Retail Gets Real

As retail continues to evolve, online marketplaces are booming. Millions of sellers have turned to Amazon Marketplace to grow their retail business. Theo Prodromitis is the owner of Florida-based small business Spa Destinations, and she's become an expert in using Amazon's platform to her advantage. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

How can retailers bring the best of online thinking into the physical world? It’s a big question, but one retailers must tackle to give customers the experience, service and speed they will expect from retail in the future. Healey Cypher of ZIVELO is working to create the kind of tech that brings the advantages of digital into the store. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

Sur La Table is one of the nation’s largest kitchenware retailers and a huge component of the business is its culinary school — over 80 stores have a cooking school in the store taught by resident chefs, and more than 600,000 students annually take advantage of them. CEO Billy May talks about how this strategy helps Sur La Table acquire customers and keep them coming back for more. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

Nicole Panettieri is much more than a retailer – she’s an advocate for small business and her community. As the owner of The Brass Owl, a boutique in the Astoria, Queens neighborhood of New York City, Panettieri exemplifies what it means to be a community retailer that makes a real impact. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

Retail is evolving — gone are the days when a company needed was a good product or service. Now they need to create an experience, a brand and a community. To learn about how the most successful entrepreneurs do this, we talk to JJ Ramberg, the host of MSNBC's “Your Business” and the Been There. Built That. podcast. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

Shopping is no longer about visiting a store to pick up products. Consumers expect a visit to the store to be much more than browsing and checking out. Matt Corey, chief marketing officer for PGA TOUR Superstore joins this episode to discuss how the golf-focused sports store is using technology to design a stand-out experience both online and offline. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

The retail industry loves to talk trends, but SapientRazorfish’s Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg says that many are overhyped. So what will stick? Joining us at Shop.org 2018 in Las Vegas, Goldberg chats about the retail tech trends that will gain momentum in the coming year and why a solution is in sight for the “mobile gap” problem. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

For millions of people around the world, Pinterest is the first stop on their retail journey — it’s a place to discover, get inspired and personalize. For retailers, Pinterest is an opportunity to engage with customers earlier and more often, well before a transaction takes place. To learn more about how brands of all sizes are taking advantage of this social media platform, we sit down with Amy Vener, the head of retail strategy at Pinterest. Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

Shopping for bras is generally an unpleasant experience — so ThirdLove takes shoppers out of awkward dressing rooms and allows them to shop for underwear at home, using data to create a more personalized shopping experience and better products. Chief Creative Officer Ra’el Cohen shares how ThirdLove is disrupting the bra industry by “taking data and using it in a really personal way.”   Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.

Brandless is “unapologetically a brand,” says co-founder and CEO Tina Sharkey, and it’s one specifically designed to appeal to millennials. On its online platform, Brandless carries everything from applesauce to knives for no more than $3, and all products are sustainably manufactured, organic and non-GMO. On this episode, learn how Brandless makes the business model work while also donating a meal to Feeding America for every purchase.   Learn more at retailgetsreal.com.