Technology

Retail operations today depend on a rapidly expanding ecosystem of connected endpoints. From mobile point-of-sale (POS) systems and handheld scanners to back-office tablets and networked printers, these devices are essential to delivering fast, seamless shopping experiences. However, as retailers scale their technology footprint, they also expand their attack surface. Protecting mobile retail systems is no…

Most retail fulfillment technology investments don't fail at go-live. They fail months earlier, in a planning meeting where a vendor hands over a 14-week implementation timeline and nobody — not merchandising, not store operations, not the warehouse team — pushes back on the assumptions underlying it. By the time the project is six months in…

For today’s retailers, customer experience (CX) defines a business. Every delay, outage or failed transaction directly impacts revenue, customer loyalty and brand perception. To keep pace, retailers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence and automation to power real-time personalization, streamline operations, and support always-on digital and in-store experiences. However, the same technologies that enable speed…

As you read this, business leaders across virtually every industry are dealing with the exact same problem: a deluge of sales calls, cold emails, and sketchy LinkedIn pitches from artificial intelligence vendors vying for even a sliver of your attention. For executives in the retail space it can feel like every platform, tool, and quirky…

Retail leaders have spent the better part of three years running artificial intelligence experiments. Smart shelf analytics here. A dynamic pricing engine there. A conversational bot standing in for customer service agents on the overnight shift. The results have been encouraging, sometimes even impressive, and the industry has responded with enthusiasm. But enthusiasm, unchecked by…

The top reason technology fails in retail has nothing to do with the technology. Retailers are deploying increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence, robotics, and analytics platforms, yet nearly 90 percent of AI-powered technology transformations in grocery have not reached scale. These tools stall because the operating model fails to absorb them. In effect, retailers are buying…

We're moving rapidly into the era of agentic commerce — a shift in which AI-powered digital agents shop, compare, and purchase on behalf of consumers, making the transaction itself nearly invisible. Rather than manually browsing websites, filtering options, and navigating checkouts, customers increasingly delegate these tasks to smart assistants that handle the entire purchase journey.…

Retail has always been about conversation. Long before artificial intelligence, the best store associates knew the real sale happened in the exchange — the “what are you looking for today?” that turned a browser into a buyer. Yet somehow, as the industry raced to digitize everything, that conversational instinct got lost and replaced with menus,…

Retailers have spent the last decade racing toward speed. Faster checkouts. Faster deliveries. Automated personalization. Shoppers want it, and retailers have been more than happy to oblige. For years, that speed helped build loyalty. Brands could keep up with consumer expectations while rewarding customers with convenience they could count on. But it’s no longer enough:…

The retail industry has entered a new era, one in which fragmented omnichannel strategies are no longer enough to meet rising consumer expectations and mounting operational pressures. According to Manhattan Associates’ latest report, Unified Commerce Powers Future Retail Success, the retailers pulling ahead are those that have moved beyond omnichannel and embraced unified commerce: a…