Bodycare bounces back in UK with PMC: presenting the stand out retail technology plays from June

RTIH Editor, Scott Thompson, brings you his stand out technology deployments and launches from June, including Walmart, Asda, Instacart, Jysk, Vusion, Tesco, Hanshow, Depop, DRESSX, Carrefour Belgium, WHSmith, East of England Co-op, and TNS.

Walmart

Walmart is laying claim to one of its biggest Walmart Live experiences to date, an initiative that also saw the use for the first time in this space of Sparky, the retailer’s AI assistant.

Walmart Live is a feature on the US retail giant’s website and app, enabling consumers to watch livestreamed shopping events hosted by influencers and celebrities.

Sparky, meanwhile, helps customers find their favourite items, synthesise reviews and make informed purchases. For example, you can ask it to help you find the best laptop for an art student or the best birthday gift for a two-year-old.

In a LinkedIn post, Justin Breton, Head of Partnerships, Content & Emerging Experiences at Walmart, said: “From a TV commercial to a live, shoppable dance cardio workout! Today (Monday, 22nd June), we launched one of our most ambitious Walmart Live experiences yet for Summer Deals, bringing the world of Alwayz, the campaign jingle, and our hottest deals to life alongside fitness expert and dancer Ally Love.” 

He added: “We paired products with custom choreography, original beats, and even introduced Sparky, Walmart's AI shopping assistant, into a live experience for the first time. The future of marketing isn't just about getting attention. It's about creating experiences people can participate in.”

The Magnum Ice Cream Company

The Magnum Ice Cream Company (TMICC) has shared an update on its technology roadmap as it prepares for the planned sunset of key transitional services agreements (TSAs) with Unilever by the end of 2027.

It says that the roadmap is focused on putting in place practical, ready for the future digital foundations across areas including supply chain, sales, finance, procurement and other collaboration functions. As part of this work, the company has reviewed processes across the business to help select simpler, more intuitive systems that can support better visibility, collaboration and execution over time.

Asda

Asda has announced a partnership with Amazon Ads. This will see the UK grocery giant become the first retailer outside of the US to introduce Amazon Retail Ad Service to its online stores.

Rolling out in phases from Q4 this year, the partnership will use the solution to deliver more relevant ads based on real shopping behaviour and intent. In practical terms, customers who know what they’re looking for will find it faster, while those who don’t will be guided to relevant products in one place, with less effort.

Rachel Eyre, Asda’s Chief Customer and Digital Officer, says: “We serve millions of customers each week and this partnership is about using technology to improve the online shopping experience by helping them to quickly find what they need. At the same time, it creates a stronger retail media proposition, giving our current and future brand partners a more effective way to reach customers, using deeper insight to deliver impactful and measurable campaigns. This builds on the partnership with Ocado we announced recently and is another clear step forward in how we’re using technology to improve the Asda shopping experience.”

“Amazon’s Retail Ad Service gives UK advertisers the signals, measurement and scale they need, in a way that is seamless and familiar from day one. This partnership is a significant step in making Asda the most effective and frictionless place for brands to reach British shoppers.”

For advertisers, the partnership promises clearer insights and better measurement, alongside a simpler way to plan and execute campaigns through familiar Amazon Ads tools and consistent cross-platform reporting. It also enables brands to scale activity across Asda’s platforms and Amazon Ads inventory.

Jysk

Vusion has announced the expansion of its long-standing partnership with Jysk, a European home furnishing retailer, through a new agreement supporting the retailer’s next phase of store modernisation and cloud transformation strategy.

This includes the upgrade of electronic shelf labels across Jysk’s already deployed 450 Nordic stores, the roll-out of Vusion solutions in 750 additional stores across Europe, and the full migration of JYSK’s legacy on-premise platform to VusionCloud. By 2027, the deployment is expected to scale to approximately 2,500 stores across the Nordic, DACH and Benelux regions.

“Jysk has partnered with Vusion for more than ten years, and this new agreement reflects both the strength of our collaboration and the value we see in moving to a more advanced cloud-based platform,” says Carsten Nørgreen Weinkouff, Executive Vice President Retail Development, Marketing, E-commerce & Omnichannel at Jysk. 

“As we continue to modernise our stores across Europe, we are investing in solutions that provide greater scalability, operational efficiency, and flexibility for the future. Vusion’s technology and teams have consistently demonstrated the reliability and support needed to accompany us at this scale.”

Tesco

Tesco is set to roll-out electronic shelf labels across its stores over the next two years. It is teaming with Chinese firm Hanshow on this.

This builds on a proof of concept in 2025 with VusionGroup and Hanshow to evaluate ESLs in select stores, with the aim of reducing labour costs and enhancing pricing accuracy.

The project will kick off in four stores - one Express and three supermarket locations - and will ultimately cover approximately 3,000 stores.

"The roll-out of digital shelf labels marks an important step in the modernisation of our stores, delivering benefits for both customers and colleagues," says Tesco UK Operations Managing Director Kevin Tindall.

WHSmith

WHSmith and SOLUM have announced a partnership involving the deployment of electronic shelf label (ESL) solutions across WHSmith’s UK travel estate, starting with high footfall locations including the retailer’s recently opened flagship stores at Heathrow Airport.

To support the roll-out, WHSmith has selected Newton PRO, SOLUM’s flagship ESL designed for demanding retail environments such as airports, railway stations and major transport hubs. 

Heidi Reynolds, Retail Director at WHSmith, says: “Our focus is on making every journey better by bringing together all of the essentials travellers need in one place. As we continue to evolve our offer, the ESL solutions help us support a clearer and more intuitive customer experience while enabling colleagues to operate more efficiently in busy travel environments.”

Mark Duckworth, Country Manager UK & Ireland at SOLUM, says: “WHSmith’s new flagship stores reflect the continued evolution of travel retail, where convenience, speed and clarity are essential to the customer journey. We are proud to support WHSmith with ESL solutions designed for high-footfall environments, helping improve shelf-edge accuracy, operational efficiency and the in-store experience across key travel locations. This partnership is an important milestone for SOLUM as we continue to strengthen our presence in the UK travel retail market.”

East of England Co-op

Transaction Network Services (TNS) reports that East of England Co-op has deployed TNS Secure SD-WAN across more than 200 sites.

East of England Co-op required a more reliable and scalable network to support its growing digital footprint. Its previous infrastructure created operational challenges, with failover times of up to 90 seconds, disrupting PoS transactions and impacting store performance. Services were also fragmented across multiple provider divisions, limiting visibility, increasing costs and leaving no single point of accountability.

TNS Secure SD-WAN consolidates multiple network lines into a single, resilient connection with built-in redundancy, helping reduce failover from 90 seconds to instantaneous and providing uninterrupted transactions and back office operations.

Centralised dashboards now provide East of England Co-op with real-time visibility across all locations, helping to improve compliance management and strengthen security oversight. The fully managed service model delivers a single point of accountability, allowing for simplified operations and faster issue resolution. With a future-ready architecture, the network provides a foundation for Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives, energy management systems and advanced in-store analytics.

Wing and Walmart

Wing and Walmart have confirmed seven new metro areas that will join what is pitched as the USA’s largest drone delivery network: Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area and Salt Lake City. This will bring their total service footprint to nearly 20 US markets across the country.

"Our work with Walmart has shown that drone delivery isn’t just a novelty, it’s a service many customers count on multiple times per week," says Heather Rivera, Wing’s Chief Business Officer. "We’re already working with many communities in the seven new markets, as we accelerate our progress to bring ultra-fast delivery to 40 million residents throughout the US."

Wing’s drones fly at speeds up to 60 mph and use a tether to lower packages directly to a customer’s yard or driveway in as fast as 30 minutes.

“Customers expect their orders on their terms, delivered with speed and ease,” says Greg Cathey, Senior Vice President of eCommerce Fulfillment Transformation, Walmart U.S. “Expanding into new markets with Wing allows us to provide an innovative delivery option for customers, utilising our vast store network to make everyday shopping and fulfilling last-minute needs just a little bit easier.” 

The latest phase builds upon previous announcements in Orlando, Tampa, Charlotte, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Miami.

Bodycare

Bodycare has connected with PMC to design, orchestrate and deliver the digital infrastructure that will power its new store network as the health and beauty retailer prepares for its return to the UK high street.

Last year, it closed all its stores after collapsing into adminstration. Its brand and intellectual property were acquired out of administration in late 2025 by an investor group led by former The Body Shop and Molton Brown CEO Charles Denton, and it is now aiming to open 25 UK stores in 2026, growing to 200 locations over the next five years.  

The plan is to run all store operations through a proprietary, custom built AI platform, which will see AI decisioning powering colleague actions, served via data harvested from the store, from task management, in-store network, CCTV and PoS systems to digital shelf technologies.  

Bodycare also envisages making each new location a social content hub for local communities, generating localised content via staff, micro-influencers and customers.  Each one will host a dedicated content production studio, generating social content each week, with content and UGC takeovers streaming live across digital screens.  

“Store experience, digital presence and community engagement - all underpinned by AI intelligence - will be central to Bodycare’s new vision, as we prepare to welcome customers back,” says David Stern, Managing Director at Bodycare. “PMC is not just a transformation partner that we can trust with delivery - their trusted experience is helping us re-imagine, design and create the AI led strategy to bring our vision for Bodycare 2.0 to life.”

Tesco

ICE has announced a partnership with Tesco, launching a roll-out of autonomous cleaning robots across 600 Express stores. The pair are laying claim to the first deployment of this scale in the UK convenience sector.

The machines are designed as "co-bots" to work alongside Tesco colleagues. By taking over routine floor cleaning, they free up time for the store teams to focus on serving customers. The technology promises a highly consistent, premium clean every single day, backed by data tracking and reporting.

Mark Bresnihan, CEO at ICE, says: "As long standing pioneers in cleaning technologies, ICE is delighted to partner with Tesco on this project. We are providing not just our industry-leading autonomous machines, but also the comprehensive training and service support required to make this a success. Together, we are showing how data driven automation can work hand-in-hand with retail teams to improve cleaning standards."

Depop

DRESSX is partnering with Depop to bring AI powered virtual try-on to resale fashion through a series of live events, beginning with the Governors Ball in New York on 5th June.

At that event, visitors were able to engage with the DRESSX Mirror, an AI powered virtual try-on experience featuring a curated selection of 300 items from Depop sellers across categories including Western, Y2K, Streetwear and Minimalism. Guests were able to mix and match tops, bottoms, shoes, bags, belts and accessories to create complete personalised looks directly within the experience.

Once guests finalised their styling combinations, they received their generated look via email or text message together with links to shop the featured pieces on Depop. The partnership highlights a new use case for DRESSX technology: making seller generated and UGC style fashion content instantly shoppable and interactive without relying on traditional high production e-commerce imagery. 

“We are excited to partner with Depop to bring virtual try-on into a completely new context: resale fashion, seller creativity and live event discovery,” say Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova, Co-founders at DRESSX.

“What makes this experience especially exciting is that it transforms Depop seller content into an interactive styling journey, where users can experiment with full looks in real time, including clothing, shoes, bags, belts and accessories. For us, this is an important step in showing how AI powered try-on can make fashion content more interactive, discoverable and engaging far beyond traditional e-commerce environments.”

“It also demonstrates that this technology is not limited to new luxury fashion or studio shot product catalogues, but can work equally powerfully within resale fashion and community-driven platforms so popular with Gen Z audiences. Making virtual try-on work with seller generated and UGC style fashion content is technically far more challenging than traditional e-commerce imagery, which makes this partnership especially exciting for us. It opens up entirely new possibilities for how pre-loved fashion can be experienced digitally.”

Instacart and Weis Markets

Instacart and Weis Markets, a US food retailer, have announced the launch of Caper Carts at select Weis locations in Pennsylvania with additional roll-outs planned throughout the year. 

“Weis Markets and its associates have always been committed to delivering a best-in-class shopping experience, and Caper Carts are a meaningful step forward in that journey,” says Greg Zeh, SVP, Chief Information Officer at Weis Markets. “From real-time spend tracking to on-cart coupons that make saving effortless, this technology offers our customers a convenient and frictionless shopping experience.”

“Weis Markets has spent more than 100 years delivering value, quality, and service to their communities, and we're thrilled to help them bring that commitment into the next era of grocery with Caper Carts,” says David McIntosh, Chief Connected Stores Officer at Instacart. “As a leader in Physical AI, we're giving retailers like Weis Markets a competitive advantage by bringing together in-store and online data through technology like Caper Carts to help them understand and respond to their customers with a level of intelligence that simply wasn't possible before.” 

Carrefour Belgium

Carrefour Belgium is opening its largest automated BuyBye store to date in Hasselt, featuring eight refrigerated display cases and also a cash machine.

This is located at the Corda Campus in Hasselt, one of the largest technology and innovation campuses in Europe. It is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and is the seventh BuyBye location to date.

Carrefour previously opened BuyByes at its Service Center in Zaventem, at the Carrefour Express in Yvoir, at the ibis hotels at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and at Brussels-South Station, at the NATO base SHAPE in Mons, and at the MontLégia Hospital in Liège.