Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova.  This week I am thrilled to be speaking with Doug Stephens. Doug is the Founder of Retail Prophet. He is one of the world’s foremost retail industry futurists whose intellectual work has influenced well-known international retailers, agencies and brands like Walmart, Google, L'Oreal, Disney, BMW, Citibank, and LVMH. Doug is the author of two groundbreaking books, The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism (2013) and Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World (2017). Doug is also the nationally syndicated retail columnist for CBC Radio and sits on multiple corporate and academic advisory boards including the David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retail & Services at St. Mary’s University. His unique perspectives on retailing, business and consumer behavior have been featured in many of the world’s leading publications and media outlets including The New York Times, The BBC, Bloomberg Business News, TechCrunch, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company. I am excited to be speaking with Doug Stephens on the What’s Next! Podcast.    THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone looking to understand the future of retail and what value brands can derive from maintaining storefronts, investing in multi-channel engagement and what disruptions might be right around the corner.  TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Doug Stephens breaks down the past, present, and future of retail, and talks bringing metrics and experience into the future to keep stores open. Have we come full circle? Doug thinks so, and he is sharing just how. He also shares his insight on giants like Amazon, why he thinks they are ripe for disruption, the retail experience, how our current metrics are living in the past, and how brick and mortar stores can be your most powerful and measurable media channel.  WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… So often I get asked about the death of retail, so it was really great to get a chance to talk to an expert like Doug who can shed more light on the realities.    Running time: 39:01     Subscribe on iTunes     Find Tiffani on social:  Facebook  Twitter  LinkedIn    Find Doug on social:  Twitter  Instagram  LinkedIn    Doug’s Website:  www.retailprophet.com    Doug’s Books:  The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism  Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World