Three retail tech trends to watch at NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show

NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show will provide insight into the direction three major trends in retail technology are heading.

The annual National Retail Federation conference and expo will be held January 12-14 at the Jacob J. Javits Convention Center in New York City.  And as always, the event should provide retailers with a good sense of how key retail industry solutions will evolve in the coming year.

Here is a preview of trends in AI, RFID and workforce management that retailers attending NRF' 25 should keep an eye on:

Has AI become plumbing?

In my follow-up column to the 2024 NRF conference, I said that AI had become “accepted and assumed,” but not yet “routine.” That was based on my 2024 NRF preview column, which asked whether AI was the shiny, new thing – or plumbing (something that is assumed to be part of the infrastructure and only noticed when it breaks).

Clearly, AI is no longer shiny and new. It has likely gotten to the point of routine, as even regional players and smaller Tier II and Tier III retailers are starting to adopt sophisticated AI solutions.

But is AI plumbing in the sense that mobile and e-commerce have become plumbing – universally adopted and an expected component of the retail IT enterprise? I’m less sure. A big tell will be how sessions and exhibitor booths work AI into their presentations and pitches – is AI a novel feature or simply an important ingredient of the strategies and solutions being discussed?

RFID at a turning point

Since the early 2000s, RFID has been a retail technology on the brink of breaking through. However, even in the face of mandates for CPG brand tags to use RFID source tags from leading mass merchandisers like Walmart and Target, the technology still remained a niche solution.

However, within the past 10 years, RFID traction has been occurring among apparel/softlines retailers because so many vertical retailers in the space have adopted the technology, with third-party apparel retailers whose fabric-based products are reader-friendly finding 50% or more of their inventory already equipped with RFID tags, making implementation much more cost-effective.  

Now, RFID is evolving as a component of loss prevention and inventory management beyond the apparel/softlines space, as well as an enabler and enhancer of frictionless in-store shopping models. It will be interesting to see how many different uses for RFID in how many different verticals are featured in sessions and at exhibit booths. 

[READ MORE: Texas Rangers home field expands Amazon ‘Just Walk Out’ - with RFID]

Workforce management

Retailers face a continuing crisis of finding enough qualified candidates to fill open staff positions. In addition, a growing number of “digital natives” are now applying for job openings with expectations the constantly connected environment they live their everyday lives in will extend to their workplace.

Workforce management solutions can help retailers manage both of these potential crisis situations. Digital tools that automate, streamline and/or prioritize worklows for associates and managers in the store as well as in the warehouse or delivery vehicles can mitigate performance gaps caused by staff shortages and help ensure every employee is in the optimal location focusing on the most pressing and high-level tasks.

In addition, mobile training and onboarding solutions facilitate a smoother workforce management process while providing employees with the individual, app-based navigation they are used to leveraging. 

For example, convenience retailer Circle K developed an iPad-based, gamified solution with Attensi that manages the training process from onboarding to ongoing development and mastery of core skills and functions. Look for a plethora of solutions applying leading-edge technology to oversight of a retailer’s most important resource – its people.

Editor's Note: This is my last Retail Insights column of 2024. Thank you for reading my industry musings over the past year and I wish you a happy, healthy and safe holiday and New Year. Retail Insights will return in 2025 with more analysis and opinion on all things retail tech.