Digital Commerce 360

The Kroger Co. hired a new executive to oversee its ecommerce operations, and the move will bring two decades of experience to an important role for the grocer. Nate Faust will formally take on the position of executive vice president and chief ecommerce officer at Kroger as of Sept. 1, the company announced. His appointment comes more than a year after Kroger established a new ecommerce business unit within its organization, run by its chief digital officer.

Home Depot-owned SRS Distribution has entered into an agreement to acquire Lohmiller & Company, a Denver-based wholesale heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) distributor with four locations in Colorado. The move marks the second addition to SRS’s growing HVAC offerings. The companies did not disclose terms of the deal. SRS was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in McKinney, Texas.

Non-alcoholic beer brand Bero has grown its distribution presence, expanding into retailers including Walmart, Kroger and Publix, and it has developed an internal portal to support such B2B processes, according to Declan Duggan, vice president of sales. The brand, which launched in late 2024, also sells through Target, H.E.B., Albertsons and other retailers. Part of the next step to its distribution strategy is entering corner stores, according to Duggan.

The Home Depot has announced that Ted Decker, its chair, president and CEO, will take a temporary medical leave of absence. In a press release posted to its website, the company said it expects Decker to return “within the next few months.” It did not specify further. Decker has been with Home Depot since February 2000. His role as Home Depot’s president and CEO began in March 2022.

For online retailers that expect to see peak sales arrive during the 2026 holiday season, preparations in the months and year ahead can make or break their end-of-year results. As the back-to-school season gives way to Labor Day weekend, Halloween and eventually the Cyber 5, which includes Thanksgiving and the four days that follow, retailers are already making important choices.

Target Corp. has announced that it’s appointing its first-ever chief AI officer, who begins in the role on Aug. 24. Chandu Nair will become Target’s senior vice president and first chief AI officer, the retailer announced Aug. 11. In the same announcement, Target said Purvi Shah will become senior vice president of user experience.

Outdoor furniture retailer Polywood has been using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to unpack customer trends and strengthen its personalization, according to Ben Spiegel, its chief digital officer. The retailer uses Anthropic’s Claude to help construct its code bases, Spiegel told Digital Commerce 360.

US Foods Holding Corp. went into detail about its plans for digital and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities as the company reported net sales growth for its fiscal Q2 ended June 27. The distributor reported that Q2 net sales increased by 4.5% year over year to $10.5 billion. Over the same period, gross profit expanded by 8.0% to $1.9 billion.

Etsy CEO Kruti Goyal said she thinks about artificial intelligence (AI) in three ways: making the online marketplace more personal and more discoverable, while learning how the next generation of the shopping experience is going to evolve. She noted that agentic AI experiences still account for less than 1% of Etsy’s overall traffic as of the end of its fiscal Q2 2026. AI trends are still comparable to what Etsy noticed earlier this year, she said.

Holiday shopping is entering a new era. AI is changing how consumers search, compare, and buy products online, while retailers race to modernize operations and improve customer experiences. To stay competitive, merchants are investing in AI-powered solutions that strengthen marketing performance, optimize fulfillment, and create more personalized shopping journeys ahead of the 2026 holiday season.