In this episode, Wendy Liebmann and Candace Corlett provide a preview of What’s Up in WSL’s latest How America Shops® research.
You’ll learn
- Why retailers’ efforts to differentiate are not working.
- How spontaneous shopping is impacting traffic, both in-store and online.
- What categories are most susceptible – and most opportune -- to the spontaneous trip.
- What to do about it.
In this episode:
Wendy Liebmann discusses how retailers have the opportunity to reintroduce themselves to shoppers as they move out of their COVID-cocoons with Steve Sadove, retired Chairman & CEO of Saks Incorporated, and current board member of Colgate-Palmolive and advisor to Mastercard and private equity.
They discuss:
- The new foundation for retail
- How to build relationships with shoppers in a mobile-first world
- How shopper data and analytics and perfect information will separate retail winners and losers
- The future of marketplaces, commercializing live-streaming, Tik Tok, and new payment methods that open up shoppers’ wallets
- The need to create a seamless total experience for shoppers
- Supply chain challenges and opportunities
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann discusses the expertise, mindset, and agility retail leaders will need in the future with Professor Stephan Kanlian, Chairperson of FIT’s Master’s Program in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management, and Morgan Hagney, AVP, Maybelline New York.
They discuss:
- Critical capabilities required in the new phygital retail environment
- The urgency to build consumer- and shopper-centric organizations
- How to deal with a fluid and fast accelerating channel strategy
- The need for a broader global perspective as context for change
- The social role brands must play today
- The future of supply chain and emerging agile technologies
Wendy Liebmann and Paco Underhill, founder of Envirosell, the behavioral research company, discuss how retail must respond faster to social change if it is to keep up with shoppers.
Wendy and Paco discuss:
- What shoppers expect now from retailers and brands
- What made a good store a decade ago does not work today
- How supply chain innovation opens the doors for curation, personalization, and localization
- Why internet shopping needs to “be beaten up”
- How effective leadership is about being on the “selling floor”
- Examples of best – and worst -- retail experiences
Wendy Liebmann and Terry Thomas, EVP & Chief Customer Officer, Unilever US, discuss how diversity and inclusion are critical to building a modern, socially responsible company that today’s shoppers expect.
Wendy and Terry discuss:
- What Diversity and Inclusion actually mean (it’s more than ethnicity)
- Why an intrinsic, top-down approach is critical, and how to execute it
- How to build and retain the best talent through diversity and inclusion
- How manufacturers and retailers need to collaborate to deliver a cohesive approach to diversity and inclusion
- Why shoppers are at the center of this, and why “seeing them” is the key to success
- What retail needs to look like in the future
Our own Wendy Liebmann and Candace Corlett (WSL’s dynamic leadership duo) discuss the new realities of the emerging retail world and challenge whether or not new shopping patterns formed during the pandemic will endure.
Wendy and Candace discuss:
- Whether physical stores will remain viable
- How time is now the focus of every trip
- How “spontaneous” shopping is the biggest retail opportunity and challenge
- Why Amazon is facing pushback now
- How national brand trust has diminished (in spite of what companies say)
- The biggest mistakes companies are making
- What companies must focus on right now
- What Shopping Next really looks like
In this episode, our own Wendy Liebmann and Christine Cross, UK-based global retail consultant, discuss trends that are already disrupting retail around the world.
Wendy and Christine discuss:
- The impact of channel agnosticism on how people shop, and where companies invest
- The growth of DTC and how it enables brands to stay closer to shoppers
- How shoppers (and investors) are increasingly concerned about societal health
- How the last moment of the shopper’s experience is defining success – or failure.
- New food practices that are disrupting the future of big box retail
- The intense pressure on non-food categories post-pandemic, and
- That big brands are not infallible.
Our own Wendy Liebmann and Colleen Lindholz, President of Kroger Health, discuss the power of retail to transform lives, and Kroger’s journey to help Americans be healthier -- during the pandemic and every day.
Wendy and Colleen discuss:
- Kroger’s “Food as Medicine” strategy grounded in affordable, personalized solutions
- How the shopper is the center of the strategy
- Kroger’s multi-disciplinary approach, across aisles, categories, services, and digital
- The impact of COVID19 – what will stick and not
- A view to the future, and the critical metrics of success
In this episode our own Wendy Liebmann and Norman De Greve, Chief Marketing Officer at CVS Health, discuss how retail, and companies that sell through retail, need to communicate differently with shoppers today; what’s the same, what’s different and what the future will demand.
Wendy and Norm discuss:
- How digital has changed and how companies must communicate with shoppers
- The impact of COVID19
- The importance for retailers to build their own brand and messages
- How to build trust
- How retailers and manufacturers need to work together to deliver cohesive communication
- How CVS is building new communication across its multi-platforms and enterprise
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann interviews Andy Murray, CEO of BigQUEST, and Founder and Chair, Customer Centric Leadership Initiative at the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business, and formerly head of customer experience at Walmart and ASDA UK.
Wendy and Andy discuss:
- Why being a shopper-centric organization is more important than ever.
- The role of the physical store in an omni-channel world.
- How to deliver “new” when people no longer shop the aisles.
- How to build shopper-centric organizations to drive the Future of Retail.
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann interviews Greg Farrar, CEO of ECRM, a leading trade organization and provider of business-to-business solutions for retail food service operators, health system buyers, and for the suppliers of consumer packaged goods for general merchandise, food service products, medical supplies, and pharmaceuticals.
You’ll learn:
- How the pandemic changed the relationship between brands and retailers
- How ECRM flipped its business model in a moment as it was no longer tethered to time and space
- How the organization has opened up the global business world to buyers and sellers just as the physical world was closing down, and
- What all organizations, big and small, can learn from this as they build the future of retail
In the final episode of this 3-part discussion, WSL Strategic Retail’s Wendy Liebmann and Candace Corlett, reflect on how shoppers are moving on having survived the chaos, and how companies must reset fast to accommodate them. The implications for retail, brands and service companies are now crystal clear: Retail must restructure (finally) to accommodate new technologies shoppers have quickly adopted. Brands must connect in new ways emotionally. And a new level of service expectations emerges.
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann and Candace Corlett, WSL Strategic Retail’s managing partners, continue the previous discussion and talk bluntly about the fact that there is no going back. That longing for the past days of retail – pre-pandemic – is irrelevant and dangerous. They discuss how retail has not been “a happy place” for shoppers for a long time, that the pandemic merely exacerbated the situation. They discuss how to connect emotionally with shoppers in a digital world, where brands fit, the movement to smaller stores, and how shoppers are dealing with the recession.
Wendy Liebmann and Candace Corlett, WSL Strategic Retail’s managing partners, discuss key shopper insights from the first six months of the pandemic, surprises and new realities, and how retailers and brands must now move forward. In this first segment of a three-part discussion, they answer the burning question: Will shoppers ever go back to the store?
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann interviews Dr. Gayatri Devi, a nationally recognized neurologist, attending physician at Lenox Hill Hospital/Northwell Health, director of New York Memory and Healthy Aging Services, and author of “A Calm Brain: How to Relax Into a Stress-free, High-powered Life”.
You’ll learn:
- How the current pandemic has changed not only relationships with families and work but also retail experiences.
- What shoppers are missing and now long for.
- The importance of creating emotional engagement at retail now.
- The new vernacular to rebuild trust with shoppers.
- The power of retail in a world where everyday personal connections are now limited.
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann interviews Matthew Parry, Senior Director II of Customer Experience at Walmart Health & Wellness, about how the largest retailer in the world is disrupting everyday health care.
You’ll learn:
- Walmart’s strategy to build personal health care solutions – from clinics to the whole store
- New customer purchasing behaviors inside and outside the store
- How Covid-19 has forced Walmart to leapfrog 5 years into the future
- And lots more
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann interviews Craig Dubitsky, the “happy” founder of Hello Products, about how to create brands and retail that shoppers want in these volatile times. They discuss reinventing established categories, how big companies can move fast, how unleashing internal creativity can transform business culture and how, as e-commerce has grown, retail has become all about “how I got it” rather than the magic of “what I got” – and that’s no longer good enough. These two iconoclasts agree that it is essential in these times to humanize brands and retail whether you’re a small entrepreneurial company or a global giant.
In this episode, Helena Foulkes, former CEO of Hudson’s Bay Co (Saks Fifth Avenue), president of CVS Health and current Home Depot board member, talks frankly to Wendy Liebmann about the future of retail, winners and losers, silver linings and how to lead in a crisis.
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann, WSL’s CEO & Chief Shopper, interviews Elizabeth Gretkowski, senior consultant at WSL, about The Big Business of WELL. They discuss how shoppers are responding in this time of heightened anxiety, their underlying mindset, share insights from WSL’s How America Shops® research, and define the long-term implications for retailers and manufacturers. They tell you how to reframe your thinking and your business culture.
In this episode, Wendy Liebmann, CEO & Chief Shopper, interviews Candace Corlett, president of WSL, about how companies have been pre-occupied with Amazon. They talk about how the shopper, not Amazon, has been disrupting the retail world. And that Amazon is merely the enabler of what shoppers want. They share highlights from WSL’s latest How America Shops® research and tell you how to reframe your thinking.
