Technology

Successful retailers are in the business of constantly planning so shelves are stocked in time to meet consumers’ seasonal demands, especially during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However, retailers need to think differently when it comes to technology planning. With the holiday season looming, retailers need to invest time now in designing a long-term technology…

We’ll share insights from the 2018 holiday shopping season and discuss how you can leverage that information to prepare for this year.

In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss the recent Total Retail Tech event, which was held in Philadelphia earlier this week. This event brought select retail technology executives together to learn from industry experts and each other, and matched retailers with technology providers for one-on-one discussions. Highlights…

Walgreens and Wing Aviation LLC, a member of the Alphabet family of companies, announced last week that it's offering what it calls "store to door" delivery of "health and wellness, food and beverage and convenience items — via state-of-the-art drone technology — in minutes," according to a press release. Wing, the first drone operator certified…

With the first half of the fiscal year in the rear-view mirror, it’s a good time to evaluate the impact of newly implemented technology and understand where technology is still needed on the IT road map. Optimizing sales, margin and inventory across all operation channels is important, but how do you know which technology to prioritize? According to…

The age-old belief for retailers was that the longer customers spent in your store, the better. But in today’s world of instant gratification, consumers are looking to streamline almost everything — including shopping. This means that retailers must find ways to shorten transactional time while enticing consumers to spend more time engaging in the in-store…

Artificial intelligence (AI) and related fields — data science, machine learning, predictive analytics — have become mainstream across industries dealing with big data, including retail. One of my favorite ways to explain this influx is a quote (and great article) from Harvard Business Review: “[Data scientists’] sudden appearance on the business scene reflects the fact…

An Analysis of Trends, Buying Behaviors and Future Opportunities

Now that summer is coming to a close, retailers’ thoughts are turning to planning and strategies for the all-important holiday season. The season spans Black Friday to Cyber Monday and through the varied landscape of early shoppers who plan ahead to last-minute shoppers who crowd stores and websites in the last days before Christmas. Retailers…

Today’s retail landscape is undoubtedly competitive. As customers flock to direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce brands (e.g., Warby Parker, Casper, Dollar Shave Club), many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are struggling to stay afloat. This is evidenced by recent store closures from Dressbarn, Charlotte Russe, Payless ShoeSource, and Gymboree. With Coresight Research predicting that U.S. store closures could reach…