How Zebra Technologies might save the department store

E-commerce is squeezing conventional retailers hard. But their struggle is a business opportunity for Zebra Technologies. One of the few ways that brick-and-mortar merchants like Macy's or Sears think they can at least slow the loss of sales to Amazon is to let customers order online but pick up or return merchandise in their stores. To do that, retailers have to know exactly what's on the shelf in their stores at all times. That's where Zebra comes in. The company, best known for bar-code labels used to tag everything from jeans to hospital patients, also sells RFID equipment that stores can use for real-time inventory.