NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show Europe: New Black wins big in Paris with award for firm's EVA platform

New Black, a contextual commerce platform, has won the Best Seamless Unified Retail award at NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show Europe, which is taking place this week in Paris.

The event is the European edition of the National Retail Federation’s flagship New York gathering. Its awards highlight international retail innovation across eight categories, with 100+ candidates competing this year.

“We don’t build for trophies, so this feels like a meaningful signal and appreciation for what we have done as a company,” comments Lub Ten Napel, Chief Information Officer at New Black.

“It is recognition for holding our line and vision of choosing the best of technology over complex best-of-breed architectures. From our founding until today, we have believed that legacy systems are holding retail back, preventing it from becoming adaptive to change.” 

New Black’s EVA platform was recognised for streamlining consumer engagement by combining pricing, inventory, tax, loyalty, returns, OMS, PoS, in-store operations and more functions within a single platform.

EVA also allows in store and digital teams to tailor experiences, creating the best possible customer experience.

“That is why our approach is different,” adds Pim Vijftigschild, CCO at New Black. “We don’t believe in selling the next piece of software. We work together with our customers to rethink their architecture, helping them embrace a transformative mindset.”

2025 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS

Consumer engagement will be a key focus area at the 2025 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards. which are now open for entries, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our 2024 hall of fame entrants were revealed during an event which took place at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London on 21st November, and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by comedian Lucy Porter.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “The event is now into its sixth year and what a journey it has been. The awards started life as an online only affair during the Covid outbreak, before launching as a small scale in real life event and growing year on year to the point where we’re now selling out this fine, historic venue.”

He added: “Congratulations to all of our finalists. Many submissions did not make it through to the final stage, and getting to this point is no mean feat. Checkout-free stores, automated supply chains, immersive experiences, on-demand delivery, next generation loyalty offerings, inclusive retail, green technology. We’ve got all the cool stuff covered this evening.”

“But just importantly we’ve got lots of great examples of companies taking innovative tech and making it usable in everyday operations - resulting in more efficiency and profitability in all areas.”

Congratulations to our 2024 winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Lucy Porter, and all those who attended November's gathering. 

For further information on the 2025 RTIH Innovation Awards, please fill in the below form and we will get back to you asap.