Available to book
Doug Stephens
Transform retail strategy with Doug Stephens, renowned retail futurist and AI commerce expert. Doug equips Fortune 500 brands to navigate consumer behaviour shifts and leverage emerging technologies, delivering actionable frameworks for market dominance. Bestselling author advising Walmart, Google, LVMH, and BMW globally.
Doug Stephens is a retail industry futurist whose insights shape how global brands navigate the future of commerce. His intellectual work influences Fortune 500 companies including Walmart, Google, LVMH, and BMW as they adapt to rapidly evolving consumer landscapes.
As founder and CEO of Retail Prophet, Doug brings over 20 years of senior retail industry experience to his consultancy work. He has authored three international bestsellers, including Resurrecting Retail, and serves as a nationally syndicated retail columnist for CBC Radio while advising multiple corporate and academic boards.
Doug helps organisations decode seismic shifts in consumer behaviour, technology integration, and competitive strategy. His research identifies how AI is transforming retail operations, how physical stores must evolve beyond traditional functions, and how brands can establish uncontested market dominance amid unprecedented global competition. His framework enables retailers to cut through market chaos, prioritise investments, and forge radical consumer value. Audiences gain practical insights on leveraging emerging technologies like AI and virtual reality, creating distinctive sensory experiences that drive profitability, and building sustainable competitive advantages in an era where traditional retail cornerstones no longer guarantee success.
Book Doug to transform how your organisation views retail's future and position your brand to thrive in commerce's next revolution.
Topics, sessions and talks
Doug Stephens unpacks a retail landscape reshaped by permanent shifts in consumer behaviour, global competition, and relentless technological change. Traditional advantages such as price, convenience, and exclusivity are no longer reliable foundations for success. Drawing on research from his book Resurrecting Retail, he introduces a clear strategic framework that helps brands prioritise investment, cut through market noise, and build uncontested category leadership amid accelerating disruption.
Doug Stephens reframes the role of the physical store in a world where commerce now lives everywhere from mobile devices to digital touchpoints. As boundaries between online and offline dissolve, he reveals why brick-and-mortar has entered its most transformative era yet. Using up-to-the-minute research and global examples, he shows how planning, design, and performance measurement are being reinvented to unlock entirely new forms of retail value.
Doug Stephens explores how competitive advantage is being radically redefined as innovation and disruption collide at unprecedented speed. Long-standing sources of market leadership are giving way to new pillars shaped by technology, data, and changing consumer expectations. Through vivid case studies of global trailblazers, he reveals how leading organisations are no longer reacting to the future but actively constructing it as a source of long-term dominance.
Doug Stephens examines how economics, demographics, technology, and media are reshaping not only how people buy, but who today’s consumer fundamentally is. From artificial intelligence and social commerce to virtual reality and big data, powerful forces are converging to rewrite the rules of engagement between brands and customers. He reveals how the most adaptive businesses are reimagining their models to thrive amid these historic, permanent shifts in behaviour.
Doug Stephens explores why, even in a hyper-technological world, the emotional drivers of novelty, connection, and wonder remain central to why people buy. Showcasing the world’s most imaginative brands, he reveals how sensory design, storytelling, and experience differentiation are redefining profitable retail. This session reconnects commerce with creativity, demonstrating how the artistry of retail is once again a decisive strategic advantage.
Doug Stephens, renowned retail futurist and bestselling author, delivers transformative insights that help global brands like Walmart, Google, and BMW navigate the complex future of commerce with practical strategies for leveraging AI, creating distinctive customer experiences, and building sustainable competitive advantages. Book Doug today to position your organisation at the forefront of retail's next revolution and unlock uncontested market dominance in an increasingly competitive landscape.
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frequently asked questions
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To book Doug Stephens, email doug.stephens@getapeptalk.com or call PepTalk on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US), and one of our speaker agents will contact you within hours to confirm Doug's availability and speaking fee. If you can, please include your budget upfront – it helps us fast-track your request. It’s also helpful to know the date, format (virtual or in-person), location, and about your audience.
No. PepTalk adds no booking fee, so you pay the speaker's fee and nothing beyond it. The service, from shortlist through to contracts and event-day logistics, is included. For repeat or multi-event bookings, PepTalk can agree preferential rates with your procurement team.
Share your event date, audience, format, objectives and budget, and PepTalk sends a hand-picked shortlist within 24 hours. Each suggestion comes with a profile, a fee and a recommendation on the strongest fit. Once you choose, PepTalk handles contracts, travel and logistics through to event day.
The typical fee range is the speaker's standard in-person fee in their home market, shown in their local currency. It moves with format, location, date and session length: virtual sessions and shorter slots usually cost less, while international travel and peak dates cost more. Send your brief to PepTalk and the team will confirm the exact fee in your currency.
Not all of them, and it makes no difference to your booking. PepTalk's network of 15,000+ speakers covers talent the team works with directly alongside speakers represented by agents and agencies worldwide. PepTalk approaches the speaker, negotiates the fee and handles contracting either way.
Three to six months ahead is comfortable for most events, and 12 months is better for large conferences, peak-season dates or one specific in-demand speaker. Shorter timelines are workable, and PepTalk regularly fills last-minute and replacement bookings within days. Availability is the constraint, so get in touch as soon as you have a date.
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