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Chain Store Age recently spoke with Daphne Carmeli, CEO of Deliv, to get her perspective on what’s going on in the rapidly growing online delivery space.

What is driving growing consumer interest in online delivery?
We’ve got a bunch of players in the industry who are aggregating inventory in a simple, flexible and cost-effective way for last-mile fulfillment. Companies like Amazon and Google are resetting customer expectations of what’s possible.

Chain Store Age recently spoke with Daphne Carmeli, CEO of Deliv, to get her perspective on what’s going on in the rapidly growing online delivery space.

What is driving growing consumer interest in online delivery?
We’ve got a bunch of players in the industry who are aggregating inventory in a simple, flexible and cost-effective way for last-mile fulfillment. Companies like Amazon and Google are resetting customer expectations of what’s possible.

The number of retail industry innovators on the agenda for Shoptalk now exceeds 230 and organizers of the event slated for mid-May aren’t done yet.

Specialty grocery delivery service Wholeshare takes what might be called a “democratic” approach to offering customers online access healthy food products.

“We let consumers buy natural and organic food as a group at wholesale prices,” said Matt Hatoun, co-founder of San Francisco-based Wholeshare. “We cut out the supermarket or natural foods store. We go to the same wholesalers they use.”

Specialty outdoor retailer The North Face is reportedly taking a desktop-based interactive online shopping experience it launched in December to a new platform. According to VentureBeat, The North Face is launching a mobile app that will let consumers find products using natural conversation to conduct searches and receive personalized recommendations. The app is scheduled to launch in April 2016.

Lululemon athletica and Athleta, a subsidiary of Gap Inc., are not new concepts. But they are part of one of fashion’s hottest trends: “athleisure.”

Specializing in trendy activewear designed for the gym and beyond, athleisure concepts are finding their way into all kinds of shopping destinations — giving lululemon and Athleta increasing competition. Here’s a rundown of some other retailers currently in the game:

Fabletics, the online fashion activewear brand co-founded by actress Kate Hudson, is flexing its muscle. The company is adding physical stores to its subscription-based e-commerce model and men’s workout gear to its mix.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the industry was embroiled in the “bricks versus clicks” debate. On one side were the traditionalists, who were sure that online shopping would never really catch on (much less ever occur on a phone). On the other side were the true believers, who had stores going the way of the dinosaur in no time flat.

While online subscription box retailing is still a niche market, it is growing rapidly and consumers have selected their early favorites.

As discussed last week custom facades as advertisements have migrated from the domain of premiere retail flagships to many, varied uses across the commercial and retail spectrum.

This trend was earlier spotted by Gensler On: Lifestyle as part of its “Top Ten Retail Trends in 2013.”