Vision scales demos, touch scales reality. For years, robots have been learning to see. Cameras got better vision. Processing models got faster. Datasets got bigger. And still, real-world manipulation stayed pretty brittle. That is why Robotiq adding tactile sensor fingertips to its 2F-85 Adaptive Gripper matters more than it sounds. Vision tells a robot where something is. Touch tells what it’s like, and what’s going on with it. Slip, force distribution, and contact geometry … these are not...
3 days ago • 1 min read
If you’re not sure what “agentic commerce” even means, you’re not behind, and that gap is exactly why adoption is slow. Let me start by explaining the term, because many smart people still don’t know what the heck it is, or why they ought to care. Agentic commerce means software agents that don’t stop at recommending products, but can actually buy them. They compare options, place orders, and complete transactions on your behalf, across retailers, without you clicking “add to cart.” That...
4 days ago • 1 min read
Speed feels good … until something goes off the rails real fast. You may have noticed something changing in big U.S. retailers without much fanfare. Target and Walmart have been pulling back on self-checkout. Removing ALL such lanes in some cases, and reducing them in others. The headlines frame this as friction versus efficiency. I don’t believe that’s the real story. I appreciate a speedy, knowledgeable, well-trained cashier. I dislike standing frozen at a self-checkout waiting for...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Too many returns can mean buyers aren’t getting the information they need. I worry about returns because they cost my clients real money. In shipping and restocking, plus waste, write-offs, and margin erosion that never shows up in the ad dashboard. And yet platforms like Shopify and Amazon promote easy returns as if we seriously want everyone to use them. Retail returns in the U.S. will surpass $850,000,000,000 in 2026. (I wrote the number out because “$850 billion” doesn’t do it justice!)...
6 days ago • 1 min read
When a category disappears, it leaves behind memories. And new opportunity. I have piles of memories tied to frozen cylinders of juice. My first lemonade stand. Stirring and stirring in the kitchen or on a picnic table until the icy block finally dissolved. Later, keeping a tube in the freezer for making orange sauce … or just the comfort of knowing fresh-tasting juice was always available. We have not bought one in years. Over a decade, for sure. Now Minute Maid, owned by Coca-Cola, is...
7 days ago • 1 min read
A reader asked a smart question about whether seasonality still matters for products built around gifts or specific times of year. Shara from Austin wrote after my post Selling No Longer Moves in Seasons and asked, in part: “How about businesses with a very strong seasonal or gift-buying purpose? We still see clear off-season drops, even if peaks are harder to predict.” She’s right. Some products will always have strong seasonal gravity. Snow shovels probably won’t explode in July. (I hope...
8 days ago • 1 min read
Some physical products (and their customers) benefit from never feeling fully “sold.” I’ve worked with a company that sells a wellness hardware product with a subscription model … and the interesting part isn’t the monthly price. It’s how many things the model solves. Lower monthly access removes upfront hesitation that keeps capable buyers on the sidelines. It democratizes the product, making it feasible to more people who need it. Refurbished units become a strength instead of a liability,...
9 days ago • 1 min read
Buyers aren’t idiots, and they know it. An appliance retailer near me ran ads reminding consumers that the expected life of a dishwasher is five years. A salesperson in a big-box store told me the same thing about a refrigerator. Five years. That framing is absurd. My grandmother’s first dishwasher lasted over fifty. Her fridge too. Pretending modern buyers should accept radically shorter lifespans (plainly for their own gain) is condescension, not realism. And buyers feel it. Here are the...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Demand is now reacting in hours … not months. New retail data out of 2025 shows something uncomfortable for planners. Buying behavior has become a lot less seasonal and way more volatile. Shopping patterns now shift hour to hour. Promotions start earlier and earlier as retailers chase confidence that never quite settles. This a genuine behavioral change. The Robin Report describes a retail environment where timing assumptions no longer hold. Holiday peaks blur. Launch windows stretch or even...
11 days ago • 1 min read
