WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

Amazon is one of the first stops online for millions of digital consumers. While this means huge opportunities for merchants, selling on Amazon can be complex without a solid strategy – and the right tools. Look before you leap with our reader-friendly guide.

I have been talking with hundreds of people across the industry and have discovered that the changes coming to Apple are deeper than just a VR/AR headset. Way deeper. The changes already being worked into products represent tens of billions of dollars of investment.

20 years ago Apple seized music, and turned it into a lever for its broader business. It failed to do the same to TV, and lost control of music, but won massively in games, where it now makes more money than the entire global digital music industry. Now, perhaps, it’s looking at advertising.

Amazon has been able to scale indefinitely because it treats every product as an interchangeable packet, and doesn’t need to know what they are, only what they weigh. But if it doesn’t know what it sells, that’s only half a retailer. And what would happen if it could change that?

In this article, we walk you through the smart shelf technologies that are revolutionizing the way the retail industry delivers educational content, pricing, and in-store promotions, ratings, and reviews on the shelf.

To remain viable over the next decade, leading brands must reconceive the physical store by focusing on four functions where the in-person experience provides customers with clear and defendable value.

We won’t just connect the local online shopper to the local store, but also the local store to the online shopper. Content will increasingly become hyperlocal. Beauty Counter last month announced it was opening a live streaming studio in the back of its retail shop, clever use of retail space in a real estate market desperately looking for new uses of it.

Dynamic pricing isn’t just for travel companies or e-commerce giants, and it doesn’t necessarily require ultrasophisticated software that changes every product’s price multiple times a day.

From a florist in Tehran to a chef in Bangkok, meet nine workers who turned their homes into makeshift offices during the pandemic.

The expanding global warehouse footprint, along with the rise of fulfillment centers, will require a 50% increase in staffing by 2025. Piece-picking orders are far more labor-intensive as compared with palletized distribution centers. Together with the challenges presented by COVID-19, competition for labor has been tight in some markets. This is where automation projects to facilitate the increased volumes and decreased delivery times have surged. Still, with an estimated 60% all warehouses being operated in regions where the cost of labor cost is under $10 per hour, this very much remains a manual enterprise.

As we come out of lockdown, UK ecommerce penetration is 50% higher than the USA. What does that do to retail, and to startups, if it sticks?

Amazon has 147 million Prime members in the United States, according to estimates from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Instacart: The firm will be working with JPMorgan Chase to issue a credit card that will reportedly let customers earn 5% cash back on Instacart purchases. The card is said to launch next year.
DoorDash: The company is rumored to have several bidders lined up for its rewards credit card, including JPMorgan Chase, but is reviewing its options before making a decision in the next few weeks. DoorDash is also in the process of recruiting restaurant partners and stores to offer cardholders rewards and discounts on a rotating or permanent basis.

It makes sense that home improvement retailers leaned the heaviest on click and collect, given the size and weight of many of their products, and the fact that buyers—including small businesses, contractors, and repair service providers—often need these products immediately.
The big-box retailers came in just behind the home improvement retailers, followed by department stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom, which saw the least dramatic transitions to click and collect.
The lower figures for department stores can partially be attributed to the complete closure of certain locations during the height of the pandemic, thus precluding click and collect and forcing customers into traditional ecommerce delivery. Additionally, demand for apparel was low last year when compared with other product categories. But the lower click-and-collect share figures for department stores probably comes down to consumers still preferring home delivery for lower-priority, less time-sensitive items like clothing and accessories.

Companies should explore seven specific drivers to assess where the value lies in cloud. As companies assess the opportunities enabled by cloud, a detailed review of the sources of value can pinpoint where they need to focus their attention, people, and resources. Across the three dimensions, seven drivers of value can collectively generate more than $1 trillion in value.

Google Shopping has gone through quite the metamorphosis over the years. Back in 2002, it was called Froogle upon launching - a pun on the term frugal - and was later renamed to Google Product Search in 2007. Then, it was renamed yet again to Google Shopping in 2012 and went through several iterations even within itself relating to how information was presented to users. 

A comprehensive survey designed to surface consumer comfort levels with new and emerging technologies.

Enquête NETendances 2020 - Le commerce électronique au Québec. Les achats en ligne au Québec ont connu une croissance de 15 % en un an.

The pandemic has boosted adoption of livestreaming technologies among brands and retailers looking to engage more directly with customers. The addition of commerce features is now transforming livestreaming into a growth engine for e-commerce globally.

1. Niche assortment: Niche assortment companies focus on a narrow product assortment and gain a following among fanatics.  
2. Distinctive convenience: Distinctive convenience companies strive to deliver ease and speed as a service. 
3. Social connection: Social connection companies home in on the community and social aspects to promote product discovery, connection, and sales. 
4. Personalization: Personalization companies focus on merchandising (product recommendations and search) and product customization (tailor a product specifically to a customer).
5. Sustainability: Sustainability companies strive to reduce material waste, add more efficient products and services, and incorporate more transparent messaging. 
6. Amazon market jockeys: Amazon market jockeys are companies that buy and scale up third-party marketplace brands on Amazon. Rather than Amazon-proofing, these companies are riding the wave of Amazon’s success.

A ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. From food delivery to outdoor travel, the Marketplace 100 reflects the imprint of a year like no other. The Marketplace 100 is based on data from Bloomberg Second Measure, a consumer data analytics company that analyzes billions of purchases to track real-time consumer behavior and relative sales across over 5,200 merchants. The startups and private companies on the Marketplace 100 are then ranked using a common industry metric, Gross Merchandise Value (GMV), which is extrapolated from the total dollars consumers are spending against each company.

We looked into how traffic trends and user behavior on mobile stack up against desktop, and also analyzed mobile vs. desktop SERP discrepancies.

This report offers an inside look at how DevOps practitioners around the world tackle the same challenges you face. With a mix of hard data and real stories, we hope you’ll find wisdom and encouragement. No one ever said DevOps was easy — not even GitLab. But it is clear that a mix of the right tools, culture, collaboration, and a willingness to try and fail will move software development teams forward.

TL;DR: In today’s post — the first in a series exploring the future of human-computer interaction (HCI) — we’ll begin to unpack the 10-year vision of a contextually-aware, AI-powered interface for augmented reality (AR) glasses that can use the information you choose to share, to infer what you want to do, when you want to do it.

RetailNext, the leader in comprehensive in-store analytics, is pleased to announce that the latest Retail Performance Pulse is currently available for download. This monthly report aggregates millions of retail performance data points to give you a pulse on the industry and enable: Store performance benchmarking Financial forecasting Trend analysis across traffic, sales, and conversion metrics […]