Over the course of my retail career, I've been able to build brands and invest in customer experience. At other times, I've run businesses where I had to pull out the discounts to make a sale and put cash in the bank "today" at the expense of long-term strategy. It continues to be physical experiences that raise and re-frame brand profiles that excite me. I've seen two recently.

Thanks to the National Retail Federation for inviting me to cover last week’s big event in Dallas. While I listened to speakers, walked the Expo Hall of tech vendors, and concurrently followed #shoporg16 on Twitter, I naturally reflected on what I heard more or less about relative to past trends and my expectations. 

To compete for traffic and sales, retailers need to meet consumers where they are - in mobile apps - and reach them before they've decided what they need to buy and gone to Amazon.

The company making both of these objectives possible is Button.

The shift in shopping traffic from Google and individual retail sites to Amazon obviously is a concerning one for retailers and brands of all sizes. So retailers need a new way to reach app-immersed consumers when a specific purchase is likely, but not yet underway. This is called contextual commerce and Button is doing it.