Tim Tang, director of business technologies at Hughes, attended this year’s NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show in New York City and shared what he learned, saw and heard in a recent Convenience Matter’s podcast.
"When I look at a show like NRF, and the NACS Show for that matter, there are sources of insights that I am looking for,” he said. One being the expo. “It's an excellent opportunity to quickly get a sense of where the market is and its pulse by going booth to booth and trying to understand what problems [retailers can] solve for,” he said.
Here are five trends and ideas that stood out from Tang’s perspective:
1. Role of IT: There has been a significant shift in how enterprises view IT. “It's really interesting to me in the past few years, particularly since COVID, how the enterprise attitude toward IT has completely transitioned from primarily an internal cost center to an external business driver of sales,” Tang said.
2. Cybersecurity concerns, due to the increasing digitization of customer and employee experiences in retail.
"When you think about cybersecurity and all the opportunities where a bad actor could come in and disrupt a retailer's ability to do business, their ability to serve customers, and their ability for employees to productively run and operate a store, it's an enormous exposure,” he said, adding that cybersecurity is an area where retailers have the “biggest opportunity to engage" with their customers.
Tang also noted that smaller retailers are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals, making it essential for them to engage with managed cybersecurity service providers to protect their operations.
3. AI inside the store: Tang said that one of the biggest uses for artificial intelligence is enhancing store operations and improving efficiencies through computer vision and voice analytics.
He explained how computer vision is not new—it’s been used for over a decade to correlate with point-of-sale transactions and identifying fraud by reviewing video footage. Today, computer vision can interpret all in-store activities. For example, count the number of people entering a restroom and generate a task that prompts store teams on when to clean. Similarly, it can detect out-of-stocks and create a task to replenish store shelves.
“It's basically having another set of eyes on a routine, system-level basis across all stores in your brand and being able manage all the activity in a more efficient and effective way,” he said.
4. Retail media networks: Retail media networks are emerging as a new revenue stream, allowing retailers to leverage their relationship with customers and collaborate with CPG brands.
Tang said that retail media networks “represent a whole new revenue stream—extremely profitable revenue stream—that can augment and leverage the retailer's relationship with their customers.”
[Read “Revving Up With Retail Media Networks” from NACS Magazine for ideas and insights into how even smaller operators can profit from retail media.]
5. Future of convenience stores: Convenience is competing with the grocery and restaurant industries, making it super important to understand and exceed customer expectations. The c-store industry must also adapt to declining fuel and tobacco sales and greater cross-channel competition by considering how technology will help drive profitability.
Listen to more insights and takeaways in the NACS Convenience Matters podcast “Big Ideas Seen at NRF’s The Big Show.”