Ep.71 RETAIL PRIDE: MOVING THE RETAIL MINDSET FROM ACCIDENTAL TO PROUDLY INTENTIONAL with Ron Thurston, Co-Founder OSSY, Best selling author of “Retail Pride”

ABOUT RON THURSTON:

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rthurston/

Websites:

Retail Pride book: https://www.amazon.com/Retail-Pride-Celebrating-Accidental-Career/dp/1544515928

OSSY: https://www.useossy.com

Retail In America podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retail-in-america/id1618323713

 

Ron Thurston's Bio:

Ron Thurston's life mission is to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.
With over three decades of leading retail stores and operations for top American brands like Gap, West Elm, Apple, Tory Burch, Bonobos, and Saint Laurent, Ron has honed an extensive skill set in retail strategy, management, and innovation.

In January 2024, Ron co-founded OSSY, a forward-thinking retail recruiting agency. This venture is dedicated to addressing the biggest hiring and recruiting challenges in retail, reinforcing Ron’s unwavering commitment to the industry.

As the best-selling author of RETAIL PRIDE, Ron inspires retail professionals to embrace their unique career paths. He also hosted the RETAIL IN AMERICA podcast and tour, journeying across the nation in an Airstream trailer during 2022/2023 to uncover and highlight the remarkable stories and individuals in retail.

Ron also serves on the Advisory Boards of several rapidly growing retail tech companies, including Ometria, Butterfly, and YOOBIC, lending his expertise to drive their success.

SHOW INTRO:

Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.

EPISODE 71… and my conversation with Ron Thurston, retail veteran, best-selling author, podcast host and man on a mission to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.

On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and human’s influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.    

The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.

VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant. 

You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.

Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience. 

SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org

In this 70th episode I talk with Samar Younes is a Beirut-born hybrid artist, futurist, and creative catalyst whose work embodies a transcultural approach. 

Ron Thurston has spent years opening stores for major internationally recognized brands and knows a thing or two about a career in retail. In our talk we dig into the shifting the mindset of retail being an accidental career to one of choice, about with you should be proud. 

We’ll get to all that in a moment but first though, a few thoughts…

 

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Throughout my career in the retail design world I have often heard this statement “I never planned to be in retail”.

And it's often said with some slight lilt of apology, that in a way somehow as an architect it was somehow not taken quite as seriously as the design of public buildings or housing or other things that architects with a capital “A” do.

What's more, when I entered into the retail design world, quite by serendipity I might add, I came into the design of stores by way of visual merchandising. I was the resident architect of a small 4 personn design and visual merchandising consulting firm on 36th street just east of Park.

Working with a couple of seasoned pros, I learned that visual merchandisers were often regarded simply as window trimmers and I don't think quite got the respect that they were due for the power they had in shaping the retail experience for customers. 

Often seen as the silent seller, visual merchandising was a key component to how the customer journey unfolded in a shopping experience. Mannequins and other displays in the store added that extra flavor to the store as a stage set in wh