Episode Details

“I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people’s expectations. If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

—  David Bowie,  David Bowie: The Last Five Years

On the 1st anniversary of the release of the revised and expanded 2nd edition of Steve's best-selling book Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption--which confusingly is also the 2nd anniversary of the 1st edition's release--we celebrate its success and impact with our very special guest Forrester Research VP & Principal Analyst Sucharita Kodali.  Sucharita is not only one of retail's top thought leaders, but she was our very first guest on the podcast back in September of 2022 and she graciously wrote the Foreword to Remarkable Retail's 2nd edition.

We unpack some of the key lessons from the book and take stock of Steve and Sucharita's predictive prowess. We also wonder aloud about whether there is complacency setting in among too many retailers, if a "collapse of the unremarkable middle" is inevitable and whether certain oft talked about "innovations" are victims of the hype cycle. 

But first examine the retail news of the week that caught our attention, including trying to be glass is half full on JC Penney's new strategy to "love the customers that love us." We then move on to marvel at Shein's stratospheric $100 billion valuation, before weighing in on whether the Neiman Marcus Group's new partnership is rather Farfetched (see what we did there?). We close with our take on what to make of Walmart's bold moves to deal with trucking shortages. 
 

Note: The John Oliver "This Week Tonight" segment referenced in the episode can be found here.

And don't forget to check out our bonus episode recapping this year's Shoptalk conference, recorded live from high above the Vegas Strip. 

About Sucharita

Sucharita serves digital business strategy professionals. She is an expert on eCommerce, omnichannel retail, consumer behavior, and trends in the online shopping space. She is also an authority on technology developments that affect the online commerce industry and vendors that facilitate online marketing and merchandising.

In her research, Sucharita covers such consumer-oriented topics as eCommerce forecasting and trends, merchandising best practices, conversion optimization, and social computing in the retail world. She has also authored "The State Of Retailing Online," a joint study conducted annually with NRF.

Prior to Forrester, Sucharita was the director of marketing at Saks Fifth Avenue, where she managed the customer acquisition, retention, and market research efforts for the $2 billion luxury retailer's online channel. Prior to Saks, she held management positions at Toys R Us, where she was a merchant in the Babies R Us division and a store manager in one of the company's largest toy stores. She also worked for the Walt Disney Company, where she d