You can be in corporate one minute and gone the next. So how do you take years of enterprise real estate experience and build your own lane?

Recorded live at ShopTalk Fall in Nashville, Dave Gulas sits down with Rebecca Fitts, founder of Double 03 Retail. Rebecca spent years navigating high-level corporate roles across major mall leasing companies and DTC leaders like Warby Parker before choosing entrepreneurship over the corporate ladder.

She launched Double 03 Retail to advise emerging brands opening physical locations and to decode the new rules of consumer discovery through her Substack, The Wild West of Retail.

In this episode:

• Leaving corporate security to build a boutique retail advisory
• Navigating retail real estate when physical space is at an all-time high
• How the "Discovery Economy" shifted from mega-influencers to niche creators
• Using custom AI as a thought partner without losing the human connection in retail

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Preview
• 00:38 Welcome to ShopTalk with Rebecca Fitts
• 01:33 Overcoming early consulting fear and building client trust
• 02:35 "Year of the Snake": Choosing entrepreneurship over corporate roles
• 03:22 Physical retail real estate today: Art, science, and low vacancy
• 04:02 What Double 03 does & the Wild West of Retail Substack
• 05:47 The Discovery Economy: Mega-influencers vs. niche creators
• 07:24 Leveraging AI as a thought partner and building custom retail tools
• 08:12 The AI boundary: Why the human touch is still king in retail
• 09:00 The hard reality of solo entrepreneurship and missing office culture
• 09:44 Refusing to quit: Owning your platform through market waves

Key takeaways:

• Physical retail is an art and a science. With retail vacancies at historical lows, finding space requires creative broker relationships alongside data analytics.
• Niche creators win the Discovery Economy. Audiences are shifting away from massive followings toward hyper-engaged, specialized voices that drive real conversion.
• The human is still king. Use AI to streamline content and strategy, but keep real people at the front lines of high-friction customer experiences.

Connect with Rebecca:

• Substack: The Wild West of Retail
• LinkedIn: Rebecca Fitts on LinkedIn

Support & Episode Partners:

• 💼 Max Capital Hub: https://maxcapitalhub.com/
• 🌊 Oceans Talent: https://hire.oceanstalent.com/dave_gulas

About Beyond Fulfillment:

Beyond Fulfillment is a weekly show about the people and operations behind growing e-commerce brands, hosted by Dave Gulas, co-founder of EZDC 3PL.

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Need a fulfillment partner? Visit https://www.ezdc3pl.com/.

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