Scott Arsenault, President of Ren's Pets joins top retail analyst and observer Rob Garf, VP Strategy & Insights, Salesforce

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada and with the support of omNovos, Canada’s digital customer engagement company. omNovos make Personalization EASY by helping you engage the right customer, with the right content, at the right time. Find out how you can get started quickly and affordably so you can focus on doing what matters most--driving revenue and margin growth at www.realcustomerengagement.com

This episode is also brought to you by Salesforce, the global CRM leader that is empowering companies of every size and industry to digitally transform and create a 360° view of their customers"

In this episode I welcome Scott Arsenault, President of Ren's Pets, a  regional pet store chain based in Ontario with national ambitions with and expanded store fleet and powerful online solutions , and we talk about the tremendous growth of online and a category benefiting from an explosion of demand due to the COVID-19 era.

Next I talk with one of the sharpest analysts and observers in the retail industry, Rob Garf, Vice President, Strategy and Insights, Retail and Consumer Goods at Salesforce as Rob shares  key North American Black Friday/Cyber Monday retail and consumer trends

But first, let’s hear from Scott from Ren’s Pets

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Please join me this holiday in supporting the Make Kids Smile campaign along with Stream Commerce Mastermind Toys  Baffin Footwear & Apparel , Rakuten Kobo Inc. and Truefitt & HIll North America .  Make Kids Smile is a grass-roots, hyper-local Toronto charitable initiative with a goal to raise money, gift wrap and personally deliver holiday gifts to kids, youth, and teens in Toronto.  Visit Make Kids Smile to learn more and donate today!

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Thanks to  Scott and Rob for being my guests,  plus omNovos and Salesfore for their support on this episode.  If you liked this podcast please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform,  rate and review, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail industry.  

I’m Michael LeBlanc, Founder and President of M.E. LeBlanc and Company Inc. and you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co or of course on LinkedIn

Until next time, have a safe week!

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur.  He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. 

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google.  He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer.  If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.