Pool supply and service retailer Leslie’s has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company entered into a Restructuring Support Agreement with a group of its existing lenders, according to the company. Leslie's also announced the closure of 76 stores, but the locations of those stores were not immediately known. The company, which sells pumps, covers…

Brands like BYLT Basics that grew up entirely on paid social and site conversion are reaching a new stage of growth. In this interview, recorded at Total Retail Tech last month in Dallas, BYLT Chief Marketing Officer Davide Mattucci shares why brick-and-mortar is such an important part of the premium menswear brand's future. He discusses…

Retail has spent years perfecting the customer-facing chatbot. Faster replies, automated returns, instant order updates, and self-service tools designed to shorten the wait between a shopper’s question and an answer. Every holiday season brings another wave of investment toward the same goal, and retailers have made tremendous progress improving what customers can see. Now, as…

AI should work as a new sales channel, not another platform standing between the small business and its customers. A merchant's store should remain the place where customer, order, and payment data lives. AI should connect to that, not replace it.

According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) latest research, shoplifting incidents fell 12.4 percent last year, an improvement NRF credits to investment in technology and training. The same research finds violence hasn't followed it down. lululemon’s CEO has publicly said staff are trained to step back and let theft occur; Circle K’s policy bars verbal…