In 2021, I told Total Retail readers that retailers were two years away from pivotal innovations across several key technology trends. I argued that we would begin to feel the convergence of these technologies happen in 2023, and that retailers would need to get moving — then — to be in a position to succeed,…
Jon Nordmark
Retailers are two years away from the most pivotal acceleration of digital innovation they’ve ever seen. Some realize it; many do not. A rare confluence of groundbreaking technologies — 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), voice, low-code, and blockchain — continue to advance at an incredible…
Make no mistake about it: 3-D printing will be a huge part of the retail industry's future. While Gartner is forecasting that mainstream adoption of consumer 3-D printing is still five years to 10 years away, the retail industry is already feeling the shift. As the founder of a large online retailer and lifelong participant in the industry, I think this shift in producing power and the method by which products are made will transform retailers in five key ways: