The Hidden Retail Tech That Separates Pilots from Progress

For: Store ops leaders, omnichannel architects, mobile app owners, fulfillment strategists

The headline: Sam's Club just did something most retailers say is impossible – they eliminated receipt checks entirely across their whole chain in less than a year. Their "exit arches" use computer vision to verify what's in your cart as you walk out, whether you scanned items yourself on your phone or checked out at a register. No more bottlenecks at the door. And it's working: member satisfaction is climbing and the technology keeps getting smarter.

Here's why this matters beyond just faster exits:

They made frictionless checkout a reality, not a pilot. Most retailers test Scan & Go in a few stores and call it innovation. Sam's went all-in: two-lane exit arches in every club that work for everyone – not just tech-savvy shoppers with the app. The computer vision gets better over time as it learns, so accuracy improves month over month. The key insight? They didn't make it optional for customers to benefit. Walk through the arch, and you're done. This is how you actually change behavior at scale.

They're rebuilding stores around e-commerce, not squeezing it into corners. Here's the surprising stat: e-commerce is now 18% of Sam's Club sales. During COVID, like everyone else, they jammed curbside pickup into whatever space they could find. But their newest stores in Texas and Arizona have back rooms that are 6-7 times larger than traditional clubs. Why? Because when nearly one in five transactions involves someone picking and packing orders, you can't treat fulfillment as an afterthought. Store teams need actual workspace, not a corner next to receiving where they're dodging forklifts.

The app refresh was about enabling everything else. Diana Marshall (EVP & Chief Experience Officer) mentioned they redesigned their entire website and app: faster load times, better images, clearer fulfillment options. But the real story is they built personalization capabilities into the foundation this time, not as a layer on top.

What to do about this:

→ Map your exit friction points. Time how long customers spend in checkout lines versus walking to their car. If the answer is "way too long at checkout," you have a business case for rethinking the whole flow. Computer vision pilots are getting cheaper – test in 2-3 stores and measure time savings per transaction.

→ Audit fulfillment capacity before it breaks. Pull your e-commerce growth data by store. Overlay it against current back-room square footage. Flag any location that will hit capacity in the next 12-18 months. Then build a tiered remodel plan: quick wins (better shelving, dedicated pick zones) versus full rebuilds.

→ Roll out mobile checkout in waves, not all at once. Start with your most engaged loyalty segment – maybe 20% of members. Measure adoption rates, basket size, and NPS. If you see a lift, expand. If you don't, figure out why before you scale. Sam's nailed this because they made it stupid-simple: scan as you shop, tap checkout, walk out. No extra steps, no confusion.

For: CDOs, digital transformation leads, IT-business partnership teams, omnichannel strategists

The backstory: When Jeremy Drury joined IKEA Germany as Chief Digital Officer three years ago, the IT team was still stuck in what he calls "the cupboard" – the stereotypical tech guys in the back room who take orders and fix printers. His job was to transform digital from a cost center into a strategic partner. The twist? IKEA's business model was already wildly successful. Convincing people to change how they work when everything is working fine? That's the hard part.

Here's how he actually did it (and key lessons):

Year 1 was about showing up in the right rooms. Drury didn't start by rolling out new tools. He started by embedding his team in business planning cycles. He wanted digital leaders sitting at the table when commercial teams were making decisions, not getting a list of requirements three months later. This is the "brand positioning" phase – proving that digital can co-create strategy, not just execute it.

By Year 2, they were delivering real value. Business units started asking for digital input unprompted. By Year 3? Drury says he doesn't even need to talk about digital anymore. The business talks about it for him. That's the goal: when digital thinking is so woven into planning that you're not a separate function, you're just how work gets done.

Infrastructure debt is invisible until it breaks. Here's a detail most people miss: IKEA Germany ran a multi-year program called "digital in shape as new" to upgrade store Wi-Fi, network infrastructure, and LTE coverage. Why? Because you can't roll out Scan & Go, in-store navigation apps, or mobile POS if your network crashes every time 50 customers open their phones.

Drury jokes that "the Wi-Fi doesn't work" became a running gag in leadership meetings. But it wasn't funny. It was a symptom of underinvestment in unsexy infrastructure. You can build the best customer-facing app in the world, but if the store network can't support it, you've wasted time and budget.

Navigating German works councils without losing speed. This is the part most U.S.-based leaders don't think about, but if you operate in Europe, it's critical. In Germany, works councils (employee representation groups) have legal power to slow or block technology rollouts if they think it affects workers. Early on, Drury's team faced delays because every project required lengthy negotiations.

So he built a framework. Instead of negotiating project-by-project, he worked with the works council to create a transparent, predictable approval process with clear timelines. The result? Approval cycles dropped from months to weeks. 

If you're in a regulated market or unionized environment, don't try to work around these groups. Build the relationship upfront and create a shared framework. It'll save you months on every project.

What to do about this:

→ Audit your IT-business relationship. Survey 10 business leaders: Do they see digital as a strategic partner or a help desk? If the answer is "help desk," you have work to do. Start by joining their quarterly planning meetings (just listen the first time). Then offer to map digital opportunities against their goals.

→ Measure store infrastructure before it embarrasses you. Pick 10 stores. Walk in with your phone and a laptop. Test Wi-Fi speed, coverage, and how many devices can connect simultaneously. If it's weak, build a business case for upgrades before you roll out any mobile-first initiatives.

→ Build speed into your governance. If your project approval process takes more than 60 days, map where the delays happen. Are you waiting on legal? IT security? Works councils? Then create a lightweight framework with clear SLAs and escalation paths. The goal isn't to skip steps; it's to make necessary steps predictable and fast.

For: Multi-store ops leaders, retail IT directors, M&A integration teams, change management leads

The setup: Lucien is a Belgian bike retailer that grew fast by acquiring independent shops (23 stores in under 5 years). The problem? Every acquired store ran different legacy systems (SoftCycle, Cycled, Vendit), each with its own product data, customer records, and workflows. None of them scaled. So Lucien's digital manager led a full migration to Odoo, an integrated ERP platform. The kicker? They switched 70% of their revenue-generating stores to the new system in one day, and posted their best sales year ever.

Here's how they actually pulled it off:

They went live fast and learned faster. Most companies plan forever, then do a big-bang launch. Lucien did the opposite: first store live in 4 months, flagship store in 8 months, then a phased rollout over 18 months. Gautier's logic? "You can test everything, but you'll never have the whole picture until customers are actually using it."

For example: They assumed customers would either pay by wire transfer OR at the register. But real customers started paying part by wire transfer and part at the register – a scenario no one had planned for. The early stores surfaced these edge cases so they could fix them before the big rollout. If they'd waited to go live with all 23 stores at once, it would've been a disaster.

Non-digital users are the real constraint, not the software. Lucien's store staff are bike mechanics who barely open email. They're excellent at repairs but terrible with software. Gautier's approach? Design for simplicity, not sophistication. They built training videos under 2 minutes, created a visual "Clopedia" (quick-reference guide with screenshots and emojis), and sent Gautier himself to spend 3 days in each store during go-live to troubleshoot live with stressed employees dealing with angry customers in line.

Genius hack: Instead of building a custom "priority" flag in the repair scheduler (which would've taken weeks to develop), they told staff to just put an emoji in the appointment title. Staff could filter by emoji and instantly see urgent jobs. Problem solved in 2 minutes instead of 2 weeks.

Product data quality will kill you faster than bad software. Gautier says this was their biggest nightmare. They acquired stores with wildly inconsistent data – some had clean barcodes, others had products arriving at the warehouse without barcodes at all. Warehouse staff had to open boxes, guess which product it was, and search through a database of 1 million SKUs.

The ripple effects were brutal: Duplicate products in the system meant items scanned at the warehouse weren't linked to customer orders, so they sat there while customers waited. Outdated supplier data meant sales staff kept selling products that were no longer available, forcing purchase managers to chase down alternatives weeks later while customers got angry.

They hired an in-house IT dev who could fix printers. This might sound trivial, but Gautier credits their internal IT person as a key success factor. Why? Because "if your bank terminal doesn't work, or the printer spits out PDFs instead of labels, non-digital users will throw the computer out the window." The dev wasn't just writing code – he was fixing hardware, troubleshooting network issues, and making sure the basics worked flawlessly. Responsiveness mattered more than sophistication.

What to do about this:

→ Pilot with real stores, not test environments. Pick 2 low-risk locations and go live within 4-6 months. Collect real user behavior for 90 days before scaling.

→ Audit your product data before you migrate anything. Pull a sample of 1,000 SKUs. Check for duplicates, missing barcodes, discontinued items still in the system, and supplier data accuracy.

→ Design training for stressed people, not ideal conditions. Your staff won't watch 30-minute videos. Build a visual quick-reference guide with screenshots, short videos (under 2 minutes), and step-by-step checklists.

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