Vicki Cantrell - Co-Founder & CEO of Vendors in Partnership (VIP)

You've been at JCPenney.

You speak about fondly a business, Today's Man, and we'll get to some of the others in Party City, two of which really no longer exist in their form, right?

It wasn't because of me.

No, no, not implying that at all, Vicki, not at all.

And JCPenney is different.

How has the changing retail landscape, I mean, because you've been at it for many years, as I have, and it's changed a lot.

Where do you see it going? into the future?

The interesting part about that is that every day retail changes.

That's what you know when you look back, when you have to reflect, is that Every day, retailers have to get up and deal with a new challenge.

They're not all bad challenges, but because it is a consumer business and life, consumers are life.

They have lives.

They have religion and politics and families and communities and everything.

And retail services, each of us, I think that's what's interesting.

So I would say the ability for retail to deal with life and challenges and changes is that so when I think of where do I see it going, I see it more in the realm of more blending A successful retailer can't talk today about how do I keep my one customer for my brand? They have to say, how can I impact their life appropriately so that they have and how can I help them so they then have an affinity for me? It's very different.

It was how could I sell them my product? You know, I come from the luxury space for many years.

And the designer always told the customer, this is what you need.

This is what you should wear.

This is what you should have.

It was how we were for decades.

And when the customer started making those decisions, think of the shift and retail adapted and luxury adapted.

And so I just believe that it's going to be less separate.

Everything will be more part of life.

And that's how we'll approach things.

Okay, good one.

We'll come back to AI and its role in the future