Digital Innovation

Kroger announced it will be testing “cashier-less” technology in 2018. Business Insider reports Kroger's new "Scan, Bag, Go" technology allows customers to scan and pay for goods as they shop. Here's how it works: shoppers scan the barcodes of items they wish to purchase using a handheld scanner, provided by Kroger, or the chain's "Scan,…

Wal-Mart's Code Eight, the first portfolio company in its newly launched incubator, Store No. 8, has started testing personal shopping services for moms in New York City, Recode reports. The  service is targeted to “busy NYC moms ” who are "high net worth urban consumers" and will enable them to get product recommendations and make purchases simply through text messaging. The…

Lowe’s has named Vikram Singh senior vice president, chief digital officer, effective Jan. 4. Singh will report to Michael P. McDermott, chief customer officer. The newly created position is designed to accelerate Lowe’s digital evolution and drive a holistic integrated strategy to…

Something interesting happened as we spent countless news cycles prophesizing the demise of brick-and-mortar retail: 2017 Black Friday foot traffic at stores remained very high and barely saw any change from last year. Meanwhile, online shopping saw another 17 percent increase from last year, with mobile shopping accounting for almost 40 percent of those online…

The holiday shopping season is often a chaotic frenzy with consumers frantically searching for the perfect gifts for their loved ones. Due to wider adoption and the abundance of mobile shopping apps, as well as recent breaches in secure data, holiday shopping today isn’t the same as it used to be. To help retailers prepare…

Kroger announced this week it will begin offering mobile payments next year through a partnership with JPMorgan Chase & Co. The Cincinnati Business Courier reports the retail chain will offer a service known as Chase Pay at select stores and e-commerce programs next year. “Technology is transforming our customers’ experiences and greatly influencing how we're re-imagining…

It’s the 21st Century and we've entered a digital era where businesses across every sector are reaping the rewards that connectivity and digital transformation brings them. Operating faster than ever before, industries are harnessing next-generation technologies like the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and the cloud to accelerate the delivery of digital services to customers.…

Augmented reality (AR) isn’t necessarily a new concept, but the recent rollout of Apple’s ARKit and the upcoming launch of Google’s ARCore has taken this technology to the next level, making it substantially more mainstream for every consumer and business across all industries. Similar to virtual reality’s (VR) impact on gaming/entertainment, AR’s use cases are…

With the rise of “conversational experiences,” just about every business function — from marketing to commerce to support — must be redesigned to be conversational. The greatest impact felt due to conversational marketing is that businesses interact with far more consumer prospects than they do with paying customers. Each one of us will soon be…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the mother of all marketing buzzwords these days. Defined as the theory and development of computer systems to be able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, the broader applications of AI are much bigger than using a machine to order your food vs. having a waitress come to your…