As e-commerce shopping booms, Canadians are making their way to online stores and many of them are choosing outside merchants. At least 70 percent of Canadians' purchases in 2015 were from merchants based outside the country because these online retailers often have better prices or provide goods not available in Canada.
The next thing you try on at the mall might be a virtual reality headset. No longer relegated to video gamers, VR is coming to amusement parks, movie theaters and classrooms. But the technology presents a major opportunity for retailers as they try to lure fickle shoppers into their stores, particularly as consumers shift more of their buying habits online.
To improve inventory visibility and prevent loss, men's clothing retailer Gieves & Hawkes has deployed a radio frequency identification system at its store in Birmingham, England.
Shoppers, particularly younger ones, believe it's important for retailers to have a physical store, and they expect that store to make a good first impression.
In its quest to slake the world's thirst, Coca-Cola is intent on making milk a billion-dollar brand. But not just any kind of milk. Coke has joined forces with a dairy cooperative to create Fairlife, which produces a filtered, high-protein, low-sugar, lactose-free designer milk also called Fairlife.
Ninety-nine percent of consumers who take delivery of online orders in brick-and-mortar stores are pleased with the experience, according to a recent survey. Twenty-nine percent said the option is why they placed the order in the first place.
Publix - a southeastern U.S. supermarket chain with 980 pharmacy locations - has entered into an agreement to use AmerisourceBergen's RFID-based drug-management system, known as Cubixx, to track specialty pharmaceutical products at the retailer's pharmacies.
While Amazon.com Inc. is already a force to be reckoned with when it comes to online retail, one Wall Street firm says it's about to move up the ranks in yet another industry: U.S. food and beverage.
Brick-and-mortar shopping isn't dead, but it is certainly on the decline: just 57 percent of urban consumers said they preferred to make discretionary purchases in stores, while 39 percent claim their last such purchase was made online.
