Nationwide Marketing Group's Vice President of Consumer Electronics Lee McDonald jumps on the Independent Thinking Podcast to recap the things he saw out in Las Vegas during CES 2022. Among the trends identified: new innovations in TV tech, some smart home updates, and more.

In a word, 2021 was busy for the team at Howard's in Southern California. And 2022 looks to be more of the same as the retailer gets set to expand into more markets. We sat down with President and CEO John Riddle and Chief Customer Experience Officer Michelle Nein to talk about their growth strategy, which has included two recent acquisitions and the planned opening of several new experience centers throughout the region.

The ceramic Komodo-style grill space can be a rather intimidating one for consumers. New Nationwide vendor partner Vision Grills explains how their product — and the game-changing quick-change gas technology that it supports — is helping to retailers simplify the story for their customers.

This week marks a major milestone for our Independent Thinking Podcast — 100 episodes! It's been an incredibly fast two years of publishing interviews, so we're taking a second to pause and reflect on some of our favorite sound bites.

Nationwide Marketing Group's VP of Consumer Electronics Lee McDonald looks back on a humbling 2021 and projects what's to come for the industry in 2022.

Chris Benner, vertical product manager for retail at Oracle NetSuite, provides an overview on the world of enterprise resource planning platforms. NetSuite, a Nationwide vendor partner, provides retailers with the tools they need to efficiently run their businesses and provide a seamless experience for their customers.

Consumers have myriad options available to them when it comes to paying for goods. Gone are the days of just cash and checks. To wrap our heads around all of the alternative payment options available today, we sat down with Nationwide's VP of Business and Financial Services Chris Kirk.

Co-founder & Executive Director of Independent We Stand Bill Brunelle spends some time discussing the Shop Local movement ahead of Small Business Saturday. Bill also details ways to extend the excitement around supporting small businesses throughout the rest of the calendar.

Gordon van Zuiden got into the home integration industry thanks to his interest and expertise in building strong networks — much unlike his colleagues with heavy audio and video backgrounds. That fact has helped his firm, cyberManor, remain ahead of the smart home curve since its launch over two decades ago.

While spending time and dollars on corporate culture programs may not be top-of-mind for many independent retailers, there's a very real business case to be made for making such an investment. We sit down with Nationwide Marketing Group's Director of People Development and Learning Kris Kuester to talk about corporate culture, the role it's played at Nationwide, and how independent retailers can begin to implement their own culture strategy.