Shoppers Turn to Verify Before Buying as Trust Erodes
Shoppers are increasingly using smartphones in physical aisles to verify product details as rising prices and a surge in fraud erode trust in online purchases. Recent Salsify research shows daily online shopping dropped from 21% to 9% within a year, while 60% of consumers now visit stores to discover new items. Fraud exposure affects 41% of shoppers, prompting a shift toward “phygital” experiences that blend digital verification tools with brick‑and‑mortar. Retailers must adapt by integrating real‑time inventory, pricing and security data to restore confidence.
Private 5G Seen as Fix for Warehouse Robot Connectivity
Private‑5G specialist Celona and Digi International have teamed up to deliver a plug‑and‑play Robots‑as‑a‑Service (RaaS) platform that replaces unreliable Wi‑Fi in large‑scale warehouses. By integrating Digi’s rugged edge routers and gateways with Celona’s 5G LAN, the solution offers low‑latency, high‑capacity...
The Death of Page One: AI Storefronts Rewrite Retail Strategy
AI‑driven storefronts are replacing traditional search results with a narrow set of algorithmically ranked product recommendations. Retailers now face a paradigm shift where page‑one SEO is obsolete, and product visibility hinges on metadata and AI governance. The article argues that...
The Fraud Visibility Gap Created by Agentic Shopping
Agentic shopping leverages AI‑driven assistants to automate the checkout process, eliminating the manual steps that traditionally generate rich behavioral data. By bypassing page‑level interactions, these autonomous flows erase signals such as mouse movement, dwell time, and device fingerprinting that fraud...
Why One-Size-Fits-All ERP Fails Mid-Market Retailers
Mid‑market retailers facing tighter margins are abandoning legacy, monolithic ERP systems in favor of cloud‑native platforms that promise speed, simplicity, and real‑time control. Traditional on‑premise solutions require extensive customization, long rollouts, and costly maintenance, limiting visibility into inventory and sales....
EBay Passes on Agentic Shopping — For Now
eBay announced it will block autonomous AI-driven checkout functionality across its marketplace, effectively pausing the rollout of agentic commerce. The company will still allow AI applications that meet strict approval criteria, emphasizing a focus on marketplace fairness, pricing integrity, and...
Are Your Product Pages Invisible to AI? Retail’s New Fix
Retailers are revamping product detail pages (PDPs) to become machine‑readable, partnering with AI‑content platforms Cimulate and Bazaarvoice. Structured markup now tags key attributes, enabling generative AI, voice assistants, and visual search to surface products that were previously invisible. Early pilots...
E-Commerce Orders Surged in 2025, Dominated by Top-Performing Brands
U.S. e‑commerce orders surged 147 percent in 2025, marking the strongest annual growth in recent years. While overall traffic declined, average order values rose, rewarding brands that responded quickly with faster fulfillment and personalized experiences. The acceleration was driven by widespread...
Digital ID in Mobile Wallets Is Helping Pull Shoppers Back In-Store
Digital IDs embedded in mobile wallets are streamlining checkout and verification, turning smartphones into trusted identity hubs. Retailers are leveraging this capability to blend online convenience with in‑store experiences through loyalty programs, targeted messaging, and tap‑based interactions. Early adopters report...
Returnuary Turns Holiday Returns Into a Margin Problem
January, known as Returnuary, brings a surge of post‑holiday product returns that compress retailer margins and overload reverse‑logistics networks. Return rates can climb above 30% of holiday sales, forcing merchants to absorb restocking fees, transportation costs, and inventory obsolescence. Many...
Unified Platforms and Agentic AI Will Define E-Commerce in 2026
Retailers entering 2026 are consolidating disparate systems into unified platforms that blend storefront, inventory, and logistics into a single data fabric. Agentic artificial intelligence is emerging as a decision‑making layer, autonomously handling product recommendations, dynamic pricing, and fraud detection. Advanced...
How Money Launderers Are Exploiting E-Commerce
Online retailers are becoming prime targets for sophisticated money‑laundering schemes that exploit refund processes, third‑party marketplace sellers, and cross‑border payment channels. Criminal networks use these digital pathways to shift illicit proceeds quickly, sidestepping traditional banking oversight. The rise of platform‑based...
