Remarkable Retail Podcast

"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." - Jon Kabat-Zinn In the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, we go guest free to dive into a concept that Steve shares in his book and in many of his keynotes . It's called VUCA, and it stand for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguous.  We explore the implications of what it means to develop and execute strategy in a world in wh...

This week we welcome Kevin Tulip, Primark's US President, as our guest to discuss what makes the Ireland-based purveyor of affordable fashion, home, and beauty products so remarkable and why they've chosen a slow and steady approach to global expansion. We also learn about the brand's Dublin origins, how the concept has evolved, and their decision to grow to 60 locations in the US by 2026 and 530...

Welcome to a bonus episode of the Remarkable Retail podcast, presented by MarketDial. Steve and I are excited to take the podcast to the World Retail Congress at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, April 25th - 27th. Steve will also be joining an amazing roster of speakers to present his take on why organizations need to radically accelerate their pace of transformation. In advance of the show, we connec...

This week we take on the question of whether we are on the cusp of a retail disruptor apocalypse, with the help of return guest Daniel McCarthy , Assistant Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta School of Business and leading expert on customer-based corporate valuation. Before Dan joins us we briefly review the similarities between the first wave of online brands that subsequently...

Welcome to a bonus episode of the Remarkable Retail podcast, presented by MarketDial. Steve and I are excited to take the podcast to the World Retail Congress at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, April 25th - 27th. Steve will also be joining an amazing roster of speakers to present his take on why organizations need to radically accelerate their pace of transformation. In advance of the show, we connec...

This week we do a deep dive into the rapidly changing world of retail real estate with Tom McGee , the CEO of ICSC , the industry's biggest trade association. In a wide ranging conversation we get Tom's view of how the industry continues to evolve from legacy concepts to marketplaces, what the pandemic did to reshape the landscape, and which key trends we should be paying attention to. We also exp...

Our final episode recorded live in the MarketDial booth at the National Retail Federation's "Big Show" features Amish Tolia , co-CEO and co-founder of Leap, the innovative platform that enables digitally native brands to open physical stores more quickly and with lower risk than they could do on their own.. In a wide-ranging discussion we learn about the inspiration for the concept, how it works a...

Physical retail is far from dead, but for many retailers traffic is increasingly harder to come by. In a fascinating panel recorded live on the floor at last month's NRF "Big Show," we welcome three founding CEO's to discuss how to create a more remarkable customer experience by leveraging innovative technology. Our guests are Daniel Black from  Glass Media , Morgan Davis from  MarketDial  and Chr...

Our final bonus episode recorded live in the MarketDial booth at the NRF's "Big Show" last month features Roshan Jhunja , General Manager of Retail at Square. We delve into how Square uses Clayton Christensen's "Customer Jobs to Be Done" framework to guide their innovation process. We also explore which trends are likely to be most important to retail success this year, as well as what's new and n...

We're back with another insightful episode recorded at last month's NRF "Big Show." This time our focus is on how entrepreneurs bring their ideas to market, secure venture capital funding, and fight through all the challenges to create a sustainable, remarkable business. We're fortunate to have two great female founders join us to share their wisdom. Michelle Bacharach heads up FindMine , the AI p...

Our second bonus episode recorded at the NRF's "Big Show" in New York showcases our session titled "Shift Happens: Choose Remarkable or Irrelevance." Joining us on stage is on the "Big Ideas" stage is Gretchen Ganc, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Analytics for the Container Store. We pick up the conversation after a brief presentation by Steve on the state of retail as we discuss three of...

Our first interview of the year is with the ever insightful Ira Kalish , Chief Global Economist at Deloitte. More and more the ever shifting forces of the macro-economy are informing retailers' strategies, and we can't think of a better guest to help us make sense of trends in inflation, interest rates, labor markets, and more.  In a wide-ranging discussion we learn Ira's outlook on pricing across...

We're just back from New York and the 2023 edition of the National Retail Federation's Big Show. As we rest our weary legs, we hop back on the mic to share some of our key takeaways gleaned from the Expo floor, the conference stages, conversations in the halls, and at various events we attended.  We also recorded several new podcast episodes while we were there. Stay tuned as we release them over...

Last week we released the first batch of Steve's predictions . This week we conclude with six more, centering on how "hybridization" will steal the crown from omni-channel, how trading-down (in product and format) will define the year, the likelihood that big consumer credit troubles emerge, why strong balance sheets reign supreme, how the Metaverse is still not ready for its close up, while AI ju...

We're back with Season 6 and we kick-off with a two-part episode focused on Steve's annual retail predictions. In Part 1 we cover his first six, which center on the growing importance of physical store experiences in a digital world, a notable increase in C-suite changes, a profound reset among the digital disruptors, initial growing pains in the retail media space, looming big changes with Amazon...

As we take a few weeks off before returning with Season 6, we dig into the back catalog to 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 becoming (or needing to become) hybrid...

As business legend Warren Buffett might say: The Tide is Going Out - we're about to see who's swimming naked. With a worldwide recession threatening, the pace of change continuing to accelerate, and an increasingly volatile operating environment, retailers that deliver anything less than a remarkable customer experience are about to see their weaknesses exposed. This is Steve Dennis, strategy & in...

As we take a few weeks off before returning with Season 6, we dig into the back catalog for one of our most inspiring episodes. Our very special guest is Hubert Joly , former Chairman and CEO of Best Buy, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and the author of the just released bestselling book  The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism . In a wide-ranging in...

“Great brands don't chase customers; customers chase great brands.” - Gary Friedman, CEO Restoration Hardware As we take a few weeks off before returning with Season 6, we dig into the back catalog to go deep on #7 ("Memorable") in Steve's 8 Essentials of Remarkable Retail framework. Being Memorable is critical to not simply offering a slightly better version of mediocre and competing relentlessly...

We wrap up Season 5 with yet another remarkable leader from a most remarkable retailer. This week our guest is Satish Malhotra , the CEO of The Container Store (TCS), the leading specialty retailer of storage and organization products, custom spaces, and in-home services.  Satish took the helm of TCS last year after an amazing two decade run at Sephora where he helped drive their retail growth str...

With the penultimate episode of Season 5 we pause briefly to celebrate reaching our 100th episode milestone, before taking an insider's view of the dynamic world of retail tech and consumer investing with Al Sambar , a deeply experienced industry executive who now serves as a General Partner at XRC Labs . We get a fast-paced primer on how venture capital works and XRC's particular focus on early s...

We're all about accountability on the Remarkable Retail podcast, so as we get close to wrapping up Season 5, it's time to grade Steve on his annual predictions . Michael takes out his virtual chalkboard as we go through all ten predictions about the future of retail, including Amazon's brick-and-mortar dreams, the Metaverse, whether JC Penney has a future, the trials and tribulations of digital di...

Our guest this week is Allison Cornish , VP of Store Modernization for Pilot Flying J , recorded live in the MarketDial podcast studio at the NACS Annual Show . Allison is deeply experience convenience store industry veteran who was also recently recognized as the Top Woman in Convenience. In a wide-ranging conversation we unpack the evolution of the convenience store business model at the Berkshi...

We are excited to release the second of two bonus episodes recorded live at the MarketDial podcast studio during the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) conference. Our guest is Stuart Taylor VP, Business Insights and Analytics at Kum & Go , one of the most successful convenience stores in the industry, operating over 400 stores. We delve into how leveraging customer data and insight...

Our guest this week is Matt Alexander , co-founder and CEO of Neighborhood Goods , recorded live at GroceryShop  in Las Vegas.  In a wide-ranging and thought-provoking interview, we first learn about the inspiration and evolution of Neighborhood Goods from a big picture vision to three physical locations (Dallas, New York and Austin, with more on the way). We then explore Matt's creative and uniqu...