Malcolm Fisher of Domino's Inc. learns about the Zivelo self-order kiosk from Mike Moon at the NRF Big Show. The merging of digital and physical retail continues to advance at a rapid pace, giving new life to an industry that many believed was headed for oblivion. The race to introduce interactive technologies in stores has unleashed a historic demand for self-service kiosks that was in full view at the NRF Big Show at Javits Center in New York City this week. Self-serve kiosks were dominant on the trade show floor, offering a range of technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, augmented reality, facial recognition, voice recognition, machine learning, advanced analytics, digital currency acceptance and more. The cashierless store concept, spearheaded in the past year by Amazon Go, has spawned scores of competitors, several of which were on display at NRF.

Conversational commerce is a big disruptor, but it's got some kinks to work out to be a more human-oriented experience. Voice is natural, and it can have a huge impact on retail because it can mirror the real world, says Michael Haswell, director of global business development, retail & shopping, Google. But there are hurdles to getting people to move beyond telling voice-activated personal assistants to play a song or look up an address to real shopping activity. Currently, they can really only handle "low cognitive loads." If you ask a home assistant to buy peanut butter, it can probably handle that, especially if it already knows your brand preference.

This week around 33,500 visitors flocked to the Jacob K. Javits Centre in New York City for the annual National Retail Federation (NRF) Convention and Expo. Held from January 17 – 20, the event is an opportunity to take stock following the busy holiday season and get a sense of how 2016 will shape up for retail. Much to this journalist's disappointment, nobody announced their plans for a hostile takeover of Amazon at the event, however several key themes emerged. "Tech has untethered customers dramatically and therefore we think that loyalty in itself has shifted dramatically over the past years, over this era of very powerful consumer empowerment," Bousquet-Chavanne said. In response, organisations will have to invest in their operations and systems to make them more agile.