In-Store Technology

A seamless and streamlined customer experience (CX) is everything in retail. Modern consumers want to find, peruse, and buy products easily and conveniently, in-store or online. However, maintaining an enjoyable CX for shoppers can become unfeasible during network outages. Prolonged incidences can jeopardize more than CX; they can impede retailers’ ability to process payments, track…

Paper shelf price labels are going away at thousands of Walmart stores. The company announced late last week an expanded rollout of digital shelf labels that will allow it to update prices on over 120,000 items within minutes. Weekly updates to paper shelf labels typically took a store worker about two days. With digital labels,…

Walmart-owned Sam’s Club says it’s turning to artificial intelligence to speed up its own exit technology. Instead of requiring store staff to check members’ purchases against their receipts when leaving the store, Sam’s Club customers who pay either at a register or through the Scan & Go mobile app can now walk out of the…

With 2024 in full swing, the results are in from the 2023 retail peak season, and one thing is clear: digital is embedding itself as the channel of choice for shoppers. According to analysis by Mastercard, in-store sales during Black Friday increased just over 1 percent compared to 2022 figures, whereas digital sales shot up…

Amazon.com is removing “Just Walk Out” technology from its Amazon Fresh stores as part of an effort to revamp the grocery chain. The company’s well-known technology lets customers pay for items without standing in line and sends them receipts afterwards. Amazon says Just Walk Out will now be replaced by smart carts that allow customers…

The modern retail business owner knows these facts: their customers expect an experience that's efficient, effortless, and caters to their preferred way of buying. As consumer shopping habits continue to evolve — expedited in part due to the global pandemic that forever changed how we buy — retail operators must remain at the forefront of…

For many vendors, the holiday sales period can spell the difference between success and failure, providing a boost that can turn around the fortunes of a struggling retailer. Conversely, an inability to capitalize on last quarter sales could be a business’s final death knell. That’s why retailers need to make sure their management processes can…

Retail is changing significantly as new technologies pave the way for future shopping experiences free of friction. With the industry projected to witness exponential growth in artificial intelligence (AI), reaching more than $50 billion by 2030 from just over $6 billion in 2022, this year promises to be a pivotal moment in retail’s digitization. Here…

During the pandemic, it seemed as if shopping had changed forever. With stay-at-home orders and lockdowns across the U.S., consumers had no choice but to shop online. Today, however, the COVID-19 pandemic is largely behind us, and in-store shopping is very much back. According to one survey, 85 percent of retail sales in 2023 are…

Consumers like to shop whenever the need or mood strikes them. Oftentimes, this can be in the middle of doing something completely unrelated. According to a study from IBM and the National Retail Federation, seven in 10 consumers shop in “micro-moments” — i.e., shop simultaneously while conducting their daily tasks. Google defines micro-moments as occurring, “when…