Including Ikea, Asda, and Circle K: last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, launches, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Including Vida Shoes International, Destination XL Group, Bluecore, RELEX Solutions, Adore Beauty, tutch, Castore, GXO Logistics, Ocado Retil, LiveRamp, DFS, Quantcast, Yapily, and Adyen.
DFS
Furniture retailer DFS says it has significantly increased its return on ad spend (ROAS) since in-housing programmatic advertising with Quantcast.
The partnership with the AdTech firm dates back to 2011 and has been direct since 2021. It has recently focused on a campaign to drive increased sales across DFS’ upholstery and beds ranges, as well as showcasing quick delivery capabilities.
Since going ‘in-house’ with Quantcast, the ROAS has increased to over 600% while the brand has achieved targeted incremental gains on product range CPA. For an ‘always-on’ campaign, these gains have a significant impact on DFS’ sales all year round.
Catherine Woodward, Head of Digital Marketing at DFS, says: “We’ve been working indirectly with Quantcast via an agency since 2011, but as we began to build our internal capability a few years ago, we recognised just how intuitive the platform is and have since made the decision to in-house programmatic advertising."
“As anyone that’s spent time on audience targeting would acknowledge, landing the right message with the right person at the right time can be a hugely complex task. Quantcast has streamlined this massively so our creative is targeting key audiences in a matter of minutes, allowing us to focus on wider business activity and testing. The platform also allows us to measure incremental impact with high precision, so we can isolate the true value of our advertising campaigns, giving us greater insights and unlocking more investment.”
Ikea
Ikea says that it has received 3,730 applications in just six days for its new Oxford Street, London store. Interest in the 150 available positions marks the largest ever response the home furnishing retailer has seen in the UK.
It provides the independently set Real Living Wage of £13.85 per hour alongside benefits including flexible work arrangements, enhanced parental leave, and a free healthy meal option served every day.
Successful applicants will be offered multi-skilled roles, working across different departments. They will work in a store that aims to fuse traditional retail expertise with new digital solutions and sustainable practices.
Matt Gould, Market Manager at Ikea London City, says: "This extraordinary response demonstrates the incredible appeal of joining the Ikea co-worker family. We're delighted to see such enthusiasm for our most innovative store yet, and we look forward to building a diverse team that will help shape the future of urban retail in London."
Vida Shoes International
Fast Simon, a specialist in AI powered shopping optimisation, reports an expansion of its e-commerce work with Vida Shoes International across the latter's portfolio of brands, which includes Aquatalia, Bruno Magli, Jambu, Stride Rite and Andre Assous.
A selection of Vida brands have to date leveraged Fast Simon's merchandising, search optimisation and personalisation to elevate customer experiences and drive growth. With the expansion, its AI capabilities will be deployed across all brands under the Vida Shoes International umbrella.
“For more than 50 years we’ve supported brands across the entire life cycle of the shoe - from concept to sale,” says Solomon Dabah, President at Vida Shoes International. “Empowering them with the latest AI technology from Fast Simon takes that support to the next level so they can deliver the best online experience for shoppers.”
Asda
First up, the launch of Asda Access which gives brands the opportunity to leverage the grocery giant's customer data to fuel insights, campaign planning, activation and measurement. Harnessing technology to connect customers and brands via digital touchpoints, Asda Access aims to ensure campaigns drive effective ROI and customer satisfaction.
It is pitched as a multilayered off-site proposition enabling flexible access to first-party rewards data of seven million customers, enhanced by exclusive second-party data and third-party data, giving brands the opportunity to pick from 600 predefined first-party audience segments or build custom audiences to suit a brief.
Offering layered targeting, this helps brands to reach the right Asda customer including purchase-based audiences, propensity, demographic and lookalike audiences. To further scale campaigns, brands will be able to reach these customers across multiple offsite channels. In addition, they can work with Asda experts to create a bespoke creative that will engage with customers.
Asda Access will also offer a range of tools to help brands understand the impact of their media such as brand lift studies, closed loop attribution, in flight reporting, incrementality analysis and geo sales uplift.
Secondly, the retailer has unveiled a new digital vending machine at its Pilsworth store, unlocking exclusive product sampling for Asda Rewards customers.
This is designed to drive brand awareness and improve in-store sampling. Brands can showcase dynamic content on digital screens, drive trials for new products and engage Asda shoppers. All customers need to do is scan their Rewards loyalty app for a free sample.
It is set to be rolled out in prominent in-store locations and offers post-campaign activity reports.
Destination XL Group
Destination XL Group has announced an expanded partnership with Bluecore, a shopper identification and customer movement technology specialist.
The men’s apparel retailer selected the company as its single technology partner for identification, audience building and segmentation and campaign management.
By consolidating multiple marketing technologies and capabilities onto Bluecore, it says it will deliver a greater level of personalisation to shoppers at scale and meet customers exactly where they are, with the brands, styles and products they want to shop and purchase.
DXL operates nearly 300 DXL Big + Tall retail and outlet stores and Casual Male XL retail and outlet stores across the United States, as well as its e-commerce website and mobile app. It will now connect shoppers’ online and offline experiences to increase shopper and customer identification, drive first time and repeat conversion and reactive lapsed buyers.
Adore Beauty
tutch has been selected by Australian online retailer, Adore Beauty, to provide endless aisle capabilities for its entry into physical retail.
Adore Beauty Group’s three-year strategy to become a leading omnichannel beauty retailer targeting 30% revenue growth, and doubling its EBIT margin was announced at its AGM in November 2024.
CEO Sacha Laing comments: “Adore Beauty has strong foundations poised for material growth. Taking the group from a pureplay online beauty platform into an omnichannel beauty authority is a natural evolution for the group.”
tutch enables retailers to offer their entire product catalogue in-store, overcoming the limitations of physical shelf space and enabling customers to discover and purchase products with ease.
Customers at the Adore Beauty retail stores will be able to purchase products available in-store, while curating a cart from products only available online. A customer's online items are sent to them after they’ve finished shopping. Furthermore, people can use the in-store kiosk to find reviews, ingredients and more information on any of the products in the Adore Beauty catalogue, whether they are in-store or online.
Circle K
RELEX Solutions has expanded its collaboration with Circle K. RELEX Diagnostics will be implemented by the retailer to support the improvement of visibility into root causes of stockouts and increasing product availability.
With over 4,800 stores operating under the Circle K brand in Europe, Circle K has a broad retail network offering fuel, electric vehicle charging stations, fresh food and beverages.
Since partnering with RELEX in 2016, it has rolled out a unified set up for space planning and supply chain optimisation across its European business units. In addition to this, demand forecasting and replenishment will be implemented at Circle K and Couche-Tard in the US and Canada.
With RELEX Diagnostics, Circle K will benefit from functionality that is integrated with the planning processes and offers detailed insights into the reasons for stockouts and spoilage. This includes root causing that spans end-to-end operations, indicating whether supplier performance is the main factor, for example, or if pack size is causing issues, or in-store balance corrections are affecting KPIs.
With this information, RELEX can help Circle K understand the root causes and then focus on fixing those issues with the relevant parties. Circle K offers a variety of perishable and fast selling products, and with this added end-to-end visibility, it can take steps towards more precise management of inventory for improved KPIs.
Ocado Retail
LiveRamp has announced a partnership with Ocado Ads, the retail media network of online only supermarket Ocado Retail. The tie up marks the launch of Audience+, a new offsite self-serve media solution.
Audience+ will allow agencies and brand partners to leverage Ocado’s first-party shopper data insights via LiveRamp’s technology. According to those involved, they will be able to plan, activate and measure offsite media campaigns across a wider network of ad platforms with greater precision and transparency, with the aim of reaching their target audiences in a more streamlined and effective way.
Hugh Stevens, UK Managing Director at LiveRamp, says: “As advertisers continue to prioritise retail media’s insights, retailers who deliver this capability in the most collaborative manner enabling enhanced targeting opportunities and more transparent attribution will be best placed to meet this demand.’
“That is why we’re delighted to partner with Ocado Ads, supporting it to unlock greater value from retail media activation and further differentiate its media network offering with transformative self-serve features through the LiveRamp Clean Room.”
Castore
GXO Logistics has expanded its partnership with Castore, a performance sportswear brand, to operate warehousing and transportation in the UK, US and Europe.
GXO has been providing logistics services to Castore’s business in the UK since April 2024, distributing teamwear to a variety of sporting teams and individuals, including Oracle Red Bull Racing, McLaren F1, Everton FC, the England Cricket teams, as well as Olympic silver medallist Adam Peaty.
Following the launch of the UK operation, Castore is expanding its tie up with GXO which will work with it to provide logistics operations in the Netherlands with plans to expand to the US.
Alongside teamwear, GXO distributes product to wholesale customers that sell team merchandise and sportswear, whilst also providing retail distribution to more than 20 Castore stores across Europe. Additionally, it is responsible for fulfilling and managing the transport of all e-commerce sales globally.
Poundland
Motorola Solutions has announced deployment of its VT100 body cameras to employees across Poundland stores in the UK. Since a pilot, the retailer has reported a decrease in incidents, including an 11% drop in violence against store employees and a marked reduction in shoplifting and theft.
“A safer environment for frontline workers and shoppers alike underpins everything retailers do,” says Neil Thomas, Corporate Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Motorola Solutions. “The VT100 empowers in-store staff with the information they need to decisively protect their employees, customers, and stores.”
Poundland’s Security and Loss Prevention team also an objective record of events to help conduct investigations. Poundland is using Motorola Solutions’ VideoManager digital evidence management solution to prepare, store and process video data, including the ability to tag and match body camera videos with CCTV footage and other incident data.
Mountain House
Mountain House, the direct-to-consumer division of Oregon Freeze Dry, has chosen Reactor Data to streamline its data onboarding workflows.
Reactor is being used to prep, label, and map data into Google BigQuery for further analysis and activation, enabling the brand’s teams to quickly access unified, accurate data from e-commerce transactions, supply chain operations, and customer feedback channels.
“We are committed to delivering premium freeze dried meals that bring comfort and nourishment to adventurers, emergency preppers, and home consumers alike,” says Sally Wilson, Interim CMO at Oregon Freeze Dry. “By harnessing Reactor’s user-friendly interface and fully automated data pipelines, we can more effectively track consumer demand, optimise inventory, and identify emerging product trends to better serve our customers’ diverse needs.”
Yapily and Adyen
Open Banking infrastructure platform, Yapily, has agreed a partnership with PayTech firm Adyen.
The latter says it will use the former's data features to "streamline onboarding and strengthen account verification, giving even more merchants across Europe a faster, more seamless, secure experience".
This also marks the beginning of a relationship in which Yapily and Adyen will continue to explore additional Open Banking driven services, including creditworthiness assessments for loan decisions and beyond.
Adyen will go live with Yapily’s data products in various European regions which will be embedded into its Open Banking product, and offered via a standalone solution.
Henri-Lloyd
British sailing apparel brand, Henri-Lloyd, reports the launch of a new website on Shopify, and completion of a signficant supply chain project.
In a LinkedIn post, Harry Keen, E-commerce Trading Manager at Henri-Lloyd, said: "Proud to announce two milestones. We've launched a new Shopify website, improving efficiency and the customer experience for 2025 and beyond. Plus, we've completed a warehouse move, streamlining operations behind the scenes. A huge thanks to everyone who've all helped make it happen - much more to come soon!"
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