In this episode, we welcome back to the podcast a retail veteran and now an analyst and college professor Bruce Winder. Bruce brings us his informed perspective on the state of retail in Canada we talk about the impacts of changing consumer behaviour and inflation, and then Bruce is a good sport as I pepper him with retail trends in a rapid round of fast paced back-and-forth Q&A.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In this episode, we welcome back to the podcast a retail veteran and now an analyst and college professor Bruce Winder.
Bruce brings us his informed perspective on the state of retail in Canada we talk about the impacts of changing consumer behaviour and inflation, and then Bruce is a good sport as I pepper him with retail trends in a rapid round of fast paced back-and-forth Q&A.
Bruce also shares with us a vital discussion of his mental health journey through the retail industry and the critical role that retail can play in embracing neurodiversity within its ranks.
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven’t already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast. Last but not least, if you are into BBQ, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co! Have a safe week everyone!
Bruce's article referenced in the interview:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rexile-main-street-bruce-winder-he-him-/?trackingId=lrgK6PcGxYyguUh0wt%2F4tg%3D%3D
About Bruce
Retail Analyst * Author * Consultant * Speaker * Instructor * Neurodiverse
Author of 2020 RETAIL Before, During & After COVID-19 (Available on Amazon)
www.brucewinder.com
Former Retail Executive with 30 years experience.
Recognized Retail Analyst - appeared hundreds of times in North American media. Interviewed on BNN/Bloomberg Canada, CBC's The National, Global News, CTV National, CTV News Channel, CityNews, CP24 and more. Quoted in The Globe & Mail, Financial Post, The Toronto Star, Bloomberg, Reuters, Canadian Press , BBC, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Ottawa Citizen, AdWeek, Canadian Grocer and many, many more.
Expertise in: all things retail + deep dive experience in: media relations & image improvement, category management, quality management, importing/procurement, vendor management, supply chain & process enhancement.
Speaking - I speak at conferences and corporate events regarding retail or mental health in the workplace
Satisfaction Guaranteed. Not satisfied with my work? Don't Pay.
bwinder@brucewinder.com
or call 416-705-5627 for details
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide. Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail’s prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in 2022.
Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms. Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.
Michael LeBlanc 00:05
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
In this episode, we welcome back to the podcast to a retail veteran and now an analyst and college professor, Bruce Winder.
Michael LeBlanc 00:17
Bruce brings us his informed perspective on the state of retail in Canada. We talked about the impacts of changing consumer behavior and inflation and then Bruce is a good sport as I pepper him with retail trends, in a rapid round of fast paced back-and-forth Q&A.
Michael LeBlanc 00:31
Bruce also shares with us a vital discussion of his mental health journey through the retail industry, and the critical role that retail can play in embracing neurodiversity within its ranks.
Bruce Winder 00:40
And then longer term, you know, I'd like to see if the industry is interested in moving to a place where they support people with mental health challenges in terms of accommodation, and even offering some interesting assignments. You know, I've done a lot of research behind the scenes. And there's some other companies such as JP Morgan, Microsoft, SAP, Hilton, and they've really sort of embraced the whole concept of neurodiversity, and neurodiversity is a fancy way of saying you think differently.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Bruce, welcome back to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing my friend?
Bruce Winder 01:16
Hey, I'm doing really good, Mike. Thanks for having me back on. I really appreciate you bringing me back on the program.
Michael LeBlanc 01:22
Yeah, well, listen, you know, it's not like I don't see you often enough. I don't see you in person. I don't think I've seen you. And a couple of literally a couple years, its a terriblething to say. But, man, you're on my TV often enough (inaudible), pining and helping the industry, helping folks understand the industry. So, it's great to have the opportunity to do a bit of chit-chatting today.
Bruce Winder 01:39
Sounds great.
Michael LeBlanc 01:41
All right, well, listen, for those maybe who didn't hear our first or our first episode together, which was just kind of around the launch of your book, tell us a little bit about yourself and, and what you do for a living?
Bruce Winder 01:53
Yeah, so I guess I'm kind of I guess you'd call myself I call myself a retail analyst. But I wear a few hats. I've got about 30 years experience, I spent about 22 years experiencing at big retail in places like Canadian Tire, the former Sears, the former Zellers and AIR MILES. I did some consulting for a while and now I pretty much teach full time at a couple of Toronto colleges, I teach business. And I also do some consulting some speaking and, and yeah, I'm an author, which is kind of fun, too.
Michael LeBlanc 02:25
Yeah, that was grea-, you know, tell me what it's like to be to be teaching. What are the I call them kids, I guess? But what are the young adults, you know, what are they thinking? Is it is it harder or easier to teach? I mean, what, what kind of programs are you teaching and talk about that a little bit?
Bruce Winder 02:39
Yeah, sure. No, so I teach, I've been teaching for about five years now, actually, even more than that part time. And I really like it. So, I mean, it's something that, you know, is, is fun to do, especially when you have a few battle scars on you, like I do knew after 30 years in the industry, you can, you can, you know, you can talk about some things and use some real life examples and kind of make it relatable for the students. And I really like teaching at this stage of my career, you know, I've, I, I really enjoy sort of sort of passing some knowledge on to people and, and, and coaching them and sort of developing them too, and mostly teach, well a combination of things, but mostly marketing, and international trade, and things like that. But I've taught, you know, everything from accounting to finance to even some basic IT and sort of jack of all trades, I think I've taught most of the business courses at the colleges.
Michael LeBlanc 03:28
Well, your versatility reflects your experience, right? As retailers, we, we get our hands on a lot of different files.
Bruce Winder 03:40
Exactly, -
Michael LeBlanc 03:42
As you would call them, right? Now, when you're talking to your students, are they, you know we what perspective do they come around marketing? I mean, you and I grew up in a time very different marketing, obviously, between the difference between mass and, you know, digital, and social and influencers and the rise and fall of that stuff, do they you know, does your course carry that broad spectrum, but also talk about, you know, print flyers, which is still an important part of, of mass media?
Bruce Winder 03:51
You have to sort of learn everything right to survive. So, it helps a bit to be able to teach a few different courses.
Bruce Winder 04:07
Yeah, it's a good question. And I do that when we teach it, we tea-, we I call it I call it old school marketing and new school marketing. And the old school is the stuff like you and I grew up on like TV, and print and radio. And then I talk about, you know, mostly digital marketing and obviously, they're very familiar with that, because they're in their early 20s. But I sort of paint the picture that it's more of a holistic approach. And it really depends on which segment you're going after, and how your segment consumes information, right. So, yeah, it's good conversation.
Michael LeBlanc 04:34
Well, that's a great approach, right? Because, you know, I, I actually envy marketers entering the career now in one way and the other way I'm happy I'm not, you know, I'm happy I'm not starting the career because it's, it's so fast moving and so fragmented. Because I mean, when you and I were doing this, you know, back in our early careers, it was you know, buy a TV spot for a million dollars and you had an incredible reach. And, -
Bruce Winder 05:00
Exactly, -
Michael LeBlanc 05:01
You know, print up 10 million flyers, I mean, that's still happening or bill, -
Michael LeBlanc 05:05
Now, it's so fragmented. I mean, how do you like when you talk to the students about how to allocate their dollars? Obviously, there's a big piece of that discussion that goes around which segment, who are you targeting? Ultimately, you know, I think that's starting to, I want to say gray out to be cheeky, but you know, as, as getting older consumers are online, and they might be in Facebook rather than Tik Tok. But (crossover talk), how do you talk about the blend when you when you describe that, is it is it lean one way or the other or, or take me through that a little bit like I'm, I'm I want to learn from you.
Bruce Winder 05:05
exactly yeah, -
Bruce Winder 05:38
But one of the one of the key things, I think, is that, you know, marketing is as much an art as it is a science, I know, it's a lot of science these days with analytics, but it's a little bit of a tr-, trial and error and test and learn on a small scale. So, you know, you know, do some research, find out from research how your consumers for that segment want to be communicated to in terms of what do they use? Are they on Facebook? Are they on Tik Tok? Use the research and then try a few things and try on a small scale and see if the ROI is there, right. And if the ROI starts to look great, you know, allocate a little more there and a little less somewhere else. So, a little bit of trial and error, a little bit of consumer research, you know, a little bit of test and learn is sort of how I teach it.
Michael LeBlanc 06:16
Neat, neat. And, you know, you mentioned you, you've written a book, you're an author, it's great book, talk about your book a little bit. And then now as an author, I want to get your perspective.
Bruce Winder 06:26
Sure, thanks. Yeah, the book came out a couple years ago. And, you know, it's kind of an interesting time, I, I kind of plowed ahead, and I created the first half of the book, which is really, retail, you know, as it was then, February of 2020, I talked about some of the key retailers and classified them from what I saw as sort of best-in-class to maybe need some work.
Bruce Winder 06:48
And then I went through and listed (inaudible) retail trends, and you know hey, I was going to wrap it up and call it a day. And then I said, and then obviously, the pandemic happened. So, I said, stop the press, and I wrote a section, a chapter, or more on, you know, life sort of inside the storm inside the pandemic, and what was happening within retail.
Bruce Winder 07:08
And then I got my crystal ball out and said, Okay, based on everything going on, if I had to make an estimate on where I think things are going to end up when this thing's done, you know, where would retail land from a whole bunch of different perspectives. And I look at it from the perspective of the consumer, the retailer, the investor, the customer, the employee, the manager and a few other areas. So, yeah, it was it was fun writing it. And I learned a lot myself, just from the research, you know, I have about 800 footnotes, and it's a little long, it's not for the faint of heart, it's over f-, it's about 400 pages, which is probably longer than I wanted it to be. But you know, I had to include sort of some up-to-date info, based on where it was at the time.
Michael LeBlanc 07:45
Well, and once again, the book is, RETAIL, Before, During and after COVID-19. All right, so we're not exactly after COVID-19, -
Bruce Winder 07:52
No, we're not we're still, not, -
Michael LeBlanc 07:54
Two questions. So, based on what you see today, how would you, Professor, how would you grade yourself on your predictions? And then that you made with, let's call it very imperfect information? And then, you know, what's the playbook for what's going on now? I mean, we still have supply chain gyrations that are worse now in some ways, but we got inflation now, we got consumer, changing (inaudible) habit. So, first of all, grade yourself, how'd you do on your predictions?
Bruce Winder 08:23
I'd give myself probably a B, on the projections. To be honest, I mean, some of them were pretty good, you know, industry consolida-, -
Michael LeBlanc 08:29
You are a hard grader man, you're, you're a hard grader. I mean we, (crossover talk), -
Bruce Winder 08:32
I got to be honest, right? You know, I gave myself maybe, maybe a B plus. But yeah, I mean, like any predictions that someone makes, you're going to get some of them right. And some of them are going to be a little off, or maybe what you predicted hasn't come to fruition yet. That's the other thing.
Bruce Winder 08:46
So, you know, some of the areas like the growth of eCommerce, you know, some of the inflationary discussions and sort of changing of the consumer psyche, you know, I think I had some of that down, vendor relations, direct-to-consumer. You know, one of the things I thought that didn't happen was I thought the environment would be shelved a little bit more. Now, you know, what the environmental, the whole environment play has kept running all the way through the pandemic, and it's gaining momentum. So, that's one thing that's interesting.
Bruce Winder 09:13
In terms of where we are now, to your point, you know, it's a really tough time in, in really any business, you've got, you know, the situation right now, one of the biggest issues is inflation. And we're clipping around 7%, US is around 8%. And, you know, the other thing, which is, you know, in part, part and parcel to that in par-, in partial cause is the supply chain issues, and what's happening is consumers are starting to change the way they behave, they're buying more private label, they're, you know, cutting back a bit on discretionary purchases, they're buying food different, they're eating at home more.
Bruce Winder 09:46
It It's a really tough time to be a consumer. Assuming you're sort of at the at the sort of average sort of mid to low end consumer, terms of income if you're at the upper end of, of consumerism, you know, you, you're doing fine. There's nothing really no problems there for there's lots of luxury. But for that consumer who has to sort of watch, you know, their budget a bit, it's a real tough time and it's tough on retailers. I mean, in Canada subsidies have ceased to exist. Now they turned the tap off on those. There's a lot of debt for folks. But you know, what retail is resilient, retail never dies. And retailers are incredibly innovative. And, you know, you know, innovation is the a child of necessity, right. And, and retailers will find a way to make all this work somehow.
Michael LeBlanc 10:31
Well, I liked your comment, let's pull on a few threads there, (crossover talk), sure I was speaking with the retail reporter from CNBC, Lauren Thomas last week, (inaudible), on one of my podcasts, and we were remarking together off mic about the absolute lack of retail bankruptcies in the first quarter, first half of the year. I mean, you and I know that it's a general thing. Q1 is, is a time where retailers you know, they didn't make it through the holidays, or they had planned to go into protection anyway. But we didn't see much of that, and, and, we, we surmise that there is a fair bit of government subsidies and programs.
Michael LeBlanc 11:06
But of course, on the other side, you know, we're waiting for the, you know, that chicken to come to roost or whatever, (crossover talk), I'm, whatever that's, (crossover talk), but but these, these subsidies are kind of are you worried about and when we talk about retail, let's ,let's, let's parse it out a little bit, let's segment it, as you would say, so yeah, there's indie retail, there's your kind of mid-sized 20-30 store and then there's large retail.
Michael LeBlanc 11:30
So, thinking about indies, mids, and larges is, I think we're less concerned about, I guess we're a little less concerned about the trouble that the large folks around, but let's talk about the indies. And then in the mids, let's talk about these digital native vertical brands, because they're growing, but their sales numbers and their performance and their stock has been punished over the past while. So, how are you thinking about those kinds of segments of the Indies, the mids and in the digitally native vertical brands? And then maybe the large guys, where, where do you think we're going to settle out, economically? Because, you know, there's, there's adaptations that the big folks can do, right, that the, (crossover talk), -
Bruce Winder 12:05
It's exactly based on their balance sheet and their asset base and everything? Well, I, I would say my own personal opinion is that I think the indies obviously, have had a hard time, I think, sadly, there is going to be a bit of an adjustment with some of the indies. And I think there has been a, a large adjustment too but it's just not reported.
Bruce Winder 12:21
So, you know, a number of people have said that, hey, you know what, there's probably a lot more companies, small companies going bankrupt and closing shop without filling out the paperwork, without registering themselves as a bankruptcy. That's point 1.
Bruce Winder 12:34
Point 2, some of the ones who've hung on may find it tough now, as the government subsidies wind down, and now they have to pay down some of the steps. So, you'll probably see a bit more activity, I would imagine some time maybe in the in this in the fall, early fall, or maybe late summer. But the indies are incredibly, you know, resourceful and, and you know, the type of people that if they, you know, if they fail at this business, they're going to probably pick themselves up off the ground and start a new business sometime soon, once they get everything in order.
Bruce Winder 13:04
In terms of mid retail, they're, they're a little better, I think, you know, off, off because they've got more assets, they've got better financing, they've got some scale economies, you know, they've got some, some volume there. And, you know, I think they're going to, they're going to do well, we, we saw a lot of mid retailers bow out even before the pandemic, a lot of the fashion brands from Montreal that may be struggled with a value proposition, they've struggled, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 13:29
It was also, you know, per-, talk about perfect storm, right, like, if you're a business that relied on, you know, office workers, social parties, commuters and tourists. I mean, there's nothing you could do. I mean, there's, -
Bruce Winder 13:41
(crossover talk), there's nothing you could do , -
Michael LeBlanc 13:42
About your business, just hold on and watch your liquidity, right? And, and then, you know, get through it, right.
Bruce Winder 13:47
It is, it's like weathering a tornado, right, that lasts two years, you know, and I, I think some of those folks in the mid are going to do find some, you know, as long, they probably would have failed by now, if, if they were going to fail, because their value proposition would have been a little weaker. Some have resurfaced, you know, like, Forever 21. They've sort of resurfaced with The Bay. And the big box, folks, you know, most of them are doing pretty good because they have the financing in place. They have a good value proposition. And, you know, I think their biggest issue is just kind of keeping up with change, changing, you know, when you have a large ship, it's it takes a few miles to steer the ship. I think that's their biggest issue is, is, is you know, trying to dance if you're an elephant if you're that big. So, they all have changes, I think in their own right. They all have challenges, I should say in their own right.
Michael LeBlanc 14:33
Do you think, do you think our retailers learned some agility through the pandemic? I mean, if, if there's any upside, I've talked to many retailers, I interviewed Mike Medline from Sobeys last week, and he said, You know, I think we're a more agile organization. I think the leaders that were that were brought up so to speak during that time, you know, I've, I've built more resilience than maybe others. Do you think, do you think there's an upside to that? I think there's also a powerful regression to the mean, as you we both experienced in big companies, what do you think?
Bruce Winder 15:05
Yeah, I definitely think that, you know, there's been a huge focus on agility. I think companies learned how to be agile on the fly, even the big ones because they had to, to survive. And you know, especially big companies, they usually take their time making decisions. And they go through a lot of rigor and process and bureaucracy and in a number of cases, they had to make decisions on the same day on things. So, I think it's given them a little bit of an advantage of being more agile, they've learned to be agile, and that'll serve them well. Because that's usually one of the downsides of big companies, right? If you're small, you're agile, you can move quick. And a lot of the small companies did you know what their eCommerce growth and things like that they went online, but this is sort of taught the big folks to, to learn that skill as well.
Michael LeBlanc 15:05
What do you seeing from consumers? I mean, I, I think, you know, obviously, we've got the value based consumer who's struggling, because they're, you know, to put food on the table and gas in the tank, it's eating up a lot of discretionary income. Do you think consumers in some ways have changed in, in one way, shape or another? You mentioned the environmental, like, when you talk to your students, you know, coming back in the, in the next term? Is that a focus for you, trying to understand what the heck just happened? And was there a change and a fundamental change, as opposed to a temporary change in consumer behavior? Are you seeing any, I don’t know, footprints in the sand or signs of longer lasting change in terms of how people shop?
Bruce Winder 16:26
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few macro changes that have happened as a result of the pandemic, too, I think that people are, are suffering a bit more from mental health, and we can talk about that later. But people are also sort of, you know, rediscovering the meaning of life, so to speak. I know that sounds heavy, but a lot of people sort of stayed at home, the white collar worker just said, What do I want to do with my life? Is this what I want to do? I like working at home, you know, I'm a little tired of working, you know, 60 hours a week, can I balance my life more. In terms of consumption.
Bruce Winder 16:54
I think that people are going to travel more that you're already seeing a massive increase in services and experiential, retail and travel. I think that, you know, it's going to be a balance between living your life and, and being a little frugal in some ways. And it really varies by segment, like we talked about, you know, if you're a luxury consumer, hey, you're out, you've got money, burning a hole in your pocket, your assets have increased during the pandemic, you want to go out and have more fun.
Bruce Winder 17:21
In the middle, you know, you're probably wrestling with saying, Hey, do I really want to go back to work full time? Can I work in a hybrid approach? And how does that drive consumption in terms of what car I drive? Or what you know, I have from my home office, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 17:34
I need and what do I need, right?
Bruce Winder 17:36
(Crossover talk), exactly, what do i need? You know, clothing wise to there's a large discussion about peo-, people saying they want to be a little more casual in the office going back, right? And what we eat and then there's, there's a whole people, like you've said, sort of who are struggling. And for them, it's a much dire discussion about literally, how do I make ends meet?
Michael LeBlanc 17:54
Yeah, yeah, let's, let's talk about mental health, you did a post on LinkedIn, which I read with great interest and, and talk about your perspectives on on mental health and retail industry is a challenging one. (Crossover talk), There's lots of change, we go up, down, sideways and forward all at the same time, some days, (crossover talk). Talk about yourjourney and, and your perspectives on that.
Bruce Winder 18:16
Yeah, it's something that I want to speak more about, because a combination of things happened, I noticed that Gillian Stein from Henry's came forth and was open about her challenges. And, you know, I have one of my daughters has ADD, Attention Deci-, Deficit Disorder. And, you know, I kind of looked at that and then I thought, you know, what, there's a lot of people suffering out there because of the pandemic, even before the pandemic, but during, and retail is a tough business, like we talked about, you know, it's not for the faint of heart, there's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of hours. And let's face it, you know, mental health doesn't always come first for us, we're always trying to get results.
Bruce Winder 18:51
And I just thought it was a good time to sort of pop my head out and share my story. And, you know, my main objective here is to try to increase awareness about mental health, particularly as we are, you know, continue to go through the, the pandemic, maybe lower the stigma a bit too, like, try to normalize discussion, so, so people, when there's less of a stigma, people will feel more comfortable coming out and getting help about it and talking about it.
Bruce Winder 19:15
And then longer term, you know, I'd like to see if the industry is interested in moving to a place where they support people with mental health challenges in terms of accommodation, and even offering some interesting assignments. You know, I've done a lot of research behind the scenes and there's some other companies such as JP Morgan, Microsoft, SAP, Hilton, and they've really sort of embraced the whole concept of neurodiversity. And neurodiversity is a fancy way of saying you think differently, you're wired differently, you know, people with autism, ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette's, OCD, like I have and things like that. They've sort of taken that and found some of the superpower these people offer and they've actually helped with productivity. And there's a number of positive outcomes from this. So, it's sort of something I want to try to create as a bit of a project for myself to help the industry.
Michael LeBlanc 20:08
Yeah, it's great. I mean, you chronicled in your, you know, your journey through retail, which plus from plus or minus, the higher you get up in retail, the more stress it is, and, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 20:17
Oh yeah, definitely, -
Michael LeBlanc 20:18
As you, you as you well know, but it sounds like you've found a great place in, in teaching and sharing, but it's, it sounds like a, a very worthwhile journey. And, and it's, as you say, that, you know, I think, you know, as an industry, if you're going to be an industry of career choice, if you're going to be a ca-, an employer of choice, it feels like you're going to have to start putting way more thought into this, particularly after the past couple of years we've been through, yeah.
Bruce Winder 20:44
The other thing, too, is really with the, there's obviously a lack of a bit of an issue in terms of finding people. So, it's hard to get people, you know, people who are autistic, only about 15% of them are employed. So, you know, there's, you can kind of take some lemons and make lemonade here too. And, you know, everyone wins, employers get good people who can do really neat things in certain areas. And people who may be you know, were underutilized in society can suddenly have dignity and actually contribute to society. So, I think I think there's a bit of a win-win there somewhere.
Michael LeBlanc 21:17
All right, and I'll, I'll post a link to that to your post, because it's a great, it's a great read, -
Bruce Winder21:21
Appreciate it, -
Michael LeBlanc 21:23
In the in the show notes and I'd love to continue this discussion. Around that element, particularly as we continue to have you back on back on you got so much to offer. I want to tap into your wisdom. All right, so let's talk about tapping into your wisdom for a couple of ways, (crossover talk). So, you know, I, I, I as you think about retail, forward moving forward, which I know you do, I sometimes think about table stakes and differentiators. And you know, they move right, that what used to be a differentiator -becomes a table stake, -
Bruce Winder 21:51
Exactly, -
Michael LeBlanc 21:52
In the future. So, what do you what do you think of the, you know, if you were talking to reach sit down with retailers, what are those one or two or three key differentiators that they should be thinking about today, to get ready for whatever comes tomorrow?
Bruce Winder 22:04
I think one of the key things is being a flexible employer. So, I think an employer who offers the flexibility of working from home, you know, or working in the office, sort of a an adaptive, flexible employer, I think that that's going to be a differentiator right now, I think someone who truly embraces the environmental movement, you know, where they're actually have a real robust plan to do that. I, I think, I think, you know, another differentiator is someone who embraces technology in an incredible way, you know, not just to say they're embracing it, but to actually add real value for their customers lives, through the use of technology and artificial intelligence. And one can argue, you know, the AI thing is becoming a table stake. But I still think that there's some work to be done there. I think that there's a lot of folks playing with AI, but I'm not sure everyone sort of fully embraced it and really made it part of their DNA.
Michael LeBlanc 23:04
Yeah, that's a great point. All right. All right. Now we do something a little fun. Okay, I want to do kind of a rapid fire, question round. So, this isn't, I wouldn't call this a word association but a phrase or an idea that pops into your head when I say the following things. All right, ready, -
Bruce Winder 23:20
‘Kay.
Michael LeBlanc 23:20
(inaudible) we're going to move. We're going to move pretty quick. shopping malls, shopping malls, -
Bruce Winder 23:26
Polarization, between super luxury malls and malls that are turning into residential and mixed use.
Michael LeBlanc 23:33
Marketplaces, retail marketplaces, -
Bruce Winder 23:36
Overused, sort of not mi-, not understood, misunderstood, and need, need more clarification for folks on that.
Michael LeBlanc 23:45
Department stores, -
Bruce Winder 23:47
In decline, shrinking super luxury, you know, at some and middle sort of retail for department store shrinking.
Michael LeBlanc 23:58
Will Amazon be the e,- biggest eCommerce player 10 years from today?
Bruce Winder 24:02
Great question. I'm not sure. They may or may not be because they've certainly have a head start of you know, 20 years. But you know, other retailers are no slouch either. You look at Canadian Tire and what they've done. You look at Walmart and what they've done. It's uncertain. The world changes a lot in 20 years. You never know what's going to happen with Alibaba and Tmall and folks in China too.
Michael LeBlanc 24:30
Think about you work for Sears, Sears is the biggest retailer in the world 19, in the 70s. Like that was, (crossover talk), not terribly long ago, right? (Crossover talk), it's almost gone. All right, the metaverse, retail in the metaverse,
Bruce Winder 24:43
Overhyped, trendy, too early to know if it's going to work, too much glamour and board talk. Be careful on your investments in it.
Michael LeBlanc 24:55
Sustainability, -
Bruce Winder 24:57
Must do, I like to say it's not just lip service anymore, this is real. The planet is changing, take it seriously embedded into all operations.
Michael LeBlanc 25:08
Automation, -
Bruce Winder 25:10
Must do everywhere, it's used everywhere. But get people to work with automation don't don't lose the human touch, particularly in service industries. But automation is here to stay, it's going to replace low skilled jobs in retail.
Michael LeBlanc 25:27
Is there any such thing just following up on that as, too much automation in the store, or too much self checkout, too much (crossover talk), walk out, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 25:31
Absolutely, it depends on customer segment. If you're dealing with folks who just want to get in and out quick, you're probably okay with automation. You start to look at any type of service interface where people want to talk to someone and learn things and have a conversation and have community then too much automation destroys that.
Michael LeBlanc 25:52
The supply chain, -
Bruce Winder 25:55
Messy, broken, we took it for granted, retool and reengineering will happen soon. Select nearshoring, sourcing from China and other countries, not just China anymore and diversification.
Michael LeBlanc 26:12
Media and retail. So, I'm talking here about these media, media in retail showing ads, (inaudible), retail as a media platform.
Bruce Winder 26:21
Yeah, a lot of discussion. Big business is growing big time at places like Walmart in the US. They seem to have found something very interesting, value add for suppliers, because they can see the ROI from advertising and how many people buy that hour. So, good and interesting.
Michael LeBlanc 26:39
Good and interesting. Well listen, Bruce, it's been such fun catching up with you,
Bruce Winder 26:44
Yeah, you too Michael, -
Michael LeBlanc 26:45
I always look forward to seeing you on TV and, and you bring such great (crossover talk), insight into the media. And, and thanks for doing that. Now if folks want to get a hold of you, are a LinkedIn person, how to get a hold of you and where do you find your book?
Bruce Winder 26:56
Yeah, you can get a hold of me. Anyway, I'm on LinkedIn all the time. I got a website, brucewinder.com. And the books available on Amazon. So, yeah, that's how you can get a hold on me.
Michael LeBlanc 27:06
All right, well, fantastic. Well, listen, have a great rest of your week, safe travels and, and enjoy those students and, you know, teach them well, because for sure retail needs some great talent to keep, keep this momentum going. So, thanks for your contribution to that.
Bruce Winder 27:21
Thanks very much, Michael. Take care.
Michael LeBlanc 27:23
Thanks for tuning in to this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week. And check out my other retail industry media properties, the Remarkable Retail podcast, Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and The Food Professor podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.
Michael LeBlanc 27:43
Last, but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, president of M.E. LeBlanc and Company & Maven Media. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Have a safe week everyone.
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