Shannon Flanagan

The future of retail won't just be shaped by artificial intelligence. It will be shaped by the perspectives building it. That matters because retail serves one of the most diverse customer bases in the world, yet the people shaping AI don't always reflect the customers or employees they'll ultimately serve. Women are responsible for 85…

Since its launch in November, Open AI’s ChatGPT has left no industry untouched and retail is no exception. Grocery delivery giant Instacart recently partnered with Open AI to launch a new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot feature called “Ask Instacart.” Shopify has integrated ChatGPT into its Shop app. Many retailers are quickly realizing they need to…

Customer experience (CX) is as important as ever, but meeting customers where they are has become significantly more complex. As technology adoption has exploded, consumers get and engage with content from many sources, including the metaverse. Though it has existed in certain circles for years, the public really became aware of the metaverse when Facebook…

While the explosive growth of digital shopping in 2020 led to more sales, it also caused a spike in returns as shoppers discovered some of their online purchases didn’t fit, were defective, or failed to meet expectations. For most retailers, an influx of returns expose costly operational weaknesses for processing returns, as well as untapped…