Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of September 16, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.

In this week’s episode I’m on the road, recording interviews from the Bahamas where I was a keynote speaker at Bluestar’s Vartech conference, and now recording live at the Global eCommerce Leaders Forum in New York in the Purolator podcasting studio.

For this episode I reach out all the way out to Vancouver and chat with retailer Indochino CEO Drew Green. We catch up and talk about their impressive 40% YOY growth numbers that have made them one of Canadian Businesses ranked fastest growing retailers in their recent rankings, what it takes to maintain that level of growth and keep the customer coming back

Next I chat with veteran retail brand marketer Patrick Dickinson and talk retail marketing tradecraft, the complexities managing multiple brands and concepts in modern retail, and the nature of crowds, or lack of them, creating challenges for traditional store traffic models.

Lastly I’ll take a look at the retail news of the week, but first, let’s listen to my interview with Drew Green. A quick note, gremlins and not a super-great mobile connection stepped a bit on my recording with Drew, so you’ll hear the occasional beep that was I unable to edit from the interview.

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Thanks to Drew & Patrick for being my guests this week, now let’s hit the highlights from Retail This Week eNewsletter, biggest retail weekly in Canada and you can subscribe on www.retailcouncil.org for free.

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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 great 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.

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