From strategy to store floor with Liza Amlani | Retail Strategy Group

What separates retail brands that execute from those that just strategize?

Recorded live at NRF 2026, this candid conversation with retail influencer Liza Amlani, Principal at Retail Strategy Group, gets straight to the realities of retail performance. Hear practical insights into what’s really driving results on the shop floor — and what’s getting in the way.

In this discussion between Liza and host Glenn Haussman, you’ll learn:

1. Why execution beats strategy–and how even the strongest corporate plans fall short when they don’t translate to frontline action.
2. Why process innovation matters more than shiny tech, and how outdated workflows and siloed teams create more friction than a lack of tools.
3. How breaking down silos unlocks performance, helping cross-functional retail operations teams generate a flywheel of collaboration earlier and more often; and
4. How to balance technology with the human touch so associates can focus on customers, not systems.

Walk away with actionable ideas you can apply immediately whether you’re improving store execution, strengthening cross-functional alignment or refining your tech strategy for 2026 and beyond.

Transcript

Glenn Haussman: Hey everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm very excited to talk to you today 'cause we're gonna be learning about how execution not strategy is gonna make the big win in 2026. And in order to do that, I got myself, Liza Amlani, and she's with the Retail Strategy Group. I'm Glenn Haussman. Great to see you, Liza.

Liza Amlani: I'm so excited to be here and to talk to you about retail. 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah, I'm excited to really talk all retail, but in order. For us to understand this conversation, I need to learn a little bit about, about what you do at retail strategy. 

Liza Amlani: Okay. Well, before I tell you what we do, I'm gonna take it back like a couple of decades.

Liza Amlani: three decades, 

Glenn Haussman: that's all. 

Liza Amlani: Just three decades. Yep. So I actually started on the shop floor in my teenage years, but what happened was I really fell in love. Yeah. With the customers, the shop floor product. I was so excited to go into the stores and walk the malls and. Obviously shop a little bit, but really excited about the interaction.

Liza Amlani: Okay. That's just one part of the, 

Glenn Haussman: just so you know, oh, I'm a little bit older than you, so I spent the entire eighties in malls and working at mall. Did you? So, yes. 

Liza Amlani: Oh. Where did you work? 

Glenn Haussman: I've worked at places like Toys "R" Us. I worked at The Gap and, you know, and then some food stuff too. 

Liza Amlani: Okay. Yeah.

Liza Amlani: Exciting. Yeah. So, see, we do have things in 

Glenn Haussman: common. I know. So tell me more. 

Liza Amlani: Okay. 

Glenn Haussman: About where you, your history. 

Liza Amlani: So after working in retail on the shop floor, I was really excited about a career in retail, right? So I went and got my degree in fashion and my first role, I wanted to be a buyer, but I actually started in design.

Liza Amlani: So if anyone watches FIFA, I designed all the bags for FIFA Worlds Cup 2002. 

Glenn Haussman: That's amazing.

Liza Amlani: My claim to fame, but I actually ended up in the world of buying. So I was a merchant. For over 20 years. Mostly a fashion apparel brand. Some accessories worked on both sides of the spectrum with brands and also with department stores.

Liza Amlani: So really saw the entire value chain around buying and merchandising. I worked with Ralph Lauren on and off for 20 years, many brands, Club Monaco, department stores, et cetera. Then I actually was picked up by Accenture and I was their retail merchant SME. So I helped write Future of Merchandising, worked at a very large brand out of Beaverton.

Liza Amlani: And that's where I really learned about the world of consulting and how I wanted to help 

Glenn Haussman: right 

Liza Amlani: the industry move forward, move faster, move smarter. And started Retail Strategy Group in November, 2020. 

Glenn Haussman: Wow. And already she's a Rethink Retail top expert for the fifth time, 

Liza Amlani: fifth year in a row 

Glenn Haussman: right out of the gate.

Glenn Haussman: And now second year being NRF retail voice. There's only 50 of those. As we're recording this at the conference, uh, the convention here, there's more than like 40,000 people here, so yes, you do the math. That's pretty impressive. 

Liza Amlani: It is. And honestly like. This industry, it doesn't feel like work.

Liza Amlani: It's so exciting. What, and what I really wanted to do was take my learnings from my 20 plus years of industry experience, what I learned at some of these big brands that I worked with, and took that knowledge and worked with brands. And that's what I do today. So I'm an executive advisor. I work with retail brands across fashion, apparel, accessories, also adjacent right categories.

Liza Amlani: And we look at really innovating the process. Which brings me to... 

Glenn Haussman: Yes! Check it out, the brand new book, the material life process innovation for retailers and brands. Yeah, and that's really what you were telling me before we got on here is the real future right now in retail. 

Liza Amlani: It really is. I mean, if you catch any of the sessions at the show, right?

Liza Amlani: What we're hearing CEOs and leaders like Fran Horowitz and even David Lauren talking about how. We need to get faster to market, but we also need to do it in a smart way. Retail is very accustomed to working in silos, and I think you'll find that across any industry. 

Glenn Haussman: Right? Oh, it's definitely like that across any industry, but where you are so fortunate is you get to see so many different things.

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. And being able to draw all of these disparate things together to create wholly unique solutions that benefit all of your clients. 

Liza Amlani: Absolutely. Which led us to write the material life. What we found is that process innovation is truly the most underrated opportunity mm-hmm. In the fashion supply chain.

Liza Amlani: So what I, what do I mean by that? So we talk about materials here mm-hmm. But it's really across entire concept to market all the way to the shop floor and how we connect with the customer. Why 

Glenn Haussman: do you think that is? 

Liza Amlani: Well, bringing up retail silos, for example. Yeah, it's very common for cross-functional leaders, like across merchandising, across sourcing, product development, design, marketing, even like heads of retail who manage physical stores, and of course, e-comm and Omni, right?

Liza Amlani: It's very common for them to work in these retail silos and just really focus on their own function. So if you visualize a rowboat, right, you have the coxswain at the front. But if every rower is going in different directions they're not gonna go anywhere. 

Glenn Haussman: Right, right. I'm also, I'm also kind of thinking of it as an auto assembly line.

Glenn Haussman: Everyone is fixed just on their specific task and aren't seeing everything on a day-today basis. 

Liza Amlani: Exactly. Seeing the big picture, looking at the business from the business in its entirety. Right. That's something that's actually lacking right now. So if we think about process innovation. We are bringing these teams together at the right moments in time when they're creating the product and elevating relationships internally and externally to partners versus being service providers.

Glenn Haussman: Right. So let's break all this down and get in more specific direction. Yeah, right. We talked about silos and stuff, and that probably causes a lot of problem between the executive level and the store level. So why is execution like really breaking down so often at that store level? 

Liza Amlani: So, 

Glenn Haussman: oh, oh, we got a sigh.

Glenn Haussman: That's not good. 

Liza Amlani: We, we have a sigh only because I've seen it myself. Yeah, you know, working in the industry for 20 years at the corporate office, right. What you don't see is leaders in that corporate office, they're making these decisions that impact the customer, the shop floor, or even their e-comm site, but they're not actually putting themselves in their customer's shoes.

Liza Amlani: Right. You know, in my last industry role, I was a merchant leader. I was head of buying for the Lauren brand for Ralph Lauren, for Northern Europe, UK Ireland Scan, Bal Baltics. And I would make it a point, I would always be in the stores, even if it was before I was going into the office or after market visits.

Liza Amlani: I was in the store talking to customers, talking to our competition. Trying on product, talking to my salespeople, and that really helped me to understand why people were buying and why they were not buying. 

Glenn Haussman: Interesting. Alright, so then tell me about like what separates technology that really improves execution?

Glenn Haussman: Verse just, I don't know, sounding good on a report to make the executives happy. 

Liza Amlani: Yeah, that is actually an incredible question for where we are today. 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. 

Liza Amlani: Because we are surrounded by technology and shiny objects, as I like to call them, right. 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. 

Liza Amlani: What tends to happen is because these leaders are so far removed, 

Glenn Haussman: right 

Liza Amlani: from the execution, whether it is design, merchandising, planning allocation, or in store, let's say, any sort of in-store technology solutions, or processes, they're still far removed from it. So when they decide to bring in a technology, they'll just say, okay, bring this in. It's a new shiny object, 

Glenn Haussman: right? 

Liza Amlani: Oh my God, we need to get AI in the shop floor right now. We need to get AI in our planning systems.

Liza Amlani: But what happens is they're not really looking to solve the challenges that the user is actually facing, 

Glenn Haussman: right? 

Liza Amlani: What I have seen number of times is. Solutions being onboarded. Retailers are very accustomed to large tech stacks that don't talk to each other in manual spreadsheets. You know, workarounds, bandaids, yeah, if you will.

Glenn Haussman: And I call it solutions. Looking for problems a lot of the times. Yeah, 

Liza Amlani: that's actually a great way to put it. 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. 

Liza Amlani: And there's duct tape, like everywhere, right? Yeah. So when we're not really thinking about what are we trying to solve, where do we wanna go, how do we get from point A to point B, and what are the different options for us to get there?

Liza Amlani: But also how do we innovate our op model to support the different technologies that we're bringing in? Because what we're finding is that, I'll give you the example of concept to market and the calendar and how we actually go from design to market. A lot of those processes have not changed in decades, right?

Liza Amlani: Or the retailer internally is trying to manage that process and change it. But they're not actually innovating the process. They're just adding line items and we're it take, it's taking longer. 

Glenn Haussman: So they think they're solving a problem. Yeah. But the opposite is true. They're complicating it for the associates.

Liza Amlani: Overly, overly complicating. Yes. 

Glenn Haussman: So how should executives be thinking about simplify technology? That removes friction from the in the associates' lives, so they could focus on what's important, making customers feel loved, so they'll keep coming back and spending more. 

Liza Amlani: So what I advise a lot of the executives that I work with and market leaders that I am in touch with is you really have to balance the tech and touch.

Liza Amlani: So the more technology you have, the more human touch is needed. Mm-hmm. Right? So it's really finding the right balance of that and leaning into what works for your teams. Based on how you're gonna change the cultures of those teams. 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. And I would argue that humanity with people versus people is more important now than it's ever been.

Glenn Haussman: Technology is great, but really what makes that secret sauce is how people relate to other people. And when you remove the friction from the process, that allows folks to really focus on that sort of thing. So, where are you seeing right now? Like strategy kind of breaks down and what's one easy place?

Glenn Haussman: The folks in the offices can start to focus on. 

Liza Amlani: So in terms of process innovation, it can really happen across the retail end to end. 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. 

Liza Amlani: And when I talk to market leaders and executives that I work with, I say, you know. Where are you finding that friction? Right? Are you bringing the teams together to determine, do they even understand another function's, responsibilities and roles and accountabilities?

Liza Amlani: And let's start to bring those discussions into the right rooms at the right time, now, that's a very complicated way to say, talk to your people. Right? Because if you want to impact change, innovate how you're going to market using technology to get there. I think it's important to ask the teams like, what is really happening?

Liza Amlani: What is happening? Where are they finding friction? Where are the challenges? And let's lean into those outcomes by actually opening up those. Doors of conversation. 

Glenn Haussman: This is the type of thing that drives me kind of crazy. Because you are really looking to take out those operational efficiencies, right? Yes.

Glenn Haussman: And there's gotta be something that's like almost super simple, but they're missing it because they're not entrenched talking to their people every day. Could you gimme an example of maybe some low hanging fruit in that kinda area? 

Liza Amlani: Um, yes. I've experienced this myself as a former retailer where I spend so much time.

Liza Amlani: Creating the right collection, the right assortment, buying the right quantities, spending my retailer's budgets as a buyer. Yep. And when I say we work on this for months, we're working on this also a year ahead of when the products will actually be in stores. There is a massive disconnect between merchandising strategy and merchandising execution on the shop floor.

Liza Amlani: Because what we're finding is that a lot of time spent in building the right assortment, having the marketing to support it, but there is no support or investment or not enough in training shop floor associates or visual, having visual merchandising teams to connect the storytelling, to bring that customer into the collections and make them come alive.

Liza Amlani: Because we're, we are in the business of retail. We want full price sales, but that doesn't happen unless you execute. At market. 

Glenn Haussman: Alright, so a lot of people are probably saying, we do that, we do this, we do everything. How can somebody be honest with themselves to really evaluate the reality as opposed to living in what they think is the reality?

Liza Amlani: Well, they need to get out of the spreadsheet 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. 

Liza Amlani: And get back through the store. We need to get onto the shop floor. They need to shop their own sites. Find where the friction is. I was recently in Vancouver. Yeah. And I was shopping on Robson Street and I don't really wanna call this store out, but it was a beautiful store, beautiful experience, showroom experience furniture.

Liza Amlani: Mm-hmm. And home decor accessories. Excellent customer service. But the sales associate was not encouraged to make the sale in the store really? Because the leadership team says. We hope the customer will walk away and buy online on our DTC site. 

Glenn Haussman: Why you spending all this money to have the store? '

Liza Amlani: cause they're like, we have a great experience in the store, so we know you're gonna buy.

Liza Amlani: Okay. 

Glenn Haussman: Okay. 

Amazing. 

Glenn Haussman: Yeah. 

Liza Amlani: So we are like, okay, maybe this is, it'll be fine. Right? So we went home and we bought, we wanted to buy a sofa and we wanted to buy a couple of rugs and some coffee tables. And there was so much friction in trying to check out that we had to open a chat. We had to create a ticket.

Liza Amlani: I mean, if we didn't love the product so much, and because I, I knew the quality of the product was there and it would be great when we got it, but if I was anyone else guaranteed that. Brand would've lost the sale. 

Glenn Haussman: That's really, that's really sad. So brand, 

Liza Amlani: yeah. 

Glenn Haussman: The brands are trying to make change and they implement new changes.

Glenn Haussman: So how do you create an environment where the change becomes permanent as opposed to it kind of fades off after a while? 

Liza Amlani: I mean, change management is a huge discussion, especially in retail. And we do see a lot of failures around change management, and that is truly because we are not involving the teams that are actually doing the work to choose this solutions teams and users should be walking NRF.

Liza Amlani: They should. It shouldn't be the CTO. Of course, they need to walk the floor too, but the actual users need to walk the shop floor. They are the conference floor. Sorry. See, I'm like, okay. I'm like, everything's retail. Yeah. But they need to actually see, okay, is this gonna work for my everyday tasks? Is this gonna augment, is it gonna assist, uh, the way that I have to output and also input.

Liza Amlani: Mm-hmm. Any information that's gonna help me do my job better. Because today I think that mental health is a big challenge. Yeah. Especially across retail. And I call it retail because we haven't changed the ways we've been working. 

Glenn Haussman: No, we haven't changed the way that he's been working. And customers have become 

Liza Amlani: Yes.

Glenn Haussman: More, I'll just be polite and say more complicated to deal with. 

Liza Amlani: Yes, of course they're fickle, right? Uh, that's, that's work. Yes. Well, in Vancouver, for example, I could have gone to any online retailer, right? Or a, any store even. I could have gone to Ikea, which has great customer service, very easy to shop, and no friction, really.

Liza Amlani: No friction, right? So I decided that, you know what? I'm gonna stay here and I'm gonna continue this journey. But a handful of customers react that way. Many will walk away because we have so many choices. 

Glenn Haussman: Right? Alright, so let's look forward to this year, right as we're recording this, the beginning of 2026.

Glenn Haussman: So what are gonna make companies outperform operationally? Verse Millie, those that are gonna kind of tread water and survive this year. 

Liza Amlani: I think they really need to walk in their customer's shoes, their employee's shoes. 

Glenn Haussman: Yep. 

Liza Amlani: To really understand where is the friction, how can we innovate, how can we do better?

Liza Amlani: Always be leveling up. Mm-hmm. Always be looking forward and, you know, buy the material life, buy the wholesale. Of course, we actually talk about not only how to create assortments, but really how to innovate the process. Yeah. And we cover all those concepts in the book. We have found that. Many of our clients have onboarded a lot of the stuff that we have in the material life.

Liza Amlani: And we have found that their materials teams, their sourcing teams, even their merchant and design teams and marketing teams are breaking down those silo because they want to collaborate, they want to work together. 

Glenn Haussman: Awesome. I love it. Well, I think the only thing less to ask you is how can people find the books and how can people learn more about you and Retail Strategy Group?

Liza Amlani: Well. Number one, we have a newsletter called The Merchant Life. 

Glenn Haussman: Nice. 

Liza Amlani: I am the merchant, so 

Glenn Haussman: the Chief  

Liza Amlani: Merchant, our Chief Merchant and Principal of Retail Strategy Group. And you can find me on Retail Strategy group's website. I post a lot on LinkedIn, on IG, you can find me very easily and you can buy the books on our website or on Amazon or directly through our publisher, which is Routledge.

Glenn Haussman: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for being here. Hey, we got Liza Amlani. I'm Glenn Haussman. See you later. Thank you so much for watching. See you next time. And thanks to Axonify, they're the best.