2017 was an exciting year for retail. Evolving technology, changing consumer preferences, and political shakeups all had a large impact on our industry. Here is Independent Retailer’s roundup of top trends, influencers, buzzwords, and developments that affected retail in 2017. Many of these topics were explored in greater detail throughout the year – those articles can be found on IndependentRetailer.com.
AI
The artificial intelligence retail market is on track to be worth $5,034 billion by 2022. As of the end of 2017, the market is worth $993.6 Million. Siri and Alexa are this year’s most popular examples of AI, but the technology is shaping the retail industry in many ways. Chatbots, online shopping algorithms, face recognition technology, and ad targeting is all made more effective through AI.
