Artificial Intelligence

A sizzling Ulta Beauty wowed the Street on Thursday, announcing aggressive store expansion at a time when many brick-and-mortar retailers are cutting back. It also upped its outlook.  

Retailers know that personalization equates to higher sales, but companies still struggle with execution.    Specifically, retailers are eager to offer personalized experiences to achieve higher sales. Failing to remove unintended barriers are only overwhelming shoppers, who then abandon shopping carts.  

Digital infrastructures are growing more complex, and taking a toll on decision-making.   Eighty percent (80%) of IT operations leaders reported that end-user experience monitoring (EUM) is very important or critical to delivering business outcomes. However, as distributed infrastructures grow in complexity, it is becoming more difficult to provide information needed to make business decisions, according to a study by analyst and consulting firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA).  

While digital disruption continues to stymie a good part of the industry, Sam’s Club is using the concept to its advantage.   The company’s VP of omnichannel member communication and innovation, Darshan Gad, and executive VP of operations Don Frieson, teamed up at the “Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit” event last week in Rogers, Ark., to discuss how the chain is using disruption to drive innovation.  

Many retailers could be forgiven for thinking that their biggest challenge – satisfying the changing expectations of a digital-savvy and fickle customer base – just keeps on getting harder.  

Omnichannel retailing is no longer some far flung prediction, or even a trend, it’s the reality that today’s consumers demand. To succeed in the age of this cross-channel business model, retailers must prioritize customer engagement by building positive brand recognition and loyalty and providing experiences tailored to their preferences and behaviors.  

In what could be a prelude to a retail strategy, Google is doing up a pop-up in the Big Apple.     The temporary outpost, called "Made by Google,” will open in downtown Manhattan, at 96 Spring Street, on Oct. 20, according to a notice on the search giant's website. It’s the same day that Google’s new smartphones, the Pixel and Pixel XL, go on sale nationwide.    

Hands down, “digital disruption” was the theme of the third annual Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit, held in Rogers, Arkansas. In line with evolving concept itself, there were many definitions of what digital disruption truly means heard throughout the event.