Artificial Intelligence

Pittsburgh – Cabela’s Inc. has seen improvement in throughput and saved on operating costs since implementing the use of Seegrid’s unmanned robotic pallet trucks at its Wheeling, W.Va., distribution center in July 2010. The retailer has used Seegrid robots to reduce manned long haul transports, handle a high variety of product flow and provide flexibility to change routes.

The rapid spread of a presumably false rumor about Jack Nicholson retiring from acting last week got me thinking about what a true Hollywood icon he has become and how he took a very unique path to greatness. Retailers aspiring to greatness in their social efforts may want to “be like Jack” in the way they apply social media technology.

Know your own strengths

Retail sales associates just became obsolete. We don’t need them anymore. Like travel agents, technology has made them an endangered occupation. I witnessed this paradigm shift in a small hotel ballroom in Portland, Ore., where Storycode, an app development thought leader, demonstrated a sales enablement iPad app built for Nike.

New York -- Accenture and SAP AG are jointly releasing a new application called the Marketing Performance Solution by Accenture and SAP. Sold by Accenture, the solution enables retail chief marketing officers (CMOs) view and act on centralized key marketing performance data such as sales figures, media spend and social reach in near real-time.

Phoenix – PetSmart is allowing customers to virtually try Halloween costumes on their pets via Facebook. PetSmart’s “Spooktacular Costume Machine” on Facebook lets customers upload a photo of their pet and virtually try on 10 different costumes, add props and text, and share a photo through email, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

After creating a costume, coupons are available to print, including $2 off any PetSmart costume purchase and buy-one, get-one treat coupons. The promotion begins Sept. 16.

Redwood City, Calif. -- Online fashion retailer Revolve is leveraging the eCommera Dynamic Action solution to perform daily analysis of a broad set of data points. By analyzing disparate information ranging from search and affiliate data to merchandising and shipping data on a unified basis, Revolve seeks to improve its business decision-making.

By Scott Welty, [email protected]

The retail industry is in the midst of a massive transformation driven by consumers’ adoption of digital technologies. By 2020, the retail landscape will have fundamentally changed how every retailer will go to market. No segment of retail will be more impacted than the brick-and-mortar store.

Here are seven trends that brick-and-mortar retailers should consider to build a winning strategy:

Hoffman Estates, Ill. -- “The Chore Score,” an app that allows parents to create chore lists for their kids with rewards that can be redeemed at Sears stores or Sears.com, won the recent Sears Startup & Developer Challenge. The contest, held for three days, featured more than 150 participants using the Sears development API to create apps that would strengthen the experience of the Sears Shop Your Way membership program.