Founder
Retail Speak
Sandy Stein’s retail roots trace back to his Midwestern upbringing in a multigenerational retail family during the midcentury, beginning with drafting store layouts for his family’s new locations while still in high school. That formative experience set the stage for a forty‑plus‑year career as a retail planner, designer, trend forecaster, speaker, writer, and published author.
In 1981, Stein founded Minneapolis‑based SteinDesign (later STEIN LLC), a boutique practice dedicated exclusively to retail planning, design, and branding. Over its 34‑year run, the firm earned a reputation for creating distinctive, high‑performing branded environments, designed to turn heads while strengthening the retailer’s bottom line.
Entering the new millennium, Stein turned his attention to writing a book. The result was RETAIL SCHMETAIL™: One Hundred Years, Two Immigrants, Three Generations, Four Hundred Projects, published in 2014. The book earned the Independent Book Publishers Association’s prestigious Benjamin Franklin Silver Award in 2015.
That same year, Stein launched RETAIL SPEAK™ on LinkedIn to share retail news and his insight‑rich commentary. His work quickly drew the attention of Forbes.com and the renowned Robin Report, leading to his authoring more than 150 articles covering the full spectrum of retail topics.
Stein’s influence continued to expand as RETHINK Retail named him to its advisory board and included him on its prestigious Top Retail Experts list, five years running. In 2025, he was honored as part of the inaugural class of Retail Voices by the National Retail Federation (NRF).
