Artificial Intelligence

New technologies, new products, new consumer preferences — change always threatens to disrupt the status quo, and the retail landscape is no different. The trick is to determine which trends are passing fads and which have real staying power.

To help, we asked six experts from the Daymon Worldwide family of companies (Interactions is a subsidiary of Daymon Worldwide) to share their predictions for trends that will have the biggest impact on the U.S. retail environment in 2016.

Improved Transparency and Distribution

In-store analytics solutions continue to gain momentum as retailers analyze a variety of store performance measures such as shopper activity maps, display effectiveness, and customer dwell time. These analytics have provided incredible insight for corporate and store management.

What kinds of searches, ads and content are consumers interacting with before and after a tech purchase?

Executives from Staples and virtual reality firm Magic Leap have joined the strategic advisory board of leading online handbags, luggage and backpacks retailer eBags.

Mike Edwards, eBags president and CEO, said Faisal Masud, executive VP of global e-commerce at Staples, and Scott Henry, CFO at Magic Leap, would bring a wealth of wealth of entrepreneurial and operational experience and an understanding of what it takes to excel in a fast-paced technology to eBags as the newest members of the board.

Four Silicon Valley veterans are looking to reinvent brick-and-mortar retailing with a first-of-its-kind experience built on an unusual business model.

Various technology analysts, retail industry pundits, and economists of all stripes, have long predicted the demise of paper and coin currency along with the dawn of a cashless society.

And it is true that over the last few years, we’ve seen a big acceleration in the drive towards large-scale consumer adoption of new digital payments technologies, especially in the mobile category.

[Editor's note: This article is based on a discussion moderated by Shah Karim with Myron E. Ullman, executive chairman of J.C. Penney, held at the Executive + Scholar lecture at the University of North Texas on October 8, 2015.]