Retail Unwrapped - from The Robin Report

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Last week, Shelley caught up with five more innovators at NRF 2026 to get their takes on the retail industry and an outlook for this year. Their conversations ranged from the connected store and talent development to geolocation analytics and the need for personalization.  Listen and learn from the...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Shelley caught up with four innovators at NRF 2026 to get their takes on the retail industry and an outlook for this year. Their conversations ranged from managing returns and geo-location insights to advanced tools for managing inventory.  Listen and learn from the experts. Tim Robinson has intere...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Most retailers think they're keeping pace with AI advancement, but they're operating with fundamentally broken data while the entire shopping model collapses around them. The customer shopping journey is shifting, and AI agents will manage the entire experience. Why? Agentic evolution out...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Here’s an interesting fact: 1.6 million tradespeople trust their friends over impersonal brands. And here’s why: Most workwear brands claim they understand their customers, but they're designing products by committee in the boardroom and based on their P/L.  Join Shelley and Eric Gerard who di...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! We’ve all read the real estate headlines, both positive and otherwise. So, what’s really next in retail real estate? There's nowhere left to expand: Occupancy in quality centers is running 96 to 97 percent in desirable locations. It’s a landlord’s market with store openings continuing to outpa...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Most grocery retailers are chasing a $1.6 trillion market but Sprouts Farmers Market is deliberately ignoring $1.3 trillion of it. Join Shelley and Nick Konat, President and COO of Sprouts, as they reveal why the retailer has a laser focus on the $300 billion health enthusiast segment. Marching to...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Traditional fashion and automotive industries are wedded to a leather supply chain that requires 20 toxic processing steps and plastic coatings, while they simultaneously claim environmental leadership. The uncomfortable reality executives don’t acknowledge is that traditional leather production is...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Full disclosure: Don’t ever underestimate the power of weather and its impact on retail. There is no other external driver that influences the consumer as frequently, meaningfully, and continuously as the weather. In fact, it influences more than a trillion dollars in retail sales on an annual basi...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Sometimes it takes tenacity combined with fearless confidence to launch a retail brand. That’s how Hulken achieved what most brands consider impossible: Pitching Target in June and landing their rolling totes on the shelves by November. Join Shelley and Hulken co-founder Alex Schinasi to learn why...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! A look back at retail 2025 reveals that consumer behavior volatility has reached unprecedented levels, with shopping patterns shifting hour-to-hour rather than seasonally. Most C-suite leaders are woefully unprepared to handle this level of velocity. Join Shelley and RJ Hottovy from Placer.ai as th...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The retail frontline sales staff is often an untapped, but highly valuable resource.  Everyone wants to know that they matter and can make a difference. So, how do retailers empower their store associates, their most critical customer-facing ambassadors? In an increasingly tech-driven business, new...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Here’s a stark warning for beauty executives: Brands that cling to traditional manufacturing models are already obsolete—they just don't know it yet. The challenges facing beauty CMOs are hitting critical mass: It's not just driving growth, it’s how to get to market at the speed of cultur...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Big brands in the food industry face a double-edged challenge: Make snacks healthy and deliver duller colors and unfamiliar tastes. Eliminating dyes and reducing preservatives and sugar are consumer demands that are forcing food manufacturers to reformulate decades-old products that those consumers...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! In a wide-ranging conversation, Shelley and Tom McGee, president and CEO of ICSC, discuss a mix of consumer trends that will impact holiday spending. It might surprise you to know that Gen X controls 33 percent of all spending (although only 19 percent of the U.S. population); so why are retailers...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! When you are an architect who works on projects around the world, your perspective about American retail changes through a refined filter. Kevin Roche, Founder of Roche Design Strategy, has the advantage of understanding firsthand the power of Return on Experience (ROE). He believes traditional ret...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Modern leadership often confuses constant availability with maximum impact. It veers off course when it ignores intuition in favor of data. Join Shelley and Melissa Gonzalez, Principal and founder of MG2 in a conversation about her new book, The Purpose Pivot, which explores why understanding your...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Here’s a surprising fact: A workplace revolution is underway and fundamentally reimagining how ergonomics drives productivity and employee retention. With mandates of returns to office, companies are discovering that outdated workspace designs are accelerating turnover. Progressive organizations le...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The fashion industry's stubborn reliance on outdated supply chain practices is bleeding profits and destroying consumer trust. Traditional approaches to sizing, inventory management, and trend forecasting are creating failures across the entire value chain, from excess inventory that decimates...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Spoiler alert: The physical store is an experiential platform that can tap into retail media network ad spending projected to reach $100 billion by 2026. In a digital marketplace, dynamic advertising platforms leverage AI-powered analytics to capture real-time customers. Walmart gets it and its Con...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Primark's strategic U.S. expansion started 10 years ago and is a master plan in calculated retail growth that could fundamentally reshape America's affordable fashion landscape. Primark has 450 stores worldwide and 33 in the States. It has ambitious plans to expand with 60 to captivate th...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Crisis management has become a requisite strategy in today’s fractious marketplace. The socio-political landscape has become a minefield for retailers where one misstep can trigger unprecedented consumer backlash and boycotts. In today's hyperconnected environment, every consumer with a smartp...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! How do you make yourself matter to your local community? If you’re a hardware retailer, what you have to offer is more than nice; it’s a necessity. Ace Hardware gets it. They are innovative players in the retail media landscape with RedVest Media, designed to drive embedded community relationships...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Some turnarounds make for epic legends. How do you rebuild a brand and transform it dramatically in two years? The Honest Company, co-founded by Jessica Alaba in 2011, is experiencing a renaissance with double-digit revenue growth and the highest gross margin in the history of the company. Join She...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Provocative, controversial, and blunt observations about what’s making retail news headlines. Shelley and TRR contributor Mark Cohen, who is an industry veteran and former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, explore a few of the difficult challenges facing retail leaders. They r...

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! While consumers fixate on tariffs as the primary force behind rising food prices, the reality is far more complex and revealing. Regulatory changes, labor costs and operational expenses coupled with new tariff pressures on some food categories are creating uncharted supply-demand dynamics. Join She...