Ralph Jacobson

Retail, though one of the oldest industries, continues to experience costly, complicated, and cumbersome processes related to store IT operations and expansion. They impact launching new stores, the cost of store IT infrastructure, and integration of distributed information for effective analysis. Furthermore, despite the maturity of the industry, there...

Some great comments below have been made on traditional views of segmentation. I believe the perspective we have talked about for years, that is "A segment of one" is now within our reach. Targeting, marketing, advertising and selling to individual shoppers, as they evolve, and being nimble enough to...

Interesting that one suggestion is to add grocery stores to malls. That is one segment that remains rare in enclosed malls. Perhaps due to the fact that shoppers must plan their trips to save the perishable foods for last, which requires far more thinking than a typical trip to...

Analytics capabilities must be considered along with other functionality with these apps. Additionally, security, uptime and other basic software attributes are critical, of course. I think the market will adopt a few key players with one emerging as dominant in the next year or so.

ANY format of retail can have a drive-through component, at least for a limited selection of popular products. Text ahead or place your order online, and then pick it up when you get to the store! How complicated does this have to be?! Department Stores, DIY; any store can...

We used to be satisfied with "4-6=week" delivery times in the dark ages prior to online shopping. (LOL) Then we were fine with exorbitant shipping charges when online landed on the planet.

Same-day delivery is a luxury...but only for now. We will expect it within 18 months. Mark my words.

Online life has been good for a long time, now. I am not totally convinced this legislation is required, however, I do understand its merits.

I think price trumps all for identical products, so shoppers will continue to seek the best prices both online and off.

I think we are remiss if we begin to rank data's importance to one function higher than another. With the data available today, I cannot think of a business discipline that couldn't benefit greatly from the analytics tools in the marketplace. Take as much of the "gut feeling" as...

The answer is, "It depends" In grocery? No. In consumer electronics? Yes. I think multichannel selling will increase as merchants embrace the flood of business that they can capture.

The supply chain is NOT as efficient as the article suggests. Also, RFID technology has advanced, to be sure, however, adoption is nowhere near "full deployment" anywhere in the world at the item level. Also, bar codes shouldn't disappear because there will always need to be a manual way...