Barnes & Noble is opening more stores for readers to shop at in the new year. After nearly two decades of "declining store numbers," the bookseller has plans to open 60 new locations across the country in 2026, in addition to the dozens opened this year. While the details are still "being worked out" as…

In episode 497 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Rene Federico, head of marketing for the U.S. at Primark, a global  fashion retailer founded and based in Dublin, Ireland. Listen in as Federico discusses Primark's growth in the U.S., focusing on marketing strategies to support this expansion (2:25). She details her role at…

For retailers today, meeting customer expectations takes more than adding artificial intelligence tools. The real impact comes when those tools work together, coordinating data, automations and insights so that operations run smarter and customers feel the impact. That’s what AI orchestration promises, and it’s starting to reshape the retail industry from the inside out. What…

We've all heard the narrative: brick-and-mortar retail is dying, e-commerce is the future and physical stores are relics of a bygone era. But here's what that narrative misses: for certain categories, especially in retail technology, the physical store isn't just surviving; it's thriving. And there's a very good reason why. At PayMore, we've built our…

In retail, customer experience drives loyalty, yet most organizations cannot pinpoint a single person responsible for it. According to Forrester, many companies admit they lack a clear CX owner. Instead, marketing, IT, digital, and operations each manage their own slice of the customer journey. For example, chatbots fall under digital communications, phone support under operations,…