Technology

The opening of innovation labs and technology centers has been a trend in the retail industry for a few years now. Leading brands such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Nordstrom, CVS and others have all opened digital innovation labs within the last few years — most of them in Silicon Valley to take advantage of the abundant tech talent in that area. Kohl’s is no exception, having opened its digital center in Milpitas, Calif., in April 2013. All of these retailers are trying to be at the forefront of digital technology so they can better engage today’s tech-savvy consumers. In that quest, Kohl’s is turning to an unlikely source to find inspiration: interns.

Amazon.com has laid off "dozens" of engineers who worked on its failed Fire phone as part of a broader curtailment of its hardware development center, Lab126, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The company is also said to be stopping or slowing projects, including a 14-inch tablet codenamed Project Cairo, a projector…

We’ve been hearing about the "Store of the Future" for some time now. Retail executives have spent the past 18 months experimenting with digital store technologies such as contextual digital displays, in-store sensors, beacons and analytics. These early pilot projects have yielded some successes, increasing customer convenience and unlocking new value as shoppers opt to…

As online giant Amazon.com charges into the $300 billion U.S. apparel market, Macy’s is running for the dressing room. Even Macy’s acknowledges there’s little it can do to keep customers from shopping online for basic clothing — T-shirts, men’s jeans and tighty whities. Yet the department store chain is clinging to the idea that many…

If Amazon.com is so automated, how come it continues to hire big numbers of people every time it opens a new fulfillment center? Just what is Amazon’s separation of labor between man and machine? To find out, we went inside Amazon’s Coppell, Texas facility with Amazon Spokeswoman Ashley Robinson on Wednesday.

Buying glasses online, whether prescription lenses or fashionable sunglasses, isn't the easiest of tasks. From finding a pair that are just the right size and color to getting the exact prescription lenses you need to seeing how the glasses will look on your face, the challenges are many. Glasses.com is trying to change that with…

Before, we had online retail and offline retail, and never the twain shall meet. Now both worlds are merging into each other, sped on by the increase in mobile usage, which now represents 60 percent of the time spent online. It’s no longer a question of online vs. offline; consumers want to be able to…

Iconic images from the pages of Vogue are getting a makeover, courtesy of Target. In an ad campaign running in the September issue of Vogue, the discount department store has reimagined classic images from the fashion magazine, dating to the early 1900s. In this topsy-turvy world, carpets and curtains sold at Target replace high-fashion dresses, a chunky…

Retail was a vast and varied industry even before the internet, mobile devices and a host of other technologies transformed consumer behaviors and expectations. Since then, the gradual changes implied by retail “evolution” have been replaced by enormously transformational leaps. Despite this ever-growing complexity, I believe retail today is being shaped (or reshaped) by three…

Checkout is the last opportunity a retailer has to make a positive impression on a shopper. Yet new research confirms the majority of checkout experiences today end in frustration. By addressing acute front-of-store pain points, retailers will be able to boost customer satisfaction ratings while encouraging longer, more frequent visits. A study conducted online by…