Technology

Expectations of retailers’ customer experience (CX) are higher than ever. Consider, 75 percent of consumers say they would stop shopping with a brand following a bad experience. Walmart is long considered an innovator regarding in-store CX, and its latest activations include everything from Pickup Towers and autonomous floor cleaning robots to the launch of the DotCom…

Retail no longer solely means walking into a store or going to a website when searching for something to buy. The “if” factor of finding desired products is now “when” and “how,” and the possibilities for purchase are endless. Today, retail is about the experience — finding the best price, shopping in your preferred mediums, accessing…

Regardless of industry, consumers today are faced with a tremendous number choices when shopping — more commonly becoming known as choice overload. Choice overload is what happens when we're faced with more possibilities than we can clearly or easily comprehend, clouding purchase judgement and often leading to overall frustration. When consumers find they're running into too…

Traditionally, stocking inventory has required many systems and spreadsheets in order to place goods in stores and fulfillment centers. These outdated, manual processes are standing in the way of real progress. So how can retailers fix this? Adopting advanced technology is important, but retailers must first look to good business processes before they race to…

Until a few years ago, fine-jewelry maker Miansai sold most of its accessories wholesale to high-end retail department stores. As with many other brands and retailers, Miansai witnessed firsthand the decline of brick-and-mortar stores, and how they can’t compete with the convenience and variety of online shopping. To survive this brave new world, Miansai had…

Target said a systemwide outage that prevented customers from making purchases at its stores on Saturday has been fixed. The two-hour outage, which affected its cash registers, was caused by an internal technology problem, the retail chain said, without giving further details. “After an initial but thorough review, we can confirm that this was not…

With the prominence of the internet and social media in our daily lives, many companies think direct mail’s importance has dwindled over the years. However, an increasing number of marketers are actually adding mail back into their marketing toolbox once again. According to the Data & Marketing Association, customer response rates have increased year-over-year by…

Total Retail is conducting a brief survey as part of a larger research report to better understand retailers use of technology across their organizations, including their technology buying processes. If you haven’t done so already, kindly complete the survey by clicking here. The data compiled from this survey, which will remain anonymous and only be used in aggregate, will…

With all the buzz about artificial intelligence (AI) these days, retailers are naturally asking, “Is AI for real, or is it just a passing fad?” Nearly every retail technology company is now slapping the “AI” moniker on their marketing materials, but which AI applications are really moving the needle for retailers? A Gartner report released…

While many retailers have yet to come to a consensus on what the future of grocery will look like, they can agree that great disruption is already occurring in the category, and innovation will be driven by consumer behavior and desires. The proliferation of ways and places to shop means online grocers must also compete…