Author: David Dorf

AWS has joined the MACH Alliance, a group of independent software vendors advocating for an open, modern architecture for digital experiences. AWS is proud to participate in this group to facilitate innovation and better support enterprises, retailers, and CPG companies to deliver the best experiences for their customers. Early versions of the Amazon.com webstore were […]

With so many options to browse and discover products, consumers don’t shop linearly. Instead, they use many different, disparate channels along their shopping journey to discover and research products—from social media and websites, to email campaigns and targeted ads, as well as actually shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. Unfortunately, this disjointed approach obscures the shopper’s […]

The retail industry has undergone massive changes over the last 50 years with inventions like cash registers, shopping carts, coupons, credit cards, barcodes, and of course, ecommerce. This evolution has streamlined the shopping experience and improved the lives of consumers. For a quick walk down memory lane, check out my recent blog post, A Short […]

Although selling through computers has a long history, what we’ve come to know as ecommerce started in late 1994 with the release of Netscape Navigator, one of the original web browsers that led to widespread consumer use of the internet. Since then, ecommerce has become an ubiquitous form of shopping. It represents about 10% of […]

We all witnessed and probably personally experienced the massive shift to online ordering as the COVID-19 pandemic set in. Despite the shift and somewhat surprisingly, 80% of sales still involve physical stores. As ecommerce continues to mature and consumers become more digitally savvy, these trends have emerged: Online sales continue to soar, with a 42% […]

Consumer expectations are always changing, which means retailers are often playing catch-up to align their offerings with customers’ evolving behaviors. The pandemic illuminated the chasm between the retailers who have kept pace with market changes and those who have struggled. For a long time, we’ve seen ecommerce sites flex and stretch, while centralized systems and […]

This time a year ago, we knew that ecommerce would continue to grow… just plugging along with more and more people organically buying online. What we didn’t know this time a year ago was that a pandemic would soon grip the world, and like a wave, country by country, it would cripple retail stores and […]

Recently, more than 37 million shoppers logged on to watch Viya, an online sales sensation, sell everything from cosmetics, appliances, and clothing to cars and houses. That’s more people than watched the Game of Thrones finale. If you’ve never heard of Viya, the 34-year-old host of her own livestream show, then you likely don’t live […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around since the 1970s. However, only in the last 10 years has AI-powered computer vision become a mainstream reality, thanks to cloud computing. Here are several scenarios in which computer vision can enhance the retail shopping experience and improve store operations. Cashierless checkout The most obvious use of computer vision […]

Retailers who want to modernize their selling systems have a wealth of technologies available. Those who have already moved to a modern technology infrastructure are reaping the benefits of reduced maintenance, more business agility, and better customer experiences. CIOs can choose to refactor existing systems and slowly migrate functional areas, or they can make a […]