Retail Refined

In this episode of Retail Refined, Melissa Gonzalez sits down with Maria Stipp, CEO of Suja Life, to explore how wellness beverages are evolving from simple refreshment into a more intentional part of consumers’ daily routines.

Maria shares how shifting consumer behavior around health, low sugar, functional ingredients, and transparency is reshaping the beverage industry — and why Suja is positioned to capitalize on that momentum across cold-pressed juice, wellness shots, and better-for-you soda.

The conversation goes beyond product to unpack the business model behind the brand: Suja’s focus on full-funnel marketing, retail expansion, portfolio strategy, consumer education, and using customer insight to drive innovation. Maria also explains how Suja approaches growth across more than 37,000 retail locations, why trust and transparency matter so much in wellness, and where she sees the biggest whitespace ahead in convenience, airports, and away-from-home channels.

Key takeaways

Wellness beverages are becoming part of everyday consumer routines, not just occasional purchases.

Suja is competing through trust, transparency, function, and accessibility.

Retail growth is coming both from deeper penetration with existing partners and new channels.

Consumer education is still a major growth opportunity, especially for wellness shots.

Listening to customers is directly shaping Suja’s product innovation and category expansion.

What women wear to work isn’t superficial. It can shape how they feel, how they are perceived, and how confidently they navigate the rooms where decisions are made.

In this episode of Retail Refined, Melissa Gonzalez sits down with Sali Christeson, founder and CEO of Argent, to explore how she built a workwear brand designed around the realities of ambitious women. Sali shares how her experiences in banking, technology, and corporate America revealed a category that had consistently treated working women as an afterthought—and inspired a mission to remove barriers through better product, stronger representation, and meaningful community.

They discuss why confidence is the true goal of Argent’s design process, how the brand remained committed to workwear even during the pandemic, and what Sali has learned from a decade of fundraising, opening stores, building teams, and protecting the integrity of the brand. The conversation also examines the evolution of workplace dress codes, the value of intergenerational connection, and why founders must remain deeply committed to the outcome they are working toward.

Because work isn’t going away—it’s evolving. And the brands built to support working women must evolve with it.

Featured guest: Sali Christeson, founder and CEO of Argent

Hosted by: Melissa Gonzalez

Learn more: argentwork.com

Scaling Pet Retail With Local Love

Pet care is one of the most emotionally connected categories in retail — and Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming is scaling right at the center of it.

In this episode of Retail Refined, Host Melissa Gonzalez sits down with Ricardo Azevedo, CEO of Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming, to talk about the rise of service-led pet retail, the growing role of wellness in pet care, and what it takes to scale a franchise brand without losing the neighborhood feel that made it special.

Ricardo shares how his background with global franchise brands, including Burger King and Tim Hortons, shaped his approach to growth, operations, and local ownership. He also breaks down the “Woof Gang Way,” the company’s model for building consistency across locations while preserving the trust, personalization, and community connection that pet parents expect.

Together, Melissa and Ricardo explore why grooming is about much more than a haircut, how technology is making the experience more seamless and personalized, and why customer feedback may be the most important metric in a service-led retail business.

Key Takeaways

• Pet retail is evolving from product-led to service-led, with grooming playing a central role in recurring customer relationships.
• The best franchise models balance operational consistency with local ownership and community connection.
• Pet parents increasingly think about grooming as part of wellness, not just appearance.
• Technology can make the experience more seamless while helping store teams personalize service.
• In service-led retail, customer feedback is not just a metric — it is a reflection of trust.

This conversation is a look at the future of pet retail — where scale, trust, convenience, wellness, and local relationships all have to work together.

In an industry where many brands are racing toward direct-to-consumer models, Simon G. Jewelry continues to take a different path, building its business around craftsmanship, trusted retail partnerships, and relationships designed to last for generations.

On this episode of Retail Refined, host Melissa Gonzalez sits down with Brooke Brinkman, COO of Simon G. Jewelry, to explore how the family-owned fine jewelry company has built a 47-year legacy while continuing to evolve. Brooke shares how founder Simon Ghanimian’s beginnings as a bench jeweler shaped the company’s uncompromising approach to quality, why vertical integration gives the brand greater control from concept through production, and why its network of more than 900 independent retail partners remains central to its growth strategy.

The conversation also explores how Simon G. equips retailers to create stronger customer experiences, approaches events and local activation, builds loyalty among collectors, and balances heritage with newness across thousands of active designs. Brooke also discusses the advantages of operating as a family business, the importance of preserving the human and emotional side of fine jewelry, and how Simon G. is using AI and emerging technology to improve analysis and efficiency without sacrificing authenticity.

Explore more:

Retail Refined: https://marketscale.com/shows/retail-refined/

Simon G. Jewelry: https://simongjewelry.com/

Simon G. Jewelry on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simongjewelry/

Victoria’s Secret is one of the most recognizable brands in the world, but recognition alone does not guarantee relevance. In this episode of Retail Refined, host Melissa Gonzalez sits down with Victoria’s Secret CMO Elizabeth Preis to explore how an iconic brand evolves while remaining grounded in the heritage, emotional connection, and customer relationships that made it powerful in the first place.

Preis shares how Victoria’s Secret and PINK are shifting from promotion-led marketing toward product, emotion, and community. She explains the progression from awareness to relevance to resonance, the importance of giving each brand a clear identity, and how initiatives such as Angels Among Us are transforming customers from an audience into active participants.

The conversation also examines how leaders can amplify what is already working, establish consistency across fragmented customer touchpoints, and build teams around what Preis calls the “two T’s”: talent and trust. From redefining what it means to feel sexy and confident to setting audacious goals and cultivating curiosity, Preis offers a practical look at what it takes to keep a globally recognized brand meaningful to a new generation.

Learn More:

Retail Refined: https://marketscale.com/shows/retail-refined/

Victoria’s Secret: https://www.victoriassecret.com/us/

Connect with Elizabeth Preis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-preis-a2994a1/

Hanna Andersson has built one of the strongest emotional connections in children's apparel, and on this episode of Retail Refined, Kara Carter, Chief Product Officer, joins Melissa Gonzalez to unpack why. As Kara puts it, "anyone can make cute product, but not everyone will put the amount of intention and investment in the actual quality and construction of the product that we do."

Kara's path to the C-suite is anything but linear. A former competitive basketball player, she credits the sport with teaching her grit and teamwork before a career-ending injury sent her looking for direction. She and a friend later launched a high-end children's resale concept years before secondhand shopping caught on ("we were ahead of our times," she says), and that early lesson in resale would resurface decades later at Hanna Andersson. She joined the brand in 2014 and now oversees merchandising, design, fabric R&D, sourcing, technical design, and quality across the entire product organization.

The conversation digs into what actually makes a "Hanna" a Hanna: fabric weight, flatlock seams, a 60-wash durability test, and details like roomy cuffs designed so pajamas grow with the child. Kara also shares the evolution of Hanna-Me-Downs, the brand's peer-to-peer resale platform. Customers can cash out or take a Hanna gift card for their old pieces, and nearly 80% choose the gift card, then spend more than double its value back on the site, a cycle Kara calls "our love letter to our customer."

The episode closes on where children's apparel is headed: more self-expression, more mixing and matching, more kids driving their own style earlier than ever. And in a rapid-fire moment, Kara shares a story about her daughter's "I am" poem, an exercise from grade school revisited in college, that ends with the line "I am family holiday pajamas," a moment Kara calls proof that Hanna Andersson creates more than clothes; it creates core memories.

Connect with Kara Carter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kara-connolly-carter-5a45266/

Learn more about Hanna Andersson: https://www.hannaandersson.com/

For decades, the outlet trip had a familiar rhythm: get in the car, drive beyond the city, hunt for deals and come home with bags full of discounted finds. But that old model is giving way to something more layered. As retailers reinvest in store experiences to give consumers more reasons to visit, outlet centers are being reimagined as open-air destinations where food, wellness, entertainment and discovery sit alongside the promise of value. Tanger’s recent acquisition of The Town Center at Levis Commons in Perrysburg, Ohio — its fourth open-air lifestyle center — puts that strategy into focus. For a company founded in outlet retail 45 years ago, the move signals how Tanger is expanding its portfolio, from refreshed outlet centers to full-price lifestyle destinations.

What happens to the outlet model when shoppers still want value, but also expect food, entertainment, discovery and community?

In this episode of Retail Refined, host Melissa Gonzalez speaks with Stephen Yalof, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tanger. Their conversation explores how Tanger is “lifestyling” its outlet centers, why food, beverage, wellness and entertainment are becoming central to the shopping experience, and how recent acquisitions — including Town Center at Levis Commons in Ohio — reflect Tanger’s broader vision for open-air retail.

What you’ll learn…

• The outlet experience is shifting from transaction to destination. Yalof explains that outlet centers were once built around “power shopping,” but changing demographics and consumer expectations now require better food, entertainment, services and community-driven experiences.
• Physical retail and digital engagement are working together. Tanger uses loyalty, social media, digital messaging and local influencer partnerships to meet younger consumers where they are, while still giving them the in-person experience of seeing, feeling and trying products.
• Tanger is expanding its role in open-air, lifestyle-oriented retail. Through acquisitions such as Bridge Street Town Centre in Huntsville and Town Center at Levis Commons in Ohio, Tanger is applying its brand relationships, leasing, marketing and operations platforms to grow its presence in full-price lifestyle centers.

Stephen Yalof is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Tanger, where he leads a portfolio of outlet and open-air lifestyle centers across the United States and Canada. He has spent his career at the intersection of retail and real estate, with leadership roles at Simon Premium Outlets, Ralph Lauren and Gap. He also serves as a Trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers and sits on advisory boards for the Real Estate Roundtable and George Washington University’s Center for Real Estate Studies.

Physical retail is under pressure to become as measurable and responsive as e-commerce. While retailers have spent years optimizing digital channels with real-time data, store teams have often had to make decisions with incomplete inventory visibility and delayed operational signals. That gap matters because stores still account for 80% of U.S. retail sales, making better store-level intelligence a revenue, margin, and customer experience issue — not just a technology upgrade. As RFID adoption matures and AI raises the stakes for cleaner operational data, item-level visibility is becoming a more important layer of retail infrastructure. Radar, a retail technology company that recently raised $170 million in Series B funding at a billion-dollar valuation, reflects that shift, pointing to renewed confidence in tools that help retailers understand not only what inventory they have, but where it is, how it moves, and how associates can act on it in real time.

The shift is being driven by a practical question for retailers: if stores remain central to the business, how can they operate with the same speed, accuracy, and intelligence as digital channels?

On this episode of Retail Refined, host Melissa Gonzalez speaks with Spencer Hewett, founder and CEO of Radar, about how retailers can make physical stores more measurable, responsive, and operationally intelligent. The conversation explores how Radar’s ceiling-mounted sensors and software platform help retailers track inventory in real time, locate products inside stores, support omnichannel fulfillment, and use item-level data to improve store operations, merchandising, demand planning, and customer experience.

Key highlights from the talk…

• Radar’s role in closing the store data gap: Hewett explains how the platform counts inventory continuously and locates items in real time, giving retailers a clearer view of what is available, where it is, and how products move throughout the store.
• Why inventory accuracy is foundational: The discussion highlights how inaccurate inventory can create out-of-stocks, fulfillment issues, missed sales, and flawed demand planning. Hewett argues that improving inventory accuracy gives retailers better data for decision-making and future AI applications.
• How store intelligence supports associates and operations: Gonzalez and Hewett discuss how item-location data can help associates find products faster, fulfill buy online, pick up in store orders more efficiently, and spend more time serving customers instead of searching for merchandise.

Spencer Hewett is the founder and CEO of Radar, a retail technology company building RF sensing technology to automate inventory, analytics, and checkout in physical stores. Since founding the company in 2013, he has led its evolution from an autonomous checkout concept into a broader platform for item-level intelligence, working with retailers representing more than $100 billion in annual sales. Hewett is also a Thiel Fellow and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, with earlier experience in RFID localization, signal processing, e-commerce technology, and startup development.

Baby monitors have long promised parents the ability to see and hear their child from another room. But as connected health devices become more normalized in everyday life, from smartwatches to sleep trackers, parents are beginning to expect more than visibility. They want insight. For Owlet, that shift matters because its wearable monitors track critical infant health metrics like pulse rate and oxygen level, bringing hospital-grade technology into the home and turning baby monitoring into a more data-informed experience.

As infant monitoring moves beyond seeing and hearing, how can technology help parents truly understand their baby’s well-being, and how should that reassurance show up across the retail journey?

In this episode of Retail Refined, host Melissa Gonzalez welcomes Elizabeth Teran and Jennifer Billington from Owlet Baby Care for a discussion on how infant health technology is reshaping the way parents discover, evaluate, and shop for baby care products. The conversation explores Owlet’s FDA-cleared wearable monitoring technology, the role of physical retail in high-trust purchases, the importance of speed and availability for new parents, and how data, AI, and connected devices are reshaping expectations around early parenthood.

Top insights from the talk…

• Why infant monitoring is moving beyond audio and video. Teran explains that Owlet’s approach is built around “hearing, seeing, and knowing,” using a wearable sock to track pulse rate and oxygen levels in real time and alert parents if readings fall outside preset ranges.
• Why retail availability matters after the baby arrives. Billington notes that while 60% of Owlet customers buy before birth, 40% purchase after the baby is born, often following a rough night, illness, or health scare. That makes in-store availability, curbside pickup, same-day delivery, and omnichannel retail partnerships central to Owlet’s strategy.
• How data can empower, not overwhelm, parents. Teran says the opportunity is not just to show parents more information, but to help them understand what the data means, why it matters, and what they can do with it. Owlet has monitored more than two million babies and is building subscription and telehealth experiences designed to add context to infant health data.

Elizabeth Teran serves as Chief Parent Officer at Owlet Baby Care, where she leads product management, design, customer experience, and marketing with a focus on translating parent insights into products and experiences that build confidence and peace of mind. Since joining Owlet in 2020, she has held senior roles across product marketing, brand strategy, and executive marketing leadership, including Chief Marketing Officer and SVP of Marketing. Before Owlet, Teran spent nearly a decade at Skullcandy, where she led product marketing, consumer research, retail training, go-to-market strategy, and data-driven product positioning.

Jennifer Billington serves as the Head of Retail at Owlet, where she leads revenue strategy and execution with a focus on sustainable, profitable growth. Over the past five years, she has held increasingly senior sales roles at Owlet, including Director of Retail Sales, Vice President of North America Sales, SVP of Sales-Americas, and Chief Revenue Officer, overseeing domestic and international sales strategy. She brings more than 18 years of sales and channel leadership experience from the Coca-Cola system, where she managed major retail accounts, built strategic partnerships, led high-performing teams, and drove revenue growth across convenience, mass, drug, value, and foodservice channels.

Gen Alpha is no longer a future consumer segment—they are already shaping how retail and entertainment experiences are designed today. Research from MG2 shows that a whopping 70% of Gen Alpha influence what adults in their lives purchase, reshaping brand decisions faster than many companies are prepared for. As experiential retail continues to evolve—with concepts like Netflix House blending content and commerce—brands are under pressure to meet a generation that expects interaction, clarity, and relevance. The stakes are clear: experiences that fail to engage risk being quickly dismissed.

So what does retail actually look like through the eyes of Gen Alpha—and what are brands getting right or wrong when trying to capture their attention?

Welcome to Retail Refined. In the latest episode, host Melissa Gonzalez is joined by a very special guest: her 10-year-old daughter, Siena. Broadcasting from Dallas after visiting the Netflix House experience, the two explore how immersive entertainment translates (or doesn’t) for a Gen Alpha audience. Their conversation spans everything from interactive exhibits and store design to slang, content habits, and shopping preferences—offering an unfiltered look at how younger consumers evaluate retail environments today.

Key takeaways from the episode…

• Experience matters—but expectations are high: Gen Alpha responds to immersive retail environments, but expects deeper integration between content and experience. Concepts that connect storytelling with participation are more likely to drive repeat visits and sustained interest.
• Interactivity must feel real: Hands-on engagement is essential for Gen Alpha, but it needs to be meaningful. Environments that limit physical interaction can weaken the overall experience, even if the concept is visually compelling.
• Content and commerce are deeply connected: Entertainment-driven environments naturally extend into shopping and sharing behaviors. From gameplay to social “haul” culture, Gen Alpha seamlessly connects experiences with purchase intent and content creation.

Siena represents the leading edge of Gen Alpha—a digitally fluent, highly perceptive generation growing up with constant access to content and technology. In this conversation, she offers an honest, unfiltered point of view shaped by how she interacts with brands and content in everyday life. Her perspective offers a valuable lens into how this generation experiences retail and entertainment today.