Zondre Watson
SWPA to Host Free AI Webinar Series for Adult Retailers
The Sexual Wellness Professional Alliance (SWPA) will host "The AI Ladder," a free three-part webinar series designed to help adult retailers incorporate artificial intelligence into their daily operations.
How Retailers Can Turn AI-Assisted Reporting Into a Scheduled Workflow
If you have been following this series, you know I have been climbing a ladder. First, I asked an AI model to do a task. Then I got tired of explaining the task every time, so I wrote a skill, a reusable set of instructions, and put it in a project folder with everything the task needed.
Why Retail Expertise Is Essential When AI Tools Analyze Store Data
Somewhere in one of our stores, someone scanned a barcode into a quantity field. The number entered was 8,388,607. At $19.99 per unit, that made a single line item worth roughly $167 million. The number was so large that the import failed immediately.
Tips for Giving Retail Software the Context to Make Smarter Decisions
A little while back, one of our stores needed to restock a bullet, a dependable counter seller. The manager ordered six. We received 12 fishbowls, not six bullets. Twelve fishbowls.
Why AI Success in Adult Retail Starts With Understanding Daily Operations
We manage payroll across more than a dozen entities that operate on different schedules. Every pay period, someone had to log in to one portal, download reports, rename files, upload them to another system, and make sure everything matched correctly in QuickBooks.
Building an Ecommerce Engine That Bridges Online and Retail Sales
Most independent retailers couldn't afford to build, host and manage a real ecommerce site well, so we leaned on the distributor's site and accepted the friction.
How AI Is Turning Adult Retailers Into Developers, No Degree Required
Every long relationship with software hits a point where you realize the tool isn’t exactly what you need. It does what the vendor assumes you need, often created by engineers who have never counted units in a stockroom or looked at countless stockouts and wondered which ones really matter.
Automating Retail Accounting With AI
With 21 locations, I’m pretty much always hiring. Unfortunately, the employment market these days can be chaotic, as candidates send out applications across dozens of job boards with a single click. For managers like me, this results in more time spent sorting through signals and static.
How AI Is Modernizing Retail HR
With 21 locations, I’m pretty much always hiring. Unfortunately, the employment market these days can be chaotic, as candidates send out applications across dozens of job boards with a single click. For managers like me, this results in more time spent sorting through signals and static.
A Hands-On Review of AI Camera Monitoring for Retail
Last month, I outlined the main AI-powered loss prevention options available to businesses: DIY solutions, hosted services and enterprise platforms. This time, I decided to test one out myself. I contacted a cloud video platform that integrates with Lightspeed POS and scheduled a demo.
How AI-Powered Loss Prevention Can Help Your Store
Years ago, I was deeply involved in upgrading the security camera system at a store in Hawaii. The process took several months. We provided store diagrams, mapped out camera lines of sight, waited for quotes, then coordinated with a contractor to install everything. It cost thousands — and by the time I left that position, the system still wasn’t fully operational.
Tips for Upgrading Retail Merchandising With AI
When an order from CalExotics arrived at one of our stores in Livermore, I wanted to help build the wall. After reorganizing it, I took a picture and asked ChatGPT what it thought of the wall. First, it noticed a gap in the top row and recommended adding a toy there or changing the spacing. Then it said, “I noticed there are some toys on the right that aren’t in boxes. You should take those down or put them in boxes.”
Zondre Watson Levels Up POS, E-Commerce Solutions for Ero-Tech
When POS systems malfunction or fail, Zondre Watson is Ero-Tech's go-to tech guy. A self-described “data geek and eternal retail rebel,” Watson knows adult retail inside and out. He’s experienced the sex toy industry as a store manager, sales data enthusiast and web developer.
Why It's Time for Adult Retail to Embrace AI
In the late 1980s, I was working in the rental car business. My first company didn’t have a single computer. Everything — contracts, inventory, employee records — was done by hand. If you wanted a report, you dug through paper files and crunched numbers on a calculator. It was tedious, but it was all we knew.