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
270 episodes
EP 270: Sprouts: Pioneer in Health and Wellness
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 t...
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25:40
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EP 269: Luxury Leather's Toxic Impact
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’...
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22:59
EP 268: Never Underestimate the Power of Weather
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 th...
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17:50
EP 267: How a D2C Brand Beat the Odds in Scaling to Retail
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 Sh...
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24:15
EP 266: Retail 2025 Was a Radical Shift
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 vel...
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27:33
EP 265: AI Is an Ally, not the Enemy
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-faci...
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25:45
EP 264: Fast Tracking the Beauty Industry
Here’s a stark warning for beauty executives: Brands that cling to traditional manufacturing models are already obsolete—they just don't know it yet. The challenges facing beauty CMOs are hitting critical mass: It's not just driving growth, it’...
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28:46
EP 263: How Uncle Jerry’s Pretzels Is a Poster Child for Healthy Snacks
Big brands in the food industry face a double-edged challenge: Make snacks healthy and deliver duller colors and unfamiliar tastes. Eliminating dyes and reducing preservatives and sugar are consumer demands that are forcing food manufacturers t...
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26:06
EP 262: A Preview of Mixed Holiday Spending Trends
In a wide-ranging conversation, Shelley and Tom McGee, president and CEO of ICSC, discuss a mix of consumer trends that will impact holiday spending. It might surprise you to know that Gen X controls 33 percent of all spending (although only 19...
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26:09
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EP 261: Why Traditional Retail Stores Are Missing Return on Experience
When you are an architect who works on projects around the world, your perspective about American retail changes through a refined filter. Kevin Roche, Founder of Roche Design Strategy, has the advantage of understanding firsthand the power of ...
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35:03
EP 260: Leading with Impact and Purpose
Modern leadership often confuses constant availability with maximum impact. It veers off course when it ignores intuition in favor of data. Join Shelley and Melissa Gonzalez, Principal and founder of MG2 in a conversation about her new book, Th...
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26:59
EP 259: How to Get a Better Seat at the Table
Here’s a surprising fact: A workplace revolution is underway and fundamentally reimagining how ergonomics drives productivity and employee retention. With mandates of returns to office, companies are discovering that outdated workspace designs ...
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22:24
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EP 258: AI Is Transforming the Fashion Supply Chain
The fashion industry's stubborn reliance on outdated supply chain practices is bleeding profits and destroying consumer trust. Traditional approaches to sizing, inventory management, and trend forecasting are creating failures across the entire...
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31:08
EP 257: How to Build a Retail Media Empire
Spoiler alert: The physical store is an experiential platform that can tap into retail media network ad spending projected to reach $100 billion by 2026. In a digital marketplace, dynamic advertising platforms leverage AI-powered analytics to c...
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25:11
EP 256: Primark Sets Its Sights on the States
Primark's strategic U.S. expansion started 10 years ago and is a master plan in calculated retail growth that could fundamentally reshape America's affordable fashion landscape. Primark has 450 stores worldwide and 33 in the States. It has ambi...
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23:43
EP 255: Why Retailers Are Becoming Political Casualties in Culture Wars
Crisis management has become a requisite strategy in today’s fractious marketplace. The socio-political landscape has become a minefield for retailers where one misstep can trigger unprecedented consumer backlash and boycotts. In today's hyperc...
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27:00
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EP 254: Ace Hardware Knows How to Build Community
How do you make yourself matter to your local community? If you’re a hardware retailer, what you have to offer is more than nice; it’s a necessity. Ace Hardware gets it. They are innovative players in the retail media landscape with RedVest Med...
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21:04
EP 253: An Inside Look at The Honest Company’s Transformation
Some turnarounds make for epic legends. How do you rebuild a brand and transform it dramatically in two years? The Honest Company, co-founded by Jessica Alaba in 2011, is experiencing a renaissance with double-digit revenue growth and the highe...
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26:51
EP 252: Blunt Talk About Retail News Headlines
Provocative, controversial, and blunt observations about what’s making retail news headlines. Shelley and TRR contributor Mark Cohen, who is an industry veteran and former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, explore a few of...
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40:17
EP 251: Surprises About Rising Food Costs
While consumers fixate on tariffs as the primary force behind rising food prices, the reality is far more complex and revealing. Regulatory changes, labor costs and operational expenses coupled with new tariff pressures on some food categories ...
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36:02
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EP 250: AI Alert: The Retail Workforce Is About to Change
The retail industry stands at a crossroads where artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate millions of jobs while simultaneously creating new opportunities—but only for those retailers smart enough to adapt. Rather than competing with AI, ...
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36:39
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EP 249: Why the Fed’s Policy Paralysis Threatens BTS and Holiday
The Federal Reserve's policy paralysis is creating a perfect storm for retailers heading into the most critical selling season of the year. Inflation is still threatening, labor markets are more fragile than they appear, and tariff-driven price...
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24:10
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EP 248: Stop Chasing Normal: Disruption Is Your Opportunity
The retail apocalypse isn't coming—it's here, and survival depends on adaptation, not market dominance. Consumer behavior has fundamentally shifted beyond price sensitivity to a complex value equation encompassing convenience, curation, and exp...
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35:03
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EP 247: Watch What Your Customers Do, Not Say
Do you know how to unlock the hidden opportunities in what your customers aren’t telling you? Traditional consumer research captures what customers say they want but misses the subconscious decisions driving 85 percent of purchasing behavior. E...
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30:03
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