Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2027

Publication Title

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, this is the first paragraph of the introduction:

Retail automation, which comprises a spectrum of service solutions designed to automate manual processes, has transformed retail by enhancing both customers' experience and employees' efficiency (Benoit et al., 2024). These retail automations include smart point-of-sale (POS) systems, smart fitting rooms, RFID, AI-based retail services, and more (Le-Hoang and Loi, 2026; Schultz, 2025). Retail automation has continued to expand rapidly, with the U.S. fashion retail industry rep- resenting one of the largest and most advanced markets, driven by technological innovation, rising service labor costs, and increasing de- mand for enhanced customer experiences (Fortune Business Insights, 2026; McKinsey & Company, 2025). Major U.S. fashion retailers are integrating retail automation into their operations increasingly. For example, a sportswear retailer, Nike provides its retail employees with a handheld smart POS that connects easily to various systems to stream- line sales processes and minimize human error (ConnectPOS, 2023). Furthermore, the fashion retail sector is characterized by high labor intensity, rapid inventory turnover, and sensitivity to service quality, which has drawn increased attention to employees’ readiness to use retail automation in recent research (Sun and Ha-Brookshire, 2025; Sun et al., 2026).

Funding Source

This article was published open access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Elsevier.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.1016/j.jretconser.2026.104989

Comments

First published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (2026): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2026.104989

Download

Share

COinS