Think Tank: The New Differentiator for RetailersVic Bageria, chief executive and chief visionary officer of Xpandretail powered by Sávant Data System LLC, discusses.

[Collection]As the retail landscape continues its ever-evolving state of flux, we are witnessing brick-and-mortar merchants growing e-commerce capabilities and online-only players learning how to get physical. Toss in the advancements of augmented reality, AI, and social media marketing — the picture gets even more complex. On a global scale, year-to-date 2018, we are seeing a volume of U.S. store closure announcements for 4,095, as per market reports. Claire’s, in addition to the 92 closures announced in March — declaring bankruptcy due to the retail-challenging environment and threat from e-commerce — plans to close another 40 stores. Not far behind is Sears Holdings announcing an addition of 63 store closures — 48 Sears stores and 15 Kmart stores by early September. Although market analysts are blaming e-commerce for the decline of the mall, it is also safe to say department stores have played their part in contributing to the dilemma in unexpected ways. Today anchor stores have become really nothing more than fancy establishments within the mall. The new shopping journey has become more surgical in nature compared to the past through means of analytics. Retailers are facing a challenge as we speak —with all the pre-shopping done online, the number of visits

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