The technology I like best in retail can be summed up by thinking about the 3 Es:

What enables, expedites, and/or elevates the store experience for tasks a customer doesn’t  need a human to perform?

My reactions to recent news that's been widely shared.

As social media took off, brands aspired to be our friends. And now they are. As with our other friends, we want to know what they think. And we hope they're on our side. It's awkward for companies to say they won't take a political stance for two reasons.

We’ve heard the doom-and-gloom about U.S. department stores. Yet, the retail community warmly received recent news of Anthropologie & Co., which is basically a department store. Why the optimism? Let’s take a step back and consider what made department stores appealing in the first place.