In the early 1800s, “retail” involved local shopkeepers selling to their neighbors. Then, department stores came along, followed by retail megachains and, eventually, e-commerce with next-day delivery.
Where does that leave us, as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century? What’s next for retail?
Food trucks, pop-up shops, ghost kitchens, and kiosks provide a clue.
Today’s retailers are becoming increasingly mobile, meeting customers in a wider variety of locations – from street fairs and farmers markets to crowded city streets. They’re selling in public locations and accepting digital payments while working to remain compliant with government regulations. And they’re fine-tuning their back-end operations in a constant struggle to meet the modern consumer’s demand for convenience and efficiency.
In this fast-paced, distributed retail environment, digital connectivity is paramount. Lose the internet, and you lose your ability to process payments – meaning your revenue comes to an immediate halt.
So how can retailers stay connected, even as they become increasingly mobile?
By thinking wireless first.
As our supplier Lumen explains, “A wireless‑first architecture does not eliminate wired connectivity – it recognizes that resilience and speed to operation matter more than rigid, single dependency designs.”
Below, we’ll take a closer look at retail’s distributed future – and explain how wireless technology provides the reliable connectivity that modern retailers so desperately need.
Where Retail Is Going
Few industries evolve faster than retail. It’s a highly competitive sector, where owners and managers strive for new ways to beat out the competition.
Amid the constant struggle to better meet customers’ needs, here are a few trends that are particularly relevant to how retailers interact with technology.
Distributed Models
Many retailers are abandoning brick-and-mortar storefronts for operating models that allow them to meet customers in a wider variety of locations.
In the restaurant sector, this trend manifests itself in the form of food trucks. Once a novelty, these mobile vendors – now selling everything from fried chicken to Asian fusion cuisine – have come to form a $2.8 billion industry.
Pop-up shops represent another popular innovation. Retailers will suddenly “pop up” in a vacant storefront or well-trafficked thoroughfare, planning to sell for just a few days or weeks before disappearing and “popping up” somewhere else. This model plays on consumers’ appetite for novelty, and it’s grown into its own industry earning $80 billion each year.
“For distributed retail environments – new store openings, pop‑ups, temporary sites, or remodels – the economic and operational advantages are significant: faster deployment, reduced downtime risk, and flexibility to adapt network capacity as demand changes. Wireless‑first architectures outperform wired‑only models not because wireless replaces fiber, but because intelligence, automation, and multiple access technologies are designed to work together from the outset.” – Lumen
Blending the “Physical” and the “Digital”
Retailers are increasingly blurring the lines between “physical” and “digital” models, all in pursuit of enhancing the customer experience.
Some brick-and-mortar stores have started offering customers an online shopping experience that resembles standard online shopping. Then, they allow those customers to gather their purchases through curbside pickup.
A subset of savvy restaurateurs has also abandoned the notion of dining rooms, instead operating as “ghost kitchens” that exclusively serve customers who order online. This allows them to more efficiently cater to the desires of modern diners.
A Focus on Back-End Operations
Efficiency has always been a principal concern for retailers. Sorting out supply chain kinks, properly managing inventory, and avoiding waste all allow businesses to limit their operation costs, turning revenues into profits.
New technologies, especially AI and IoT sensors, help retailers attain levels of operational efficiency that were once unimaginable. But to operate properly, these IT solutions need to be incorporated into a broader IT infrastructure that limits downtime and prioritizes connectivity.
What Modern Retailers Need From Their Networks
Whether adopting a distributed model or simply looking to optimize back-end efficiency, modern retailers need an internet network they can count on. Without a reliable connection, the whole operation comes to a halt – and the revenue stops flowing.
Here are some factors that retailers absolutely need from their networks:
- Consistent Uptime. For modern retailers, internet outages aren’t just inconvenient; they’re catastrophic. Workflows stall, payments can’t be processed, and customers walk away angry. The resulting revenue loss and reputational damage can derail an otherwise-thriving business.
- Seamless (and Compliant) Payment Processing. Today’s retailers are operating in a post-cash reality. A remarkable 73% of in-store transactions are now paid without cash. That means point-of-sale systems have to accept credit cards and digital payments, and they need to remain online – all while meeting the standards of Payment Card Industry (PCI) regulations.
- Connectivity In Hard-to-Reach Places. One day, a food truck operates right in the city center. The next, it travels to a music festival held in an open field. The owner requires an internet connection that will work in both locations.
To learn more about the needs of modern retailers, read The Retail Risks Most Leaders Don’t See [link].
Wireless Technology: Meeting Business Needs
As Intelisys Wireless and IoT Program Director Chris Whitaker says, “Modern infrastructure isn’t about speed alone – it’s about resilience, automation, and protecting revenue in environments where downtime is unacceptable.”
“In practice,” Lumen adds, “wireless‑first means architecting connectivity with multiple active paths, where broadband, fiber, and wireless work together under centralized orchestration.”
Two wireless technologies combine to meet those critical needs:
- Cellular Gateways. This technology provides connectivity via SIM cards in locations where wired internet isn’t feasible. It also provides automatic failover, making it an invaluable backup even when fiber internet connections are available.
- SD-WAN. This network architecture combines wired and wireless connections into a single intelligent system, rerouting traffic when a portion of the network fails.
Together, these technologies form the basis of a scalable, retail-friendly wireless infrastructure.
“Solutions such as Lumen SD‑WAN paired with managed wireless failover and eSIM‑enabled LTE/5G connectivity illustrate how this model functions as an integrated system rather than a collection of backups. When a wired circuit degrades, traffic shifts automatically to wireless, often without disruption to point‑of‑sale, inventory, or customer‑facing applications.” – Lumen
What Wireless Infrastructure Delivers
For modern retailers, developing wireless infrastructure is about more than just getting “the latest thing.” It establishes the digital foundation for long-term success in an increasingly mobile and fast-paced environment.
Here are three clear-cut advantages that wireless infrastructure holds for retailers.
Cost Savings
For many retailers, especially those leveraging mobile or temporary formats, wireless infrastructure represents the most cost-effective way to get internet access.
Traditional fiber networks come with considerable installation costs. For example, a standard underground system requires installers to (a) dig trenches, (b) lay the actual cables, and (c) buy and deposit backfill to restore the landscape. All of that costs money. A retailer can avoid those costs by opting for wireless infrastructure instead.
Wireless infrastructure also supports a wide range of hardware solutions and IoT devices that provide additional savings for retailers.
For example, a retailer can adopt a reliable wireless network, and then use it to connect:
- Cameras
- “Smart” shelves
- Inventory sensors
- Temperature monitors
- Asset tracking devices
These solutions will reduce waste, enhance compliance, and increase operational visibility – all of which should produce additional savings.
For a closer look at hardware options in retail settings, download our eBook: The Invisible Infrastructure of Retail.
Revenue Protection
It can be easy to overlook just how much an internet outage can cost a business in revenue, especially when those outages occur at peak business times.
Consider this simple formula for measuring the lost revenue associated with an outage:
Lost Revenue = Revenue per Hour × Outage Time
Now, imagine an outage coming at a particularly inopportune time, like Super Bowl Sunday for a pizza shop, or lunch hour for a downtown taco truck. A reliable wireless infrastructure prevents those outages and protects a retailer’s revenue.
Safeguarded Reputation
We’ve all been there as customers: Standing in a line that’s surprisingly long, watching everyone around us getting annoyed, feeling our patience abandon us until finally an employee admits what we all suspected – Sorry, our system is down!
For many customers, the resulting frustration and disappointment is a long-term dealbreaker.
Research shows that 1 in 3 customers will abandon a brand after just one bad experience. When a retailer invests in wireless backup to prevent internet outages, they protect themselves from that sort of devastating reputational damage.
Mobility
There are some businesses, like food trucks and pop-up shops, for which the ability to access networks on-the-go is absolutely essential. But even for brick-and-mortar establishments, it’s a long-term benefit because it provides valuable flexibility.
With traditional fiber networks, the infrastructure is buried in the ground around a business. This sunk cost presents yet another obstacle to moving to a new site when the business climate demands it.
By opting for wireless infrastructure, retailers give themselves the flexibility to change locations in the future and bring their networks with them. They can also open new locations more quickly, making wireless a key ingredient for boosting a retailer’s “speed to revenue.”
Customer Intelligence
Savvy retailers make strategic changes in response to customer behavior. When they see that foot traffic increases during certain times, or when they notice that customers tend to linger longer on certain days, it allows them to make smarter decisions around marketing and inventory.
But how can retailers gain these sorts of insights?
One way is by offering guest Wi-Fi, and then using the data from that network to understand customer behavior. In this way, wireless infrastructure becomes a secret weapon in the struggle to optimize retail operations.
AI Enablement
AI can be a genuine game-changer for retailers, gathering data from a variety of sources (POS systems, inventory sensors, security cameras, and more) and using that data to assist with critical business decision-making.
But for AI systems to work, they need to have reliable access to accurate data. If the data is incorrect, or if it’s only gathered sporadically, the AI systems will provide faulty insights. And often, faulty insights are worse than no insights at all.
Imagine a restaurant turning down the temperature in the refrigerator because the AI tool said the air was too warm. Well, if the system was mistaken because a spotty internet connection disrupted the reading, then the restaurant’s intervention could make the refrigerator too cold – resulting in a frozen batch of ingredients just as the dinner rush begins.
A reliable internet connection is essential for ensuring AI receives accurate data. That’s why, especially in the fast-paced retail world, a wireless network with automatic failover is essential for the effective deployment of AI.
Wireless Use Cases
With its lower costs and enhanced reliability, wireless infrastructure is ideal for a wide variety of retailers. And there are a few modern retail business models for which the advantages of wireless are particularly clear.
Here are four prominent wireless use cases in retail:
- Coffee Kiosk. Imagine a Scooter’s Coffee location, plopped in the middle of a parking lot. In this location, a traditional fiber network simply isn’t feasible. A wireless network will provide reliable, high-speed internet where cables could never reach.
- Food Truck. When a business is mobile by nature, its network has to be mobile, too. And thanks to the automatic failover that cellular gateways provide, the food truck’s connection will not become unreliable, even on the go.
- Ghost Kitchen. The ghost kitchen model is built on two ideas: taking advantage of online ordering and reducing overhead. A reliable wireless network allows the orders to keep coming, while the lack of fixed cables means the business can more easily relocate if cheaper real estate becomes available.
- Pop-up Shop. No matter what they’re selling, modern retailers need to accept credit cards if they want to avoid turning customers away. A reliable wireless network allows pop-up shopkeepers to run a modern point-of-sale (POS) system from wherever they happen to be operating.
These use cases show how wireless infrastructure is ideal for retailers, especially the distributed retailers at the cutting edge of the nascent retail revolution.
Lose the Wires, and Gain Resilience
For retailers, adopting wireless infrastructure isn’t just an IT decision. It’s part of a broader strategic commitment to resilience, flexibility, and reliability – the very traits that lead to success in the modern retail economy.
As Intelisys’s Chris Whitaker says, “Retailers without SD-WAN and cellular backup are one outage away from closing their doors – while their competitors keep ringing the register.”
Learn More
For additional resources on how IT solutions can meet the needs of modern retailers, check out the Intelisys Retail Hub.