Disruptive Innovation Examples in Retail

In 1916, a grocer named Clarence Saunders faced brutal criticism for a "crazy" idea: letting customers pick their own groceries. Before Piggly Wiggly, shopping meant waiting while clerks fetched items one by one from behind counters, haggling over prices, and often waiting in long lines to be served. The industry insisted this was "convenience." Saunders had a radical vision: true convenience meant empowering customers. He: 🟪 Created standardized pricing (no more haggling) 🟪 Put products within reach 🟪 Designed clear store layouts 🟪 Added price tags (a patented innovation!) 🟪 Installed multiple checkout lines (another first) The results? His store operating costs plummeted from 15% to 4%. Sales skyrocketed. Within 5 years, Piggly Wiggly had 1,200 stores and revolutionized retail. A century later, Sam Walton would credit self-service as the foundation of Walmart's success. Fast forward to 2025. Walgreens CEO just acknowledged that locking up basic items "leads to lower sales" but plans to continue anyway. (Great reporting by Nathaniel Meyersohn) The irony? In 1917, Saunders' competitors ran ads claiming "convenience means providing clerks to carry groceries for tired customers." They were wrong then, just as some retailers are wrong now about what matters to customers. True innovation in retail means removing friction for customers, not adding it. PS: I went on a huge Piggly Wiggly deep dive this week and have recapped some other takeaways in podcast/video today. Sometimes the best path forward requires looking back. Link in the comments if you would enjoy this history lesson 👇

Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology demonstrates how AI, computer vision, and sensor fusion - similar to what you’d see in autonomous vehicles - can radically transform the way we shop. Instead of waiting in a checkout line, customers simply pick items off the shelf and leave, while the system automatically bills them. Yet with any shift toward automation, there’s the question of how it impacts employment and community economics. If fewer cashiers and clerks are needed, the ripple effects on the local job market can’t be ignored. Additionally, some consumers worry about privacy - advanced tracking systems gather a lot of data on purchasing behaviors, raising concerns over how, where, and for what purpose that data is used. Still, there’s no doubt this is just the beginning of technology-driven changes in retail. Beyond cashier-less shops, we might soon see: - Personalized In-Store Experiences: AI-driven recommendations could pop up on screens or apps as you walk through aisles, guiding you to products based on past purchases or dietary preferences. - Augmented Reality (AR) Fitting Rooms: Try on clothes virtually, see how furniture fits in your living room - without physically moving a thing. - Automated Inventory & Restocking: Shelves that monitor stock levels in real time and reorder items as needed, helping stores avoid both stockouts and over-ordering. - Drone & Robot Deliveries: As last-mile delivery becomes faster, we may see robots handling short-distance delivery or drones zipping packages straight to a customer’s doorstep. What do you think the next big change will be? Is it further automation, more personalization, or something else entirely? #innovation #technology #future #management #startups

Shein's Supply Chain As a Service Initiative a "Pearl Harbor" Moment for Retailers It's time to start paying more attention to the disruption happening in fashion as wrought by Shein. Shein made a surprise announcement recently as told by the WSJ during the week of Shoptalk. Shein looking to pioneer its small-batch manufacturing model to other brands and designers. Here are the details: * Shein's Executive Director David Tang called it "supply chain as a service". * The service would be the manufacturing, technology, and data infrastructure, allowing you to test consumer response to new lines. If you didn't know, Shein's infrastructure includes access to thousands of Chinese factories that churn out tens of thousands of items daily in small batches. All of retail is moving to "Netflixization" and this small-batch model. The reason this model is so disruptive is because it creates a structural competitive advantage in how much inventory you hold. In retail, but especially fashion, inventory is everything -- especially for seasonal or trending items. And if fashion can do it, you know that a wave of startups and VC investment will smell enough blood in the water to move it to other categories, too. Even if it seems more difficult outside fashion, the disruption prize is too great to ignore. As the largest brand licensing and operators in the world, ABG and SPARC Group are important -- and it pays to take notice when they talk. Jamie Salter, whose SPARC group recently took one-third investment from Shein, said the following about Shein recently: * "Shein makes a lot more than $30B..." (which would put it larger than Zara's Inditex) * "I didn't see Shein and I didn't see Temu... I can't beat them. Their supply chain is too good." * "Forever 21" is the biggest mistake I made..." To me, these quotes are important context to Shein's supply chain announcement and not unrelated. Amazon's supply chain innovation was on the distribution side. Getting inventory close to consumers and reliably getting it there. Shein's supply chain innovation is on the manufacturing side. In terms of disruptive capability to retail, Shein's innovation is much more disruptive and will force all other big players to develop a similar model or die - Amazon, Walmart, Target, everyone. Even if these players would never adopt Shein's infrastructure, a response is still needed. Perhaps some kind of investment model in India or other countries might produce a competitor to the approach. It's hard to imagine another country outside of India replicating this. Time to sound the alarm, and not just for the fashion industry.

🛍️ Fresh from #NRF2025, I can’t stop thinking about another kind of "walk out" that’s quietly redefining retail... 🎯 Plot twist: Remember when it seemed like #Amazon was stepping away from its Amazon Go stores? The reality is quite different—and fascinating. 1️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Those convenient grab-and-go stores at airports or on university campuses? Chances are, they’re powered by Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology. From Hudson News to college convenience stores, Amazon's tech is quietly reshaping retail, even without the Amazon branding. 2️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐞: ⚡ 8 seconds: Average time to grab a drink at stadium stores. 🏪 300+ third-party stores are using this technology. 🎓 100+ university campuses have implemented the solution. 🔍 𝐌𝐲 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡: I was part of the first wave of testers at Amazon Go stores in San Francisco. I tried everything to outsmart the system—grabbing extra items, moving products around—just to see how it worked. Those early iterations weren’t perfect (shoutout to the offshore validation teams! 😅), but they laid the groundwork for something extraordinary. 💡𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: What seemed like a failure was actually Amazon's massive real-world beta test. Fast forward to now—#GenAI and advanced sensors have transformed this into a scalable, game-changing solution. 🎮 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥: As highlighted at NRF2025—and emphasized by Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores—AI is revolutionizing retail in ways we haven’t seen since the internet boom. Just Walk Out is positioned perfectly to lead this AI-driven transformation. 🤔 What’s next? Could this tech expand into clothing stores or beauty retailers? I’d love to hear your thoughts! #RetailInnovation #FutureOfRetail #RetailTech #Innovation Ted Levine Lindsey Mazza Tim Bridges Kees Jacobs Bridget Blaize Renata Melnyk Kevin McCurdy Heidi Bonjean Aparna Galiasso