Do Exceptional Retail Experiences Actually Drive Profit?

Designed for retail leaders and lovers alike, Retail Refined explores the in-store technology of the future, challenges the industry’s preconceived notions, and brings together retail’s biggest names to understand the brand strategies that will define the next decade in retail.

 

Customer experience is a priority for any retail space. Understanding their behaviors and identifying opportunities helps brands maximize those experiences. Companies that do this take this spatial intelligence and can accurately attribute ROI to efforts. Discussing this technology innovation, Retail Refined host Melissa Gonzalez spoke with Ken Jackowitz, Chief Strategy Officer and General Manager of TideSmart. TideSmart is an experiential agency with expertise in designing wellness solutions, retail spaces, and experience analytics.

“The insights business focuses on space utilization and helping clients post-COVID think differently about space and maximize for the time of day or how people are behaving,” Jackowitz explained.

One of the biggest gaps in spatial marketing or merchandising is knowing the ROI. To understand this, you have to examine the behavior of the people as they come into contact with it.

“In traditional retail merchandising, what’s the value of the end cap? You don’t know how many people were looking at it but didn’t buy it. Was it the wrong product? Presentation? Spatial intelligence solutions close the gap.” – Ken Jackowitz

How this works without becoming a cost burden is by using the existing infrastructure of cameras. They can collect the data, which then gets uploaded to the cloud, where AI processes it.

One thing this can help with is grouping customers. “In a grocery store, there are traffic counters, but it’s not a one-to-one usually. There are families, and they are a grouping, which may change your staffing and inventory,” Jackowitz noted.

Another aspect of the technology is face-to-face AI. It’s like taking the recorded call center conversation to a live space. “The last mile is the conversation between two people. You can capture these key moments of truth and provide them in a dashboard to a customer. AI calls out areas of opportunity like retraining a subset of people,” Jackowitz shared.

Listen to Previous Episodes of Retail Refined Right Here!

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

career
Stop Chasing Titles, Build a Career That Matters: A CAO’s Advice on Long-Term Success
March 11, 2026

Career advice in finance and accounting often centers around promotions, titles, and compensation. But in an era where professionals frequently change jobs every few years—the average American worker now stays in a role for less than four years—industries are facing growing talent shortages and reevaluating what long-term career success looks like. The question many…

Read More
Career success
A CEO’s Blueprint for Career Success: Leading with Love to Drive Performance and Culture
March 10, 2026

Leadership right now feels heavier than it did just a few years ago. Teams are stretched, expectations are high, and many employees are quietly disengaged. In fact, Gallup’s 2025 U.S. data shows that only about 31% of employees are actively engaged at work, leaving the majority feeling disconnected or indifferent. For CEOs and senior…

Read More
employer-sponsored apprenticeships
The Degree That Pays You Back: How Employer-Sponsored Apprenticeships Are Rewriting Higher Ed
March 9, 2026

Higher education is under pressure. Over the past few years, public confidence in the value of a four-year degree has declined significantly, with fewer Americans expressing a strong belief that traditional higher education delivers a worthwhile return on investment. At the same time, employers consistently report that graduates lack job-ready skills—particularly the “durable skills”…

Read More
Denial Data
Turning Denial Data Into Action: How Healthcare Organizations Can Fight Back Against Payer Denials
March 5, 2026

Healthcare providers across the U.S. are facing a growing wave of claim denials that is putting pressure on already strained hospital finances. Industry research from the American Hospital Association shows that nearly 15% of medical claims submitted to private payers are initially denied, forcing hospitals and health systems to spend about $19.7 billion annually attempting…

Read More