Sharon Leite Returns to The Vitamin Shoppe as CEO
Sharon Leite, who resigned as CEO of The Vitamin Shoppe in 2023, is back in the chief executive role, the newly bought company announced Tuesday. Leite served as CEO of the vitamin and nutritional products specialty retailer from 2018-2023, resigning in January 2023 to head …
The Retail Buyer’s Role in the Age of AI: Promise, Pressure, and Perspective
Retail buyers have long operated at the crossroads of instinct and information. For years, they’ve juggled the competing demands of data analysis, strategic decision-making, and vendor management — often with limited tools and overwhelming volumes of information. Success was too often tied to whoever could …
Creating the In-Store Experience of the Future With Augmented Reality
Over the past five years, the rapid shift toward online shopping has reshaped the retail landscape. While e-commerce offers undeniable convenience, it also presents challenges, particularly for retailers, where tighter margins and rising fulfillment costs pose significant hurdles. In contrast, brick-and-mortar stores provide advantages such …
How PCI DSS v4.0 Will Affect Retailers
Protecting merchandise and securing the brick-and-mortar structure of an outlet have always been the overriding security concerns for retailers of all stripes. Not until recently have merchandisers had to also consider and begin looking after the welfare of their customers’ sensitive data and information. It …
Understanding Email Deliverability: Key Factors & Key Issues [with on-demand webinar]
Email deliverability has changed radically over the years. Today, it’s driven by these 7 factors… …
5 Tips to Improve Digital Gift Card Programs
The 2025 edition of the annual Best Digital Gift Card Programs report, produced by Blackhawk Network and NAPCO Research, offers a deep dive into how 100 U.S. merchants are optimizing their digital gift card programs. The report is based on the evaluation of 100 U.S. brands’ …
Burberry to Cut 1,700 Jobs Globally
The luxury fashion brand Burberry will cut nearly 20 percent of its global workforce, or approximately 1,700 jobs, in an effort to cut costs and return to profit, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday. The British company said in a press release Wednesday it expected to …
Is Agentic AI Actually Helpful for E-Commerce or Just More Hype?
Another Shoptalk has come and gone. As usual, we saw one topic garnering more attention than almost every other one combined. For 2025, that topic was agentic artificial intelligence. It’s been the topic du jour ever since, and for good reason — the tech is …
How DTC Brands Can Diversify Ad Spend Beyond Social
For years, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands have followed a familiar playbook: pour money into search and social, optimize for conversions, and scale what works. However, that formula is getting harder to sustain. Platform saturation, rising costs, and tighter privacy regulations are forcing brands to rethink their …
Microsoft’s New Email Deliverability Rules Make DMARC Essential
Microsoft’s new email deliverability requirements align with Google and Yahoo’s on DMARC being essential, but otherwise are different. Here’s what Microsoft wants to see from senders… …