Retail OCD

The Anti Amazon: How The Mall Street is building a multi-brand platform that puts brands first

Every brand that sells on Amazon knows the truth: the customer belongs to Amazon, not to you. The Mall Street was purpose built to change that forever. While Amazon quietly steals data to sell their own dupes, The Mall Street's platform has figured out how to deliver a revelation: the discovery power and prestige of a luxury multi-brand shopping destination, without asking brands to hand over their customer, their data, or the control of their own brand relationships. The Chief Growth and Chief Brand officers walk us through how The Mall Street went from Amazonian anger to a digital flagship mall, where every brand keeps its own front door, but share infrastructure, traffic, and operational economies of scale. Given retailers' forced march toward agentic commerce, we found this discussion especially fascinating. And timely. If you're a brand tired of renting space on platforms that treat you as inventory more than a partner (or an AI training tool) this episode is for you!

Are You Having Fun? Never too late: Pivoting your career without starting over.

Career pivots aren't just for people who failed, sometimes they're for people who succeeded and still felt unfulfilled. In this episode, we talk with two executives who left high-level roles at Gap to start their own businesses. They break down how they made the decision, what the transition actually looked like, and why it's never too late to build something that feels like yours. And how you just might have skills you didn't realize were lurking within you that will bring you joy in a new career direction you hadn't anticipated.

Invisible Conversion Killers: Live under-the-hood reveal of hidden e-commerce revenue holes

Every e-commerce site has them: small, invisible friction points that silently push shoppers away before they ever reach checkout. In this episode, we go under the hood live on LinensNThings with the co-founder of Zenyt.Ai to expose key hidden revenue holes most retailers don't even know exist, and show what fixing even a fraction of them can mean for your bottom line. We also learn from a veteran e-commerce retailer what real-world best practices they've learned from years of online selling. If you sell anything online, this one will improve your ROI. It did for LinensNThings before the end of the show!!

Buying Broken: The Business of Bringing Brands Back To Life

What does it take to resurrect a beloved but broken retail brand? In this episode, we sit down with Josh Rockoff, long time retail turnaround expert with deep experience in distressed brands to explore the high-stakes, high-reward world of brand resurrection. With a career spanning private equity, venture capital, and executive roles across brands like Diane Von Furstenberg, Urban Decay, Kmart, and Destination Maternity, Josh knows what makes broken brands worth saving, or forgetting. We dig into how investors identify distressed retail IP and what it costs to bring a zombie brand back to life. If you've ever wondered about the business of brand comebacks, this one's for you. We also learn Josh's business origin story, which is so unique and incredible that he should definitely sell the film rights!!

Voice A.I. : How Voice Agents Are Becoming The New Retail Frontline

What has been trial and error in the past is now coming into its own, and is rapidly becoming the backbone of modern retail operations. In this episode we bring Ed Crowley, Founder of URWay Holdings, and Nick Leonard, CEO of VoiceRun, two of the industry's foremost experts, into the studio to talk about how they have made online and in-store voice agents transform the customer experience. We break down the tech driving this shift, the challenges retailers face in adopting it, and what it means for the future of the shopping experience. DeAnn ponders the joy of buying chocolate from Brad Pitt, and we try our hand at pranking Josh, but fail miserably.