Technology

The retail industry continues to transform at speed in response to almost three years of seismic market disruption, and it shows no signs of slowing down. From buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) services and QR codes to smart mirrors and immersive experiences (through augmented reality, virtual reality and the metaverse), retailers recognize the need to deliver…

Retailers face brisk headwinds in 2023. With market competition increasing, retailers must invest in initiatives to boost revenue and differentiate their business offerings. At the same time, consumer expectations are rapidly shifting, with shoppers seeking a more experiential, flexible and seamless shopping experience than ever before. Given these factors in the context of an uncertain…

Today’s retail organizations are under enormous pressure to make their operations more agile, resilient and productive. However, in many cases they're overlooking one of the main areas where it’s possible to quickly and efficiently make major productivity gains. I’m talking about frontline teams. Many retail employees currently feel neglected by their employers. Almost two-thirds of…

The internet is becoming ever more complex and challenging. An outage can happen to anyone at any time. For e-commerce companies, it means a standstill of business. Recent estimates put revenue loss of outages to Amazon.com at $220,318 per minute. You can’t fully prevent them, but your IT team can take measures to proactively reduce…

It’s rare that a new technology draws as much fevered interest as ChatGPT, but then again an OpenAI chatbot that speaks and writes full paragraphs, writes college essays, and de-bugs and explains code fixes doesn’t come along every day. Most conversational chatbots today aren’t as advanced as ChatGBT, even with its many limitations. Even so,…

Since late 2021, we’ve seen a drop in the amount of venture capital (VC) funding globally. Financial markets have become tighter and VCs have become more discerning as a result. Not only are they spending more time vetting companies, they’re also gravitating toward solutions with an immediate product-market fit, rather than betting big on long-term…

Most online retailers recognize the importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. In fact, more than four-fifths of e-commerce businesses report that they're either exploring or already using AI solutions to increase business success. Whether these companies use AI to maximum effect, however, depends on exactly how they integrate AI into their operations. Leveraging…

During the early 2000s, while the retail industry was getting battered by e-commerce, grocery stores were seemingly safe. Twenty years — and a pandemic — later, much has changed; e-commerce and delivery services have transformed grocery retail. Today, when consumers visit a store, they enter with much higher expectations. A convenient and smooth, seamless shopping…

It's no secret that the retail market is ever-changing; six months ago, consumers had different interests and markets faced different headwinds. To better combat the turbulence, in everything from logistics to loyalty, retailers have been turning to automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to receive support in handling orders, managing market insights into customer demographics, and…

In episode 390 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Bryan Anastasi, vice president of customer care and business solutions at Raymour & Flanigan, the largest furniture and mattress retailer in the Northeast and seventh largest nationwide. Anastasi provides an overview of the Raymour & Flanigan business (1:00), his role with the organization (1:40), and to what he…