Jon Cole, Director of Product and Technical Solutions at TNS
with Jon Cole, TNS
Jon Cole highlights the growing importance of operational visibility across retail payment infrastructure.
According to Cole, retailers increasingly need “a single pane of glass” view across stores, payment terminals, acquirers and payment service providers to understand performance in real time.
TNS’ approach centres around resilience and failover capability, enabling retailers to switch to backup systems automatically when problems occur. Cole argues that in modern retail, uninterrupted payments are no longer optional, they are expected “100% of the time”.
Cole describes agentic commerce as the next major shift in payments and online retail. He uses the example of buying a golf driver: a shopper could set preferences, price limits and specifications, while the AI searches, negotiates and completes the transaction automatically.
The implications for retailers are significant. Businesses that fail to connect their systems to agentic commerce platforms risk becoming invisible in AI-driven shopping journeys. Cole suggested this will become especially important in sectors such as travel, where AI agents may soon compare airline tickets, lounges and package options autonomously.
However, he also acknowledges the risks. Retailers will need robust chargeback systems and safeguards to manage AI mistakes, hallucinations or incorrect purchases. While the technology is still in its infancy, Cole believes businesses must begin preparing now.
Rob Smith, Technology Officer at East of England Co-op
with Rob Smith, East of England Co‑op
Rob Smith explores how sustainability initiatives can directly support profitability.
Smith argues that grocery retailers sit at the critical intervention point for reducing food waste. By intelligently managing pricing at the shelf edge, retailers can influence customer behaviour and increase sell-through rates on near-expiry products.
The Co-op’s work with markdown optimisation has already increased sell-through rates on reduced products by around 13%, helping reduce waste while protecting margins.
Digitising the shelf edge has also delivered operational benefits. Electronic shelf labels eliminate the manual process of replacing paper labels, freeing colleagues to spend more time supporting customers rather than handling repetitive tasks.
For Smith, the store colleague remains central to the customer experience. In many communities, especially for elderly shoppers, store staff provide valuable human interaction that cannot be replicated online.
He describes connected retail as “fundamental” to delivering consistency across stores and improving customer trust. Better availability data, pricing accuracy and operational visibility help both colleagues and shoppers make more informed decisions.
Looking ahead, Smith envisions stores becoming increasingly proactive rather than reactive. Intelligent shelves and connected systems could automatically identify stock gaps, monitor waste patterns and adapt in real time to local demand spikes, such as football matchdays affecting station-store traffic.
with Sarah Boyd, Sephora UK
Sarah Boyd shares insights into Sephora’s rapid UK expansion since returning to the market in 2022.
Rather than focusing exclusively on London, Sephora prioritised major cities across the UK, recognising that British retail culture is not London-centric. By the end of the year, the business expects to operate 21 stores nationwide.
Boyd explains that Sephora’s “hyper-local” strategy goes far beyond store design. Each store opening is tailored to its local community through partnerships, events and locally inspired experiences.
Central to the strategy is community engagement. Before entering new cities, Sephora hosts roundtable discussions with local leaders, consumers and cultural figures to understand regional identity, language and preferences.
Sephora’s merchandising strategy also relies heavily on identifying emerging beauty trends globally. The retailer tracks products and brands gaining momentum across markets including the US, Korea and Australia, sharing insights rapidly across its global teams.
However, Boyd stresses that Sephora does not simply chase viral TikTok trends blindly. Instead, the company carefully evaluates products to ensure quality and credibility before bringing them into stores.
with Jeannette Copeland, Ann Summers
Jeannette Copeland discusses the retailer’s transformation journey towards a more composable technology architecture.
She describes modern retail businesses as “beautiful swans on the surface and furiously paddling underneath”, with years of accumulated complexity hidden behind customer-facing simplicity.
At Ann Summers, A key priority has been adopting a stronger data-first mindset. Copeland believes retailers cannot fully benefit from AI without first improving the quality and structure of their data foundations.
Although customers may not yet notice visible changes, much of the transformation has focused on strengthening systems “under the hood” to enable future innovation and flexibility.
Replacing integration layers, she explained, is effectively like performing “heart and lungs transplant” surgery on a business. Success depends heavily on preparation, clear strategic direction and selecting the right partners.
While Ann Summers has completed the initial replacement phase, the work continues. The retailer now has greater flexibility to evolve systems incrementally as new requirements emerge.
She also highlights a unique challenge for Ann Summers in the AI era: restrictions around advertising and discoverability due to the adult nature of its product range. This means the retailer must take a more creative approach to AI implementation than many mainstream brands.
Simon Spencelayh, Managing Director of E-Commerce at Robert Dyas
with Simon Spencelayh, Robert Dyas
Simon Spencelayh explains how the retailer transformed its online business through marketplaces and dropshipping.
Traditionally focused on low-value convenience hardware products, Robert Dyas used the marketplace model to expand into higher-ticket categories such as furniture and garden products without holding additional inventory.
The online assortment has now grown from around 5,000 in-store SKUs to more than 270,000 products online.
Managing supplier quality is central to maintaining trust. Rather than quality-checking every individual product, Robert Dyas focuses heavily on vetting suppliers and monitoring performance metrics such as delivery times, cancellations and customer service standards.
While he sees immediate value in operational efficiencies such as AI-generated imagery and product content, Simon believes consumer-facing AI shopping experiences remain overhyped for now.
For Spencelayh, this unpredictability highlights how unclear the commercial rules around AI-driven search and shopping still are.
Mitchell Vergeer, Head of Retail at Axel Arigato
with Mitchell Vergeer, Axel Arigato
Mitchell Vergeer reinforces the enduring value of physical retail. The premium footwear and lifestyle brand has grown rapidly since 2020, expanding both internationally and operationally.
Vergeer argues that post-pandemic retail proved physical stores are far from obsolete. Instead, consumers increasingly value meaningful human interaction and memorable experiences.
At Axel Arigato, the focus is less on making a sale immediately and more on creating long-term emotional connections with customers.
The brand invests heavily in events, store culture and experiential retail. Vergeer joked that a successful store opening is measured by whether the police arrive to shut the party down.
Like several speakers at the show, Vergeer sees AI primarily as a tool to enhance employees rather than replace them.
Potential use cases include improving scheduling, speeding up product training and helping teams access information more efficiently.
For Axel Arigato, technology should support stronger customer relationships, not remove the human element that defines the brand experience.
Summary – The Bigger Picture
Across all the conversations at the Retail Technology Show, one message becomes increasingly clear: retail’s future will be shaped by a balance between intelligent technology and human connection.
Whether through AI-powered commerce, connected shelves, hyper-local community engagement or composable infrastructure, retailers are investing heavily in agility and responsiveness.
But while the tools are evolving rapidly, the underlying priorities remain remarkably consistent – trust, convenience, service and experience continue to sit at the heart of successful retail.
