalf...

How does a challenger brand disrupt a legacy category dominated by giants? SURI co-founders Gyve Safavi and Mark Rushmore have a few ideas. They join Natalie Berg to share how they're reinventing oral care with a sustainable, design-led electric toothbrush that consumers actually love to use.  We unpack how they quickly scaled from D2C startup to a multi-million-dollar business stocked in Boots, T...

Retail is evolving fast — but physical stores still matter more than ever. In this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie Berg is joined by Melissa Gonzalez — design strategist, entrepreneur, author of The Purpose Pivot, and Principal at MG2 — to explore the future of experiential retail, why digitally native brands are investing in physical stores, and how purpose-led leadership is reshaping the in...

Can "soft" skills really deliver hard numbers? In this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie Berg sits down with Matt Close, a 30-year Unilever veteran who proved that building a "happiness culture" isn't just nice to have—it's a massive growth engine. Matt served on Unilever's Executive Committee and led the €8B Global Ice Cream business for 8 years. During his tenure, he added €3B in growth by ta...

AI is no longer hype in retail - it's becoming table stakes. In this episode of Retail Disrupted, we're joined by senior retail and data leaders shaping the future of commerce: Keyur Govande (Chief Technology Officer at Depop), Daniel Bos (Senior Director of Data, Analytics & AI at Just Eat Takeaway.com), and Daniel Chasle (Chief Data Officer at New Look). Together, we unpack how AI is transformin...

How does an iconic luxury beauty group stay relevant in an AI-powered world? Recorded live on stage at London Tech Week 's AI in Retail Event in London, this episode of Retail Disrupted features Pernilla Nyberg, SVP & General Manager UK & Ireland at The Estée Lauder Companies. Pernilla shares how Estée Lauder is thoughtfully using AI and data to support creativity, innovation, and personalization...

International expansion isn't about copy-and-paste growth — it's about cultural intelligence.  In this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie Berg is joined by CMOs and leading global brand experts Katherine Melchior Ray and Nataly Kelly to explore why so many global brands fail — and what they should do differently to succeed across borders. From luxury retail and hospitality to beauty, fashion, an...

In this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie Berg shares her 2026 outlook and insights from the KPMG Retail Think Tank. She is then joined by international logistics expert Becky Lombardo to unpack how retailers can build resilient, flexible, and profitable supply chains in an increasingly unpredictable world. Becky shares practical insights on global trade disruption, nearshoring, returns, AI in...

Barcodes are the backbone of global trade. GS1 barcodes are scanned more than 10 billion times a day, helping over two million organisations worldwide identify, describe, and track products across the global economy. But while the barcode has existed for more than 50 years - largely unchanged - the needs of retail, brands, and consumers have evolved dramatically. In the final episode of Retail Dis...

Rice is the one of the most consumed foods in the world, but few people realise it's also a major driver of climate change. In fact, beef is the only food responsible for higher global emissions.  In this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie Berg sits down with Fergus O'Sullivan, Founder of Nice Rice , to unpack the problems with traditional rice farming and why it's long overdue for disruption. F...

Discover how The Elf on the Shelf transformed from a beloved family tradition into a multi-platform global holiday empire. In this episode of Retail Disrupted, Natalie Berg sits down with Christa Pitts, co-CEO and founder of The Lumistella Company and creator of The Elf on the Shelf, to explore the power of nostalgia, emotional connection, holiday marketing trends, and building authentic brands in...

We're getting techie on this episode of Retail Disrupted! Natalie Berg sits down with Keith Dipple of Manhattan Associates to dive into the nuts and bolts of modern retail technology. From unified commerce architecture to versionless POS, real-time inventory visibility, and AI-enabled fulfillment, we unpack the systems and strategies powering seamless shopping experiences. Explore how retailers ca...