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Retailers should no longer look at artificial intelligence, or AI, as something for the future. What began with relatively simple applications such as chatbots, recommendations and automated customer service has developed rapidly, with AI now finding its way into almost every part of the retail operation. For retailers
Akeneo, the Product Experience (PX) leader, today released new UK findings from its Agentic Commerce Reality Check Report, revealing that 87% of UK organisations using AI are already seeing measurable returns through productivity improvements, cost savings and other commercial benefits. The UK findings are part of an i
A football shirt is no longer simply performance clothing. It can represent club identity, design history, a favourite player and a sporting era at the same time. That combination gives the product a unique position in the retail market. Few items move so easily between stadium culture, fashion, collecting and mainstre
Football clubs have always sold shirts, scarves and tickets, but the commercial model around the game is becoming much more sophisticated. In 2026, leading clubs increasingly resemble modern retail businesses that manage product ranges, physical spaces, digital channels, customer data and global demand around a single
Retailers spent years trying to connect stores, websites, apps and service teams while each channel kept much of its own data and logic. Unified commerce changes that model. Instead of coordinating several partly independent systems, it brings transactions, inventory, customer information and operational workflows onto
Search boxes and filter menus remain central to digital retail, but they are no longer the only way to move through a catalogue. Conversational systems can interpret a broad request, ask for missing details and narrow a large range of products into a useful shortlist. That changes the interface from a sequence of click
Walk into almost any retail environment and lighting is likely to be one of the last things shoppers consciously notice. Yet from the brightness and colour temperature of a space to the way individual products are illuminated, light can have a significant influence on how customers perceive a store, where they look and
Outlet Shopping at The O2, London’s best-performing outlet, and the adjacent Entertainment District, which is home to The O2’s F&B offer, delivered their strongest-ever sales performances in August since opening in 2018. Retail sales in the month grew by 11%, significantly ahead of the BRC’s UK average of just 0.7%, wh
A cluttered shop floor costs you customers before they have even reached the till. They wander, struggle to find the right rail, and walk out. A slow-loading website does the same thing in miniature, except the customer does not wander back through the door tomorrow, they simply close the tab. For UK retailers pushing
Britain’s retail habits now teach people how a gambling site should feel before they reach the first game. The Office for National Statistics said online spending values rose 11.0% in the three months to July 2026 against the same period in 2025. Digital purchases made up 28.3% of retail sales in July. That’s the backd
Lakeside, the UK’s sixth ranked out-of-town super-regional destination owned and operated by SGS UK Retail, has welcomed a quartet of leading retailers – Inditex-owned Bershka, Hollister, Oliver Bonas, and Urban Outfitters – further strengthening its position as one of the UK’s leading lifestyle locations. The arrivals
Haute Dolci is unveiling a new menu across its UK restaurants on 4 September, bringing together guest insight and culinary creativity in a chef-led reimagining of the Haute Dolci experience. Desserts remain firmly at the heart of the new menu, thoughtfully developed to reflect how guests experience Haute Dolci while gi
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