NRF CEO Matthew Shay on Retail Innovation, AI, and the Future of the Industry | NRF 2025
In this special interview recorded from the VusionGroup Podcast Studio, Matthew Shay, President and CEO of the National Retail Federation, joins Omni Talk Retail live at NRF 2025 to discuss the future of the retail industry. From global macroeconomic challenges to the transformative power of AI and robotics, Shay shares his unique perspective on the state of retail and the continued evolution of NRF as a premier event for innovation and collaboration.
Key Moments:
- 0:50 – The role of NRF in the retail industry: convening, curating, and communicating.
- 2:20 – Highlights from NRF 2025, including record-breaking attendance and a focus on AI.
- 4:00 – The impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on retail strategies.
- 6:15 – Insights into consumer behavior and disparities across income segments.
- 10:50 – Why NRF continues to call New York home for its global retail event.
- 12:30 – How NRF fosters innovation through a combination of education and exhibits.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
Welcome back everyone.
Anne Mazinga:This is Omnitok Retail.
Anne Mazinga:I'm Anne Mazinga.
Chris Walton:And I'm Chris Walton.
Anne Mazinga: the Fusion group booth number: Anne Mazinga:Chris and I will be here all day today, all day tomorrow, so make sure you come stop by and say hello.
Anne Mazinga:Now we have a very special guest again joining us.
Anne Mazinga:This is our third year in a row that we get the opportunity to sit down with NRF Chairman and CEO Matthew Shea.
Anne Mazinga:Matt, welcome to thank you program.
Matthew Shea:Great to be here.
Anne Mazinga:Thanks for making time for us.
Matthew Shea:Thanks for inviting me.
Matthew Shea:Thanks for being here.
Anne Mazinga:Always.
Matthew Shea:Thanks for continuing to help us tell the story of retail.
Matthew Shea:It's sorry I shaved my beard, but I'm glad, I'm glad to see you.
Chris Walton:Yeah, we were joking beforehand.
Chris Walton:He looked more like me a couple months ago, but it sounds like he, he had to shave it off here accidentally too, which is a great story.
Matthew Shea:But operator error.
Chris Walton:Yeah, operator error.
Chris Walton:Yes, user error.
Chris Walton:So, so, but Matt, so for all our friends back home watching that are not here in attendance, all the retail executives as well as the people in the stores, we'd love to start out today by having you explain what role is it that the National Retail Federation plays within the retail industry and ecosystem.
Matthew Shea:So well, thank you again.
Matthew Shea:Thanks for having us.
Matthew Shea:So I think you really think of the NRF as having three primary functions.
Matthew Shea:One is, one is convening, bringing together groups of retail leaders, bringing together thought leaders, bringing together our members, partners as we do.
Matthew Shea:This is the most visible example of that.
Matthew Shea:But we do it all year long, a variety of settings.
Matthew Shea:So one is commuting, one is communicating and trying to deliver the message about the retail industry.
Matthew Shea:And then the third is really not so much creating content as curating content.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Matthew Shea:And I mean our members, our members are the content retailers create the content and it's our job to curate it, to identify the right content based on what they tell us to say.
Matthew Shea:These are the priorities.
Matthew Shea:And then for us to, when we bring them together, they'll identify the priorities, they'll provide the content and then we communicate it.
Matthew Shea:So I think that's really our role is convening, curating the content and then communicating it.
Anne Mazinga:Well, it's day two of the show we mentioned.
Anne Mazinga:There's a lot of content that you put together for this, this conference, this several multi day conference.
Anne Mazinga: t that is coming alive at NRF: Matthew Shea:Well, you know, we've got more than 40,000 attendees.
Matthew Shea:We've got more than a thousand, a thousand exhibitors on these three floors of the Javits Convention center here in New York City.
Matthew Shea:Hundreds of speakers, hundreds of educational sessions, amazing topics ranging, of course, AI is at the top of everyone's list that seems to be evolving into a more mature kind of set of conversations, more practical applications.
Matthew Shea:AI is exciting.
Matthew Shea:Information about robotics, information about just sort of how businesses are being transformed, about customer engagement, the customer journey.
Matthew Shea:There's a whole variety of things that are really fascinating, but for me, what I'm most excited about is to see the energy of the people that are here this week.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Matthew Shea:And I think that's.
Matthew Shea:That's, you know, this is the first major.
Matthew Shea:It's the largest global retail committee, and it's the first big event of the year, and it's a great kind of bellwether for what's the mood.
Matthew Shea:And, you know, you can really tell if people are excited or optimistic, enthusiastic.
Matthew Shea:And I think you really feel that here.
Matthew Shea:And I think they really are genuine about a sense of positivity and optimism for the opportunities ahead.
Chris Walton:Yeah, it seems in a lot of ways you're almost outgrowing the Javits.
Chris Walton:I had trouble walking around here.
Chris Walton:There were so many people here yesterday on Sunday.
Chris Walton:It was great.
Chris Walton:The traffic flow was really amazing to see how many people were just excited to be here.
Matthew Shea:I'm sorry to inconvenience you, but I'm really happy to hear that.
Chris Walton:Yeah, I know.
Anne Mazinga:I figured you would be.
Chris Walton:I figured you would be.
Chris Walton:My inconvenience is not good for us, but.
Chris Walton:All right, so let's get serious now for a sec.
Chris Walton:So there's a lot of macroeconomic issues facing this industry.
Chris Walton:You got inflation shrinks top of mind.
Chris Walton:Tariffs are potentially looming out there.
Chris Walton: our role as you look ahead to: Chris Walton:Which of those things, if anything, are you focused on?
Matthew Shea:Yeah, I think it's a great question.
Matthew Shea:There is.
Matthew Shea:I think if they're balanced against the energy and the enthusiasm and the optimism that we feel here this week is a recognition that we're entering or operating in a moment of.
Matthew Shea:Of great uncertainty.
Matthew Shea:All kinds of unanswered questions.
Matthew Shea:And those are economic, those are cultural, social, you know, political.
Matthew Shea:There's all sorts of uncertainties about what's going to happen in the year ahead.
Matthew Shea:Some are more visible than others because of the recent elections, not only in the US which are obviously very big for us, that are citizens of the United States, but around the world.
Matthew Shea:They've been changed I mean, all over Europe, all over the rest of the world, in South America, you know, this is not something unusual in parts of Asia.
Matthew Shea:So, you know, half the world's population held national elections last year.
Matthew Shea:So, you know, going almost 8 billion people and more than 4 billion had.
Matthew Shea:So there's uncertainty and change and transformation, I think, occurring everywhere.
Matthew Shea:But to answer your question, what we really think about, because the retail industry is so consumer centric, it's about customers, it's about where are they in their journeys and where are they and their families.
Matthew Shea:That, you know, when we see a healthy consumer and a confident consumer and an optimistic consumer, then I think that's usually a good indicator that the retail industry is in a good place.
Matthew Shea:Because the retail industry, ultimately, because it's about consumption and commerce, is a reflection of the strength and health of consumers.
Matthew Shea:Now, I mean, on, in the aggregate, it looks pretty good in the aggregate retail sales.
Matthew Shea:And we announced our retail sales for last year and for the holiday season November 1st to December 31st, our forecast was 2 1/2 to 3 1/2% growth.
Matthew Shea:I think we're going to come in certainly within that range, maybe even on the high end of the range.
Matthew Shea:So if you talk to the nearly one third of attendees who are here this week from other parts of the world, they would in a minute trade what they've got in their own economies for what we've got in the US So whatever we think about our own economy, you know, in an absolute sense, the world is a relative place and it's much better in the United States than it is anywhere else in the world.
Matthew Shea:There's no question about that.
Matthew Shea:But, you know, notwithstanding that, at a high level, things look pretty good.
Matthew Shea:Individual categories, individual segments of the population, from the highest income earners to the lowest.
Matthew Shea:And then all those in the middle, they're not all enjoying the same experience.
Matthew Shea:They're not all in the same place on that journey.
Matthew Shea:And I think that's being reflected increasingly in the numbers that we see about employment and about wages and about consumption and about household net worth and about savings and all of those things is that when you put them all together in the aggregate, things look very good, look really positive.
Matthew Shea:But when you look at them on a sort of segment by segment, you know, on the different quintiles, the top 20%, the bottom 20% in the middle, it's, you know, that sort sort of satisfaction with the economy, broadly speaking, at a macro level is not distributed evenly.
Matthew Shea:There are some families and some segments of the population doing much better.
Matthew Shea:Obviously, than others.
Matthew Shea:And just a few years ago, as we came out of the economy, that wasn't necessarily the case.
Matthew Shea:I mean, because of the pandemic payments that went to so many families in America and because a good part of the experience economy was closed and you couldn't travel, you couldn't go to restaurants, you couldn't go to games, you couldn't go to concerts.
Matthew Shea:People and were working from home, going to school from home, exercising from home, entertaining from home.
Matthew Shea:So much more on the good side than on the experienced side.
Matthew Shea:And that started to shift back now.
Matthew Shea:And people have spent through savings, they've spent through their pandemic payments.
Matthew Shea:And so those families at the lower income levels are more challenged.
Matthew Shea:And so I think as we get into the year, the uncertainty sort of with layered, with that background, I think is going to create maybe, you know, over time up and to the right.
Matthew Shea:But I think the line may be sort of sideways for a while.
Matthew Shea:It's got it.
Chris Walton:So you're saying.
Chris Walton: So in: Chris Walton:What is it, what is the uncertainty and how will it impact certain segments of the population?
Chris Walton:And, and what do we as an industry do to help that?
Matthew Shea:Yeah, yeah, I think, I think we have to recognize that you've got to serve different consumers in different ways because they have different needs and expectations.
Matthew Shea:And you've got some that have discretionary income and they're going to be more willing to devote some of that to experiences and to luxury and to discretionary.
Matthew Shea:And then you've got some that still have to make, you know, the rent payment or the mortgage payment or devote more to energy or devote more to, you know, other of the services side.
Matthew Shea:They're sort of.
Matthew Shea:And food and things that are necessities but don't have as much for sort of the, the wants.
Matthew Shea:They're spending more on the needs.
Anne Mazinga:Right, yeah.
Chris Walton:And we've seen a lot of, lot of great action.
Chris Walton:I mean, Walmart particularly, I'd single them out as a company that's, you know, leading the floor on that in that direction to try to create the type of atmosphere for people of all income stretches to shop, you know, in their stores too.
Chris Walton:That's one I would single out.
Chris Walton:Is a company that's done a great job at that.
Anne Mazinga:Absolutely.
Anne Mazinga:Well, Matt, let's, let's close us out with kind of what people at home who aren't at the show right now.
Anne Mazinga:What is the eighth year that we've been here?
Anne Mazinga:The show has evolved so much in those eight years.
Matthew Shea:Yeah, eight years.
Matthew Shea:Where were you for the first 105 years?
Matthew Shea:We've been here.
Matthew Shea:We've been here 113.
Matthew Shea:You're a little late to the party.
Anne Mazinga:You know why I know that it's eight years is because my first nrf, I was very pregnant with my son and he is now seven.
Anne Mazinga:So I know this is my eighth year.
Matthew Shea:That's great.
Anne Mazinga:So that's.
Anne Mazinga:That played into a little bit of why we weren't there previous.
Anne Mazinga:105.
Matthew Shea:But that doesn't explain your.
Matthew Shea:Yeah, that's not an excuse for you.
Anne Mazinga:Chris has no excuse.
Anne Mazinga:I don't know.
Anne Mazinga:I don't know.
Matthew Shea:Well, we're glad you're here now.
Chris Walton:I'm late to the party, but hey.
Matthew Shea:Glad you're glad you're both here now.
Anne Mazinga:Well, but tell us, tell us, Matt, like what can people expect in years to come?
Anne Mazinga:How will you continue to evolve the conference?
Anne Mazinga:Why should people be making NRF a must stop show on their list and just talk a little bit about how it's evolved and what's ahead in the future.
Matthew Shea:Yeah, no, that's a great question.
Matthew Shea:Thank you.
Matthew Shea:I think that, you know, if you've never been here before, you know, this is a bit of a hybrid event.
Matthew Shea:So there are some events that are all about the exhibitors and the trade show floor and walking around from booth to booth and going on the journey.
Matthew Shea:There are some events in the US and around the world that are primarily, if not exclusively about that part of the experience.
Matthew Shea:There are other events that are really about.
Matthew Shea:It's the conference, it's the educational, it's the programs, it's the sessions, speakers, topics, themes.
Matthew Shea:Some events are just conferences and there are a few keynote speakers and there are some breakout sessions.
Matthew Shea:You know, this event this week is the best of both of those combined.
Matthew Shea:So, so this is.
Matthew Shea:If you took, if you took the, the Internet big show apart and said there's just the conference component and just the trade show component, they would both be world class standalone events on their own.
Matthew Shea:World class speakers on stage, CEOs, visionaries, company founders.
Matthew Shea:And here where we are on the trade show floor, thousands of exhibitors, thousands of booths, hundreds of thousands of square feet of exhibit space with cutting edge technology innovation startups.
Matthew Shea:But you put those together and it's really a unique experience because you get the opportunity to see and hear and visit with and talk to leaders and visionaries and innovators on all of our stages.
Matthew Shea:Not just the keynote stage, but all the main stages.
Matthew Shea:But then you have the opportunity to be here on the trade show floor and see some of the things they've talked about in action and take a deeper dive and visit with some of the exhibitors, have conversations and say, I heard someone talk about this this morning in this session and I thought you could show me how that has application in the real world.
Matthew Shea:What's the practical use case for that?
Matthew Shea:So I think the combination of those two things is really exciting.
Matthew Shea:And then I think the other thing, you know, that people maybe don't appreciate, which is sort of related to that, is how much this has become a show, not it's not a technology show as much as it's an innovation show.
Matthew Shea:This is about innovation.
Matthew Shea:And all of the innovation, all the technology, AI, the robotics, the solution providers, the cutting edge things, the startup zone, the innovation lab, all those things, they're all amazing.
Matthew Shea:But you know Mark Laurie, the founder of JAT.com and a real technologist himself.
Anne Mazinga:Owner of our Minnesota Timberwolves.
Chris Walton:No, no.
Chris Walton:Or trying to be the owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Chris Walton:We know him very well.
Matthew Shea:Yes, so, so Mark said to me years ago when I, when I talked to him once and we were having a conversation, Mark, but so all this, I mean, the innovation, the technology, you know, you've grown up, you're sort of a digital native, you see the world differently, all those things.
Matthew Shea:And he said, matt, that's true, but the only point of all this technology is to make us better merchants.
Matthew Shea:So it's not about the technology, it's about being a better retailer, serving customers, finding solutions, driving positive outcomes.
Matthew Shea:I think that's the exciting thing because everything that you see here, that we talk about is about helping retailers become better merchants, create better experiences and serve customers.
Chris Walton:Yeah, I think we agree.
Chris Walton:That's actually funny you said that.
Chris Walton:I was thinking about that this morning.
Chris Walton:There's the pragmatism of the technology here on display here in terms of how do you actually put it into practice and use it in a way that serves the consumer and the retailers both at the same time, which is really important.
Chris Walton:The one point you didn't mention that I've always wanted to ask you, New York, why New York?
Chris Walton:What significance is there to having this conference in New York?
Chris Walton:Other than the obvious, I'm guessing.
Chris Walton:Or is it just the obvious?
Matthew Shea:Well, other than, you know, Washington, D.C.
Matthew Shea:or, you know, Minnesota and Minneapolis and St.
Matthew Shea:Paul in the Twin Cities, or my little hometown of Newark, Ohio, little farm community that's county seat outside of Columbus, it's the greatest city in the world.
Matthew Shea:Other than those cities.
Matthew Shea:I just mentioned.
Matthew Shea:New York is the.
Matthew Shea:Where else would we rather be?
Anne Mazinga:I see what you did there, Matt.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah.
Matthew Shea:I think New York is a.
Matthew Shea:Is a great location for us because people view it as world class retail city and because we have the opportunity to bring so many retailers who are headquartered on the east coast and in New York and in this part of the world.
Matthew Shea:It's an easy access point for our global visitors, of whom almost a third of the attendees here are from outside the United States.
Matthew Shea:It's really a global event.
Matthew Shea:Obviously, Wall street is here.
Matthew Shea:We've got media here, we've got analysts here.
Matthew Shea:So point, a lot of the people that are interested in the conversations that are taking place are already in New York, regardless of which community they come from.
Matthew Shea:And rather than trying to drag all those people another time of year to another location, another part of the United States, we've talked about other places before.
Matthew Shea:And every time we start the conversation, we always end up right back where we started, which is New York after, after Minneapolis, St.
Matthew Shea:Paul, Newark, Ohio.
Matthew Shea:It's the greatest city in the world.
Chris Walton:After those other two.
Chris Walton:Yes.
Matthew Shea:Right.
Matthew Shea:Yeah.
Chris Walton:So it's like Frank Sinatra said.
Chris Walton:All right, well, Matt Shea, thank you so much for joining us.
Chris Walton:President and CEO of the National Retail Federation, thanks for being with us today.
Chris Walton: , which you can find in booth: Chris Walton:And Ann, as always, be careful out there.
