Having taken over the business just five weeks before Christmas 2016, owner Jo McBeth took a leap of faith in what she calls “the biggest impulse purchase of her whole life.” Entering the world of running a business almost entirely alone was a huge undertaking, but with the help of Square’s POS system and loyalty tools, Jo has turned her small shop into a community hub for customers that come back time and time again.  

A gift for all 

From hand-made cards to jewellery ranges, children’s toys, ceramics and candles, customers find themselves stepping through the doors of Chirpy when they want to purchase something special. 

“It’s one-of-a-kind items that are the true selling point of the business,” says Jo. “I tend not to get a lot of the same products. For example, we’ll stock two or three candles, each at different price points. I choose items that are useful and practical – and beautiful at the same time! My motto is that I wouldn’t sell anything that I wouldn’t buy myself.” 

With community at the heart of her business, Jo sources cards, exclusively from independent brands and makers. Selling almost 9,500 cards a year, she describes them as “the bread and butter of the business.”  

Community at the heart

For Jo, running her business solo means she has many roles to play, from manning the till, to stock purchasing, curating the store, and running social media accounts. But it’s the relationship development that’s her favourite role. 

“I take pride in knowing my customers that come into the shop; knowing their names, and what’s going on in their lives. I try to make it a priority to get to know them and understand what they’re looking for,” 

It’s not just Chirpy that builds that community feeling, but the surrounding independent coffee shops, fruit stores, local bookshops and independent toy shops too. “It’s very much the kind of place where people on a Saturday will come and shop along the street to get everything they need in one go.” 

It’s a pattern reflected across the country. According to Square’s recent Local Economy Report, four in five shoppers say their relationship with their favourite local business goes beyond transactional – they value being recognised, feeling a sense of belonging, and knowing the other person behind the counter.   

Loyalty, in store and out

For Jo, meeting those expectations starts with keeping track of who her customers are and what keeps them coming back, and Square’s loyalty programme has helped her do exactly that.  

“We started using the scheme to remember our customers’ details, which was a big factor in building relationships,” says Jo. “Then about two years ago, I discovered there were so many other parts to the feature. We now send our customers vouchers for their birthdays and give them rewards on their anniversary of loyalty to the store via email. We can even send them a reminder that they have a reward to spend, and my customers find it very simple, smooth and quick.” 

Square Loyalty is also able to generate reports to summarise what has been spent each day and from which customer, as well as how many customers have entered the store – which is crucial for revealing the busiest times of the day. 

The best part? It can be customised to fit every business, helping them grow in return. “I’ve witnessed a 25 per cent increase in spend from customers who have enrolled into the loyalty programme. It’s a real gamechanger!”  

Smooth selling every day

Beyond loyalty, Square keeps the day-to-day running of Chirpy effortless. At a shop where 95 per cent of customers pay by card, Jo uses Square Stand – a simple tablet that puts a smarter spin on selling. 

“All my customers need to do is tap the card reader, and it’s as simple as that. Everything is done on an iPad – it’s so easy and user friendly. My customers love that it’s just really unfussy, and the fact they can get receipts sent straight to their phones or emails is a real hit. 

“We also have the Square app, so I could be serving someone at the same time as someone else in the shop, on different devices.” 

Planning for the future

That ease of use pays off in the long run, too. From helping to plan for busy periods like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Christmas, to tracking customers’ purchasing behaviours, Square helps Jo ensure her business runs smoothly. It allows Jo to look back at sales, discover what’s selling the most, and identify products that need restocking.

“I use Square to help track how many cards I’ve sold in the previous year, and in turn, this helps improve my stock management. It means I’m never overbuying. The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is to not carry too much stock, and Square is essential in keeping me on track.” 

“If I compare the business now to when I first bought it, the growth is unmatched.”  

Want to grow like Chirpy? For more information, visit Square.com.  

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For years, grocery delivery meant planning ahead. Customers filled a basket, booked a slot and waited for tomorrow, or perhaps later in the week, or even the week after. It was structured, scheduled and relatively predictable, if not acutely frustrating.

Then Covid changed the rhythm of retail.

Not only did shoppers become more comfortable buying groceries online, they became used to getting what they wanted almost immediately. Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat helped train consumers to think in minutes, not days. That expectation has now moved far beyond takeaway food.

For Joe Heather, regional general manager for northern Europe at Deliverect, this shift has created one of the most important operational challenges in grocery and convenience retail.

“Scheduled delivery and on-demand delivery are two completely different operations,” he says. “With scheduled grocery, you can use wave, batch and zone picking, consolidating orders centrally building efficiency around larger baskets. With on-demand, a driver might be turning up in 10 minutes. You have to pick quickly, accurately and get that order to the right hand-off point.”

A scheduled grocery basket may be worth £80 to £100. An on-demand basket may be closer to £18 to £28. But the operational pressure can be just as intense, if not more so. The order still needs picking, substitutions still need handling, stock still needs updating, and customers still expect visibility from the moment they press buy.

Heather believes retailers are now wrestling with a shared question. How do they connect scheduled delivery, rapid delivery, marketplace orders and direct-to-consumer channels without creating chaos in-store?

His answer is, do not treat on-demand as a smaller version of traditional online grocery.

“The two have to be operationally separated, but integrated as part of the core system,” he says.

That is where Deliverect is positioning itself. Founded in 2018, the company built its reputation in food service by helping restaurants manage orders from multiple delivery platforms in one place. Its platform integrates with partners including Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat, NCR and Oracle, standardising incoming orders, centralising product and menu management and reducing the need for staff to juggle multiple tablets, apps and systems.

Now, that same logic is becoming increasingly relevant to retail.

In many stores, the reality of rapid delivery remains clunky. Orders arrive through different marketplace devices, staff move between apps and products need to be marked unavailable in multiple places or systems integrated to multiple channels. Drivers wait, sometimes patiently, sometimes not. Customers get substitutions they don’t want. Store teams, already stretched, inherit a new set of tasks that were never part of the traditional convenience retail model.

“If you worked in a convenience store, you used to merchandise, serve customers and maybe work the till,” says Heather. “Suddenly, this third task has come in. You’ve now got an external order that you have to pick.”

That third task is not going away. In fact, Heather argues it’s only becoming more important as younger consumers move through the market. “I call it the generation game,” he says. “Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, their expectation is: I’m on my phone, I order it now, and it arrives. A next-day slot already sounds old.”

The convenience store used to win because it was physically close to the customer. But the definition of convenience has changed. If a customer can order milk, eggs, bread and cheese from the sofa and pay a few pounds for delivery, the store’s proximity matters less than its ability to fulfil quickly and reliably.

This is why the in-store technology layer has become so important. Deliverect’s Quest application brings operational controls into one system, allowing staff to manage incoming orders, store closures, amendments, substitutions, and order prioritisation from a single device.

On the back end, Deliverect synchronises with existing store systems for product range, inventory, and pricing. Once an order has been handled through the Quest device, it is then injected into the store’s operating system for reconciliation, consolidating the entire end-to-end process into one streamlined workflow.

In retail, Heather says the goal is to reduce cognitive load for store teams.

“If you’ve got Uber, Deliveroo, Just Eat, Amazon in the future, Snappy Shopper or others, they may all have different ways of surfacing orders. We minimise that into one process. It has to be simple enough that thousands of store colleagues can pick it up and start using it straight away.”

This simplicity is particularly important as retailers expand across more channels. Heather expects consolidation among major marketplaces, but not a simpler channel landscape. In fact, he believes the number of digital touchpoints will grow.

Consumers will still browse visually through apps such as Uber Eats or Deliveroo. Retailers will still want customers using their own direct channels, such as supermarket apps and rapid delivery propositions. But new interfaces are emerging too. Voice assistants, AI agents and what Heather calls “intent-based purchasing”.

In this future, a customer may not open an app at all. They may ask Siri, Alexa, Gemini or ChatGPT to reorder a familiar basket, send flowers, buy a pizza or find the cheapest branded grocery item nearby.

“Intent-based purchasing is coming,” Heather says. “You might simply say: order me two pizzas for 7pm, or get me eggs, milk, bread and cheese from Waitrose. The transaction happens without browsing.”

That shift could have major implications for retail media and brand discovery. If AI agents begin influencing where customers shop and which products are surfaced, advertising models may change dramatically. Search, marketplace promotion, loyalty pricing and sponsored placement could all be reshaped as the interface between shopper and retailer becomes less visual and more conversational.

Heather sees this as another reason retailers need more flexible infrastructure. The future will not be about one channel replacing another, but about orchestrating multiple channels, with the channel mix constantly evolving.

The same applies inside the business. Heather believes AI will increasingly automate operational tasks such as adjusting store opening times, managing peak periods, updating product availability or changing preparation windows. Deliverect, he says, is not an AI-native business, but at its core the platform has become fully AI-powered, using orchestration tools and agents to automate work that would once have required manual intervention.

However, he is careful not to overstate where the market is today. Many AI use cases remain partial, experimental or unproven. The immediate challenge for retailers is more practical. Make on-demand fulfilment work properly at store level.

That challenge is already shaping major retail decisions. Heather points to Deliverect’s work with Asda, following a long tendering process, as an example of how quickly the market is moving. Features changed, marketplace requirements evolved and retail use cases became more sophisticated during the process.

For Deliverect, its advantage is history. The business has spent years integrating with delivery platforms across the restaurant and now retail sectors, processing millions of transactions and building relationships with the major channels.

“This isn’t new for us,” Heather says. “We’ve been doing on-demand marketplace consolidation for years. Because of the scale of our relationships, we get advance warning and advise on new feature releases, which means we can start building before they are fully released.”

The on-demand grocery market is still young, but customer expectations are already unforgiving. A delayed order, a poor substitution or a frustrated driver can quickly become a lost repeat purchase.

As Heather’s insight evidences, it’s clear that rapid delivery truly is no longer a side project; it’s already a core part of convenience.

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For Xerox, the past year has been one of significant change. The company’s acquisition of Lexmark has created a much broader organisation, combining Lexmark’s strength in managed print services and retail environments with Xerox’s wider portfolio, digital services and AI capability.

At the same time, Go Inspire, the data-driven marketing services and communications business acquired by Xerox in 2022, has continued to expand its role within the group.

Danny Cook, who was recently announced as group managing director of Go Inspire, believes that much opportunity lies in connecting data, customer insight and execution across channels. Retail Gazette sat down with Cook and Danny Molhoek, president enterprise sales, Western Europe at Xerox, at the recent Retail Technology Show to discuss the biggest developments internally, and where retailers can find a competitive edge this year.

Molhoek noted that the Lexmark acquisition is first and foremost about breadth. “From a portfolio point of view, Lexmark had great products in the retail space,” he says. “With Xerox, that now expands into a much larger range of products, all the way up to production units. From the smallest device to the largest, we can bring that whole portfolio to market.”

According to Molhoek, the overlap between the two organisations is smaller than many might assume. Lexmark has historically been strong in retail, particularly in stores and distribution centres, while Xerox brings scale, global reach and additional production and services capability.

“We’ve already seen the first deals where Lexmark’s strength in managed print services for retail stores and distribution centres is being combined with Xerox production print room offerings,” he explains. “We can take that to market as one offering.”

Cook sees the same logic from the Go Inspire side of the business. While Xerox continues to diversify its revenue streams, Go Inspire adds capability around data analysis, marketing communications, customer loyalty and retention.

“We’re very strong in analysing data, looking at patterns and executing communications across any channel,” he says. “The value is in closing that loop, making sure the lifecycle around loyalty, retention and upsell is measured against the metrics that actually matter.”

For retailers, that combined offer is a huge advantage. The industry has spent years talking about seamless customer experiences, omnichannel journeys and data-driven decision-making. Yet many businesses still struggle with fragmented systems, disconnected departments and uncertainty over where to start.

Cook believes this is where Go Inspire can act as a bridge.

“We bring together strategy, data, creative and channel in one seamless place,” he says. “A lot of businesses are fragmented, so being that glue between different parts of the organisation is where we can add value.”

Molhoek agrees, adding that Xerox’s role is increasingly to act as a single point of access for customers, even when the answer involves multiple partners or specialist services. “The value we try to bring is being the one portal the customer can talk to,” he says.

One of the biggest challenges retailers face is not a lack of ambition, but paralysis. Many know where they want to get to, but struggle to move forward because of legacy technology, internal silos, cost concerns or fear of making the wrong decision.

Molhoek says this is a familiar pattern.

“People are concerned about whether the direction is still the right direction,” he says. “They keep asking that question, and sometimes it slows everything down. Often these projects start with a baseline: what have you already done, what do you have, and what additional layers can we build on top?”

Cook argues that the best way through that paralysis is to start with the outcome, not the technology.

“What is the desired outcome?” he asks. “Is it driving footfall, improving retention, building loyalty? You work back from that and build the journey. If you focus only on the output or the thing you are delivering, you miss the bigger point.”

That approach is particularly important in conversations around AI. Retailers are under pressure to explore AI, but many are still cautious about where to invest and how quickly to move. Both Molhoek and Cook believe the most successful retailers will be those that apply AI practically, rather than chasing the concept in abstract.

For Molhoek, AI’s power lies in lots of small, useful improvements that accumulate over time. “It is like change by a thousand paper cuts,” he says. “There are lots of little changes that help. AI can save time, help people make decisions quicker and automate things that used to be manual.”

One example is in grocery, where AI can be used to identify products approaching the end of shelf life and trigger pricing changes automatically.

“You can see, through cameras or phones, that strawberries on a rack are starting to go off,” Molhoek explains. “AI can help make a decision almost automatically, changing the price so they become a sale item. That can help revenue and reduce waste.”

Cook points to AI’s ability to identify customer segments that might otherwise be missed.

“In one example, the assumption was that a particular customer segment was the right one to target,” he says. “But when the purchasing data and personas were analysed, there was another segment, a very close second, that the business had not been targeting at all. That was a real ‘aha’ moment.”

However, both are clear that retailers cannot afford to wait for perfect data before acting.

“If you wait for perfection, you never get there,” says Cook. “Something that is 80 per cent there, with 20 per cent refining, is better than doing nothing. That is how you get out of paralysis. You start, test, learn and adapt.”

Molhoek takes a similar view. “How many dashboards do you need in order to make a decision?” he asks. “I need five. I don’t need 375. If the data is 80 or 90 per cent accurate, it already gives you a direction.”

However, Cook warns that, as AI becomes more embedded, brands must not become so focused on efficiency that they forget the customer.

“My concern is that some brands will go too far into making cost efficiencies with AI and forget about customer experience,” he says. “If AI saves money in one area, and that money is used to improve the customer experience, that is where brands will succeed.”

Molhoek also sees major potential for AI to improve the in-store journey, provided it is used responsibly.

“As a consumer, I don’t want to spend hours in a store trying to find what I need,” he says. “Imagine what AI could do to help people make the right choice quickly. But it has to be done in the right way. Data privacy is incredibly important, and there has to be a clear line.”

Looking ahead, neither expects retailers to suddenly embark on a wave of dramatic AI spending. Instead, they expect a more measured period of exploration, investment and practical deployment.

“Retailers will keep thinking about which direction they want to go in and where they want to invest,” says Molhoek. “I don’t think that is going to change overnight.”

“Retail is such a competitive space,” Cook adds. “The brands that rise to the top will be those who use data and AI to shift, change and adapt quickly, but without losing sight of the customer.”

For Xerox, Lexmark and Go Inspire, the opportunity is to help retailers make that shift. Connecting physical and digital channels, turning data into action, and ensuring AI is applied in ways that improve both efficiency and experience.

As Cook puts it, the principle remains simple: “No matter how much AI you have, the customer should not be forgotten.”

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For some businesses, the damage was immediate and severe. Transactions stopped, operations ground to a halt, and teams scrambled to understand how attackers had managed to infiltrate their systems so effectively. For others, the attacks acted as a chilling warning of what could happen next.

Even now, a year later, that sense of vulnerability has not fully disappeared and many retailers still speak of a lingering anxiety. But with the benefit of distance, it’s worth asking an important question. Has anything actually changed, and if so what?

Have retailers strengthened their defences in the wake of last year’s crisis? Have consumers become more wary about where they share their data? Or, are retailers simply burying their heads in the sand and crossing their fingers that it won’t happen again?

The latter, sadly, simply isn’t an option. According to Candice Pressinger, director of customer data security for Europe at Elavon, the attacks forced many retailers to confront a fundamental shift in how security needs to be approached in the modern retail ecosystem.

“Perimeter-based security simply doesn’t work anymore,” she explains. “Retail today is omnichannel. Everything is connected. Ecommerce, payments, logistics, store systems, mobile apps. The old idea that you can just build a wall around your systems doesn’t hold up in that environment.”

That realisation has accelerated the adoption of newer security frameworks, particularly zero-trust architectures. Unlike traditional security models, which assume users and devices inside a network are trustworthy, zero-trust treats every interaction as potentially risky and requires continuous verification.

Pressinger notes that research suggests around 63 per cent of organisations globally now have partial or full zero-trust implementation, reflecting how quickly attitudes have shifted since the attacks. But the biggest lesson from the past year is not simply about adopting new technologies. In many cases, the attacks exposed how fragmented retail security infrastructure had become.

“Best-in-class cyber security isn’t about buying more tools,” Pressinger says. “It’s about integration and intent.”

For years, many retailers responded to emerging threats by layering new tools on top of existing systems such as fraud detection platforms, identity verification tools, and payment security layers, often without ensuring they actually worked together effectively. The result was a patchwork of security solutions that could create just as many problems as they solved.

“Retailers now use around five security or fraud tools on average,” Pressinger explains. “That’s up from around four only a few years ago, and it shows how quickly the threat landscape is evolving.”

But more tools don’t necessarily mean stronger protection. Instead, the most effective security strategies are increasingly focused on how these systems interact with each other, sharing insights, co-ordinating responses, and forming a unified defence against emerging threats.

At the same time, retailers face another delicate balancing act of protecting their businesses, without damaging the all-important customer experience. In ecommerce, even small amounts of friction can have a measurable impact on sales. Additional verification steps, overly aggressive fraud filters, or poorly implemented security checks can quickly push customers to abandon their baskets.

For Pressinger, this is where security strategy often goes wrong. “Security should be seen as a growth lever, not something that throttles your business,” she says. In practice, that means designing systems that can detect and stop malicious activity without obstructing legitimate customers.

“Over-zealous fraud prevention isn’t good security,” she adds. “It’s just lost revenue.”

The financial stakes are significant. Research suggests the UK retail sector lost £1.1 billion to fraudulent activity last year, highlighting the scale of the challenge retailers face in protecting transactions without disrupting the flow of commerce.

Yet Pressinger believes many businesses still approach the problem from the wrong angle.

“Nearly half of merchants prioritise reducing fraud over improving customer experience,” she says. “But if your systems block good customers along with bad actors, you’re creating a different kind of risk.”

The goal, she argues, should be security systems that work quietly in the background identifying suspicious activity, while allowing legitimate transactions to move forward without interruption.

This requires increasingly sophisticated risk modelling, often powered by artificial intelligence and behavioural analysis, which can evaluate signals such as device identity, purchasing patterns, and transaction context in real time.

But while technology has advanced rapidly over the past year, one of the industry’s most significant vulnerabilities remains organisational rather than technical.

John Dobson, vice president of merchant security and fraud at Elavon, believes the biggest challenge facing many retailers is a gap between security expertise and executive leadership.

“The biggest thing retailers need is leadership that’s genuinely tech-savvy,” he says.

Emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and automation are rapidly reshaping the cyber threat landscape. Yet Dobson notes that many senior decision-makers still lack a deep understanding of how these technologies operate or the risks they introduce.

He points out that research suggests that executive confidence in AI strategies is unstable, and actually fell from 69 per cent in 2024 to just 58 per cent in 2025. “However, that will change over time,” Dobson says. “As new generations of leaders come in, that knowledge gap will narrow.”

But in the short term, he believes it creates a significant risk.

“In a lot of businesses, the focus is still on whether the numbers were hit this quarter,” he explains. “Security and resilience often get pushed down the priority list until something goes wrong.” That mindset can leave companies dangerously exposed in an era where cyber threats are evolving at unprecedented speed.

Meanwhile, the threat landscape itself shows no signs of slowing down.

Pressinger points to the rapid emergence of new technologies such as agentic AI as one example of how quickly the environment is changing. “Agentic AI is coming down the road like a juggernaut,” she says.

While these technologies offer enormous potential for businesses, they also create new opportunities for cyber criminals, who are increasingly using automation and AI to scale their attacks. For retailers, this means the idea of achieving “complete security” is unrealistic. “Security is never finished,” Pressinger says.

Instead, the focus must shift towards resilience, and building systems capable of adapting to new threats and recovering quickly when incidents occur. This involves a combination of adaptive risk models, identity-first security frameworks, and continuous scenario planning designed to anticipate how attack methods might evolve.

But perhaps most importantly, it requires a shift in mindset. “Future-ready retail isn’t about stopping every failure,” Pressinger explains. “It’s about making failure non-catastrophic.”

In other words, the goal is not to eliminate cyber risk entirely (an impossible task), but to ensure that when incidents do occur, they don’t bring an entire organisation to its knees.

That philosophy has become increasingly important as retailers recognise the long-term consequences of cyber incidents extend far beyond operational disruption. Trust, after all, is one of the most valuable currencies in modern retail. “When something goes wrong, consumers remember,” Pressinger says. “One in two customers won’t come back if their data is compromised and the issue isn’t handled well.”

For retailers, that means cyber security isn’t just a matter of protecting systems, but also protecting vital relationships with customers. And while the retail industry has undoubtedly strengthened its defences over the past year, the reality is that cyber threats continue to evolve at a relentless pace.

Retailers may be more aware of the risks they face. Their systems may be more resilient than they were twelve months ago. But the sense that the industry is operating in an increasingly hostile digital environment hasn’t disappeared.If anything, it has become the new normal. One year on from the attacks that rattled the sector, it’s clear that cyber security is an ongoing battle that could well shape the future of retail.

However, whilst caution and active protection is sensible, the positive news is that with the right protection, it’s possible for any business to effectively prevent attacks. In fact, the vast majority (80 to 90 per cent) of attacks are completely avoidable, if the right measures are in place. Now, the onus is on you to ensure that you’re protected not just for today, but for the future.

U.S. Bank Europe DAC, trading as Elavon Merchant Services, is a credit institution authorised and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority. Subject to regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority and limited regulation by the Prudential Regulation Authority. Details about the extent of our regulation by the Prudential Regulation Authority are available from us on request

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Euroshop 2026 is once again behind us, and this year over 81,000 visitors descended on the show from 141 countries.

The show, which takes place in Düsseldorf, Germany, featured over 1,840 exhibitors from 61 nations. It’s a dizzying affair with so much to do and see, and it’s easy even for those in attendance to see just a tiny
portion of the innovation on offer.

That’s why, in this episode of the Retail Gazette Unpacked podcast, we sit down with Martin Ward, senior retail consultant at Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, to discuss the very best that Euroshop had to offer, and his key takeaways, through the eyes of a true industry expert.

Toshiba took the show by storm this year with both stand presence, and with Ward sharing insight on stage, in a presentation titled ‘AI in retail: Are we doing it right?’.

Ward takes us through the innovations that truly caught his eye, the big talking points throughout the show, and his own experience of walking the many halls.

Listen now to find out what you may have missed, and what may well be the standout innovations of 2026.

Check out a short gallery of images snapped on the Euroshop floor by the Toshiba team below:

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But many are asking a harder question:

“Are we seeing workforce risk early enough to protect margin and service levels – or only once scrutiny increases?”

That’s the focus of our upcoming webinar, Hidden workforce risks in 2026 – and what leaders can change now.

Register for webinar

Thursday 5th March 2026

10am | 1 hour

We’re bringing together a panel of experts:

• Chris McCullough, Co-founder, Rotageek
• Andrew Busby, Founder, Redline Retail
• Heather Weaver, Workload Manager, Our Coop
• Sarah Cowen, Change Control and Activity Planning Manager, Currys Plc

Focusing on:

• The cost of waiting vs the cost of change
• Why insight often arrives after the financial impact

• Where operational workarounds increase leadership exposure

No product demo. Just a commercial conversation about staying in control before volatility forces reactive decisions.

Reserve your seat

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The question is, what will that look like? In today’s episode of Retail Gazette’s Unpacked podcast, we sit down with AI guru and CEO of 7Learnings, Felix Hoffmann to dig into the realities that many retailers will have to face as soon as this year.

With his unmatched experience from within both retail and evolving technologies, Hoffmann explains in no uncertain terms how agentic AI will augment the shopping experience, and what will be the commonalities within the retailers who come out on top.

To truly get to grips with retail’s next big evolution, listen now.

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Yet for many warehouses, inefficiency persists. Lost pallets, underused aisles, and inconsistent data updates. The question is no longer if automation drives ROI, but how fast you can capture it. That’s where optimisation comes in.

Why inventory integrity is just the beginning

High levels of stock integrity mean warehouses can operate with faster, more reliable workflows and optimal use of resources. But once inventory health and visibility are firmly in place, the next step is to unlock the full potential of your operations through targeted, AI-driven optimisation strategies.

By enhancing the flow of goods, maximising space utilisation, and refining processes, your operations can keep pace with rising demand with precision and speed.

In this article, Dexory outlines eight areas for warehouse optimisation, from real-time visibility and block stack digitisation to AI-powered consolidation planning and weight restriction monitoring.

1. Inventory integrity as the cornerstone of efficient operations

Manual inventory is a very lengthy process, wall-to-wall counts can take many weeks or months to complete, and they are prone to human error. Companies have reported $693,000 (£502,584) of fines can be saved by automating their cycle counting.

2. Real-time visibility that turns blind spots into insights

Only 6 per cent of logistics companies report full visibility over their operations according to an article on . This gap can mean missed opportunities, safety risks, and slower fulfilment. It has been reported that a single error takes an average of 30 minutes to trigger an investigation, costing $1,000 (£725) per incident – factoring in management oversight, system updates, and lost productivity.

3. Block stack storage visibility without disruption

What if you could eliminate the blind spots in deep storage areas? No more guessing, lifting, or forklift repositioning. Just evaluating discrepancies in real time, such as missing, miscounted, or incorrectly placed items.

4. Pick face optimisation for smarter cycle counts

Every day, your WMS generates a cycle count list. You know most of it is wasted effort, but you still have to check every single location. Instead, how about shrinking the cycle, freeing up resources, and finally getting control of your pick face locations with maximum efficiency?

5. Maximising storage utilisation

AI-powered consolidation planning can identify opportunities to group compatible items together while avoiding conflicts like mismatched batch codes or incompatible products. This reduces wasted space and unproductive travel time between storage locations. Optimal space utilisation and efficient stock handling bolster long-term reputational gains by showcasing operational excellence and dependability.

6. Improved compliance and safety with advanced slotting verification

Every warehouse faces risks from incorrect slotting. By aligning slotting with both safety and efficiency, warehouses ensure that they remain audit-ready, compliant, and secure.

7. Faster fulfilment, no picking delays

Poor replenishment leads to picker delays, slow order fulfilment and reduction in storage efficiency. But with advanced robotics and automation systems, warehouses can achieve faster fulfilment and throughput without extra headcount.

8. Weight restriction monitoring for safer, risk-free warehouses

Overloaded bays and racks put staff and infrastructure at risk. Manual checks are slow, error-prone, and often inconsistent. At the same time, WMS rules are static, they don’t prevent live overloads. With the right use of automation, warehouses can ensure risk-free operations where safety is never compromised.

Download Dexory’s latest paper to find real-world results and insights from leading logistics operators like GXO, Maersk, and Iron Mountain.

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That’s the core tension running through an extremely insightful new piece of research conducted by global AI and tech acceleration partner CI&T, called the ‘Retail Tech Reality Check’. Built on data from 2,000 consumers across the UK and Ireland, it makes for a read that may well challenge many of your preconceived ideas about the technology currently fuelling the retail industry.

Retail Gazette got the chance to sit down with Melissa Minkow, Global Director, Retail Strategy & Insights at CI&T, to unpack what the findings actually mean in practice, beyond the headlines, and where retailers are perhaps getting in their own way.

“It’s been a pivotal year,” she says. “I know we’re in unprecedented times over and over and over again, but it has been a really pivotal year from an economic perspective for consumers.” She points to changing spending behaviour, shifting promotional rhythms, and a UK consumer who is increasingly comfortable adopting new behaviours.

“We’re kind of at a tipping point, and AI is fuelling it. 64 per cent of consumers say that they think retailers should use AI to improve the shopping experience. This is six percentage points higher than what US consumers said,” she notes. “That alone was surprising. I didn’t really expect the warmer welcome over here!”

That ‘warmer welcome’ challenges a narrative that’s crept into retail’s AI discourse that the tech potential exists, but consumers are sceptical. In reality, consumer scepticism is more nuanced than that. People can be worried about privacy and still want convenience. They can distrust a retailer’s data handling and still use ChatGPT to shortcut research. They can be cautious and curious at the same time which, frankly, describes the modern shopper more accurately than any single label does.

 “And 61 per cent say that they have already used AI tools while shopping,” Minkow says, pointing to another revelation that hit hard. From her perspective, this tracks with a UK market that has often been faster to adopt digital commerce behaviours in certain categories. “I’ve repeatedly seen that there is faster ecommerce adoption here, like grocery,” she said, contrasting it with the US, where ecommerce grocery still lags behind expectations. The implication is that if the UK has already normalised certain digital habits, it makes sense that AI-assisted shopping will slip into everyday behaviour faster too.

And then there’s the wider mood. Minkow describes seeing the numbers around spending mindsets as revealing, even if the story is broadly familiar. “It was really high percentages of consumers just saying they’re pulling back on spend, and anticipating prices going up,” she notes. The difference with data, of course, is that it removes your ability to downplay what you’d rather not deal with. When the majority of shoppers tell you they’re budgeting harder, you can’t pretend loyalty will carry you through on relationship alone.

Yet some retailers simply don’t have the internal muscle yet. “They may not have the resources, they may not have the workforce that totally understands all of its capabilities,” Minkow says. Some are wary of early adoption because they’ve watched hype cycles play out badly in the past. “Being an early adopter in retail is worrying sometimes,” she adds. “We saw what happened with the Metaverse. Sometimes playing it safe can really pay off.”

But she draws a crucial distinction. AI looks less like a trend to her, and more like a competitive advantage that will compound. “I’ve even been surprised at my own excitement around AI and not thinking about it as a trend, but as a really crucial competitive advantage for retailers,” she says. That’s the point retailers need to sit with. Metaverse was a bet. AI is increasingly becoming infrastructure.

Of course, for those looking to truly make meaningful change in their organisation, the data has to be present and accurate. “Data is the foundation for AI,” Minkow says, “and you’d be surprised how many retailers don’t have their data in a good place to fully leverage AI. It’s not clean, it’s not streamlined, it’s very siloed.”

This data problem explains why so many AI initiatives get stuck at pilot stage. If your product data is inconsistent, your customer data fragmented, and your inventory logic unreliable, AI amplifies it and even leads to potentially damaging and incorrect conclusions.

It’s also worth unpacking what consumers even mean when they say they want retailers to ‘use AI’. The phrase is so broad it’s almost useless, like digital transformation or innovation, until you pin it down to a job to be done. For Minkow, the consumer definition of AI is remarkably simple. Make shopping easier and take away unwanted friction.

“The ways that they want retailers to leverage it really come down to a convenient, quick, efficient, easy shopping experience,” she says. “Consumers are so mission oriented. They just need decision support and they need help feeling certain about that.”

Minkow also makes an important point about retail’s track record of building the wrong things. “Previously retail has been kind of proactive in the wrong directions,” she says, “where you’ll see retailers offering capabilities that the consumer doesn’t care about.” If you’re a retailer and your AI strategy starts with ‘what can we build?’ rather than ‘what frustrates customers today?’, you’re already drifting.

Of course, privacy is still a headline concern. Especially in a UK retail market where high-profile incidents have made data security feel personal. But Minkow flags something that retailers should find even more unsettling, the fear that AI will be used to manipulate.

“Privacy is a huge concern,” she said, “but the secondary most common concern was this idea of being upsold or cross sold and spending too much, or the AI being biased.”

If AI recommendations feel like they’re engineered to push volume rather than help the customer, people will clock it, and they’ll resent it. Minkow’s advice here is direct: “Retailers really need to be transparent. Explain that this is truly intended to help you maximise your spend. It’s not about getting you to spend more, it’s about getting you to spend smarter.”

This is where the ethics conversation becomes commercially relevant. Bias doesn’t need to be malicious to be damaging. All it needs to be is noticeable. If the shopper feels nudged, the system stops feeling helpful and starts feeling suspicious.

The report also explores agentic AI, and it’s one of the areas where the consumer data is more advanced than the industry expects. Minkow is clear that most shoppers don’t know the term. “62 per cent had not heard the term agentic AI before,” she says, so CI&T defined it plainly. An assistant that can order items based on your preferences and purchase history.

What happened next is the interesting part: “58 per cent were interested once they read our definition,” she says, and the strongest interest was in routine purchases. The items people would happily put on autopilot. That’s where agentic AI becomes useful, in the weekly admin of life.

And that ties to one of Minkow’s most pointed observations. For many people, shopping isn’t a hobby, it’s just a task. “For a lot of consumers right now, retail is admin. Shopping is admin,” she says. That’s a brutal sentence if you’re a brand that has spent the last decade talking about experience as if everyone wants to be delighted every time they buy toothpaste.

She also challenged a belief that still sits deep in ecommerce thinking, that more time on site is always good. “A lot of times retailers have thought that the amount of time a consumer spends on your site is like the higher the time, the better the experience,” she notes. “And what I’ve tried to say is no, the faster the experience, the shorter the experience, the higher the NPS.” In other words, sometimes engagement is just trapped customers.

On physical retail, the report pushes back on another assumption that stores are fading into irrelevance. They’re not, they’re being reassigned. Minkow wasn’t surprised that shoppers still want to start journeys in-store across key categories because the reasons are human. Proximity, routine, and touch-and-feel certainty. However, agentic AI can still permeate and augment this experience to make it more efficient.

“I’m ready to start seeing pick up areas that say, ‘agent bought online, pick up in store’,” she laughs. “It’s a little different than buy online, pick up in store. We are going to have to go into brick and mortar and represent ourselves after an agent has represented us.”

As the conversation wraps, Minkow is keen to leave readers with some vital advice about what they can do today, to start aligning with the kind of future she’s discussed.

“Data is the foundation,” she says. “So many retailers are taking manual approaches. They’re still in literal spreadsheets. The faster you can get your data in a position to be easily automated, streamlined, secure, it will benefit your whole business no matter what. It literally benefits every single department. Get your data ducks in a row!”

If you want AI to be more than a nice pilot and a few internal experiments, it’s the only place to start.

To dig into the full findings, including the deeper breakdowns of consumer behaviours, concerns, and expectations, read CI&T’s full ‘Retail Tech Reality Check’ report.

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But as excitement for the medium builds, so does the complexity of the infrastructure behind it. Connecting in-store screens, smart shelves and data-driven advertising to broader RMN strategies brings unique technological, operational, and data-related challenges. One of the first questions retailers often face as they dive in is, build or buy?

Building a network from the ground up enables more intuitive customisation, greater scalability, and futureproofing. On the other hand, deploying an off-the-shelf solution can be faster and easier. Making the right decision requires careful examination of the advantages, tradeoffs, and OPEX of each path to determine which best aligns with your long-term retail media strategy. As more retailers are finding, hybrid architecture is on the rise, which may just be the best fit yet.

Risks versus benefits

With in-store advertising quickly becoming a larger retail media networks consideration, it’s easy to feel pressured to launch a network fast. An all-in-one option may require less upfront technical and team resources, but it also often comes with hidden OPEX costs and long contracts that can be difficult to navigate and hamper long-term gains. As you evaluate your options, it’s important to consider whether a fixed solutions provider has your best interests in mind. Are they listening to your needs or pushing their own agenda, without providing the flexibility you need to achieve your RMN goals and evolve with market shifts?

Many retailers who initially opted for this path are now running into limitations, as most off-the-shelf solutions currently only support fairly generic content and ads that run on a loop at set times, also known as static looped content. Engaging shoppers with more dynamic, personalised content that’s timely and relevant to them is where in-store shines, so lacking this ability is a huge miss. Retailers can achieve a more robust and custom in-store media network by building it from scratch, but that typically requires substantial upfront resources and can be difficult to scale quickly.

However, a hybrid architecture or modular approach offers the best of both worlds. In this case, a retailer assembles a custom tech stack of third-party solutions that manage some of the heavy network operations and maintenance lifting. Once a network backbone is established, they can then plug in the best solutions to meet their goals and manage network elements, from audio to RMN platforms, content management, owned communications, programmatic revenue, and beyond.

While this approach may be more time-consuming in the short term than adopting an all-in-one solution, it’s much faster than building entirely from scratch and lets retailers maintain full network control with no long-term contract commitments. Solutions that offer flexibility, customisation, ownership, and plug-and-play integration into the network backbone are ideal for maximum effectiveness.

With the right pipes in place, retailers can generate and push out more dynamic content based on triggers, like time of day and weather, to entice and engage shoppers in a more organic and interesting way than just looped static content. What’s more, the technology providers supporting hybrid architectures are actively developing features to connect these triggers across merchandising, marketing, loyalty, or retail media teams, extending the value of in-store in a way that all-in-one solutions can’t or would be cost-prohibitive to build on their own.

These modular networks also unlock unique features that make them  more attractive to advertisers. They support direct and native programmatic and impression-based buying capabilities, digital and static inventory, and data-driven targeting, attribution, measurement, and reporting. A hybrid architecture also enables retailers to gather, analyse, and connect data to a custom dashboard to illustrate a campaign’s impact on shopper behaviour.

It then becomes easier to pinpoint the performance-driven marketing stats that media buyers expect, like incremental eyeballs of an audience demographic or basket-level type metrics, which are key for comparing campaign performance across retail media channels. Modular networks can be launched with simple functionality, then easily scaled over time to accommodate new innovations to enhance the shopper experience and monetisation efforts, such as advanced ad capabilities, emerging content personalisation tools, and new AI tech.

Winning with hybrid

Being successful with a modular in-store media network approach requires careful planning – not just in launching screens, but also in how you deliver content and ads to shoppers to drive engagement and revenue. Displaying the same ad across all screens, without considering context, is a wasted opportunity. Think beyond the closed loop, 55-inch horizontal screens, and envision bespoke activations.

Your technology partners can help you determine the best solutions to build a standout shopping experience and offer insights into everything from optimal screen placement and formats through to the content that resonates most. This is why it’s so important to ask tough questions during your RFI/RFP process when meeting with solution providers. Make sure that you’ll be able to continue working with the partners you want to now, as well as in the future, as your needs and business objectives change. Together, explore how you can deliver content that shoppers find useful and engaging to grow revenue while better managing trade budgets.

Work with them to determine how you can use data more strategically to measure and optimize performance. Understanding how shoppers interact with your content – whether it drives app visits, increases basket sizes, or encourages repeat trips – is central to monetisation. Loyalty programs, promotions, and targeted messaging all benefit from a flexible network architecture that can integrate these data streams effectively.

As for monetisation, strategically build your network backend so that you can deliver a media product that buyers want: a high-quality, well-placed network that can support direct and programmatic ad buys, advanced targeting, and reporting metrics. A hybrid architecture allows retailers to scale capabilities over time, adjust to advertiser needs, and maintain flexibility for future innovations.

In-store media is rapidly evolving, with new shopper engagement and monetisation opportunities emerging all the time. Whether starting your network from scratch or rethinking your current approach, balancing off-the-shelf solutions and custom development is the key to winning with in-store. A hybrid architecture approach supports customised shopper experiences and strong monetisation strategies, setting you up for success that scales.

Check out these tips and get in touch with a Broadsign Representative online or in-person at Retail Technology Show this April in London, where Mike Skene, EMEA Director of Retail Sales, will be on the ground.

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