Blog

Jan 12, 2024

Retail Technology at NRF 2023: Retail’s Big Show—Loss Prevention, Forecasting, Personalization and Associate Enablement

John Harmon, CFA, Managing Director of Technology Research Introduction Key

John Harmon, CFA, Managing Director of Technology Research

Introduction

Key RetailTech Themes at NRF 2023: Coresight Research Insights

Loss and Fraud Prevention

Personalization and a Focus on the Customer

Forecasting Has Become Essential

Associate Enablement Is a Hot Topic

Other Important Products and Announcements

What We Think

The Coresight Research team attended NRF 2023: Retail's Big Show in New York City. In this report, we discuss the retail technology providers and solutions featured at the event across four key themes: loss prevention, demand forecasting, personalization and associate enablement.

Companies mentioned in this report include : Impinj, Manhattan Associates, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Sensormatic, Toshiba, Workday, Zebra

Other relevant research:

Tech played a prominent role in NRF 2023, and several key categories—notably, loss prevention, forecasting, personalization and associate enablement—have advanced significantly in the two years since the show was able to take place with full attendance. We consider these four categories essential for retailers in 2023 and beyond.

The Coresight Research team attended NRF 2023: Retail's Big Show in New York City during January 15–17, 2023. The annual event, hosted by the National Retail Federation (NRF), brought together retail technology innovators, industry experts, brands and retailers to participate in panel discussions, present on key topics in retail and showcase their solutions.

NRF 2023 marked the return of many leading retail-tech companies to the annual event since 2020, and we were impressed with the progress made in two years (especially in the area of personalization), since many of their retailer customers were in crisis mode during 2020–2021, expanding their online capabilities and dealing with wide swings in consumer demand.

Loss prevention is top of mind for many retailers amid recent reports of shoplifting and organized retail crime in the media. In its 2022 National Security Survey, the NRF reported that retail shrink had increased to $94.5 billion in 2021, up from $90.8 billion in 2020. We saw several interesting new loss-prevention technologies at NRF 2023, including those outlined below. See our Retail-Tech Landscape on for more on technology providers of retail loss-prevention solutions.

Technology companies are launching new tools to enable retailers to know their customer better and offer personalized communication.

The current retail environment presents multiple challenges and constraints for retailers, which need advanced tools to operate in a robust and resilient manner. At NRF, we met with a number of companies offering forecasting platforms, including those outlined below.

Diagram of function of Antuit.ai demand forecasting platformSource: Zebra

The combination of labor shortages and increasing consumer demand for extraordinary service make associate enablement and empowerment more important than ever, and we saw several compelling examples at NRF.

There were several other significant announcements at NRF 2023, including by Manhattan Associates and Oracle:

We saw several significant advancements in retail technology at NRF 2023, which advanced despite urgent retailer needs to expand e-commerce and wrestle with supply chains and shifts in consumer demand during the pandemic. Loss prevention remains a paramount concern for retailers, and forecasting and personalization are essential technologies to coordinate operations and enhance customer sentiment. We also believe that associate enablement is a key, unique competitive advantage of physical retailers to offer service that towers above that of impersonal e-commerce platforms.

We consider the four categories of loss prevention, forecasting, personalization and associate enablement essential for retailers in 2023 and beyond.

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