Retailers need to meet rising consumer expectations while managing costs and strict compliance requirements. Shoppers expect reliable E-commerce platforms, seamless payments, and consistent in-store experiences, as well as personalized, real-time interactions. At the same time, businesses must protect margins while complying with regulations. According to Gartner, 91% of retail IT leaders are expected to prioritize AI by 2026, and IDC projects retail will be among the top three industries driving AI investment. To keep up, retailers need cloud infrastructure that can deliver speed, scalability, and cost control, supporting commerce workloads today and expanding into AI projects when required.

Infrastructure designed for retail

Retailers depend on infrastructure that keeps commerce running reliably while adapting to rapid change. Vultr delivers high-performance cloud compute and bare metal as the foundation, with Vultr Kubernetes Engine (VKE) and autoscaling ensuring platforms scale seamlessly through seasonal peaks and daily demand. When retailers are ready to expand into AI, Vultr Cloud GPU provides access to AMD Instinct™ and NVIDIA GPUs, making it simple to add personalization, forecasting, and analytics. With PCI DSS compliance, regional data residency, and a fast-deploy marketplace, Vultr provides a commerce-first cloud that is agile and free from lock-in.

The growing role of AI and real-time analytics

Retailers are beginning to use AI to improve operations and customer engagement. Use cases include product tagging, personalized promotions, conversational shopping, and predictive replenishment. Vultr supports this shift with cloud GPU, managed Kubernetes, and serverless inference, enabling retailers to deploy and scale AI workloads in production when they create measurable value, without making them a dependency of the core commerce stack.

Flexibility without the hyperscaler trade-offs

Legacy commerce platforms and hyperscaler clouds often slow down innovation with hidden costs, rigid ecosystems, and lock-in. Retailers need transparent pricing and open integration to protect budgets and move faster. Vultr delivers predictable, transparent pricing, 30–50% lower than hyperscalers, plus open APIs, Terraform, and 32 global cloud data center regions, giving retailers the agility to innovate without compromise.

Practical use cases in retail

Retailers are already using Vultr to modernize E-commerce, unify operations, and deliver new in-store experiences with speed, flexibility, and predictable costs.

• E-commerce hosting - With Vultr Cloud Compute and Vultr Marketplace stacks like WooCommerce and PrestaShop, retailers can launch and scale storefronts quickly and affordably. WebArc cut hosting costs while gaining the flexibility to expand its E-commerce business with Vultr.
• Customer engagement - Personalized, seamless communication is critical for retail success. 3CX runs on Vultr to deliver chat, voice, and video engagement worldwide, boosting customer satisfaction and lowering telecom costs. This scalability ensures brands can engage customers across every channel with confidence.
• Omnichannel commerce - Retailers need consistent, reliable order management across web, mobile, and in-store channels. By running OMS and POS workloads on Vultr, businesses can unify order flows, payments, and loyalty programs across regions, ensuring smooth operations and consistent customer experiences without the overhead of hyperscalers.
• AI personalization - Shoppers expect curated experiences, from style recommendations to try-ons. StyleGenie used Vultr Cloud GPU to deliver AI-driven fashion personalization, reducing returns and increasing engagement. Vultr enables these experiences at scale, with the performance needed for real-time results.
• In-store innovation - AI isn’t limited to digital. IoT devices and edge AI deployed on Vultr are helping retailers monitor shelves, ensure planogram compliance, and detect theft. Retail IoT projects powered by Vultr give stores real-time visibility to improve efficiency and customer service.
• Predictive intelligence - Accurate forecasting drives profitability. Avian.io benchmarked its AI product tagging engine on Vultr Cloud GPUs, processing massive catalogs at 351 tokens per second. This kind of speed makes it possible to analyze sales trends and automate replenishment with accuracy.

Why retailers choose Vultr

Retailers choose Vultr for its performance, affordability, and flexibility. Unlike hyperscalers, Vultr offers flat-rate pricing and avoids lock-in. Unlike smaller clouds, Vultr delivers enterprise-grade compliance throughout 32 cloud data centers regions around the world. Teams can accelerate launches, personalize customer journeys, and improve efficiency while keeping costs predictable and innovation open.

Get started today

Learn more about how Vultr can accelerate your retail transformation, or speak with our team.