Digital Innovation

As e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailers adapt to a new world characterized by remote work and social distancing, they must cater to virtual audiences while preparing for the return of in-person customers. Fortunately, the techniques used by many leading brands can serve as a blueprint for effectively engaging people — no matter where they are. Before…

Up until the past year or two, most efforts with artificial intelligence (AI) in retail fell under the umbrella of “optimization.” For example, on the advertising side, AI is used to optimize ad placement, content and delivery based on various AI-reviewed inputs. For the online shopping experience, AI-powered tools provide retailers with product recommendations to…

In this special episode of Total Retail Talks, Digital Content Manager Kristina Stidham speaks with Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan about Total Retail’s recently released Top 100 Fastest-Growing Retailers report, a ranking of publicly traded companies based on year-over-year net sales growth. Keenan shares that this annual report identifies the retail brands that are growing sales at…

Seven months on and, for most brands, online sales are still rising while the overall retail landscape is challenged with plenty of uncertainty. Travel restrictions remain in place, lockdowns are lifting and returning, and the need to wear masks in indoor spaces is contributing to a marked decline in physical footfall. This is resulting in…

Seasons greetings! Yes, technically it’s still autumn, but retailers are already getting into the mode of preparing for the holiday shopping season. And amid a year unlike any other, the holiday should feel particularly unique — perhaps, even daunting — as consumers continue to adapt to a largely digital-first world and brands gear up to…

In this week’s Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Ashley Chiaradio discuss the brand's Top 100 Fastest-Growing Retailers report, a ranking of publicly traded companies based on year-over-year net sales growth. This year's rankings are a testament to the value retailers are realizing by digitally transforming their businesses. The No. 1 company on this…

Voice recognition technology has come a long way since IBM introduced the Shoebox in 1961, which had a vocabulary of just over a dozen words. Today’s voice-enabled devices perform so many different tasks they’ve earned the nickname, “virtual assistants.” Some even have their own personalities. However, virtual assistants, like Alexa and Cortana, aren't just streaming music and delivering…

As noted in last week's article announcing the release of the latest installment of the Top 100 Fastest-Growing Retailers, Chewy was at the top of the rankings, posting a 37.19 percent increase in year-over-year (YoY) sales for its 2019 fiscal year. For the annual report, Total Retail conducted a YoY comparison of 2019 fiscal year net…

As we all have been sheltering in place in the midst of the global pandemic, e-commerce has been on the rise as many companies have had to close retail operations or simply shut down. Over the last six months, growth rates of e-commerce purchases have skyrocketed, accelerating a trend that began years prior to the…

For its latest research report, Top 100 Fastest-Growing Retailers, Total Retail conducted a year-over-year comparison of 2019 fiscal year net sales vs. 2018 fiscal year net sales for 160-plus publicly traded retailers, ranking the top 100. At the top of those rankings is Chewy.com, which is one of the newest companies added to the list,…