Omnichannel

More than half of consumers (58 percent) have replaced traditional search engines with generative artificial intelligence tools for product recommendations. That figure was 25 percent just two years earlier. Your next storefront visitor may not be a person at all. It may be a large language model (LLM) deciding whether to recommend your products. Most…

On August 31, Shopify is sunsetting Stocky, a free inventory tool used by over 120,000 merchants. For most sellers of physical products and goods, there is no native replacement decided, and retailers will be left scrambling with Shopify’s condensed features. Furthermore,  Shopify has confirmed that current Stocky user data will not automatically migrate to its…

For years, retail technology decisions were driven by features. Which platform has the best promotion engine? Which WMS has the most carrier integrations? Which OMS has the most configurable routing logic? Features were how vendors competed and how buyers evaluated. That frame is changing, and the retailers that recognized it earliest are operating with a…

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…

A retailer can spend millions installing the latest inventory management systems, omnichannel fulfillment platforms, and artificial intelligence-driven demand planning technology. But if no one understands the store operations workflows, fulfillment coordination requirements, customer service implications, or how the digital and physical channels actually connect operationally, the business still underperforms.  The technology may function perfectly. The…

From jerseys to hats to keychains, major sporting events like the World Cup create massive retail opportunities with the popularity of themed merchandise. They also create inventory challenges, especially for an event that takes place only once every four years and marks its first time in the U.S. since 1994. Event-themed and seasonal inventory presents…

Retailers are no longer asking whether artificial intelligence belongs in the business. Nearly every organization is experimenting with AI in some form, whether through personalization engines, predictive inventory tools, customer service assistants, or emerging agentic experiences.  The challenge now is understanding how to measure its impact as AI increasingly shapes discovery, decision-making and customer engagement.…

Retail media ad spend in the U.S. is forecast to hit $71.09 billion in 2026, according to EMARKETER. Yet despite the innovation happening in the channel to capitalize on that buzz, one thing that hasn’t evolved is measurement. The worst offender? Add-to-cart rate. On the surface it’s easy to see why it’s popular. When we’re…

Ask most retail marketing teams which channels are driving sales and the same answers tend to dominate: search, paid social, and marketplaces. That doesn’t mean marketers believe these are the channels that create the demand. Yet they remain the easiest parts of the customer journey to measure, despite many of the influences shaping purchase decisions…

Most retailers still think of RFID as a counting tool. The ones gaining ground have figured out it's something else entirely. I've spent the better part of two decades working in retail technology — including in IT at lululemon, at Avery Dennison, and as a vice president of supply chain at PVH — and the…