The future is now when it comes to the world of payments, with all manner of innovative methods of consummating transactions vying for adoption even as cash and checks remain the preferred form of payment for many Americans.
The biggest question for the future of online grocery commerce comes down to the last mile.
As in, who's going to drive it—retailers or customers?
Food retailers who want to use online commerce will have to make a hard choice between three major options: delivery, store pickup or both.
Ambitious sustainability goals Walmart revealed in late 2005 were dismissed by some at the time as a publicity stunt on the part of a company looking to bolster its reputation.
The retail industry continues to experience
dramatic change, with technology and
shifting customer demands creating significant challenges
and unprecedented opportunities. This is especially
true in the dynamic world of supply chain where
five macro trends are unfolding. They include:
1.
Ideally, the best part of online shopping is the convenience, while the best part of in-store shopping is the experience.
Virtual reality has the potential to combine the two.
VR is still an infant technology, now used mostly for gaming and novelty videos.
Amazon's announcement of a new pilot program that offers customers a boundary-less experience for shopping and checkout is justly being positioned as a game-changer for the food retail industry and greater retail supply chain.
I've always posited that food should be more like fashion. Similar to the latest trends in lapels and color palettes, consumers' palates are attuned to what's hot in the food world.
Artificial intelligence clearly reached buzzword utopia in 2016, but the groundwork was laid back in 2011 by the appearance of IBM Watson on the TV game show "Jeopardy!" The artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform made headlines by easily beating its human competitors.
