Over the past couple of weeks, I've been touring retail stores and experiences across three markets: Singapore, Milan and London. I've pulled together some of the standout observations and what they mean for retailers and consumer brands alike.
Some of the best personalisation isn't digital at all
Amazon and Netflix have long been cited as the pinnacle of personalisation, but some of the best examples I observed on the trip were happening at the product level, with brand-owned retail stores leading the way.
Nike (London), VeraLab (Milan), Nespresso (Milan), Adidas (Singapore) and EE (UK) are just some of the many brands and retailers allowing shoppers to personalise products, whether for themselves or as gifts.
For brands like VeraLab, it's a free service designed to build brand affinity and support gifting occasions. For others, like EE, it's creating new reasons to visit stores, with personalised phone accessories available for around £20. And for Nike, it's opening up incremental revenue streams.
Uniqlo is taking a similar approach through RE.UNIQLO Studio, allowing customers to customise products through embroidery and embellishments or bring items back for repairs. One store team member said they were completing upwards of 50 customisations a week.
What's interesting is how retailers and brands are making products feel more individual, often without adding significant friction, lengthy wait times or additional costs for shoppers with most customisations being done on the spot within 5 – 10 minutes (I road tested several). Some brands, like Nespresso, are also providing this as an omni-channel service offering – allowing shoppers to personalise however they choose when buying.
The store as a hub for community
Retail theatre and experience have been talked about for years, but as AI and agentic commerce reshape product discovery and purchasing, providing shoppers with compelling reasons to continue to engage with the “destination” and store has never been more important.
Gymshark's Regent Street store is a standout example of how the destination can become a community hub and provide regular compelling reasons to continue to visit the store, with a dedicated fitness space, daily classes and weekly run clubs attracting around 150 participants.
While these activities don't necessarily drive immediate sales, Gymshark is leveraging its store as a platform for community, content and advocacy, with creators and influencers sharing their experiences well beyond the store.
It's a great example of how the value of physical retail increasingly extends beyond the transaction, creating deeper relationships and reasons for customers to engage with the brand and be front of mind when the shopper chooses to buy.
Scan-and-go ambitions are high, but so too is the friction
Across the UK and Singapore, retailers including Waitrose, FairPrice and Tesco are embracing a range of scan-and-go technologies, from handheld scanners and retailer apps to RFID and computer vision that identifies multiple items in a basket.
Many solutions require customers to identify themselves through loyalty or account login as part of the process.
Whilst the promise is speed and convenience, the reality doesn't always live up to expectations, with some experiences introducing additional steps or manual checks. I do wonder whether the ultimate solution for grocery will combine retailer apps with computer vision to balance convenience, customer identification and loss prevention.
Fashion retailers are also rethinking checkout. Zara’s Shepherds Bush flagship store is leveraging RFID to automatically identify products and streamline checkout, allowing shoppers to remove security tags and bag their own purchases.
While efficient, I found the experience jarring. Having clothing carefully folded and placed into a bag is a small but important part of the fashion shopping experience, and one I missed.
It's a reminder that removing friction doesn't always improve the customer experience. Retailers need to consider which interactions are worth preserving rather than simply automating everything.
Availability has never been more important
It's not the sexiest topic, but I've long advocated that brands and retailers need a better handle on inventory accuracy and availability.
As shoppers increasingly check stock before visiting stores, purchase based on delivery speed and expect accurate availability across channels, inventory has become fundamental to connected commerce.
UK grocers Tesco and Morrisons are exploring autonomous shelf-scanning robots to improve accuracy. Morrisons has trialled robots across three stores, while Tesco has also been trialling the technology, rolling out their first inventory robots in the last month. Using cameras and AI, the robots identify out-of-stocks, misplaced products and pricing discrepancies, enabling teams to address issues faster.
The implications extend well beyond store operations. Accurate inventory underpins click-and-collect, rapid delivery and increasingly AI-enabled commerce, where retailers need to reliably deliver on the availability they promise.
It's delivery, but not as you know it
For some brands, limited physical store presence is a challenge. For others, high delivery costs and returns are undermining profitability.
In London, some fashion retailers are evolving delivery into something much more than a logistics service.
The Fold, in partnership with Harper, offers a £10 concierge service across Greater London, where a stylist delivers products, offers optional styling advice and collects unwanted items after a 40-minute appointment.
It's an interesting approach that brings elements of the fitting room and personalised service into the home, while potentially improving conversion, increasing basket sizes and reducing return-related friction.
While the economics won't work for every retailer, it challenges the traditional view of delivery as simply a cost to serve, instead turning it into an extension of the brand experience.
Across all three markets, one thing stood out: innovation isn't always about more technology or removing every point of friction. It's about understanding where technology genuinely adds value, where human interaction matters and how retailers can deliver on their proposition in increasingly differentiated ways.
💻 Winning on the Digital & Agentic Shelf Masterclass
We're down to the last few spots for our Winning on the Digital & Agentic Shelf Masterclass on Wednesday 28 October in Melbourne!
AI and agentic commerce are rapidly changing how shoppers discover, compare and choose products. But for many brands, there is still significant work to be done to get the fundamentals of the digital shelf right, let alone prepare for what's coming next.
That's why we've developed this practical, full-day masterclass to help brands strengthen their digital shelf capabilities while preparing for the emerging agentic shelf.
Across the day, we’ll explore:
🔎 How products are discovered, ranked and recommended across retailer platforms, social commerce channels and AI experiences
🤖 How AI and agentic commerce are reshaping product discovery, consideration and purchase
🛒 What great product content looks like and how to optimise PDPs for visibility and conversion
📈 The signals that influence product credibility, visibility and recommendations
🎯 How to identify and prioritise the opportunities that matter most for your brand
Participants will work through real-world examples and walk away with a mini action plan to help accelerate their efforts.
We're intentionally keeping the group small to make the day interactive, practical and focused on applying the learning.
📅 Wednesday 28 October 2026
📍 Fitzroy, Melbourne
⏰ 9:15am–5:00pm
If you've been thinking about joining us, now's the time to secure one of the remaining places.
💬 So what's been happening in the digital, data & eComm space?
🛒 Google has officially launched Universal Cart in the US, bringing together shopping across Google Search and Gemini into one intelligent, multi-retailer cart. Shoppers can now save products from multiple retailers in a single cart, receive alerts when prices drop or items come back into stock, and uncover relevant promotional codes and credit card benefits through Google Wallet. When ready to purchase, shoppers can check out using Google Pay or transfer their items directly to the retailer's website, with the retailer remaining the seller of record. Powered by Google's Shopping Graph and Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the launch represents another significant step towards agentic commerce. Google has confirmed Australia and Canada are among the first markets for UCP-powered checkout expansion, with the UK to follow. While an Australian launch date for Universal Cart itself hasn't been confirmed, there is speculation it could arrive in the coming months. We'll be putting it to the test as soon as it lands, so keep your eyes on Connected Commerce Decoded!
🤖 Shopify says AI will play a major role in holiday shopping this year, calling this the first holiday season of the “agentic era”. Its 2026 Global Holiday Retail Report found that 65% of shoppers expect to use AI for at least one shopping task this season, suggesting AI is increasingly shaping how consumers discover products, compare options and narrow down decisions, even if many shoppers are still hesitant to hand over the final purchase entirely. As shoppers increasingly rely on AI to narrow down their choices, brands risk being excluded from consideration before a shopper ever reaches a retailer's website. Getting product data, content and third-party signals right is becoming critical to remaining visible and competitive in an AI-driven shopping journey.
📺 7-Eleven Australia launches its own retail media network, Anytime Media @ 7-Eleven, positioning it as Australia's first dedicated convenience retail media network. The offering connects brands with shoppers across its 760+ stores, My 7-Eleven loyalty program and digital channels, reaching customers across 4.6 million weekly transactions. In-store digital screens are also being rolled out, with further expansion planned for 2027. The move reflects the continued expansion of retail media beyond major supermarkets and marketplaces, with convenience retailers increasingly recognising the value of their customer data, physical footprint and high-frequency shopper interactions. For FMCG brands, it creates another opportunity to influence purchase decisions close to the point of sale, but also adds another retail media network to an already fragmented landscape, raising questions around investment prioritisation and measurement.
🦊 So who am I?
I’m an advisor, trainer and thought leader with 25+ years’ experience across digital, marketing, loyalty and commerce, working with consumer, FMCG and retail brands. I’m also the host of Unpacking the Digital Shelf – APAC Edition and have been recognised as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert (2026), and Top 20 CMO (2018).
Before you go…
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Get in touch at [email protected] or find out more here, and don’t forget to follow along on LinkedIn and Substack.