NRF 2025 Recap: Retail Innovation and the Trends Shaping 2025

Transcript

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Lauren Livak Gilbert (00:00):

Welcome to unpacking the Digital Shelf where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age. Hello everyone. Lauren Livak Gilbert here from the Digital Shelf Institute. Last week, NRF took place the National Retail Federation Conference, which is the world's largest retail conference with 40,000 people descending on the Javit Center in New York City. There is innovative tech from all over the world on display as well as discussions on what will shape retail in the coming years. Andrea and I were at the conference and share our key takeaways, including spatial ai, the blending of in-store and online, and the future of the retail media outlook. Hello, Andrea, welcome back

Andrea Leigh (00:52):

To the

Lauren Livak Gilbert (00:52):

Podcast.

Andrea Leigh (00:54):

Well, hi Lauren. Thanks for having

Lauren Livak Gilbert (00:55):

Me. Long time. No, see, we just spent a few days at NRF in New York, and I clearly got a cold, so pardon my raspy voice, but it was an absolute blast, slightly overwhelming first time for both of us, and we had an awesome opportunity to see so many new pieces of innovative tech, so much great content. We met so many people, we saw so many people we knew and got to really kind of immerse ourselves in the emerging trends of 2025. What did you think of the conference, Andrea?

Andrea Leigh (01:26):

Well, I think first it was really fun doing with you Lauren, as my conference buddy for NRF 2025 first timers, both of us. So it was a little bit of the blind leading the blind, but I would say little bit my first, I mean just from a reaction to the overall conference, it was massive.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (01:45):

40,000 people.

Andrea Leigh (01:46):

Yeah, massive. And maybe it was the way the place was laid out, but there were many places where you felt like you could see all of them at once. Just ants just racing around to their next meetings, but really diverse group of retailers and brands and service providers. And yeah, I think I would go back. It was a good one,

Lauren Livak Gilbert (02:10):

A hundred percent. And if anyone is planning to go back, wear comfortable shoes and look at the map because the Javit center is six city blocks, so it takes quite a long time to walk from one end to the next, and I definitely underestimated that.

Andrea Leigh (02:24):

Yes. Well, lots of learnings that I am excited to talk about today here with you.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (02:31):

Yeah. So Andrew, what was one of the themes that you saw from the conference? What's your number one?

Andrea Leigh (02:36):

Okay, my number one was just the pace and rate of change of the shopper right now. So the shopper is changing so dramatically and so quickly. I think we may even be on the cusp of one of the biggest changes that I have seen in my 25 years in Digital. Digital. It started a few years ago with social where a lot of shoppers started using social as a means of product discovery and product research and search, and sort of took over that function that marketplaces used to serve. And now gen AI has become a huge disruptor in the shopper experience, and I think that was really evidenced by the word that kept coming up in almost every session that I sat in on, which was agility. All of the retailers are talking about agility, Footlocker, h and m, rent the Runway even. And it also came up a lot. I was able to attend the day before the session where Strata Cash hosted a big day on retail media, and we had a lot of speakers there talking about retail media, and it came up there a lot too. So I just think the space we're at an inflection point of change and it's really exciting to be a part of it.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (03:55):

We finally have the technology to be able to scale that change. I feel like because it's been on the cusp for a while, but now with AI and with all of the advanced computing technology that we have, we can actually do some of the things that we've imagined. That's what it felt like there.

Andrea Leigh (04:11):

Yes, I totally agree with that. But yeah, I mean a lot of shoppers now starting their search on perplexity or chat GBT or engaging with Amazon's virtual shopping assistant, rufuss, and even just on the marketplaces, Amazon and Walmart in particular, changing how search works. So it's more contextual and less transactional. And we got to hear from Pinterest too, kind of hearing about that shopper journey and discovery with some really interesting stats there. And I do feel like the shopper is just changing so quickly. It's just very exciting.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:53):

Yeah, totally agree.

Andrea Leigh (04:55):

Okay, what about you? What is a takeaway you had?

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:58):

I think as a tag on to exactly what you just said, I was trying to think of a word to describe the kind of theme that I saw, and I came up with the word blended. I feel like you're seeing a lot of blending between the physical and the digital experience. And I used to say more of that digital is coming into physical, but it truly is a blend because physical, in-store shopping has benefits, digital shopping has benefits, and we're seeing all of those kind of try to come together. And for anyone who ever said the store is dead, it is not dead. It is back with a vengeance. I heard a lot of people talk about the store is your stage, how can you use it as a theater? And a lot of the tech that we saw on the expo floor was really all about that.

(05:44):

So there were digital shelf talkers, which were video screens, and they brought up retail media ads. There were way more screens in store, bringing in digital elements, talking about ingredients, talking about claims bringing in a celebrity or an influencer. So you saw a lot more of those digital experiences come in store, but also you saw a lot of physical experiences being replicated digitally. So how can you virtually try on makeup? How can you understand the texture or the color of something and creating those experiences digitally if you don't have the opportunity to get into the store? So it truly was,

Andrea Leigh (06:25):

Yeah, like you got your scan, you got your scan

Lauren Livak Gilbert (06:26):

There. Yes. Oh my gosh. I got a full body scan, I put it on LinkedIn. I spared everyone my measurements. But it was really cool. I now know the measurements of my entire body and it told me if my knees or my neck or my hips were misaligned and actually recommended exercises to be able to fix that. And listen, I feel like there's so many ways you can use that data. I hate dry on clothes. I can use those measurements to see how a garment will drape on my body. I could use that with my physical therapist. I can use that from a medical standpoint so that they can look at the structure of my body. And if I were on a specific weight loss plan, they could actually look at my muscle and my fat density and how I've changed over time. There's so many ways that you could use things like that. And it was just really interesting to see all of the data that you have that you can use in your in-store and your online shopping experience.

Andrea Leigh (07:23):

Yes, I love that.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:25):

Yeah, so a couple other really cool technologies, virtual try ons. Samsung had something called the Lift and Learn, or you can lift your product up in front of a screen and it would tell you about the product, the size, the color, the fit. So really interacting with products both digitally and physically I thought was a really cool trend to see.

Andrea Leigh (07:46):

I love what you said about the stores being so important. When we sat through that, Lauren and I were lucky enough to be on a press tour while we were there, so we got to go to a press lunch and hear Pinterest talk about some of the things that they're working on. They talked about how Gen Alpha loves to be in stores and how one of the key holiday trends was back to return to a return of in-store traffic and that Jen Z in particular prefer to be in stores much more than millennials do. And then I loved the other thing that they said about we've lost the woman from Pinterest racial Hardy. She said, we've lost the joy of shopping online and some of that exploration, and that's an experience we're working to build on Pinterest. So I feel like for a while we were trying to figure out, now we're in a place where in-stores become so important that online's trying to figure out ways to replicate that experience. For a while, we were trying to bring technology into the stores and we're still doing that. And all of the things that you just talked about, but also some of these online only platforms are really trying to figure out how do you bring back that joy of discovery

Lauren Livak Gilbert (08:55):

And to tie both of the themes that you shared. And I shared into another theme I really saw is that in-store now has to become agile and better understand the consumer more than they have previously. So we heard from the CEO of Sephora, and she was saying, for anyone who's ever gone to Sephora, they have a minis bin. When you go to check out, it's kind of like they call it the snake. You walk through these bins and there's all these cute little miniature things and you inevitably grab two or three before you actually purchase something. But the experience in Sephora now is they're empowering their sales consultants to actually check out with their consumers when they're speaking to them in the aisle. So people aren't going through air quote the snake and looking at the minis. So they're building a more modular store where they can move those bins to the front where you exit and you can potentially grab a mini checkout with a store assistant. So that agility and the blending of in-store and digital come together where knowing the consumer so well and their patterns and their habits is going to help any brand, any retailer be successful.

Andrea Leigh (10:04):

And I love that example, Lauren, because I feel like the old way of doing things might be to say, okay, well, because we know that the shopper won't go, if we allow them to check out with an associate on their phone, the shopper won't go through the snake of minis and add 30, $60 to every order. We're just not going to roll out that tech, right?

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:24):

A hundred

Andrea Leigh (10:25):

Percent. It's not going to do that. We're going to make 'em keep going through the line. We know that's better for our business, but I love this idea that they're saying, but what's best for the shopper and how can we pivot and reorient what we're doing to suit that shopper and meet all of our objectives? So I really, really love that.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:43):

It's the realization that shopping is changing because the consumer is changing and we need to all get on board. So a hundred percent I see that

Andrea Leigh (10:50):

Meeting. Yeah, meeting the shopper where they're at. I love that.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:54):

So what's another theme that you saw, Andrea?

Andrea Leigh (10:56):

Okay, another one that I saw was just this level of nervousness and anxiousness across brands, retailers, and service providers. Are we doing it right? And it came through in particular in a couple of areas. The first was, are we doing ai right? Are we implementing it the right way? Both brands and retailers are, there's, there were a lot of feelings of, I'm very unsure of our approach, and I sat down with a few brands while we were there and they all asked that same question to me. How are other brands implementing AI internally so that they can see some efficiencies? What are some pilots that you know about that other brands are doing? And the retailers that we heard from I think are struggling with some of the same things. And whether the fundamental building blocks of what we do are going to change as ai, going back to the shopper changing really dramatically now that they're engaging with our product and searching and researching in all of these new places.

(12:02):

Are the building blocks of success that we've been focused on, do those need to change? And spoiler alert, I think that they do. But I loved the presentation surprisingly from 1-800-FLOWERS at the Rethink Retail event. It's not a company that you would think of as being particularly innovative, but they talked about how doing something is better than doing nothing. And so just do something. So if you're wondering, don't get too hung up on scaling out a big AI solution, just choose something. And then another talk at that event that I loved from PricewaterhouseCoopers was that what he sees is that a lot of times the retailer's roadmap kind of mirrors what the solution is that the tech provider offers. And so it's a little bit reactive to kind of what's available to us. And so really thinking about thinking for yourself about what makes sense in my organization, where are my biggest pain points, and then trying to find a solution that helps resolve those problems. But I think this nervousness, anxiousness, and then also nervousness and anxiousness about a potential TikTok ban and how that might disrupt a lot of the traffic that we experience to some of our products and some of our retailers. And so I noticed that as well.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (13:15):

No one has it figured out. Everybody's trying to figure it out. And I think we hear that across the board retailer or brand, but the key principles need to be the same. Do you know your consumer? Do you know where your data is? Are you trying things? Are you testing and learning? For all the talks we heard about, it was all about that. We're testing, we're trying, we're being agile, we're figuring out what works, and then pivoting from there. Those are really kind of key tenets, but nobody has the secret sauce, and I don't quite frankly think anyone ever will. It's always going to be kind of a mix of see what works and go from there.

Andrea Leigh (13:52):

And I think that nervousness, it was interesting. I heard from Haas, the flip flop company and from h and m, and they talked about we have to just keep the woman from h and m. Linda Lee said, we have to keep our eye on what's happening, remain agile and stay focused on what's developing in the future. So I love that idea of really thinking about just focusing on the customer and the rest will kind of fall into place. But the amount of times that I heard who's doing it well, that question was pretty surprising. Okay. What else? What other themes did you observe?

Lauren Livak Gilbert (14:31):

I think it was all about experience and not just experience for the consumer, but experience for the sales associate. So from an experience standpoint on the consumer side, how can you make it seamless, personalized? There was so much tech on the floor around whether it was virtual shopping carts with being able to check out just from your cart or whether it was scanning your credit card to get into a store so they know who you are. There were so many ways that it was easier for the consumer to get the experience that they were looking for based on the data and information that the retailer had. But on the flip side of that, I think the experience for the store associate is also really improving. And I heard someone say in one of the panels that AI doesn't take the jobs away from the store associate, but it enables them to do more strategic work. And you're seeing a lot of that in the technology that exists. So actually Theresa Spert from Arctic Fox, we were having a chit chat after NRF and she shared a tech that I didn't see but was really interesting that the tags on the price tags on the shelf actually lit up a specific color based on the shopper that was coming to the store to do pick and pack. That is a

(15:49):

Personalized experience, where to go, where to get the item. H and m also had a map of the store and it could tell the associates where exactly the item was that they wanted to pick up. So it was about the consumer, but also about the store associates who are creating the experience for the consumer. The technology is enabling them to do that quicker, more seamlessly at more of a personalized level and integrating AI to be a part of that as well.

Andrea Leigh (16:16):

Well, in some ways, those are another consumer. It's kind of like how we talk about how Instacart's like a four-sided marketplace because they have another customer, which is the pickers. And because more and more orders are getting picked out of stores, that experience for those pickers has to be good too, or the end customer experience isn't going to be good. What I love about Sephora was they talked about that. They talked about how freezer associates up to do more strategic work, and they also talked a lot about how they invest in those associates and the education of those associates, and they feel like that's really critical to their success. I think the comment I would make is for retailers who aren't making that kind of investment, if you now free the store associate up, for example, at Target, is that store associate doing more strategic work with the shopper? I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. But I think that there has to be an educational piece in there too to help them figure out what to do with that slack, that available time that they now have

Lauren Livak Gilbert (17:15):

And how that's impacting the consumer and their overall experience. Exactly. And I think one layer, even deeper to that, I heard a lot about supply chain, a lot about spatial AI and mapping distribution centers and using those maps to be able to understand how you can be more efficient. And the people that are actually in the distribution center are also a really key element of this as well. They need to understand where do I need to be efficient? Where do I need to scale? Where are there opportunities? And spatial AI is a really big piece of that, whether it's in the distribution center or even in the store as an associate. So there's a company called OG Moto where you can actually wear a badge that has a camera that can give you real time in stock out of stock alerts per store at a zip code level. That's insight that you never would've had before for the brand and the retailer side. So that spatial AI component is also enabling more valuable and accurate experiences.

Andrea Leigh (18:14):

I'm glad you brought, I was hoping you'd bring up that company. We spent some time in their booth and they were really interesting. And one of the things I thought was so cool about that is that it allows you to be using AI in a passive way all the time. So the badge is just looking at all the shelves and taking pictures and scanning and collecting information while the store associate is actually doing something else. Maybe they're stocking the shelves or maybe they're helping a customer, their regular job, they're just doing their job. And so I love the idea of using AI to, I guess, well, I mean it's an efficiency improvement for sure, but it's passive, right? It's happening in the background

Lauren Livak Gilbert (18:56):

A hundred percent. Yeah, I totally agree. Andrew, any other themes on your side?

Andrea Leigh (19:01):

I had one more. Yeah, I have one more. I think we can't get off the podcast until we talk about retail media because it was everywhere. It was ubiquitous. It is the new form of media. I think some interesting things that I picked up. So less than 1% of the ad spend is happening in stores. So we got that from the strata cash retail media day. However, that's where for a lot of retailers besides Amazon and maybe Walmart, that's where all the foot traffic is. And so I think that we're starting to see retailers make a lot of investments to get it right and to figure out how to measure it. And that includes everything from sensors in store and a lot of tech and a whole cottage industry around this sensors in store to monitor traffic and monitor views of ads and where people are standing and how they're moving about the store tech to enable ads in store.

(19:54):

So I think there's the sort of famous cooler X example, but lots of other areas where retail media is going to be coming into the store. Lots of different models for retailers in terms of how they can do it if they want to license the equipment or release it or rev share it, or there's a lot of models so that it's accessible for everyone. But I also have been glad to see a little bit more of a focus on the shopper experience and not disrupting that, because I think the traditional cooler screens that we all saw as the V one of this a couple of years ago really get in the way of the shopper experience. Some of the solutions we saw were a little more seamless. And then what that means is, I think, so that's the in-store piece. And then also even looking at the gas station pumps, how can convenience stores get into the retail media onsite play by, they have screens on a lot of the pumps and how can they get into those networks and make a space for themselves there?

(20:54):

I think online we're starting to see a lot of smaller retailers try to figure out how to get more traffic to their sites so that they can take part in this retail media extravaganza as well. And so that in a lot of cases looks like how do we launch a third party marketplace so that we have more assortment, so that we drive more traffic to just so that we can get our traffic numbers up so it justifies more retail media spend. And now Amazon is offering a solution to retailers as well, like a whole retail media online solution. So there's just a lot of money flowing into this space right now on the tech side, on the advertiser side, on the retailer side. But I think it's also a space where advertisers need to be really careful because it's tempting to just, we also saw some data that showed the shift of advertising dollars and how they were completely moving from out of home into retail media and from traditional advertising into retail media, and even how some of it's moving from traditional like onsite online retail media to in-store retail media. But if you don't have a clear strategy and you don't know the shopper you're going after, those investments still don't make sense.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:10):

And the dollars for brands are an increasing year over year. So they just need to be more strategic and have the data to make the right choices. And I heard a lot about halo effects, a lot of talk about halo effects and how you can understand where your dollars are affecting other retailers outside of where you're exactly pinpointing

Andrea Leigh (22:27):

Exactly. And as more retailers launch third party marketplaces and they have more competition for the ads, the CPCs are going to go up for the search ads, and so they'll start charging more. So yeah, I totally agree. I think there needs to be a real strategy in terms of how you approach it.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:45):

So Andrea, what surprised you about NRF other than how much walking we did?

Andrea Leigh (22:50):

Oh my gosh, I think we clocked. I clocked in at least six miles a day, so

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:53):

Oh, for sure. 10,000 steps at the minimum.

Andrea Leigh (22:56):

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this was one that you and I both looked at each other when this came up. The GLP one drugs, and first of all, just being in New York and taking the subway around and the subways are plastered with ads for GLP one drugs, people injecting themselves with all of these different types of weight loss drugs. But more importantly, the session we went to where they talked about the impact to different, because so many people are using them now that we're starting to see an impact across other industries. And this one blew me away. We're starting to see an impact to the grocery industry. People are buying different types of food and less food, less food. We're already seeing people buy, this came from, this is Pricewaterhouse Cooper, I think. Yes, pwc. Yeah, pwc. They're to associate some of the strong growth that they're seeing in the apparel sector to GLP ones because people's clothes don't fit them anymore and they need new clothes

Lauren Livak Gilbert (23:53):

And they feel good in their skin now. So they want to buy more clothes,

Andrea Leigh (23:56):

They want to shop. Exactly. And in travel sector and dating apps. And that one, it just surprised me. I think it was just a surprise that those drugs are in such wide enough distribution and use and impactful enough that we're already starting to see impacts to these other industries. So that one was a big surprise to me.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (24:19):

We did both look at each other and our eyes were like, what? Because we knew about grocery, right? But I didn't even think about apparel or travel or dating, but it makes a ton of sense when you feel more comfortable in your skin, which is an amazing, amazing thing that this has enabled for our country. You want to do more stuff and you want to get out there and shop, and that's really exciting. But it's definitely something to be aware of as some of these trends shift.

Andrea Leigh (24:43):

Absolutely. What about you? What was your big surprise?

Lauren Livak Gilbert (24:46):

So one thing I was really surprised about was there was a large presence of retailers and brands from Latin America. Now, this is my first NRF, right? So I don't have anything to compare it to. I spend a lot of my time focused on the us, Canada, and emea, but there was a massive footprint from latam and retail media networks, retailers, new innovation. And I have the opportunity to talk to some of the latam retail media companies. And they were saying that there's such a big opportunity in latam around retail media because they have different types of stores. Shopping is a little bit different there, it's a little more specialized, and it's a very cultural thing. So people in LATAM like to buy and work with other people in that area. So it was just really fascinating to me because I think it's an area right for disruption because they have the money to spend, they have the shopping experiences, there are brands that are there. So it'll be interesting to see how that shifts and how more brands spend more time and money in Latin America.

Andrea Leigh (25:53):

I noticed that too, Lauren. Well, I noticed just a huge international contingency at the conference in general. I would say this is a much more international conference than some of the other ones that we usually go to, but definitely the latam population for sure. I sat down, I sat down at a table at lunch at the strata cash day, and it was just a table full of executives, and I was like, great, I'll make some friends. And I sat down and I was like, hi. And I realized I was sat down at a table of entirely Spanish speaking people, and I actually speak Spanish, but I was too shy to speak up, and they were talking really fast. So I just sat there and listened. Oh, no. To their conversation. But it was so interesting. They were talking about in a lot of ways, some of the international retailers are a little further ahead on some of the in-store retail media and retail media in general, mainly because I think Amazon does not have the huge presence in some of the international locales that they do in the us. And so the other retailers in the US haven't really had an opportunity. They don't have a lot of traffic, so they haven't had a lot of an opportunity, at least online, to really develop some of those capabilities in the same way. And so I thought that was really interesting as well, and a big surprise for me.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (27:10):

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think I have one other surprise, and we talked a lot about returns, and there was someone from Happy Returns, and you'll have to get me on this. I didn't get the full quote Andrea, but he was saying that the amount of returns is equivalent to the military spend in the us, which I thought was insane. But the story he was telling resonated and it made so much sense. And he said, consumers aren't just buying the product, they're buying the return experience. And you and I looked at each other and we're like, yeah, we buy 15 pieces of clothing with the intention to only keep maybe one. So you are expecting to have a seamless return experience in addition to just buying the product. And I don't know if brands are thinking about that end to end.

Andrea Leigh (27:55):

I don't think so either. His name is Timothy Fair from Happy Returns, and he had a lot of great quotes. I got another one too. He was hilarious. He was talking about how to sort of paraphrase. I got the sense he was saying, a lot of clients come to us and they're like, help us save money on returns. And they think that means their policy needs to be stricter. And he's like, no, no, no. The quote you gave about how when a shopper is buying a product, they're also buying the whole return experience and you actually need to make it better. And so he said, consumers expect that returns are free and easy, and we would have to claw that expectation out of their cold dead hands. He has some really good quotes. He was a very provocative speaker. But yeah, I thought that was interesting. And then he said the other stat they gave was two thirds of customers will not visit a retailer again if they have a bad return experience.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (28:51):

I agree. When it's a bad experience, I'm like, I never want to go back there again, or I won't buy the product because I don't want to deal with it. So it totally resonates with me.

Andrea Leigh (28:59):

Absolutely.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (29:00):

Well, Andrea, it was an absolute blast running around New York City's Javit Center with you at NRF. Thank you so much for recapping with me and sharing your thoughts. And till the next conference.

Andrea Leigh (29:12):

Until the next conference. Thanks for the chat, Lauren.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (29:16):

A huge thanks to Andrea for coming on the show and sharing her takeaways from NRF. If you are planning your conference travel for the year and want to learn from the best in person, be sure and register for the Digital Shelf Summit in April in New Orleans. More info and registration@digitalshelfsummit.com. Thank you for being a part of our community.