Ep. #027: 'How to Solve a “Really Stupid Problem”' — Disney Petit, LiquiDonate

Ep. #027: 'How to Solve a “Really Stupid Problem”' — Disney Petit, LiquiDonate

Disney Petit, founder and CEO of LiquiDonate, joins Street Talk to unpack the economics of retail returns — an $890 billion annual problem that mostly ends in landfill. A former early employee at Postmates, Petit explains how her software reroutes unsellable returns and overstock to a network of more than 4,700 nonprofits, cutting shipping distanceby 90% and total cost by 60%. The conversation covers bracketing behavior, sizing economics, ESPR regulation, and why Petit now sells LiquiDonate as a cost-saving tool first and a sustainability story second. 00:00 — Introduction 01:00 — What is LiquiDonate, and why “liquid donate” instead of liquidate? 02:00 — Why did Disney Petit leave Postmates to solve the returns problem? 03:00 — Why do 8 out of 10 retail returns end up in a landfill? 05:00 — How does LiquiDonate's software integrate with a retailer's returns flow? 06:30 — How does hyperlocal matching cut shipping costs by 90%? 07:50 — Is sustainability actually what sells LiquiDonate to retailers? 10:30 — What is “bracketing,” and why does it cost retailers close to a trillion dollars? 13:00 — Will policy — not just software — be needed to fix returns? 15:30 — What's Disney Petit's vision for LiquiDonate as “the Amazon for nonprofits”?

Ep. #026: 'The Fit Intelligence Layer' — Jessica Murphy, TrueFit

Jessica Murphy, Co-Founder and CEO of TrueFit, joins Street Talk to talk about what two decades of fit intelligence infrastructure means at the moment agentic commerce goes mainstream. TrueFit operates a network spanning 91,000 brands and hundreds of millions of shopper profiles. Now it's connecting that intelligence directly into AI shopping agents via MCP — placing fit data inside the agentic flows where purchase decisions are increasingly being made. Murphy breaks down the $850 billion returns problem, explains what separates real AI from hype (ask about ground truth data), and makes the casefor why the product detail page is now the front door, not the homepage. If you're a retail executive trying to make sense of AI investment — or trying to explain it to your CFO — this one's worth the time. 00:00 — Introduction 01:34 — How COVID turned fit technology from a hard sell into a business breakthrough 03:40 — Why the product detail page is now the front door — and what that means for AI investment 05:54 — How TrueFit embeds into AI shopping agents and what MCP makes possible 07:06 — GLP-1s, body change, and the sizing crisis hitting plus-size retail right now 09:11 — Why technology companies have to learn to share the sandbox: the case for interoperability 10:08 — The $850 billion returns problem — and how fit intelligence addresses it at the source 11:29 — How TrueFit aggregates intelligence across 91,000 brands without exposing proprietary retailer data 13:16 — The ground truth question every CMO should ask before deploying an AI agent 16:01 — How to build the case for AI investment when your CFO is focused on protecting margin 17:22 — Less regret, fewer returns: TrueFit's value proposition for shoppers and retailers

Ep. #025: 'Circularity is Where You Begin' — Adam Baruchowitz, Return to Vendor

Adam Baruchowitz, co-founder and chief recycling officer at Return to Vendor, has spent 20 years inside fashion's waste stream. His company is building a circular materials platformanchored on monomaterial nylon design — and his argument for why circularity keeps failing is the clearest you'll hear. On this episode of Street Talk, Arthur Zaczkiewicz and Baruchowitz get into the economics of textile recycling,the structural reasons corporate circularity departments have no budget, and what brands actually need to change in their sourcing and design process to make closed-loop fashion viable. From fishing nets to recycled feedstock, from New York City Green Markets to the EU eco-design framework — this is the backstory behind one of the more serious circular economy companies in the fashion space right now. 00:00 — Introduction: Who is Adam Baruchowitz and why does his background matter? 03:08 — Why circularity keeps failing — and what the industry keeps getting wrong 05:18 — How the economics of textile recycling explain everything 06:11 — Fast fashion's overproduction problem: is the model structurally broken? 09:33 — How e-commerce free returns made fashion waste worse 12:33 — Why corporate marketing budgets never reach circularity departments 14:21 — How monomaterial design works — and what simple changes brands can make now 16:07 — Where circular economics work first: hospitals, uniforms, and closed-loop systems 20:32 — What 20 years of clothing collection taught Return to Vendor 23:31 — Recycling vs. circularity: why the distinction changes everything

Ep. #024: ‘The Funnel isn't Dead. It's Gone!’ — Angelica Reyes, Skeepers

Newsletter signup CTA: Get the Street Talk newsletter — retail intelligence for C-suite decision-makers. Subscribe free:https://street-talk-studio.kit.com/ Angelica Reyes, Global CMO and US General Manager at Skeepers, joins Arthur Zaczkiewicz for a direct conversationabout why user-generated content has moved from marketing tactic to retail infrastructure. The traditional purchase funnel has collapsed. Discovery, trust, and transaction now happen in a single scroll — and the brands winning are those that have figured out how to generate,manage, and activate authentic content at scale. Reyes walks through the data:70% of Gen Z uses social as their primary search engine, UGC is two to three times more trusted than brand content, and TikTok Shop is growing 80% year-over-year. She also makes the case that most organizations are sitting on untapped voice-of-customer data — and that the silo problem is the real obstacle to using it. •      00:00 — Introduction •      00:30 — What is Skeepers, and how does UGC work at scale? •      01:58 — Why cutting through the noise is harder than mostbrands admit •      03:36 — How consumer trust shifted from brands to peers —and why UGC is now 2-3x more credible •      05:11 — What’s really driving the rise of micro and nanoinfluencers •      08:00 — How TikTok Shop collapsed the purchase funnel inreal time •      09:04 — Why most retailers are misusing the UGC data theyalready have •      13:53 — Where the shopping journey begins today — and why the answer is “anywhere” •      14:35 — What AI personalization means for the nextgeneration of retail

Ep. #023 'The Frontline Intelligence Layer' — David and Jodi Harouche, Multimedia Plus

David and Jodi Harouche, co-founders of Multimedia Plus, have spent 29 years building technology for one of retail's most underinvested assets: the sales associate. On this episode of Street Talk, they explain how their platform Insight turns in-between-customer time into competitive advantage — and why storytelling, not product specs, is whatseparates a great associate from a forgettable one. They also preview MMP AI Studio, a tool that generates branded product video in under 20 minutes from a single URL. Plus: the story of JZIPs, the nonprofit they launched after their son Jordan's cancer diagnosis — 20,000 units and 52 hospitals in, and still going. •      00:00 — Introduction •      02:00 — How Multimedia Plus went from video productionto the Insight platform •      05:00 — Why in-between-customer time is retail's mostunderused training window •      08:00 — What AI can't replicate: the case for passionand storytelling over product specs •      12:00 — How content strategy changes from dollar storesto luxury brands •      15:00 — Why 29 years across every retail vertical is adifferent kind of advantage •      18:00 — MMP AI Studio: how a product URL becomesbranded video in under 20 minutes •      20:00 — What fashion, apparel, and retail technologymeans to each of them •      22:00 — JZIPs: from Jordan's diagnosis at 15 to 20,000units in 52 hospitals