Remarkable Retail Podcast

We are excited to release two bonus episodes recorded live at the MarketDial podcast studio  at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) conference in Las Vegas. Our first special guest is Lori Stillman , Vice President, Research for NACS, who helps us understand some of the fun facts and figures about the industry, before we get her takes on the profound shifts that are reshaping the...

Our guest this week is Andrew Lipsman , Principal Analyst at Insider Intelligence, recorded live at the recently completed GroceryShop event in Las Vegas.  We go deep into the burgeoning world of retail media networks, exploring what they are, how they work, and why they have become arguably the most exciting growth area for retailers in recent memory. We dig into the key accelerants and enablers,...

Our guests this week are Cara Keating, Chief Customer Officer, Frito Lay-North America and Chad Matthews, Chief Commercial Officer, Pepsico Beverages-North America.  In a fast-paced conversation recorded live at the National Association of Convenience Stores' annual conference in Las Vegas. we dig into what makes Pepsico unique on both the food and beverage side before delving into how customer-ce...

Our guest this week is Hal Lawton, the President & CEO of Tractor Supply Co , a truly remarkable retailer that has delivered some of the strongest results of any brand during the past few years.   We explore Hal's diverse journey from McKinsey, to Home Depot, to eBay, to Macy's and on to Tennesee-based Tractor Supply Company. the nearly 85 year old company that now does over $14 billion in annual...

“The success of our brand will increasingly be determined by our ability to meet our customers' needs anytime, anywhere, anyway.” - Arthur Martinez, Sears CEO, February 1999 You might be wondering who was the first person to lead omni-channel efforts at a major retailer. Was it Phil Phygital, Sean Seamless, Ingrid Integrated, or someone else entirely? This week we reveal our answer. Then we dive i...

Our guest this week is Michael Kliger , CEO of Mytheresa, the fast-growing global e-commerce destination for luxury fashion---and one of only a handful of retail "disruptor" brands that actually makes money. With Steve facing technical issues, our interview segment turns out to be a duet of Michael's, who explore the current state of the international luxury market and what makes Mytheresa truly r...

Our guest this week is Ivonne Kinser , VP of Marketing & Innovation for Avocados from Mexico, the innovative marketing organization that has delivered some truly remarkable results. In our fourth episode recorded live at last month's GroceryShop event in Las Vegas, we get the inside story of how AFM went from start-up to advertising on the Super Bowl. We then dig into the details of how Ivonne and...

We are excited to release a series of bonus episodes recorded live in Las Vegas at the recently completed GroceryShop 2022 conference. Our second special guest is Krystina Gustafson , SVP Content at ShopTalk and GroceryShop, whom we caught up with just as the conference was wrapping up. Krystina provides a behind the scenes look at how the conference came to be, how events are curated, and whether...

The streams are crossing somewhere along the Vegas Strip, as this week's episode features our news segment recorded at the National Association of Convenience Stores event, while our interview was conducted live at GroceryShop. Our guest this week is Tony Shan , Head of Tmall Global, Americas, for the Alibaba Group. We learn a bit about the scale, scope and evolution of the world's third largest r...

We are excited to release a series of bonus episodes recorded live in Las Vegas at the recently completed GroceryShop 2022 conference. Our first special guest is Deb Weinswig , founder and CEO of Coresight Research , and we challenge you to find a podcast episode that delivers more insight per minute. We break from our usual form to get Deb's 5 hot-takes on 5 hot topics, including the future of li...

We're recording live this week from the just wrapped GroceryShop conference in Las Vegas. Our guest this week is Tim Simmons, SVP & Chief Product Officer of Sam's Club, who takes  us deep into the transformation process that he's been helping lead. We learn how Walmart and Sam's Club have been evolving and accelerating the pace of innovation. It's a Master Class on how to embed a culture of experi...

"The first rule of Retail Fight Club is to tell everybody about Retail Fight Club." - Michael LeBlanc This week we debut a new segment: Retail Fight Club, where we debate a contentious issue that just about everyone in retail is talking about. Ethan Chernovsky, Placer.ai's VP of Marketing returns to the pod and steps into the ring with Steve for our inaugural episode to present opposing view point...

We're back with Part 2 of our provocative interview with Steven Pressfield , acclaimed screenplay writer ( The Legend of Bagger Vance , among others) and bestselling author of fiction ( A Man at Arms, Gates of Fire ), as well as several ground-breaking non-fiction works on unlocking our creative potential, including the classic The War of Art, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide After u...

"The more important a project is to the evolution of your soul, the more Resistance you'll feel to it." Our guest this week is Steven Pressfield , acclaimed screenplay writer ( The Legend of Bagger Vance , among others), bestselling fiction author ( A Man at Arms, Gates of Fire ) and, as you'll learn, a "servant to the Muse." But he's joining us to discuss his breakthrough efforts to help people w...

“The problem is, you think you have time.” - Carlos Castaneda,  Journey to Ixtlan This week we present our first ever encore episode. We open the vault to extract a seminal recording from our first season, released in the fall of 2020, where we discuss some of the key concepts from Steve's best-selling book Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption.  In a wide-ranging...

This week we ask the question: can small stores save department stores? And do they, in fact, need saving? Despite the suggestion that the department stores may be rebounding, it is looking more like a dead-cat bounce. In response to decades long declines, Macy's and Kohl's are placing big bets on rolling out smaller stores as a way to revitalize market share growth. We dig into how we got here, w...

Our guest this week is Alexandra Lange , famed architecture and design critic, and author of the brand new best-seller Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall . In a wide-ranging interview we get Alexandra's perspectives on the history and cultural significant of shopping malls. We dig into the fascinating story of Victor Gruen and how his design ideas shaped the evolution of region...

Our guest this week is Christine Day , former CEO of lululemon athletica and Starbucks senior executive, who is now leading the growth of Russell Wilson and Ciara's remarkable retail company, The House of L,R & C . We learn about the inspiration for creating sustainable fashion brands, including the decision to organize as a B Corp. We delve into the challenges and the opportunities of driving soc...

This week we dig into Amazon's physical store strategy as it ups the ante with the expansion of its mainstream grocery store concept (Amazon Fresh), convenience stores (Amazon Go), and an initial foray into brick-and-mortar apparel (Amazon Style). We ponder why Whole Foods has gotten worse under their leadership and whether the company's tendency to see most everything as an engineering problem ke...

Our guest this week is Lauren Wiener , Managing Director and Partner in the New York office of the Boston Consulting Group.  With Laura lending her considerable experience and expertise, this episode provides a deep-dive into the world of retail media networks.  We dig into definitions, the size of the opportunity and what is driving this booming area of retail. We learn who some of the leaders ar...

This week we go sans guest to unpack an increasingly important strategic and executional distinction which Steve first dug into in a 2018 Forbes article and then subsequently developed in his best-selling book. Understanding the critical difference between "buying", which is more about addressing a need quickly and efficiently, and "shopping" which is inherently more solutions based and involves m...

Seth Godin joins us for the kick-off episode of Season 5 to discuss his new book and project: The Carbon Almanac: It's Not Too Late . For the few who may not know, Seth is an internet pioneer, best-selling author of 20 books, host of the Akimbo podcast and one of the world's most sought-out keynotes speakers. Most importantly Steve was also best man at Seth's wedding. As individuals, citizens and...

This is Steve Dennis, innovation & strategy consultant, keynote speaker and best-selling author of Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption. If you think the last few years of the COVID era was a wild ride, buckle up buttercup, things are only going to get tougher as retailers face escalating competition and increasing macroeconomic headwinds. In an era where even ve...

In our Season 4 finale, we peer into Steve's crystal ball to review his annual predictions as we approach the half way point of the year. In addition to unpacking what they are all about, we go for radical accountability, assessing each of them hits, misses or, perhaps, a bit too soon to tell.  But first we open up with the retail news that caught our attention this week, including the scary inven...

Our special guest this week is Ron Thurston, fellow Rethink Retail top influencer, best-selling author of Retail Pride: The Guide to Celebrating Your Accidental Career , and deeply experienced retail executive, having done stings at Intermix, YSL, Bonobos, Tory Burch, Apple and more. Ron joins us from his Airsteam just a couple of months into his "Retail In America" tour, which will literally take...