We have outlined the big data paradigm and its uses in retailing. We also descibed some of the possible applications and challenges. Even if big data approaches are developed by internet companies,such methods can be applied in the retailing domain. We have also briefly elaborated an area that needs further investigation : the intergration of big data and MAS paradigm to cope with the massive parallelism. The use of big data leads to improved decision making, and performing actions on the basis of decisions is another area where the multi-agent paradigmis a good complement to big data technologies.