Retail Unwrapped - from The Robin Report

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As organized crime gets bolder and more sophisticated, so do the tools that retailers can deploy to stop criminals in their tracks.  ORC has become a $112 billion annual loss for retailers with mass theft feeding fencing operations across a retail enterprise. Every retailer needs to be concerned about what these gangs are up to, how they're infiltrating their organizations and impacting not just their profitability, but also the safety of their customers and their employees. It has gotten so flagrant that 90 percent of frontline workers say they’ve had situations in the store that make them feel unsafe. Join Shelley and Gary Sankri, Retail Lead at Esri, as they discuss risk assessment and reveal the strategies and forensics tools retailers can use to reverse this ORC tide. They explain how data sharing, facial recognition, parking lot surveillance, escape routes, license plate readers, timing analysis, heat maps, RFID scanning tools and high-tech security cameras that are loaded with heat and sonic sensors that are valuable ammunition in arsenals to fight retail crime. Listen and learn how to be highly-alert and proactive to help prevent ORC. 

Special Guest:

Gary Sankary, Retail Industry Lead, Esri

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We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

Just released, ICSC and McKinsey do a deep dive in a new report, “Shopping in the age of AI: Redefining stores for a new era.” Spoiler alert: Agentic AI could drive up to $1 trillion in U.S. retail revenue by 2030.  Join Shelley and Stephanie Cegielski, Vice President of Public Relations and Industry Education at ICSC as they dig into the findings. Find out how speed of agentic adoption is outpacing most retail roadmaps and what happens when consumer expectations and spending behavior converge in an agentic powered marketplace. Meeting the expectations of highly informed consumers will rely on AI for everything from convenience to discovery. The big question? Are your retail operations ready? Listen and learn how to catch up to the future. 

Special Guest: Stephanie Cegielski, Vice President, Public Relations & Industry Education of ICSC

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

Iconic Century 21 closed its doors in 2020, not the first retail victim of the fallout from the pandemic. Five years later the brand’s comeback story marks a page in retail lore. Join Shelley and Larry Mentzer, COO of Century 21 NYC as they tell the story of the courage it takes to learn from mistakes and protect a legacy. They discuss second acts, managing a balance sheet, competing in physical retail and the dramatic shift in shopper behavior. In a frenzied digital marketplace, they reveal that FOMO is no longer a tactic, it's a survival strategy. Creating urgency inside a physical store based in lower Manhattan, particularly without an ecommerce safety net, is now a core operating discipline to win Gen Z and rebuild a heritage brand.

Special Guest: Larry Mentzer, COO of Century 21 NYC

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

Conversations in C-suites about AI typically bring up cost efficiencies, job cutbacks, competitive edges and workplace transformation. What leaders don’t discuss is being human in an AI era and what fundamental human skills and talents are not replaceable. Often the human being gets forgotten and people become numbers. What should retail executives be focusing on with their workforce? Join Shelley and Dominick Miserandino, CEO of RTMNexus, as they challenge the current conversation with what employees really want to hear: You are part of the journey and we're going to help you with the AI that we're implementing. They talk about taking a 30,000-foot viewpoint about the many impacts and implications of AI led by a map charting where you're headed. They emphasize how conversations that matter pave the way for successful AI integration. Listen and learn how to build trustworthy relationships by listening and understanding and how to communicate in relatable and relevant ways with any organization’s most important resource: its employees.

Special Guest: Dominick Miserandino, CEO, RTMNexus 

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

The global luxury market has been experiencing a quiet crisis, and the war in Iran has accelerated its fragile spiral downward disrupting the Middle East as an emerging luxury market. With over $7.5 trillion in Gulf regional wealth projected to double by 2050, the big question is not whether luxury demand survives the conflict, but whether brands have a long-term strategy.  Join Shelley and TRR contributors Arick Wierson and Pamela Danziger as they deconstruct the impact of the war and challenge the conventional wisdom driving luxury brand strategy. They discuss how betting on Middle Eastern elites to keep spending abroad while their home region is under siege is not an intelligent strategy.  Listen and learn how luxury brands can reclaim their status and position in the Mideast and cultivate new emerging markets in Africa.

Special Guests:

Arick Wierson, TRR contributor, political analyst and Emmy-winning producer 

Pamela Danziger, TRR contributor, founder Unity Marketing and luxury expert

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

Special Guests:

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

A family-owned, 150-year-old brand continues to succeed by sticking to the foundational values of the brand despite short-term disruptions and short-term market volatility. It’s no accident that Jockey has built something that is rare in the retail industry — a brand consumers have trusted for 150 years. Join Shelley and Mark Fedyk, President and COO of Jockey, as they reveal how the brand has been an inventor looking for a better way or a way to solve a problem, why complacency is a threat, and how to make sure you don't lose sight and connection with the consumer. Learn how to steward a legacy brand through a marketplace moving at warp speed and why discipline is such a most powerful competitive advantage in retail. In Jockey’s case, family ownership is a strategic asset that has sustained its long-term momentum.

Special Guest: Mark Fedyk, President and COO of Jockey

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

CEO succession can be a minefield. Who makes the decision?  Who gets the crown? Retail just lived through its most turbulent CEO cycle in a generation. Retail companies reported 41 CEO exits through August 2025, a 116 percent increase from the same period a year earlier making retail the top industry for CEO turnover. Join TRR contributors and retail experts Phil Lempert and Mark Cohen as they discuss and debate the imprecise science of leadership succession. This candid conversation holds nothing back on the both the great decisions and dismal choices in recent CEO appointments. Listen and learn who’s doing it right and who’s in for trouble among grocery and general merchandise retail brands.

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

The fastest-growing consumer behavior shift isn't driven by a trend, a digital platform, or a fickle generation: it’s a weight loss drug. GLP-1 adoption is accelerating so fast that Ozempic is outpacing iPhone adoption curves in the same timeframe.  Retailers (both grocery and apparel) are treating this trend as a passing diet fad. Join Shelley with Liza Amlani, Founder of Retail Strategy Group and Ali Furman, PwC's Consumer Markets Industry Leader as they challenge retailers to confront how to serve customers when body sizes change faster than the systems built to serve them. One outlook? Up to 400 million apparel units could be misaligned with actual demand by 2027, with retailers facing up to a $5 billion margin hit from oversized inventory, returns, and markdowns. Listen and learn why the GPT craze is an opportunity, not a transaction, for retailers who build trust with consumers whose bodies, wardrobes, and identities are all in flux. That loyalty will outlast the drug itself.

Special Guests: Liza Amlani, Principal and Founder, Retail Strategy Group and Ali Furman, Consumer Markets Industry Leader, PwC

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

We'd love to have your feedback and ideas for future episodes of Retail Unwrapped. Just text us!

The Attention Economy is not a mandate for viral moments and six-second social clips. Long-form storytelling captures more attention, engagement and potential activation than fleeting moments of marketing distraction. Join Shelley and Bill Neff, Head of Marketing at Yeti, as they pull back the curtain on why one of the most admired consumer brands in America has built its empire by doing the opposite of what the Attention Economy demands. Yeti takes the long view in building its hunt-and-fish brand into a global lifestyle icon without losing its relevance. Yeti's is also a contrarian when it comes to its partnership and acquisition strategy. Bill reveals that Yeti partners for life. It is also disciplined in its approach to international expansion where Yeti's 16 percent international growth is proof that listening to local markets and responding accordingly is strengthening its global consumer engagement. Listen and learn how Yeti's philosophy is human-centric, trusting its ambassadors, communities, and outliers to tell the brand’s stories.

Special Guest: Bill Neff, Head of Marketing, Yeti

For more strategic insights and compelling content, visit TheRobinReport.com, where you can read, watch, and listen to content from retail industry experts, and be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.