Check out the shortlist for the 2023 RTIH Innovation Awards, sponsored by PMC, FreedomPay, Worldpay from FIS, CADS, 3D Cloud by Marxent, Goodays, and Vista Technology Support.

We received a record number of submissions this year and many fantastic examples of the continued resilience and dynamism of the retail space during hugely challenging times.

Our winners were revealed at the 2023 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, which took place at the Barbican Centre in Central London.

The event was held on Wednesday, 29th November, maintaining its popular evening format, with a drinks reception in the stunning Conservatory, followed by a Christmas themed three course meal, and awards presentations in the Garden Room.

Congratulations to all those who made the shortlist. Our 2023 winners can be found here.

Shortlists as follows:

CATEGORY 1:

Bricks and mortar innovation - SPONSORED BY CADS

This award will go to a retailer enabling physical spaces to thrive via innovative technology, even as online shopping continues to grow. 

We’re looking for examples of reducing friction in the customer journey, offering improved experiences, and blurring the lines between channels. 

Shortlist:

Cust2Mate

Cust2Mate is a leading smart cart solution that helps reduce shrinkage, effectively track store stocks, and boost sales with on-cart promotions that entice shoppers to make the most of special offers and sale items.

Its patented technology ensures robust durability and unwavering reliability, making it the go-to solution for a seamless shopping journey.

EE

EE has an ambition to be the most personal, customer focused brand in the UK and to do this, it needed to provide its customers with personal experiences both physical and digital, something it knows they want.

The EE Studio in Westfield London, White City, is EE’s vision for the future of retail, designed to empower customers with the best connectivity and technology solutions for their connected life, and serve as a hub for the local community to work, learn and play.  

HL Display

HL Display has developed physical equipment to help reduce time and labour spending on chiller merchandising.

Thanks to 180-degree rotating movement, all shelves of the Rotoshelf solution move at once, allowing for quicker restocking from the back. Simply rotate, refill, rotate the section back. With the optimal gravity feed shelves, products are always automatically front faced and keep the drinks cold. By reducing the time opening chiller doors for restocking, energy is thus saved and maintaining refrigeration temperature becomes easier.

Ladorian

Turning bricks and mortar stores into smart stores: how AI software created a seamless in-store customer experience and increased promotional sales – a BP-Ladorian partnership.

BP in Spain wanted a tool that could manage the entire communication with in-store clients in its forecourt retail business, creating a customer centric, seamless experience while stimulating demand.

Ladorian provided it with AI software, creating an intelligent and measurable sales impact ecosystem that, using data such as sales and contextual factors, delivers the right content to the right customer at the right time, providing the experience BP was looking for while generating 38.5% promotional sales increase. 

Nanovo

Nanovo is connecting bricks and mortar stores to omnichannel and digital services. It is implementing a phygital store experience, with one being created for 6thStreet.com in Dubai. This concept consists of a showroom without physical products being displayed.

The main objective of this solution is to transfer the experience known to e-commerce customers to the physical space of a stationary store.

This concept offers a variety of facilities, for example the possibility to choose products in a user-friendly application. Orders are then transferred from digital terminals and products are delivered to interactive fitting rooms.

shopreme

shopreme is a champion of unified self-checkout solutions, offering a range of products and services to simplify and enhance the retail customer experience. With its Scan & Go, SCO, and exit solutions, it is aiming to revolutionise how customers shop stores.

After only three years, it handles millions of transactions via its ecosystem in customers’ stores, leading to operational efficiency gains that raise retailers’ margins and take pressure off employees.

Power Retail Media elements help to increase the average basket size by inspiring and activating customers through well established elements we know from online shopping, such as recommendations and product information. 

Zippin

Zippin transformed a traditional hot foods concession stand into checkout-free shopping at Kingdom Grill at Arrowhead Stadium. This was the first Zippin Walk-Up installation, a new checkout-free format that doesn’t require construction and comes ready to install in just days.

Arrowhead Stadium was able to leverage its existing kitchen, equipment, counters, and space as part of the Walk-Up transformation. Instead of waiting in lines, guests simply enter with a credit card, select what they want, and exit without waiting.

CATEGORY 2:

Supply chain innovation

This award highlights companies that are re-inventing and re-thinking retail supply chains via innovative advancements in technology.

Shortlist:

DPD UK

In pursuit of its net zero 2040 goal, DPD UK has launched the EcoLaunchpad programme, where it reaches out to experts in sustainability, technology, and innovation to develop and test new ideas that can help it further reduce its carbon footprint. 

Partnering with L Marks, a global innovation specialist that has worked with major brands such as BMW and Lloyd’s of London, it connects with hundreds of tech startups in order to explore revolutionary innovations to meet its sustainability goals and overcome the limitations it has encountered on its net zero journey.

Flexport

Flexport has expanded its technology platform to create an end-to-end supply chain solution, demystifying the complexities of global trade and enabling companies of all sizes to manage and track products from manufacturer floor to customer door.

In September, it launched the first ever self-service, end-to-end AI enabled global commerce solution, empowering entrepreneurs with instant, one click access to 20+ supply chain services to all major marketplaces and retail stores, including Shopify and Walmart storefronts, as well as exclusive access to industry leading supply chain financing, priority shipping services, and connections to supply chain experts. 

Invent Analytics

CCC, a European footwear retailer, wanted to increase inventory availability and reduce lost sales but needed a tool to meet its unique business requirements and free its planners from time consuming manual processes and guesswork.

CCC partnered with Invent Analytics to implement a platform that is configurable, and easy-to-use for store replenishment and profit optimisation for inventory.

Using AI, the solutions ensure timely product availability in the right quantities and locations, and strategically manage inventory to stores and balance inventory based on profitability between stores. As a result, CCC significantly improved in-stock ratios, sales, customer satisfaction, and profitability. 

Kammac

Kammac is taking the pain out of e-commerce with its new pop-up fulfilment hubs. Helping startup businesses to outsource their logistics operation within days.

Backed by dedicated centres and experienced personnel, the solution gives companies the flexibility to scale up rapidly without committing to long-term overheads or compromising on customer experience.

It uses a modular design in order to make it quick and cost-effective to a range of businesses; enabling them to benefit from the service, professional expertise and assistance usually only available to much larger and more established online companies. 

Kwayga

Kwayga is a platform for supermarket buyers to engage with perfectly matched suppliers of private label and trending food and drinks products across Europe.

Kwayga's core success is its innovative technology. It automatically matches buyers’ purchase requests with suitable suppliers based on product specifications.

Its Smart Matching System powered by AI enables effortless connections between those buyers and European food and drinks suppliers. Additionally, the company employs AI for chat translation, eliminating language barriers.

On Kwayga, supermarket buyers reduce their sourcing times by 40%. They can also increase market visibility of verified suppliers tenfold across Europe, and benchmark suppliers to improve margins significantly. 

Nedap

Nedap helped Scotch & Soda, a high end fashion brand established in 1985 and headquartered in the Netherlands, to create a “single pool of stock” with RFID technology.

As part of the brand’s omnichannel strategy, this enables them to fulfil customer orders flexibly from each channel, e.g. retail, franchise or wholesale, and match supply and demand.

SmartSense by Digi

This initiative protected billions of dollars’ worth of cold chain product for multiple national retail pharmacy chains with significant market share.

SmartSense provided a Sensing-as-a-Service condition monitoring and prescriptive analytics solution to tightly monitor inventory, prevent product loss, and ensure the highest levels of patient safety.

The solution was deployed at several thousand sites across the US, combining state-of-the-art sensor and gateway hardware with highly user-friendly software for automated monitoring, alerting, and employee guidance. The initiative resulted in significant inventory loss prevention and countless consumer and patient lives protected. 

Studenac

Studenac is working to automate decision making along its supply chain, reducing the need for manual interventions to a minimum.

Its AI powered planning and analytics platform from Solvoyo uses machine learning to analyse inventory and sales data, automatically generating high quality recommendations for the products each of its store managers should order every day.

This project is in line with the retailer’s overall strategy of leveraging advanced analytics and automating decision making in supply chain planning, to support growth while improving efficiency and accuracy in inventory management.

TrusTrace

TrusTrace, a global SaaS company with a platform for traceability, ESG and compliance, provides the world’s largest retail brands with granular, accurate supply chain data.

Spurred by the increasing number and complexity of global laws and regulations, company ESG targets, and consumer demands for insights on product level risk and impact, supply chain data on individual product performance is becoming a must for brands worldwide.

TrusTrace enables a new standard for data collection by helping brands trace the ESG credentials of their supply chain network and capture data for individual production batches in real-time as products move through the chain. 

Wiliot

Wiliot’s IoT platform connects digital and physical retail worlds using its stamp sized IoT Pixel devices to address retail’s biggest challenges across supply chain efficiency, omnichannel retailing, food safety, and inventory management.

Once attached, the IoT Pixels connect to Wiliot’s cloud and retailers are equipped with real-time, item level visibility into every product within their supply chains, creating a profound impact on profits and the planet.  

Connecting trillions of things to the internet is transforming retail manufacturing, distribution, and product use to deliver on the company’s vision: a minimum waste, full trust, perfectly timed world where people, profits, and planet remain aligned.

CATEGORY 3:

Payments innovation

This award recognises payment initiatives that are both innovative and customer and retailer friendly.

We’re looking to reward a project that has the potential to increase a retailer’s competitiveness and effectiveness, and to improve the shopper experience. Bonus points if the project could be considered a first in the market.

Shortlist:

ACI Worldwide

ACI digital identity services is a key offering that orchestrates over 10,000 data signals by leveraging network intelligence, provides a frictionless experience for consumers, and protects a brand’s revenue while lowering a retailer’s operational costs by taking over the heavy lifting.

A part of a fraud management solution, ACI guarantees market leading KPIs and promises an uplift in conversions while monitoring a consumer’s device identity, and behavioral analytics and protecting against emerging AI augment fraud attacks as well as friendly fraud challenges.

Epos Now

Epos Now, a leading cloud-based Point of Sale technology provider, played a pivotal role in the success story of Pets Paradise, a lively pet shop in North Norfolk, under the dedicated management of Siven Cook.

With Epos Now's cost-effective and user-friendly PoS system, Pets Paradise achieved streamlined operations to maintain a richly stocked, well organised store. The system, featuring multi-functionality for managing non-barcoded items, significantly simplified daily tasks.

Moreover, through Epos Now Payments and loyalty programmes, Pets Paradise improved the customer experience. The automated reporting capabilities provided by Epos Now empowered Siven to make data driven decisions, ensuring the store's products thrived and its cash flow was managed efficiently. 

JOOR

JOOR is a wholesale management ecosystem with nearly $20 billion in wholesale transactions processed on an annual basis.

In September 2022, JOOR launched JOOR Pay, an embedded checkout solution, improving cash flow and payment processing for both brands and retailers by offering a streamlined process, net terms, and global currency acceptance.

JOOR’s technology provides an end-to-end wholesale solution for presenting collections, building assortments, placing and managing orders, and handling complex billing and payment via JOOR Pay. More than 14,000 brands and 600,000 curated fashion buyers across 150 countries connect on the platform.

JOOR is the exclusive platform for leading luxury conglomerates including LVMH, Richemont, and Tapestry, as well as brands such as Valentino, Loewe, and Stella McCartney. It has exclusive partnerships with 30+ global retailers using the JOOR Retail Partner platform including: Harrods, Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols, Printemps, Bergdorf Goodman, Shopbop, and Dover Street Market.

Mercaux

How do you deliver game-changing, next gen, frictionless self-checkout via RFID?

Having already started its journey with RFID for managing stock, River Island wanted to leverage its investment further in-store. By deploying RFID next gen self-checkout, it was finally able to get a true omnichannel view of products, ongoing promotions, as well as baskets and customers.

Thanks to the success of the self-checkout project powered by Mercaux, commercetools, Cabiri, Talon.One, and Stripe, River Island was able to realise its goal of redirecting staff from fixed PoS desks to the shopfloor to give staff more flexibility and enhance customer experience.

MishiPay

UK retailers needed better in-store payment systems, as 88% of transactions were non-cash across the MishiPay network. Lacking insights on customer behaviour and high terminal costs (£300 each) were major issues.

MishiPay's solution was deployed in over 70 stores, integrating embedded payments with existing systems. This included upgrades for Scan & Go, Kiosk, RFID, Cash Desk, and mPOS to accept Softpos payments, enabling card tapping directly on screens.

Additionally, it provided advanced analytics via a global payment token, giving retailers valuable data on customer spending patterns and potential lifetime value.

Mollie  

Mollie has launched an in-person payments solution – Mollie Terminal – to bolster its unified commerce payments proposition and meet the demands of its customers operating across both physical and online stores. Mollie Terminal works through a single API for both online and in-person payments and accepts all relevant payment methods and wallets.

This initiative now offers competitive pricing, local support and immense flexibility for Mollie’s customers. Overall, the solution delivers an integrated and flexible Point of Sale solution that saves merchants time and money.

Sheeva.AI

Sheeva.AI’s in-car payments and commerce solution introduces vehicle location-based services to monetise the driver experience.

Using a patented precise geolocation technology, drivers seamlessly pay for and receive services such as fuelling, EV charging, parking, curbside pickup and drive-through via their car’s IVI screen.

The company’s SheevaFence and SheevaLocate technology automatically detects the vehicle at the specific gas pump, parking spot, EV charger, or drive-through lane. Its SheevaConnect and SheevaPay products use an open API platform to integrate payments directly via the cloud and SDK through a secure digital wallet, requiring no additional hardware and no new apps. 

Slerp

In March of this year, Slerp launched Allpress’s new ordering app, complete with a built-in digital loyalty programme and its PressPay feature. PressPay allows for quick action payments. A customer can ‘long press’ the app icon and immediately re-order their favourite coffee.

Slerp enables hospitality businesses to sell online, direct to their customers. Built by hospitality for hospitality, it is a long-term solution for growth, providing the tools to keep customers transacting again and again, without adding more to operators' plates.

Allpress is a specialty coffee roastery with three East London venues. It was founded in New Zealand more than 30 years ago and today its coffee is available in over 1,200 independent cafes globally, including its own cafes across Australia, Singapore and Japan.

Splitit

Splitit, which enables card attached installments at the Point of Sale, is pitched as the only embedded white label omnichannel payments provider that uses a consumers’ own existing, untapped credit.

Splitit is an Installments-as-a-Service platform that diverges from traditional payment plans by unlocking a consumer’s existing credit without issuing a new loan and without charging fees.

It partnered with Gem Shopping Network (GSN), an omnichannel platform for selling fine jewellery through a multi-media marketplace, to eliminate the friction it had previously seen at the Point of Sale.

GSN has an e-commerce experience and checkout flow with SplitIt already embedded into the journey. Splitting up payments has made buying high ticket items like jewellery easier and more financially manageable.

CATEGORY 4:

Most innovative UK retailer - SPONSORED BY 3D Cloud by Marxent

Who has been the UK’s most innovative, customer focused retailer this year? Judges are asked to look at each retailer’s tech deployments and initiatives and decide which one has been the most consistently forward thinking and customer centric in 2023.

Shortlist:

Amazon Fresh UK

Amazon Fresh customers can now pay at self-checkouts in the Monument, London store, in addition to using a Just Walk Out technology powered checkout-free option.

 In a LinkedIn post, Charlie Mills, Head of In-Store & Local Marketing at Amazon Fresh, said: “Customers get the choice of scanning and paying for items using the self-checkout and they can still checkout at the gates using our Just Walk Out technology.”

“The Amazon Fresh in-store shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning.”

“Our Just Walk Out Technology automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves, and keeps track of them in a virtual basket. Using the self-checkout adds another convenient way to shop. Pretty cool.”

Amazon has also been busy tinkering with its Amazon Fresh checkout free convenience stores in Kensington, White City, and Southwark, London.

The ultimate aim here is alleviating some of the friction associated with Just Walk Out technology.

Asda

Asda has announced the appointments of Rob Barnes and Adrian Berry to its technology team to oversee the oversee the development of its new strategy and separation from Walmart.

Barnes is currently Chief Technology Officer at Marks and Spencer and will join Asda early next year as Delivery Director.

He will be responsible for the design, build and delivery of all colleague and customer facing technology and will also act as Deputy Chief Information Officer.

 Prior to joining M&S, he was MD of Accenture’s Retail Tech Advisory business, where he managed technology delivery for a range of clients including Dyson, Clarks, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Best Buy.

Meanwhile, Tata Consultancy Services has announced a multi-year partnership with Asda to support its digital transformation and to implement a new organisation wide IT operating model, following its divestiture from Walmart.

This will see the grocery giant leverage TCS’ cloud, AI, and security solutions.

TCS will build a new digital core by implementing multiple cloud-based ERP platforms to streamline Asda’s supply chain forecasting, buying and merchandising processes, HR processes, warehouse management, and e-commerce processes.

Additionally, it will use its Machine First Delivery Model to automate the retailer’s IT operations, with the aim of providing a seamless experience for employees and customers, and improving operational resilience.

DFS

DFS has been shortlisted for its innovative approach to bringing 3D interactivity to its online shopping experience. In addition to the deployment of WebAR at a major scale (over 32,000 SKUs), it is also launching a leading edge 3D sectional configurator on 8th November.

It will be the first UK retailer to deploy this technology. The launch is one product range - Sofables. It will be adding ten additional ranges this year.

Spanning across the United Kingdom, Spain, and Ireland, DFS has become a leader in the furniture and soft furnishings industry. It is utilising 3D in smart and thoughtful ways that put the customer at the centre of the shopping experience.

John Lewis Partnership

Earlier this year, Eagle Eye secured a five-year contract with The John Lewis Partnership for its new pan-partnership loyalty project launching in 2024 alongside dunnhumby.

This brings together Eagle Eye’s existing relationships with John Lewis, as first announced in 2017 to improve the retailer’s digital marketing capabilities, and with Waitrose, as subsequently announced in 2019.

The project aims to integrate the group’s high street business, online and app touchpoints, building on the My John Lewis and My Waitrose loyalty programmes.

The Eagle Eye AIR platform will provide The John Lewis Partnership with loyalty management capabilities, enabling dunnhumby’s data science to be executed at scale to deliver more personalised rewards, offers and experiences to customers.

Elsewhere, Waitrose has partnered with CitrusAd to roll-out relevant, targeted advertising across Waitrose.com. 

The retailer says that its suppliers can now maximise their online presence through sponsored search and category product ads, as well as sponsored offers and checkout ad campaigns.

The move replaces static advertising - where all customers were served the same adverts - with a targeted model, in which shoppers are given updates from brands based on the product searches or areas they browse online.

 It also gives suppliers the flexibility to change or boost their campaigns, rather than being tied into long-term fixed tenancy slots, allowing them to take advantage of events and seasonal changes. 

With access to performance-based metrics and reporting, brands can measure the impact of their adverts, and return on ad spend (ROAS)  down to the individual product level and by search term. 

Kingfisher

At Google Cloud Nextin October, Kingfisher shared the work it has been doing with AI and machine learning technologies.

Group Head of Data Science, Mohsen Ghasempour, discussed how the retailer is harnessing these innovations to improve the customer experience and power growth.

 He introduced Athena, an AI orchestration framework which will manage how Kingfisher prompts and interacts with AI language models, as well as other AI tools developed in-house.

This is designed with advanced controls to ensure security and provide protection against sensitive or inappropriate content.

Tom Betts, Group Data Director at Kingfisher, says: “Athena will help us test and learn with these technologies even faster.”

Kingfisher also announced this year that it is using TCS OmniStore, an AI powered unified commerce platform from Tata Consultancy Services.

The company operates a chain of over 1,900 stores in eight countries across Europe under its retail banners including B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt, Screwfix, TradePoint and Koçtaş. 

It was looking to upgrade to a multilingual commerce platform that delivers a unified brand experience. In addition, it wanted to address legal, fiscal, and operational differences across all its European banners. 

Polarn O. Pyret

Sustainable childrenswear brand Polarn O. Pyret launched a fully integrated, brand owned, circular business model in November 2022.

Delivering against its long standing vision that every piece of PO.P clothing is owned by at least three children, the PO.P Second Hand service is the first of its kind and category leading for circular innovation in childrenswear.

Leveraging trade in technology from Tern Eco and supported by GXO's refurbishment and resale fulfilment services, PO.P UK’s circular retail transformation is delighting customers and driving innovation with key partners. Crucially, it is also embedded into a long-term sustainable growth strategy for the business.

CATEGORY 5:

Most Innovative Retailer (Rest of World)

Who has been the most innovative, customer focused retailer (rest of world) this year?

Judges are asked to look at the shortlisted submissions and decide which one has been the most consistently forward thinking and customer centric in 2022/23. 

Shortlist:

L'Occitane and Confer With

L'Occitane has embraced Confer With's live video shopping technology, becoming a trailblazer in the MENA retail landscape through the L'Occitane Accelerator programme, powered by the Greenhouse, Chalhoub group. This strategic move has reinvented the customer journey, merging in-shop personalisation with digital convenience.

Tailored for regional preferences, including Arabic language integration, Confer With's platform has elevated L'Occitane to the vanguard of omnichannel retail. L'Occitane's initiative showcases its dedication to innovation and superior customer engagement, making it a strong contender for most innovative retailer recognition.

Nordstrom and SML

Nordstrom, a fashion retailer, wanted to improve inventory accuracy across its 350+ stores nationwide. The retailer was looking to better visibility into what items were in-store to fulfil customer orders faster and reduce cancellations.

Nordstrom partnered with SML RFID to roll out item-level RFID and its Clarity solution. This has now been deployed to 330+ Nordstrom stores, taking its inventory accuracy to 95% and above.

Puma and refive

Puma encountered challenges in engaging a younger, digital native customer base and understanding in-store customer behaviour.

With refive's innovative digital receipts, it has successfully bridged these gaps. Now, at the checkout, it engages customers digitally, understanding anonymous customer behaviour in detail, collecting feedback and thousands of marketing opt-ins.

Thanks to this, Puma is now able to interact with in-store customers post-purchase as easily as with online customers. The overall customer experience has been enhanced with the gathered insights into customer behaviour.

The refive partnership aptly aligns with Puma’s sustainability and customer centricity goals.

Studenac

Studenac is working to automate decision making along its supply chain, reducing the need for manual interventions to a minimum.

Its AI powered planning and analytics platform from Solvoyo uses machine learning to analyse inventory and sales data, automatically generating high quality recommendations for the products each of its store managers should order every day.

This project is in line with the retailer’s overall strategy of leveraging advanced analytics and automating decision making in supply chain planning, to support growth while improving efficiency and accuracy in inventory management.

Since the opening of its Studenac Digital Centre of Excellence in late 2022, Croatia’s largest retailer by number of stores has embarked on a range of advanced analytics projects to transform all aspects of its business.

Four of the most prominent areas were tools to manage pricing, promotions, back bonus calculations and the organic expansion of the store network.

The Location Analysis Tool (LAT) streamlines store expansion through data driven site selection and financial forecasting. It elevates Studenac's operational efficiency, accelerates decision making, and enhances strategic store placement, positioning the company for lasting growth.

Style Union and Nextail

Style Union, launched in 2022, is a fast growing Indian fashion retailer that has truly embraced innovation from day one.

From the start, the team behind Style Union adopted solutions like the Nextail merchandise planning platform, leveraging proven technologies used by fashion retailers around the world, to embed efficiency and automation into their core merchandising operations.

 Using AI to automate and enhance inventory decisions has enabled efficient scaling at an aggressive pace. Just 18 months after opening their first store, they have expanded to 57 of average 8,500 ft2, with plans to reach 175+ by 2025.

CATEGORY 6:

Virtual Store of the Year

The winner of this award will have either launched a new virtual store in the past 12 months, or overhauled and significantly enhanced an existing one.

We’re looking for retailers/brands delivering seamless and personalised shopping experiences, engaging with customers in exciting and innovative ways via the likes of gamification, livestream commerce, and the metaverse, and boosting online sales.

Shortlist:

Confer With and OWAY Beauty

Confer With and OWAY Beauty have partnered on the OWAY Immersive Store.

This digital innovation was supplemented by a purpose built physical environment in Bologna, Italy – away from physical retail. This space was equipped with easy-to-access cabinets, multi-angle cameras integrated with the Confer With platform, and a central table featuring a shoppable interface that customers could join and interact with a beauty advisor.

The result was an immersive, high engagement virtual shopping experience that maintained the brand's tactile allure while providing unparalleled convenience and personalisation.

Emperia and Lululemon

Lululemon introduced a virtual store in collaboration with Emperia, coinciding with the launch of its 'chargefeel 2' shoe. The campaign focussed on enhancing the active, athletic leisure customer experience and engaging users.

Lululemon's platform combines style, performance, and technology, offering fitness enthusiasts a dynamic retail journey. The virtual world, inspired by urban, active environments, reflects the brand’s commitment to empowering individuals on their fitness journey. Customers were able to virtually try-on the 'chargefeel 2' shoes using AR technology within the store, promoting an active, empowered lifestyle.

Obsess and American Girl

Obsess powers highly engaging immersive e-commerce experiences for leading global brands including Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, Charlotte Tilbury, Corona and more.

 It partnered with American Girl to develop an immersive virtual museum experience that drives shopper engagement, increases brand loyalty and generates additional revenue. The museum features a virtual room for each doll in American Girl’s collection, plus an additional room that celebrates the brand’s “Girl of the Year.”

 This autumn, Obsess created a gymnastics themed virtual room to celebrate 2024 Girl of the Year, Lila Monetti. These virtual spaces provide consumers with an interactive way to learn about each doll through games, quizzes and stories.

As a result, the add-to-cart ratio on AmericanGirl.com has been up to 25% higher for shoppers who have interacted with the virtual museum compared with shoppers who haven’t.

SpatialPort

SpatialPort is developing a B2B/B2C, mobile first, no-code, immersive 3D e-commerce platform with hyper realism, experiential AR,  gamification and education.

The company was founded in San Francisco in November 2021 by a team of professionals in the fields of tech and metaverse to enhance the shopping experience at a further level (immersive and gamified) and community engagement:

Category 7:

Digital Transformation Project of the Year - SPONSORED BY Vista Technology Support

This award celebrates those who are at the forefront of digital transformation in the retail space, achieved through the deployment of innovative technologies.

Our judges will be looking for a company that has delivered a significant transformation project for a customer, such as integrating disparate systems, updating legacy technology, empowering the client to create seamless and personalised shopping experiences, and unlocking new possibilities to grow the business.

Shortlist:

eyefactive

eyefactive client Three Ireland transformed its stores with the company’s touchscreen solutions.

Customers can access expert advice and over 100 products through interactive touchscreens, tables, and tablets in all 60 stores by the end of 2023. This initiative turned Three Ireland into a digital lifestyle brand, offering a unique in-person shopping experience with online features.

The touchscreens provided interactive guides and omnichannel checkout. eyefactive's object recognition technology enabled product comparisons. Non-interactive displays were managed via its cloud infrastructure for smooth operation and automated monitoring.

The project aimed to boost customer engagement, collect touch data, and expand capabilities with updates. Thirteen stores launched in 2021, with the programme continuing until 2023.

David Jones and YOOBIC

David Jones, an Australian luxury department store with over 11,000 employees, implemented the YOOBIC digital workplace to transform communications, task management, and learning. By providing a mobile first platform, David Jones unified workflows, drove adoption through targeted content, and increased productivity.

Key results include 90%+ audit compliance, 50,000+ tasks completed, 4000+ hours of learning, and 500,000+ content views. YOOBIC has significantly improved the way David Jones communicates with its frontline teams, enabling leaders to spend less time managing task completion and more time coaching and developing employees.

JK Tech

JK Tech worked with a client that is among the leading multinational optical retail chains based in the UK with operations in Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. The company provides high quality and affordable optical and hearing care.

The project included modernising the IT framework of the client to strengthen efficiency and improve user experience. This was done by reducing backlogs to improve resolution time resulting in enhancing user perception.

Orium and Kum & Go

Kum & Go has been a staple of the US midwest convenience landscape since 1959, establishing and maintaining a gold standard that rethinks the convenience experience and meets customers where they are.

To modernise its experiences and offerings and to keep pace with changing customer preferences, it turned to Orium to support the launch of a new digital experience that would enable a host of customer centric features for on-the-go consumers.

From new promotion and loyalty capabilities to better merchandising and platform management, the new omnichannel Kum & Go experience was created with modern consumer needs at the core.

Proximity and Paul Smith

Proximity’s Retail Super App is an all-in-one engagement platform, empowering sales associates to connect with their customers and provide a personalised shopping experience, no matter where the customer is. 

Its mission is to close the gap between physical and virtual retail. It does this by using customer data to provide hyper-personalised service whether in-store or online.

The company’s platform also improves store associate productivity and performance through automatic task generation and management, real-time insights through data analysis, dashboard reporting, and performance management tools.

Brands that use the platform see greater customer loyalty, improved store associate efficiency, and increased sales.

PTC

The world’s most successful brands and retailers (such as Burberry, M&S, Ralph Lauren, etc.) rely on PTC’s FlexPLM solution to drive their core product design, development, and sourcing decisions. 

Shifting priorities within the industry, such as improving speed to market, reducing the carbon footprint, and streamlining line reviews have made integrating and analysing data across systems within product lifecycle management (PLM) more critical.    

Flex Insights is a suite of visual and easy to use apps that help brands and retailers quickly connect the data from disparate systems and present it to users in a format that supports faster and better product planning and development decisions.

Spotlight Sports Group/Racing Post

Racing Post has provided content to betting shops since 1996. For 25 years, this was in the form of printed products with the Betting Shop Display, a bespoke product that was displayed on walls complemented with the Racing Post newspaper.

In recent years, Racing Post has built a suite of interactive digital products. The Digital Betting Shop Display (DBSD) is its flagship product, displaying content from 60 pages of a Print Betting Shop Display on a single screen, allowing customers to access racing content from UK, Ireland and International content, greyhounds, sports, virtual and the Racing Post tabloid.

ZERO10

ZERO10 is a fashion AR try-on company specialising in providing AR technology for fashion retailers.

This April, it introduced AR Mirror, which became its signature solution for physical retail, together with Tommy Hilfiger. Later, ZERO10 supported the launch of Coach’s global Tabby Bag campaign with its AR Mirror and AR Storefront, where digital versions of the Tabby Bag were available for try-on in-store and on the window displays.

 ZERO10’s goal was to showcase how AR technology could positively impact the traditional retail experience while striking a deep cultural resonance for the new wave of consumers.

CATEGORY 8:

Customer Experience Excellence - SPONSORED BY Goodays

The Covid-19 outbreak has reshaped customer behaviour and their expectations of retailers.

This award will go to an online and/or physical retailer that has understood and reacted in a positive fashion to these customer trends and patterns, by providing exceptional omnichannel customer experiences, powered by innovative technologies.

Shortlist:

BOXT

As the UK’s second largest boiler retailer, BOXT was founded with the mission of using technology to make the boiler installation process more accessible for customers through increased price transparency and ease of ordering using the online platform. 

Launched in February 2023, the BOXT customer support app is the next step in improving transparency for customers by giving them quick and easy access to all the information they need about their chosen product and installation.

By addressing some of the major pain points for customers in their purchase journey, the app delivers added value against high consideration and high investment products.

Confer With

Confer With's technology platform aims to revolutionise e-commerce by emulating in-store interactions online.

Tailored across a range of clients in the furniture, fashion, beauty and other retail sectors it aims to deepen customer engagement. The live video shopping tool demonstrates significant gains in customer satisfaction and sales metrics.

By equipping brand ambassadors with data driven insights to optimise 1-2-1 video calls, Confer With has seen measurable success in personalisation and product demonstration, translating into higher conversion rates and reduced returns.

The platform not only enhances the shopping experience but also equips retailers with a tool to thrive in the digital marketplace, offering a tangible competitive edge in the industry.

ESW

ESW is a leading global and domestic direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce company, empowering global brands to expand their cross-border DTC channels. 

ESW optimises the entire shopper journey for global customers with a combination of technology and expert guidance that helps retailers trade and scale internationally – from website build to demand generation, checkout through to shipping, customer service and returns.

With configurable end-to-end solutions across +200 markets, ESW manages payments, compliance, data security, fraud protection, taxes and tariffs, helping retailers enter new markets in as few as six weeks, whilst improving results in markets where they already sell.

First Insight

First Insight is a leader in voice of the customer retail solutions, transforming business decision-making through actionable consumer insights and AI.

Its InsightSUITE platform enables retailers and brands worldwide to boost revenues and profitability by informing strategic decisions with consumer data and removing guesses and personal opinions.

This provides 16 solutions for more than 50 objectives across multiple decision categories – from strategic planning to product development, merchandising, pricing, planning, marketing and sales.

Graymatics

Graymatics aims to revolutionises physical retail by leveraging AI powered cognitive analytics. Its technology analyses visual cues, conducts sentiment analysis, and interprets customer interactions, revealing invaluable purchasing patterns, preferences, and sentiments.

Retailers armed with this knowledge can tailor marketing strategies, optimise product offerings, and craft personalised experiences. It extends beyond traditional data analysis by utilising existing CCTV infrastructure or implementing new systems, unlocking the potential of video streams.

Advanced computer vision algorithms analyse streams in real-time, extracting profound insights into customer behaviour, store operations, and overall performance.

Graymatics blurs the lines between online and offline retail, empowering retailers to thrive amidst the growth of online shopping.

Kivisense

Kivisense specialises in digital solutions for e-commerce and marketing, with a focus on AR technologies.

It is a MarTech company offering a range of solutions that span from online to offline in the retail industry, encompassing digital content, social media, and e-commerce.

Its AR try-on engine boasts advanced capabilities for real-time image and object tracking. This enables virtual try-on solutions for a diverse range of product categories, including shoes, watches, clothing, jewellery, and more. The company’s solutions are deployed globally as a SaaS service, catering to a wide array of try-on scenarios.

ZigZag

ZigZag is a market leading global returns solution provider.

Through its platform and global carrier network of over 1,500 carrier services across 170 countries, it provides personalised returns solutions, using its vast experience and unrivalled customer service.

ZigZag delivers the best technology and service to transform the returns experience globally for retailers such as Selfridges, Superdry, Inditex, and Ted Baker.

Its mission is to reduce the cost, waste, and friction associated with returns, boost customer loyalty and make retailers more profitable and sustainable. It lives for smarter returns. For retailers, customers, and the planet.

Zippin

Zippin’s checkout-free platform eliminates friction from the shopping experience. But, with purchases of age-restricted items (like beer), there’s still a significant bottleneck: manual ID checks. Guests can fly through our stores in just 30 seconds, but often wait longer for age verification.

Zippin’s integration with digital identity verification services for store entry eliminates this final bottleneck.

Guests registered with an age verification service use a facial scan to enter the store, pay for their purchase, and verify their age/identity. Shoppers can pass through Zippin powered stores more quickly and operators gain a more secure process for age verification.

CATEGORY 9:

Omnichannel Retail Initiative of the Year

This award will go to a tech centric approach to retail that provides customers with a fully integrated shopping experience across bricks and mortar stores, online, mobile, and everything in between.

Shortlist:

Confer With and Dunelm

Dunelm seamlessly integrated its extensive physical presence with an innovative digital strategy, capitalising on Confer With's live video shopping platform.

This blending of in-store expertise and remote, working from home virtual consultants with online convenience delivered personalised virtual consultations, transforming customer engagement and elevating shopping experiences.

The use of the Confer With 1-2-1 live shopping platform led to significant enhancements in customer satisfaction, conversion rates, and revenue, showcasing a forward thinking and flexible approach to omnichannel experience in an increasingly digital landscape.

Ibotta

The Ibotta Performance Network (IPN) is a performance marketing platform built by Ibotta to offer solutions for delivering Rewards as a Service to retailers, CPG brands, and publishers.

Drawing on nearly a decade’s worth of insights into consumer shopping behaviour, Ibotta launched the IPN in April 2022 to further pursue its mission to make every purchase rewarding. The IPN aims to offer a superior shopping experience that not only elevates consumer engagement with rewards at scale, but also delivers efficiency and incremental sales for retailers and brands.

Jisp

Unifying a traditionally fragmented convenience sector, Jisp offers independent retailers an omnichannel solution to unify their in-store offering with online platforms, rewarding shoppers with discounts, loyalty rewards and brand promotions via in-app and push notifications, in-store PoS and social media marketing.

With Jisp, retailers enjoy boosted sales, enhanced margins on key products, increased footfall, and a loyalty programme that competes with larger grocers’ offerings.

Brands reap the benefits too, with real-time unique data insights into convenience retail behaviour, a notoriously challenging sector to penetrate. That’s not to mention over £1.35 million in savings back in shoppers’ pockets.

Lakrids By Bülow and Sitoo

Lakrids By Bülow, renowned for its liquorice creations, has partnered with Sitoo to revolutionise its retail omnichannel experience.

The brand, founded by Johan Bülow in 2007, initially focused on perfecting liquorice in his mother's kitchen. Since then, it has expanded globally with stores across Europe, US and Dubai.

Notably, e-commerce sales have surged, constituting 40% of total sales, up from 6% in 2018, with a compound growth rate of 90%. Lakrids By Bülow sought technology partners to match its ambition, and Sitoo's cloud native Unified Commerce Platform and PoS offered the ideal solution.

NewStore and Footasylum

Footasylum, a UK fashion streetwear and sportswear retailer, collaborated with NewStore and Talon.One to deliver cutting-edge omnichannel shopping experiences across its 60 stores in a mere 85 days.

The project, which was led by Absolute Labs, an SI partner, leveraged NewStore's modular, mobile first platform, to integrate Footasylum’s physical and digital channels, providing customers with a seamless online and in-store shopping experience. This roll-out, coupled with Talon.One's promotion engine, also facilitated omnichannel purchasing journeys that significantly enhanced brand engagement.

By embracing a MACH approach, and tapping Absolute Labs to oversee the integration, Footasylum utilised the flexible platforms of NewStore and Talon.One to swiftly drive innovation across its retail channels.

PriceSpider

PriceSpider is reinventing the way brands conduct commerce, with data solutions that help them deliver the shopping experiences today’s shoppers demand.

For more than 20 years, its platform has helped the world’s most loved brands streamline the path to purchase and collect actionable insights about their products – and their customers.

With more retailer relationships in more countries than anyone else, PriceSpider helps brands build seamless omnichannel experiences, with commerce solutions that empower their customers to easily find the products they’re looking for, get the best possible price and make every moment shoppable.

Retail247

Retail247 has deployed both of its core retail solutions to Crew Clothing. Origin now delivers a single view of all things product, including commercial channel integration, and Archean delivers the backbone of all stock transactional activity as well as providing real time visibility of stock positions across the business.

The combination of these two solutions underpins omnichannel enablement at Crew Clothing. Transactional visibility, improved stock accuracy, quicker stock processing as well as product and pricing data that is managed, enriched and distributed from a single point has all been delivered by teams from Retail27 and Crew Clothing.

Rovertown

American convenience stores have come a long way since the days of selling “smokes and Cokes” next to fuel canopies. Today’s retailers have become much more, often with strong brand identities, private label products, and foodservice offers that compete with quick service restaurants.

Unfortunately, the legacy of this industry’s mobile app challenges has been a barrier to effectively leveraging and deploying new omnichannel capabilities. In particular, a longstanding reliance on rigid, white label apps has complicated things.

Rovertown’s app platform - and its new Integration Store - are helping retailers overcome this barrier, instantly scale up their capabilities, and meet the expectations of today’s consumers.

SML

Stadium, a Swedish sports fashion retailer, faced inventory accuracy challenges impacting staff and customers across its 180+ stores. With an average of 35,000 products in each store, Stadium needed a clearer view of its stock.

Before implementing RFID, it took manual stock counts once a year due to the time-consuming process. As a result, the retailer maintained a low inventory accuracy of 70%.

Using SML’s RFID technology, Stadium can now take inventory once a week - with an inventory accuracy of 93-99% - enabling it to increase sales and successfully serve customers more efficiently.

XY Retail

Fender, the renowned luxury guitar manufacturer, needed a retail platform to support its first ever direct-to-consumer flagship store, located in Tokyo.

Fender partnered with XY Retail to create an omnichannel retail experience that could serve its new offline customers as well as its online customers. It chose XY Retail due to its versatility, ease of integration, and comprehensive feature set, including mobile reporting, clienteling services, and seamless payment integrations.

Fender was able to create a flagship store that is truly an immersive and interactive space, reflecting the brand's commitment to providing a world class retail experience for musicians and enthusiasts.

CATEGORY 10:

Technology Vendor of the Year (UK)

This category celebrates companies that have developed innovative technologies and worked with retailers to transform the customer experience or back-end operations or both.

Shortlist:

EDITED

EDITED is a global retail intelligence platform that empowers brands and retailers with real-time decision-making capabilities. It enables retailers to increase margins, boost sales, and achieve better business outcomes through AI driven market and enterprise intelligence.

The company’s platform optimises pricing strategies, automates pricing and discount adjustments, provides insights into market trends, and offers a holistic view of competitors’ promotional activities. It drives real transformation in the retail industry, delivering enhanced profit margins, increased sales, and a competitive edge through data backed decisions.

OneStock

OneStock is Europe’s market leading distributed order management solution, helping companies drive revenue, streamline operations and improve customer satisfaction.

Designed under a MACH architecture to integrate seamlessly with existing IT systems, its platform acts as the backbone of the order lifecycle, providing end-to-end visibility and control over orders, inventory and fulfilment processes. With its solution, brands effortlessly manage orders across multiple sales channels ensuring a consistent and frictionless customer experience.

OneStock is a proud member of the MACH Alliance and provides best-of-breed solutions for many global brands, including Mano Mano, LVMH, Intersport, Petit Bateau, Pets at Home, TFG London and AWWG.

Red Ant

Red Ant’s solution RetailOS combines data, systems and technical expertise for remarkable customer experiences.  

The solution, active in 21 countries, includes clienteling, assisted sales and omnichannel PoS, enabling retailers to: Capture shopper data; Connect products to their needs; Communicate with them and stay top of mind; Convert conversations into sales.

This year saw the opening of the Dubai office and a number of award wins in the territory, and more than seven leading beauty brands using RetailOS around the world, as well as leading retailers across key sectors. Clients include Furniture Village, Office Shoes, Charlotte Tilbury and Chalhoub Group.

Retail247

The ever changing needs of retailers means their tech needs to be agile, efficient, scalable, innovative, and cost-effective.

New features must be implemented quickly, with reduced risk. They recognise their objectives will be best achieved if they are vendor agnostic as this allows the freedom to choose the solutions that best fit their requirements.

Retail247’s initiative is to lead the charge in ‘composable commerce’. Its design for retail is built around a framework of components and services that are easily assembled and disassembled to provide solutions that start out being relevant and continue to be so despite the needs of the business changing.

Scurri

Delivery management platform, Scurri puts retailers and brands back in control of the key processes involved in delivering on their customer service promises - enhancing shoppers’ delivery experience and improving customer satisfaction to increased loyalty and lifetime value while protecting margin.

With over 1,000 carrier services and 97% carrier coverage in the UK, Scurri provides a robust and reliable last mile delivery service to retailers. 

It offers the highest level of flexibility in the industry for effective carrier management and shipment allocation, improving speed and choice for shoppers while maintaining cost-effective and efficient fulfilment operations for retailers.

Star Micronics

As a complete Point of Sale solutions provider, Star offers a wealth of options including a wide range of unique desktop PoS, mobile and self-service terminal printers for printing receipts, tickets and labels from traditional systems, tablets and mobile devices as well as from web and cloud-based apps. 

Its compact and versatile cloud solutions are ideal for a variety of retail applications including Click & Collect kiosks offering labelling and receipt printing for online collections and returns.  Additionally, Star provides tablet stands, display stands and cash management solutions to complete the hardware offering. 

what3words

Addressing can make operations difficult in the logistics and e-commerce sector. Street names are often duplicated, postcodes cover broad areas, and finding exact entrances can be challenging.

 what3words has been designed to solve these issues. It has divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares, and given each square a unique combination of three words: a what3words address.

Adopted by leaders in the e-commerce and logistics space, including boohoo, Oddbox, Mark’s Electrical, Evri, DHL, and DPD, the technology is enabling businesses to benefit from precise and efficient deliveries, three words at a time.

ZigZag

ZigZag is a market leading global returns solution provider.

Through its platform and global carrier network of over 1,500 carrier services across 170 countries, it provides personalised returns solutions, using its vast experience and unrivalled customer service.

ZigZag delivers the best technology and service to transform the returns experience globally for retailers such as Selfridges, Superdry, Inditex, Ted Baker, and more.

Its mission is to reduce the cost, waste, and friction associated with returns, boost customer loyalty and make retailers more profitable and sustainable. It lives for smarter returns. For retailers, customers, and the planet.

CATEGORY 11:

Technology Vendor of the Year (Rest of World)

This category celebrates companies that have developed innovative technologies and worked with retailers to transform the customer experience or back-end operations or both.

Shortlist:

Akeneo

With the frenetic hype surrounding AI, retailers want to understand how best to tap AI and ML capabilities to improve data quality and accuracy within their PIM systems to drive operation efficiencies while unlocking sales.

Akeneo took a pragmatic approach leveraging AI for PX. It already provided direct access to more than 20 AI apps in its App Store. These apps focus on three steps in the process of activating product experiences: 1) Product data collection and cleansing; 2) Product information enrichment; and 3) Product content translation. Of its app partners, Unifai stood out as the most adopted and differentiated solution.

Akeneo strategically acquired Unifai, a AI platform for data collection, cleansing, categorisation and enrichment, revolutionising its Product Cloud offer and infusing AI and ML technology to further elevate PX for brands, manufacturers, retailers and distributors globally

Bambuser

Bambuser’s award winning SaaS platform is trusted by some of the world’s biggest retailers and brands - LVMH, Louis Vuitton, Clarins, adidas, Dior, Clinique, Shiseido, Fendi, IKEA, Estee Lauder, Hugo Boss - to drive sales, unprecedented customer engagement, and reduced returns.

Customers can achieve 4x higher engagement than Instagram; 3x longer session time and 10x higher conversion than traditional e-commerce. 

Easy as plug-and-play, Bambuser’s high quality interactive, video commerce platform can be embedded into any e-commerce site. Paired with personalised support, it enables retailers and brands to easily and successfully launch video commerce, creating authentic and engaging interactions, while propelling sales.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce simplifies enterprise e-commerce. Its e-commerce platform drives growth and performance for brands and retailers by combining the best of SaaS with the flexibility and openness of API enabled composability to provide enterprise-grade functionality, customisation and flexibility.

BigCommerce’s composable commerce capabilities empower merchants to diversify their tech stacks to meet their business needs and deliver incredible customer experience.

Recent examples include MKM Building Supplies, the UK’s largest independent builder's merchant, re-launched its site on BigCommerce and achieved impressive results, and Bensons For Beds, a British retailer specialising in mattresses and furniture online and in-store, transforming its digital presence to drive sales conversion.

Firework

The interaction between product experts and consumers has always been core to the bricks and mortar shopping experience.

Drawing upon the power of video, Firework revolutionises how consumers interact with store associates and brand reps online with its suite of commerce tools, including: personalised dialogue within shoppable videos powered by AI, digital showrooms, and one-to-one virtual showroom across retail and brand owned omnichannel assets.

Firework is creating the next generation of front-end human interaction, experience layers, and first-party shopper data capture capabilities across the globally connected open web.

Goodays

Goodays is Europe’s leading customer experience management platform. Founded in 2012, its vision is to make commerce better for everyone, helping brands deliver personal customer experiences at scale without losing the human touch.

Goodays is used in 32 countries by over 150 of Europe’s biggest companies, including New Look, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Carrefour and Dominos.

Its platform is embedded in over 70,000 business locations and used daily across the business, from customer facing teams through to CX and Insights professionals and CEOs. It equips them with the tools to deliver better for customers, increasing NPS scores, customer satisfaction and loyalty as a result.

Lily AI

Lily AI is a female founded retail AI solution that bridges the gap between merchant-speak and consumer-speak to drive growth, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction for retailers and brands.

Its suite of proprietary AI technologies (computer vision, natural language processing, machine learning, and vertical specific large language models) automatically assign consumer centric product attributes to a retailer’s product catalogue and inject this language of the customer across the retail value chain.

Interoperable with leading retail platforms, Lily AI maximises existing tech investments to deliver upwards of nine-figure revenue lift through improved product attribution, enhanced discovery, and sharper forecasting and allocation planning.

MikMak

In the ever competitive world of e-commerce, multi-channel brands need a single platform for enablement and analytics. MikMak provides just that: a unified way of leveraging media and shopper data to help brands such as Unilever, Kelloggs, and Mars, sell online and understand how their marketing impacts sales and the effectiveness of campaigns across channels.

In June 2023, it launched the latest version of its e-commerce acceleration platform: MikMak 3.0.

Following the acquisition of Swaven, an e-commerce enablement software company across EMEA, APAC and LATAM in February, MikMak now provides multi-channel brands with enhanced end-to-end analytics and consumers with multi-retailer checkout.

parcelLab

parcelLab is the only global enterprise post-purchase software provider, enabling brands to increase top-line revenue, decrease operational cost, and optimise customer experience in an unprecedented way.

The platform empowers brands to transform mundane operational touchpoints into the most differentiated and personalised experience, creating unique moments of pure joy for their customers.

 parcelLab is committed to driving innovation that helps clients stay on the cutting edge of industry trends through value-add customer touchpoints that drive sustained growth. Increased customer satisfaction through tailor-made digital touchpoints is the key to building sustained customer loyalty in a shifting digital age of retail.

Perfect Corp.

Perfect Corp. is a leading beauty tech solutions provider, and lays claim to be the most comprehensive and advanced portfolio of AI and AR-powered virtual try-on and AI skin analysis solutions for retailers available on the market today.

Perfect Corp.’s mission is to solve consumer pain points and enhance the retail journey through the power of AI + AR digital innovations.

With this goal in mind, it set out to develop the most advanced AI powered skin analysis solution which could be easily integrated into the retail journey, allowing shoppers to understand their skin and allowing retailers to offer shoppers personalised skincare product advice.

ShipEngine

ShipEngine is a multi-carrier shipping platform that provides best-in-class shipping functionality directly to e-commerce stores, logistics and warehouse providers, system integrators, e-commerce application integrators, and new application developers.

Built specifically for developers, ShipEngine's robust set of shipping APIs enable developers to build custom workflows within their own platforms and streamline the e-commerce fulfilment process with real-time label generation, rate quoting, parcel tracking, and address validation.

The company supports carriers across the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia, including USPS, FedEx, DHL, and DPD. It is a member of the Auctane family of companies and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Simbe Robotics

Simbe Robotics provides a solution for optimising retail business operations. Its technology platform combines cutting-edge robotics and AI in a single platform.

This comprehensive business intelligence solution unlocks real-time insight into inventory conditions, giving store associates and managers the knowledge they need to manage stock efficiently and effectively.

By streamlining front and back of house workflows, reducing overstock and out-of-stock rates, and mitigating pricing errors, Simbe enhances the shopping experience for customers and allows employees to focus on high-level, engaging work, all while protecting retailers’ bottom line.   

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions works with retail clients driving digital transformation to achieve brilliant commerce outcomes that enrich customer experiences inside and outside the store.

 Its strategic investments and cutting-edge technologies deliver fully connected and adaptable retail experiences, supporting some of the most successful retail brands worldwide, making Toshiba number one in worldwide electronic Point of Sale system installations and number two in worldwide self-checkout installations.

Toshiba accelerates retailer digital transformation across the retail experience from checkout, self-service solutions, mobile PoS with secure payment, and the frictionless retail future fuelled by AI and computer vision.  

CATEGORY 12:

Startup of the year

This award will recognise a startup with the most innovative technology offering and the company which is best placed to succeed in the long-term (management, funding, the retailers it is working with etc).

Shortlist:

1MRobotics

1MRobotics develops robotics for hyperlocal logistics. It makes supply chains automated, shorter, agile, and efficient, thereby creating novel commerce models and new revenue channels.

 Its hyperlocal capabilities offer two distinct use cases: intralogistics, focused on automating existing processes, and last mile, centred on creating new strategic opportunities. For typical retailers, a combination of both is essential to establish a cohesive logistics solution.

The automated, off-the-shelf container-sized solutions that the company has developed can be easily deployed anywhere, while reducing headcount to the bare minimum and ensuring operational efficiencies at scale.

Clix Technologies

Clix has introduced a Click & Collect ecosystem with its VaultOS technology, revolutionising the customer and colleague journey for in-store collections.

 Having developed the industry’s first Progressive Web App (PWA), the company set out to surpass the services already on the market by eliminating customer queues. Clix technology enables collection without compromise. Customers can retrieve their goods from an allocated smart locker in under ten seconds.

The system is proven to enhance customer experience, increase colleague satisfaction and streamline retailer operations, while offering a future-proof solution to the ever evolving BOPIS trend. 

ConverSight

ConverSight helps retailers gain visibility into buyer demand and trends to accurately forecast demand, analyse buying patterns and plan for the future.

Remove non-moving inventory, and gain insight into products customers are most likely to purchase next to better forecast inventory levels. ConverSight perfects the demand planning curve through accurate forecasts and real-time information on the whole supply chain, all with the power of advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Automatically optimise purchase orders for cost, risk, and timeliness. Context-based hypothesis and forecasting delivers dynamic demand and supply forecasts. Navigate unexpected and seasonal demand changes with real-time insights through a single search bar. Get proactive alerts on the high priority items with recommended next steps.

Dropit

In a retail environment marked by e-commerce growth and supply chain disruptions, Dropit is on a mission to resolve critical industry challenges. It empowers retailers with data driven solutions that optimise decision-making in real-time for more efficient fulfilment and returns.

Its AI powered decision engine seamlessly integrates with existing systems to consolidate data ensuring more informed sourcing decisions that balance inventory, reduce costs, and minimise waste creating a smarter, more sustainable retail ecosystem.

Good2Go

Good2Go provides businesses with secure automated access and virtual queueing solutions for restrooms, fitting rooms, and locked merchandise that deter theft, vandalism, and other security risks.

 It’s a simple web app with nothing to download. Customers use their smartphones to get frictionless access with a QR code and virtual queue system - no longer do customers have to wait in line or search for an employee.

As a result, businesses gain compelling ROI on loss prevention, asset protection, employee and customer satisfaction while driving profitability and protecting brand reputation. Securing high-risk areas has never been more efficient.

Jellibeans

Launched in 2023, jelli.studio, an AI enabled end-to-end collaboration fashion design-to-production intelligence platform, performs trend forecasts upon a comprehensive data infrastructure, and utilises AI technology to rapidly prototype or optimise new collections, all accomplished in one single click.

With $1 million investment from Aussco, a prominent knitwear supplier, the endeavour seeks to bridge the gap between fashion and data, serving both independent designers and established brands.

Aptly dubbed as a fusion of Canva, Bloomberg Terminal, and Midjourney for fashion, the platform harmoniously marries the worlds of fashion design, data analytics, and AI image generation. It empowers decision-makers with enhanced transparency, ushering in a new era for the fashion industry.

mirrAR

mirrAR is an AR/AI technology company for the global fashion retail industry. Its proprietary technology enables 50+ brands and retailers like Forevermark and Lakme to serve 3D and 360-degree shopping experiences on their websites, mobile apps and social channels via their 3D Commerce Cloud.

It lets shoppers virtually try-on products on themselves or virtually interact with them in their physical environment (i.e. preview placement) before making a purchase, leading to increase in confidence for the shoppers and higher conversions for the categories like beauty, skincare and jewellery.

RetailNext

Used by 450+ of the world’s most popular brands in 95+ countries like Macy’s, Sephora, and Bloomingdale’s, RetailNext is a hybrid IoT and SaaS platform for the physical world.

Using AI powered in-store sensors, RetailNext brings e-commerce-style analytics to big box and specialty stores, brands, and malls, focusing on foot traffic and benchmarking performance to improve the shopper experience and drive sales.

In 2023, it unveiled Retail Labs, an AI powered store performance solution that takes the guesswork out of store expansion efforts, layout upgrades, and remodels. Retail Labs has been piloted in brands, including those in the jewellery, department store, and convenience sectors.

CATEGORY 13:

Technology implementation of the year (UK)

This award recognises UK retail technology project excellence, both in delivery and outcomes. 

Implementation should have been completed between August 2022 and November 2023.

Judges will be looking for clear project objectives, effective and innovative implementation and tangible and demonstrable results.

Shortlist:

BOXT

The BOXT customer app is the first of its kind in the boiler installation industry. It addresses a common pain point for customers looking for more communication, documentation and reassurance when it comes to their purchase and installation - something that is widespread throughout the trades industry.

Launched in February 2023, the development of the app is the next step in BOXT finding new ways to help homeowners across the country upgrade their home in a way that is convenient for them.

DPD UK

As DPD UK makes big strides to meet its net zero 2040 goal, it began trialling autonomous robot deliveries in Milton Keynes to get parcels to where they need to be without generating emissions. It was the first parcel delivery company in the UK to trial robots, demonstrating it commitment to being leaders in sustainability.

The trial has been a big success, with over 3,000 green deliveries being made and an accumulated 500 miles of travel. Now DPD UK is going further by expanding its robot deliveries to ten new towns and cities over 12 months.

EE

SAVY (Scan and Verify Yourself) implemented a digital customer identity verification solution that meant EE could quickly and simply scan a customer’s document and take a photo to complete verification more efficiently.

This helped reduce technology footprint whilst increasing security for customers by utilising the cameras on the in-store sales tablets. It was the first use of this technology in a physical retail environment, utilising a commonly used digital journey. The journey gives the customer the option of doing it themselves or for store staff to do it on their behalf.

HyperFinity and Costa Coffee

HyperFinity helps retailers sell the right products, to the right people, for the right price using decision intelligence.

Over the last year, it has helped Costa Coffee use decision intelligence to unlock value from data by: Personalising the brand’s loyalty scheme ‘Costa Club’, using insights from customer data; Making intelligent operational decisions about their stores and product range.

This has led to considerable year-on-year growth in Costa’s loyalty base across all metrics - including consumers, transactions, and revenue. This translates to a more sophisticated understanding of consumers and the critical capability to deliver personalised offers and marketing, supporting better decision making.

MyCheckr

MyCheckr is a retail ready age estimation tool from Innovative Technology designed to assist during the sale of age restricted goods such as alcohol, tobacco or vapes.

Using AI powered biometric technology for age checks it works by analysing the customer’s facial features to establish their age. This standalone solution comes equipped with a camera and screen that can quickly detect a potential underage customer, all completely anonymously.

The unit clearly shows both the server and the customer if a manual ID check is recommended, turning green if the customer passes the age check, and red if they appear underage.

NewStore and Sweaty Betty

UK activewear brand Sweaty Betty modernised in-store systems with NewStore's mobile PoS to support the brand’s business growth.

NewStore's cloud-based, mobile first solution empowered sales associates with capabilities like mobile checkout and streamlined workflows for inventory and refunds. This resulted in a 75% increase in operational efficiency, faster transactions, and the flexibility to explore new minimalist store concepts.

The implementation enabled Sweaty Betty, which has grown from a small London boutique to over 70 stores across the UK and Ireland, to boost in-store engagement to an all time high. With NewStore, Sweaty Betty is positioned for continued expansion and success.

Pinnaca Retail Solutions and MINISO

Pinnaca has supported global lifestyle retailer MINISO since it opened its first UK store in 2019. Through continued support, precision planning and excellent communication, it has supported its client in opening a head office and over 20 stores nationwide.

In addition to project managing the procurement and installation of technology and hardware, Pinnaca has implemented new IT solutions to support inventory management and sales and provided bespoke staff training to support attrition and retention.

It remains MINISO’s trusted IT partner and is on track to support it in delivering its ambitions of setting up an additional 30 stores by 2025.

CATEGORY 14:

Technology implementation of the year (rest of world)

This award recognises rest of world retail technology project excellence, both in delivery and outcomes.

Implementation should have been completed between August 2022 and November 2023.

Judges will be looking for clear project objectives, effective and innovative implementation and tangible and demonstrable results.

 Shortlist:

Bojangles and Sparkfly

In collaboration with Sparkfly, Bojangles implemented a mobile engagement strategy to enhance customer experiences and loyalty.

The initiative integrated Bojangles' online customer engagement technologies through its mobile app and Sparkfly's Offer & Reward Management Platform, offering real-time personalised offers.

Since implementation, Bojangles has witnessed a 490% increase in digital program participation, a 158% rise in mobile orders, a 12% boost in order frequency, and a 15% reduction in cart abandonment. This seamless and personalised approach to customer engagement has significantly improved the brand's digital presence and customer satisfaction.

Facilio

Facilio is on a mission to make buildings operationally efficient. It offers a suite of IoT driven smart building software for real estate operators to aggregate hard to access building data by connecting with existing automation systems, sensors and devices easily. This involves zero outlays for additional hardware.

Facilio’s Connected Refrigeration Solution remotely monitors and optimises refrigeration systems in multi-site grocery and convenience stores without human intervention, a first in the industry. This has effectively slashed energy costs and prevented refrigerant leaks for large retail chains in the UK and US.

La-Z-Boy and 3D Cloud by Marxent

La-Z-Boy, a furniture industry leader, has launched its next-gen 3D product configuration and WebAR OnDemand technology, now available on la-z-boy.com.

This tech, powered by 3D Cloud by Marxent, aligns with La-Z-Boy’s Century Vision strategic plan. The initiative aims to revolutionise comfort with a consumer centric approach, delivering innovative shopping and brand experiences for digital and physical retail.

The upgraded product configurations and appless AR create an immersive brand journey, seamlessly connecting online product experience with in-store encounters.

With 29 million potential configurations quickly and readily available to consumers. WebAR enhances convenience, allowing shoppers to research, design, and plan furniture purchases online before visiting a physical store.

This is one of many significant investments that La-Z-Boy has made in retail technology over the past year. This particular story exemplifies its leadership in retail tech within the furniture retail space.

Sitoo

Sitoo PoS was rolled out across 200 Rally Stores in the USA and integrated with the retailer’s ERP - NetSuite - in just four months.

SOTI and Trek Bicycle Corporation

Trek Bicycle Corporation, a global leader in bicycle design and manufacturing, improved operational efficiency and security in its warehouses by implementing the SOTI ONE Platform, an integrated management solution that maximises the ROI of business critical mobile devices and printers, specifically SOTI MobiControl and SOTI XSight.

This streamlined device management, location tracking and security updates, reducing downtime and enhancing Trek’s worldwide operations. Trek’s partnership with RMS Omega Technologies led to the selection of SOTI ONE, which empowered its help desk to monitor device performance and offer swift user support, resulting in improved visibility, faster issue resolution and reduced downtime.

Zipline and TravisMathew

TravisMathew Apparel's retail journey, over the last decade, showcases a strategic embrace of technology to drive its brick-and-mortar success.

With a comprehensive approach to retail operations, from selling standards to IT system implementations, TravisMathew stands out as a model of retail technology excellence.

Zippin

Zippin’s checkout-free platform eliminates friction from the shopping experience. But, with purchases of age-restricted items (like beer), there’s still a significant bottleneck: manual ID checks.

Guests can fly through our stores in just 30 seconds, but often wait longer for age verification. Zippin’s integration with digital identity verification services for store entry eliminates this final bottleneck.

Guests registered with an age verification service use a facial scan to enter the store, pay for their purchase, and verify their age/identity. Shoppers can pass through Zippin powered stores more quickly and operators gain a more secure process for age verification.

CATEGORY 15:

Best Retailer/Technology Supplier Relationship (UK)

This award recognises a successful partnership between a UK retailer and a technology supplier, with an emphasis on the last 12/18 months and how said partnership has gone from strength to strength during that period.

Shortlist:

Barron McCann and Pets at Home

Pets at Home is continuing its commitment to serve customers’ pet care needs by investing in technology solutions to help store colleagues provide a practical, fun, and unique experience for pet owners.

The Pets at Home team, with the support of technology partner, Barron McCann, has replaced legacy chip and pin terminals (PEDs) to help streamline the customer experience. The project roll-out consisted of 2,220 devices installed in 456 sites. All of this was achieved in a 14-week period (32 sites per week).

Clix and B&Q Cardiff

Clix designed and installed its Click & Collect ecosystem for B&Q Cardiff, supported by its mobile-based VaultOS technology, with the industry’s first Progressive Web App (PWA) enabling autonomous, queue free customer collection.

Customers can retrieve goods purchased online from an allocated smart locker in under 30 seconds, simply by clicking an SMS weblink on their own device. The system is integrated with the store’s existing technology and third-party software, including VoCoVo customer service headsets, allowing a comprehensive and streamlined BOPIS service.

Overall, the project proved that the Clix system has eliminated queues, maximised operational efficiency and improved customer service.

CORE/boohoo

boohoo's ambition in 2022 was to grow sales in the US, and ensure its fashion products reached its new US distribution centre from the UK, entering the country quickly and compliantly. Previously, orders placed in the US were shipped from overseas with delivery taking eight to ten days.

A legacy system for assigning tariff codes, required for every single product shipped internationally, used traditional, paper-based processes and decentralised data systems.  

boohoo partnered with specialist customs classification solutions provider, CORE, to support it in adhering to complex US customs controls using the centralised TariffTel platform for assigning US tariff codes.  

Cyncly and Homebase

From software provider to true technical partner, Cyncly’s ten plus year relationship with Homebase keeps growing.

Playing an integral part in the retailer’s complete digital journey, Cyncly’s end-to-end software solutions, client support and technical expertise have enabled Homebase to improve the customer experience and increase engagement.

This relationship has recently evolved to a five-year platform deal, with plans to further drive the retailer’s web-to-store and multi-domain digital transformation.

Datitude and Mint Velvet

If Carlsberg did retailer/supplier relationships, it’d be Mint Velvet and Datitude. After all, in the fast evolving and competitive ecosystem, how many successful retailers have retained the same data partner for 10+ years?

The fact Datitude’s modern data platform continues to power Mint Velvet’s growing data integration, reporting and analytics needs is testament to having the best relationship, one of the most collaborative, successful and long standing in the industry.

Both technology solution and service delivery matter. It’s what sets Datitude apart and enables Mint Velvet to connect, integrate and unify its data to have a single source of truth.

Proximity and Orlebar Brown

Orlebar Brown is a luxury British clothing brand specialising in tailored men's swim shorts. It has been working alongside Proximity to provide its retail teams with a clienteling super app.

This app is enabling the brand to deliver a best-in-class experience for its customers, by driving personalised communication from the 30+ Orlebar Brown stores worldwide. It makes every interaction with customers authentic and memorable, and has revolutionised consumer expectation of the swimwear industry.

Scurri/Biscuiteers

Luxury, hand iced gifting company, Biscuiteers, has taken full control of its 365 days a year, worldwide customer delivery proposition - from dispatch to customer notifications - in partnership with Scurri, a delivery management platform. 

Scurri allows the company to automate key elements of its dispatch process, including carrier allocation, label generation and carrier notification, while its extensive carrier network allows Biscuiteers to scale to meet peaks in demand, offering access to additional carriers when necessary, avoiding the need for lengthy onboarding. 

Scurri Track Plus gives Biscuiteers complete control over the branding/sending of post-purchase communications to elevate the customer experience further.

Visualsoft and Lusso

The collaborative initiative between Lusso and Visualsoft has brought transformative changes to the luxury interior design and furnishings market.

In a rapidly evolving e-commerce landscape, Lusso faced the challenge of accommodating an expanding product range while maintaining a superior user experience. The project's strategic approach, tailored to specific audiences and emphasising a streamlined customer journey, has set Lusso.com apart in delivering a premium online experience.

The project not only achieved impressive results but also exemplifies a winning retailer-technology supplier relationship in the luxury interior design sector.

CATEGORY 16:

Best Retailer/Technology Supplier Relationship (Rest of World)

This award recognises a successful partnership between a non-UK retailer and a technology supplier, with an emphasis on the last 12/18 months and how said partnership has gone from strength to strength during that period.

Shortlist:

AiFi

AiFi is an AI powered solution provider that enables businesses to optimise their physical spaces at scale with autonomous shopping technology, and has orchestrated a successful partnership with Verizon, one of its key strategic allies.

Leveraging computer vision that requires cameras only, AiFi’s platform adapts to a wide range of new or existing store formats using advanced tracking algorithms that can scale up to 10,000 square feet across a multitude of verticals ranging, from grocery and convenience stores to travel, education, and workplace buildings. 

Attensi and Kao Salon Division

Kao Salon Division has partnered with Attensi to create a bespoke, game-based simulation training solution for 500 employees across EMEA to successfully launch the new luxury haircare brand, Kerasilk, and land organisational behaviour change.

Attensi aimed to really get under the skin of the business – understanding Kao’s processes, challenges, culture and business objectives/KPIs.

The impact for Kao Salon Division was significant, with a 1.5% increase in sales revenue generated (for learners who trained the most vs those who didn’t). Players were highly engaged, motivated to repeat the training and able to practice in realistic scenarios.

Canto and Sony Europe

Sony’s digital imaging division works closely with over 100 brand ambassadors across Europe to showcase Sony’s wide range of cameras, lenses, and accessories.

These photographers review new products, share images they’ve taken, and provide insights about their techniques and equipment choices for a broad audience of hobbyists and fellow professionals.

Working with digital asset management (DAM) provider Canto, Sony can now consolidate thousands of images and videos submitted by Alpha Universe ambassadors into a centralised, easily searchable library that leverages metadata and AI. This fuels inspiring content that makes a strong contribution to site traffic and increased attributable sales.

Grupo Éxito and Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions

Grupo Éxito, a retailer in Colombia with a presence in Uruguay and Argentina, strategically prioritised a shopper experience transformation and adoption self-checkout.

It partnered with Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions to deliver innovative solutions to meet its business goals around self-checkout and payment solutions. The Self Checkout System 7 solution from Toshiba provides shoppers with a fast, simple, and modern experience while delivering reliability and efficiency for the retailer.

Nextail and Flying Tiger Copenhagen

By partnering with Nextail, Flying Tiger Copenhagen has boosted its core merchandising processes through hyper-local demand forecasting, global inventory optimisation and AI driven decision automation.

As a result, the Danish variety retailer has transformed its wholesale business into one that is fully integrated and omnichannel. 

Flying Tiger Copenhagen selected Nextail due to its proven track record of delivering tangible results to major retailers facing similar challenges.

What began as a roll-out in the UK and Ireland quickly expanded into a partnership encompassing the entire European owned and operated store network of more than 800 stores.

refive and Puma

Puma encountered challenges in engaging a younger, digital native customer base and understanding in-store customer behaviour.

With refive's innovative digital receipts, it has successfully bridged these gaps. Now, at the checkout, it engages customers digitally, understanding anonymous customer behaviour in detail, collecting feedback and thousands of marketing opt-ins.

Thanks to this, Puma is now able to interact with in-store customers post-purchase as easily as with online customers. The overall customer experience has been enhanced with the gathered insights into customer behaviour.

The refive-Puma partnership aptly aligns with Puma’s sustainability and customer-centricity goals, solidifying the foundation of a thriving retailer-technology supplier relationship.

Sparkfly and Chipotle

In response to a critical challenge, Sparkfly and Chipotle forged a transformative partnership aimed at centralising and innovating cross-channel offers and loyalty campaigns while enhancing the customer experience.

By implementing Sparkfly's Offer Management Platform, Chipotle achieved impressive results, including $4.5 billion in digital sales, the activation of 33 million new loyalty accounts, and the redemption of 111 million offers.

This technology empowered Chipotle to capture and validate loyalty rewards in real-time, measure campaign ROI across channels, and provide customers with a single wallet for all offers and rewards. The enduring partnership, which began in 2017, has significantly reshaped its digital customer engagement landscape.

Wunderkind and Elvie

FemTech brand Elvie wanted to accelerate its Direct To Consumer (DTC) channel, while adjusting its marketing strategy to reduce reliance on increasingly competitive and expensive paid media channels.

Elvie partnered with Wunderkind, a performance marketing solution that scales one-to-one messages for retailers, to grow its owned channel revenue, improve customer engagement, and increase ROI on marketing spend.

Wunderkind delivered a 10x improvement in email performance, 23% growth in marketing list (audience) and an 8.35x return on ad spend, making it Elvie’s #3 paid channel in Google analytics.