According to the U.S. Census Bureau's monthly retail report, retail sales were up 4.5% year over year in April, but online sales grew 12%. Online retailers have long had an information advantage over their brick-and-mortar peers, as they are able to gather vital data about their customers (such as their age, gender, and location) as well as data on things like what people are looking at and how long they are staying on a page. For example, floor-level cameras can track traffic and where people are spending time in stores, and can predict information like age and gender by analyzing video of shoes. Nicholas has been a writer for the Motley Fool since 2015, covering companies in the consumer goods and technology sector.

This article originally appeared on the Motley Fool. Robots will take jobs formerly done by people, and that will hit the retail space pretty hard. That does not mean an army of robotic workers will eliminate the need for humans entirely. Instead, jobs that can be easily automated will be, according to ZipRecruiter's Chief Economic Adviser Cathy Barrera in an email interview with The Motley Fool. ZipRecruiter, which was launched in 2010, started as a tool to help small businesses distribute job postings affordably.

Amazon's Echo lineup of smart home speakers traditionally has looked the same as any traditional speaker, but its latest update significantly shakes up Amazon's popular product lineup. The Echo Show is the newest Alexa-powered speaker for the online retailer, and unlike past models, the Show includes a touchscreen and camera. Around the web, reviewers have generally been fans of the new hybrid smart speaker though some are hesitant about its major features. Apple HomePod: Which Device Do Consumers Want? Externally, the Echo is anchored around a 7-inch display that shows information like the weather, song lyrics and menus.

Ecommerce is a complex, convoluted thing. What started as a way of putting catalogues online has now become something much more involved. In the past we built ecommerce engines out of databases, with a little shopping cart magic wrapped around them. We generated static content for Google to search, and redirected users to our dynamic sites as soon as they clicked on a link. Manual curation was the watchword, much like the paper catalogues the web had replaced.

The digital economy has transformed the way we communicate with each other; the way we consume information, products, and services; the way we entertain ourselves. It's revolutionized seemingly non-digital industries--think of how different financial services, for instance, are today from what they were two decades ago--and investors expect it to soon transform others, which is why Tesla Motors is worth more than General Motors despite making a tiny fraction as many cars as GM makes and earning a tiny fraction of the revenue. This phenomenon explains why the so-called Big Five of the digital economy--Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook--have, at various points over the last year, been the five most valuable companies in the world. So you might say that the digital economy has lived up to the expectations people had for it 20 years ago, in the early days of the Web. In other important ways, however, its consequences have been smaller than you might think.

The price tag still holds sway in our major shops and departments stores -- but the retail sector is moving away from fixed prices, and online businesses are leading the way. Prices already fluctuate online for certain products and services like airline fares, hotel rooms and ride-sharing services like Uber. One day you score a great deal, the next you end up paying a bit more than you wanted. Most people focus on the positive -- the bargain they got. But what if such flexibility and uncertainty was a feature of all your shopping? Until now, those variations have been dictated by the laws of supply and demand: a price surge algorithm detects a spike in demand and ups the charge -- following the fundamental logic of the market.

In a recent report, the National Retail Federation projected online sales in 2017 will grow three times faster than in-store sales. The report suggests 51% of Americans prefer to shop online rather than in stores--a figure that jumps to 67% for millennials and 56% for Gen Xers. With Amazon accounting for 43% of online sales in the US, only store sales will be disrupted more in the coming months. Additionally, eCommerce sales are also expected to reach $4 trillion by 2020 – making it 14.6% of total retail spending that year. So what does this mean for retailers?

Inc.'s $13.7 billion bid to buy Whole Foods was announced, John Mackey, the grocer's chief executive officer, addressed employees, gushing about Amazon's technological innovation. "We will be joining a company that's visionary," Mackey said, according to a transcript of the meeting. "I think we're gonna get a lot of those innovations in our stores. I think we're gonna see a lot of technology. I think you're gonna see Whole Foods Market evolve in leaps and bounds."

Ecommerce is a complex, convoluted thing. What started as a way of putting catalogues online has now become something much more involved. In the past we built ecommerce engines out of databases, with a little shopping cart magic wrapped around them. We generated static content for Google to search, and redirected users to our dynamic sites as soon as they clicked on a link. Manual curation was the watchword, much like the paper catalogues the web had replaced.

SAN FRANCISCO – When Amazon made a bid for Whole Foods earlier this month, a company that's been a huge but largely online presence for consumers suddenly seemed to be everywhere, raising the question, "Is it getting too big?" In most of the areas Amazon has recently entered, be they groceries or streaming video or India, Amazon is far from dominant. But some observers fear that as Amazon's breadth grows, the power of its ecosystem could stifle competition and erode jobs. "Imagine getting your pay-TV service, groceries, banking, insurance, etc. all through one company. That's the threat that Amazon poses," said Michael Greeson, director of research at business analysis firm The Diffusion Group.