Retail Unwrapped - from The Robin Report
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.
Episodes
312 episodes
EP 311: Halloween and Hershey’s Are Enduring Traditions
It’s no surprise that there's a lot going on in the mind of the consumer, with concerns about the economy, what's happening globally, and the pressures of online social interactions. Halloween provides a welcome reconnection with people in real...
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Retail Unwrapped on the Road: How Ace Gets Retail Media Right
Retail media, currently over-hyped and over-promoted, is typically seen as a novel advertising channel. That sells the network short as a business growth strategy. It is a powerful tool for multi-location, co-op-model retailers when it is used ...
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EP 310: Can AI Be Trusted?
AI is in the crosshairs of its creators, ethicists, legislators, and a nervous public. With recent headlines predicting the demise of humanity, how does anyone trust AI? On a more operational level, retailers can train and scale AI, but it cann...
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EP 309: Brand Drift and the Risks of AI Marketing
Most retail brands don't collapse in one dramatic moment; they drift, one small decision at a time. Gartner predicts that by 2027, 40 percent of CMOs pushing for bigger rebranding budgets will lose influence with the C-suite because they can't ...
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EP 308: A Visionary Designer Engineers a Radical Ganni Sneaker
It stands to reason that emerging technologies should help engineer visionary designs, and new tools will enable new solutions to old problems. That’s how Maria Intscher-Owrang, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Simplifyber used her curi...
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EP 307: How to Revive Personal Attention With Customers
Membership points and convenience aren't the same thing as loyalty. Starbucks found this out the hard way when their app went dark; customers didn't wait in line for their order; they walked down the street to the competition. Join Shelley and ...
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EP 306: An Economist's Warning on Shifts Impacting Holiday 2026
Retailers keep bracing for the same inflation story to replay, but tariffs, the war on Iran, and an AI-driven integration boom are rewriting pressure points. Tariff uncertainty and the AI data center boom that is consuming construction material...
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EP 305: How Does The Vermont Country Store Keep Going?
The Vermont Country Store is an 80-year-old retail icon that has sustained the charm that made it famous and the business expertise that has kept it thriving since 1946. We caught up with Eliot Orton, an 8th-generation Vermonter and 4th-generat...
EP 304: How to Avoid the AI Trust Recession
Who, or what, do you trust? Retailers who think moving quickly on generative AI as the winning strategy, may be sacrificing trust for speed driven by board and competitive pressure, not customer demand. Speed without building a trust framework ...
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EP 303: Autonomous Delivery in the Driveway
Every retailer preparing for autonomous delivery is watching the wrong vehicle; the real disruption isn't a drone or a sidewalk bot; it's the driverless car already parked in the customer's driveway. These autonomous vehicles are the next...
EP 302: It's About So Much More Than Lettuce
Who's watching the lettuce? The cyclospora outbreak has 1,600+ confirmed, and 7,000 suspected victims. Americans are panicked about fresh produce, and Taco Bell has taken the toll from its Taylor Farms lettuce supplier. Join TRR contributors Ph...
EP 301: Why an AI Agent Is More Trusted
Growing dependence on AI has revealed how risk and trust are influencing customer shopping behavior. Join Shelley and Shiv Gupta, Chief Analytics and Solutions Officer at Volute Group, as they explore how AI is used as a confessional when consu...
EP 300: Spoiler Alert: Stop Chasing AI and Clean Up Your Store First
AI continues to make headline news throwing retailers into disruption. But the real news is that retail is in crisis and it’s in the physical store. Join Shelley and Mark Cohen, TRR contributor and former Director of Columbia University's Retai...
EP 299: Signals Retailers Are Missing
The biggest threats to retail are hiding in plain sight. And the biggest problems facing retailers are caused by not asking the right questions. This is not convenient management theory; it is missing the key signals that are reshaping the reta...
EP 298: What AI Can’t Deliver
Everyone thinks AI will replace the workforce. But that’s the wrong assumption. The real question is what human work will become more valuable once machines handle the basics. Join Shelley and Ron Thurston, author of Retail Pride...
EP 297: Humans Are the Weakest Link in Your Data Strategy
The weakest link in most data strategies is the human factor; it’s the team members who can’t agree on measuring what matters. Add to that, communications often break down in the best tech solutions to deploy and how to integrate them to preven...
EP 296: Gaming AI Search
AI search is growing at over 300 percent while traditional browser search is declining. Most retailers and brands are completely unprepared for what that means for their search visibility. Join Shelley and Heather Holmes, Founder of Publicity f...
EP 295: Are Your ORC Forensics Up to Date?
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 ...
EP 294: The AI-Empowered Store
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 Stepha...
EP 293: The Comeback of Century 21 NYC
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 tel...
EP 292: How to Be Human in the AI Era
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 ...
Ep 291: Luxury’s Future After the War in Iran
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...
EP 290: The Next Frontier: Agentic AI and Operations
AI isn’t just a use case; it's a new commerce channel and operating model designed to amplify loyalty economics. Agents will help customers personally through discovery, comparisons, purchase, and fulfilling their orders. So retail, which has ...
EP 289: Jockey Turns 150 Years Old and Is Still Inventing
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 re...
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