Digital Innovation
September 13, 2018 at 1:01 pm
New research from Voicebot.ai reports that nearly one in five adults in the U.S. already has access to a smart speaker (e.g., Alexa, Google Home), although they might not necessarily have their own. This equates to roughly 47.3 million people, or 20 percent of the U.S. adult population. Considering that Amazon.com didn’t release its Echo speaker until…
August 29, 2018 at 8:49 am
For many consumers today, when they think of online shopping, Amazon.com is top of mind. If we come from their perspective, it isn’t difficult to understand why they love Amazon. It's a marketplace that has almost every product imaginable, which, in most cases, can be delivered the very next day. It can't be denied that…
August 6, 2018 at 3:34 pm
It wasn’t long ago that running out of a key ingredient for dinner meant rushing to the market, hoping for a short line, and getting home in time to get the food on the table. Just a few years ago, shopping for something more personal, like a watch, took you to every jewelry store in…
August 6, 2018 at 2:21 pm
Walmart is testing the use of storage and retrieval robotics, called Alphabot, to increase the speed of online grocery order pickup, according to a company blog post. The technology, which was developed in collaboration with retail automation company Alert Innovation, is being installed in a section of a Salem, N.H. supercenter, which will also be a dedicated…
July 31, 2018 at 9:49 am
Traditional retailers must commit to digital transformation in order to streamline, differentiate and enable new business models.
July 26, 2018 at 9:55 am
Sameer Hassan is the senior vice president of enterprise product strategy and user experience at Williams-Sonoma Inc., where he heads up product management, UX and product analytics for the WSI brands. We caught up over lunch recently to learn more about WSI’s culture of innovation. Holly Vander Wall: At WSI, you’re working with cutting-edge technology such as virtual…
July 23, 2018 at 12:39 pm
The future of retail will be shaped by a growing appetite for hyperpersonalization in the design, manufacturing, distribution and marketing of products and services. In the future, the possibilities offered by our growing intimacy with data — gained from our wearables and under-the-skin technologies, to our smart homes and even our DNA and genomics —…
July 2, 2018 at 9:34 am
In episode 152 of Total Retail Talks, Stephen Kuhl, co-founder and CEO of Burrow, discusses the startup furniture brand's approach to disrupting the traditional retail furniture business. Kuhl addresses how Burrow is differentiating itself in the increasingly crowded online category, why he believes the future of the furniture industry is direct to consumer, his top…
June 27, 2018 at 11:37 am
Meet Jen Forman, the founder and CEO of Charlotte’s Closet, an online platform where teens can borrow designer dresses for every occasion at a fraction of the retail cost. Jen is the subject of our latest installment of the Inner Circle Q&A!
June 21, 2018 at 10:48 am
Prime Wardrobe, Amazon.com's “try before you buy” shopping service, is officially out of beta and open to all Prime members in the U.S. The service has been gradually offered to more customers over the course of the year, so many Prime members may have already had access before yesterday's official unveiling. Prime Wardrobe is Amazon’s answer to…
