Built by people who have sat in the buyer's chair.

The RetailLab is a product of Sustainable Souls, Inc., founded by Michael Lewis, author of Retail Is Hard. After decades of retail consulting for women's apparel brands, catalog merchants, and multi-channel retailers, Michael built The RetailLab to solve the same problem he encountered in every client engagement: the data that could unlock growth was sitting in plain sight, but the tools to see it did not exist.

The platform was born from real consulting work — from identifying $153,000 in lost sales on a single wool jacket, to rebuilding a $1 million category from a markdown mistake, to uncovering $2.3 million in missed revenue on a single size across an entire assortment. These were not hypotheticals. They were client outcomes, documented season after season.

The RetailLab is the tool Michael wished he had: a visual workspace that tracks inventory daily, calculates lost revenue automatically, and surfaces the buying recommendations that actually move the needle. No spreadsheets. No Monday morning reports. No guessing.

What we believe

• Daily inventory snapshots change everything. Weekly or monthly reporting hides stockouts, restocks, and velocity shifts that happen in days, not weeks.
• Lost sales are real, measurable, and actionable. When a product sells out, the demand signal goes quiet. But with the right data, you can calculate exactly what you missed — and plan better next time.
• Variant-level visibility is non-negotiable. Style-level summaries hide the real story. Size, color, and fit-level data is where the profit lives (and dies).
• Fashion teams deserve tools built for fashion. Generic analytics platforms were not built for OTB, size curves, markdown cadence, or seasonal planning. We are.

Company