Retail sales rose for the eighth consecutive month in May despite high gas prices and ongoing inflation, according to the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor, powered by Affinity Solutions, released today by the National Retail Federation. The Retail Monitor uses actual, anonymized credit and debit card purchase data compiled by Affinity Solutions. Total retail sales, excluding automobile…

Retailers don’t have an artificial intelligence problem. They have a decision-making problem. After years of investing heavily in AI, many retailers expected it to transform customer engagement overnight through smarter personalization, faster decisions, and measurable growth. Instead, many organizations are still dealing with disconnected customer data and delayed action. That gap is becoming increasingly expensive.…

From one-click purchases to door-to-door same-day delivery, retail has led the charge in convenience. But even as retailers perfect their omnichannel experiences, they’re facing a critical challenge in one of the oldest, tried-and-true communication methods: the phone call. Calls that once delivered order confirmations, pickup reminders, or fraud alerts are now going unanswered. The culprit…

Retailers are laser-focused on cart abandonment, but there’s an invisible (and more costly) threat surfacing: support abandonment. When facing stressful and anxiety-inducing issues like returns/exchanges, checking product availability, or addressing complaints about quality, some consumers won’t even initiate contact for help. In fact, a recent study from Cyara found one in four consumers have avoided…

Amazon.com is retiring its artificial intelligence assistant Rufus and replacing it with a new version of Alexa for Shopping, an agentic AI tool designed to help users create shopping guides, find deals, automate routine purchases, and monitor pricing trends. This move signals Amazon’s broader ambition to own the entire path to purchase inside its closed-loop…