Technology

Home Depot's efforts to advance tech innovation in retail will be getting a big boost from the company's latest initiative. The retailer has partnered with Georgia Tech University to create a cutting-edge research center, focused on advancing tech innovations, education and giving young talent an opportunity to grow. The new Home Depot Technology Center will allow the company to work with more than 40 startup companies housed at Georgia Tech.

Make no mistake about it: 3-D printing will be a huge part of the retail industry's future. While Gartner is forecasting that mainstream adoption of consumer 3-D printing is still five years to 10 years away, the retail industry is already feeling the shift. As the founder of a large online retailer and lifelong participant in the industry, I think this shift in producing power and the method by which products are made will transform retailers in five key ways: 

In an interview with Retail Online Integration yesterday at the National Retail Federation's Big Show in New York City, Charlie Larkin, senior director of the GameStop Technology Institute (GTI), discussed why the retailer believes technology and innovation are critical to its future, as well as some of the cool new things GameStop is doing to connect the digital and physical worlds in its stores.  

"Table commerce" (or perhaps "t-commerce") isn't a widely recognized channel of customer engagement, but The Neiman Marcus Group just may change that. Neiman Marcus is piloting three interactive tables from T1Visions in its Austin, Texas, Chicago, and Topanga, Calif., locations. The retail tables, prominently displayed in each store's shoe salon, feature a 32-inch Ultra HD 4K touchscreen, covered by a single continuous pane of glass that's customized in color per Neiman Marcus' specifications. The touchscreens are powered by T1Visions' OneShop application that allows shoppers to browse and filter Neiman Marcus' in-store and out-of-store inventory.

After what most would consider a brutal holiday shopping season last year thanks to a well-publicized data breach, Target is rebounding with a slew of mobile and digital investments aimed at driving foot traffic. Target is the latest brand to partner with Google's Art Copy & Code program, which aims to reinvent digital advertising for iconic brands such as Nike. For Target's holiday campaign, Google helped create a mobile website with six mini-games. The campaign was created by creative agency 72andSunny with Psyop and Stinkdigital as the production partners. 

Amazon.com employee Rejinaldo Rosales used to wander stacks of shelves to pick up merchandise for orders before finally returning to his station to place them in bins and send them to their next stop. But this summer, squat orange robots, called Kiva, began zooming around the shelves instead, picking up goods and carrying them to Rosales at his station. The result? What used to take hours of walking can happen in mere minutes instead. While walking the aisles was "good cardio," the new system lets him get through more orders since he stands in one place, Rosales said. 

Just downstairs from a real estate agency in Campbell, California, a team from eBay is experimenting on a very different type of dressing room for their partner, the tech-forward fashion brand Rebecca Minkoff. These dressing rooms feature Kinect sensors that record customers’ motions, adjustable lighting, touchscreens, and a sophisticated tracking system which identifies the customer and remembers what they bring into the dressing room and don't purchase. The goal? A dressing room which sends emails to customers afterwards, offering them the clothing that they didn't purchase in a size or color the store doesn't have.

In retail, innovation is the name of the game. Increasingly, retailers are staying ahead through unique in-store experiences that inspire shoppers through social lifestyles. Take a look at STORY, a Manhattan retailer that continually changes everything in-store, from products to fittings to events based upon different themes like "Love" or "Made in America." It's described as a monthly magazine, meets art gallery, meets retailer concept. Taking the in-store experience to a whole new level, Ikea recently hosted a "one night only" sleepover for shoppers at its store near Sydney.

I'm at the Shop.org Annual Summit in Seattle and having a great time catching up with old friends and colleagues, meeting new contacts, and learning about new digital marketing strategies and technologies. Also, as usual, as I walk through the exhibit hall I'm being greeted by smiling vendors, eager to share with me information about their latest and greatest shiny new objects. For the most part, I actually enjoy talking with vendors and learning about their wares. But I have noticed many folks — retailers, probably — with their badges turned the other way or tucked into their jackets, and I know why: they don’t want to be singled out and aggressively sold to by vendors.

Urban Outfitters Inc.'s Anthropologie chain, known for its bohemian-chic housewares and apparel, will supersize some stores to entice shoppers with a wider array of lifestyle gear. The company aims to open 25 to 50 Anthropologie stores in the next five years that will be three times larger than current locations, which average about 7,100 square feet. Urban Outfitters will also test the larger format for its namesake and Free People chains, the Philadelphia-based company said this week. Anthropologie, striving to become a broader lifestyle brand, will increase its home goods, wedding, beauty and intimates offerings at the larger stores.