Artificial Intelligence

Store intelligence is sweet for specialty candy retailer
Imagine if the type of products consumers normally buy at the last minute represented your product assortment.

For Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Canada, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based specialty vertical candy retailer with about 68 Canadian stores, this is the reality of the store environment.
Target bringing in startups to find innovative products
Target Corp. is tapping into the startup community in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley to gain a merchandising edge.

The retailer is launching a series of “Demo Days” aimed at discovering interesting new “smart” products from startup companies. The program kicked off on Feb. 23, with Target inviting 12 startups to its office near Silicon Valley to pitch “smart baby” products. Each company had 20 minutes to showcase its products and receive real-time feedback from Target.

The new face of mobile payment

An emerging consumer demographic is showing strong support for an emerging trend in transactions.

A new GfK study of 1,000 U.S. consumers shows that Generation Z (ages 18 to 24) is twice as likely to make a mobile payment as the total population. Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices account for just 3% of all transactions in the U.S. – but 7% among Gen Z.
Full Service: Q&A with Jim Mikula, president, ImageOne Industries

A diversified service offering that includes interior and exterior signage, lighting, specialty contracting and facilities maintenance gives ImageOne Industries an up-close look at the evolving retail scene. Chain Store Age spoke with ImageOne Industries president Jim Mikula about some of the trends the company is seeing.

What trends are you seeing in retail signage and graphics?
There’s a new sheriff at specialty apparel retailer

Irvine, California-based specialty Western and workwear retailer Boot Barn is laying down the law.
Learning to love mobile in age of enterprise apps

A disconnect between brick-and-mortar retailers and their mobile strategies could be hurting sales.
Instacart exec talks online delivery

Retailing Today's sister publication Chain Store Age recently spoke with Vishwa Chandra, VP of retail accounts for Instacart, to get a better sense of the current and future state of online delivery.

What is driving growing consumer interest in online delivery?
Study: EMV lags other payment security options

Retailers have yet to make a major move toward EMV compliance, but that doesn’t mean they are ignoring the need to secure card-based transactions.

According to a new special report from Boston Retail Partners, “Payment/Data Security in an Omnichannel World,” only 10% of retailers are performing EMV-enabled transactions that are working well, with another 12% saying their EMV-enabled transactions need improvement.
Exclusive: Instacart exec talks online delivery with CSA

Chain Store Age recently spoke with Vishwa Chandra, VP of retail accounts for Instacart, to get a better sense of the current and future state of online delivery.

What is driving growing consumer interest in online delivery?
And the 10 most innovative companies in retail are…

A cloud computing/e-commerce giant heads up Fast Company’s annual ranking of the 10 most innovative companies in retail. Amazon not only topped the retail sector category, it also came in number one in the overall World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies listing. (Rounding out the top five: Google, Uber, Apple and Snap.)
Top retail trends demonstrate tech-driven shifts

Retailers looking for evidence that technology has become a pre-eminent influencer on their industry need look no further.

A market brief from consumer financial services company Synchrony Financial, “10 Things to Know – the Top 10 Retail Trends for 2016,” identifies eight technology-driven developments on its list. In addition to the emergence of new retail holidays and increased spending on pets, the eight IT-focused trends are:
PayPal makes digital purchases even easier

PayPal is entering the buy button arena in a big way.

The new PayPal Commerce service, currently running in closed beta, allows retailers to embed buy buttons into any digital format they choose. This includes blogs, emails, online ads, apps, and social shares. PayPal Commerce is based on a set of open application program interfaces (APIs) and also offers a software developer kit (SDK), making it platform-agnostic and fully embeddable.