Speculation surrounding the future of retail continues unabated. But a stroll through the Innovation Lab 2023 at the NRF Big Show revealed the bets that startups have placed on retail’s future priorities and pain points, offering tech-based systems and services to either exploit or solve them. The startups offer a glimpse into the innovation process. It operates on a continuum, where what starts as a murmur, evolves into a fad, and eventually becomes a business. Or the opposite where 90 percent of startups fail. This year’s crop demonstrated …
Uniqlo and Avery Dennison Innovate with RFID
The spatial footprint of companies touting computer vision and just-walk-out-the-door technology on the Expo floor at the NRF Big Show 2023 was large. AI is the talk of the show as retail’s latest technology trend. It dominates the conversation, even as it is not well understood, or worse, misunderstood. Just look at the obsession with ChatGPT and you get a taste of the industry’s love affair with the latest, buzzy fad. Talk is one thing, implementation totally something else. In a deeper examination, the hard reality of building these …
Missed Signals
Most of us went to sleep on November 8, 2022, expecting to wake up to a new political landscape. Some were dreading the morning and some couldn’t wait, but as the sun rose, I would argue that all of us were surprised. But really? Consider our behavioral changes in recent years; we have jettisoned our landlines, block calls from unknown sources and ignore unwanted texts. So many of our habits have changed in fundamental ways and it is increasingly obvious that the polling methodologies on which all political predictions are made are archaic. …
A Marketing Paradigm Shift
While the metaverse has been waving its avatar hands, garnering the attention of Chief Marketing Officers now lined up in starting blocks, the starter pistol in the metaverse marketing race won’t echo with any scale for years. Exploration and testing in the domain are prudent, but they should not distract attention from the paradigm shift that is already unfolding. Artificial Intelligence has entered a new phase that will change many things, but the focus of this screed is how it will affect the marketing of brands, and retailing. The New …
Is the Time Right for a North American Supply Chain?
Powerful forces are weighing on existing supply chains. We needn’t look far to notice the effects that shipping delays, rising costs, geopolitical headwinds, climate instability, and the need for secure access to goods have inflicted on our industry. Rather than moaning or gnashing our teeth, we should view these systemic disruptions as an opportunity to create change. While we excel at avoiding disruption and uncertainty, when backed against the wall, we innovate. Experts Converge In a session at the Milken Institute Global Summit 2022, …
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A New World Order for Retail
The retail industry has been a major beneficiary of the waves of globalization iterations in recent decades. We have optimized our supply chains, barely raised prices in years, and consumers have rewarded retailers by buying far more than they need, sometimes shedding goods in a Marie Kondo inspired purge, only to go out and buy more and more stuff. Until now. Early in the pandemic, consumers experienced a shift in the staples system as our Costco, normally dense with Lysol Wipes or buffeted by mountains of toilet paper packs, became …
What’s in Your Vending Machine?
The jury is still out on the long-term value of NFTs as a digital ownership model, but SXSW 2022 was steeped in NFT hype. The conference hosted 20+ sessions anchored in serious consideration of the topic, while in another room NFTs of digital art objects were available (to download) for a price. A quick NFT refresher: "A non-fungible token is a blockchain-housed identifier (or piece of individual code) that represents the terms of a smart contract granted upon the exchange of a singular digital object. This object could be a virtual property …
SXSW Rises Again
The masked and the unmasked joined forces in Austin after a two-year South by Southwest (SXSW) drought. The sidewalk terror normally caused by the Lime scooter brigades was diminished by smaller crowds overall, yet the conference was surprisingly robust. An array of 15 tracks were staged this year. Retail and fashion didn't earn stand-alone track status but held sway in selected technology and futures talks. Megatrends A few megatrends dominated the conference sessions. I will briefly describe the trend, then consider the implications …