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My mother is my barometer for technological adoption--if my Mom asks me to help her figure something out on her phone or tablet, it is safe to assume it’s going from mostly mainstream to fundamental fact of life. So when Mom hit me up a few days ago asking about GooglePay, I had two thoughts in succession: 1) Ugh, Lord give me strength as I guide her through this, and, 2) It might be time to blog about mobile payments again.

Grocery shopping ain’t what it used to be. With omnichannel and digital-only challengers threatening legacy grocery’s status quo, operators are racing to build out their omnichannel operations, ranging from in-store pickup of digitally ordered items (click and collect) to rapid grocery delivery (Amazon’s got it down to 2 hours or less).

Grocers beware, Aldi is coming for you, your margins, and your customers (protect your millennials!).  The German discounter, which currently operates 1,800 stores in 35 states, was just named Retailer of the Year by Supermarket News, its second such victory in the past four years.

These sure are some interesting times in our omnichannel world. Although Amazon is slowly building their own branded brick-and-mortar bookstores, convenience stores, and kiosks, they are also encroaching into other retailers’ brick-and-mortar space, bringing foot traffic to the retailer while expanding their own IRL footprint.  

Ando, one of the first and certainly the most famous delivery-only restaurant in the country has closed the book on delivery-only, and is opening its doors, literally. The “dark restaurant” was the brainchild of famed Momofuku chef David Chang, and simply could not find profitability in the current delivery-only model, in which restaurants are not open to a walk-in, sit-down public but rather only operate to fulfill delivery requests.