Street Talk with Arthur Z

Corner of Fifth

Hosted by Arthur Zaczkiewicz, former Executive Editor at WWD with over two decades covering the fashion, beauty and retail industries — the show where C-Suite leaders speak candidly about what's actually moving the needle.

  1. 13h ago

    Ep. 036 'The Mall Has Become a Community Hub' — R.J. Hottovy, Placer.ai

    R.J. Hottovy, Head of Analytical Research at Placer.ai, joins Arthur Zaczkiewicz to read the 2026 holiday season through foot traffic data: why malls are busier than the obituaries suggest, why the season is stretching, and which retailers are winning. From off-price to Five Below to Bass Pro Shops, the pattern is the same. Compete on value, compete on difference, or get stuck in the middle. Street Talk is the podcast from Corner of Fifth Studio for leaders in retail, fashion and beauty. 00:00 -- Introduction 00:21 -- Why are malls thriving again, and why is Gen Z leading the return? 03:09 -- How are A, B and C malls diverging, and what keeps a mall fresh? 04:39 -- What does holiday 2026 look like, and why is the season stretching? 07:35 -- Why are consumers still shopping when inflation is biting? 09:46 -- Is off-price still growing, and where will its inventory come from? 13:23 -- Why do niche retailers like Five Below and Bass Pro Shops work? 15:35 -- How does the halo effect work in an omnichannel world? 17:11 -- Does the logo on the delivery truck still matter? 18:26 -- What should retailers watch heading into 2027?

  2. Oct 13

    Ep. #035: 'Circularity Needs a Revenue Line' — Sydney Badger, Fillogic

    Sydney Badger, VP of Commercialization and Circular Strategy at Fillogic, joins Arthur Zaczkiewicz fresh from Climate Week to explain why circular fashion keeps stalling: nobody has built the sorting infrastructure, quality resale supply is hard to identify, and brands won't prioritize anything without a revenue line. They also cover how AI is identifying untagged returns, what the K-shaped consumer means for off-price, and why secondhand is winning the branding battle. Street Talk is the podcast for fashion, beauty and retail leaders. 00:00 — Introduction 00:40 — What does Fillogic do, and why put returns hubs inside shopping centers? 02:46 — How a Ralph Lauren buyer ended up building reverse logistics infrastructure 10:24 — Why has circularity stayed on the horizon, and what will move it? 12:10 — Could scarcity or production caps make fashion truly circular? 14:54 — What Climate Week revealed: why quality resale supply is hard to find 17:17 — How AI identifies and sorts returned and end-of-life goods 19:33 — What the K-shaped consumer means for off-price and resale 22:07 — Closing

  3. Oct 6

    Ep. #034: 'It's About Purchasing as Little as Possible' — Kate Assaraf, Founder & CEO, Dip

    Kate Assaraf, founder and CEO of Dip, joins ArthurZaczkiewicz on Street Talk to explain how a sustainable hair care brand grows by selling less. Dip makes salon-quality shampoo and conditioner bars that last so long she keeps them off Amazon to protect independent refill stores and salons. Assaraf talks about the K-shaped economy from both sides,the day her contract manufacturer went bankrupt, and why she built her own factory with her own team. A conversation for anyone building a brand on repeatpurchase, and wondering what happens when the product is designed to be bought less. 00:00 -- Introduction 00:47 -- What is Dip, and why do bar shampoo skeptics giveit one last shot? 01:25 -- How refill-store distribution works, and why Dipstays off Amazon 03:05 -- Why a 20-year beauty veteran launched a bar haircare brand 03:49 -- Who is the sustainable beauty customer, and what dothey actually want? 07:14 -- How an economics background shapes a beauty brandbuilt on buying less 09:02 -- Why mass-market sustainability keeps getting itwrong 10:32 -- How the K-shaped economy is changing the way people shop 13:50 -- Why Dip built its own factory after a contractmanufacturer went bankrupt 15:59 -- Where does Dip go in the next five years?

  4. Sep 29

    Ep. #033: 'Making Resale the Obvious Choice' — Kate Sanner, Beni

    Kate Sanner, founder and CEO of Beni, built an AI browser extension that shows shoppers a cheaper secondhandversion of whatever they're about to buy, before they buy it. Sanner tells Arthur Zaczkiewicz how Beni normalizes over a million resale listings an hour from Poshmark, eBay, The RealReal, Depop and ThredUp into a 300-million-item catalog, why she built Beni around “pull” instead of “push,” and why a generation raised on influencers trusts them less. A conversation about resale, AI,and making “good” the easy choice. 00:00 —  Introduction 00:25 —  Why “Beni”? The story behind the name and the “sidekick” mission 01:11 —  What's broken about how shopping algorithms feed us? 02:01 —  How the Beni browser extension surfaces resale in real time 03:09 —  How does Beni turn messy secondhand listings into a searchable catalog? 06:25 —  Is the K-shaped economy pushing more shoppers toward resale? 08:17 —  Who is Beni actually built for? 13:08 —  Why Beni bets on “pull” over “push” 17:21 —  Why Gen Z and Gen Alpha are losing trust in influencers and AI 18:53 —  What's next: Beni's evolution into a “home for style discovery”

  5. Sep 15

    Ep. #032: 'The Line That Pays' — Keith Carpentier, QBuster

    Keith Carpentier is the CEO and founder of QBuster, the queue management platform now operating in over 10,000 retail locations — including TJ Maxx, Disney, TSA, Cinemark, and a fast-growing roster of healthcare facilities. QBuster manages more than one billion customer transactions annually. In this episode, Keith joins Arthur Zaczkiewicz to unpack why checkout remains physical retail's most persistent friction point, how single-line queue architecture consistently outperforms multi-lane setups despite looking longer, and why self-checkout is slower than a professional cashier — and isn't going anywhere. They also get into retail media network revenue through networked queue screens, the Retail Safety Workers Act, and what QBuster's next-gen hardware is built to do. Blunt, data-grounded, and genuinely useful if you run a store. 00:00 — Introduction 00:18 — What is queue management, and why does it exist? 01:08 — What is the single biggest friction point at physical checkout? 02:10 — How do you balance physical hardware with AI-driven queue management?04:45 — What does one billion transactions a year actually mean for the customer? 05:09 — What do shoppers really want when they're waiting in line? 06:28 — Why does the single-line queue always win — and why do retailers resist it? 09:10 — Is self-checkout broken, or just misunderstood? 13:29 — Why Keith built QBuster, and how a family-owned company became the market leader 17:21 — How queue management works across formats: grocery, movie theaters, healthcare 19:51 — What does QBuster look like in ten years — and what's coming next?

  6. Sep 8

    Ep. #031 'Access Over Ownership: A Fashion Rental Marketplace' — Julia O'Mara, Pickle

    Julia O'Mara, co-founder and COO of Pickle, joins Street Talk to explain how a peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace turned everyday closets into a real income stream — one top lender made $50,000 in a single month. O'Mara walks through Pickle's pivot from a failed social polling app to a rental platform now live in all 50 states, how logistics and AI-assisted listings work, and why circularity only sticks when it's paired with financial upside. The conversation closes on where rental, resale, and retail collide next. ●     00:00 — Introduction ●     01:13 — Why Is It Called Pickle? Inside a Peer-to-PeerRental Marketplace ●     02:56 — How Shopping and Listing Actually Works on Pickle ●     04:10 — Do Influencers or Everyday Users Drive Pickle'sGrowth? ●     06:06 — How Rental Logistics Work: Pickup, Delivery, andShipping ●     07:24 — Why Post-COVID Timing Accelerated Peer-to-PeerRental ●     09:07 — Is Gen Z Really Driving the Rental Boom? ●     11:06 — How Personalization and Culture Power Pickle'sGrowth ●     13:37 — Why Circularity Is Hard for Fashion — and HowPickle Cracked It ●     17:45 — Where Pickle Is Headed Over the Next Five to TenYears

  7. Sep 1

    Ep. #030: 'The Post-Purchase Layer Fashion Forgot' — Nancy Rhodes, Alternew

    Nancy Rhodes, founder and CEO of Alternew, joins Street Talk to unpack the business case for post-purchase infrastructure in fashion — the tailoring, repair, and care services brands leave on the table after checkout. Rhodes explains why fashion's approach to circularity has been backwards, how Primark, Piper & Sky, Coach, and Levi's are already building repair into their post-purchase strategy, and why EPR regulation in the EU and SB707 in the U.S. are about to make this non-negotiable. They also get into Rhodes's Ownership Intelligence Lab, and what fashion can learn from OpenTable and Airbnb about creating demand instead of waiting for it. 00:00 — Introduction 00:40 — What is Alternew? Fashion's missing post-purchase layer 02:26 — Why has fashion struggled to deploy circularity at scale? 07:49 — How brands like Primark and Piper & Sky operationalize repair11:45 — Why is repair fashion's most overlooked career path?13:06 — What OpenTable and Airbnb teach fashion about creating demand 13:47 — How EPR and SB707 are forcing brands to rethink post-purchase 16:00 — What do consumers actually expect from circularity? 19:53 — What is the Ownership Intelligence Lab — and why does circularity need it?

  8. Aug 11

    Ep. #029: 'Is the American Dream Still Alive?' — Shikha Jain, Simon-Kucher

    Shikha Jain, Lead Partner Consumer and Retail at Simon-Kucher, joins Street Talk to discuss the New American Dream Study — a 5,000-person survey conducted in 2026, the year America turns 250. The results challenge the prevailing narrative of consumer fatigue. The American Dream is still alive across every generation — but the barriers to reaching it are steeper than they have been in decades. High cost of living, debt, job insecurity, and a live-now mentality among younger consumers are reshaping how people spend, save, and plan. Shikha and Arthur work through what that means for retail: why 90% of Americans have changed their behavior because of inflation, how dupe culture and private label are gaining ground,what promotional strategy actually needs to look like now, and why physical retail still earns its place when the experience is right. 00:00 — Introduction: Who is Shikha Jain and what does Simon-Kucher do? 00:50 — How finance, the 2008 crisis, and behavioral economics led to a career in consumer consulting 03:10 — Why Simon-Kucher launched the New American Dream Study in 2026 — and what they were trying to solve 06:30 — How the traditional American Dream is defined — and what hasn't changed 09:10 — How generational differences reveal what the dream actually means to each cohort 10:55 — Three findings that challenged Shikha's assumptions: the dream is alive, everyone backs their own generation, and there is no single path 13:20 — Why high cost of living is the new gatekeeper — and who it hits hardest 15:00 — How the YOLO and FOMO mentality is reshaping the financial futures of younger Americans 17:20 — How inflation is changing what 90% of Americans actually do when they shop 19:10 — Why private label is winning, how dupe culture signals a rational consumer, and what promotional strategy has to look like now 20:25 — Why physical retail still earns its place — and what separates the stores that are winning

See All (37)

Trailer

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Hosted by Arthur Zaczkiewicz, former Executive Editor at WWD with over two decades covering the fashion, beauty and retail industries — the show where C-Suite leaders speak candidly about what's actually moving the needle.

Information

  • Creator
    Corner of Fifth
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    37
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Corner of Fifth
  • Show Website
    Street Talk with Arthur Z