The Robin Report Roundtable: Key Forces Reshaping Retail’s Future

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The convergence of geopolitical tensions, technological revolution, and changing consumer behaviors are creating strategic challenges and reshaping retail, all which demand immediate C-suite attention. Join Shelley and her roundtable of TRR contributors (Jasmine Glasheen, Mark A. Cohen, and Phil Lempert) as they discuss how to navigate unprecedented disruption and anticipate the short-term future.

Listen in to learn how emerging trends suggest a fundamental restructuring of retail economics that will require agile leadership and innovative approaches to maintain competitive advantage.

Special Guests

Mark A. Cohen: Former Director of Retail Studies at Columbia Business School and Former CEO Sears Canada.

Phil Lempert: SupermarketGuru® expert analyst on consumer behavior, marketing trends, new products and the changing retail landscape.

Jasmine Glasheen:
A go-to retail and SaaS content strategist, also well-known for insights on generational purchasing behavior.

Transcript by Descript:

The Albertsons is going away. We know that it’s, it’ll be split up. It’ll be bought by ahold, it’ll be bought by somebody else, and that will really start price wars. And if we take a look at what Kroger has done with their buyback,  they’re building a war chest to be able to have price wars with just about everybody.

Retail Unwrapped is a weekly podcast hosted by Shelley Kohan from The Robin Report. Each episode dives into the latest trends and developments in the retail industry. Join them as they discuss interesting topics and interview industry leaders, keeping you in the loop with everything retail.  Hi everybody and thanks for joining our weekly podcast.

I’m Shelley Kohan and I’m very excited to welcome a trio of writers from the Robin Report to talk shop as we head into the new year. So we have a very diverse perspective with us today on the hottest topics. going into 2025. So let’s jump right in. Let me introduce you to our guests on Retail Unwrapped and what we’re calling the Writer’s Roundtable.

So hang on to your seats. It will be a wild ride for sure. So we have Mark Cohen. He’s the former director of Retail Studies at Columbia Business School and also the former CEO of Sears Canada. Welcome, Mark.  Welcome.  We have Phil Lempert, who is the supermarket guru.  you actually started your career on your grandfather’s dairy farm in Belleville, New Jersey, which I think is a very interesting, but for the past more than 25 years, you’re an expert analyst on consumer behavior, market trends, new products and the changing retail landscape.

Welcome back, Phil.  Shelley.  And we have Jasmine. Who is a go to retail sass content strategist and you have a decade of probably over a decade actually of thought leadership, top tier retail news sites, fashion publications, and you’re actually the powerhouse behind behind a lot of custom content strategies, blogs, white paper.

So you’re kind of like the brains behind it all. And you are particularly well known for your Insights on generational purchasing behavior. So, Jasmine, always a pleasure to have you on. So great to be here, Shelley.  So today, we’re going to be talking about what’s going on in 2025. So, I’m going to hop right into the hot topics, because I know our podcasts are, you know, very short and to the point.

So, I want to start by talking about some of the legal. and government changes that are going to be occurring as we go into 2025, you know, tariffs, mergers, social media. So, Mark, I’d love to start with you and, you know, maybe you could talk to us a little bit about these two looming changes that are happening.

One, of course, the tariffs, which is top of mind for many of the C suite, but also the privatization of the U. S. Post Office.  Well, the Robin Report published my Retail Outlook for 2025 just the other day on the second, and I talked about tariffs. So at the risk of being redundant, I’ll jump right in.  The effect of tariffs are almost as irrefutable as the laws of gravity.

Countries don’t pay for tariffs. Consumers pay them. The cost of tariffs, anybody who says otherwise, whether it’s Trump, the people who work for him or the people who voted for him are either ignorant or they’re not telling the truth.  we saw an enormous rise in inflation driven by COVID.  A lot of it was an overreaction to the uncertainty as to where COVID was leading the world.

And now we’re faced with that enormous uncertainty with regard to what’s going to happen starting on January 20th.  Trump has said he will impose draconian tariffs on  China, Mexico, and Canada.  the, the, the Chinese are not sitting on their hands. They’re probably going to retaliate just the same way they did when he imposed tariffs in 2016,  which resulted in American soy, farmers being unable to ship their produce to China, which, of course, caused the U.S. government to subsidize their, harvests to the tune of 70 billion. That’s billion with a B. So,  we don’t know what to expect, but we can almost definitely count on retaliation, which is why Tariffs don’t work.  the, the consumer always bears the direct or indirect cost of these kinds of trade, interruptions.

And, the fact is there’s likely to be an overreaction, largely driven by the uncertainty. Of what to expect.  because it’s anybody’s guess whether he’s bluffing or he’s going to try to pull what he’s promised off and what its effect will be. But at the end of the day, it’s going to drive inflation back.

It has never disappeared in the last three years, but it certainly will reoccur in a big way. And that means prices will go up. And when prices go up, demand goes down.  So, I wish I could be more upbeat and ebullient about the next, the coming year, but I can’t be. With regard to privatization,  many countries have privatized their postal services,  but none of them have as many citizens or as geographically challenging as the United States.

And so, does the, do the Republicans have the political mandate and the political will to privatize the U. S. Postal Service?  guess is they do not. And do they have the man, the managerial expertise to do something like that?  my guess again is they absolutely do not.  So I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

And it’s interesting because the post, the U. S. Post Office has never really been profitable, right?  It’s always been subsidized. And, the enormous effect that it had on commerce early in the 20th century by providing Mandated access to all,  addresses throughout the United States, whether they were urban,  suburban or rural,  is why they have always had to be subsidized.

Now, there are Republicans who are already sniveling and whining about the curtailment of services or the time to distance of mail.  think of what would happen if this became a private company, which was necessarily built for profit.  Postal rates, which people complain about today, would go right through the roof.

So, I think it’s a straw man. I think the bigger issue is  tariffs. Yeah. And I know, Phil, you had some concerns. we talked earlier, you had some concerns about new administration coming in. So tell us a little bit about from your perspective what you’re thinking about, specifically in the grocery sector.

And I think you were talking a little bit about some labeling,  issues.  Sure. And just, to build on what Mark said, I, I also, believe that this tariff thing is going to be unbelievable and not only affecting consumers, but let’s not forget that there are certain companies like Apple.  That relies on Chinese labor to to get our iPhones and our Macs and everything else.

And if there’s a tariff put in place, you know, as expensive as Apple products are, they’re going to be more expensive. and again, You know, Apple has created this unbelievable, efficient China supply chain, and that could disappear. So when we talk about, you know, the, the new, impact on grocery and tariffs, and we look at China, which represents about 90 percent of all the garlic that’s grown in the world. 60 percent of all of our apple juice here in the U. S. comes from China.

I mean, the impact of tariffs, as Mark said, is huge. What I’m really concerned about, in addition to that, are two potential appointments  heading up our food supply, one being RFK Jr.  And the other one being Dr. Oz. Neither of them have ever run anything,  like a business. Number one, and I think When we look at some of these things, that’s going to be critical.  also what we know about RFK is he doesn’t want processed foods. He doesn’t want fluoride. He’s anti vax. So all of those kinds of things are going to have a major effect.

And on top of that, what we just saw, this. over the past week is finally the FDA has a new rule about healthy. They’ve been talking about it for about 30 years. It’s 318 pages and it’s really complicated. They’ve been working on a design, a little label that would go on products and say healthy. But it’s not that simple.

And just to give you an example, if you had a 50 gram serving of a dairy product, it can contain no more than 5 percent of the daily sugar level and 10 percent of daily salt level and saturated fat. So there’s certain products that we know that are healthy, like yogurt.  Yogurt is not going to be able to meet that need or any dairy product because we have naturally occurring sugars from milk.

So, you know, we, we really have to think really carefully about this definition.  and it’s, and it’s also, you know, not going to be able to. be put on whole wheat breads because they might be high in sugar. Also what we’ve seen ConAgra just announced the other day, a new on track badge. Now this is a label that they’re putting on their foods.

Mostly ones that have smaller sizes for GLP one user. So we’re going to see that label the surgeon general again Just the other day is now asking for a warning label on alcoholic beverages that they could cause cancer So, you know, I think it’s going to be the Wild West  If we have dr. Oz and if we have R.F. K. Junior leading our food supply. It’s gonna be a nightmare.  And Phil, I just have to say, I mean, even today, I think today’s consumers, they don’t even trust the labels anymore. I mean, they’re kind of blind to labels and they’re becoming very self aware and self educational. And they’re reading the actual details of what’s actually going into their foods because I think the American people just don’t trust the labels that they’re seeing.

Right. You’re right. but I, I want to, and probably call on Jasmine to help me out on this. It depends on the generation. There’s certain generations that especially generation, Z millennials, they read labels. They really care about food, other generations or other socioeconomic groups. Don’t. So, you know, what, what we really have to avoid is more confusion, not adding to the confusion.

Yeah, well, and a lot of times people care as much as they can afford to,  you know, for families for whom organic food is not an option. They’re not going to be the ones reading the labels. And then the actual retailer or site, for instance, take Timu. Timu says something is 100 percent cotton.  I’m going to take that with a grain of salt.

So I think that the actual retailer or brand also plays a really big role.  And, and just to build on what Jasmine just said about understanding what’s true,  there’s been survey after survey that have shown that the nutritional information on supermarket websites and ingredient information on supermarket websites are about 50% inaccurate. So, I mean, the hair,  you know,  it can only get worse. Oh gosh, that’s appalling. Yeah, that is appalling. And, so Jasmine, I want to like go over to you and I want to kind of switch subjects a little bit, kind of stay on legislation, but kind of switch away from, retail and foods and talk about one of your favorite topics that you’re great at, which is social media.

So we’ve heard a lot about TikTok, you know, being banned in the U. S. I’d love to know where you think we stand on that. And then just anything else you’re seeing in terms of, you know, social media. Sure. So everybody thinks that our future president Trump is very anti TikTok, very anti TikTok, and he was.

He was.  The first time, but now he’s shifted gears a little bit to the point where he’s calling for a re arbitration on January 19th, the day before he comes in as president to reevaluate the safety of using tick tock. So it’s been really interesting. I’m on flip. I’m on Instagram  and everybody on flip, all of the creators were kind of hoping that tick tock got banned because it’s a higher quality product.

And more revenue for creators. So there’s a lot of people out there who are terrified of it, but then there’s also a lot of small business owners with their fingers crossed and creators with their fingers crossed. So at this point, Trump is saying that he has a warm spot in his heart for TikTok.  It just so happens that his, one of his major donors,  is a major shareholder of Bydance.

As soon as he surfaced, Trump changed his tune. Funny thing about that. Sorry to interrupt. We had a warm bonfire on a Christmas day, right? And, and also let’s not forget the impact of tick tock has had on the food industry.  there, there are unbelievable. I mean, the,  supply of cucumbers went through the roof when you had some tick tockers,  you know, making recipes with cucumbers and so on.

And just to, you know, just to that one point, Jasmine, I don’t know if there is a warm spot. In his heart for any,  I’m sorry, yeah, except an investor. Yeah. So Phil, I’m going to build on what you said and I’m going to share a little personal,  story with you. My number one, tick tock video. I’m on tick tocks, but not in a major way.

My number one video on tick tock is how to make, cranberry sauce. Like I’m not even kidding. So you’re right. It’s the food, but it’s also this culture of cooking and being at home and you know, all of this. So that actually, I think, adds to the level of people being engaged with tiktok and, you know, social media.

Yeah. And just the cultural zeitgeist around it. I’m working on an article right now that talks about star face pimple patches. Oh yeah. Have you guys seen this? Okay, because it’s a cultural phenomenon at San Diego State University. All of these women walking around with star stickers all over their face.

And I didn’t know what it was. And, you know, obviously I’m a geriatric millennial. So I had no idea. And eventually I worked up the courage to inquire about them. And their pimple patches to help women feel more empowered and joyful about their pimples. This would have never occurred to us. But it blew up on TikTok, and now pimple patches are being traded like cigarettes in prison.

That’s really interesting. What do you think that says about the generations in terms of, you know, just kind of being out there? And are you seeing this just with females? Are you seeing with males, all genders? I think eventually it will cross the gender divide, but it’s So there’s this interesting bifurcation that I’m writing about right now.

That is the idea that next gens really embrace things like acne, scarring, melasma. Stuff that we would have been really ashamed about as young people, but at the same time, they’re more scared of aging and delving into some kind of dangerous at home treatments. For instance, are you retinol?  Oh yes.

Retinol is something for middle aged. People, it’s not something for teenagers and they’re wearing it without sunscreen and then aging like milk.  Wow. Yeah. That’s really super interesting, and I think one of the big concerns about, you know, these younger generations is they’re living so much longer, too.

So the aging becomes even, you know, taking care of that aging process becomes more important as we, you know, live older and older. So let’s shift gears here. And I’d really love to ask you to look into your crystal balls and tell us what you think. What are you seeing in the future of retail? What are you seeing?

What are the big shifts out there?  so let’s start with Phil, if you don’t mind.  I know your industry was hit so hard with inflation over the past few years. still recovering from that. Any thoughts about the future of grocery? Are we going to see more consolidations? Does it mean if we, if more grocery stores are consolidating, does that mean fewer grocery stores, higher food prices, lost jobs?

And also, is localization working? Like a lot of the grocery stores doing kind of this localization thing. I’d love to hear your thoughts on all those, plus any consumer shopping behavior changes. I know I throw a lot at you right there. That’s okay. So the biggest story of the year obviously is the debacle between Kroger and Albertsons.

Oh my god. That debacle is going to create you know, a huge change in the industry. Albertsons is going away. We know that. It will be split up. It will be bought by Ahold. It will be bought by somebody else. And that will Really start price wars. And if we take a look at what Kroger has done with their buyback,  they’re building a war chest to be able to have price wars with just about everybody.

That’s number one. Number two, we’re going to see all the continue to grow and continue to be important again, especially with millennials and generation Z who really want value, but they also want quality. So we’re going to see that as far as prices go, prices are never going to go down. I don’t care what Trump or anybody else says.

The reason that food prices went up is first of all, because of our environment. Every product of the 45, 000 products in a grocery store starts on the ground. And if we take a look at weather conditions, hurricanes, floods, fires, all that, that has affected the grocery industry. Then we look at immigration and the possibilities of not having farm workers, especially here in California, being able to pick our crops.

That’s going to raise. The labor rates. We also have seen, especially here in California, labor rates going up, where now you have people who work in white tablecloth restaurants who are leaving there to go work at McDonald’s and Burger King because they can get a higher hourly wage there. That’s more guaranteed.

So labor is going to be a huge problem. until we can figure out climate change. If we can in our lifetime, prices for groceries are never going to go down. Now it’s going to change.  I’m going to go back to G. L. P. One. There was just a report that came out that said that because of the users of G. L. P.

One and I think the number is now 15 million people.  sales of groceries have have dropped. 6%. And the reason for that is people are buying less and smaller sizes. So I think we’re going to continue to see that. I think we’re going to continue to see more anti obesity drugs, which is really going to change the dynamic.

And the question that I’ve got, Shelley, and you point out that, you know, this younger generation is going to get older,  maybe not. Maybe with all the meds, maybe with everything that we’re doing, we’re going to see a reversal of, of aging and, you know, we’re not going to have to worry about social security because everybody’s going to die before they get it.

That’s interesting. So I want to go back to something you said about the 6 percent decrease in grocery spend. Did I get that number right? So, is, is, is part of that, that, so what I’m hearing and what I’m seeing is that a lot of consumers are trading down to store brands. I mean, I think a lot of the grocery stores have really upped the game in terms of store brands and is that maybe another reason why some of those numbers have dropped?  that’s partially true. And you’re 1000 percent correct. Store brands have really elevated. And and the reason is simple. Trader Joe’s and Aldi has really shown that you can have great quality products and have a great following,  and have less expensive products.

So, I think that’s part of it. But This study was in particular looking at people who are on GLP 1, whether it’s Ozempic or Rigovi or, the other one. And, and they’re really calculating how much money those shoppers are spending, not in general. I gotcha. So they’re just eating less.  They’re eating less and they’re eating better.

I mean, they’re eating more protein, they’re eating less ultra processed foods.  this is a good thing.  So,  that’s great. Thank you for all of that. so jasmine, let’s fly over to you for a second. What major shifts are you saying? You know, we’ve heard a lot about experiential retail. Is that still a thing?

Are we going to see a continuation of the wellness trend? And I’m going to throw another thing on there. I’m going to go from all these private label brand to walmart’s new Birkin bag And ask you about, you know, what’s going on with, consumer behaviors in the fashion world.  All right, so let’s take that piecemeal.

So, first of all, so as far as experiential retail, so when we were talking about experiential retail a couple of years ago, we were only talking about immersive experiences, but that has stretched to include in mall. Housing and residencies because we all know that there’s a housing crisis in urban epicenters like San Diego.

So what we’re actually seeing are residences being built up in malls and Netflix just launched something new called Netflix house. Have you guys heard of this? So what they’re going to be doing is they’re going to be decking out Airbnb style. Different areas in malls to the theme of a certain show, they’re going to fill it up with inventory and they’re going to have custom food and drinks.

So it’s going to be a Bridgerton squid game. They’re going to do it with all of the hottest Netflix shows. Mark, I see you shaking your head as if you were unenthused about this. I find it fascinating. Yeah, I find it absolutely fascinating. So pretty soon they’re going to be able to go in and have immersive experiences.

With your favorite shows, and they’re kicking this off at King of Russia and Galleria, Dallas. Really interesting.  Would you live in a mall?  No. No, I wouldn’t live in a mall. But the King of Prussia I spent most of my adult life walking malls. I certainly wouldn’t want to live in one. Just get on that at this point.

Well, wait, what’s going to happen? We’re going to see the Ritz Carlton residences at, you know, King of Prussia Mall. Yeah, that’s right. That’ll be where it evolves. See, but what’s so interesting is they’re trying to make this sound like a luxury experience. And to get people to pay more to live in these malls and for me living in San Diego, I pay more to live outside of the city  because there are issues that happen in the city.

There’s a lot of people experiencing homelessness,  things are becoming a lot more volatile, so I’m not sure that they’re going to be able to properly incentivize the highest spenders to actually live in the malls, but to do an Airbnb style stay about your favorite Netflix show  that I would do.  That sounds like fun.

So tell me Jasmine and then I’ll move over to Mark for one of the hardest questions I’m going to pose to all of you. But before I do that, Jasmine, what’s happening with this wellness trend? Are we still, are we still moving, seeing a lot of that happening? Is that moving forward? Yeah. So I see,  I’ve never seen wellness as a trend.

I’ve always seen it as a movement. And it was really interesting that Phil was saying that people are eating better when they’re taking diet pills, such as a Ozempik,  because the photos that I’ve seen of the celebrities that are taking a Zempik are pretty terrifying. So I think that,  I mean, just shallow eyes and talk about premature aging.

I mean, if Gen Z is going to age like milk, Zumbik is a great pathway to do so. But,  so I see wellness as something that is going to stick around indefinitely, particularly as the food industry and the availability of healthy foods changes. I think that we might actually see more people get into ancestral medicine,  holistic health,  herbal healing, and all of those things that have traditionally been scoffed at.

Okay, but we’re seeing a revolution in the food industry, we’re seeing a revolution in the medical industry, and we’re still talking about wellness like it’s only retail specific. People want to be healthy. And I think we’re going to see people find new ways to try to do so. Outside of yoga, outside of holistic healing, but also different diets, like Ayurvedic diet,  keto, all of that good stuff.

I think we’re going to see that, that almost everybody is going to be on some type of diet plan soon. Jasmine, if I could just add something to that. I think that what we’re starting to see is finally the separation of diet. For appearance and diet for health and you know, when we take a look at the celebrities that we’re talking about on Ozempic that are taking you two or three times a week instead of one time a week, that’s diet for appearance and that’s not going to work and what you’re pointing out, whether it’s Ayurvedic or any of these other diets, we are moving, in my opinion,  into diet for health and that’s when we’re really going to hit a home run.

Yeah, and I would actually make the same correlation with skin care for Gen Z. So there’s this idea of skin care for appearance and then skin care for mental health.  Wearing star patches on your pimples and going out in public would have been so unfathomable to prior generations, but this idea of embracing whatever it is that you have going on.

It’s a big bifurcation. It’s going to be strange.  Yeah, it’s really interesting. And, yes, I love the fact that, we’re being more comfortable with ourselves as we are. There’s been a big movement with that. And, you know, I never liked the term diet because diet to me, like people say, are you on a diet?

No, I’m just eating healthier. I’m choosing to eat a certain way. And so there’s kind of this negative connotation with diet. So I think healthy eating and the movement piece. I think that’s all right on track with our consumers.  so Mark, I’m gonna pose the most difficult question to you. You and I have joked about this in the past about forecasting, you know, sales, forecasting what’s gonna happen.

And, you know, we can always get the forecast right for holiday because we give a nice big range of three and a half to four and a half and it’s always been the same. But how are we going, we as retailers and brands? How, how can we forecast what is going to happen in this next year and over the next few years?

How is that even possible?  Well, it’s essentially impossible. You know, the celebration around the 3. 5 percent holiday sales result is masked by the fact that prices were up 6.  5%. So, so holiday 2024 was not successful. Nor was holiday 2023.  Businesses have to forecast, they have to plan, they have to project,  in the face of a, a strong economy at face value, 2025 looked like a relatively stable platform  from which to begin to forecast recovery.

Recovery from covid recovery from the effects of inflation, by the way, to phil’s point about prices never going down prices, generally speaking, never go down except in gasoline, diesel eggs and maybe a couple of other commodities once inflated. That’s it. They if you’re lucky and we’ve been lucky this year, they’ve stopped inflating, but now all bets are off.

And everything that this administration has promised suggests enormous upheaval,  and I can’t imagine how the American electorate is going to stand for another round of explosive inflation.  so what do you do? How do you plan? You have to plan conservatively, which means,  very conservative inventories and higher power prices.  This is exactly what happened coming out of covid.  once the, the, the floodgates opened and inventory started to pour in, retailers started to curtail their supportive inventory because they were drowning in inventory and they were at the same time raising their prices.  retailers have to be defensive and in times of uncertainty that does not speak well for the support they have for their customer.

So I, you know, I’m, yeah. Scared to death as to what to  prognosticate, but to say, it’s going to be a very bumpy ride this year at the very least.  Thank you for that, Mark. Phil, Jasmine, any closing thoughts you’d like to add?  I’m in Mark’s camp.  Yeah. I mean, hopefully people will become more self sufficient.

Hopefully we’re going to see more home gardens. Hopefully we’re going to see more. sewing and reusing and things go a healthy type of way. But we’ll see. We have to be ready for whatever comes.  I love that, Jasmine. I just got my sewing machine repaired. I had to send it in for repair.  So he is.  Yeah,  I’ve started making polymer clay pots and I’m making almost all of my own home accessories.

At this point,  I make all my home cleaning solutions, dusting solutions, cleaning stuff. So It’s, it’s a lot of fun, actually. It’s very creative, so. Mark, any last closing thoughts you want to add?  Well, to, to all a happy and healthy,  emphasize healthy New Year. Let’s all try to keep our wits about us and, reflect on the fact that,  you’re either half, your glass is either half full or half empty.

And hopefully most of us think the glass is half full, however things start to turn out. And we have trust and faith in, the goodness that each of us brings to the, to the table.  Well, thank you. And I am so excited to have the three of you in one space talking shop. So thank you all for joining me and being here today.

It’s been great. And thank you to our listeners. We appreciate it. By the way, if you have any suggestions on what you’d like to see in future podcasts, please go to the rom report. com under contact us and send us your thoughts. Thanks so much. And thanks for listening. And of course, you know, happy new year.

Thank you for listening to retail unwrapped. We’ll be back in one week with another podcast. Please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast service. If you have questions, ideas for a podcast, or anything else, please contact us via TheRobinReport.com.

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