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1) Outdoor apparel and gear retailer The North Face has a flagship store in London designed to function like a real base camp. For the hub of the store, North Face has recreated a campfire setting with base camp duffel bag seating as a community area, under an immersive 3D experience tent where projections of mountain summits change between night and day featuring different weather conditions, as life is outdoors. To help consumer navigation, North Face has split the consumer journey, zoning areas with wide lightboxes from its athletes’ expeditions and featuring active 3D-printed mannequins which are 100% recycled and recyclable, created to inspire adventure. The space is highly phygital with wide screens at the entrance for brand and product storytelling to help customers understand product benefits and compare products. All details connect with mountains and outdoors, mimicked in the footwear wall and the welcoming wall built with aluminum grid and rocks. A space is also dedicated to sustainability, offering a range of services to extend the life of products from customization, to repair, to returns. 2) Korean fashion retailer Matin Kim has installed highly realistic virtual reality hologram technology at five of its Matin Kim and Hago Haus stores. The hologram models from Los Angeles-based Proto Hologram can move and turn 360 degrees to show outfits to shoppers and have built-in cameras, microphones, speakers and touchscreens, as well as AI capabilities. The hologram avatars can also be activated to answer questions for shoppers about products, in any language, using Proto AI tools. In the future, Matin Kim intends to be able to beam hologram versions of live special guests into its stores with the ability to see, hear and interact with shoppers in real time. 3) Employee-owned sporting goods retailer Scheels has created immersive in-store digital environments with LED display walls. Known for its mega-sized stores filled with all sorts of fun attractions, Scheels has completed an $11 million digital signage initiative with experiential media company Mood Media. The digital signage project involved the installation of approximately 460 LED screens throughout five strategic zones in each store, including men’s and women’s shoe sections, store corners, structural columns and above the grand staircases. Scheels can synchronize the display network for store-wide takeover campaigns by brand partners such as Nike, Adidas and Lego; or segment promotional content for localized zone delivery. The initiative consolidates 32 individual store systems into a single unified application through Mood Media’s Harmony platform, which provides centralized management of audio and visual experiences. 

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DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse has teamed up with Imbox Protection, an in-store shoe protection solution, to place Imbox kiosks in nearly 500 U.S. locations. Using a water-based spray, the enclosed Imbox machine shields shoes from water, stains, dirt, mud and fading without the use of harsh chemicals, offering customers a fast, eco-conscious protection that extends the life of their footwear in only 60 seconds, noted DSW.  The touch-free, in-store service costs $8.99 and provides up to eight weeks of invisible protection (or longer with light wear). Customers place their new shoes into the enclosed unit, and within a minute, leave the store with fully protected footwear.  The Imbox Protection unit is approved by Underwriters Laboratories and its spray is AllergyCertified, making it safe for indoor use and aligned with growing consumer demand for environmentally-responsible solutions. Imbox also holds global patents for its technology. Laura Davis, president of DSW said, “This partnership elevates the in-store experience by offering an easy, effective way to protect the shoes our customers love. It’s innovation that meets them where they are – right at checkout.”

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Walmart plans to be able to deliver to 95% of Americans within three hours by the end of the year, President and CEO Doug McMillon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders, in conjunction with the retailer’s annual report. This delivery capability will be enabled by Walmart’s investments in technologies throughout its supply chain, which are supporting both its stores and its eCommerce business, according to the letter. “We are more tech-powered than we’ve ever been,” McMillon said in the letter. “We’re building and deploying today’s technologies, including AI, in its various forms, and automated storage and retrieval systems in our distribution and fulfillment centers.” This supply chain automation helps Walmart eliminate or replace mundane tasks, better flow inventory and personalize experiences, per the letter. These investments are part of the retailer’s continuous effort to improve its abilities to “serve people how they want to be served” by offering them the choice of deliveries of eCommerce orders, curbside pickup or visits to a brick-and-mortar store.

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Walmart Inc. is providing sponsored search advertisers a deeper view into the sales they generate. The discounter is introducing incremental sales measurement to sponsored search ads offered by its Walmart Connect retail media network. Leveraging Walmart’s first-party retail data and industry-leading, test-and-control methodologies, advertisers will be able to gain insights the retailer says will enable them to make sharper data-driven decisions about their channel investments. Walmart advertisers will be able to evaluate how current sponsored search strategies are driving incremental sales both online and in-store, identify top-performing brands within their portfolio, and reallocate budgets to meet demand, including during key moments like seasonal campaigns.  Advertisers will then be able to report the incremental impact of their Walmart sponsored search investments back to their organization. 

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Mastercard teamed with Sam’s Club to power the retailer’s Cash Bonus Offers program. The collaboration employs Mastercard’s personalization technology to help Walmart-owned Sam’s Club better communicate appropriate rewards offers to its members. Marie Elizabeth Aloisi, executive vice president for U.S. market development at Mastercard, said ”With our advanced personalization technology, businesses can boost retention and revenue, while consumers get more value, more efficiently than ever.” Barb Berg, vice president of membership Sam’s Club, the program is “a perfect example of how we can expand our data-driven consumer engagement to provide relevant and valuable offers that benefit our members.” The partnership is happening as retailers embrace the power of personalization, as Narvar Chief Technology Officer Ram Ravichandran said. Consumers expect sophistication in their retail experiences, from intuitive chatbots to smart product recommendations to seamless support, Ravichandran said. By providing relevant content, tailored promotions and timely support, businesses can deepen customer trust while building a foundation for sustainable growth.

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PayPal is announcing the launch of Offsite Ads, a new way for advertisers to tap into the power of PayPal’s transaction graph and reach millions of consumers across the open web through display and video advertising. Offsite Ads is built on PayPal’s extensive two-sided network that connects millions of merchants and consumers, bringing a new level of precision to advertising by making cross-merchant transaction insights available — all while respecting consumer privacy. Unlike traditional approaches that rely heavily on browsing behavior or probabilistic models, PayPal Offsite Ads is powered by actual purchase data across millions of merchants. This enables brands to reach highly relevant audiences based on real shopping intent, not just inferred interest. For the first time, advertisers can leverage PayPal’s understanding of when and where people actually buy — across a wide range of categories — to inform smarter media buying decisions.  PayPal allows brands to connect with audiences in a different and more relevant way than standard third-party cookie-based or contextual targeting methods. Publicis Media will be the first agency partner to offer Offsite Ads to brands, enabling advertisers to bring more precision, rigor and performance to advertising across platforms. PayPal Offsite Ads are available through leading channels, allowing advertisers to activate campaigns at scale across premium websites, apps, and CTV environments, while ensuring seamless integration with existing media buying strategies.

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Walmart has opened a new Texas Supercenter, the first of its kind in four years. The store located in the Houston-area community of Cypress, is also the retail giant’s first new-construction “Store of the Future” in the U.S., and part of Walmart’s plan to build or convert more than 150 stores in the next several years. Later in the year, Walmart plans to open new Supercenters in Texas, Utah and California, and Neighborhood Market stores in Alabama and Florida. The company also plans to convert stores in California and New Jersey into Supercenters. Walmart announced in January of last year that it aims to construct or convert more than 150 stores and remodel 650 additional locations over the next five years. The new and remodeled stores are part of the company’s Store of the Future concept, which incorporates interactive technology that combines virtual and in-person shopping. The current opening comes days after Walmart announced it was “re-imagining the in-store shopping experience” as it implements its plan to refurbish more than 650 stores this year. These updates include “big, bold signage,” new displays that better showcase products, expanded departments and new items. At the stores’ pharmacies, Walmart is adding wider aisles, a new private screening room and privacy checkout areas. Walmart is also expanding online pickup and delivery in the remodeled stores “to fulfill the growing number of online customer orders,” the company said.

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Buy now, pay later network Affirm is introducing its artificial intelligence-powered platform, AdaptAI, to its merchant partners. Merchants can provide shoppers with personalized, targeted, real-time promotions and credit offers at the point of purchase via the offering. “Unlike conventional credit card rewards — which are opaque, static and subsidized by the financially vulnerable — AdaptAI dynamically matches the right benefit to the right consumer at exactly the right moment,” Affirm Senior Vice President of Product Vishal Kapoor said.  “Consumers no longer need to spend more, keep track of, or wait months to recoup their rewards. Now, they can immediately receive tailored, transparent value at the time of purchase. This is only made possible with Affirm’s AI-powered technology and real-time underwriting, and [it] builds on what we do best: delivering customized payment options that help consumers take their money further.” Consumers expect individualized experiences, particularly when paying, leading Affirm — and now its merchants — to offer payment solutions customized to consumers’ purchase and financial profiles.

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Visa unveiled the Visa Intelligent Commerce program which opens the network’s rails to developers building AI agents that search, recommend and now pay on behalf of consumers. “This is going to transform shopping and buying — we’re letting AI developers and engineers use the Visa network to allow AI agents to find, and buy, on [the consumer’s]  behalf in a seamless and safe way,” Mark Nelsen, Visa’s global head of consumer products, told. At the center of the effort is an AI-ready card, a credential developers can spin up through a bundle of Visa application programming interfaces (APIs). As Nelsen put it: “The APIs will have an AI-ready card. In a hypothetical search for the cheapest flight to Cancún, for example, a traveler uploads an existing Visa credential, while in the background Visa authenticates the cardholder with payment passkeys, tokenizes the 16-digit number and seats the token inside the AI agent.” That behind-the-scenes swap shields account data, eliminating the clunky step of keying in card numbers every time the agent hops to a new site.

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Sendbird Inc., an AI communications and conversation platform, launched what the company calls  an “omnipresent” AI agent that can handle customer service issues proactively rather than just reacting to them. Omnipresence means the company’s AI agent can engage and respond to customers wherever they are: web, mobile, email, SMS, WhatsApp and voice – all without losing track of the conversation history. This means that a user could start a conversation on the web, grab their phone to leave the house and continue talking to the AI agent and it could pick up where it left off. The company believes by allowing users to pick a preferred point of contact they can feel more connected and part of the process. The second promise of the company’s AI agent is proactive support, where AI agents react to potential problems and conversation moments before a customer contacts support. For example, when a delivery is on its way it might contact the customer on the last channel they messaged to provide an update. It can also anticipate disruptions such as flight delays, allowing real-time outreach and rescheduling. Sendbird’s AI agent empowers businesses to move beyond siloed, reactive interactions to memory-rich customer experiences that reduce friction, anticipate needs and improve loyalty all at the same time.

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