Remarkable Retail Podcast

We're joined by Chris Bell, CEO & Founder of Perch, one of the fastest growing and most acquisitive companies offering a platform to e-commerce brands leveraging "Fulfilled by Amazon" and other third party marketplaces. We learn how the model works, why the business model is attracting so much investor interest, and what's on the horizon for one of the hottest sectors in retail today. And if you r...

For more than a decade, digitally-native, vertically integrated brands (Warby Parker, Allbirds, et al)--as well as other innovative direct-to-consumer (companies (from Wayfair to Rent-the-Runway to Poshmark)--have sucked up a lot of attention in the industry and attracted many billions of venture capital. Yet as more face the harsh light of the public markets we're learning that some are rather sm...

Why are private branding strategies becoming increasingly important to the retail industry? We unpack this question in detail, first clarifying some often confusing terminology, while also making the important distinction between "private labels" and "private brands." Mostly we center the important role of exclusive products in providing competitive differentiation, minimizing web-enabled price sh...

No part of retail has been facing more transformative forces than the grocery business. In this episode we explore how the retail food business is being disrupted with globally recognized experts David Marcotte , SVP at Kantar Retail and Sylvain Charlebois (aka "The Food Professor" ) Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. We dive deep into how the pandemic accelerated on...

This week we dig into some of the myths, misleading clickbait headlines, and often unfortunate misunderstandings surrounding the growth of online shopping, both across the last two decades and accelerated more recently by the COVID-19 crisis. In particular, we dig into: The evolution of modern retail from a relatively simple world where brick & mortar and e-commerce were largely distinct activitie...

This week's special guest is Kara Goldin , CEO and Founder of Hint,   the No.1 non-sweetened beverage company not owned by Coke, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper in America and the bestselling author of Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts & Doubters   We learn about Kara's journey from tech executive to food entrepreneur, motivated by her desire to find healthier beverage options. It's a fascinating story of persever...

This week special guests Anne Mezzinga and Neil Saunders help us deliver a MasterClass in driving retail sales through better store execution. Retailers need a remarkable business design, but while they mount their transformation they also need to convert more traffic, drive average basket size and create more loyalty. In this episode we learn what retailers are getting wrong--and right--in addres...

This week we welcome special guest Robbie Kellman Baxter, the world's leading expert on subscription pricing and membership models--and bestselling author--for a robust discussion of "The Membership Economy." We delve into what's been behind the phenomenal success of brands like Netflix and other disruptors that employ deep insight and the latest technology to build enduring long-term customer rel...

It may seem like a paradox, but retailers like Macy's, Ikea, Nike, Target, Amazon, Nordstrom and more are all pursuing small store format strategies in hopes of getting closer to customers and reigniting market share growth. While this isn't fundamentally a new idea--and one could argue that for some it's coming at least a decade too late--this next generation of concepts is less about merely opti...

Rod Sides, Deloitte's Vice Chairman and US Retail & Distribution practice leader, joins us to discuss his firms forecast for robust holiday sales. We delve into the underlying drivers, specific category dynamics, as well as which trends are likely to persist into next year. We also get Rod's perspectives on the impact of government stimulus, an increasingly challenging supply chain, on-going labor...

As pioneering digitally-native brands Warby Parker and Allbirds prepare to go public--and the fortunes of other highflying disruptor retailers like Peloton and Chewy ebb and flow--we get the chance to dissect how to make sense of key customer metrics with Daniel McCarthy , professor of marketing at Emory's Goizueta Business School, co-founder of Theta Equity Partners and pioneering thought leader...

After a robust kick-off discussion on the future of department stores last week, we return to go even deeper on how department stores went from being the original "must visit" everything stores to also-rans during the past two decades . We unpack how many iconic players have experienced "death by a thousand cuts", dispel the notion that the sector's woes are largely Amazon's fault and consider why...

This week we go deep on the future of department stores with Simeon Siegel, senior retail & ecommerce analyst at BMO Capital Markets and Ethan Chernovsky, VP of marketing at Placer.ai.  Our fast-paced discussion covers a lot of territory, from how department stores have evolved, to what we mean when we talk about "department stores" today, to whether recent positive news suggests a renaissance or...

This episode we welcome Ben Kaufman , CEO and founder of Camp , the fast growing "family experience" company, which now features multiple locations in the New York area and Dallas, with more on the way (including the Los Angeles and Boston areas). We explore Camp's unique approach to the toy category--and retail more broadly--which includes a mix of play, product and programming. In addition to le...

With brick & mortar continuing to grow--and retailers continuing to open thousands of stores--by now hopefully most have accepted that the "retail apocalypse" narrative is nonsense. But it's clear that what separates the remarkable from the also-rans is evolving quickly and that the role of physical stores are becoming much more hybrid in nature and intrinsically linked to digital efforts. In this...

This episode we welcome Drew Green, celebrated Canadien entrepreneur and CEO of the custom menswear retailer  Indochino . In our fast-paced conversation we delve into how the rapidly growing apparel brand delivers a remarkable customer experience by creating one-of-a-kind garments through the marriage of digital technology, an innovative supply chain and a network of brick & mortar showrooms. We a...

Welcome to the Remarkable Retail podcast Season Three, Episode Two! I’m Michael LeBlanc, and I’m Steve Dennis.   This week we go deep on a growing trend that Steve introduced in his book , and recently unpacked in a Forbes article: namely how so many aspects of retail--stores, supply chains, brand distribution strategies and more--are moving from roles that are largely singular in purpose to becom...

We're back with Season 3 and we kick it off with our special guest Brad Stone , senior executive editor for global technology at Bloomberg News and bestselling author of several books, including his latest Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire. We open up the episode with our quick takes on recent earnings announcements from Nike and Bed, Bath & Beyond, pending IPO action...

 Nope, physical retail, still not dead. Not even close. Yet the lines between physical and digital continue to blur and it continues to get harder and harder to be the amplified signal to stand out for all the noise. So get ready for season three of the Remarkable Retail podcast as we move into post-COVID world of modern retail. We’ll bring you more insights, dissect the key consumer trends and sh...

We wrap up our second season with special guest, Matt Shay, President & CEO of the National Retail Federation (NRF). Many of us may know about the NRF because of its annual "Big Show" , but as you'll learn in our interview it is much, much more. In our fast-paced discussion we dive into the many facets of the world's largest retail trade association. Matt helps us unpack the retail industry's role...

This week the "3 Amigos of Retail" re-unite, as we welcome our special guest Carl Boutet for a discussion of " The Great Acceleration." When Carl first coined the term during Steve's virtual book launch event in April of 2020, little did we know how much it would catch on--and how prophetic it would turn out to be. Now we get a chance to discuss Carl's original thinking, how it's evolved and then...

This week our guest is Rob Smith , CEO & Founder of The Phluid Project and Get Phluid . After many years as a senior executive working with Macy's, Victoria's Secret, Levi's and Nike, Rob followed his passion for social justice and launched The Phluid Project, a rapidly growing non-binary, gender express fashion brand that is grounded in community and build on activism. In this deeply personal and...

This week we go sans guest and go deep on the latest retail earnings and overall big picture trends--and what they portend for a retail recovery and future winners and losers. We all knew this quarter was going to be hard to dissect given the crazy comparisons to this time last year where we saw consumers panic buying toilet paper and other items, while many "essential" retailers closed their door...

This week our guest is fashion resale pioneer Sarah Davis , the Founder, President & CCO of Fashionphile, the leading purveyor of preowned ultra-luxury accessories.  We learn all about Fashionphile's 20+ year journey from scrappy boot-strapped start-up to its break-through partnership with Neiman Marcus. Along the way we learn the ins-and-outs of retail recommerce, what's driving its growth, how C...

This week our very special guest is Chris Schultz , a veteran executive with previous stints at Starbucks and MOD Pizza, who now serves as CEO of Voodoo Doughnut the remarkable Portland, Oregon based company that invented the gourmet donut category and has developed a cult-like following, despite expanding to a dozen locations. Chris shares many lessons from his decades of restaurant experience, u...