Staples Canada shakes retail | Ontario ready for cannabis, Edition 26 w/o January 21 2019

Recorded live from Dublin attending Showcase Ireland, this edition includes a feature on-site interview with retailers Jennifer Grimm, owner of Edmonton's LuxBeauty, and Melissa Austria, owner of Toronto's GotStyle. Both were in Dublin checking out the showcase, looking for new and high quality merchandise to offer their customers. In the news, Staples launches their new retail concept in Toronto, 77 Ontario municipalities opt-out of cannabis retail, Quebec cannabis retail rolls-back their growth due to product shortages, RCC releases their much awaited 2018 Shopping Centre survey, addressing the Knowing-Doing gap from NRF's Big Show, U.S. trying to avoid self-inflicted wounds in 2019, David's Bridal comes out of Bankruptcy whole, and more food kit fails and driverless grocery delivery, all this and more in this edition of The Voice of Retail podcast!

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.