Headlines

Some Pandemic Retail Tech Trends May Be Losing Their Luster

Retailers’ live shopping channels, curbside pickup and robot delivery struggle to stay relevant.

Published

3 months ago

March 6, 2023

INSTORE Staff

iStock, ablokhin

As the pandemic fades from the spotlight, several cutting-edge technology trends in retail may also be falling by the wayside, ModernRetail reports. Examples: Instagram said that last month it is ending its live shopping feature that lets users tag products in livestreams beginning in March. Around the same time, Walmart announced it was closing its last two pickup-only stores. And several months earlier, Amazon slowed testing of Scout, its home-delivery robot.

Those actions reflect three larger trends taking place in the post-Covid era, Modern Retail concludes:

Retailers’ live shopping channels could be DOA
Curbside pickup might get kicked to the curb
Autonomous robotic delivery remains problematic

So, what’s the takeaway for retailers in all this? “It’s really about making sure that the decisions you make when it comes to technology are brand right,” Insider Intelligence Principal Analyst Suzy Davidkhanian told Modern Retail.

Click here to read the full report.

Related Topics: retail retail technology technology

click to Comment(Comment)

Up Next

Jewelry Store Employee Charged in $500,000 Refund Scam

Don't Miss

Worker Shortage Remains a Big Headache for Retail Execs

INSTORE Staff

Over the years, INSTORE has won 80 international journalism awards for its publication and website. Contact INSTORE's editors at editor@instoremag.com.

Time for More “Me Time”? Time to Call Wilkerson

Rick White, owner of White’s & Co. Jewelry in Rogers, Ark., knew it was time to retire. Since the age of 18, jewelry had been his life. Now it was time to get that “me time” every retailer dreams about. So, he chose Wilkerson to manage his going-out-of-business sale. White says he’d done plenty of sales on his own, but this was different. “Wilkerson has been a very, very good experience. I’ve had the best salespeople in the history of jewelry,” he says. “I recommend Wilkerson because they are really the icon of the jewelry business and going-out-of-business sales. They’ve been doing it for decades. I just think they’re the best.”