Merchandising

For years, retail demand forecasting worked because consumer behavior was relatively consistent. Shoppers gravitated toward familiar brands, orders fell within predictable size ranges, and historical sales data was a reliable guide for inventory decisions. A 2026 consumer survey from Locus found that 45 percent of U.S. shoppers now use artificial intelligence as either a primary…

The retailers surfacing in artificial intelligence-generated results today rarely run dedicated "AI commerce" projects. Instead, they have product data that has been clean, consistent, and channel-ready for years. When a shopper asks an AI assistant for "a waterproof hiking jacket under $200" or "cushioned running shoes for marathon training in size 9," the brands that…

As retailers pour investment into customer-facing artificial intelligence, are they overlooking the operational foundations that decide success? The race to put an AI face on retail is accelerating. Shopping assistants, conversational storefronts, and agentic checkout powered by the likes of Gemini and ChatGPT — attention and budget are gravitating toward the customer interface. Yet critical…

Retailers have spent years strengthening fraud defenses at checkout, but today, wrongdoing committed after customers hit the buy button is far more costly for merchants. Return fraud and abuse have become the newest form of “digital shrink,” which shows up through customer refunds, false claims, policy abuse, and inventory that can’t be resold. And as…

When new technologies like agentic artificial intelligence emerge, retailers and brands look inward first: How can AI agents improve my demand forecasting? How can it automate marketing copy? However, there’s another level of agentic AI to think about — consumer goods brands and retailers supporting one another through shared intelligence (i.e., collaborative AI). Of course,…

Once upon a time, retail sourcing was a fairly predictable craft. Merchants ventured into familiar manufacturing markets, negotiated favorable costs, managed lean inventories, and relied on well-established trade routes to keep products flowing smoothly from factory floors to store shelves. The rules were clear, the maps were reliable, and surprises were relatively rare. Those days…

Discounting should be a strategy that lifts profits while protecting margins, not a blanket tactic that’s on constant rotation. For a discounting strategy to have any chance at success, gut feelings won’t do. Real data and performance metrics must guide decision-making. New research provides exactly that, shedding light on customer reactions to percentage-off and amount-off…

U.S. container ⁠imports surged 8.2 percent in June ​from the year earlier, supply chain technology ‌provider Descartes Systems Group ‌said on Wednesday, after buyers ⁠rushed ⁠in goods to avoid potential new tariffs and ​higher transportation costs tied to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. U.S. seaports handled 2,400,627 20-foot ​equivalent units (TEUs) last month. For the…

The launch of Amazon Supply Chain Services reflects a broader shift in retail logistics. More retailers are moving away from fragmented arrangements and toward shared platforms that coordinate freight, warehousing, fulfilment and delivery at scale. For retailers, the platform approach is attractive because it can simplify fragmented fulfilment networks, meet rising delivery expectations, and support…

Appriss Retail recently brought together a group of 10 senior retail executives for a closed-door discussion on total retail loss. These were VP-level leaders across loss prevention, finance, operations, e-commerce and customer experience; they’re the minds behind the business and how to plug retail loss. A question was posed: Who operates from a shared loss…