Fall Product Preview Issue Out Now: Q4 Insights for Retailers & Manufacturers

This story may be a few months old, but I think it raises an important question for every industry. A federal jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster abused monopoly power and harmed competition. Whether you agree with every aspect of that case or not, the bigger lesson is this: Markets work best when consumers have access to information, competition, and independent verification. That's why I'm increasingly concerned about efforts in residential real estate to reduce transparency. Consumers deserve to know: • An agent's verified performance. • Days on market. • Price history and reductions. • Marketing history. • Whether a property received full public exposure or was marketed privately. The less information consumers have, the harder it becomes to make informed decisions. Competition should be based on better service, better results, and better consumer outcomes. Not on limiting access to information or reducing transparency. Real estate doesn't need less accountability. It needs more. Too many bad apples are damaging the reputation of this industry by wrapping self-interest in phrases like "consumer choice," "innovation," and "privacy." Real consumer choice isn't about giving sellers less information. It's about giving them all the information so they can make an informed decision. Transparency isn't the enemy of competition. It's the foundation of it. Confidential Remarks

"The question now for watchers of the three major music rights companies – Universal, Sony, and Warner – is whether they will now ramp up their international acquisition drive across live events, merch, and artist management. All three remain understandably focused on purchasing premium copyright catalogs, via their respective JVs with Chord Music/Dundee Partners (UMG), Singapore’s GIC (Sony Music), and Bain Capital (Warner). The buyout of such catalogs typically offer substantially higher margins than investments in merch or live, especially in emerging markets. Return-hunting investors will inevitably be attracted to margin-boosting acquisitions vs. lower-margin, ‘non-core’ activities. Yet, with each of the majors seeing impressive revenue results from their limited involvement in live and merch to date, it’s a fair question: should they start deploying more resources in these traditionally “ancillary” areas? Especially outside of the US? One thing’s for sure: If they don’t, Live Nation will" https://lnkd.in/gD4FT6zZ

Washington D.C. just passed one of the toughest anti-scalping laws in the country. 🎟️New RESALE Act caps resale prices at 10% above face value 🎫Requires all-in pricing 🎟️Bans speculative & surveillance pricing Could this be a national blueprint? https://lnkd.in/gURBJQwV

Recently, I've been spending quite a bit of time reorganising a few of CD section projects and thinking about how different categories should evolve. Somewhere along the way, a thought came back to me. When people talk about retail transformation, the conversation is often about digitalisation, AI or omnichannel. Yet one thing that has quietly stayed with me over the years is my CD-RAMA department ... the Music section. Around 2023, I began to see it differently. Instead of viewing it as a department that facing declining sales, I started asking myself: What if this wasn't just about selling music, but about preserving music culture and creating an experience that streaming could never replace? That simple question shifted my entire approach. The goal was never just to improve sales. It was to reposition and uplift the image of the entire CD-RAMA section—transforming it from a traditional media department into a destination where people could reconnect with music, discover vinyl culture, and experience something that streaming simply cannot offer. Throughout a 2025 re-cate project, I held on to one belief: retail is not only about selling products, but also about preserving culture. Not every initiative was expected to deliver immediate sales growth. Some were designed to strengthen the long-term relevance of the category, inspire curiosity, and keep the culture of physical music alive for future generations. We refreshed the visual identity, strengthened category storytelling, introduced vinyl lifestyle concepts, and explored brand collaborations that made the section feel more immersive and meaningful. One of those ideas led to a collaboration with Syitren & Audio-Technica, where retail display space became a branded experience showcasing turntables and vinyl culture, rather than simply another product display. Looking back at this photo today, I'm reminded that merchandising is never just about arranging products on shelves. It's about understanding people, recognising cultural value, building meaningful brand partnerships, and creating experiences that give customers a reason to stop, explore and connect. Sometimes, the biggest transformation doesn't come from introducing something new. Sometimes, it begins by helping people see something familiar in a completely different way. And sometimes, our responsibility in retail is not only to grow a category, but also to preserve what makes that category worth remembering. Looking back again and again, I realised CD-RAMA was never just about a retail section. It was about giving music culture a place to continue telling its story. #Music #CD #Vinyl #MusicCulture #TheComeBack #Retail #CategoryManagement #Merchandising #RetailStrategy #CustomerExperience #VisualMerchandising #CommercialThinking

Global recorded-music retail sales are expected to reach $48.3 billion in 2026, marking the 12th consecutive year of annual growth for the industry.

Digging into whether any antitrust experts have analyzed how resale price caps could affect Live Nation’s monopoly. So far, I’ve only found one. Antitrust expert Diana Moss argues that resale price caps could reduce competition, give fans fewer choices, and strengthen Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s market position if the monopoly in the primary ticketing market isn’t addressed first. Has anyone seen any other antitrust experts who have analyzed this issue ? https://lnkd.in/gpvVnyAV

The most expensive meetings in business are the ones that never happen. Think about the deals that stalled, the partnerships that never launched, the contracts that went to someone else — not because you weren't the right fit, but because nobody ever made the connection. Every one of those is a meeting that didn't happen. And most of them didn't happen because nobody bridged the gap. I bridge gaps. Specifically the gap between you and the companies already on your target list that don't know your name yet. That gap is smaller than you think. Let's close it. Tell me the company you've been circling. I'll tell you if I can get you in. #supplychain #sourcing #media #luxury #music #consumergoods

When a major owns your infrastructure, independence turns into a setting they can change. We all say independence matters, then we look the other way while they buy up the whole market, piece by piece. Your distribution partner gets acquired by a major. Your catalog data, your release plans, your margins all end up in the hands of a company that also owns the labels you compete with. We're here for the ones who don't want to rent their infrastructure from a major. We adapt to every person and every business we work with. We built 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀 for the ones looking for a mix of supply chain, analytics, royalty reporting, API or white-label, among other modules, turning on only what each one needs. If you want to see how it could look in your business, the link is in the first comment. #MusicDistribution #MusicTech #IndependentMusic

Most retailers will spend six figures on a store fit-out and then play whatever's on the manager's phone for music. That gap has always bothered me, and the data keeps proving it's a mistake. Research on in-store audio published this year found brand-fit music can add up to 42% to the time a shopper spends in-store. Scent tells a similar story: retailers using scent marketing report an average 11% lift in sales, and simply scenting the entrance to a store can lift sales by 6%. That's one of the cheapest interventions in retail, and still one of the most ignored. What's changing in 2026 is the sophistication. Some retailers are now using adaptive audio that responds to foot traffic in real time, slowing the tempo to encourage browsing, lifting it to move a queue along. Sound and scent aren't ambience. They're a lever, and most retailers have never pulled it deliberately. Has anyone reading this actually tested their in-store sound or scent against a control, rather than picking something that felt right? #CustomerExperience #SensoryMarketing #InStoreExperience

A short piece of math worth pinning to the wall. A guest interacts with a lobby coffee touchpoint for roughly six minutes. Multiply by average daily foot traffic. Multiply by properties. Multiply by 365. That is the number of on-brand or off-brand moments your program is producing each year, whether anyone signed for them or not. Most brand teams cannot name that number for coffee. They can for signage. They can for uniform compliance. They can for hold music. The touchpoint with the largest volume is the one they never quantified. Make the promise true at every property. #brandgovernance #brandstandards #multilocation #guestexperience #brandequity