Claim OwnershipRetail Unwrapped - from The Robin Report
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Welcome to Retail Unwrapped, a podcast from The Robin Report.
Join Shelley E. Kohan as she shares insights and unpacks issues at the core of retail and consumer products. The conversations are lively and the opinions are honest.
New episodes every Friday.
284 Episodes
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We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Although Agentic AI and LLMs may cause high anxiety for retailers that sees bots as competitors, the truth is that we are experiencing one of the most exciting times in retail that is on the cusp of change. About 23 percent of Americans have already made a purchase through AI, and Agentic Commerce grew 4,700 percent in 2025. The leading model makers—OpenAI (Chat GPT), Anthropic (Claude), and Googl...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Retail theater transforms the store to a stage, and that’s 130-year-old Hershey’s sweet spot. The iconic confectioner is quietly becoming one of the more sophisticated retail operators in the industry. Join Shelley and Stephanie Berman, Vice President of Retail for The Hershey Company, as they reveal how Hershey has rebuilt its entire retail practice around the balance between emotional equity and...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! When Tim Baxter left Express, he thought he might semi-retire. What he discovered instead was a vision he'd been building toward for 30 years; a belief in the meaningful role a retail store can play in people's lives, and his conviction to bring it to life. In this conversation, Haley Boehning sits down with Tim to unpack the story behind The Baxter Collective, a new highly-curated physical retail...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The consumer movement to invest in secondhand is led by values: meaning, provenance, and sustainability. Re-commerce is not a niche; it’s a $180-$200 billion global, parallel economy growing up to five times faster than traditional retail. The brands that get this right think beyond the first sale and plan for the lifetime value of a product, including multiple sales. Join Shelley and Romain Fouac...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! The recent Supreme Court decision outlawing the “Liberation Day” tariffs has added another level of uncertainty to the financial outlook of American retailers. Join Shelley and Dan Altman, chief economist and bestselling author of the High Yield Economics newsletter, as they zero in on what the ruling will trigger for retailers and consumers. They discuss whether companies will claw back the tarif...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! How does the retail frontline succeed, despite leadership dysfunction? The disconnect between corporate decision-making and the frontline reality has reached a breaking point. Store managers are caught holding the bag for supply chain disasters, tariffs, empty shelves, and operational chaos they never created. Join Shelley and Rachel Williamson, founder and CEO of Running Great Stores, as they unp...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! There is widespread confusion about the popular and overused K-shaped economy meme. General understanding oversimplifies consumers into "haves, have-nots, and have-everythings," when the reality is far more nuanced and fluid. If retail executives make million-dollar decisions based on an incomplete understanding about the K-shaped economy, it's going to cost them. Join Shelley and Katie Thomas fro...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! A complete reversal of the traditional concept-to-market approach will improve margins, speed to market, and sustainability goals. What does that look like? Materials lead the design process instead of design leading materials selection. Join Shelley and Liza Amlani, principal and founder of Retail Strategy Group and co-author of The Material Life, as they discuss why design innovation is ty...
We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us! Customers have high expectations in their transaction experiences that do not end with the purchase. Today’s empowered and convenience-focused consumers want easy returns, and FedEx is on a mission to make that a reality using AI as a tool to improve the experience. Join Shelley and Jason Brenner, Senior Vice President Digital Portfolio at FedEx as they delve into the fascinating world of re...
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 experts. Matthew Cry transformed his retail leadership experience by leveraging a better ...
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 interesting insights on a significant challenge for retailers, especially, post-holiday: returns. ...
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 outmatches traditional human-based search. When shoppers ask arbitrary questions like "show me the best handbag," ...
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 discuss how he built his BRUNT Workwear brand with the people who actually wear the work gear. Th...
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 outpace closures by roughly 2:1. And capital is still flowing into retail real estate and property tech despite...
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 a different drummer, Sprouts is driving 8 to 10 percent annual store growth while competitors struggl...
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 isn't just environmentally destructive—it's becoming economically obsolete. Join Shelley and Stephanie ...
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 basis. Join Shelley and Evan Gold of Planalytics as they discuss the fact that the weather is more volati...
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 the most successful omnichannel strategies aren't about being everywhere, but about identifying the f...
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 they discuss a range of consequential retail shifts. Holiday promotions now start in September as retai...
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 digital tools are designed to create lasting customer relationships that match loyalty with emp...
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