Operations
So, What Are Retailers Doing With All Those Tariff Refunds?
Billions of dollars’ worth of refunds have been issued, and America’s retailers have used
Warren Shoulberg
September 14, 2026
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Experience
Petco: The Robin Report Retail Miss of the Week, 9. 12. 26
Apparently, the marketing and promotion planning folks at Petco never studied their retail history about programs that went terribly wrong or they would have never created a loyalty program that resulted in a loss of millions of dollars of sales due to “customer point redemption volumes (that) far exceeded our initial projections.”
Warren Shoulberg
September 12, 2026
Retail Unwrapped Podcast
Brand Drift and the Risks of AI Marketing
Join Shelley and Karen Leland, founder of Sterling Marketing Group and author of “The Brand Mapping Strategy,” as they unpack why reinvigorating a brand beats rebranding. They discuss how brand marking is findable, followable, or unforgettable and the risks associated with each.
Retail Unwrapped
September 11, 2026
Management
Old Navy Is Caught In a Doom Loop
Old Navy’s move into beauty isn’t reinvention — it’s dilution. A mature brand adding tangential categories without fixing its core may help it hold on a little longer, but ultimately it only accelerates the doom loop.
Pam Danziger
September 10, 2026
Management
J. Peterman: The Most Famous Fictional Retailer in America
The famed mail-order catalog was a better TV plotline than a retailer, and it appears to have made its last curtain call. Its real-life hero, John Peterman, was as fictional a merchant as the stories in his catalog.
Warren Shoulberg
September 9, 2026
Experience
Where Is Gen Z Watching Ads?
The ads that actually capture Gen Z’s attention aren’t on the social platforms you’d expect—and that can make all the difference for brands. YouTube is unlike social feeds, where it’s easy to swipe past sponsored posts in a split second, Viewers often have to watch at least part of an ad before getting to the content they clicked on.
YPulse
September 8, 2026
Finance
Don’t Count Shein Out, Yet
The business world thinks Shein’s recent Hong Kong IPO —which valued the Chinese ecommerce fashion giant at only a quarter of its 2022 high—is a sign of the company’s downfall. While Shein probably should have listed in Hong Kong years earlier, observers are wrong to see Shein’s stock market debut as a failure; more likely it is a new beginning.
Ross O'Brien
September 7, 2026
Management
Tim Cook: The Robin Report Retail Hit of the Week, 9. 5. 26
With the possible exception of Greg Abel following Warren Buffet, there’s probably been no tougher succession with more pressure than what Tim Cook faced when he took over Apple from Steve Jobs 15 years ago. Cook has done a magnificent job leading Apple and doing it in a totally different way than Jobs did.
Warren Shoulberg
September 5, 2026
Retail Unwrapped Podcast
A Visionary Designer Engineers a Radical Ganni Sneaker
Join Haley and Maria as they dig into her journey of developing bio-based engineering and design with tech advanced tools. Maria describes her passion to change an industry and find alternatives to fossil-fuel based fibers, expendable apparel that pollutes unregulated environments, and unsafe clothing manufacturing conditions. Listen, learn, and be inspired.
Retail Unwrapped
September 4, 2026
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