Retail Transformation and Industry Inspiration Across Australia

When ASOFIA invited Morris Misel to headline The Future Summit, they weren’t asking for a generic trend overview they wanted a national catalyst. Over a multi-city tour backed by Westfield, Morris delivered exactly that: five packed events across Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, and Brisbane that rewired how the retail construction and fitout industry imagined its role in what’s next.

Each stop of the tour became a launchpad for fresh thinking: the future of multi-use retail spaces, how technology reshapes physical environments, and how design thinking can future-proof shopping precincts. Morris delivered not just keynote content but community-wide provocation blending foresight with practical application for designers, architects, builders, and landlords alike.

What set this tour apart was its access and immediacy. Morris didn’t just forecast; he facilitated. From live Q&A sessions with Westfield strategists to workshops on human-centred placemaking, The Future Summit became a two-way exploration of what comes after the store.

Shift: From traditional retail design to integrated, adaptive, future-forward destination spaces.

The result? ASOFIA members left with a shared language around foresight, clarity on how to adapt design for the next generation of retail, and a renewed sense of possibility for the industry’s creative and commercial future.

Trading for Success

When Morris Misel was invited to speak at the IGA National Conference on the Gold Coast, the industry was wrestling with big questions: How do independent grocers stay relevant in a digital, delivery-first world? How do we turn local scale into competitive advantage?

Morris delivered a keynote that helped IGA franchisees see beyond the shopfront. He mapped the future of community-based supermarkets not as price fighters, but as hyper-local hubs that blend convenience, connection, and customisation. From loyalty programs designed around neighbourhood insights to AI-assisted stock prediction and in-store experience zones, Morris introduced a future where tech and trust coexisted.

He also explored the evolving psychology of shopping how community, identity, and even nostalgia play a role in what ends up in the basket. His keynote pushed IGA teams to lean into their point of difference: they weren’t Woolworths, and that was their power.

Shift: From independent grocery as underdog to local experience leader.

The result? Conference feedback showed renewed energy from franchisees and a surge in experimentation some launched neighbourhood-only offers, others began digitising their loyalty systems, and many started rethinking store design through a community-first lens.

Revitalising Local Retail

When Morris Misel partnered with Elsternwick Mainstreet, the goal wasn’t foot traffic it was community revival. The brief was clear: re-energise a beloved retail precinct facing the digital squeeze. Morris’s response? A hyper-local strategy that fused street charm with smart technology.

He introduced geo-tagged loyalty offers, QR-code treasure hunts, localised Foursquare activations, and an interactive digital “Retail Guide to Elsternwick” to reconnect shoppers with the precinct. But it wasn’t just tactics it was storytelling. Morris helped retailers reshape their shopfronts as experience touchpoints. Where others saw empty windows, Morris saw canvases for micro-experiences and community storytelling.

He positioned Elsternwick not just as a place to shop, but as a retail village an ecosystem where traders, residents, and visitors became co-authors of its future.

Shift: From passive precinct to digitally-enabled local destination.

The result? Increased local engagement, stronger trader collaboration, and a blueprint that turned Elsternwick into a model for suburban retail revival across the country.

The Future of Shopping Centres

JLL Canada invited Morris Misel to lead a series of executive foresight workshops exploring the evolution of shopping centres in a world of digital-first consumers and data-driven retail. But this wasn’t about retrofitting. It was about reinvention.

Morris helped JLL’s Canadian leadership reimagine their retail properties as adaptive platforms not fixed locations. His vision included AI-powered layout optimisation, real-time footfall analytics, tenant performance dashboards, and dynamic zoning based on community demand.

Malls were no longer passive assets; they became responsive ecosystems. Every square metre had a data signature. Every walkway had a purpose. Every tenant relationship was reimagined as a flexible partnership with mutual intelligence.

Shift: From static shopping centres to smart, responsive commercial environments.

The result? JLL Canada began prototyping digital twin tools, reconsidered how to measure value across their property network, and set a new benchmark for what next-gen mixed-use retail spaces could be.

The Future of Malls

JLL Australia brought in Morris Misel to help reimagine the shopping mall not as a commercial centre, but as a connected urban lifestyle hub. Through a series of high-level strategy workshops with their leadership team, Morris challenged the notion that malls were simply in decline. What if, instead, they were evolving into community engines?

He presented a future where malls were no longer just for shopping, but for living: spaces with coworking pods, wellness suites, event plazas, and AI-assisted navigation that adjusted tenant mix based on shifting community behaviours. Drawing on trends in mobility, proptech, and retail AI, Morris helped the JLL team craft a new language and strategic outlook for mall reinvention.

Rather than defend the past, JLL embraced the opportunity to build the future one footfall metric, one smart tenancy, and one immersive experience at a time.

Shift: From mall-as-retail to mall-as-experience ecosystem.

The result? JLL began rethinking space curation, activated community-first leasing models, and positioned their malls as living platforms for the next generation of urban retail innovation.

Reinventing Retail Flooring with Carpet Court

When Carpet Court invited Morris Misel to speak at their national franchisee conference, they weren’t just seeking a keynote they wanted a wake-up call. With lived experience in the flooring industry dating back to his own family business, Morris didn’t just know the industry he understood its soul.

In his keynote and follow-on strategy sessions, Morris reframed Carpet Court’s purpose: not as flooring providers, but as storytellers of life’s moments. A child’s first crawl, a home’s first makeover, a family’s final renovation all played out on their floors. He pushed the brand to move beyond price and product into a deeper emotional narrative that honoured both legacy and innovation.

Morris introduced foresight around AR visualisation, personalised showroom journeys, and customer-driven storyboarding. He challenged franchisees to make showrooms less like warehouses and more like living galleries each display telling a story and inviting customers to picture their own.

Shift: From transactional floor sales to emotionally resonant retail experiences that blend tech and storytelling.

The result? Carpet Court began reimagining their in-store experience, piloted AR-based design tools, and aligned their customer language with moments, not metres deepening loyalty and creating a more meaningful retail presence in a highly competitive market.

Redefining the Sleep Experience

When Snooze brought Morris Misel to their national franchisee conference in Hobart, they were searching for clarity on brand, customer experience, and their next leap forward. Morris delivered a keynote that didn’t just challenge the room it woke them up.

He reframed the product not as a bed, but as a curated rest ecosystem. He showed how sleep retail could evolve beyond merchandise into immersive wellbeing spaces complete with story-driven customer journeys, AR-powered personalisation, and the retail rituals that help customers dream big.

Morris mapped five key shifts:

Brand-first thinking over franchisee preference.

Showrooms as inspiration zones, not storage units.

Technology as a storytelling tool, not a sales gimmick.

Merchandise as a backdrop to lifestyle transformation.

Women the key decision-makers as the default audience, not the afterthought.

Shift: From product-first retail to experience-led rest environments.

The result? Snooze began refining its merchandising language, exploring new showroom formats, and aligning internal language around lifestyle not stock lists. The future of sleep is no longer passive it’s designed.

Reimagining Colour, Community & Connection

When Paint Place invited Morris Misel to headline their national conference, it wasn’t just about paint it was about purpose. Morris brought a deeply human keynote that reframed independent paint stores as pillars of local transformation. Not just retailers, but community colour experts.

He introduced the idea of colour storytelling where customers weren’t just sold paint but guided through life moments. A nursery wall. A family kitchen redo. A memorial renovation. Every hue had a human.

Morris proposed in-store colour trials using AR tech, hyper-local loyalty campaigns, and showrooms designed for neighbourhood storytelling, not stock movement. He challenged store owners to stop competing on price and start owning their space as emotional anchors in people’s homes.

Shift: From commodity paint sales to emotionally intelligent community retailing.

The result? Paint Place stores began testing immersive colour visualisation tools, updated their language from SKUs to stories, and found new confidence as local experience leaders trusted not just for paint, but for transformation.

Launching Faster by Listening Better with PZ Cussons

When PZ Cussons engaged Morris Misel, they weren’t after a PowerPoint they wanted provocation. Over two immersive days, Morris dismantled old assumptions and rebuilt a culture of listening inside the company. His foresight process was simple but radical: bring the voices of real consumers into the room and let them lead.

Live panels with students, low-income households, and young parents replaced static market reports. In one powerful moment, a university student told the CEO he didn’t wash his “good jeans” because he couldn’t afford to ruin them. A European executive quietly admitted, “We already make a product for that we just never launched it here.”

That single insight became a new product. Within nine months, PZ Cussons launched a detergent in Australia designed to extend the life of premium denim a market they hadn’t even considered.

Shift: From data-validated assumptions to real-world, human-led product strategy.

The result? One of the fastest product launches in the company’s history, a renewed culture of grounded innovation, and an internal language that now prioritises people before process.

Redefining Fruit and Vegetable Retail with Branded Produce

When Morris Misel first proposed the concept of branded fruit to Horticulture Australia, it was seen as radical even controversial. Why would anyone brand an apple? But Morris saw what others didn’t: a seismic shift in how urban consumers connect with the food they eat. He proposed a bold retail-first strategy transform fresh produce from undifferentiated commodity into high-trust, high-loyalty consumer brands.

Through a series of national strategy sessions and innovation workshops, Morris worked with growers, retailers, and industry groups to define the DNA of branded produce. He helped them tell stories of place, people, and provenance turning "just another pear" into a named, trusted product. These sessions caught the attention of Woolworths Australia and laid the foundation for a now-mainstream practice of storytelling in produce retail.

Morris’s concept brought shoppers closer to growers. Consumers began to ask not just "Is it fresh?" but "Where was this grown? Who grew it? Why does it taste different?" His foresight mapped a future where produce aisles became storytelling arenas, filled with QR codes, farm narratives, seasonal exclusives, and transparent sourcing.

Shift: From undifferentiated commodities to premium branded produce that builds trust and loyalty.

The result? Today, branded fruit is a staple of modern supermarket strategy driving price premiums, boosting retailer reputation, and giving shoppers a reason to choose one banana over another. What began as a radical foresight conversation now defines how Australians experience the future of fresh.