Recent Episodes

Ready to Zen? Let's go! ZenGenius specializes in providing Visual Merchandising, Creative Direction, and Special Events support to retail brands, businesses, and organizations of all types. Going on 25 years, ZenGenius has been a proud part of the creative and retail design communities across the globe. Michelle and the team kick things off by talking about the beginning of ZenGenius and how it evolved into the powerhouse it is today. The ZenGenius team also shares stories from their projects,...

Myles Marks is the Chief Creative and Merchandising Officer at DM Merchandising. He attended Georgetown University and then toiled in the LA world for a bit afterwards. Myles has been innovating products within the consumer goods space for the past 25 years. Myles spent the last 25 years traversing the world of retail and wholesale. He’s committed to exploring the best available merchandising solutions to make programs and products sell. He’s been intimately involved with branding, sourcing, bu...

Robin Kramer is a brand marketing maven, natural business nurturer, master of relationships, and a sales expert who has an impressive history with leaders in the retail industry who have built their brands on innovative merchandising and strong service cultures. Among these brands is Williams-Sonoma, Inc., where she utilized her operations management background to develop and refine the process of opening new stores during a period of rapid expansion across that organization’s three retail brand...

Do you ever wonder who makes those chalkboard signs at Trader Joe's? Well, that's how Benjamin Soto got started—drawing Trader Joe's signs by day and designing band merch at night for Fearless Records. In 1998, Ben was recruited by Paul Frank to help kick off the massive millennial pop-culture brand Paul Frank Industries. Ben managed the brand creative for about 10 years, which meant involvement with character designs, the tee and fleece program, pajama prints, photoshoots, trade show booths, r...

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Susan Esayian has been working in the gift industry professionally for 26 years in a variety of roles. She’s done it all, from merchandising Kitchen-Aid mixers to buying fine tableware. She even carried a four-poster bed up a mountainside for a catalog photoshoot... and that was just in the first 10 years! Since then, Susan’s kept herself immersed in the gift industry as a buyer for a hospital gift shop and a merchandiser for several wholesale showrooms and re...

Whether you're a chef or a retailer, self-care can be a difficult concept to grasp at times amid the endless 16 hour work days that are at times your reality. Michelle and Chef Amber sit down to talk about how they've learned to care for themselves while still being bad*sses in their respective careers. Chef Amber believes in the transformative power of food, both for physical health and emotional well-being. Her culinary journey began after earning a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management f...

Today on The Retail Whore, Michelle and Monica connect and share who business owners can make the most of social media to grow their business. Monica Little left her corporate job to pursue her own dreams and built a multiple 6-figure organic skincare small business. She created Etsy Algorithm Secrets and Product Biz Academy to guide other handmade small business owners along the path of turning their hobby and passion into a successful and profitable business. She’s the creator of the Grounded...

This week we welcome Hilary Meehan, Co-Founder / CEO Mirthos. She believes in creative living, making life the perfect juicy delight of your wildest dreams & inspiring more people to enjoy this glorious mess called life (*there's a card for that!) She’s developed a line of enthusiastic & encouraging greeting cards to help share this with the wild & fancy weirdos who need to hear it most. After almost 2 years of operating under her own name & with a “no holds barred” aesthetic, Hilary took a p...

This week’s guest is Mary Liz Curtin, owner of Leon & Lulu, Detroit’s own award-winning, 15,000 square foot, lifestyle store – which was originally a roller rink! Mary Liz is passionate about independent retail. Her knowledge of all aspects of the gift, craft and home industries gives her a unique point of view, encompassing the needs of retailers, vendors and sales representatives. She is also a heck of a retail shopper and loves to crawl malls, discover downtowns and walk through the Web to fi...

We are thrilled to welcome back Dale Rhodes, Senior VP with Katin USA. Dale’s path to success began at 17 years-old, when he worked in the retail industry at MGA (Guess Jeans), Camp Beverly Hills, and Val Surf. It came naturally for him to style celebrities and work directly with clients. It was then – during the hot trend of Guess in the 80s – that Dale paved the way for his future accomplishments in the apparel industry. This episode is in celebration of National Sober Day, which took place o...

Nicole Swartz is the attorney and founder behind Sprout Law, a law firm for women business owners. She's also a business owner as well. In 2015, she started a skincare line that was featured in hundreds of stores around the world and even the Golden Globes gift bags. After two years, she had to rebrand the entire business because she didn't have a trademark. Now, she helps other women trademark their brands to avoid the same situation. Nicole is featured as an expert in Forbes, the Washington...

This week’s guest Alyssa Benner has been in retail for 16-17 years. She has worked in boutique shops and corporate owned retail & has always moved up quickly in those jobs due to not only loving what she did but hard work. She is a creative person by nature so when it came to merchandising it came so easy for her. As she began getting further into her career, she realized that not everybody had the skill set to merchandise. For job interviews, she would always lead with her amazing merchandis...

Marcie Pantzer is the founder of Dear Annabelle, a luxury paper goods brand that brings a whimsical wink to the classic art of correspondence. The brand was born from Marcie’s personal love of letter writing, starting when she went away to sleep away camp as a girl. Her passion for sending and receiving mail was only rivaled by her affection for the tools of the trade — beautiful stationery and fine paper products. With Dear Annabelle — named for her daughter — she’s created her dream line of s...

On this week’s episode, Michelle Sherrier, welcomes listeners to her latest hustle, MC Design Academy! MC Design Academy is designed to be a space where Michelle will share her expertise with you, where you'll get to learn all about visual merchandising, design, display, retail, and everything in between. Take a listen, head on over to MC Design Academy ...class is in session. Then, make sure she stays tuned for this special combo episode where she then delves into the show season and talks al...

This week’s guest is Sarah Schwartz, magazine editor, writer, podcaster and consultant. She first started covering stationery as a market editor for the trade publication Gifts & Decorative Accessories in 1997, and in 2008, she became founding editor of Stationery Trends, an award-winning trade quarterly magazine devoted to all things paper. She also maintains this site, podcasts at The Paper Fold, a five-star stationery salon. Sarah is a frequent industry speaker who is occasionally quoted i...

Located in Los Angeles, California, Chez Gagné letterpress was Founded in 2014 by Alex Gagné. As a creative outlet from her job as a marketing director for an IT company, Alex started taking night classes to learn the art of letterpress printing. After finding success designing and printing wedding invitations and cards for friends, family and then friends of friends, Chez Gagné became a full-time venture. Today, Chez Gagné sells hilarious yet inspirational gold foil mugs, drinkware, candles, w...

This week’s guest, Kathy Shaw is the Manager of Seaside Gallery and Goods and the Pelican Courtyard. Seaside has 15 small businesses working collectively and the Pelican Courtyard has 8 small businesses each in their own suite. Seaside Gallery and Goods is located in the heart of Newport Beach's famed harbor-side dining and shopping district. Seaside is a retail collective of small business owners specializing in clothing design, fine art, beauty products, baby goods, unique jewelry and coast...

Kaylin is the founder & CEO of JIGGY, a new jigsaw puzzle brand on a mission to modernize and elevate the humble jigsaw, and support female artists around the world. She turned her hobby into a company and has been featured on Shark Tank, Oprah's Favorite Things and won over celebrity fans including Gwyneth Paltrow, Lili Reinhart and Chrissy Teigen. Kaylin was previously the first employee at media startup theSkimm, and is an alum of Barnard College in New York City. Michelle & Kaylin discuss...

As we continue to celebrate our two-year anniversary, we’re bringing it back to our very first guests, Kelly & Lo Epstein from Kingfisher Road. Our favorite thing about this mother-daughter duo is the customer service both they and their team provide. Take a listen as we catch up on what’s new and things that peeve us. Hint: Competing with the manufacturers we buy from. This episode is sponsored by Fine Lines, a west coast wholesale rep agency with showrooms in Las Vegas and Seattle represent...

This week’s guest is Breegan Jane, an Los Angeles-based designer, author, philanthropist and mom to two boys. She showcases her expertise on HGTV, NBC, Hallmark Channel, Discovery, Food Network and more. You may recognize her from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Dream Home. She is a leading voice in design industry conversations. She also advocates for women and children in Kenya as a partner with international non-profit organization Mekuno Project. Breegan champions community and shares it ...

This week’s episode is all about Michelle’s show process - pre & post, how this year’s show is different for her, & why she prefers to experience the show with someone by her side. Grab a pen & pad and take notes – this one is chock full of valuable #retailtips! This episode sponsored by Opentobuy.co, they create RETAIL ROCK STARS and make inventory finance easy.

While growing up in Chicago and being influenced by the nature of all things city living and traveling the world for inspiration, Mashallah Ghouleh exploded onto the styling scene at a young age and has never looked back. Drawing from her international travels and experiences with her roster of clientele, she launched MASHALLAH in 2011 to create the versatile, beautifully crafted staples women's wardrobes were missing. As both a designer and collector of all things beautiful, her natural creativ...

We are so excited to welcome back one of our first podcast guests from back in 2021, Annie Glenn of Urban Girl Accessories. Her positivity and ability to find the silver lining in challenging situations is truly inspiring. With 11 stores & concepts, on this episode, Annie discusses how she deals with everything from loss prevention to customer service to the changes she has seen post-COVID. This week’s episode is sponsored by Sales Producers Inc. a progressive business to business company ...

They were two healthy, young women when both of their lives changed in the blink of an eye. In 2015, Christina suddenly became very ill. After many misdiagnoses and long hospital stays, she was finally diagnosed with a multi-systemic disease in 2017. Refusing to live a life of pills and wheelchairs, she spent the following years studying natural remedies to help heal, alleviate symptoms and pull toxins from her body. Through her research and studying her Masters in Sustainability at Harvard, she...