Executive ViewPoints

Your Grocery Store is Going Robotic, but Not Where You Think

In previous years, much of the activity around grocery stores and robotics involved front-of-store processes, where autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) moved up…

A Post-Pandemic World Requires Digital Innovation

While technology’s role in retail has been apparent for some time, the current post-pandemic ecommerce environment demands that retail incorporates innovative solutions…

Connecting CX and Marketing: How to Create Customer-Centric Experiences That Deliver Business Results

In every organization, marketing plays an important role in defining, socializing and managing the customer experience (CX). However, the relationship between the…

Smart Contactless Lockers are Helping Retailers’ Order Fulfillment Efforts

Smart lockers are the future of package delivery and package pickup for retailers. To understand why, we have to delve into the…

The True Cost of IT Downtime in Today’s Retail Reality, and Ways to Mitigate it

As COVID-19 restrictions continue to ease and more than half of Americans are now fully vaccinated, customers are steadily returning to in-store…

AI and Autonomy: Real-World Applications in an Un-Clerked Store Near You

Decades ago, a cashierless store would be a ridiculous idea, but artificial intelligence (AI) has made it a reasonable reality for any…

#TBT: Service Merchandise Was the OG Multi-Channel Shopping Experience

I have very vivid memories about Service Merchandise, a now-defunct business with a unique ordering process focused on catalog inventory. For a…

Overcoming the On-Demand Delivery Tradeoff: How to Keep Customers Without Cutting Profits

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the growth of ecommerce and raised consumer expectations for seamless, almost instantaneous fulfillment, on-demand deliveries…

Consumers Take Control via Conversational Marketing: Why Personalization is Key

Conversational marketing enables marketers to build brand equity and improve campaign performance by transforming the customer experience through a combination of strategy,…