The pandemic continues to impact every facet of retail from customer behaviour to retail operations.
To help retailers keep pace with this ever-changing landscape and plan for tomorrow, the 2023 NRF Innovation Lab showcased new technologies that will help retailers meet these new and ever-changing challenges.

Dean Cherny is a serial entrepreneur in the music, fashion, and retail industries with a colorful career. I caught up with him to talk about Marketing Melodies, his DJ enterprise, and his new venture SocialQ.
Dean explains that his love for music began when he was a child, listening to his Mum’s collection of disco and soul records. The dulcet tones of black American divas filled his family home and formed the very beginning of what is now a very large and eclectic personal collection that spans 50 decades of music from around the globe.

Last week, Vicinity announced a wide-range of COVID safety measures in place at each of its centres across Melbourne. This Melbourne Cup weekend all of Vicinity’s shopping centres across Melbourne – including Chadstone, Northland, The Glen and Bayside – will be open with extended opening hours to give customers more time to shop, dine and enjoy services safely.

The entrepreneur behind a new shop-by-appointment booking system being adopted by prominent Australian retailers and shopping centres says this new data-fuelled approach to retail will far outlast the immediate need to manage the number of customers visiting stores.

The minute restrictions eased, Melburnians flocked to Kmart to celebrate their newfound freedom. But video footage and images posted onto social media left some concerned the crowds could undermine the state’s efforts to keep the virus under control over the past few months.

The owner of Australia’s largest shopping centre Chadstone, which was at the centre of a devastating COVID-19 outbreak, is introducing pandemic-busting technology such as heat mapping and digital shopping queues at 20 of its Melbourne malls as retailers reopen on Wednesday.

Kmart shoppers are urged to book online or risk being turned away at the door as the store attempts to comply with coronavirus restrictions.