Michael Schneider, Managing Director of Bunnings, Australia/New Zealand's leading big box home improvement retailer, plus Amar Singh, Principal Analyst at Kantar Consulting

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.

On this episode we’re going global - all the way to Melbourne Australia for an exclusive interview with Michael Schneider, Managing Director of Bunnings, one of the leading big box home improvement retailers in the world.   If you don’t know Bunnings, they are a $13billion retailer with 377 trading locations employing over 44,000 team members. We talk about the one-two punch of the Australia wild fires and COVID-19, and how the business continues to operate, innovate and serve their communities across New Zealand and Australia.

Next up Amarinder (Amar) Singh Principal Analyst at Kantar Consulting takes us through the trends, performance and competitive set of the hardware DIY retail sector, and brings us up to speed on the trends that were happening pre-COVID-19, the performance of the category so far in the COVID era and top three tips to stay competitive and win market share.

But first, lets check in with Michael live from Melbourne

******

Thanks to Michael and Amar for being my guests, and thanks to Tectonic Architecture (www.tectonic-arch.com ) for their support of this episode.   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.