Rule breaking Everlane bets big on Shopify: here are 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 East of England Co-op, Tesco, Peoplesafe, Walmart, Papa Johns, Criteo, Who is Elijah, Ace Hardware, DoorDash, StrongPoint, Żabka Polska, and Currys.

Everlane

Everlane’s e-commerce store has gone live on Shopify, building on its use of the latter’s Shop Pay solution.

“What makes this moment special isn’t just the site. It’s the journey,” says Harley Finkelstein, Shopify President. “In his twenties, Michael Preysman left a career in investing to take on an industry he had no background in: fashion. He saw luxury retail marking up products 10x and believed consumers were too smart to keep paying for it.”

“So he started Everlane. No fashion experience. No retail stores. No interest in following the rules. Their first viral campaign broke down the true cost of a T-shirt - $6 to make, sold for $15. No middlemen. No outrageous markups. Just radical transparency. That idea spread fast: 60,000 people signed up for a waitlist, and almost every drop sold out.”

He adds: “From there, Everlane kept rethinking what a modern fashion brand could be. Expanding slowly, building vertically integrated supply chains, and evolving from online only to physical retail when customers demanded it.”

“They were also the very first brand to use Shop Pay Commerce Components with Shopify. Now, they’ve gone all in. Their new site is stunning, 4.5x faster on Liquid than their old headless build, and makes it easier than ever for customers to discover and browse their incredible products.”

East of England Co-op

East of England Co-op this week presented its new website to its employees.

In a LinkedIn post, it said: “Yesterday (9th September) was a very exciting day at our support office as we revealed our brand new website to colleagues. As anyone who's been involved with a website development project will know, a huge amount of work has gone into producing this and we're really proud of the result.”

It added: “This launch is an important milestone in our digital transformation. As our first customer facing technology investment in this journey, it modernises our digital presence and provides the platform to better connect with and serve the needs of our members and customers.”

“This project was led by our Customer, Member and Marketing team alongside website partners The RAD Consulting Group and they've done an amazing job.”

Papa Johns

Papa Johns has partnered with Retail Assist and Barron McCann to review its UK wide IT support across more than 400 stores.

The technology overhaul was prompted by feedback from franchisees concerned about system reliability and the operational disruption caused by technical failures.

Retail Assist provides the helpdesk, operating seven days a week from 9am to midnight, while Barron McCann brings on the ground support with a four-hour turnaround for critical incidents to keep systems running and tills ticking.

Tailored Athlete

Tailored Athlete, a UK-based "perfect muscle fit" clothing brand founded in 2016, has selected Cart.com as its US fulfilment and transportation management services partner.

Tailored Athlete will leverage Cart.com's third-party logistics (3PL) solutions and Columbus, OH supply chain hub to streamline its fulfilment operations Stateside. It will also use the Transportation Management System to help it secure the best shipping rates across carriers and to consolidate all freight operations.

"We're proud we were able to quickly onboard Tailored Athlete and clear the backorders left by its previous 3PL within the first week of our partnership," says Joe Barth, Chief Logistics Officer at Cart.com.

"We started receiving trucks the day after our contract was signed, so the company could immediately leverage our technology driven fulfillment offerings and take advantage of the best rates and level of service with every item shipped."

All4Running

All4Running has gone live with Sitoo’s PoS and Unified Commerce Platform.

In a LInkedIn post, Sitoo said: “All4Running is the ultimate destination for runners of every level. Whether you're a seasoned marathoner or just lacing up your first pair of trainers, it has everything you need to hit your stride - from high-performance gear to expert advice that keeps you ahead of the pack.”

It added: “With our PoS and Unified Commerce Platform, All4Running is speeding ahead with a smoother, faster shopping experience. And as it continues to grow, the flexibility of Sitoo PoS ensures it is always one step ahead.”

Currys

Currys is investing in the roll-out of electronic shelf edge labels (ESEL) in its stores across the UK and Ireland.

Delivered in partnership with ESEL solution supplier Solum and Vestcom for data integration and software, the move forms part of Currys’ push to support colleagues in their day-to-day roles, while making it easier for its customers to shop.

The new ESELs replace traditional paper price tags with dynamic digital displays, offering customers real-time pricing, clearer product information and easy-to-scan QR codes for more information.

Behind the scenes, a centralised system enables pricing accuracy and consistency across all channels. This is currently available in over 150 stores, with full roll-out expected by 13th November. The investment was inspired by Elkjop3 in the Nordics, which already uses ESEL technology.

Piglet in Bed

Retail247 reports that Piglet in Bed, a homeware and lifestyle brand, has selected its Archean solution to manage both its stock management and order management operations.

This expanded partnership builds on the brand’s use of Origin, Retail247’s PIM and PLM solution.

Martin Schofield, CEO at Retail247, says: “Piglet in Bed is a fantastic example of a digital first brand scaling with clarity and purpose. We’re thrilled to support their next phase of growth by delivering inventory visibility, fulfilment optimisation and operational agility through Archean.”

With Archean’s stock management capabilities, Piglet in Bed gains a centralised, real-time view of inventory across it’s retail operations. From purchase order management to stock valuation, the solution is designed to scale with growing DTC brands.

Complementing this, Archean.OMS (Retail247’s newly launched order management system) will orchestrate Piglet in Bed’s fulfilment process, intelligently routing orders across channels and fulfilment locations based on speed, cost and availability.

The platform will support: Real-time inventory visibility across channels and locations; Omnichannel fulfilment options including ship-from-store and cropship; Cloud native scalability for peak trading periods; Seamless integration with existing e-commerce and logistics partners.

Who is Elijah

Who is Elijah is teaming up with ProfitPeak to expand into new markets and unlock smarter data driven decisions through Meta and Klaviyo.

In a LinkedIn post, ProfitPeak said: “Founded in 2018 by Raquel Bouris and Adam Bouris with a single fragrance crafted from their Sydney kitchen, this is a story of those who dreamed of making big moves and worked hard to turn them into a reality.”

“Who Is Elijah has grown into a global disruptor in niche perfumery. The brand is now stocked across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK, and carried by leading retailers including David Jones, Sephora ANZ & UK and Cult Beauty alongside a thriving direct-to-consumer channel."

It added: “With recent expansion into the US and a focus on scaling wholesale partnerships, this next chapter with ProfitPeak is about combining their bold brand identity with a crystal clear data driven strategy as they continue build the future of fragrance globally.”

Hornbach

European home improvement retailer Hornbach Baumarkt has gone live with Solace’s real-time, event driven integration platform as it looks to deliver a faster, more seamless shopping experience, both online and in-store.

With over 170 stores across Europe, Hornbach faced the challenge of managing a wide spectrum of distributed systems, keeping inventory accurate and quickly rolling out new services to meet shifting consumer demands. Its legacy PoS system had served its purpose well but lacked the flexibility to provide the advanced insights and speed of change it needed to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving market.

Working with Solace, it has deployed multiple event brokers in a poly cloud environment and its physical store locations.  This event mesh serves to standardise event driven architectures within a highly distributed business application landscape, unifying system integration and providing a secure, scalable, and robust mesh to enable close-to-real-time retail.

Together with new cloud-based systems, the event mesh ensures critical data events like price updates, product information, and sales data are instantly shared where and when needed, powering smarter and faster in-store and customer experiences such as the Hornbach omnichannel offering and the customer app. 

Criteo

AdTech firm Criteo has announced a new integration with Google for onsite retail media, initially available through a limited beta to select customers in the Americas.

In the first phase of the partnership, Criteo’s network of retailers will be able to opt in to receiving demand from the Google Search Ads 360 platform. The integration promises a combination of scale, efficiency and transparency with the flexibility to create and optimise campaigns.

The aim here is to help level the playing field in retail media by allowing a more diverse range of retailers to attract budgets and more brands to invest. 

"We're focused on building a seamless commerce media ecosystem,” says Bill Reardon, General Manager, Enterprise Platform at Google. “With Criteo’s expansive network of retailer partners, we’re helping advertisers connect with customers at a critical moment in their shopping journey: onsite, through sponsored product ads.”

“Coupled with our existing suite of offsite solutions in Performance Max and Shopping Ads, our goal is to empower advertisers and agencies with a more complete view of their advertising performance, enabling smarter decisions and more effective campaigns."

Mesterbakeren

Mesterbakeren, a Norway-based fresh bread producers, has selected RELEX Solutions in a bid to strengthen its demand and promotion forecasting. The investment supports Mesterbakeren’s goal of improving forecast accuracy, reducing waste, and ensuring better product availability across the stores it supplies.

Operating nine bakeries and serving as the sole fresh bread supplier for direct-store-delivery models, including 680 REMA 1000 stores, Mesterbakeren sought a modern, scalable replacement for its long-standing bespoke forecasting system.

RELEX machine learning-based forecasting provides a precise view of the consumer level demand to help Mesterbakeren synchronise production and distribution with what is happening on the shelf. Exception-based planning further enables the team to focus on the most critical priorities and act on timely, data-driven insights.

MC

Portugal-based grocery retailer, MC, part of Sonae Group, has switched to StrongPoint’s Order Picking solution.

This will used across all Continente grocery stores that process e-commerce orders, as well as in Wells stores, a health, wellness and beauty retail chain. The solution will be implemented during the first half of 2026.

“We chose StrongPoint as our partner for in-store order picking because their solution is the clear market leader in efficiency, helping us maximise profitability for our e-commerce operations. While we considered developing our own system, StrongPoint enables us to immediately deploy a market-proven solution that delivers maximum efficiency from day one,” says Hélder Ribeiro, MC CDO. 

Ace Hardware and DoorDash

Ace Hardware and DoorDash have announced a partnership to offer on-demand delivery of products at over 4,000 locally owned Ace locations across the US.

This makes it the first and largest nationwide home improvement co-op retailer available on DoorDash.

“Ace is always looking for new ways to serve our customers better and faster, and now with DoorDash, we’re creating more opportunities to take convenience to a new level,” says Bill Kiss, Head of Digital at Ace Hardware.

“Together, we’re combining Ace’s extensive assortment of top quality products with fast and reliable on-demand delivery that DoorDash is known for. Now our customers can get what they need quickly from their local Ace store, without leaving home or stopping in the middle of a project.”

Consumers can shop thousands of hardware, paint, tools, and garden products directly via the Ace storefront on the DoorDash app or website. Orders are fulfilled in real-time by Dashers, who pick up and deliver items from local Ace stores.

Simmi London

UK fashion footwear brand, Simmi London, has announced a partnership with delivery management solution specialist Scurri.

It required a delivery offering that could match the pace and complexity of its multi-channel retail operations, including multiple carrier integrations, dynamic delivery options at checkout and end-to-end tracking.

Simmi has implemented Scurri’s Connect platform to orchestrate its multi-carrier delivery infrastructure. This ensures the brand can offer customers a greater range of delivery choices at checkout while managing a growing network of carriers behind the scenes.

In addition, it is leveraging Scurri’s rules engine to optimise fulfillment workflows and automatically allocate the most cost-effective or high performance delivery service for each order. To ensure customers stay fully informed from dispatch to delivery, Simmi London has also adopted branded tracking updates.

Terrible's

Terrible’s, a specialist in convenience retailing with more than 190 stores across Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, has launched a new mobile app experience.

This features a Shop, Spin, & Win game, which rewards qualified purchases with a spin of a customised, in-app prize wheel.

“We don’t follow the traditional playbook. We’re constantly looking for fun and engaging ways to connect with our guests,” says Bryan Breeden, Vice President of Marketing and Advertising at Terrible’s. “The Rewards app is a bold leap forward - one that’s designed to engage our most loyal guests with something fresh, exciting, and unmistakably Terrible’s.”

finmid

finmid reports that its embedded lending infrastructure is now available in 30 European markets. The company has added Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Romania, Iceland and Switzerland to the list of countries it is serving.

“Europe’s dream of a single market has been held back by a financial system that stops at borders,” says Alexander Talkanitsa, Co-founder at finmid. “Embedded lending has always had the potential to change that, but the reality was fragmented and slow.”

“With this roll-out, any platform can, for the first time, offer capital to its customers everywhere in Europe. This changes the game. With this barrier removed, the next decade of growth for European SMEs is made possible on a region wide scale.”  

Fressnapf

The Fressnapf Group, a European supplier of pet supplies with over 2,750 stores in 15 European countries, is taking the next step in its digital transformation push as it migrates its store services to the cloud-based retail platform GK CLOUD4RETAIL.

Fressnapf has been using GK Software's store solution since 2013. It is increasingly focusing on all services for customers and employees in store operations and wants to rethink all digital touchpoints in its physical locations - from PoS, store merchandise management, and mobile consulting to the customer and employee experience.

“GK CLOUD4RETAIL's ability to combine the strengths of a reliable platform with modular extensions is a key success factor for us,” says Randy John, Vice President of Product Development Digital Store Solution at Fressnapf Holding.

“We want to offer our stores and employees a solution that supports them in all services: a stable, user-friendly, and reliable PoS system that can be constantly expanded with additional functions. GK has proven itself over many years as a reliable and innovative partner in the market and has once again demonstrated this in our demanding selection process.”

Omniva

Jetbeep, which provides software for autonomous parcel lockers, has inked a five-year strategic partnership with Omniva, the national postal operator of Estonia, providing technology for its Picapac network of community lockers in the Baltics.

The lockers provide last mile delivery options and lay claim to a high first time delivery success rate and reduced costs. Each unit serves between 50 and 100 families, with most placed within 300 metres of households.

Picapac will now provide serial production of Jetbeep’s community lockers in Estonia, with pilots planned in Latvia and Lithuania.

Dobbies

Dobbies Garden Centres is working with Adyen on a project covering payments in-store and online, supporting retail, restaurants and experiences.

In doing so, the retailer, which has 53 stores across the UK, says that it is gaining real-time insights that enable colleagues to resolve payment queries in under ten minutes (down from up to three hours), and smarter loyalty, and enhancing the experience for Dobbies’ 1.4 million club members with more personalised rewards and seasonal offers.

“What makes garden centres special, is we're in a position to offer retail, hospitality and experiential. Our customers aren’t just shopping for plants, they’re creating garden living spaces, both inside and outside their homes” says Keith Keenan, IT Director, at Dobbies.

“Adyen gives us the agility to stay ahead of retail trends and the visibility to ensure we’re stocked with what matters most to our customers. It also enables us to deliver a consistent, modern payment experience - whether customers shop in-store or online, while empowering our colleagues with real-time insights that enhance our service.”

Tesco

Tesco is giving all its UK colleagues free access to a Peoplesafe app that can track their journeys and help them to raise the alarm if they don’t feel safe.

This follows feedback from employees who said they sometimes felt unsafe travelling to and from work. It helps address situations such as walking in an unfamiliar area late at night, facing aggression on the night bus or tube after a night out or using a private taxi alone.

By setting their destination and mode of transport before travelling, the app can automate welfare checks on their mobile to ensure they feel safe and allow them to raise an SOS alert if needed.

If they don’t arrive at their destination on time or fail to respond to messages asking if they feel safe, then the folks at Peoplesafe's control room will call to check they’re safe and can raise an alarm directly with local police if necessary. Once they arrive at their destination, the app automatically closes the tracing process.

Tesco does not receive any personal information about any colleague’s use of the app or any alarms raised. And it’s up to them if they want to sign up for it or not. They will have the option to allow their location to be tracked using GPS during journeys, which would enable help to be sent to the exact location quickly, in the event of an emergency, and would only be visible to the Peoplesafe control room.

Żabka Polska

Marketing specialist, Stagwell, and Żabka Polska, a convenience stores retailer in Poland, have established a joint venture to launch In-Pulse, a consumer analytics and engagement tool designed specifically for the Polish market.

Leveraging Żabka's retail footprint and its app, and Stagwell's data analytics technology and knowledge in marketing and e-commerce, In-Pulse curates aggregated data and anonymous insights on millions of Polish consumers. The tool provides businesses with insights into consumers preferences, shopping patterns, and spending habits.

"Poland is a very important market for us, not only from a local perspective, but also the entire CEE region. The Polish market is our headquarters when it comes to digital commerce services, and it is here that we have gained an extremely strong partner - Żabka Polska. I am sure that the joint venture, the axis of which is an innovative look at the Polish consumer and real listening to their voice, is a revolution for the entire market," says James Townsend, CEO at Stagwell EMEA.

Walmart

Walmart has opened a new 725,000 square foot perishable distribution centre (PDC) in Wellford, South Carolina.

The facility is designed to receive and process fresh produce, eggs, dairy, meat and frozen goods for delivery to 180 stores.

“The opening of our new high tech perishable distribution centre, marks a major step forward in how we get fresher products to customers faster - whether that’s in-store, delivered to their home, or even restocking their refrigerator,” says Rob Montgomery, Executive Vice President, Supply Chain, Walmart U.S.

The Lyman area facility is the third of five new PDCs Walmart is opening nationwide, pitched as a significant milestone in the company’s supply chain transformation.

These facilities leverage automation to process more than double the volume of a traditional distribution centre. For example, robotics now handle the movement of cases on and off pallets, reducing the need for strenuous lifting.

Associates at the facility work alongside the systems that build store specific pallets, ensuring fragile items like eggs and yogurt are placed toward the top, to minimise product damage. AI tracks every pallet to ensure accuracy and freshness. This technology also makes unloading at stores faster and easier, allowing store associates to spend more time helping customers.

Kappture and Boxbar Tech

Kappture is working with Boxbar Tech and Legends/ASM Global Europe to integrate their new self-serve bar with its technology at Utilita Arena Sheffield.

Kappture ensures that EPoS offerings connect with all necessary systems.

In a LinkedIn post, Reshad Hossenally, Co-founder and CEO at Boxbar Tech, said: "We continue deploying our solution after successful trials from temp to perm! Nine mobile units at Utilita Arena Sheffield were trialled and now this beauty is live. 12 permanent Points of Sale. 24 serving taps.”

“The ability to serve any drink. The flexibility to adapt products to varying event audiences. Pouring up to 2,880 pints per hour. Integrated with Kappture PoS. Tap on glass simple payments."

"Thank you to the amazing team Utilita Arena Sheffield and Legends/ASM Global Europe for all their support and embracing this technology with success."