Live from New York Lockie Andrews, CIO and CDO for retailer UNTUCKit on moving fast and operating during the COVID-19 crisis, and Steve Buors, CEO of Reshift Media on COVID consumer social media trends and opportunities

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.

Live from New York at the epicentre of technology and the COVID crisis,  Lockie Andrews, CIO and Chief Digital Officer for retailer UNTUCKit is my special guest.   We talk about the history of this fast growing apparel retailer, starting online then with a single store in Soho with now 85 locations in the U.S, Canada and the U.K.  Lockie describes operating during the COVID crisis and how as a venture backed, digitally native brand they moved early and are seeing sales success online.  Finally, she shares her three top tips or pillars on getting through the crisis and the months ahead.

Next Steve Buors, CEO and Co-Founder of Reshift Media joins me and we delve into the latest COVID era consumer media and social media platform behaviours, and Steve parses the data to come up with solid, action strategies and tactics for both essential and non-essential retailers.

But first, let’s jump right into my conversation with Lockie Andrews from UNTUCKit

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Thanks to  Lockie and Steve  for being my guests on this episode.    Now let’s take a look the top retail stories with Retail This Week for the week of April 17, 2020.

That’s a wrap on this edition of The Voice of Retail.  If you liked this podcast you can subscribe on Apple iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, please 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.