Tag: retail

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 […]

The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented disruption. In a matter of days, our world turned upside down. As shelter-in-place lockdowns, mask mandates, and social distancing rules took hold, new patterns of consumption quickly emerged. Arguably, no industry felt the pandemic’s dramatic impact more than consumer packaged goods (CPG). However, leaders are forging ahead with resilience, tenacity, […]

Mealtimes are important sources of connection, comfort, and self-care. And though we all have different lifestyles and preferences, we tend to crave similar qualities when it comes to food: variety, novelty, nutrition, convenience, and great taste. In essence, great food experiences are personal experiences that offer plenty of choice and flexibility. Enter HelloFresh, the most […]

The American Pet Products Association reports that over 13 million people in the US have welcomed a new pet into their homes over the past year. And having a furry friend nearby has really made a difference: three out of four pet parents say that having a pet in their homes helped reduce the stress […]

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% […]

For many ecommerce retailers, the difference between profitability and going out of business is fraud prevention. And although you might need to add several layers of security to prevent fraud, you don’t want a cumbersome customer experience. That balancing act often leads ecommerce retailers to sacrifice fraud detection to keep customers happy and maximize revenues, […]

As the retail industry tackles dramatic shifts in shopper behavior, broad changes in product assortments, and huge growth in digital orders, innovative merchants are responding to these market shifts with laser-focused, technology-driven customer experience initiatives. We wholeheartedly applaud these efforts. But it’s not enough. Retailers must also focus on back-office store operations to increase automation, […]

Whether you’re buying online or in a physical store, shopping should be easy, simple, and enjoyable. In the customer’s mind, the retailer or brand is one entity, regardless of the sales channel. For this reason, customers expect their journey to fluidly shift between digital and physical touchpoints with the same conveniences in store as online. […]

Innovative retailers realize they need to create smart stores to enhance their customer experiences.  Recent advances in point-of-sale technologies are making it possible for retailers to reimagine the shopper in-store journey. With new retail technologies, long retail checkout lines and other in-store bottlenecks could soon be a thing of the past. Frictionless Retail Customer Experiences […]