Omnichannel

In recent years, omnichannel strategies started to breathe new life into brick-and-mortar retail, setting up 2020 to be a year of growth. And then, without much warning, the pandemic closed thousands of stores for months. Suddenly, brands were left with only existing e-commerce capabilities and their imaginations — and forced to adapt quickly. The abrupt…

Walmart will remodel 200 of its Supercenters by the end of 2020 to encourage a more "digitally enabled shopping experience" featuring bolder signage, contactless checkout, and airport-inspired crowd management techniques, according to the company's Chief Customer Officer Janey Whiteside. The retail giant's remodeling project will expand to 1,000 stores by the end of 2021. The…

Retail is an incredibly resilient industry, having endured decades of economic disruption, yet continuing to come out the other side stronger than before. Thus far, COVID-19 has been retail’s most unprecedented difficulty of this decade, with social distancing guidelines forcing doors to close and operations to shift drastically. While retailers have reopened their doors to…

COVID-19 has left an indelible mark on many sectors. Consumers are continuing to shift priorities and spending habits as they adjust to new realities. Across the country, children are back to school in many different forms. Back-to-school marks the second busiest season of the year for retailers; an event that's only superseded by the holidays.…

Lowe's announced this morning that it will add self-serve pickup lockers to all U.S. stores, more than 1,700, by March 2021. The lockers will be an additional contactless option for shoppers, who have sought out these sorts of services during the COVID-19 pandemic. A scannable barcode generated after a purchase is made will allow shoppers to…

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the United States, setting back store reopening plans, small to midsized retailers must grapple with the realization that new consumer behaviors and protocols sprung from this health crisis will be here for much longer than initially anticipated. Fortunately, there are technologies and integrations available that are able to…

To help retailers get accurate insights into the performance of their gift card programs, NAPCO Research undertook a comprehensive review of the state of merchant gift card e-commerce offerings. This is NAPCO Research’s third annual Merchant Gift Card E-Commerce Evaluation. The cross-platform assessment evaluated 150 brands across 108 unique criteria. As part of the evaluation,…

Amazon.com is opening a new Whole Foods store in Brooklyn, but it won’t be open to the public. In a first for the company, the Whole Foods store will be permanently online only, tasked with fulfilling online grocery orders for customers in the Brooklyn area, Amazon announced. The store, which opened on Tuesday, is located in Brooklyn’s…

The dramatic shift toward e-commerce has sparked experimentation at Best Buy stores and inspired a new strategy that will turn some of them into hubs for online fulfillment, CNBC reported. Corie Barry, Best Buy CEO, said the retailer will start testing a ship-from-store pilot program. Although all Best Buy stores ship online orders, this program…

"Shelter in place" and "safer-at-home" orders are starting to lift in states across the country. Retailers are getting the green light to reopen their shops, but the reality they're returning to is entirely different than the one that they left. The impact of COVID-19 on the retail industry has been profound and is constantly evolving.…