The Voice of Retail

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada In this special episode I’m picking up my conversation with two retail’s brightest thinkers live from the virtual stage of the Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing  Forum in late October.   It was my pleasure to welcome Jeff Tate , Chief Innovat...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada On this special episode I am thrilled to be sharing a full episode from my Conversations with CommerceNext podcast featuring Exclusive Holiday Research with Forrester VP & Principal Analyst Sucharita Kodali I launched the Conversations with CommerceNex...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada   For business leaders and marketers from around the world, author and Bain Fellow Fred Reichheld is a household name - even The Economist named him the “high priest” of customer loyalty.   Today, I’m thrilled to sit down with the inventor of the Net P...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada   Clik2Pay is transforming the payment experience for consumers and the online transaction capabilities for online retail. Riding the rails of the Great Acceleration of eCommerce, this company has created an intuitive, quick and secure POS system that’...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada If you are a frequent listener or subscriber to the podcast, you'll know I often ask guests, "what's next?" to wrap the episode.   Well, in this interview with Sarah Owen , Global Futures Directory, SOON Future Studies, "what's next?" IS the episode Af...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada Kais Makhlouf , Vice President of Digital Solutions at Thinkmax Consulting, leverages his decades of hands-on experience  developing and refining digital strategies for retailers. Focusing on their needs, priorities and pre-existing digital ecosystems,...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada There’s no doubt that the last twenty months have changed us and our relationship with the world. For retailers, this has resulted in an unprecedented shift in consumer behaviour that has proven difficult to stay ahead of, let alone predict. In today’s...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. It was already happening before the pandemic. And Snap, COVID accelerated its adoption almost overnight. Mastering social media is more than another tool of the marketing toolkit in retail. It's table-stakes.  On this episode of The Voice of Retail, I...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Fotini Iconomopoulos is the person you call if you need to get what you want. After a decade in the retail space, Fotini refined her negotiation skills in the consumer packaged goods industry before becoming a management consultant. Today, she teaches...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Jon Picoult i s founder of Watermark Consulting a leading customer experience advisory firm and author of the new book From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 principles for turning customers and employees into lifelong fans.” You are really going to enjoy thi...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.   Now more than ever before, digital marketers and retailers have a wealth of first-party data on consumers. Or at least they should - different podcast.  However, providing an authentic and unique eCommerce experience for audiences continues to prove...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. The Great Acceleration of eCommerce brought on by the pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented influx in deliveries. For Canada Post, every day of the last eighteen months has felt like Christmas. In this episode of The Voice of Retail, I am thrilled...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Rebecca Minkoff could write the rule book on being a fearless business leader. In fact - she just did. While leading her internationally-recognized fashion brand through the throws of the pandemic, Rebecca also found the time to channel her experience...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. If you are a retail marketer in Canada chances are pretty good you know Eric Morris - I’ve known Eric for well over a decade, and I learn something new every time we catch up. Google Canada’s Managing Director of Retail has been at this dent the unive...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. You need to get to know Michael Schneider. It’s not that easy, as he lives and works a world away running one of the largest retailers in Australia and New Zealand, Home Improvement retail powerhouse Bunnings.   But I’m doing my part - Michael was my...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Jest Sidloski grew up within the Peavey Mart brand from the storefront to the executive level. Now, as the Vice President of Marketing, Customer Experience & eCommerce, he tells the company’s compelling origin story and offers insider insights on how...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Since 1974 Cadillac Fairview has been creating landmark retail and commercial real estate around the world. In the face of the pandemic and changing social times, how is this influential commercial real estate company weaving the retail landscape into...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Conversational commerce is one of the most powerful trends shaping retail marketing media today, according to Michael Ricci, industry expert and Vice President of New Technologies at Sinch. In this episode, Michael breaks down the past, present and fu...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Jim Inglis is a veteran in the retail home improvement space. Working his way from the shop floor to the C-Suite, he has a unique understanding of the industry to offer. On this episode of The Voice of Retail podcast, I sit down with Jim to talk about...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.   Our second pandemic holiday shopping season is fast approaching. Because supply chains and consumer behaviour have changed fundamentally in the last twenty months, predicting the outcome of major retail events like Holiday is becoming increasingly d...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Emily Hayward is Obsessed.  The co-founder and chief brand officer  of Red Antler was my very special guest recently at Retail Council of Canada ’s STORE2021 thought leadership conference, so I thought it only appropriate to bring our conversation ont...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Charles Chase has spent his entire career working with high end analytics to help understand and predict consumer behaviour. In his new book, Consumer-Based Forecasting and Planning, Predicting Changing Demand Patterns in the New Digital Economy, Char...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. On this special episode I am thrilled to be sharing an excerpt from the most popular Remarkable Retail podcast of our third season, where my podcast partner & best selling author Steve Denis and I interview Daniel McCarthy, professor of marketing at E...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.   The COVID era has brought with it not only questions around consumer behavioural changes and retail strategy deep dives but also raised many, many new questions around labour practices and labour law.  Can I mandate COVID testing in the workplace, w...

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.   On this special episode I am thrilled to be sharing an excerpt from the recent season opener of my podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, The Food Professor.  On one of our most popular episodes this year, Sylvain and I interview very special guest, S...