About
The Experience
Retail Store Tours delivers immersive retail experiences designed to transform your thinking and business
We Are
Connectors
We connect you with the technology, trends, and innovators
Storytellers
We introduce you to the creators who leverage the power of storytelling
Curators
We curate the stores and executives to create the narrative critical to your objectives
We specialize in connecting you with today’s and tomorrow’s marketplace, so you can meet your business objectives
We create curated experiences designed to align your strategic goals to today’s customer journey
Retail Store Tours is an experience specially curated for your organization to discover and explore the driving forces changing retail around the world today.
You will see and explore the best of retail innovation in the two-hour-plus experience led by industry professionals. You will meet with and talk to the company innovators creating the "new" retail.
Past attendees tell us that the experience allows their organizations to be inspired by creative new stores and retail approaches important to bottom-line results. The opportunity to network with professionals within and outside your organization and to share expertise is one of the benefits of the experience.
All levels of organizations participate including BOD, CEO, CFO, CMO, buyer, designer, marketer, finance professional, store operator, architect, consumer researcher, financial analyst, journalist, and more.
Our Story
The idea for Retail Store Tours Experiences originated based on learning from our work with the U.S. State Department to reach civilians when the infrastructure went down in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
We developed a curated immersive learning experience to support and educate the U.S. State Department, combining this with connecting the U.S. State Department with industry experts.
As word of Dan’s success with the State Department at Mobile World Congress spread, he began to be flooded with offers from Fortune 100 companies to do the same for them.
We have since worked with thousands of executives to improve their companies' performances with astounding success. Retail Store Tours was created at the request of retailers and is designed and curated 100% with retailer input using the process invented for the State Department.
The Founder
Dan Hodges
Retail Technology Futurist
Founder & CEO
Dan Hodges has distinguished himself as one of the world’s leading business futurists by accurately predicting and monetizing the profound ways in which technology has impacted consumer behavior during the last twenty-five years.
Dan began his business career in New York’s advertising industry, working with industry leader Irwin Gotlieb to manage the one-billion-dollar Procter & Gamble media buying and global investments account. However, foreseeing the impact that cable television would soon have on the television advertising market, Dan moved in 1992 to Discovery Communications, where he worked as a senior sales executive for seven years. During that time, Dan launched the company’s digital business, worked with Jay Chiat to develop the first interactive TV ad experience, and assisted founder and CEO John Hendricks in launching Discovery’s on-demand service. Over that same period, advertising revenue at Discovery soared from $100 million to $950 million.
Sensing the commercial opportunities that digital technology would soon make available, Dan worked for the next seven years as a consultant, helping forward-looking businesses transition into the digital marketplace.
As Dan’s reputation as a digital innovator grew, companies began approaching him to lead their innovation efforts. In 2006, he joined Enpocket, which at the time enjoyed a 47% share of the US mobile advertising market. When Nokia acquired the company a year later, Dan was chosen to lead the largest mobile advertising sales force in the world, and he spend the next decade reimagining the world of mobile advertising.
Currently, Dan runs Consumers in Motion, a global strategic advisory firm that helps business leaders anticipate the future and innovate accordingly. He is also the founder and CEO of Retail Store Tours, which creates business and consumer programs for attendees at industry conferences and other themed events. These programs help attendees navigate and network the events while encouraging them to explore and engage with the technologies and trends driving the pace of change in retail today. Most recently, Retail Store Tours has been selected to provide the store tour program at The NRF 2020: Retail’s Big Show.
Dan holds an A.A.S. in biotechnology and subsequently earned a joint B.S. from Syracuse University and the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Dan writes for Adweek, Luxury Daily, Media Village, MediaPost, Retail TouchPoints, and Wired: Innovation Insights and is a guest lecturer at the NYU Stern MBA Program, LIM College, & Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).