US Retail Hit $1 Trillion in One Holiday Season — What's Next? | ITAB Group Podcast Ep.1

US retail just crossed $1 trillion in a single holiday season.  First time in history. In Episode 1 of the ITAB Group Podcast, recorded LIVE at EuroShop 2026  from the ITAB Group stand, Alex Rezvan sits down with Jill Dvorak —  SVP Content at the National Retail Federation (NRF) — fresh off the  ITAB Speaker's Corner keynote. This is the first in an exclusive series of conversations recorded with  every keynote speaker from the ITAB Stage at EuroShop 2026 — one of  the most concentrated collections of senior retail thinking captured  at a single event. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🕐 WHAT WE COVER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 — Welcome & introduction 01:30 — The K-shaped economy: 10% of earners now represent 50% of US spend 03:45 — Why US retail hit $1 trillion in holiday 2025 — and what it means 06:00 — Retail resilience: from COVID to tariffs, why the sector keeps growing 08:30 — AI in retail: why you must test with KPIs before you scale 11:00 — Where does AI live in a retail organisation? (Every department, it turns out) 13:30 — Loss prevention: the silent margin killer draining store performance 17:00 — Store formats evolving to protect margin, not just improve experience 20:30 — The one-SKU store model making a comeback 23:00 — What Jill observed shopping in Germany vs the US 26:00 — Final reflections from EuroShop 2026 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👤 ABOUT JILL DVORAK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jill Dvorak is SVP Content at the National Retail Federation (NRF),  the world's largest retail trade association. She leads content strategy  across NRF's flagship events including NRF Retail's Big Show in New York —  the industry's most influential annual gathering. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT THE ITAB GROUP PODCAST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The ITAB Group Podcast brings together the sharpest thinking in global  retail — recorded live at the world's leading retail events from the  ITAB stand. ITAB Group is a global leader in checkout solutions,  consumer guidance, and loss prevention — helping retailers create  better, more efficient store experiences worldwide. This series captures every keynote speaker from the ITAB Speaker's  Corner at EuroShop 2026 — the most important retail trade event in  the world, held every three years in Düsseldorf. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 CONNECT & FOLLOW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 ITAB Group: https://www.itab.com 💼 ITAB LinkedIn:  https://info.itab.com/video-social/euroshop-2026 💼 Alex Rezvan LinkedIn: https://www.thefutureofretailguy.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #RetailPodcast #NRF #EuroShop2026 #RetailTrends #RetailInnovation  #AIinRetail #LossPrevention #StoreFormat #RetailLeadership #ITABGroup 💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION Which trend discussed today do you think will impact the industry most? Let us know in the comments below! 🔔 SUBSCRIBE TO STAY AHEAD Don't miss the next update. Click here to subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@theretailpodcast?sub_confirmation=1   ABOUT THIS CHANNEL Welcome to the official channel of The Retail Podcast, your hub for global retail intelligence. Whether you are an executive refining your strategy, a vendor connecting with major players, or an innovator tracking the latest tech, this channel connects you to the pulse of the industry. What to expect: Expert Analysis: Breaking down insights from major global conferences like NRF, Shoptalk, Web Summit, MAPIC; Euroshop and EuroCIS. Diverse Perspectives: Hosted by a rotation of industry veterans and regional experts (APAC, US, EU). Actionable Strategy: We move beyond the headlines to discuss real ROI, digital transformation, and the future of commerce—from AI agents to luxury fashion and grocery trends. As part of the RetailNews.AI ecosystem, we help you cut through the noise to find what actually works in modern retail. 🌐 GET MORE INSIGHTS Visit our knowledge hub: https://retailnews.ai/ 📲 CONNECT WITH US LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-retail-podcast/ Contact: [email protected] #RetailTrends #APACRetail #AIinRetail #FiveThingsFriday #TheRetailPodcast  #thefutureofretailguy