The shift from search and scroll to ask and buy: last week’s biggest retail technology plays

RTIH rounds up the stand out retail technology deals, launches, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Including AllSaints, Impact Analytics, Carrefour, wagamama, Scotmid Co-op, Hagar, Tottenham Hotspur, Walmart Mexico, Vusion, Aldi USA, Instacart, New Look, Lush UK, Argos, Iceland Foods,  Groupe Dynamite, and Vusion Express.

AllSaints

AllSaints has selected Impact Analytics as a partner as it looks to modernise and scale its buying and merchandising operations, moving away from a legacy environment heavily reliant on spreadsheets, manual workflows, and fragmented decision-making.

By adopting AI native planning tools, it says it is aiming to streamline processes, improve forecast accuracy, and enable teams to focus on value added decision-making rather than data manipulation.

“One of the four pillars of our transformation is to become data driven and powered by AI,” says Alfie Meekings, Chief Transformation and Technology Officer at AllSaints.

“We have a great team, but they have to spend so much time manually pulling and analysing data. This partnership allows us to eliminate repetitive, low value tasks so our merchandisers can focus on understanding what is truly happening in our brand and make quicker, higher-quality decisions to get the right products in the right places for our customers.”

The deployment will roll-out in phases to include: CortexEye for agentic AI native business intelligence; allocation and replenishment; markdown and promotional pricing optimisation; merchandise financial planning; assortment and range planning.

A core focus of the initiative is accelerating weekly trading cadence. Today, AllSaints’ Monday trading packs require teams to begin data collation as early as Sunday to gain clarity by Monday afternoon. With CortexEye, the complete Monday trading pack will be available by 8:00 a.m. Monday morning, broken down by department and team.

Carrefour

Carrefour has introduced an AI powered grocery shopping service on ChatGPT, becoming the first major European retailer to integrate its full product offering directly into the platform.

Users in France can now interact with ChatGPT to find recipes, check product availability, build a shopping basket, and select delivery options before completing their purchase on Carrefour’s e-commerce platform.

"Carrefour is targeting France's 26 million ChatGPT users with this integration. That's a massive new storefront that lives inside a chatbot," says Max Sinclair, Founder and CEO at Azoma.

"This is agentic commerce in action. AI handles meal planning, dietary filtering, and basket building on behalf of the shopper. No search results pages. No shelf placements. ChatGPT curates the entire basket through conversation. Carrefour's AI already uses purchase history to personalise recommendations. The longer shoppers use it, the more it learns their preferences, and the harder it becomes for new brands or retailers to break in."

He concludes: "The shift from search and scroll to ask and buy is accelerating. If you're a brand or retailer selling in European markets, when a shopper asks ChatGPT what to buy for dinner tonight, are you part of the answer?"

efood

finmid has partnered with efood, a Greek food delivery platform and Delivery Hero brand, to launch efood Capital - a financing programme that gives its partner businesses access to growth capital.

The platform’s 21,000 partner stores across 100 Greek cities can now get immediate access to up to €30,000 in financing capital. This can be used for a variety of costs such as expanding business activities, purchasing or upgrading equipment, covering renovation costs, marketing expenses, working capital, or opening new locations.

SportShoes.com

UK running specialist SportShoes.com, founded in 1982 and now a £100 million+ business, developed its native app as part of a broader shift away from legacy systems towards a composable digital architecture.

Working with One iota, the retailer says that it focused on building stable foundations first, ensuring the app could sit cleanly on top of its existing commerce, content and search infrastructure.

CTO Jon Cleaver says: “The app was always part of the vision, but we were realistic about timing. When I joined, the stack wasn’t ready. We took the decision to rebuild our core architecture first, knowing that if we got that right, the app and future channels would follow much more smoothly.”

Since going live, the app has attracted close to 300,000 downloads and, at peak periods, can account for up to 20% of total revenue. App users consistently outperform web only customers, with higher conversion rates, higher average order values and increased purchase frequency.

Shake Shack

Shake Shack has announced Project Catalyst, a technology initiative focused on scaling its digital, data, and operational platforms as it expands to 1,500 company operated locations.

Project Catalyst will involve modernising restaurant systems, launching the brand’s first loyalty platform, expanding AI capabilities, and advancing its data foundation.

“Shake Shack is entering a significant phase of growth and building the right foundation to support that scale is a top priority,” says Rob Lynch, Chief Executive Officer at Shake Shack. “Project Catalyst strengthens the technology and digital capabilities that power our restaurants and connect us more meaningfully with our guests. These investments will help our teams operate more efficiently, enhance the guest experience, and position Shake Shack to scale successfully toward 1,500 company operated Shacks.”

wagamama

wagamama has launched on Uber Eats UK, representing the Pan-Asian restaurant chain’s first new delivery partnership in ten years.

In a LinkedIn post, Uber said: “We’re excited to welcome wagamama to Uber Eats UK in a new national partnership, bringing their iconic dishes to more homes across the nation than ever before. With demand for wagamama on the app more than doubling last year, this partnership is all about connecting even more eaters with the food they love. Now live and rolling out nationwide.”

Scotmid Co-op

Scotmid Co-op is rolling out assisted/hybrid checkout solutions as the convenience retailer looks to improve loss prevention and reduce theft (walk-offs).

The investment in its store tech and checkout solutions from 4POS has also reduced checkout friction for customers, with dual screens allowing colleagues to step in and offer assistance to reduce shopper wait times, minimise queues and support sales. 

The roll-out is now live in 90% of its Food stores (~160 stores) as well as locations across its discount health and beauty brand, Semichem (~63 stores). 

“We were particularly impressed by the modular approach,” says Allan Robertson, Procurement & Sustainability Manager at Scotmid Co-op.

“The fact that the same core hardware could be used across traditional tills and self-checkout solutions created real flexibility, allowing us to model different store configurations and future-proof the estate. The relationship developed quickly, and from the outset it felt like a partnership and a joined up team.”

Hagar

PassEntry has launched Takk (Thank You), a new digital loyalty programme for Hagar, Iceland’s largest retail group and operator of the Bónus, Hagkaup, and Olis grocery, hypermarket, and fuel brands.

This is powered by PassEntry’s proprietary PassTap module and integrates with Hagar’s existing Point of Sale infrastructure. The launch was supported by a national media campaign across print, digital, outdoor and television in Iceland.

When a customer taps their phone at a payment terminal, loyalty is triggered instantly - no apps to open or QR codes to scan. Security is driven by the phone’s own biometrics, meaning no additional password required. 

Rewards are earned and redeemed in real-time during checkout, with points either saved for future use or spent immediately as part of the same transaction. The entire experience runs directly on the payment terminals - whether manned or self-serve. Digital loyalty passes are issued directly into Apple Wallet and Google Wallet.

Hagar says that, within five days of the launch date, more than 15% of Iceland's adult population had joined the loyalty programme.

Nico Cary, Co-Founder and CTO at PassEntry, says: “Takk marks a breakthrough moment for loyalty. By issuing wallet native passes that activate directly at the payment terminal, Hagar is delivering a truly frictionless experience. With PassEntry enabling the transaction layer, loyalty becomes a natural extension of paying - tap to pay, tap to earn, tap to redeem.”

Tottenham Hotspur

English football club Tottenham Hotspur has completed deployment of Salesforce Service Cloud.

In a LinkedIn post, dated 31st March, Rob Pickering, Chief Technology & Digital Officer, said: “Today’s a big day for our fans, and for our service and technology teams who have worked hard to get here. We’ve just gone live with Salesforce Service Cloud, including Service Cloud Voice powered by Amazon Connect.”

“Supporters can now reach us across email, voice, chat, SMS and WhatsApp in their own language, which for a club with a global fanbase is something we’ve wanted to deliver for a long time. What makes this more than just a new set of channels or service management platform is the data sitting underneath it.”

He added: “Our ticketing, membership, visitor attractions (like F1 Drive), digital marketing and retail e-commerce operations are now connected into a single customer view, so when a fan gets in touch our service team isn’t piecing together information from multiple different systems. They see the full picture from the moment the conversation starts, making it as seamless and quick as possible when fans need help.”

“We then took that connected data foundation and put Agentforce on top of it, deploying AI agents that can handle a real range of fan queries autonomously, drawing on that connected data to give accurate, personalised responses at any hour, for any fan, globally. For our contact centre team, that means less time on routine queries and more capacity for the interactions that actually need a human. For our fans, it means faster resolution and a better experience regardless of when, what channel or how they reach out.”

Pickering concluded: “Getting here took a huge cross organisational effort - Salesforce brought both the technology and the people to deliver it, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club brought the subject matter expertise and relentless focus on improving the fan experience to get us across the line. A huge thank you to all of the teams involved in getting us here, a very exciting additional step to our transformation going live, just a few more to go over the next six weeks!”

B2C Distribution

B2C Distribution, an online retailer of wetsuits, technical water sports equipment, equestrian products and lifestyle clothing, has announced a payments partnership with Ecommpay.

Roy Blokker, Head of Strategic Sales at Ecommpay, comments: “B2C Distribution depends on smooth, reliable payment journeys across multiple e-commerce brands, and checkout performance will be critical for its future expansion plans.”

“The company’s previous setup involved multiple parties in the payment chain which undermined their growth plans. We have delivered greater visibility and more flexibility in a true partnership, working seamlessly with in-house developers and the highly tailored systems of its bespoke e-commerce environment.”

Lyndon Davis, Finance Director at B2C Distribution, says: “The Ecommpay team gave us the ability to work closer to the source when improvements or fixes were needed. Everything felt more flexible - if we needed something done differently, whether that was reporting or how something was handled operationally, there was a willingness to work with us.”

“Many of our customers shop on mobile devices, where purchases are driven by speed and convenience, so express checkout options were an absolute must for us. Ecommpay worked closely with us to develop a solution that now performs well across all our sites.”

“The collaboration is a genuine working partnership, with open dialogue, clear expectations and a shared focus on improving the customer experience. We now have a payments setup that is stable, flexible and built to evolve. Just as importantly, we have a partner relationship based on honesty, responsiveness and shared goals.”

Lush UK

Lush UK has selected Quadient’s Accounts Payable (AP) automation software as the cosmetics retailer looks to modernise and streamline its finance operations.

Lush processes thousands of supplier invoices monthly. By implementing Quadient’s AP automation software as part of its Xero standardisation, the company says that it has simplified invoice processing, enhanced controls and supported scaling finance operations.

Quadient AP, integrated with Xero, consolidates multiple legacy tools, enabling invoice capture, validation, approval and posting in one platform. Features include PO matching, custom workflows and automated data extraction for faster, secure processing.

Prior to deploying Quadient AP, Lush relied on a combination of different invoice processing and approval systems across its UK entities, requiring finance teams to switch between platforms and manually post invoices into accounting systems after approval.

It now processes over 4,000 invoices per month and has cut non-purchase order invoice processing time from ten to four minutes. Purchase order invoice processing takes two to three minutes using automated approvals.

Walmart Mexico

Walmart de México y Centroamérica, the largest retailer in Mexico, is expanding its collaboration with Vusion to deploy the EdgeSense connected store platform across its Walmart Express stores and begin the transformation of its Supercenter fleet.

This initiative builds on a global collaboration between the pair, following the deployment of Vusion’s connected store technologies across Walmart US stores.

Under this agreement, Walmart Express stores will be fully deployed with EdgeSense technology by the end of 2026, marking the first large scale roll-out of the platform in Latin America. Following this phase, Walmart Mexico also plans to expand the deployment to Walmart Supercenters.

Across the initial deployment, Walmart Express stores will be equipped with more than 1.7 million electronic shelf labels and over 180,000 EdgeSense smart rails. Walmart Mexico will also begin a pilot deployment in its Bodega format, evaluating how EdgeSense technology can support additional store formats as part of the company’s long-term connected store strategy.

Vison Express

Vision Express, part of EssilorLuxottica, has announced a partnership with Stream (formerly Wagestream), a workplace finance provider.

As the latest addition to Vision Express’ reward package, the partnership will provide all employees with access to Stream’s suite of financial tools to support greater visibility over day-to-day money management and long-term financial planning.

Integrated directly into existing HR and payroll systems, the platform includes flexible access to pay, personalised education, the ability to track shifts and earnings, budget in real-time using Open Banking, save directly from their salary into a savings account, and access credit with low, competitive interest rates. 

TrusTrace

TrusTrace reports strong early traction for One Retail Hub, its free industry infrastructure for supply chain compliance. Seven weeks after launch, it says that brands are seeing average time savings of 70% on compliance reporting, as the platform eliminates fragmented, retailer by retailer data requests that have long strained sustainability teams.

As mounting regulatory obligations, from HREDD and CSRD to EUDR, force brands to demonstrate supply chain accountability across multiple retail relationships simultaneously, One Retail Hub provides shared digital infrastructure to meet those requirements without rebuilding compliance responses from scratch for every retailer.

Built in collaboration with seven retailers, including Zalando, Boozt, Asos, and About You, the platform enables brands to complete a single unified assessment and share it instantly across all participating retailers.

Levi Strauss & Co.

Levi Strauss & Co. is working with Raspberry AI, a generative AI platform for fashion creatives.

In a LinkedIn post, Cheryl Liu, Founder and CEO at Raspberry AI, said: “Levi Strauss & Co. is now officially a Raspberry customer.”

“An iconic brand founded in 1873 in San Francisco - initially worn by cowboys and Gold Rush miners building the American West to cultural icons like James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Marlon Brando to generations of creators, dreamers, and rebels. Thank you for choosing and trusting us as your creative AI partner to support your design processes.”

Aldi USA

Aldi USA has worked with Instacart on the launch of a redesigned website and mobile app. The aim here is to offer a more seamless, personalised way for customers to shop products online, powered by Instacart's Storefront Pro platform and fulfillment solutions.

Instacart first began powering fulfillment for Aldi USA in 2019, and is now the retailer's exclusive fulfillment partner across its website and app.

"Aldi is known for offering their customers incredible value, and we're proud to partner with them to make sure that value translates seamlessly into their digital experience," says Ryan Hamburger, Vice President of Commercial Partnerships at Instacart.

"What makes this partnership special is that it goes beyond e-commerce. By combining Storefront Pro and fulfillment into one integrated platform, we're helping Aldi USA. scale faster while preserving everything that makes their brand special. We're proud to deepen our partnership and support their continued expansion across the US."

New Look

New Look is to relocate within Metrocentre’s Red Mall to launch its largest omni-hub concept store to date. Having traded at Metrocentre for 20 years, the 11,000 sq ft format has been designed to combine an elevated store environment with seamless digital services.

A dedicated space integrates digital and physical shopping journeys through Click & Collect, self-service e-commerce drop-offs, order-in-store showroom elevations, and digital browsing displays. 

Ben Cox, Director at Sovereign Centros from CBRE, Asset Managers of Metrocentre, comments: "It’s great to see another long-term occupier investing in a latest concept store at Metrocentre. While securing new brands is a key focus for us, we are equally committed to supporting our existing retailers in elevating their offer.”

“We’re focused on continually evolving our lineup and ensuring the look & feel is fresh and relevant. This significant investment from New Look is the latest show of confidence in Metrocentre, and the new store will be a fantastic home for them.”

Mark Matthews, Retail Director at New Look, says: “Opening our largest concept store at Metrocentre is an exciting moment for us and a strong signal of how we are evolving the role of our physical locations. As our digital platform and Club New Look loyalty programme continue to grow, we are creating spaces that bring those capabilities to life for customers in-store."

“Our omni-hub format is built to integrate our online strengths with an inspiring retail environment. Following the strong response to our Bluewater concept store, we are now accelerating the roll-out of this format across our estate as we continue to invest in stores that support a more connected, omnichannel customer journey.”

Groupe Dynamite

Fashion retailer Groupe Dynamite has opened a flagship store on Oxford Street, London, powered by Manhattan Associates technology.

In a LinkedIn post, David Stevens, Chief Technology Officer at Groupe Dynamite, said: "Another big milestone achieved in our journey. Today (Friday, 27th March) we opened up our Garage Clothing UK flagship on Oxford Street."

"The store looks fantastic and I'm excited about the technology that the team installed in the store including two storey video screens, Manhattan Associates mobile checkout, RFID to track inventory in real-time and more. A fantastic job by the store opening team, easily the best in the business! Looking forward to visiting the store at the end of April when I speak at Retail Technology Show 2026."

Argos

Argos reports a tenfold uplift in average TikTok post views after partnering with Lickd and Billion Dollar Boy on a culture led social campaign powered by mainstream licensed music.

Three ‘Stockroom Rave’ campaign assets generated over 13 million views on TikTok, supported by paid social amplification, compared to Argos’ December average of 412,000 views per post.

Key results from the campaign include: 10x uplift in TikTok post views versus December average; 5.4 million, 5.4 million and 2.4 million views across three campaign assets; 13 million plus total video views across platforms in ten days; More than 25,000 engagements across rave-related content.

The campaign, featuring Kurupt FM, reimagined an Argos stockroom as the setting for a live rave moment designed for sound on, social first viewing.

Lickd’s offering - Lickd for Brands - enabled Billion Dollar Boy to license ‘Heart Monitor Riddem’ by Kurupt FM, quickly and compliantly for use across TikTok and Instagram. Lickd’s relationships with major labels and publishers meant the track was cleared in days rather than weeks, removing a traditional barrier to using recognisable mainstream music in brand content.

Iceland Foods

StrongPoint reports that British retailer Iceland Foods has signed an agreement to trial its SaaS based Order Picking solution to fulfil all grocery e commerce orders, including both scheduled deliveries and quick commerce orders.

The project will begin with a planned proof of value phase in 2026, with a broader roll-out to follow subject to satisfactory results of the proof of value phase.

“We are extremely proud that another major grocery retailer has chosen StrongPoint for its grocery e‑commerce operations. It is a strong validation of our world class Order Picking solution, and we are proud to support Iceland Foods. We look forward to delivering efficiency savings to the grocery retailer and helping them grow their e‑commerce business while providing simpler operations for their store staff,” says Jacob Tveraabak, CEO at StrongPoint.

Tottenham Hotspur

They might be stinking out the Premier League at the moment, hovering, as they are, periously close to the relegation zone, but Tottenham Hotspur can at least boast about a shiny new e-commerce site and a milestone in its Customer 360 strategy.

In a LinkedIn post, Rob Pickering, Chief Technology & Digital Officer, said: "Big day for Spurs fans worldwide! Today (27th March) we went live with our new shop - a completely reimagined online retail experience for our fans, built as part of our partnership with Salesforce on Commerce Cloud."

"This is more than a new e-commerce store - It’s the first major milestone in our Customer 360 vision - a connected data foundation that lets us understand and serve our fans better, whether they’re shopping online, at the stadium, or anywhere in between."

He added: "To the Spurs retail, digital and tech team - your work, your resilience through this build, and your commitment to getting this right is what made this happen - I’m proud of every one of you. And to the Salesforce team who partnered with us on this, building it out over the last 12 months - thank you for the collaboration, the expertise, and pushing us to think bigger about what’s possible.”

“There’s a lot more to come on this journey - including some really exciting things over the next two weeks which I’ll announce as we go live - but first, go check out the new store."