What’s Driving the 93% Retail RFID Adoption Rate in North America?
Tony D'Onofrio
June 28, 2021
RFID has been around for years in the retail space — in fact, I’ve been writing about RFID in retail since as early as 2012 — with more recent articles focusing on the adoption trends at Nike and Walmart. As I discussed in January this year, the pandemic has become an accelerator of RFID adoption in retail with stores taking a central role with online orders fulfillment.
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Tags: Innovation, IoT, Leadership, Retail
Visualizing a More Profitable Computer Vision Future of Retail
Tony D'Onofrio
June 05, 2021
This past week I had the opportunity to spend quality time with a leading computer vision company headquartered in Ireland. As an advisor to this company, I have been lucky enough to see their transformation from a single application to a portfolio of retail visual innovative disruptive solutions that will enter the marketplace in the balance of this year.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, Retail
Top 5 Physical Security Trends in Retail to Watch in 2021 and Beyond
LinkedIn
May 21, 2021
On many fronts, 2020 was a challenging year for the retail industry. During the early days of strict lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus, governments around the world categorized some retailers as “essential” and others as “nonessential,” leading to a $285 billion transfer of wealth from nonessential retailers to essential retailers and a $250 billion transfer of wealth from small retailers to larger companies. This created a massive shock to the worldwide economy with GDP levels initially dropping 30% or more.
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Tags: Cybersecurity, Innovation, Retail
Back to the Post Pandemic Bright Future of Physical Retail Stores
LinkedIn
May 05, 2021
Despite the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on how we work, shop, and entertain ourselves, the retail industry has managed to adapt in the face of these challenges. Although e-commerce has played a bigger role in retail sales than before the pandemic, the “retail apocalypse” has been largely overstated. In fact, with brick-and-mortar sales generating over $18.5 trillion in the United States in 2020, I anticipate that the physical store will continue to act as the epicenter of the post–COVID-19 retail experience.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail
The Accelerated Rise of the Retail Machines
LinkedIn
April 20, 2021
A Wall Street Journal article this weekend on robotics coming to a garden near you brought back memories of my office in Neuhausen am Rheinfall in Switzerland. Every afternoon, while doing the continuous string of international conference calls, I would observe a robot mower in the yard outside my window. The autonomous roamer would emerge from its electrically protected doghouse, run Swiss precision patterns across the lawn, and when finished return to its home to recharge.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, Retail
The Disruptive Very Competitive Future of Grocery Retail
Tony D'Onofrio
March 25, 2021
Throughout my retail career, I have closely followed the growth and progress of the grocery sector. Partially this is the result of actually having worked in a supermarket for 9+ years across many departments.
The importance of this retail segment is reinforced by Deloitte in their annual 'Global Powers of Retailing Report'. The 2020 edition found that fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) which includes grocery, drug, mass merchants, and convenience represents 66.5% of the total retail sales for the global top 250 retailers. Also interesting from that research, this sector tends to least globalize operations and recorded in 2020 the lowest composite net profit margin at 2% of sales.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail
The Post Pandemic Top 10 Most Valuable Global Retail and Apparel Brands
Tony D'Onofrio
March 01, 2021
"The world’s most successful companies all have one thing in common: powerful brands ... Branding strategy is one of the foundational pillars of business. Simply presenting a unified brand message can increase profits by nearly 25%."
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail
The Pivotal Consumer and Retail Technology Priorities for 2021
LinkedIn
February 08, 2021
As we continue to make progress emerging out of the COVID-19 health crisis, key trends that I have been following closely are both consumer priorities and retailers' technology focus areas. At the height of the lockdowns in 2020, consumers chased convenience and safety as primary purchasing drivers.
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Tags: Innovation, IoT, Leadership, Retail
The Favorable Post COVID-19 Future of Retail Loss Prevention
Tony D'Onofrio
January 25, 2021
Couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to join other loss prevention professionals in a webinar titled "The power of Teamwork: How Retail LP can work with law enforcement to combat the double problem of ORC and Violent Gangs." In this Loss Prevention Foundation hosted event, my contribution was an ORC trends update, coupled with analysis on future loss prevention technology trends.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Change Management, Retail
Three Surprising 2021 Retail Predictions
LinkedIn
January 11, 2021
In early 2020, the retail industry was off to a very strong start. Through February USA retail sales grew 7.5%. Then March came in as a pandemic lion with a substantial part of the world hitting the pause button. We all very quickly learned the difference between essential and non-essential retailers. The financial pain for the global retail industry for all of 2020 will total over $1.6 trillion.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Leadership, Retail
The ONE Word that will Ensure Your Success in 2021 and Beyond
LinkedIn
December 21, 2020
The impact of COVID-19 has delayed the arrival of the new roaring '20s projected at the start of the year and it is now setting up a very interesting 2021.
As the Economist asked in sharing their thoughts on the New Year, "do you feel lucky? The number 21 is connected with luck, risk, taking chances and rolling the dice. It’s the number of spots on a standard die, and the number of shillings in a guinea, the currency of wagers and horse-racing."
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail
Time Reflections of a Post Pandemic Personal and Retail Life Restart
LinkedIn
December 10, 2020
Let's face it, the last nine months have not been easy for any of us. Leveraging the title from one of my favorite spaghetti westerns, 2020 to date has been the year of "the Good (pre-pandemic), the Bad, and the Ugly."
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail
Seven Amazing Innovation Leadership Videos of the Surreal Year 2020
Tony D'Onofrio
November 24, 2020
The Internet, mobile and social media have forever transformed the distribution of viral messaging. No longer the best kept secret, at the center of successful communication is the medium of video. If you still need convincing, here are a few statistics on the future of video.
Six out of ten people would rather watch online videos than television. Mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year. By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic - 15 times higher than in 2017.
By platform, EVERY DAY five billion videos are viewed on YouTube, 10 billion on Snapchat, 8 billion on Facebook, and 1 billion on TikTok. Video campaigns on LinkedIn have 50% view rates.
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Tags: Innovation, IoT, Leadership, Retail
Three Technologies that will Define the Post-COVID-19 Future of Retail
Tony D'Onofrio
November 11, 2020
In October, I had the pleasure of delivering my latest updated presentation "The Disruptive Future of Retail" on three continents. The new edition analyzes the state of nearly $30 trillion industry, answers whether ecommerce is eating the retail world, analyzes the recovery trends underway, provides a peak at the surprising early holiday season, explains the trends of what will be the new normal, and concludes with a summary of the technologies moving the retail industry forward.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, IoT, Retail
It's Beginning to Look Like a Very Early Holiday Season, Everywhere You Go
Tony D'Onofrio
October 28, 2020
With COVID-19 severely impacting retail across the globe, of great interest has been the continuing research and predictions of the 2020 holiday shopping season. For the world's two largest economies, China and the United States, the good news is that after very steep drops at the start of the pandemic, retail sales have already recovered to 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
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Tags: AI, IoT, Change Management, Retail
Visual Artificial Intelligence On the Edge of Revolutionizing Retail
LinkedIn
October 13, 2020
“We are laser-focused on continuous improvements to customers’ experience across our stores. By leveraging Everseen’s Visual AI and machine-learning technology, we’re not only able to remove friction for the customer, but we can also remove controllable costs from the business and redirect those resources to improving the customer experience even more.” - Mike Lamb, Kroger's VP of Asset Protection
This post was inspired by a recent Kroger article announcing the deployment of visual artificial intelligence (AI) in 2500 stores and new IHL Group edge computing research. Multiple technological trends have been converging for some time and their combination is leading to transformative store operations improving solutions.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, Retail
Livestreaming Into a Video-First Future of Retail
Tony D'Onofrio
September 14, 2020
The latest 2020 IHL Group forecast points to a COVID-19 negative $1.6 trillion global retail economic impact, with USA sales declining 7.6% this year. Fortunate sectors such as grocery and mass merchandisers will achieve double digit growth. Among the worst performers are departments stores (-23%) and specialty soft goods (-33%).
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Tags: Innovation, IoT, Social, Retail
Deadly Spikes in Retail Violence in the Continuing Surreal Year 2020
LinkedIn
August 25, 2020
This article is a follow up to the very successful July 2020 Global Retail Crime Summit. Summarized in this post are the latest USA retail violence, organized retail crime (ORC), and retail robbery trends.
Data driven industry collaboration, increased best practice communications, and new technologies are critical components to attacking multiple of the surreal challenges taking place in 2020.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, IoT, Retail
Walmart and The Post Covid-19 Future of Retail RFID
linkedin
July 29, 2020
Welcome to 2020, a surreal year that actually had a strong start for both RFID and the retail industry. Then it became the Retail Annus Horribilis. How did we end 2019 in RFID adoption? What's the impact of COVID-19? What is the future of retail RFID in a post pandemic world?
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail, COVID19
Distressed Consumers Trends in the Post COVID-19 Recovery
Tonydonofrio.com
July 07, 2020
Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70% of USA economic growth in the United States. In a short amount of time, COVID-19 has become a brutal disruptor of traditional buying patterns.
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Tags: Innovation, Change Management, Retail, COVID19
The Latest Economic & Retail Growth Forecasts as We Reopen Globally
Tonydonofrio.com
June 20, 2020
Throughout the COVID-19 lockdown phase, I have been following very closely the global economic and retail trends in anticipation of the reopening phases which are now underway in many parts of the world. Good signs from key markets such as USA which saw the biggest historical increase in retail sales in May.
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Tags: Innovation, Retail, COVID19
The Five Most Valuable Global Retail Brands in the Surreal Age of COVID-19
linkedin
June 02, 2020
Every year I look forward to the latest BrandZ Global Most Valuable Brands Report. Timely for 2020, BrandZ published a separate Global Top 75 Retail Brands edition that includes in-depth COVID-19 analysis on the impact of the pandemic to brands.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail, COVID19
The Challenging Post COVID-19 Economic and Retail "New Normal"
linkedin
May 11, 2020
For the last couple of months during the lockdown, I have been extremely busy continuing to speak with retailers, working several board opportunities, setting up an in-house studio, opening a new YouTube Channel, hiring research resources, and participating in a plethora of podcasts and webinars. Because of COVID-19, my primary focus has shifted to providing intensive data-backed analysis to the "new normal" ahead.
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Tags: Innovation, Retail, COVID19
China's COVID-19 Digital Transformation and the Reopening of Retail
linkedin
April 15, 2020
In 2019, China was projected to surpass the United States to become the world's largest retail market. On November 11, 2019, Alibaba celebrated a record $38 billion in online retail sales during the Singles' Day 24-hour shopping holiday.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, Leadership, Retail, COVID19
Nike and the Post COVID-19 "New Normal" Disruptive Future of Retail
linkedin
March 31, 2020
"At a time when people were confined to their homes, we moved swiftly to leverage our digital app ecosystem and Nike expert trainer network to inspire and support consumers across China to stay active and connected while at home. As a result, our Nike Training Club (NTC) workouts in China saw an extraordinary rise in signup and engagement. In fact, our weekly active users for all of our Nike activity apps were up 80% by the end of Q3 versus the beginning of the quarter.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, IoT, Retail, COVID19
The Alternative Endings to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Crisis
linkedin
March 18, 2020
Prepare for the Worst and Plan for your Future Professional Best
Having a substantial part of my family south of the red zone in Italy, I have been following very closely the progression of COVID-19. As of March 17, Italy had over 31,500 cases of Coronavirus with 2,503 people now deceased. To put that in perspective, Italy with 60 million people has already reached nearly 78% of the fatalities in China with a population reaching 1.4 billion.
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Tags: Leadership, Retail, COVID19
Welcome to the Disruptive $30 Trillion Global Future of Retail
Tonydonofrio.com
March 07, 2020
At the recent annual conference of the International Supply Chain Protection Organization (ISCPO), it was a great pleasure to deliver the latest edition of my continuously updated 'Disruptive Future of Retail' presentation. As it is top of mind for everyone, my opening remarks focused on supply chains and the growing global concerns with the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
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Tags: Change Management, Retail, Business Continuity, COVID19
The Coronavirus and Its Predictable Future for Retail
linkedin
February 24, 2020
This week, I was invited by Rethink Retail to speak about the actions retailers should be taking in response to the growing global concerns with the coronavirus. In this article, I will summarize some of the information shared in the podcast plus additional post analysis insights with focus on major economies and retail.
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Tags: Leadership, Retail, Business Continuity, COVID19
RetailROI and the 2020 Digital Transformation Retail Technologies
linkedin
February 10, 2020
This is the second article covering the innovation leadership activities around NRF 2020. My previous post summarized the three most impactful perfect vision takeaways of NRF 2020.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, IoT, Retail
NRF 2020: The Perfect Vision Future of Retail Three Takeaways
linkedin
January 27, 2020
This is the first of multiple articles covering the Retail Big Show NRF 2020. As others have summarized the insights of the sessions and speakers, my primary focus in this post will be the futurist innovation trends from the trade show floor. The next article will cover the key takeaways from RetailROI SuperSaturday, the place to be for inspiring and exclusive industry intelligence just prior to the start of NRF.
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Tags: Big Data, Innovation, Startups, Retail
2020 Visionary Life Reminders for Ultimate Success
linkedin
December 20, 2019
While sitting in the Delta Sky Club in Atlanta observing both weary and excited holiday travelers, four plus million personal air miles later, the realization that another decade is about to end entered my mind. In just a few more days, we begin with perfect vision year 2020.
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Tags: AI, IoT, Leadership, Change Management
The Perfect 2020 Mobile Vision Future of Retail
linkedin
December 10, 2019
Post-World War II, technology has been the primary engine driving the retail industry's transformation through three powerful megatrends. As we approach the perfect vision year 2020, this article summarizes the state of the third and most important megatrend: mobile communications and the smartphone.
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Tags: Big Data, Innovation, IoT, Leadership, Retail
Global Retail Shrink 2019 and the Future of Loss Prevention
linkedin
November 13, 2019
My last article summarized the positive (green shopper) digital consumer transformation trends from the latest edition of the "Disruptive Future of Retail" presentation. As the audience from the recent keynote was primarily from loss prevention, in appreciation of their positive response and engagement, this post expands on the retail shrinkage industry data, including multiple new charts not presented due to time constraints.
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Tags: AI, Big Data, Innovation, IoT, Leadership, Retail
The Consumer Digital Transformation Retail Wakeup Call
linkedin
November 01, 2019
In October I had the opportunity to speak to roughly 150 retail professionals on the "Disruptive Future of Retail". This continuously updated presentation explains the key trends driving the digital transformation of the global retail industry.
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Tags: AI, Big Data, Innovation, Leadership, Retail
The State of USA Retail: Apocalypse or Renaissance?
Tonydonofrio.com
October 11, 2019
Recently I had the pleasure of speaking at the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) Impact 2019 conference. Over 430 people made their way to the University of Florida’s Gainesville campus for the three-day event. The symposium "focused heavily on learning and collaboration, as well as an overview of the LPRC’s research on evidence-based tactics and strategies to reduce crime and loss in the retail space".
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Tags: Innovation, Retail
The Top10 Global Brands of 2019 in Retail, Apparel, and Luxury
Tonydonofrio.com
September 21, 2019
In today's increasingly complex world, branding is critical to lasting success. Every year, I look forward to the latest BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Brands study. This article summarizes the nearly 200-page report with a focus on retail, apparel, and luxury.
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Tags: Social, Leadership, Retail
The Secrets to Walmart's Success
linkedin
August 26, 2019
Most impressive from a recent evening visit to the Walmart Museum in Arkansas were the company’s yearly chronological milestones throughout the exhibit areas. Being a technology geek, my focus quickly transitioned to understanding the historical innovation adoption cycle. Additionally, as a student of leadership, of interest was the culture messaging of founder Sam Walton in growing the company.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, Leadership, Retail
Here Come the Retail Robots
RETHINK RETAIL
August 19, 2019
As consumers continue to demand efficient and better-connected experiences, retailers are responding with a number of AI-driven innovation projects. Check out our latest video to find out what’s in-store for the world of retail.
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Tags: AI, Innovation, Retail
Plan B Revisited - Time and the Life of Your Dreams
Tonydonofrio.com
August 12, 2019
Roughly a year ago, I published a personal Plan B blog titled “Personal Branding and Retiring Early on Your Own Terms”. As I stated in that post, “continuous learning” opened new possibilities that were calling to be executed.The past year has reaffirmed that my passions are meaningful engagements with leading retailers, building value for targeted companies, social media leadership, and exploring the Silicon Valley start-up culture.
From the new Plan B perspective, the continued conversations with retailers have been inspirational. I am humbled and appreciative by the quality of time spent together exploring technology journeys and getting their assessments of new solution concepts. Several of the retailers were also kind enough to let me publish selected innovation insights.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Retail
Nike and the Retail Industry Adoption Outlook for RFID
linkedin
July 19, 2019
Almost exactly a year ago, in my last RFID article titled "Keeping Physical Retail In-Stock", I concluded that the two most relevant components of positive customer experiences in physical stores are fast checkouts and products being in-stock. Multiple recent retailer quarterly earnings calls, several articles, and two requests from China on direct consulting with potential investors in RFID inspired this updated technology review.
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Tags: Customer Experience, Emerging Technology, Retail
What's in the Mind of a Retail Shoplifter?
linkedin
July 09, 2019
The Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) is made up of over 70 retailers (approx. 200,000 stores / $2 Trillion in sales) and 75 solutions partners collaborating to develop effective loss and crime control solutions through science backed extensive research. To date the group has conducted over 300 real world loss prevention research projects for retailers and partners.
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Tags: Innovation, Retail
Visualizing The Supermarket of the Future
Tonydonofrio.com
June 15, 2019
“Norman (Mayne, CEO of Dorothy Lane Market) is a truly unique merchant. He has a special ability to identify concepts and products that will enthrall customers. Furthermore, he has allowed his people to pursue these same ideals. The result: his stores are masterpieces!” - Danny Wegman, Chairman of Wegmans
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Tags: Retail
Walmart vs Amazon - The Worldwide Retail Champion Heavyweight Fight
linkedin
May 29, 2019
Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of participating in a Rethink Retail podcast with Bryan Gildenberg, Chief Knowledge Officer of Retail, Sales & Shopper at WPP’s Kantar Consulting and Paul Lewis, CMO of digital transformation agency Valtech. With Julia Raymond moderating, the three of us debated the growth strategies of Amazon and Walmart in their quest for global retail leadership.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Leadership, Retail
The Three Next Wave Retail Growth Technologies
linkedin
May 06, 2019
In the past twelve months, I have spent substantial quality time with global retailers, expanded my social media reach, engaged a substantial number of technology companies including more Silicon Valley startups; all focused on being a driver of disruptive retail change. Reflecting on what I saw and heard in my just completed European tour this week, I can confirm that retail issues and solutions continue to have global tendencies.
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Tags: AI, Emerging Technology, Retail
10% Retail Self-Checkout Market CAGR Collides with Deployment Risks
linkedin
April 15, 2019
Several data points in recent weeks led to this update on the state of retail self-checkout (SCO) deployments. Among these are the increased self-service stores openings with Asia / North America taking the lead, the evolution from stationary SCOs to multiple variations of Scan & Go applications, and new research, some of which you will only see in this article, on the theft challenges with these new autonomous solutions.
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Tags: AI, Digital Transformation, Supply Chain, Retail
Technology Disruption & the Transformation of the Global Top 250 Retailers
linkedin
March 22, 2019
Annually I look forward to the Deloitte Global Powers of Retailing industry research which provides a detailed growth trajectory review of the global top 250 retailers. This year, in addition to summarizing my favorite insights from the 2019 edition, we will look back to the 2014 report to compare and contrast the changes in the retail industry over the last five years.
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Tags: AI, Digital Transformation, IoT, Retail
Macy's and Next Generation Smart Loss Prevention Solutions
linkedin
March 04, 2019
Over the last several months I have had the pleasure of spending time with Asset Protection (AP) leaders at Macy's in New York. The visits were sparked by news articles and industry discussions on their advanced deployments of RFID and the smart integration of this Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology into the loss prevention function.
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Tags: Big Data, IoT, Retail
RetailROI and The Essential Retail Technologies of 2019
linkedin
February 08, 2019
Each Saturday just prior to the January NRF Big Show, retailers, industry analysts and solutions providers gather in New York City for a unique IT conference. This fast-paced full day is a special blend of emotionally filled stories of the RetailROI (Retail Orphan Initiative) global charity work and the latest insights on the state of the retail industry.
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Tags: AI, IoT, Retail
The Seven Impactful Retail Transformation Takeaways from NRF 2019
linkedin
January 23, 2019
38,000+ Attendees, 16,000+ Retailers, 800+ Exhibitors, 100+ Sessions, 99 Countries
Let me open by sharing the video summary provided by the USA National Retail Federation (NRF) of this year's edition.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, IoT, Retail
Running Into the Nike House of Innovation Future of Retail
linkedin
January 10, 2019
The future of retail includes digitally supported leadership branding coupled with hyper-personalized immersive consumer experiences. Of all the stores that I have visited to date around the world, the Nike House of Innovation in New York City, is the closest example that meets this critical futurist success formula.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Retail
A Happy Uncertain Risky Promising Disruptive Prosperous 2019
linkedin
December 27, 2018
Welcome to an uncertain and conceivably risky 2019. Despite multiple global hints of slower growth, I remain optimistic by the potential of the New Year.
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Tags: AI, Digital Transformation, IoT, Retail
A Propitious Four-Star Amazon Clicks to Bricks Experiment
linkedin
December 12, 2018
This past week had the opportunity to visit the new Amazon Four-Star physical retail store in New York City. Located in the chic Soho neighborhood, collectively the items in this store have an average rating of 4.4 stars.
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Tags: AI, Customer Experience, Retail
RETHINK Retail Top100
Retail Excellence Award from Asia Retail Congress
"The Disruptive Future of Retail 2019" - Excerpt
CRIMESCIENCE – COVID-19 SERIES: EPISODE 3 FEATURING GUS DOWNING (DOWNING & DOWNING)
PODCAST: LPRC Crime Science - COVID-19 Episode 1
Brandless shutters, Coronavirus has retailers on edge, 7-Eleven tests unmanned store concept.
Retail Rundown - Jan 20, 2020 - Retail's Big Show Special
Retail Rundown Podcast: Apple New Flagship, Sustainability and Retail Holiday Season Trends
