NCR Voyix Blog

As the holiday rush settles down and 2025 kicks off, retailers are looking ahead at the trends that will shape their business this year. Like many of our customers, our team spent three insightful days at the 2025 NRF Conference and Expo exploring the key factors shaping today’s retail landscape.

It’s January, which means it’s time for NRF: retail’s big show to kick off the year. Retailers from around the world will gather in New York City to discuss industry trends, discover emerging technology, and make connections.

In grocery retail, delivering a superior consumer experience has become a critical differentiator in an increasingly competitive market, especially as today’s consumers have more options than ever. Consumers have choices ranging from how they shop—from in-store shopping to mobile apps and online platforms—to where they shop, with more competition on loyalty, price and range.

Millions of people dream of opening a restaurant, but running a restaurant of your own is a big step, and a huge accomplishment! As you know, the work doesn’t end at opening—figuring out what does and doesn’t work in a restaurant is a job of its own, not to mention understanding what it takes to expand to make your business bigger and better.

Shrink. It’s a word that many retailers don’t like to hear or even think about too much. Also referred to as merchandise loss, this major challenge carries with it many secondary problems, from compromised operational efficiency to diminished revenues. Often cited in earnings reports as a cause for tighter margins and other unfavorable outcomes, shrink affects retailers everywhere: from small and mid-sized businesses to larger enterprise operations.

The holiday season is upon us, and for many restaurant operators, this can be the busiest and most profitable time of year. With people dining out more often to celebrate or save time, the increased demand presents a golden opportunity to maximize profits and reward your staff with increased tips. However, this time of year can also present challenges, and it’s important not to let the busyness of the season negatively affect your restaurant’s operations or the customer experience. The holidays are the season of giving, so here are a few key ways to give your guests the holiday experience they want:

At the beginning of October, a team from NCR Voyix attended the 2024 NACS show in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was an exciting year for the annual show for convenience and fuel retailers, showcasing advancements and trends in five overarching categories: in-store merchandise, technology, facility operations, fuel equipment and services, and food service.

One frequently asked question that shows up in my inbox more and more often is: When moving from on-premise to cloud-hosted Loyalty, will my users still have direct access to the SQL database? Of course, the short answer is No. But there’s so much more to it than a binary yes or no answer.

Self‑checkout has become essential to modern retail, but securing it requires more than alerts and deterrents. We’ll explore how you can reduce both accidental and intentional shrink by combining AI‑driven technology with well‑trained, customer‑focused store teams.

Retailers can no longer afford architectures that fail fast and recover slowly. Edge‑enabled architectures—built on immutable operating systems and containerized workloads—offer a safer, more agile path to managing risk in distributed retail environments.

At the National Restaurant Show this year, we saw a few recurring themes regarding what’s new, exciting and innovative in the restaurant industry. From artificial intelligence to kitchen robotics, restaurants are working to stay at the cutting edge of technology to gain valuable insights and provide their customers with the best possible experience.

Reaching customers online is one of the best ways to keep them engaged and in the know about your restaurant’s happenings.