Tag: retail
-
Headless AI, Evals as Levers, and Spaghetti Topped With Spaghetti – Related to your interests, Monday
Also: Cloudflare’s wholesale memory, custom Claude Code, and Google Cloud math From The Edge Not Taken. Related to your interests Headless everything for personal AI – What if we go back and o the command line? // DOS was good enough for our grandparents, it’s good enough for us. The Harness Is the Lever: Why…
-
Related to your interests, Saturday
Your Life is the Sum Total of 2,000 Mondays – “If your life is going to be 80% Mondays and their equivalents, the design specifications for Monday matter more than the design specifications for your vacation.” The State Of GenAI And Consumers For 2026 – As agentic AI ascends, companies are grappling with control –…
-
A few months ago, I bought my new glasses, prescription, at the Ray Ban store. They checked my eyes for free, and the glasses weren’t in some kind of “buy one get two free” deal. When it came to settling accounts, they didn’t ask if I wanted the scratch protection on the glasses. I’m pretty…
-
How Target is rethinking search for generative AI – 🤖 To stay ahead, Target is training its AI agents to understand product context deeply and surface assortments that reflect how people shop in the real world. Bhosale gave an example of a “summer party” query that should generate not just tableware, but grills, décor, sunscreen,…
-
Amazon bought Whole Foods eight years ago — now it’s bringing it deeper into the fold – This still seems like a weird acquisition. Amazon doesn’t seem to divest things, but this feels like it’d be on the top of the list. Returning packages there is cool, but that could just be a partnership.
-
McDonald’s touchscreen kiosks were feared as job killers. Instead, something surprising happened – If you can come up with other ways staff can spend time, automation could be good for workers and customers. For example, come up with more complex products that require more human touch, speeding up delivery, or just busing tables. But, yeah,…
-
Amazon Isn’t Killing Just Walk Out But Rather “Pushing Hard” On It – Hmm, hopefully we’ll see some nuanced corrections in all them news outlets…
-
“The Dead Silence of Goods”: Annie Ernaux and the Superstore – The culture of big box stores as seen through French eyes.
-
From software to meatware
Last week I talked with my co-worker Fouad Hamdi about a mainframe modernization project he worked on last year. I mean, the team he was on of course, not him single handedly. He wrote a great over of the process and I was eager to ask him a few questions. The video included in this…
-
🗂 Link: Experimenting with the UK’s first till-free grocery store
Take-up was as we had expected – at peak times better than we’d expected – and it’s clear that not all our customers are ready for a totally till-free store. Some customers preferred to pay with cash and card, which sometimes meant they were queuing to use the helpdesk, particularly at peak times of day.…
-
Link: Pivotal Software: bring digital fluidity to bricks-and-mortar retail
The less time spent on logistics, logging product information (i.e. sell-by date) and/or ringing up simple orders, the more time can be spent helping customers on a personal level. Source: Pivotal Software: bring digital fluidity to bricks-and-mortar retail
-
Link: DICK’S Sporting Goods Poised to Continue its Successful Digital Transformation Journey
Another important aspect of the new retail experience is buy-online, pickup in-store. This is an easy way to bring consumer gratification that even free two-day shipping can’t match. Shoppers are using stores as pickup points at record rates during the holiday season, especially those on a time crunch or placing orders too late for on-time…
-
Link: Target’s same-day deliveries might break my Amazon Prime addiction
Source: Target’s same-day deliveries might break my Amazon Prime addiction
-
Link: How Airbnb took over the world
“I feel the Airbnb sector gets unfairly blamed for many ills present long before this came about,” says Dickins. “Yet we don’t talk about the ways in which the city has been improved, better restaurants, better retail outlets as well as the increased employment opportunities.” Source: How Airbnb took over the world
-
Link: Why Urban Millennials Love Uniqlo
The question Uniqlo faces now is whether it can inherit the Gap’s empire without repeating its mistakes. To do so, it will have to convince shoppers across the country of a proposition that’s radical for the industry: Fashion can be affordable without being disposable. And: Despite the underwhelming performance of Uniqlo’s American stores thus far,…
-
Link: Dick’s Tech Chief Goes All Out on In-House Software
“Don’t get excited about shipping a feature—get excited about when the feature turns into revenue and turns into profit.” Source: Dick’s Tech Chief Goes All Out on In-House Software
-
Link: Women more at risk of job automation
In 2017, ONS found 1.5 million roles in England were at risk of having elements of their tasks automated, including roles such as retail cashiers, manufacturing plant employees and waiting staff, many of which are more likely to be filled by women. Source: Women more at risk of job automation
-
🗂 Some high-profile wins at Microsoft of late, in retail
> The customer win is another example of retailers choosing cloud vendors that are not Amazon. Microsoft last week announced a retail-as-a-service (RaaS) partnership with Kroger, with the super market giant splitting its cloud investments between Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Walmart is also partnering with Microsoft, with the retailer and frequent Amazon foe signing…
-
🗂 Is this the future of retail? We checked out the new high-tech store from Microsoft and Kroger
You use an in-store device or you phone to scan items to buy: > The speed is most visible when a shopper calls up an item on her pre-determined shopping list and is guided to the exact aisle and shelf position of that item. As the shopper gets within range, of say, the jar of…
-
Link: Square expands its bank-like offerings, letting sellers charge customers in installments
Disrupters gonna disrupt, loans edition: This type of loan is typically reserved for retailers who bring in more than $1 million in revenue, and requires a lot of paperwork. Original source: Square expands its bank-like offerings, letting sellers charge customers in installments
You must be logged in to post a comment.