On this week's episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, co-hosts Gabriela Barkho and Melissa Daniels are joined by Modern Retail's platforms reporter Allison Smith to dig into why TikTok Shop is becoming a more legitimate sales channel in the eyes of bigger brands.

Less than three years old, TikTok Shop now makes up roughly 20% of all social commerce sales, according to data from eMarketer. The rest of the category is dominated by Meta. Last year, the company drove $500 million in sales during the four-day stretch from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.
In response, more established legacy brands and mid-sized companies are popping up on TikTok Shop. Smith reported this March that sales from big-name brands — those with at least $30 million in annual revenue — increased 97% year-over-year on TikTok Shop.
The conversation discusses:

• How affiliates and discounts are powering acquisition.
• What it's like operating on TikTok Shop as a big corporation versus a smaller startup.
• What it takes to succeed on TikTok Shop.

It seems like every company wants to bill itself as a “lifestyle brand” these days. If a company can truly integrate itself into a customer’s lifestyle – versus just selling them a single product – they can build a more powerful connection over time. But, what does that actually mean in practice?
In this episode of the Modern Retail Podcast – recording live at the Modern Retail Marketing Summit in Huntington Beach, California – Mandy Fry, co-owner and president of Southern California-based apparel brand Z Supply, talks about how she built Z Supply into a full-fledged lifestyle brand.
For Fry, building Z Supply into a lifestyle brand meant first and foremost taking the company into different categories. Fry joined Z Supply in 2019, roughly six years after the brand launched. At the time, Z Supply only carried t-shirts.
 Fry decided to first launch loungewear. At the time, “it was a really trendy category,” Fry said. And given that many customers said they liked the soft feel of Z Supply’s t-shirts, loungewear was the next logical step.
The loungewear launch came at a very fortuitous time: February 2020. The success of loungewear gave Z Supply to enter new categories like jackets, resortwear and even sunglasses.
But building Z Supply into a lifestyle brand required a mindset shift. As Fry put it, building a lifestyle brand is all about meeting your core customer “at every moment of the day.”
“I wanted to wake up with her in our loungewear. I wanted to go to school drop-off with her. I wanted to workout with her, I wanted to go to work with her, I wanted to go to drinks, I wanted to travel [with her].
The episode also gets into:

• What new category launches didn’t work
• How Z Supply had to shift its marketing strategy to position itself as a lifestyle brand.
• Z Supply’s retail distribution strategy (the brand sells through roughly 3,000 boutiques) and why Z Supply has largely said no to big retailers so far.

Electronic shelf labels are nothing new.

Lately, though, the topic has been making headlines as companies like Kroger and Walmart announce they'll be rolling out more of the technology across their stores. The small screens replace the paper stickers that store employees would have to replace by hand anytime there is a price change or stock change.

But this is raising concerns among grocery store workers and consumer advocates about the potential for unfair price increases. In turn, the United Food and Commercial Workers union is making a legislative push across states and in Congress to regulate what companies can and can't do regarding in-store pricing.

On this episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels interviews lobbyists on both sides of the issue: Jason Straczewski, group vice president of government relations and political affairs at the National Retail Federation, and Ademola Oyefeso, UFCW International Vice President and Director of Legislative and Political Action.

The interviews get into why electronic shelf labels can benefit retailers because of the efficiency they provide, including increased accuracy, saved staff time and faster in-store operations. But the UFCW has argued that the technology could cost workers their jobs. Beyond that, UFCW has also raised concerns about the unilateral ability for companies to change prices, which could open the door to "surveillance pricing," or when companies change prices based on the data they have around who is shopping. There are also concerns about "algorithmic pricing," or using automation to adjust prices in real-time.

In the episode, we'll also hear about:

• The legislative push UFCW is making in states and where that stands.
• What existing laws already say about price gouging and consumer protection.
• How this fight opens the door to concerns around companies using AI to determine pricing.

Last week, Allbirds sold for $39 million to American Exchange Group, a vast drop from the peak $4 billion valuation Allbirds had when it went public in 2021. But it’s not just Allbirds that’s dealing with decline in sales. The DTC brand is just one example of a shoe brand that stumbled in an ever-competitive market.

The Allbirds fire sale also comes at a time when many sneaker brands are on a comedown after years of growth, thanks to ongoing demand. With that news, this week’s episode takes a look at the larger state of sneakers. Companies like On and Hoka, deemed darlings just a couple of years ago, are experiencing a slowdown in sales. Meanwhile, specialty running brands like Brooks and Asics are having a moment thanks to their positioning, offering technical designs. All the while, legacy player Nike is slowly but surely regaining its top spot as revenue recovers.

To discuss these challenges many sneaker brands face, host Gabi Barkho is joined by senior reporter Julia Waldow. The duo speak about:

• How footwear brands lose their way as trends come and go.
•  Fierce competition from the challenger brands means incumbents like New Balance and Nike are clawing their way back to regaining market share.
•  The increase in unforeseen challenges in the category, like tariffs and the rising cost of synthetic rubber.

On this week’s Modern Retail Podcast, co-hosts Gabi Barkho and Melissa Daniels delve into the vast world of product LTOs, also known as limited-time offers. In the CPG space, these are usually limited-edition flavors or scents that brands drop to create consistent newness. 

Spring tends to be a big season for LTOs as brands refresh their assortment. And the trend is only getting bigger. Even legacy brands like Peeps are releasing more unique flavors this year, like Rita's-Italian-Ice- and Pop-Tarts-flavored marshmallows. This episode looks at why these limited releases have become a big part of brands’ marketing strategy, as they are now a major sales driver. 

Joining the show this week is Ryan Meegan, co-founder of Dude Wipes, to talk about the ways the brand has grown its customer base through limited-edition and seasonal scents. And the proof is in the numbers. The 2025 seasonal assortment included the fall-themed take on pumpkin spice, Dumpkin Spice, and the winter holiday scent Dingle. About 69% of households that bought these Dude Wipes products were new to the brand, totaling about 150,000 new households.

In this week's episode, Meegan discusses:

• The importance of developing seasonal SKUs that stand out in the stale wipes aisle.
• How Dude Wipes is now planning annual inventory around these products.
• How scents that began as seasonal test runs became important revenue drivers for Dude Wipes.

This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels sits down with David's Bridal CEO Kelly Cook to go behind the scenes of the company's post-bankruptcy turnaround plan.

The roughly 76-year-old U.S. retailer is known for its wedding gowns and formalwear. But it’s had a challenging time staying solvent in recent years and filed for Chapter 11 in November 2018, and again in April 2023. The company's retail footprint has gone from more than 300 stores to around 150 today.

Cook took on the CEO role about one year ago and has shepherded changes under the "Aisle to Algorithm" transformation plan to help reposition the company as a digitally driven brand that offers more than just gown sales, including wedding planning assistance through its Pearl Planner service.

Their conversation gets into:

• How AI is helping David's reposition itself, establish internal efficiencies to acquire customers
• The in-store upgrades it's making to provide a more omnichannel experience
• The morale and culture challenges a business faces after filing for bankruptcy

On this week’s Modern Retail Podcast, senior reporter Gabi Barkho delves into the growing phenomenon of AI-generated review summaries.
It’s one of the many ways generative AI is already impacting the way people discover products and shop online. These summaries are not only changing the way chatbots talk about products, they’re also pushing brands and marketers to navigate customer reviews differently.
In this episode, Barkho is joined by Dawn Hilarczyk, chief operating officer at Borghese, and Nick Lafferty, who leads growth marketing at Profound. Hilarczyk and Lafferty break down the following:

• How AI-generated customer reviews are condensed and spread by AI search engines like Gemini, ChatGPT and Rufus.
•  Why bot-written summaries decontextualize product descriptions and features.
•  What brands can do to better control the way their customer reviews show up in summaries.

In this episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels and senior reporter Gabriela Barkho discuss their favorite food and beverage trends of 2026. Fresh off of Expo West, the episode’s discussion revolves around what is considered “in” and what’s “out” across categories. Protein sod and functional coffee remain hot items. Meanwhile, the noise against seed oils continues to grow in the better-for-you space, with brands boasting products made with alternatives like beef tallow and avocado oil.

The emerging trends in 2026 include:

• High-protein and “fibermaxxing” across nearly all food and drink categories.
•  An all-in-one approach to routines, such as combining daily creatine dose with the morning coffee, often in portable packaging.
•  The MAHA movement’s growing influence on trends in food, beverage and wellness is only growing in 2026.

This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels speaks with Kris Malkoski, the president of learning and development at Newell Brands who oversees operations for household brands including Graco and Sharpie. They go behind-the-scenes into how the 100-year-old baby gear brand Graco, known for its affordability against higher-priced start-ups, is approaching pricing strategies in an increasingly volatile retail environment thanks to AI, tariffs and cost-conscious shoppers.

Daniels interviews Malkoski about how Graco mitigated tariff-related price increases, how the brand is increasingly using AI to help dial in what prices a customer is comfortable paying, and how brands and retailers work together to align on pricing and assortments. Their conversation also gets into:

• The product development teams that play a role in keeping pricing competitive and affordable
•  How AI is changing the way Graco approaches customer personas
•  The ways Newell Brands works with retailers to help inform pricing and layout strategies that move units

On this week’s episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, co-hosts Gabriela Barkho and Melissa Daniels are joined by executive editor Anna Hensel to unpack how AI is reshaping marketing workflows and creative output.

As customer acquisition costs rise and shoppers grow more discerning, brands are using AI to sharpen targeting and streamline production. But many remain cautious about replacing human talent or handing over mission-critical work to fast-evolving technology.

In a blow for President Donald Trump's tariff agenda, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 20 that the Trump administration exceeded its authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in a 6-3 decision. In other words, they deemed that the sweeping tariffs he issued on Liberation Day against nearly every U.S. trading partner were unlawful. Now, many people in the retail industry, whose companies have been impacted by these tariffs, are left wondering what will happen next in the days and weeks to come.

In this emergency episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, executive editor Anna Hensel, special projects editor Melissa Daniels and senior reporter Gabriela Barkho break down what the Supreme Court ruling means for brands and retailers. They get into:

• Their initial reactions to the news that the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's tariffs.
•  Whether or not brands and retailers will be able to get refunds for the tariffs they paid over the past year.
•  What this could mean in the push for more domestic manufacturing.
•  What they'll be watching next as President Trump vows to impose his tariffs agenda through other means.