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Retail has always evolved around a central promise. First it was price and scale. Then convenience and speed. More recently, brand and experience took the lead. Now another shift is underway, one that many companies still treat as secondary. The next competitive advantage in retail is designing for real life. That means designing for the full range of human ability, attention, mobility, and circumstance. Not as a compliance exercise. Not as a niche offering. But as a smarter, more complete version of customer experience. Accessibility is often misunderstood as a feature aimed at a small group of people. In reality, it is a systems-level discipline. It asks a simple question: Where does friction accumulate across the journey, and who gets left behind because of it? Brick and mortar retail is a chain of moments. Parking. Entry. Navigation. Discovery. Reading labels. Comparing options. Carrying purchases. Checking out. Opening packaging. Setting up at home. If friction appears in any one of those moments, the chain weakens. Shoppers may not articulate why they abandon a purchase or fail to return to the store. They simply feel that the experience was harder than it needed to be. The hidden truth is that most friction is ordinary. It is the parent steering a stroller while scanning shelves. The older adult who shops in shorter trips because standing too long causes fatigue. The caregiver juggling time, lists, and another persons needs. The shopper straining to read small type under glare. The customer trying to hear an associate over loud music. These are not edge cases. They are daily realities. When retailers design with those realities in mind, they are not designing for special needs. They are designing for how people actually live. What does that look like in practice? Start with packaging. It is one of the few retail touchpoints that crosses the entire journey, from shelf to home. Clearer typography and stronger contrast reduce eye strain. Intuitive information hierarchy lowers cognitive load. Opening mechanisms that require less dexterity reduce frustration before the product is even used. When packaging is confusing or physically difficult, the brand relationship begins with resistance. When it is intuitive, confidence builds immediately. Merchandising and layout send equally powerful signals. Aisles that comfortably accommodate mobility devices, carts, and strollers reduce anxiety and improve flow for everyone. Product placement that considers customers range of reach makes browsing less physically demanding. Predictable layouts and consistent signage shorten decision time and reduce fatigue. None of these changes diminish aesthetic ambition. In fact, clarity often strengthens it. Environments that feel calm and legible tend to feel more sophisticated as well. Lighting and acoustics are another overlooked layer. Excessive glare can make labels unreadable. High ambient noise can discourage conversation and increase stress. Thoughtful lighting and sound design help customers compare options accurately and interact with staff more easily. Seating and rest points extend stamina, particularly in larger stores. These details rarely make headlines, yet they directly influence how long someone stays and how confident they feel while shopping. Digital touchpoints are now inseparable from physical retail. Search interfaces, pickup systems, and returns processes must work in conditions of distraction and time pressure. They must be usable by customers with low vision or hearing differences. The best omnichannel experiences are not complex. They are clear, consistent, and forgiving. They anticipate real-world interruptions and varied abilities. When shopping feels easier, customers come back When retailers approach accessibility as a full-system design challenge, the business impact follows naturally. Reducing friction improves conversion because fewer customers stall or abandon the journey. Clearer information reduces returns and customer service strain. Better wayfinding reduces reliance on staff for basic navigation. More comfortable environments encourage longer visits and greater exploration. The loyalty effect may be even stronger. When people find a store that makes shopping feel easier, safer, and more dignified, they come back. They recommend it. They build trust in the assortment. The experience signals that the retailer understands real life, not an idealized version of it. There is also a cultural dimension to this shift. Populations are aging. Caregiving responsibilities are increasing. Households are more multigenerational. Expectations around inclusion are rising. Retail is one of the most tangible spaces where values become visible. Shoppers do not experience a brands commitments in a mission statement. They experience them in aisles, at checkout, and at home. Importantly, designing for broader access does not mean sacrificing aspiration. Independence is aspirational. Confidence is aspirational. The most compelling retail environments are not the most exclusive ones. They are the ones that allow more people to move through them with ease and dignity. Final thoughts For years, differentiation strategies have centered on limited drops, collaborations, and spectacle. Those tactics can generate attention, but they are often temporary. Designing for real life is durable. It compounds over time because it strengthens every link in the experience chain. The next era of retail will not be defined solely by speed or novelty. It will be defined by intelligence. The retailers that study friction, understand changing human needs, and design environments that work beautifully across a spectrum of abilities will outperform those who optimize for a narrow idea of the average customer. Designing for more people is not a charitable gesture. It is a strategic evolution. In Retail 3.0, inclusion is not an add-on. It is the foundation of better design and better business. Ben Wintner is CEO of Michael Graves Design.
Category:
E-Commerce
At the Exceptional Women Alliance, we enable high-level women to mentor each other to enable personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organizations founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from some of the thought leaders who are part of our peer-to-peer mentoring. This month I introduce to youKarlyn Mattson, an award-winning retail C-suite executive and founder of The Leadership Advisors.She has decades of experience delivering profitable growth, transformative consumer and product experiences, omni-channel and digital transformation, and consumer centric value creation for brands such as Macys, Target, and Amazon. Q: You have a provocative hypothesis that agentic AI could be retails unexpected savior. Can you tell us more? Karlyn Mattson: The real promise of agentic AI isnt just automation. Its the chance to restore the human side of an industry that has quietly lost its creative and strategic edge. Retail has always been shaped by trends and counter-trendsthe existence of two radically opposite movements at the same time. Today, two forces are rising simultaneously: The rapid acceleration of AIand an equally strong need for human connection and creation, analog, and artisanalinfluencing brands, products, and experiences. While they appear to be at odds, I believe they are deeply connected. As retailers explore AI deployment, the opportunity is larger than the efficiency realized by leveraging generative AI. The more powerful opportunity is agentic AI, which can enable the refresh this industry desperately needs, freeing time for strategic and creative innovation. Q: Youve described retail malaise. Whats driving that? Karlyn: Creative and strategic oxygen has been replaced by analytical and operational dependence, evident in the lack of inspiration at so many retailers. Merchants, at their best, are equally left and right-brain professionals. They are hired for their potential to make great choices for the consumerdeciding where to buy more, where to pull back, where to take calculated risks. Instead, many spend their days toggling between versions of the same financial forecast or explaining variances across metrics. It’s not about a lack of great talent but instead frustration with the day-to-day job requirements. Q: How does Agentic AI change the equation? Karlyn: The insights and research that generative AI produces allow for amazing efficiency and synthesis. This is a huge win. The trend identification and product development processes absolutely benefit from this. Agentic systems change the game because they dont just analyze, they act. Within strategic guardrails, these systems continuously learn, rebalance, and adapt, autonomously managing thousands of SKUs across hundreds of locations with a precision that is beyond human capacity. Its intelligence that executes so humans can reclaim time to focus on decisions that shape future strategies and assortments. Q: How does reclaimed time impact retail merchants? Karlyn: It changes their motivation and inspiration. Most merchants I know enter retail to create compelling and differentiated assortments that surpass their competition and excite their consumers through storytelling. And that takes time. Instead of creating another report or refining a projection, merchants can think more strategically about long-term growth, competitive white space, brand positioning, product differentiation, and assortment architecture. The inability to spend time on strategy is one of the biggest tensions in a merchants job satisfaction. Q: Some leaders worry that more automation means less humanity. Is that a risk? Karlyn: I think for retail, it needs to be viewed as a capability amplifier. Retail is grounded in human workits emotional, creative, cultural work. And its also rooted in disciplined strategic work. For example, AI can detect a trend or signal but only a human can decide whether that trend aligns with your brand positioning. AI can optimize inventory flow but it cannot determine to place a big bet on a trend you saw on the streets of London. I believe that AI can strengthen human-centered retail strategy, not weaken it, if led correctly. Q: What does this mean for CEOs and boards? Karlyn: First, this is an operating model decision, not just a technology decision. A lot of money can be wasted if AI is bolted on to legacy systems. Significant workflow re-design is required to accommodate the opportunity of agentic AI. Second, if autonomous systems remove some of the analytical or operational work, how will organizations reinvest that capacity? It should be directed toward that capability amplification discussed earlierdefining growth initiatives, championing creativity and innovation, and developing sharper strategies. Q: What gives you confidence this shift will happen? Karlyn: First, necessitymargin erosion, consumer fragmentation, declining loyaltyretail cannot afford incrementality and mediocrity anymore. Second, the art of retail has quietly diminished over the past several years. The merchant role has shifted from curator to reconciler, from strategist to number cruncher. Agentic AI has the potential to reverse that trajectory. Its use can unleash incredible human-centric worksharper strategy and bolder imagination to reclaim the hearts and minds of consumers craving inspiration and connection. Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance.
Category:
E-Commerce
Few media brands scream straight quite like Playboy. Since the 1950s, the mens lifestyle magazine has been best known for its photos of nude and scantily clad women (aka Playmates)and, of course, for its iconic bunny mascot. But those whove been paying attention, Playboy has quietly undergone an editorial transformation. Since November, the magazine has relaunched its print edition (previously halted in 2020), started a Substack newsletter blending archival material with original writing, and introduced new Playmates to the world. Its all been under the advice of Phillip Picardi, who was announced on March 11 as Playboys new chief brand officer and editor-in-chief, making him the first openly gay man to lead the brand. Picardi is a media veteran with more than a decade of experience shaping the magazine industry. As the digital editorial director of Teen Vogue, Picardi more than doubled the sites online viewership and gave the brand a new politically progressive direction (a move that landed him on Fast Company‘s list of the 100 most creative people in business in 2017). From there, he founded Condé Nasts queer-focused outlet them and served as editor-in-chief of Out Magazine. What does it mean for a queer man to take the helm of a stereotypically straight institution? Its not as antithetical as it first sounds, considering how far Playboy has come from its primarily pornographic roots. Per its website, the brands mission is to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure via core values of equality, freedom of expression and the idea that pleasure is a fundamental human right. In an interview with ADWEEK, Picardi shared how his own queer identity fits into that inclusive Playboy ethos. Queer rights dont exist without womens rights, Picardi said. These things are connected, and Playboy has always been very engaged with that. Picardis appointment comes shortly after that of David Miller, who left a role at National Geographic to become Playboys president of media and brand. The shake-up in leadership reflects a new era for Playboy, one that still centers sex, but not without acknowledging the culture surrounding it. Just in the past week, the magazine has published deep dives on the hypocrisy surrounding trans pornography, platforming Playmates eager to reclaim their sexuality, and honoring the legacy of Playboys past. Picardi also shared his vision for Playboys future, particularly given the rising conservatism of American culture. Our moment right now is both extremely prudish and extremely pornographic, he told ADWEEK. The idea that we need a publication that is able to explain sexuality as a cultural force, especially as our younger folks are facing a sex recession and loneliness epidemicit felt like the right challenge.
Category:
E-Commerce
A group representing many of the world’s wealthiest countries agreed Wednesday to release the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history, in a bid to counter the effects of the Iran war on energy markets and the halt of cargo shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The International Energy Agency said it will make 400 million barrels of oil available from its members emergency reserves, which is more than double the 182.7 million barrels that the IEA’s 32 member countries released in 2022 in response to Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is a major action aiming to alleviate the immediate impacts of the disruption in markets, said Fatih Birol, executive director of the Paris-based IEA. But, to be clear, the most important thing for a return to stable flows of oil and gas is the resumption of transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has attacked commercial ships across the Persian Gulf in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes, escalating a campaign of squeezing the oil-rich region as global energy concerns mount and effectively stopping cargo traffic in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of all oil is shipped from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean. Iran has also targeted oil fields and refineries in Gulf Arab nations, aiming to generate enough global economic pain to pressure the U.S. and Israel to end their strikes. According to the IEA, export volumes of crude and refined products are currently at less than 10% of prewar levels. Birol noted that the situation in natural gas markets is also very challenging, with Asia the most severely affected region. There are few options to replace the missing LNG cargoes from Qatar and the Emirates, he said. Global energy supply has been reduced by around 20%.” A push to lower the price at the pumps The IEA’s announcement came a day after energy ministers from the Group of Seven the leading industrialized nations of Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and Britain met in Paris to look at ways to bring down prices. It also came just before G7 leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, met Wednesday via videoconference. During his introductory remarks during Wednesday’s video call, French President Emmanuel Macron praised the IEA decision to release emergency oil stocks, saying it is very important to do everything possible to increase global production and that the 400 million barrels amounted to the equivalent of 20 days of the volume being exported through the Strait of Hormuz. The amount pledged by the G7 nations alone comprises 70% of the total, including 14.5 million barrels France will contribute, Macron said, noting that the IEA decision was prepared at the G7 level. Maksim Sonin, an energy executive who works with Stanford Universitys Hydrogen Initiative, said the release would have a short-term stabilizing effect, but that it would diminish if the war persists and the Strait of Hormuz remains essentially at a standstill. Its not a silver bullet to solve everything, Sonin said. You have to solve the underlying problem. Neil Crosby, a vice president of oil analytics at Sparta, which tracks oil trading, said as big as the release is, it amounts to a little Band-Aid. This scenario was always written off by large parts of the industry: In case we get to the scenario of where theres a war with Iran, the U.S. Navy will ensure that Hormuz doesnt stay closed, Crosby said. And then we got there, and its closed. … Its a complete disaster. Oil follows snaking journeys that can take weeks to go from drill sites to gas pumps. It must pass through refineries, where it is turned to fuel, before it is shipped off via pipelines and tankers to terminals, and then on to gas stations. Because of this, no single decision has an immediate impact. But Kenneth Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University, said the release of reserves will calm markets and prevent wild price swings and could lead to lower prices at the pump in the next week or so. Still, a trade-off is involved by tapping reserves. Youre depleting stocks now. Thats always the catch-22, Medlock said. Youre selling them today but that means you cant sell them tomorrow because theyre gone. Member countries pledge help Germany, Austria and Japan said earlier Wednesday that they would release parts of their oil reserves in response to the IEA’s request for members to release 400 million barrels. The IEA reserves were established in 1974 following the Arab oil embargo, and IEA member countries currently hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil stocks, with a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held under government obligation. Germanys economy ministry, Katherina Reiche, said the IEA asked Germany to release 2.64 million tons roughly 19.7 million barrels of its oil reserves. She said it would take a couple of days before the delivery of the first quantities. Germany stands behind the IEAs most important principle of mutual solidarity, Reiche said. The German government also said it will introduce a measure to allow gas stations in Germany to raise fuel prices no more than once a day. The federal government wants to introduce this as quickly as possible, Reiche said. It wasnt immediately clear how much oil Austria was releasing. Starting Monday in Austria, price increases at gas stations will be allowed only three times a week, said the countrys economy minister, Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer. He said Austria was releasing part of its emergency oil reserve and extending the national strategic gas reserve, adding: One thing is clear: in a crisis, there must be no crisis winners at the expense of commuters and businesses. IEA nations have released emergency stocks on five previous occasions: During the 1990-1991 Gulf War, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, during the Libyan civil war in 2011, and twice after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Samuel Petrequin and Kirsten Grieshaber, Associated Press Associated Press reporters Matt Sedensky, Cathy Bussewitz, John Leicester, and Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
Do you know who Jessica Foster is? Neither did I until last week, which is surprising because 1) she has amassed 1 million followers on Instagram after starting her account just a few months ago 2) she is a U.S. Army soldier with a look as wholesome and American as apple pie, and 3) she is a huge Trump supporter. With that trifecta, you could assume she would be a star on Fox News, NewsMax, or the Joe Rogan Experience. But no, she is nowhere to be found on those platformsor any major U.S. media outlet for that matter. And that’s because she is a computer-generated mirage designed by an anonymous operator to funnel conservative men toward an OnlyFans page where “she” sells foot fetish pics. [Images: Jessica Foster/Instagram] I came across Foster while reading the Spanish sports media, who covered the AI character after her account posted fake images of her attending an Inter Miami Major League Soccer White House reception alongside Donald Trump and Lionel Messi (she also has appeared in the oval office alongside Cristiano Ronaldo). The stunt triggered a massive wave of coverage across sports outlets in fútbol-obsessed Spain and Latinamerica, which then expanded to TV, other online publications and national newspapers with huge readership like 20 Minutos. Who, or what, is Jessica Foster? The Instagram profile @jessicaa.foster went live on December 14, 2025. In just three months, the account reached more than a million followers. The recipe for this success was fairly simple: The puppet master behind the screen pumped out a constant stream of content around this fictitious, Trump-loving female soldier and built an entire digital lore by letting followers peek into her daily life. We see Jessica posing in army bunks, frolicking with female soldiers, shoeless at the office, and behind an F-22 Raptor. The feed is packed with high-resolution, completely forged photos of her posing with Trump and politicians like Putin and Zelensky; in one, she’s speaking at the Board of Peace ConferenceDonald Trump’s international body created to mediate the Gaza conflict. She even invaded Greenland, because of course all it takes to conquer a country is a Colgate smile. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] But all this is just bait to pick up right-leaning men straight into adult subscription sites. Under the username @jessicanextdoor, her OnlyFans bio unironically reads: “public servant by day, troublemaker by night i’m new to this don’t be rude please btw i respond to every message but be patient since I’m not a robot haha.” The account pulls in cash primarily by peddling fetish content, specifically foot photography, while farming direct tips from subscribers that can hit over $100 on a single post. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jessica (@jessicaa.foster) This entire grift operates in direct violation of OnlyFans’ terms of service. The platform’s rules demand that every account must be linked to a verified human being. Any AI generated content, it says, must actually resemble that specific real person and be explicitly tagged with a #AI label. Because of these restrictions, many of these faceless operators are packing up their fake influencers and moving to looser competitor sites like Fanvue. (We sent a request for comment to OnlyFans and will update this article if we hear back.) Over on Instagram, Meta’s policies require that any paid political advertisements prominently disclose the use of AI. For unpaid, organic posts like Foster’s grid, Meta outsources the problem to third-party fact-checkers who can blur, label, or yank the content if they consider it deceptive misinformation. It appears that filtering is not working. Despite successfully duping thousands of users who seemingly left genuine comments of support and affection in her post, the digital illusion wasn’t flawless. Military veterans and commenters in conservative forums like Free Republic spotted the glitches in the rendering. The smoking gun used to debunk her was the name tape on her combat uniform, which displayed her first name (“JESSICA”) instead of the standard military last name. “She acts as a military advisor to the Trump administration on Instagram, but she operates as a foot model on OnlyFans,” says journalist Kat Tenbarge on the left-leaning Courier Youtube channel. [She is] pushing sort of propaganda not just in support of Trump, not just in support of the US military, but it’s also objectifying women in the military.” Tenbarge believes that the Foster account softens and glamorizes and sexualizes this vision of the U.S. military. On the other side of the political spectrum, conservative commentator Ara Rubyan seems to basically agree with Tenbarge. “She was every MAGA bumper sticker rendered in human form, and for her audience, the ‘human’ part was entirely optional […] The Soldier of the Lord was, in the end, just a clever way to sell foot content.” Both are correct in their diagnostic, but they miss the most important point about Jessica Foster. She marks the last national election as the end of reality-anchored campaign news cycles, if such a thing ever existed. Fosters one-million-follower army is the ultimate demonstration that we have reached a predicted and very dangerous era, as the latest generative photo and video AIs have finally shattered our ground truths with perfect synthetic reality indistinguishable from real life. You can even argue that, even without those, we are cooked: Jessica had visible imperfections that were caught by some, but her army of followers didn’t really care much. As Rubyan puts it, “The most dangerous thing about Jessica Foster isnt that shes fake; its how badly a million people needed her to be real.” Indeed. We are not in the post-truth era anymore. This is the “I want to believe” era, and anything that satisfies humans’ existing beliefs and desires will automatically get our brains’ stamp of approval even after learning it is not real. Good night, and good luck, everyone.
Category:
E-Commerce
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