The retail industry is facing numerous challenges stemming from the pandemic and its aftermath. From managing staffing and supply chain shortages to enforcing health safety precautions, retailers may be unintentionally ignoring another rising threat: cyber crime. Cyber threats are rising, with one report suggesting it could cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. On…
Yes, your Beanie Babies got more expensive! Step by step, we traded the convenience of home shopping for price increases. Remember the good ole’ times when your internet purchases weren't taxed? Those times made way for a system where you were charged taxes but only when the seller was in the same state or country.…
In June, the Department of Homeland Security projected nearly $1 billion worth of counterfeit luxury goods to be seized between the 2020-2021 fiscal years leading up to the end of September. Shortly after, over $12 million in counterfeit goods were seized at the Los Angeles-Long Beach ports area. While these challenges have plagued the industry for…
Gone are the days when retailers and brands could rationally fear one platform cannibalizing another. Conventional retail wisdom used to tell us that if a consumer was buying your brand in one place, they couldn’t possibly be learning about or buying from it in another, let alone during the same purchase journey. In today’s world,…
There’s a common misconception that technology in general and artificial intelligence (AI) in particular will disrupt retail customer service the same way it disrupted manufacturing. Fear not. Technology is certainly contributing to contact center evolution, but uniquely human traits like empathy and situational dexterity are so central to the customer experience that robots will never…
In this episode of Retail Right Now, Total Retail's Joe Keenan and Kristina Stidham discuss an article recently published by Total Retail, “How Gen Z and Millennials Are Influencing the Future of Shopping,” authored by Lisa Kalscheur, chief marketing officer at Kibo. The article draws on a recent survey of Gen Z and millennial consumers to…
In this episode of Total Retail Tech Insights, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Ryan Wilson, head of retail at Adeptmind, a leading artificial intelligence-based e-commerce product discovery company. Listen in as Wilson discusses his career experience, Adeptmind's offerings for retailers, and how his team helps companies optimize their site search experience. He shares why there's a…
TikTok turned five years old last month, which might be a surprise to many who thought the social media platform only emerged last year. And while it certainly gained enormous popularity and global appeal during the pandemic, this little app has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a lip-syncing app, or for…
In a digital world with so many choices on where to exert your effort and budget, the question for direct-to-consumer (D-to-C) merchants is really where you should be spending your time and what channels — new or old — can deliver the desired results. Smaller brands cannot be everywhere all the time nor do they…
Live selling, which some describe as “QVC on Steroids,” is rapidly emerging as one of the most innovative sales channels in the retail industry today. The technology builds on the proclivity of millennials and Gen Z audiences to live their lives through their smartphones, allowing prospective customers to view items they want on a livestream…
