Technology
July 26, 2018 at 9:55 am
Sameer Hassan is the senior vice president of enterprise product strategy and user experience at Williams-Sonoma Inc., where he heads up product management, UX and product analytics for the WSI brands. We caught up over lunch recently to learn more about WSI’s culture of innovation. Holly Vander Wall: At WSI, you’re working with cutting-edge technology such as virtual…
July 23, 2018 at 1:54 pm
Amazon.com failed to secure enough servers to handle the surge in traffic on Prime Day, causing it to launch a scaled-down backup front page and temporarily kill off all international traffic, according to internal Amazon documents obtained by CNBC. As we reported, Amazon suffered glitches at the start of Prime Day on July 16, slowing sales on…
July 23, 2018 at 12:39 pm
The future of retail will be shaped by a growing appetite for hyperpersonalization in the design, manufacturing, distribution and marketing of products and services. In the future, the possibilities offered by our growing intimacy with data — gained from our wearables and under-the-skin technologies, to our smart homes and even our DNA and genomics —…
July 16, 2018 at 11:08 am
With 3,000 points of sale in over 100 countries around the world, ALDO Group, a designer, manufacturer and retailer of footwear and accessories, sought a solution to help it better optimize its inventory across its online and offline sales channels. After a thorough vetting process, ALDO announced that it was partnering with Celect, a predictive…
July 11, 2018 at 10:57 am
I was asked to write about how virtual reality (VR) applies to retail about a month ago and really didn’t have much to say on the subject. Now that time has gone by, I’ve seen some exciting new things that can be used in retail. I recently connected with a company that offers credit card…
July 2, 2018 at 2:21 pm
California’s new consumer privacy law is facing a backlash from businesses, including retailers, across the U.S. that contend the law will hurt their businesses, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 grants consumers more control over and insight into the spread of their personal information online, creating one…
June 29, 2018 at 11:52 am
The traditional supply chain model is being upended, shifting from one designed for relatively standardized products to one that's highly complex and data driven. These shifts demand mass product customization, more accurate supply chain planning, and faster multichannel retail responsiveness that go far beyond the abilities of the typical workforce and infrastructure. While this may…
June 28, 2018 at 12:57 pm
Amazon.com announced today the launch of a new offering designed to help individuals build their own companies that deliver Amazon packages. With the offering, Amazon will provide an active role in helping interested entrepreneurs start, set up and manage their own delivery businesses, even with little or no logistics experience. Amazon will offer the couriers — who…
June 27, 2018 at 11:15 am
One of the most pressing concerns that keeps retail professionals up at night is how to combat fraud. Retailers could lose upwards of $71 billion from fraudulent online transactions over the next few years, yet some executives feel that publicly acknowledging a fraud issue would harm their brand. As a result, there's a lack of…
June 26, 2018 at 11:25 am
The retail landscape continues to change in dramatic ways, and retailers that want to stay relevant must evolve quickly. For guidance, just look back at the course of the past year to how shoppers’ expectations and engagement preferences are transforming. In March 2018, retail sales totaled $494.6 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This was…
