Retail Unwrapped from The Robin Report

How Barnes & Noble Made a Comeback

Mark Faithfull — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Depending on what you read, no one is reading books anymore. Are we addicted streamers? A 2025 study found that daily reading for pleasure dropped by over 40 percent in the last 20 years, with nearly 46 percent of U.S. adults not reading a single book in 2023. Americans are reading an average of 12.6 books per year. Invoking the 80/20 rule, in 2025, 19 percent of adults (those who read 10+ books) accounted for 82 percent of all books read.

The numbers would validate the fact that the iconic Barnes & Noble bookseller was pushed to the edge of extinction, accelerated by the unrelenting digital rise of Amazon. So, it is all the more counterintuitive that Barnes & Noble stands as one of the most remarkable retail turnarounds of the past decade.

How did Barnes & Noble turn around a dying business? And the answer is: James Daunt revitalized an iconic brand by re-humanizing the business.

B&N Rising from the Ashes

If you follow the readership numbers, it is surprising that under the leadership of James Daunt, the English-born bookseller has not only clawed back relevance but has also expanded to the point that its private equity owner is readying an initial public offering for the combined Barnes & Noble and Waterstones business.

Elliott Management is expected to hire investment bank Rothschild & Co. to advise on options for a public offering of its retail group, which could happen as early as the second quarter of this year and is likely to be on the London Stock Exchange. So just how did an ailing bookseller turn the tables on a global digital giant with endless bookshelves and its own e-readers glued to its proprietary screens? And then is the 20 percent of book-reading consumers responsible for Barnes & Noble’s success? It’s a logical assumption.

Elliott Takes Waterstones Formula to the U.S.

When Elliott Investment Management acquired Barnes & Noble in 2019 for $683 million, revenue was in decline, losses were mounting, and it faced a formidable competitor in Amazon; the digital behemoth had fundamentally changed how Americans bought and consumed books. For years, Amazon’s market dominance, ease of purchase, low prices and proprietary Kindle e-reader left traditional bookstores struggling to turn the page.

James Daunt’s arrival in New York was greeted with cautious optimism. A former banker, he had his own successful, eponymous bookstore group in the U.K, which he continues to own. Daunt brought a philosophy radically different from the corporate uniformity that had defined Barnes & Noble’s operations for years as a mall and main street staple. Drawing on his experience at Waterstones, where he had been at the helm since 2011, he insisted local stores be run more like independent shops than cookie-cutter chains. Daunt undertook a sweeping cultural overhaul. Local store managers were empowered to curate selections tailored to their communities, shelving displays were reimagined, and the emphasis shifted from broad and deep inventory to curated discovery.

“Everybody thinks that we must be doing one thing; either we must be going small, or we must be going large. The fact is, we’re doing everything,” Daunt told me about the range of store formats Barnes & Noble is now operating. He stressed his long-held belief that physical retail can compete with the utility of online bookstores as long as it offers variety and relevance to its local customers.

Barnes & Noble Expansion

The transformation has been dramatic. Barnes & Noble opened over 60 new stores across the U.S. in 2025 and pushed its holdings above 700 locations, with plans for 60 more in 2026. Waterstones in the UK is approaching 400 stores, with more expansion planned.

The company remains determined that the store portfolio will be just as eclectic as the site selection, although the new stores are generally smaller than its traditional larger-footprint outlets. This reflects the change of emphasis to a curated rather than all-encompassing offer and the more cost-effective nature of smaller units.

Daunt said that when expanding locations, he was less interested in the plethora of analytical location data and more focused on gut feel. New locations are driven by “self-observation” from the company’s field team, who identify possible sites and store managers ready for the next step to run their own stores. While he is reticent to admit his personal satisfaction, Barnes & Noble took over some former, shuttered Amazon Books stores. It’s hard not to conjure up the image of Daunt’s victory stroll through a repurposed and more relevant bookstore.

Building Loyalty

“The model that we now have, which devotes considerable responsibility and accountability to the store teams, means you can set up a store appropriate to the place in which you find yourself. We’re not trying to have the same store on the Upper East Side as we would if we’re opening in, say, Montana or indeed the Bronx, just a few miles away,” Daunt added.

In recent years, Barnes & Noble has also reconsidered what it sells, reducing reliance on technical or specialist volumes in favor of broader lifestyle offerings, including stationery, greeting cards, gift items, the prerequisite Starbucks café, and other categories that drive both discovery and sales. There are special events including readings and signings, a children’s area where they can sit and read (and be read to), and plenty of adult seating to settle in with a new book.

The company has “evolved the Amazon out of our bookstores,” as Daunt puts it and has firmly prioritized the human experience, including collaborations with, for example, children’s favorite Moomin to promote and create special areas within stores. B&N is reclaiming the role of a community hub, returning on experience.

Site Selection Based on Local Lore

Daunt’s highly unconventional approach to B&N’s expansion reflects his own history as a bookseller rather than as a retailer. “We’re not that traditional big-box retailer where it’s all driven by the real estate dynamic,” he said. “Of course, you need the landlord with properties who wishes to lease them to you. But we’re in places where we think we will do well and where people want to buy books.”

These changes have paid off. The combined Barnes & Noble and Waterstones business now generates more than $3 billion in sales and over $400 million in profits. Perhaps the boldest sign of confidence is the advanced talks over a public offering. The IPO isn’t just a financial event; it is a validation of a belief that brick-and-mortar bookselling can thrive in a world dominated by ecommerce.

The strategy of deferring to local taste over stock-wide uniformity and treating stores as community hubs rather than depots of inventory stands in stark contrast to Amazon’s homogenized and algorithmically curated marketplace. And while Amazon’s sophisticated recommendation engines and global logistics continue to dominate online book sales, they cannot replicate the serendipity of browsing a thoughtfully merchandised bookstore. It’s that gap that gives Barnes & Noble a competitive edge.

Postcards From the Edge

Daunt’s intuitive leadership and the company’s resurgence come at a time when broader consumer trends have shown renewed interest in physical books and demand for in-person experiences. Viral social media movements around reading, such as the #BookTok phenomenon, have highlighted how discovery can flourish in community settings far beyond algorithms.

That said, bookstore sales in the U.S. declined 8 percent over the five-year period from $8.6 billion in 2019 to $7.9 billion in 2024, according to the Census Bureau’s Annual Retail Trade Survey. Barnes & Noble is bucking the trends, appealing to core book buyers and providing meaningful experiences. The brand’s comeback under James Daunt is not just about surviving Amazon’s endless domination; it’s about reminding the market that respect for people’s desire for discovery, curation, and local engagement matter more than ever.

Richard Baker: The Robin Report Retail Miss of the Week, 2.27.26

Warren Shoulberg — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

OK, play it again one more time. At first, I thought I was reading the satirical Onion when I saw an interview with former Saks/Neiman’s/HBC/Lord & Taylor/etc., self-styled entrepreneur. He said he “saved” luxury department store retailing in the country. Really? We know he owes Chanel, Zegna and Akris more than $700 million. We’ve lambasted Baker more than once and after his exit from the Saks Global business earlier this year when they filed for bankruptcy, we figured we might not have a chance to kick him around anymore. So, this interview in The New York Times was a bonus treat. How else would we have had the chance to hear him say he was the only person “on Earth” who could have kept those businesses and going for as long they did. He also said, “I’m happy to be out of the department store business.” So are we. He may be the only person “on Earth” to consistently leave scorched retail earth behind him. Maybe, just maybe the Richard Baker Misses are coming to an end. But let’s not forget his family owns a real estate company with over 10 million square feet of shopping centers.

Southdale Center Turns 70; Then What?

Sanford Stein — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

America’s first indoor mall, Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. This birthday could be a litmus test of the viability of the traditional shopping mall. To ensure its relevance, owner Simon Properties just completed a $400 million renovation and new luxury wing, bringing together Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Moncler, Watches of Switzerland/Rolex, MaxMara, and David Yurman. Southdale now has the highest concentration of luxury retail in the upper Midwest and elevates the “luxe listings” above its mega-competitor Mall of America, just a few miles away. But the question remains: Will this capital infusion guarantee Southdale’s future as a 20^th-century architectural aberration in a digital/agentic age? And will chasing the top 10 percent of spenders buy Southdale and Simon time? It is by no means a guarantee of its longevity.

Can the 70-year-old Southdale Center live up to consumers’ expectations? And the answer is: Adding a new luxury wing is not a panacea for cultural relevance; today’s malls need to deliver experience and brands that are meaningful to consumers.

In the Beginning

Southdale’s origin story is a retail case study. Funded by the Dayton Development Company, it’s widely considered to be the nation’s first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall. Austrian-born architect Victor Gruen had a different vision from Dayton’s. Gruen planned for the center to be surrounded by housing, apartment buildings, schools, and medical facilities, as well as natural amenities including a lake and a park, modeled after the commerce centers of many European cities. In 1956, he was ahead of his time; the mall became…a mall.

Gruen’s original vision, now known as mixed-use development, has become the formula for the reinvention and salvation of malls like Southdale. Repositioning malls from single-purpose points of transaction into dynamic community forums promoting human interaction is the sustainable reinvention of irrelevant malls. But, given the ginormous price tag involved, there are only a finite number of malls destined for such rejuvenation. The vast majority will perish.

Class Distinctions

Between 1970 and 2002, over 800 shopping malls were built in America. Money was cheap, second-string suburbs were flourishing, and young consumers—baby boomers—were entering their prime earning years. By the mid-1990s, mall numbers peaked at over 1,500 enclosed malls. Then the tide changed. Today, approximately 700 fully enclosed malls still exist, and projections suggest that another 25 percent of these remaining centers will shutter within the next five years. Analysts predict as few as 200 survivors by the mid-2030’s.

What’s the formula for mall survival? Malls are bluntly, real estate assets. And for real estate, the age-old adage “location, location, location” is the playbook. In terms of sustainability, a mall’s age, tenant mix, occupancy rates, and institutional ownership play decisive roles in defining the ABCs of property class ranking.

The highest performing A-class malls boast premium tenants, affluent customers, and high occupancy rates (mid-high 90 percent range). Their tenants are made up of stable, national luxury and premium brands. These properties are newer or heavily renovated, located in affluent markets, typically home to Apple stores, and many are mixed-use village spaces like The Grove.
B-class malls are moderate performers, plagued by failing mid-market specialty chains. With occupancy rates of 80-90 percent, they are often found in secondary suburbs and cater to value-oriented families. They are generally older centers devoid of improvements, and many are still anchored by JCPenney.
C-class malls are the most endangered species, with 500-600 already shuttered since the mid-1990s. Occupancies are often at or below 70 percent and are considered distressed properties. They cater to highly price-sensitive shoppers with local retailers, discounters, and non-retail services.

Gruen’s Gospel

I believe the Gruen gospel of “placemaking” will ultimately determine the fate of Southdale and the rest of the remaining A-class malls. Their ownership is concentrated among a small number of deep-pocketed development and management companies, including Simon Property Group, Brookfield Properties, Macerich, (and to a lesser extent) SITE Centers, Taubman, and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.

It’s Simon Property Group and Brookfield Properties, who together own and control nearly half of A-class malls in the U.S. and they must concentrate on bringing their aging mall properties into the 21st century through additions, renovations, and tenant upgrades.

Southdale was completed in 1956, and the mall was just over 800,000 square feet. Today it is 60 percent larger at 1.3 million square feet. The mall’s haphazard expansion in 1963 and 1971, along with multiple renovations through the 2000s and 2010s, has resulted in a rather schizophrenic visitor experience. The current luxury wing is at odds with the rest of the mall. While the new single-level wing is upscale and polished, it feels like an island (or peninsula) unto itself. Visitors arriving through any of the mall’s other primary entrances will, no doubt, be wowed by the newly renovated center court. However, finding the new luxury wing presents a quandary, accessible exclusively via a second-level corridor.

Futureproofing an Aging Mall

All the money in the world can’t save an irrelevant mall. Some centers are destined to fail in the brutal survival of the fittest. There are core fundamentals that are prerequisites in the reimagining and futureproofing of aging malls. Will Southdale measure up?

Anchor Replacement: A mall’s once dominant department stores literally served as anchors and traffic generators, as well as magnets to attract desirable specialty stores. With their departure, similarly compelling anchor-like players must fill that role. A plethora of unlikely candidates are filling the bill today. They include high-end grocery stores, fitness and co-working centers, hotels, medical centers, “high experience” retailers, and even private clubs. Dick’s House of Sport, which has effectively replaced former Sears stores in several top-tier malls is an excellent example.

To Southdale’s credit, it has flexed its “anchor’s away” muscle. In 2019, on the site of a JCPenney store, a massive $43 million, 204,000-square-foot Life Time Fitness flagship dropped anchor. Billed as a three-story athletic resort, it included a rooftop beach club, pool, and even pickleball courts. Immediately adjacent is a 75,000 square foot Life Time luxury coworking development and indoor soccer field. Both are knockout examples of anchor replacement.

In 2024, on the site of a former Herberger’s department store, Southdale introduced a 25,000 square foot, two-level Puttshack, that bills itself as an “upscale, tech-infused” mini-golf experience. Immediately adjacent is Kowalski’s Market, a premier specialty grocer which should also generate repeat traffic. Southdale’s score: 9 out of 10.

Retail Theater and Experience Engines: The success of the reimagined mall becomes a shared proposition between landlord and tenants. In the face of unified commerce, the continued growth of online retail, augmented reality, and generative AI, brands are being forced to up their game to get folks off the couch. Becoming fully immersed in a brand’s storytelling has become the new norm. Brands like Lego, Crayola, Build-A-Bear, and Camp have become the new “play stations,” undergoing constant reinvention aimed at lengthening the customer’s visit and creating memorable moments.

With the massive popularity of the collectables market that grew by 32 percent in 2025, select specialty retailers are cashing in. Among them, CardVault, Pokémon Center, Kura Sushi gashapon, and Pop Mart. They sit at the intersection of collecting, surprise, and social sharing. They are selling sets, series, rarities, even blind boxes that foster “the chase.”

And beyond the store purchase, often viral “unboxing” follows, driving social media sharing. These brands, and others like, them populate the halls of the Mall of America, while Southdale hasn’t hopped on that brand wagon yet. Southdale’s score: 2 out of 10.

Social Interaction and Brand Activation: More than ever, brands depend on popular performers and sports figures to co-promote product drops. To that end, top malls have beefed-up marketing and event teams to facilitate high-energy, revolving events to drive traffic. Southdale currently has a considerable amount of underutilized space which could be captured for such events that bring “like-minded” groups together around a shared passion. Southdale’s score: 5 out of 10.
Food-Forward Destinations: National restaurant chains like Applebee’s will no longer cut it with new generations, proud of their food-fixated tastes. The winning ticket includes chef-driven restaurants, multicultural food halls, and experiential dining. Chef-staged, fixed-price dinners are selling out months in advance. Even ghost kitchens are being created to facilitate the preparation of Michelin Chef-quality meals for takeout or near-instant delivery to area foodies.

Southdale’s Dining Pavilion is the ghost of its former massive food court; there are plenty of tables and chairs, but light on eats. Southdale is lacking in the fine dining experience that will lure in customers. Southdale’s score: 7 out of 10.

Social Infrastructure and Walkability: Too many major malls resemble fortresses, surrounded by seas of asphalt, as vehicular access and parking overrode pedestrian friendliness during the planning process. The new mall’s viability focuses on socialization, visit duration, relaxation, and immersion. Reimagined, multi-use developments are selling off excess parking to accommodate multi-family housing. Other pedestrian-centric amenities include green spaces, walking paths, water features, community gardens, and well-equipped play areas, for folks to gather, linger, meet, and work. Southdale hasn’t begun turning parking lots into parks. With an influx of multi-family residential properties and luxury services, “greening” initiatives are a must. Southdale’s score: 5 out of 10.

Prescription

While Southdale doesn’t publish its annual visits, The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported an 11 percent increase in foot traffic following the opening of the new luxury wing, which isn’t too surprising. Applying my “mall-metamorphosis metrics,” Southdale is an overachiever with its recent retail and lifestyle additions; however, it is clearly an underachiever in the rest of the crucial placemaking attributes. New retail is moving much faster than center owners, including Southdale, can anticipate and act on. Its relevance will depend on staying ahead of what customers want, not catching up to them.

The Only Female Leader in the Room Becomes a Disruptive Tech CEO

The Robin Report — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Lori Shafer is a female tech pioneer in building software systems and helping prepare retail executives for new waves of tech innovation. As CEO and co-founder of four-year-old Digital Wave Technology, an AI-native software for retail and CPG, she is a graduate in mathematical modeling (today’s AI). At 21, she was hand-picked as the only woman (and youngest) among four P&G innovators tasked with building technology to revolutionize how products reach consumers. Fast forward and she leads a brand she named for the reality that “technology happens in waves happening in shorter and shorter frequency.” She is an advocate for lifelong learning, particularly for teams in the tech sector adding, “Be intellectually curious. Listen more than you speak. Leadership isn’t about being right, it’s about being ready.” Lori freely admits to being driven and “high energy without a dimmer switch,” meaning she’s 100 percent on or off. Her superpower? Envisioning the future. Lori thinks holistically, connecting where technology is heading and how she can help retailers solve business problems. She adds as a leader, you need to understand that you can’t be everything. “To get to the top of a company, you really need to understand how a company operates. And you also have to balance personal well-being, family, your role, and your job.”

Special Guests

Lori Schafer, CEO at Digital Wave Technology

Transcript

Walmart: The Robin Report Retail Hit of the Week, 2.7.2026

Warren Shoulberg — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Take that Amazon and Google and all the rest of you entitled Magnificent Seven: You’ve got a new trillionaire member, and it’s not another tech bro AI and agentic wannabe. This week the value of Walmart topped $1 trillion, putting it in an elite class of American companies that are valued at all those zeroes. Walmart is the first traditional retailer ever to hit this mark. To put it into perspective, Walmart is worth more than Costco, Home Depot and Target —combined. It’s a stunning affirmation of how The Boys from Bentonville have truly become a class of one in the retail sector. And it’s a generous goodbye gift from Doug McMillon to John Furner as he takes the helm with aspirations to no doubt push that number higher.

Chip Wilson’s Fight To Save Lululemon, Redux

Pam Danziger — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

It’s been over a decade since Lululemon founder Dennis “Chip” Wilson was pushed out under a cloud of controversy, but he’s remained a thorn in its side ever since. Many company founders move on after a company goes public, and professional management eventually moves in. Not Wilson. He put his mind, heart and soul into building Lululemon, and after he left the company in 2015, he’s waged a personal crusade to keep that guiding brand spirit alive, for better or worse.

Is founder Chip Wilson able to save Lululemon, or will his ego push the brand further into irrelevance? And the answer is: One man’s ego is not the soul of a brand, and this founder’s re-emergence can’t dictate a public company board’s fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders.

Business Is Personal

A cynical observer might argue that Wilson’s crusade is all about the money. And they have a point. According to Forbes, Wilson is the single largest Lululemon shareholder with 8.4 percent of the stock—a stake that has lost roughly 60 percent of its value since December 2023. However, the value of his holdings jumped to $2.1 billion in a single day in December after CEO Calvin McDonald announced his exit. McDonald and the board more broadly have been frequent targets of Wilson’s ire, especially since sales in the U.S. have trended downward through 2025.

But it’s also got a lot to do with protecting his own legacy and reputation. He’s made more than his fair share of ham-fisted comments in the past; he doesn’t appear to have much of an internal filter. Being outspoken and self-assured are part and parcel of his personality—both a driver of his business success and his Achilles’ heel.

In an effort to tell his side of the story and uphold his reputation, he’s written two books—The Story of Lululemon: Little Black Stretchy Pants and Lululemon and the Future of Technical Apparel, the latter of which reached best-seller status. Yet a casual scan of his books and his long history of pointed comments against Lululemon’s leadership make it clear that, for Wilson, it isn’t just about the money, his reputation, or legacy. It’s deeply personal, echoing the perspective of the late founder of The Body Shop, Anita Roddick: “In business, it’s never just business. It’s always personal.”

Long-Running Feud

After guiding the company from its start in 1998, Wilson officially stepped aside as CEO in 2005, bringing in former Reebok executive Robert Meers to prepare the company for its 2007 IPO. Meers moved on in 2008 and was succeeded by Christine Day from Starbucks, who was eventually forced out in 2013 after product-quality and supply-chain issues came to light—most prominently, the see‑through leggings debacle.

All the while, Wilson served as the company’s chief innovation and branding officer and as chairman of the board through 2013, some of the blame for missteps under Day’s leadership rests on his shoulders. Nonetheless, he continued to kick up his own controversies, which eventually caught up with him and forced him off the board in 2015.

Wilson’s public grievances against the company began immediately after in 2016, when he wrote an open letter to the board stating that the company had “lost its way.” By then, Laurent Potdevin, who came from Toms, was at the helm of the company, but he too left abruptly in 2018 for alleged “misdeeds” that were never officially revealed but assumed to be related to the #MeToo movement.

Calvin McDonald succeeded him after stepping over from Sephora. McDonald had a pretty good run, taking the company from $2.7 billion in 2018 to $10.6 billion in 2024. After rendering his resignation in December, he will depart at the end of January. In that, Wilson scored a win. He took out a full-page Wall Street Journal ad last October, entitled “Lululemon: In a Nosedive,” where he let it fly. “On paper, Lululemon still looks good, but it’s losing its soul,” he wrote. “The deeper issue is not just management; it’s a disengaged Nominating and Governance Committee that has failed to safeguard the long-term vision.”

Lululemon: In a Nosedive

Throughout McDonald’s tenure, Wilson has been his leading critic, taking issue with the brand’s expansion into menswear and opposing its move into plus-sized ranges: “Through this whole diversity and inclusion thing, they’re trying to become like Gap, everything to everybody. I think the definition of a brand is that you’re not everything to everybody,” he said on the Tony Robbins Podcast.

He also vigorously opposed the company’s $500 million acquisition of the home-fitness technology company Mirror in 2020. Wilson may have been right about that, too. The company pulled the plug on Mirror in 2023 and moved to Peloton as its connected fitness partner.

Lululemon might have been better off if it had bought Under Armour, which Wilson urged in an outdoor advertisement posted outside the company’s headquarters in 2017. Or, more recently, he advocated acquiring Figs, which has innovated the hospital scrubs category in much the same way Lululemon did for workout apparel, combining fashionable styles with technical, high-performance fabrication.

Despite the vocal criticism of McDonald, Wilson’s biggest gripe is with the board and the direction it has taken the company: shifting the focus away from the company’s original culture of innovation, creative execution, and employee empowerment toward, in his words, feeding investors’ demands for quarterly growth and profits.

“We weren’t in the apparel business, we were in the people development business,” Wilson said on the podcast, referring to both the personal development of customers to achieve their fitness goals and the development of the company’s staff, where creativity and innovation originate.

The path forward Wilson detailed in the WSJ ad was to return Lululemon to its entrepreneurial, visionary roots:

Put product and brand back at the center. Rebuild the knowledge and systems that deliver product in nine months, not two years.
Bring entrepreneurial ownership back onto the board.
Empower creative leadership over merchants.
Stop chasing Wall Street at the expense of customers.
Recommit to the muse—the woman who inspires the brand.

He concluded, “Lululemon can keep growing, but growth alone is not a healthy measure or success. The true measure must be innovation and brand reputation. When these are strong, growth comes naturally; when they’re not, growth halts.”

Lululemon may be dangerously close to that tipping point. While the company expects to end fiscal year 2025 at around $11 billion in revenue, virtually all of this year’s growth will come from expansion in international markets. Revenues in the Americas, which account for about 70 percent of sales, have been flat or declining all year, including comparable sales off by 5 percent in the third quarter.

Wilson’s Latest Crusade

When McDonald tendered his resignation, no succession plan was in place—a pattern that keeps repeating itself. This is the fourth time that Lululemon has been unprepared to replace its CEO, underscoring Wilson’s critique that the company has failed to develop creative leadership.

As soon as the news broke, major investor Elliott Investment Management, with over $1 billion in stockholdings, put forward its handpicked candidate: 60-year-old Jane Neilsen, former CFO and COO of Ralph Lauren. Before that, she was CFO at Coach, following nearly 17 years climbing the ladder at PepsiCo in finance, investor relations and strategy. Essentially, she is cut from the same finance-first cloth as the rest of the board.

Wilson took a different tack, presenting a proposal that would go to the root of the problem— the makeup of the board—before selecting a CEO candidate. “CEO selection must take place following a significant board change to be sure shareholders can trust the right decision is made, and the new leader can succeed,” he wrote in a statement.

He has presented three independent candidates to join the board and guide the selection process— Marc Maurer (former On Holding AG Co-CEO), Laura Gentile (former ESPN CMO), and Eric Hirshberg (former Activision CEO and former Deutsch LA Co-CEO and CCO). He also proposed that the board shift from staggered director elections to annual elections for all board members.

“It is clear to the world that Lululemon is special, but in need of change,” he continued. “As I have stated for years, Lululemon needs visionary creative leadership to thrive. The simple truth is that the current board lacks these skills and, as a result, Lululemon is unable to win back the confidence of its critical stakeholders and regain commercial momentum. The nominees I put forward today are the change that is needed to redefine Lululemon and begin this company’s next chapter of success.”

Wilson’s Been Busy

While Wilson has spent a lot of time over the last decade thinking about Lululemon, he’s hardly been idle. In 2019, he bought a 21 percent stake in Amer Sports, parent company of Wilson tennis racquets and the premium outdoor apparel company Arc’teryx, which earned him a board seat. Amer Sports has profited mightily from his contribution. His $1 billion initial investment has nearly tripled in value to $3 billion since Amer Sports filed its 2024 IPO. It hit $5.2 billion in revenues on an 18 percent increase in its first reporting year, and revenues are up 26 percent through the first nine months of 2025, including a 30 percent bump in the third quarter.

Technical apparel, led by Arc’teryx, and outdoor performance, headlined by the Salomon brand, are the key drivers of growth—expected to advance just under 30 percent this year— though ball and racquet sports will grow around 10 percent this year.

Clearly, Wilson is persona non grata when it comes to Lululemon’s board. Seeking to avoid a costly and distracting proxy fight, the company said it will take Wilson’s candidates under advisement. But the board rejects Wilson’s claim that it lacks to competence to lead Lululemon forward.

“Lululemon has a highly engaged and experienced board that is well-equipped to provide effective guidance on the company’s direction and the execution of our growth strategy,” the company said in a statement, and added, “Mr. Wilson has not been involved with the company for a decade, and since his departure, Lululemon has continued to adapt to the marketplace and lead the industry, building one of the most compelling growth stories in retail.”

Yet Wilson would argue that the board continues to look backward at past successes rather than forward, as it should. “A company bereft of a visionary loses its singular voice for product and long-term strategy, a strategy that builds a moat of success. An operations/finance-driven board lacks the moxie to understand the market pulse,” he wrote in the WSJ ad.

Lululemon’s Future

In my opinion, the board should give Wilson’s proposals— and his board candidates—consideration. But as with most public companies, leadership ultimately defers to the numbers. That requires a balance of representing shareholder interests with what Wilson asserts as “relentless focus on innovation, product, culture and customer experience.”

Reclaiming Lululemon’s former position as an innovator doesn’t need more of the same. It needs leadership capable of innovating for the future. Wilson’s message is a blunt reminder of the challenge public boards face today from activist shareholders. I believe that the world doesn’t need another results-only-driven apparel company; it needs a bold new vision. Whether Wilson can influence the company externally, even as the principal shareholder, remains to be seen. If the company wants to “fly again,” as Wilson urges, it will take boldness and courage that is the brand’s soul.

How Melissa Gonzalez Went from Wall Street to Retail Visionary

The Robin Report — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Melissa Gonzalez didn’t plan to revolutionize retail. The Principal and founder of MG2 and author of The Purpose Pivot, left her Wall Street career for a more creative path, leveraging her analytical talent, risk management ability and affinity with consumer passion. Her career has been defined by clarity in the midst of chaos, by understanding the bigger picture. In a candid conversation, Melissa shares what many founders won’t admit: Seeing a growth opportunity doesn’t mean you’re the right one to pursue it. She talks about the seductive trap of scaling up, the founder’s balance between vision and letting go of control, and why well-being can’t be a side project but has to be integral to how you lead. Melissa is open about resisting Instagram-perfect moments as a leader. She fully embraces the setbacks, pivots, and strategic decisions that feed into success.

She is also clear about the need to understand people. She says, “Understand how people want to interact with brands and retailers from a consumer standpoint, including physical environments, and the holistic ecosystem of a brand. People don’t think of brands as one touch point; they don’t think of a brand as a store, they don’t think of a brand as a website; they think of a brand as the entire holistic experience.”

Melissa’s superpower? She says cutting through the noise and defining what’s essential. She says she doesn’t get trapped in inertia; she steps back, synthesizes, and moves forward, deliberately avoiding time-consuming debates. She adds identifying your North Star is critical to your purpose. She says, “It’s impossible to be everything all the time because you won’t be present in the moment.” She advises using a personal filter and focusing on where you should be to be the most effective. She adds to be “constantly curious, humble, and remember the long game because everything can feel catastrophic in the moment when it doesn’t land exactly the way you see it. Take that as an opportunity to learn and the next time you’ do it differently and better.”

Special Guests

Melissa Gonzalez, Principal and founder of MG2 and author of The Purpose Pivot

Transcript

Why Chief Storytellers Are a Bad Idea

Thaler Pekar — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Story is an emergent communication tool that taps into the experiences of your customer. This is crucial in retail. When you share a story with your customer, you will spark a story in their mind. A story that has your customer thinking, “I see myself in this brand!” Or, better yet, has them aspiring to experience something similar, imagining, “I’ll be a hero when I use this product!”

As the Story Goes

If “People want to be engaged, not told; serviced, not sold,” then story – the sharing of an experience – is a communication tool in deep service to your omnichannel retail strategy. Through story, you’re inviting your customers to understand, experience, and resonate with your brand. You’re enabling them to feel confident about the decision they’re going to make to buy your product. You’re helping your customers become the hero.

An increasing number of companies are adding “Chief Storyteller” roles to their C-suite rosters. Glassdoor currently lists 156 “Chief Storyteller” jobs, and LinkedIn lists 167. Although the roles vary in responsibility, they incorporate elements typically found in the areas of brand, marketing, merchandising, communications, public relations, media relations, and sales.

Having a Chief of Storytelling is an attractive proposition: we all love a good raconteur. And we crave clarity instead of chaos. Retail (and life) is moving so fast that people may feel confused about the story they’re navigating. Having one person confidently state the parameters in which we’re to operate can be reassuring. And as we’re already overloaded with information and increasingly grappling with artificial intelligence, we’re craving authentic communication. Story brings things closer to a human scale.

In addition to Chief Storyteller, another popular trend is the buzzy “brand narrative.” Although overused and misunderstood, the truth is that brand narratives are constructed from distinct stories. A useful analogy is one of a mosaic, which is made up of individual tiles to form a whole image. Or a constellation, which is made up of stars. In this analogy, your stories are the stars, your narrative is a constellation (and your culture is the galaxy). The point is that myriad stories about products and people are joined in narratives to provide transmission of your business’s overarching values, underlying beliefs, and collective meaning in the marketplace. The greater the number of small stories you enable to be heard and understood, the richer, more authentic, and stronger your big narrative will be.

I’ll add a nuance that makes a remarkable difference in how you strategically communicate with your customers. As a professional communications coach, I prefer the term storysharing, rather than storytelling. “Telling” assumes a spectator and references an old economy in which brands maintained strict control over their messaging. “Sharing” is modern, inviting collaboration and engagement, plus it recognizes the truth of the marketplace. “Sharing” recognizes tactical communication that is both speaking and listening.

Effective retailing demands that we enable people to find, believe, and share their own stories. And to do so enthusiastically, without hesitation. They shouldn’t have to face distrust and wait for vetting by a Chief Storyteller.

Storysharers

The role of a Chief Storyteller was first embodied by Nelson Farris at Nike back in the 1990s. Farris attempted to humanize the company, making its rich heritage relevant to the larger corporate culture. “Our stories are not about extraordinary business plans or financial manipulations,” he said. “They’re about people getting things done.”

Today, however, Farris has long retired, and the function is dispersed throughout the company. As it should be. The most resonant, highest-impact stories emerge only when story is woven throughout a retail culture, not siloed in one C-suite executive.

Story should be democratized. Everyone involved in your retail business — customers, vendors, teams, and other partners – is already sharing stories about you. In a decentralized, polyvocal retail space, brands aren’t telling stories; people are telling stories about brands.

This means acknowledging today’s co-creative marketplace and thinking beyond testimonials, social listening, and contrived advertising campaigns featuring user-generated content. You want to fully support the organic sharing of stories. Not squash it. After all, people are the new media. People believe their own stories, and word of mouth is the most persuasive communication of all. Add to that, people trust most what they’ve heard from multiple sources.

Storytelling Redefined

Effective retailing demands that we enable people (including our frontline sales ambassadors) to find, believe, and share their own stories. And to do so enthusiastically and without hesitation. They shouldn’t have to face distrust and wait for vetting by a Chief Storyteller. If, as author Patti Digh said, “the shortest distance between two people is a story,” triangulating through a Chief Storyteller creates great separation. Stories, in fact, scale at little to no cost. Think of the seminal Nordstrom Tire Story, in which the customer service-centric retailer accepted the return of tires even though they didn’t sell them, repeated now for nearly five decades.

Stories from your people and your customers are your inclusive and exclusive content and bring significant competitive advantages. Because the stories are coming from your customers, you know they will resonate with your customers. One person, even with a team, cannot surface, listen to, and amplify the sheer volume of stories likely being generated about your retail business. This is another reason why the siloing of story is a terrible idea. The elicitation and sharing of stories should be normalized and made accessible throughout your retail business.

Even (especially) small stories can have profound meaning and deep impact. Small stories – think of pebbles and colorful sea glass instead of diamonds – offer colorful glimpses into the meaning of your brand and the daily lives of your customers and team members. Small stories are more likely to resonate and be compelling to customers, prompting them to engage with your brand and products.

Authentic Brand Stories

When I first started working with Kiehl’s, I attended a charity gala and told the gentleman sitting next to me about my new client. He replied, “I know one thing about Kiehl’s. And that’s that whenever I get my wife a gift from Kiehl’s, it’s a winner!” That story bubbled up and out and was often efficiently shared with shoppers by Kiehl’s Customer Representatives.

You want stories to percolate throughout your retail business. For example, your leadership team needs to share stories that make strategy tangible. They must connect the stories of the past, present, and future to create meaning. Your HR team needs to listen to stories to create a people-first organization centering on connection and trust. Junior staff need to see themselves as part of the story and make it their own, adding to and internalizing the culture. Think of the annual Zappos Culture Book, filled with employee stories.

People are telling stories all the time. Rather than subduing this innate skill, it should be more fully developed. Rather than isolating the skill in one hierarchical Chief – or even in your CEO — your retail business should be developing the narrative intelligence of all your team members. From buying, logistics, merchandising and operations to the sales floor and customer service, explain, prove and leverage the power of story through expert workshops. Coach leaders in finding, refining, and sharing their stories. Coach them, too, in asking for and listening to stories from each other and from customers.

Your CEO should model narrative intelligence as a core, equally distributed organizational commitment. This means recognizing stories, sharing stories, asking for stories, and creating the spaciousness necessary to listen to stories. It’s as easy as asking, “Tell me about a time a customer made you smile.” And “Tell me about a time YOU made a customer smile.” Ask and listen to stories about when people have felt most connected your brand. Also ask about moments when people felt disconnected.

Narrative Intelligence is a competency, and storytelling is not a department. If you want to create a culture rich in stories and foster narrative alignment, you need to invite everyone, not anoint someone.

Saks Global: Another Trainwreck

Mark Cohen — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Saks Global is Richard Baker’s next and maybe his final retail failure. Lord & Taylor, The Hudson Bay Company in all its various iterations in Canada and Europe, and now the monstrosity he recently created by putting Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks Off Fifth, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman together, teeters on bankruptcy. This recent disaster is the result of the company’s failure to make a required $100 million interest payment to lenders at year’s end.

Baker, as a real estate manipulator, gets high marks. As a retail leader and retail strategist, however, he has been an abject failure.

Baker Shadow Play

Baker suddenly appeared on the retail scene in 2006 when his real estate company, NRDC, bought Lord & Taylor from the newly branded Federated/Macy’s Corporation, which inherited L&T when it acquired May Company stores. Then, in 2008, Baker acquired control of The Hudson Bay Company following the untimely death of its majority shareholder. Three years later, in 2011, Baker’s HBC sold its Zeller’s stores in Canada to Target Corporation for $1.8 billion. Kudos to Baker, as most of the Zeller’s store locations were arguably worthless as hapless Target would soon find out.

When I was Director of Retail Studies at the Columbia Business School, I attended a student-led Retail and Luxury Goods Conference in 2012, keynoted by Baker. He gave a rambling off the cuff 40-minute presentation in which he regaled the 250 students and guests in the audience about how great it was to be rich; how he did little work at Wharton having surrounded himself with “good looking babes” eager to do his work; and how he had just “stolen” Lord & Taylor from Federated for $1.2 billion. Narcissism aside, he was likely correct in his view that Federated could not wait to unload L&T as an outlying May Company property. He went on to talk about how easy it was to master the art of merchandising based on his exposure to L&T’s business. Completely put off by this performance, I was unfortunately seated in a location that precluded me from leaving early.

Next in 2013, Baker acquired Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off Fifth stores in what might be described as another triumph of price over value. Saks’ management had failed to fully recognize the leverage it could have used on its own behalf based on its Fifth Avenue store’s real estate valuation. Baker, as a real estate manipulator, gets high marks. As a retail leader and retail strategist, however, he has been an abject failure. His stewardship of Lord & Taylor was pathetic.

In an effort to cut expenses, he attempted to rationalize back-of-the-house activities between Canada-based Bay stores and American-based L&T stores, which may have made sense to some clueless consultant but never worked in retail reality. He then came up with a scheme to downsize the L&T Fifth Avenue flagship and sold the building to that other paragon of business strategy, WeWork, eventually killing the L&T brand.

Baker and The Bay

The disruption and ultimate liquidation of The Bay’s principal competitor in apparel, accessories and soft home, Sears Canada, should have resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but The Bay failed to capitalize on it.

Moving Saks Fifth Avenue stores into The Bay stores spaces in Canada and introducing Saks Off Fifth in Canada was another failed initiative. In fact, moving Saks Fifth Avenue into a cavernous “low-brow” Bay location on Queen Street adjacent to the Eaton Center in Toronto was an incredible misstep in and of itself. The physical space was available, but the luxury customer certainly wasn’t there.

Opening over a dozen Bay department stores in the Netherlands in 2017 was another bone-headed move. Baker did a complex deal with Germany-based Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, securing retail space in the Netherlands, but again the customer just wasn’t there. Allegedly, Baker believed that since the Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands from the Nazis at the end of WWII, the Dutch would welcome a Canadian company with open arms. It didn’t happen. The Dutch Bay stores were all closed by 2019. The customers who might have remembered being liberated in 1945 were either dead or too old to patronize a Canadian-owned department store. Baker claimed he made money on this ridiculous foray, and he may very well have, but the Dutch paid a terrible price for this catastrophe.

Baker Business Model

In 2024, Baker set his sights on acquiring Sak’s principal competitor, Neiman Marcus/Bergdorf Goodman. The timing wasn’t great. There was the disappearance of luxury competitor Barney’s, and the Saks business at best treaded water. Also, Neiman Marcus/Bergdorf Goodman was struggling to put a challenging Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceeding behind it.

There was also the monetization of hbc.com and saks.com, which raised a considerable amount of money from a group of hapless investors. These investors did not realize how completely counterproductive this strategy would prove to be.

Along the way, Richard Baker has presided over a never-ending list of lead executives, many of whom barely lasted two years with the company. There was Tina Johnson, Jeff Sherman, Bonnie Brooks, Jerry Storch, and Helena Foulkes, among others. And then there was Marc Metrick, whose 30-year tenure with Saks has just come to an abrupt end. But maybe it was 30 years too long. Metrick was a planning executive at Saks who, in recent years, masqueraded as its lead merchant.

Debt Economics

The history of two weak and/or weakened retail companies merging and finding success is simply this: There is no history. Add to that the non-starter of two companies that essentially do business with the same customer and in many cases in the same geographic locations. But these hurdles didn’t stop Baker from consummating a debt-laden merger of two icons. And incomprehensibly, for well over a year, the company failed to pay many of Saks’ vendors either on time or in many cases at all. So, now both companies have just completed a poor 2025 in sales. And having been cut off from receiving fresh inventory by a cynical factor community, Saks Global just failed to make that $100 million year-end interest payment.

Baker in Bankruptcy

Maybe Baker will come up with a bundle of new cash. If business remains as poor as it has been, any new cash infusion would only be a stopgap measure. Alternatively, the company might come up with a prepackaged restructuring agreement with its creditors. Or it will surrender to a voluntary or involuntary bankruptcy proceeding.

I’m not a bankruptcy attorney, but having lived through Federated department store’s successful restructure, and an up close and personal experience with Bradlees stores eventual failed emergence from bankruptcy, I think the bell may soon toll for Saks Global.

If it files for Chapter 11 financial relief, creditors organize and line up based upon their preexisting credit agreements (or lack thereof). Secured creditors, typically the company’s lenders, rely on collateral rights while unsecured creditors, typically vendors and service providers, hope for some eventual relief through the bankruptcy process. All payables from the company, whether current or past due, are frozen.

In a bankruptcy, legal and financial restructuring professionals line up for a typically substantial fee opportunity. A new lender or a consortium of lenders emerges to provide Debtor in Possession funding to enable the company to stay upright while in bankruptcy. All vendors are asked to resume shipping based on the newly created surety of DIP financing.

But, lacking confidence that past due receivables will eventually be paid, many vendors resort to selling their company receivables to distressed debt (or vulture) investors for substantial discounted values. This, in my opinion, is a terrible flaw in the bankruptcy process in that unsecured vendors, who you would expect to have a stake in the company’s eventual successful emergence from bankruptcy, have now traded places with investors seeking a fast financial return.

Saks Global at Risk

If Sak’s Global were operating as a stable platform with a successful sales and margin track record, with capable senior leadership, a reliable operating strategy, and good relationships with its vendors and customers, there would be ample reason for the company to navigate through bankruptcy and emerge with new debt and a newly restructured balance sheet. But none of this appears to be the case. As 2026 unfolds to what will undoubtedly be a challenging year for all retailers, the prospects for Saks Global are truly grim. My sense is that many vendors long ago stopped shipping or have curtailed their support for Saks, Neiman Marcus and maybe even Bergdorf Goodman, and they are unlikely to get back on board after having been egregiously abused these past few years.

Many will find another retailer to serve their customers if they haven’t already done so or continue to build a direct-to-consumer model of their own. Why wouldn’t they? Who needs the sturm und drang of a failing retail partner who doesn’t pay its bills? If that happens, Saks Global is toast.

What on Earth Happened to Retail in 2025?

Deborah Patton — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 05:01:00 +0000

Key Retail Realities Heading Into 2026

Common sense strategies worth repeating:

Expect uncertainty with continued government reversals, regulations and changes in policies
Plan for disruption from new entries in retail markets and desperate moves from struggling existing players
Diversity your supply chain to protect your operations from unexpected, externally enforced change
Rethink whether overstimulated environments in-store and online are too much for overwhelmed shoppers
Don’t ever forget who your real customers are…and don’t chase the ones who will never shop with you
Your employees are your single most important asset and must be treated that way

The biggest surprise is that the economy is still chugging along as strong as it is. You’d think that the consumer would be shutting down with higher and higher prices. You’d think this Christmas would have seen a lot fewer goods. And it didn’t happen. Americans are still shopping until they drop.

To cap off a tumultuous year for retailers (many profited, many faced serious challenges, and all had to negotiate the impact of tariffs on their businesses), we gathered four Robin Report contributors to weigh in on what happened and how 2025 could influence retail in 2026.

If there were a single word to define retail in 2025, it would be uncertainty. What began as a year that looked fairly stable devolved into something somewhat out of most retailers’ control. In a wide-ranging conversation, contributors Mark Cohen, Warren Shoulberg, Phil Lempert, and Jasmine Glasheen made the case for retail’s 2025 fragile business model. There was also a consensus that we may be experiencing a return to essential and nonessential retailing in terms of consumers’ ability to weather their own economic situations. Our experts are pragmatic realists, trained skeptics and objective analysts of the retail industry. They identify the high-level early warning signals, both economic and consumer behavior-related, that retailer executives should be paying attention to. Here are excerpts from their conversation. You can watch the entire webcast here.

Tariffs Redefining Retail

Mark Cohen set the tone early on: “So 2025, as the year opened up, looked like it was going to be a pretty good year. Unemployment was low. Inflation was seemingly increasingly under control. There was the expectation that it would be another year of recovery from the 2020-2021 pandemic that we all struggled with. But then in April, the president dropped his trade war bomb, which evolved into a worldwide catastrophe. It’s Covid Redux as far as I’m concerned.” The conversation detailed that what retailers experienced in 2025 was not a normal cycle, but a rolling crisis—rules changing “every hour and a half,” vendors frozen in place, and CEOs unable to forecast even a quarter ahead. The April escalation of the administration’s trade war didn’t just rattle supply chains—it paralyzed businesses’ ability to effectively plan.

Phil Lempert added, “Never in the 25 years that I’ve been covering supermarkets have retailers been this uncertain. Everything from CEOs getting thrown out and tumult about the tariffs to uncertainty about the supply chain. And then we had the report that California is suing 11 major CPG companies for unhealthy processed foods. And that’s going to have a major effect on retailers because 70 percent of the products that are in a supermarket are ultra-processed foods.” Warren Shoulberg called 2025 a year of suspended animation: “I characterize 2025 as Waiting for Godot. Everybody was sitting around waiting for 1,400 shoes to drop.”

And how are next gens responding to all of this? Are they really as miserable as everybody and all the media reports? Jasmine Glasheen explained, “Well, are we talking about miserable or overstimulated? Because I think those are two different things. Young consumers (78 percent of them) are telling retailers that they’re overstimulated by the in-store experience. Because of that, retailers should be creating low-stimuli, more tranquil lighting environments, like Walmart is doing between 8:00 to 10:00 AM. But instead, we’re seeing Urban Outfitters rolling out brighter, more aggressive physical store spaces.”

Surprise, Surprise

When asked what the most surprising thing was that they observed this year, Lempert said, “I think it’s probably the reaction to the GLP-1 drugs. Just take a look at how quickly companies like Nestle and Conagra have rolled out GLP-1 food products. Circana just released a survey that said that by 2030, 35 percent of all food and beverages will be consumed by users of GLP-1. We also saw Kroger come out with their line of high-protein foods that are designed for GLP-1 users. It’ll be interesting to see now that the Wegovy pill form is approved and more people go for the pill than the injectables, how that’s going to change the food and beverage industry.” Shoulberg added, “The biggest surprise to me was that the economy is still chugging along as strong as it is. I would have thought that the consumer would be shutting down with higher and higher prices. I really thought this Christmas we’d see a lot fewer goods out there. And it didn’t happen. Stores were promoting like crazy. And Americans are still shopping until they drop.”

Glasheen was surprised by how American Eagle and Gap are visibly fighting for consumers within the retail industry by battling with cultural memes. Cohen said, “What surprises me is how much of a struggle the luxury sector has been in all year long. You would think that with the extraordinarily exuberant stock market, that sector would be able to shrug off the kind of price increases that they’re slamming consumers with because of tariffs. But then, of course, there’s the move down market that actually is not a surprise because it occurred in 2008 and to some extent in 2020. Business at Walmart is booming, and business at TJX, Ross, and Burlington stores are all doing great. And I don’t know if it’s a surprise or not, but the degree to which consumers are embracing buy now, pay later, which is just another form of subprime lending is disconcerting.”

Advice to CEOs

We asked the experts what they would do right now if they were retail CEOs. Lempert responded, “Well, number one, it’s to know your shopper and their needs, because I think that’s the problem that so many retailers have. They really don’t understand their shopper. Number two is to get into your stores. You know, I can’t tell you the number of grocery executives that I talk to haven’t been in one of their stores for a while. They don’t walk the stores and talk to people. Look at Danny and Colleen Wegman, who are really working the stores; if they see a piece of paper on the ground, they stoop down and pick it up. They’re the retailers who really, really get it. And then the third, related to next gens being overstimulated, I would kill retail media networks. I think that whether it’s the overstimulation or the greed to get more money from the brands, you walk into some of these supermarkets and they’ve got 50 to 100 screens assaulting you.”

Cohen asserts, “Well, there are two issues. One, if you’re a private company and another if you’re public. The biggest challenge is protecting the viability of your enterprise financially. You have to plan, like it or not, if you’re the CEO of any organization. And you have to be extremely conservative and careful, not knowing what to expect as this craziness spills over into next year. And in planning for next year, I would say you have to conserve your investment and inventory. You have to protect your associates to the degree that you hold onto your best people. You have to be very, very careful that your financial geniuses don’t cut selling, maintenance and operational issues that customers come into contact with. You have to assume that business is going to be very tough. So, get yourself into the bunker, get your people ready for disruption, and stay very close to them.”

Glasheen advocates for next gens and says as CEO, she’d be protecting associates. “Organized retail crime is on the rise. And the violence of retail crimes is also on the rise. So, I would understand that the in-store associates are really who dictate the experience that consumers are having with a brand. I’d focus on recruiting, retaining, and creating a decent working environment for those associates, because that’s how you stay accountable to your stakeholders.” The consensus was that at the end of the day, you can’t expect sales associates to be your loss prevention team. It’s not fair. It’s not effective. And it’s completely unreliable and unreasonable.

Shoulberg speaks about the supply chain that experienced a year of relentless whiplash. The long-heralded “move out of China” proved illusory. “As a CEO, I’d try to diversify where I’m getting product from. The stampede out of China has been remarkable. But the irony is that a lot of suppliers have moved to Vietnam or other places. So, anybody who’s thinking that this is some saving grace is just not realistic. Likewise, anybody who thinks that production is coming back to the U.S. is just being foolish. There are lots of examples of people that are trying this that are failing. And I’ll give you a great example; All-Clad frying pans and cookware are great products made in Pittsburgh. They should be flying, but they can’t find enough workers because nobody wants to work in a factory. I’ve talked to a lot of companies that are that are going slowly and are not quite turning their operations upside down until they get a better read on what’s actually happening. Ironically, a lot of the companies who were trying to move their production out of China are staying in China because China is not so bad compared to Switzerland, let’s say.”

And what’s the one key question a retail CEO should be asking him or herself right now to lead their brand to prosperity? Shoulberg advocates that retailers be more precise about what their stores are and represent, “I think so many companies just don’t have a description of what their store should be. They’re all over the place.” Lempert would ask, “How do I navigate and protect my organization between today and January 20th, 2028?” Glasheen says, “What’s my core customer’s ideal shopping experience?

A Cultural Reset

The numbers have come out that the top 10 percent of American households are responsible for 50 percent of all spending. And then it drills down to one percent of our households that are responsible for 33 percent of spending. There’s clearly an economic inequity going on in terms of the American consumer. What’s happening with this economic asymmetry in terms of how it’s impacting retail? Shoulberg weighs in, “It’s been building, and you look at the disparity between CEO salaries and basic employee salaries, you know, they’re up by a factor of 100 in the last two decades. My math’s not quite right, but it’s close. I think the loss of the middle class of America is one of the greatest tragedies that we’re seeing in our country right now.” Cohen adds, “Well, the asymmetry is not new, but it is explosive in its ultimate effect on our lives and if you look toward the future. About 70 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, even people with high incomes. At the end of the day, where does this take us? We have become increasingly a society of haves, a few haves, and a whole lot of have-nots. And that’s why there is this discernible migration down market into the Walmarts, Dollar Stores, and off-pricers.” Lempert adds, “Dollar Stores are doing really well. And we’ve seen private label really capture more than ever before. And it’s not just about price; these retailers have upped the game from a quality standpoint. Then on the other end you’ve got the retailers like Erewhon, who are just killing it with their $22 smoothies. And now we’re starting to see other retailers like Whole Foods with their daily small shop format; operationally, they don’t have to have as many employees, they don’t have to have as much rent or costs; smaller stores are efficiently run.”

Return on Experience

Return on experience is a metric that stands adjacent to ROI. As a former retail CEO, Cohen is pragmatic and practical: “Well, how about clean, neat, and friendly stores? You don’t necessarily need the theatrics. You don’t necessarily need the techno presentation by way of screens, sights and sounds. I mean, those are gravy if you can align them with your customer base. But neat, clean, and friendly stores that are safe, fully stocked, and priced correctly. And if you can do that, every time they visit, you’ve got them. If you disappoint them, they won’t come back, because they don’t have to come back.”

Glasheen echoed with practical advice. “I think retailers need to ask themselves if they want to be held accountable to their stakeholders or their solution providers. Because the solution providers are the ones telling retailers to invest more and more in tech without actually looking at the level of debt that the human brain can take in before it starts to feel scandalized and alienated from that retailer brand. So, when actually looking at the customer journey, how much data are you feeding them? Is that obscuring their path to purchase? Are they leaving your checkout because of pop-ups that you think are going to get them to buy more?” And Lempert adds, “And I think what retail really needs to do to grow and survive is produce a great experience for people. Number one, know your shopper and create that experience for them, because not every shopper wants the same experience. Let’s put our heart back into retail.”

A Look Ahead

When predicting what’s to come for 2026, Shoulberg says, “I think the word of the year will be bifurcation. And we’ve all said that the bill for tariffs is going to come due sometime. It has to. So, at the risk of being crass, I think it’s all about to hit the fan in the first or second quarter for the retail business.” Lempert adds, “The price of food is still going to go up. And part of it is tariffs, but the bigger picture is really climate change and the environment. We can’t grow our food the way we used to, so we’re going to need some heavy investments for more vertical and indoor farming. Until we can get climate change controlled, our food prices are going to continue throughout our lifetime.”

Glasheen observes that “Retailers can’t compete based on price alone anymore, because too much is uncertain. So that’s why we’re seeing retailers like Shein, Mango, and H&M doing lifestyle. And I think that that’s as much about branding that resonates with the customer base, as it is about the merchandise. I think marketing is going to continue to be more subversive. We’re going to see more creep out in goth type of tropes because it’s getting harder to capture consumer attention and harder to show consumers that you’re on their side. And we’ll see more low-sensory environments in-person and online catalog experiences where customers can shop and feel good and calm again. Making retail calm again would be my resounding statement.”

Cohen takes a skeptical view of a bleaker future. “I hate to be the Grinch, but I think in Q3 we will be in a full boat recession. And as we move into the election midterms in Q4, we’re into wholesale chaos, maybe the likes of which we haven’t seen in the United States since the late 70s, when there were all sorts of civic breakdowns, looting, people burning parts of the city. I mean, we’re going to be looking at a very, very challenging time, which will coincide with a reckoning that America is going to have to face. There’s no resurgence of manufacturing. We’re looking at a terrible, deep mess that is not going to be easy to reconcile, predict, or foretell. And of course, retailers are on the front line of any and all of this kind of behavior.”

Getting It Right

Not everything is gloom and doom. Our panelists identified the retailers that get it and are doing it right as role models for others in the industry. For Lempert, “Whole Foods. In the past two years, the whole image of Whole Paycheck has changed. Whole Foods has come up with new formats, lower prices, and new private labels. And number two is Aldi.” Glasheen says, “I was really impressed by how Gap responded to the situation created by American Eagle with their Kat’s Eye campaign and also denied awareness of the cultural moment in so doing. So, I’m going to go with Gap for this one.” Shoulberg declares, “I’m calling Walmart the retailer of the year, just in terms of all the right things that they’ve done. And what a remarkable transformation they have accomplished this year. And I give an honorable mention to Dick’s.” Cohen completed the list with Costco, Dick’s, Walmart, and Apple. In that order.

Key Takeaways

You may not be able to anticipate the next round of regulations, tariffs and changes, but you can be prepared. Uncertainty drives resilience in how you respond to conditions you cannot control. Pragmatism is an essential tool to manage in a disruptive marketplace and pays off better than clinging strictly to a codified strategic plan. Placing your customers above all operational and leadership agendas is an essential strategy. Protecting and developing your employees strengthens the infrastructure and foundation of your enterprise. And having a North Star for yourself and your organization ensures principled decision-making and building a business with purpose. To thrive in an ongoing uncertain marketplace with uncertain customers, you need to matter.