By Erin Harris, editor in chief

It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that ShopTalk 2017 was a hit. I walked away from the show more informed on the future of retail than when I was when I walked in. I suspect there are quite a few meetings and conversations taking place as retail execs share what they learned with their teams. In a nutshell, the content was top notch. Here are some of the sessions I attended and what I learned:

Deals bolster the retailer’s ability to accelerate onboarding of talent and technologies to market.

Consumers want integration of mobile and in-store capabilities to facilitate shopping.

It’s a jungle out there, and retailers are in a fight for survival of the fittest—just ask some of the casualties. This isn’t fear mongering. It is a retail reality being driven by table stakes set by the likes of Amazon.

The very first thing for retailers to understand about digital marketing is that a plan that may have worked beautifully for a competitor may not work at all for them. That’s one of the biggest challenges and why so many retailers are experiencing results from digital marketing campaigns that fall short of what could be achieved. Digital marketing isn’t different from any other type of marketing in that the best results are achieved from solid foundations — and the only way to build a truly rock solid foundation is to completely understand both your customers and the products that you sell.

By Matt Pillar, Innovative Retail Technologies

Convenience chain QuickChek gained huge store-level efficiencies by replacing manual legacy systems with a progressive suite of workforce management applications.