WeTech

This community is going from strength to strength. WE initially built, and am continuing to build, this community with the sole aim of providing our incredible network of retail leaders with a platform to connect and collaborate solely with like-minded people who experience the same challenges, see the same trends and consider and utilise the same solutions. There is no vendors, no sales, no BS. There is, however, really great conversation between really great people. It’s a safe space — operating under Chatham House rules — to share ideas, to learn and to enable one another. Conversations so far have been around: ✅ ERP systems and implementation ✅ eCommerce Platforms and Strategy ✅ Omnichannel Strategy ✅ AI use-cases ✅ Project & Product Delivery ✅ International Trading and Strategy ✅ Digital Transformation …And a few other interesting, important and relevant topics. In-person events will be run exclusively for the community, and some have even been planned off the back of the conversations within the group — which will enable deeper peer-to-peer learning and insight sharing, relevant growth of everyone’s networks and a stronger sense of community amongst the group. We have 115 members currently. Some of the absolute BEST Technology, Digital and Transformation leaders across the retail industry, with a broad range of brand sizes and categories represented, from across the UK, Europe, USA, Asia and the Middle East. WeComm & WeTech have received some amazing feedback on this group — and as a testament to its relevance and usefulness, a few members have been referred by mutual connections to join. If you’re a Technology, Data, Product, Digital or Transformation leader within the retail industry (operating at Director and C-Suite level) and you’d like to be part of an impactful group where you can get the answers to your burning questions, and share your insights and opinions with others who are all totally relevant to you, then drop me a note 👍 Follow WeTech for more insights and updates like this from Ben Gibbins our tech team leader! #RetailLeadership #CommunityBuilding #DigitalInnovation #PeerNetworking #WeTech #Tech

Did you know that a study conducted by Accenture found that 83% of consumers show interest in making purchases via the Metaverse? Virtual Retail Experiences around Christmas time are a pretty new, and very exciting, way to drive customer acquisition and retention. They're great year round, but Christmas is a time that's generally synonymous with increased consumer spending - meaning that brands have an amazing opportunity to offer experiences and services that win new customers, and keep them coming back. If you're wanting to resonate with the Gen Z demographic, who have a natural affinity to digital-first experiences, these are a great place to start. Here are a few examples of some great Virtual Experiences: 1. Amazon Virtual Holiday Shop A 3D festive shopping experience; festive music, animations and visuals greet the customers in a virtual store-front where they can access items from categories including fashion, beauty, electronics and homeware. They've also integrated their AI shopping assistant, Rufus, who can aid customers in finding personalised recommendations. 2. Walmart Realm For the festive season, Walmart have introduced four virtual spaces, namely: Mountain Chalet, Hosting Holidays, White Elephant Wonderland, and Sweet Gifts. Each space has its own unique theme and features various AR-enabled items which allows shoppers to preview the items in their own space. 3. HUGO BOSS Holiday Set in a villa setting, visitors can move freely around the space perusing various items including styles from the holiday collection and top gifting choice items. 4. E.L.F. BEAUTY Virtual Luxe Lounge E.L.F. have partnered with virtual shopping platform Obsess to introduce a Christmas-themed virtual shopping experience for it's loyalty members. Here, customers can peruse new product drops for the holiday season and access exclusive coupons to redeem at checkout. I think this could be a big theme within retail throughout 2025 and beyond... Have you seen any other great examples of Virtual Retail Experiences? Follow WeTech for more insights and updates like this from Ben Gibbins our tech team leader! #VirtualRetail #MetaverseShopping #CustomerExperience #RetailInnovation #WeTech #Retail

Updates from across the retail industry 🛍️ REI: Launching its AI-powered inventory system to optimize in-store and online stock availability, improving efficiency and reducing overstock by 15% Superdry: Announced a strategic partnership with digital payments firm Klarna to offer flexible payment solutions and drive online sales growth in 2025 Lidl GB: Set to invest €2 billion in store refurbishments across Europe, including energy-efficient lighting and self-checkout technology to enhance the customer experience GameStop: Reports a 9% decline in Q3 revenue but signals a digital transformation push with blockchain integration into its online marketplace Marks and Spencer: Piloting AI-driven virtual fitting rooms in select stores to boost customer satisfaction and reduce clothing returns by up to 20% LUSH: Announced a shift to plastic-free packaging for its holiday 2025 collection, aligning with its ongoing sustainability goals JD Sports Fashion: Expanding its North American presence by acquiring US-based sneaker retailer Shoe Palace for $500 million SEPHORA: Rolling out a new mobile app in Asia with AI-powered personalized skincare consultations to enhance customer engagement Dunelm: Announced a 12% increase in online sales for the first half of FY24 after implementing AI-powered personalized marketing tools. Inditex: Committing €300 million to expand its eco-friendly logistics centres to support Zara’s carbon-neutral goals by 2030 Follow WeTech for more insights and updates like this from Ben Gibbins our tech team leader! #RetailInnovation #AITransformation #SustainabilityGoals #DigitalCommerce #WeTech

On Friday, I (Ben Gibbins) had a great conversation with a member of the Retail Technology Leaders Hub WhatsApp Community, Paul Morris, who is Chief Customer and Technology Officer at Alshaya Group. It was Paul who shared the "Customer Led, People Powered, Technology Enabled" mantra with me - which I'm a big fan of! Paul's background isn't solely technology-focused at all - he has a background that also encompasses Digital, Marketing and Business Strategy. Throughout our conversation, I got the sense that Paul was: - A true business strategist; adept in building roadmaps and strategic agendas based on organisational goals and desired outcomes - A great people leader; able to empower and delegate responsibility to his teams - An excellent story-teller; able to translate business outcomes into relevant, understandable, meaningful and beneficial journeys for his teams - Customer-obsessed; a true desire to best-serve internal and external customer wants, needs and expectations through the utilisation of technology, data and service. To me, the points above are a really strong example of what a modern day technology leader within retail looks like. Today, it's not solely about technicality. It's equally so about strong people leadership skills, a huge focus on customer centricity, and one's strategic building and execution capabilities. Follow WeTech for more insights and updates like this from Ben Gibbins our tech team leader! #RetailTech #Leadership #DigitalTransformation #CustomerFirst #WeTech

Updates from across the retail industry 🛍️ Decathlon : The sports retailer announced plans to expand its product rental services across Europe in 2024, emphasizing sustainability and affordability for consumers Urban Outfitters: Reported a 10% year-over-year increase in online sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, credited to strong demand for home and lifestyle categories Dunelm: The homeware retailer will launch a new augmented reality (AR) tool for customers to visualize products in their homes before purchase, starting early 2025 Pandora: Shared that its new “lab-grown diamonds” collection has driven a 15% increase in Q4 sales across European markets MediaMarktSaturn: Announced an investment of €150 million in digital transformation, focusing on e-commerce and warehouse automation The Body Shop: Began piloting reusable packaging stations in 10 UK stores, part of its commitment to reducing plastic waste Otto Group: Reported a 12% growth in revenue for the first half of FY2024, largely driven by its e-commerce platforms Primark: Launched a dedicated kids’ resale program in select UK stores, enabling customers to buy and sell second-hand clothing Costco Wholesale: Confirmed the opening of 10 new stores across North America in 2025, marking one of its largest annual expansions Tiger of Sweden: Announced the launch of a gender-neutral clothing line, aligning with evolving consumer preferences Marks and Spencer: Partnered with Google Cloud to enhance its customer personalisation strategies across digital and physical channels Follow WeTech for more insights and updates like this from Ben Gibbins our tech team leader! #RetailTrends #DigitalTransformation #SustainableRetail #EcommerceGrowth #WeTech

Here are some updates from across the retail industry from Ben Gibbins on our WeTech team 🛍️ H&M announced plans to trial a clothing rental service in multiple European cities to tap into the growing circular economy trend JCPenney revealed a $1 billion investment plan to modernise its stores and enhance in-store experiences by 2025 as part of its turnaround strategy Lidl GB expanded its U.S. presence, opening 10 new stores, with a focus on sustainability and affordability Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics North America unveiled an AI-powered tool for personalised skincare recommendations, enhancing its digital transformation efforts Dollar General experienced a surge in customer traffic, gaining over 4 million new customers between September 2022 and 2023, reflecting strong performance in the discount retail segment Macy's launched a new in-store experience concept featuring interactive displays and tech-driven fitting rooms, aiming to attract younger consumers UNIQLO reported a 15% increase in its Q4 revenue, driven by strong winter clothing sales and e-commerce growth in Asia Primark announced its first carbon-neutral store in Birmingham, UK, highlighting its commitment to sustainability Urban Outfitters introduced a new rental service under its Nuuly brand, expanding its subscription offering in the U.S B&Q launched an augmented reality app in the UK, allowing customers to visualize home improvement projects before purchase REI declared record-breaking sales for its co-op membership program, contributing to a 10% revenue increase for the year Asda rolled out drone delivery trials in partnership with UK-based tech firm Skyports, aiming to streamline last-mile logistics Want to keep in the loop? Keep up to date with all things tech at WeTech 💙 #RetailUpdates #CircularEconomy #Sustainability #DigitalTransformation #RetailInnovation #ECommerce #CustomerExperience #SustainableRetail #TechInRetail #RetailTrends #FutureOfRetail #WeTech #RetailLeadership

The shift to Product-Oriented Delivery (POD), within retail brands, has been really evident in many of our conversations of late here at WeTech. Within the POD concept, organisations build small cross-functional groups that own specific tasks or requirements for a product. These groups will usually be empowered to own the product and its direction, and have the capability to analyse, design, develop, test and operate the product. They make data-driven investments and decisions based on what will offer value to the organisation and its customers. The main reasons for the shift are: 1. Enhanced Customer Experience - connecting with the customer via the use of POD teams enables products to be adopted and adapted based on customer feedback, insights and trends. 2. Improved Deliverable Quality - focused goals for each POD team enable them to be laser focused on delivering their specific outcomes 3. Increased Team Effectiveness - each POD focuses on customer goals and ensures they align with those expectations and requirements 4. Faster Delivery - with improved team collaboration, customer-facing responsibility and accessibility, flexibility and ownership, POD teams can focus on their specific deliveries. 5. Triggers Team Innovation. Teams are continuously looking to improve and find ways to achieve faster results. 6. Cross Functional Adoption. POD team members acknowledge the various roles that make up the Guide and POD teams, and better understand the parts each role has to play. 7. Transparent Collaboration. The POD team can define the success of the project quickly with cross-functional collaboration. One thing I would say though, is that this shift requires a heavy change management and culturally oriented transformation to ensure it's both impactful and understood. What do you think of the seismic shift to Product Oriented Delivery, over the more traditional Project Delivery model? 💗 WeComm #WeTech #ProductOrientedDelivery #CustomerExperience #Transformation #TeamCollaboration #POD

Unified Commerce has been an ever-present topic in recent conversations with Technology & Digital Leaders here at WeTech. Unified Commerce is best described as: “where companies connect their back-end systems, to their front-end customer channels, via a single platform.” This enables retailers to support omnichannel customer journeys but also creates a unified view of your channels, shopper interactions, payment systems, data and product information. With the integration of their systems and channels through a single platform, retailers are able to understand their customer's preferences, behaviours and customer history, across each of their channels — enabling them to provide a frictionless experience that is tailored, personalised and relevant to the customer, across its channels. This cross-channel data awareness enables retailers to build campaigns around their customer's preferences, and offer particular perks through their loyalty programmes, specific to their customers' wants, needs and overall history. Some good examples of platforms that enable Unified Commerce: - Shopify + Shopify POS - NewStore, Inc. - SCAYLE Commerce Engine I think the most noticeable changes I’ve seen are around the store experience… FOOTASYLUM has reinvented their approach to physical retail, utilising NewStore’s platform, where there is no single POS point in any of the stores. Rather, their store associates take payments through phones and tablets and have access to their customers' records across channels. Clarks are similarly utilising NewStore, Inc. and have gained far more concise understanding of their inventory. They’ve got great visibility of product availability in-store, in other stores, or within their distribution centres. This enables Clarks to fulfil purchases made in-store, or they can offer order-from-store-ship-to-home or order-in-store-collect-in-store. Many organisations are looking at this as a ‘no-brainer’ of a strategic investment for 2025. I’d love to understand the thoughts of my network on this…? 💜 WeComm #WeTech #UnifiedCommerce #Omnichannel #RetailTechnology #CustomerExperience

💙 Ben Gibbins Latest Roles 💙 We are partnered with a world-renowned multi-brand retail group in the beauty, cosmetics and fashion space, in their search for a Digital Project Manager. The Digital Project Manager will lead multiple innovative eCommerce-oriented initiatives across multiple different brands. Reach out if you’re interested in finding out more! Want to learn more? Have a look at our website or reach out to us directly today: 💻https://lnkd.in/eJNsCH3q 💌 ben@wecomm.co.uk 💙 WeTech 💜 WeComm #nowhiring #wecomm #tech #London #jobsearch #nottingham #retail #digitalprojectmanager #wetech

The revamped FLANNELS app is very, very good. Really good timing getting this out pre-Christmas as well… FLANNELS, being Frasers Group’s luxury offering, now has a revamped mobile app that offers a lot more of a luxury experience. It looks and feels clean, immersive and effortless. Some clever features WeTech noticed:- • a ‘preferences’ tab, enabling shoppers to select their preferred brands and product types to see — coupled with a strong customer data and analytics offering, this will be really useful in enabling Flannel's to offer hyper-personalised experiences without doing too much analysis - if customers fill this out. The customer’s preferences appear at the top of the screen for them to get quick and easy access to, and my favourite designers can be toggled through slightly lower down the page • a stores tab in the top right corner, enabling you to see how far away you are from your nearest store and the opening hours (this will be amazing if they manage to tie it into their inventory, giving customers visibility of their product availability across stores as well as their warehouses) • decent product recommendations based on my personal previous purchases and browsing history • buy now pay later services through the Frasers Plus offering — enabling customers to split the costs of their purchases — linked to loyalty rewards • seasonal gift tabs (e.g. Christmas), with recommended products for different gift receivers Fraser's approach to innovation and their emphasis on providing incredible retail experiences is refreshing. They’ve recently won awards for their approach to Personalisation & Customer Experience, and it’s clear that this is a focus point for them. And, their Product Oriented Delivery approach naturally means that they’ll be super close to their customers and their feedback, as well as keeping their eyes and ears close to tech advancements, thus they’ll be able to quickly and continuously make improvements to their offering. Great, great new app. Frasers Group’s ‘Monolith To MACH’ journey is absolutely revolutionary for them as a multi-brand retail group — adopting a best-in-breed approach to their commerce stack, to create the best retail experiences for their customers. 💜 WeComm #WeTech #RetailInnovation #CustomerExperience #Personalisation #TechInRetail