In advance of the Retail Technology Show, it was a pleasure to attend a panel session today with some of the industry leading retailers who discussed how retailers are preparing themselves for the next era of commerce evolution.
The retailers on the panel were:
- Jim Hingston, Digital & Tech Director, Azzuri Group (Zizzi, ASK, Coco di Mama)
- Pentland Brands’ VP of Digital Product, Ana Machado da Silva
- Will Lockie from luxury skincare brand, Noble Panacea
- River Island’s Director of Technology, Meriel Neighbour
- Yathu Kanagaratnam, Head of Technology & AI, Goddiva (fashion marketplace)
Data & Customer ownership
One thing was abundantly clear and that is the challenge of data. With website cookies on the decline, the consumers who outright reject cookies, Safari deleting cookies after 7 days, and guest checkouts, it’s becoming ever harder to market to consumers.
Retailers are looking at new ways to engage audiences, for example Pentland’s Ana Machado da Silva talked about the power of events such as a run, which, while will only be open to a limited number of participants, can with social marketing reach a much wider audience. I view this very much in the same light as inviting an Auntie living in Australia to your 21st birthday party – you know they’re not going to turn up but they feel a part of the celebrations just because they received an invitation.
Another point River Island’s Meriel Neighbour raised was the circular economy and the rise of Vinted. Retailers want to own the entire lifecycle of their products and the utopia is for resale to occur on their own website. Talking of Pentlands brands, Ana Machado da Silva emphasised the importance of lifetime ownership as a marketing ploy, with examples of a leather coat with a life time warranty and helmets that would be replaced for free in the event of a crash.
Speed to market and speed to exit
Many of the panel have migrated to Shopify and headless commerce is driving innovation. Godiva’s Yathu Kanagaratnam points out that a feature that once took £50k to implement and a two year contract is now down to £5k to implement and a six month contract. Meriel Neighbour talked about the choice of Shopify Apps available and perhaps even more importantly Ana Machado da Silva spoke about the speed to exit features that didn’t prove worthwhile. Whereas once you’d be tied into a contract, now it’s a month to month payment and the only thing stopping retailers turning a feature off is the impact on consumers – for instance if it’s a wish list or review feature it’s not desirable to lose the data.
AI and Agentic Commerce
AI is driving innovation and just about all retailers are using it in one form or another. What was once the realm of developers is now down to creating the code with the important part being able to validate AI generated code.
But AI shopping and Agentic Commerce is just around the corner and this highlights the thirst for customer data according to Meriel Neighbour. An AI buying through a guest checkout leaves ownership of the customer in a very grey area with limited data and ability to run loyalty programmes. AI is moving fast and Meriel reckons it’ll be a reality in the UK as early as September this year.
Retail Technology Show
The Retail Technology Show takes place on the 22nd to 23rd of April and the one thing you can be assured of that in 2026 there will be more new and emerging commerce tech than ever before. It’ll span just about every segment of retailer from in-store and digital and sectors from fashion to hospitality. You can register for your ticket here.
