Supply Chain & Merchandising

When one looks at the hot topics in retail today, no shortage of economists, journalists, industry thought-leaders and technology pundits are talking about the future of payments. One topic that many aren’t really discussing is managing large volumes of cash receivables.

Despite plummeting fuel prices, the ranks of convenience stores swelled to a record level last year.

The U.S. convenience store count increased to 154,195 stores as of Dec. 31, a 0.9% increase (1,401 stores) from the year prior, according to the 2016 NACS/Nielsen Convenience Industry Store Count.

Action sports retailer Quiksilver and its nearly 1,000 stores are set to emerge from bankruptcy on Feb. 8, under the majority ownership of Oaktree Capital Management.

Quiksilver filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 9, 2015 and on Jan. 28, the company and Oaktree Capital Management issued a statement indicating that funds managed by Oaktree will convert substantial existing United States debt holdings into a majority of the stock in the reorganized company on exit.

The nation’s largest rural lifestyle retailer had previously warned that warm weather caused weaker-than-expected fourth quarter sales and it quantified the impact on profitability with the release of full financial results on Jan. 27.

Google is being secretive about its “Project Wing” delivery drone program, but a patent filing gives some additional information about the effort. According to Fast Company, Google hopes to use remote wheeled delivery receptacles that will automatically guide drones to drop their packages. The receptacles will then complete the delivery on the ground. [Fast Company]

The eBay platform facilitated commerce of nearly $22 billion in the fourth quarter, a 5% increase, and counted roughly 265 million transactions during the holiday season.

After two years of development, Walmart’s OneOps cloud management and application lifecycle platform is being made available to the open source community in a move that highlights a sharp distinction with Amazon Web Services.
 

Retailers are continually on a quest to find innovative technologies to help deepen customer engagement with their brand.

Yet, perhaps the most critical part of the buying journey happens when a consumer puts down her device and looks for a human being she can talk with about solving her problem – something that even the most engaging technology can’t provide by itself.