Introducing the Voice of Retail: Connecticut Retail Network's Podcast

The inaugural episode of The Voice of Retail podcast introduces the Connecticut Retail Network, highlighting its mission to represent the retail industry in Connecticut. The discussion covers the economic impact of retail, the importance of small businesses, and the network's role in advocating for retailers at the state capital. Future episodes will delve into various topics affecting the retail landscape, including community events and legislative impacts on consumer savings.

The Connecticut Retail Network is The Voice of Retail, at the State Capitol and across the state. Our podcast features timely conversations about retail topics and trends, with retail industry leaders and business owners from throughout the state. It’s a podcast for retailers – and their customers! To learn more about us please visit https://ctretailnetwork.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Connecticut Retail Network
• 2:37 Overview of the Connecticut Retail Network's Mission
• 5:29 Events and Community Engagement in Retail
• 7:46 Future Topics and Conclusion

Transcript

Welcome to the Voice of Retail, the podcast of the Connecticut Retail Network. I'm Tim Phelan, the president of the Connecticut Retail Network and your host for this podcast. We're looking forward to providing insight into the retail industry in Connecticut from the perspective of retailers and retail customers. And we're glad that you've joined us for our, for this inaugural podcast. Retail industry is the nation's largest private sector employer, contributing $5.3 trillion.

to the annual GDP and supporting more than one in four U.S. jobs, 55 million working Americans. The Connecticut Retail Network represents the retail industry in the state of Connecticut, an industry that supports more than 470,000 jobs and contributes more than $34 billion to our state's economy. 24 % of the jobs in Connecticut, nearly one in four, are supported by the retail industry and

More than 98 % of all retail companies are small businesses, employing fewer than 50 people. The Connecticut Retail Network is the voice of retail at the state capital and across the state. Our podcast will feature timely conversations about retail topics and trends with retail industry leaders and business owners from throughout the state. It's a podcast for retailers and their customers. Retail businesses are everywhere in Connecticut.

They are small and large, local and national in large cities, small towns. New businesses continue to emerge and longstanding retailers achieve milestones of longevity each and every year. It's an industry that sees near constant change and is resilient and responsive. For many people, retail was their first job. And for many others, retail is their career. We look forward to discussing many topics on this podcast.

and we'll welcome your suggestions. If there's a retail topic you'd like to hear more about, please let us know. After the podcast, to learn more about the Connecticut retail industry, visit our website, www.ctretailnetwork.com. And you can send us an email with your ideas for future podcasts. To get us started, our guest today is Abby Jewett, who's the chair of the Connecticut Retail Network.

Abby is regional director, external affairs, Northeast for Philip Morris International, located in Stanford, Connecticut. Welcome Abby. Hello Tim, glad to be with you. Abby and I wanted to take just a couple of minutes in this initial podcast to talk a little about the Connecticut retail network and its mission and to highlight some of the future topics we're planning on talking about on this podcast.

Abby, can you give our listeners an overview of who we are and describe the mission of the Connecticut Retail Network? Tim, I'm happy to. The Connecticut Retail Network is a statewide organization that represents the retail industry here in Connecticut. We are a membership driven organization that includes some of the largest national retailers that have stores in Connecticut, as well as many important independent retailers that are located all over the state.

One of our most important responsibilities is to represent retailers at state capital, where decisions are made that can impact not only retail businesses, but also retail customers. In fact, the only issues that we lobby for are those that impact retailers and consumers. That is our sole focus. And as we hold, also we hold a couple of cool events throughout the year, highlighting the retail industry in our state and bringing retailers together.

So we kind of act as a chamber of commerce for the retail industry throughout Connecticut. That's great, Abby. Thanks for that overview. You're the current chair of the board of directors of CRN. Can you talk a little bit more about the board and how it sets the tone and direction for CRN? Sure. There's a 20 person board of directors that, as you mentioned, Tim, oversees the operation of the Connecticut retail network by adopting a budget, setting priorities for the year,

and helping promote the industry. Our board members, who are terrific by the way, are drawn from throughout the industry in Connecticut, retail business owners and individuals involved in the retail industry. You're right about the board. They are terrific, Abby. And so in addition to the lobbying you mentioned, we also hold a couple of events each year. We held a golf outing in June and our big fall event is being planned for October. Can you talk just a little bit about those?

Sure. The golf outing is used to help raise funds for the network. And that was held earlier this month and was a huge success. And in the fall, we hold our annual event. It's really our signature event where we get together to celebrate retail and honor retailers with the retailer of the year and other awards, really highlighting the terrific retail community here in Connecticut.

That event will take place in early October at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford. As more details are developed for this year's event, we will post those on our website too. Yeah, that is great. We're really looking forward to our fall event. We hope everyone will take the time to visit our website, again, ctretailnetwork.com, and learn more about our fall event. Day in and day out, much of our work focuses on the important issues that are discussed

state capital by state legislators and state agencies. Some of these conversations lead to new laws and others don't. Some of these laws can be a big help to retailers and their customers and others less so. Maybe you can share with us some examples, issues that may well be known to the retail industry and customers.

The one that comes immediately to mind is Sales Tax Free Week every August. That's a way for consumers to save money on retail clothing purchases, and it has become a tradition in Connecticut. This year, it will be August 18th to the 24th, right before the start of the school year, and I know all parents appreciate that. And that's one example.

Sure, Abby, that's a great example. We've worked really hard to try to put that with the legislature to get that law on the books and to keep it on the books. So I'm sure we'll be diving into delving into many more topics in future podcasts. So thank you, Abby, for joining us to introduce this podcast for the Connecticut Retail Network. And to those of you who may not be familiar with us, who or who want to learn more, this will be a podcast for retailers and consumers. We hope to explore the issues that are central to the operations

of a retail business to their employees and customers. We aim to provide some insights into the industry and have engaging conversations with the people who are the heart and soul of the Connecticut retail industry. We're gonna wrap up our first podcast by thanking those folks who have listened and just let you know that future podcasts will include topics ranging from retail's impact on Connecticut's economy to member profiles and specific issues that retailers face

every day in running their businesses. We hope you will join us for this journey. So please look for our next CRN Voice of Retail podcast, and please remember to like this podcast on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Thanks again, Abby, and thanks everyone for listening in.

-              END -