In the last two years we have seen a once-in-a-generation jump in IT spend. In fact, in our latest study showed that benchmarked IT spend grew as a percentage of revenue as much as 40% since the beginning of the pandemic. General Merchandise Retailers (GMS) reported that they plan to […]
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Without question, the COVID pandemic has changed consumer behavior worldwide. Some of the changes have abated, others have further accelerated. IHL Group completed a worldwide study of consumers in 21 different countries to understand what shopping behaviors have changed for good, which are fading out, and how the future of […]
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Retail is experiencing a once-in-a-generation increase in IT spend due to the impacts of COVID and the change in shopping journeys for consumers. Although consumers have come back to stores, the digital increase is here to stay. Retailers must get these transactions profitable. Add to this the ongoing labor challenges […]
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The average retailer spends 13% of their IT budget on security, but anywhere from 15-40% of that budget is taken up with just being PCI compliant…and let’s face it, that’s not real security. COVID has brought exponential increases to the number of IoT devices in stores, greatly expanding the attack […]
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There are many criteria that have separated the winners since the beginning of the pandemic, but there is one technology that winning retailers are rolling out in 2021 at a rate nearly 9.5x the rate of others. You would think it is a new technology like AI/ML or something specifically […]
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Worldwide, COVID-19 is having disastrous impacts on consumer spending. IHL’s current forecast for consumer spending is a reduction of $1.6t in sales worldwide, just under 10%. And it is the smaller retailers losing the most by far. But not all segments are doing poorly. While Specialty Stores and Departments Stores […]
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If I’m counting this was my 15th NRF. It was a great show by just about any objective measure I could imagine. I continue to see more and more things that I really like and that resonate with the retailers we speak with. There was an overall positive vibe and […]
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If you have updated your iPhone or iPad you might not have realized this change to the way the Control Center handles WI-FI and Bluetooth settings. In previous OS releases, when you turned off these settings in the Control Center, it actually turned off the radios. But the change in […]
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