Insights

Retailers face a tough battle to generate growth in the face of unprecedented competition from global rivals and digital rivals, but many are overlooking what could be their best opportunity. Improving the way employees interact with customers – whether in stores, online or even via call centers – is a proven route to enhanced sales performance, but too few retailers are focused on doing so.

Last week, my retail technology-related travels took me closer to home than usual – to Boston, the city where I was born and still live within a reasonable drive. I visited the old homestead to attend the official opening of the CVS Health’s new Digital Innovation Lab. CVS officials did a fine job explaining the mission of the lab and giving the audience a sneak peek at some of their work.

Whether buying online or in the store, consumers today want more control over their shopping experience. If they could have greater control, the number one aspect that consumers would change is the frustration of waiting in a long checkout line in store. In fact, industry research has shown that 52% of consumers say they would actually take their business elsewhere if their checkout wait times exceed five to 10 minutes.

Membership buying club DirectBuy Inc. takes an unusual approach to retailing. It offers paid members the chance to directly purchase goods from manufacturers and wholesalers, without paying retail markup

So perhaps it is to be expected that 50-plus-store DirectBuy, which also offers online and in-home shopping options to its 250,000-plus members, approaches business intelligence (BI) a little differently, as well.

New York — Gap stores have failed to keep up with the fashion tastes of millennial shoppers, who have a much different fashion sense than the generation before them, according to the Washington Post. Read the full story here.

While technology and innovation flourish on the consumer side of fashion, inside retail headquarters, merchants and planners still rely on reports and tools that have barely evolved from the three-ring binders and green screens of the 1970s. Merchants and planners, many of whom grew up as digital natives, navigate an awkward time warp: They commute from the consumer world to offices that stifle their skills in interpreting and acting on visual, interactive data and tools.

During the next several months, many U.S. retailers will begin transitioning their point-of-sale systems to accept EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) technology. EMV-ready cards are most frequently recognized by the presence of a small security chip embedded in the card itself. This technology is not new – it has been in use in Europe, Canada and much of the world for years.

Technology is supposed to make our lives simpler – both as consumers and as professionals. It is technology which is bridging the gap between the store and online, between supply and demand, between consumer expectations and retailer capabilities. However, delivering simple solutions is not always easy in today’s complex and rapidly changing business world.