Boxed in-house robot cart feature

Boxed Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

| Mike O'Brien

Boxed, purveyor of bulk home products that likened itself to an online Costco, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after failing to find a buyer and enduring sustained weak revenue and earnings, a far cry from the promise of its SPAC IPO in December 2021. An affiliate of its main creditor may purchase its software service.

scan & go mobile

Why Retailers are Abandoning Scan & Go Self-Checkout

| Michael Suswal

Over the past couple years, several retailers have launched new scan & go pilots. Some are even calling this tired technology autonomous checkout, comparing it to systems from Amazon Go. But scan & go and autonomous checkout really have little in common. Here’s how the two tech-powered checkout processes differ.

Walmart MFC control center feature

Walmart Expands Store-Based Grocery Fulfillment Automation

| Mike O'Brien

Walmart is taking another huge leap forward in its attempt to dominate grocery sales, launching an aggressive plan to increase the number of stores using micro fulfillment via automation and robotics to speed orders to local customers as it builds on the digital legacy of the departing Marc Lore. Dozens of such locations are planned.

Coronavirus Impacts Being Felt Far and Wide in Retail, Ecommerce

| Mike O'Brien

Escalating concerns over the spread of the coronavirus are affecting every industry and sector, and retail and ecommerce are certainly no exception. This includes not only challenged supply chains in Asia and other affected countries but also things like runs on certain products in supermarkets and price clubs as consumers panic.

E-Grocery, Ecommerce Bright Spots In Walmart’s Q4

| Douglas P. Clement

Softer-than-expected holiday sales drove Walmart’s Q4 2019 earnings below expectations, but strong ecommerce and online grocery sales provided buoyancy and optimism for the year ahead. U.S. ecommerce sales grew 35%, fueled largely by grocery pickup and delivery, propelling walmart.com to its highest quarterly growth of the year.

Prime Day by the Numbers: 175 Million Items Ordered and Other Cool Stats

| Mike O'Brien

Prime Day saw 175 million items purchased by Prime members over the two days, according to Amazon, eclipsing its 2018 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined, while analysts pegged total GMV at $6 billion to $6.2 billion. See what other interesting statistics we found to paint a picture of the concocted “Christmas in July.”