NRF’s Matthew Shay on Retail Resilience & Leading Through Macroeconomic Uncertainty | WRC 2025

Hello, everyone.

This is amitalk Retail.

I'm Anne Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And we are coming to you with our last interview of the day from World Retail Congress here in London from the Vision Group booth.

Thank you to Vision Group for making all of our coverage of the show for the last couple days possible.

So many great interviews for you to check out, so make sure to get to them all.

Now, standing between us is someone we've had on the show before.

We're so we had to just, you know, we've done the New York interview, now we have to do the London interview.

Yeah, we're transatlantic with Matt.

I know.

We are president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, Matthew Shea.

Matt, welcome.

Thank you, thank you.

Great to see you both.

Yes.

Yeah, great to see you, too.

Well, we've interviewed you, as I mentioned, several times, but for a refresher, just quickly remind our audience, especially those from the global audience, what NRF is and what it does.

So the National Retail Federation is in the United States, the retail industry's voice, representing retailers of all shapes and sizes, all categories, all sectors, all segments.

And so we've got several thousand members.

We've got a team in Washington, D.C.

as well as New York City.

We do advocacy and communications as well as programs and conferences like this one.

And we spend a lot of time talking about what's happening in the industry and trying to communicate those events to members of Congress and policymakers and hopefully help them understand the challenges we face and the opportunities.

Yeah, nice.

So what in the heck brings you to WRC then?

Like, what brings you to London?

Well, so this is obviously a meeting of global retail leaders.

And in fact, I just finished a visit for the.

For the afternoon with about 25 CEOs, my counterparts, CEOs of other trade groups.

Oh, really?

Around the country.

Around the world, or other retail industry groups from across Europe and as far away as Australia.

And so we get a good.

A good opportunity to exchange and share views on what's happening in.

In the retail industry, what's happening in their markets, some of the challenges we face, and of course, talking about the policy issues like trade relationships and things that are sort of driving the business in the moment.

So that plus the.

The great lineup of speakers and attendees here at the WRC is a great place to stay connected to what's happening around the world.

Well, Matt, I'd love to get some insight into some of those conversations, including, and I think we just get it out of the way.

Tariffs.

What.

What were people talking about in that room upstairs.

If we could have been a fly on the wall.

I, I think the big, the big topic is really the uncertainty created by the conversation.

Yep.

And the inability to plan in the retail industry, specifically on things like inventory, purchasing, supply chain issues, but more broadly across entire economies.

Investments, hiring decisions, spending decisions, capex decisions.

So it's like paralysis for businesses.

It's very difficult to make any predictions about the future in any environment.

And in an environment like this, when so many of the input costs are unknown, it's even more challenging.

So that's the say uncertainty was the.

Was the takeaway, the big takeaway topic of conversation.

All right, so let's get you out in this.

And Anna and I crafted this question just for you because last time we talked to you got you let your hair down and I'm curious from your perspective, you've been enrolled now, what is it?

15 years, is that right?

Give or take.

15 years.

15 years last week.

15.

All right, nice.

Congratulations.

Did my homework.

So I'm curious, like when you, when you look ahead to 2025, is 20 in your 15 years, is 2025 just another day at the office or is it different?

And if it's different, like is there an event or a time that you could compare it to in that 15 year history, how would you sum it all up looking back or what do you expect?

It's, it's very ho hum.

It's very ho hum.

No.

Right, right.

Nothing happens.

I think the, the theme through the last at least five or six years has been the uncertainty of the environment, but also the need to be highly agile and adaptable and flexible.

And retailers are constantly responding to changes in consumer markets.

So I think for many of our members, while the uncertainty around tariffs for example, and policy issues broadly is a real challenge, they and their teams are used to this.

They've got some muscle memory, they've got some built in resilience and agility because they've had to have that.

As we think about, you know, going through the pandemic and then the inflationary environment, supply chain challenges, the evolution of supply chains away from certain producer markets into other markets.

So this is definitely not business as usual.

On the other hand, it's also not debilitating.

Right.

Although I will say for the smaller and more medium sized enterprises, it's extraordinarily challenging on the supply chain side because they don't have the scale, the resources, the relationships to sort of leverage the supply chain the way larger members do.

So in that regard it's Very unusual.

But I think the uncertainty and the need to be agile and flexible is very consistent with what we've seen for the last half decade.

Yeah, it's very consistent.

We've been hearing that a lot at this show that the only thing predictable is unpredictability.

And so what I take away from what you just said is, you know, that's true, but yet we as an industry specifically, since we came out of the pandemic, have become better attuned to that reality and better practitioners around how to deal with it.

Is that right?

Yeah, I think that's true.

And really, you know, go back to me.

You said I came on 15 years ago in 2010.

We were just sort of, we're really in the midst of the great financial recession in the U.S.

when I joined in May of 2010, the unemployment rate in the United States was 10.2%.

And that fell largely on retail, because we're the largest private sector employer in the United States.

So there were tens of thousands of workers out of work across the entire U.S.

economy.

And the retail industry faced enormous challenges.

Several hundred bankruptcies in 2009, 10 and 11.

We got through the pandemic with, you know, relatively speaking, about a dozen bankruptcies in each of those years in 20, 20 and 21.

So a lot of that was because businesses were more resilient.

They were, they're better prepared.

So it's been a couple of decades of constant change and transformation.

Think about digitization of businesses.

That too.

Yeah, that's been another one.

Yep, yep.

So if you go roll the clock back a quarter century, things in retail are dramatically different than they were in 2000.

Yeah.

And we have the Y2K bubble and the tragedy of 9, 11 and all the things that impact our economy then.

And yet the retail industry's got more establishments, more employees, greater growth, greater sales.

So the trajectory has been up and to the right, but there's been lots of disruption along the way.

Hey, Matt, I have a quick question for you just to wrap us up, but this also your, your purview for the National Retail Federation is also smaller businesses, small to medium sized businesses.

Right.

What are you telling them who are, you know, those businesses who are a little bit probably more concerned, they don't, like you said, they don't have the agility or flexibility.

What's the NRF's mess for those smaller and medium sized businesses as they're thinking about how to be agile and live in this time of unpredictability?

Well, the first thing we try to do is engage them and share latest information, updates, provide all the resources we can to help and support them, work with our partners in the state associations to do that.

And then we really try to amplify their voices, give them a platform.

Yeah.

Make sure that the stories they're telling, the impact that the current environment's having on them and their businesses is communicated directly to policymakers.

We had about a hundred of those small businesses in Washington a few weeks ago.

Okay.

Did dozens of meetings on Capitol Hill, took them to policymakers offices.

We've been to see the administration and to see White House representatives taking them in.

So I think the message is getting through, and people are beginning to understand the real challenges.

And there is a major difference between the way larger business operates and the way a small independent one does, without the backstop, without the resources.

And so it's a huge challenge.

I think the best thing we can do is keep giving them a voice and introducing them to policymakers and making sure people are aware of the challenges that face.

Yeah, that's a point to me, too, though, even as you mentioned, it, like, the digitization of retail in general still even affords those businesses to have more tools in their toolbox to deal with the uncertainty than they had, say, going back to 2000, when I started my retail career, too, so.

Well, awesome.

Thank you so much for spending time with us.

My pleasure.

Yeah, we know you're a busy guy, and so anytime we can grab you, it's always a pleasure.

So thank you so much.

And you want to sign us off?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thanks again to Fusion Group again for making all of our coverage this week possible.

And until next time, be careful out there.