Pennies, an award-winning charity at the cutting edge of fintech and putting social purpose at the heart of business, is pleased to announce its continued partnership as a Gold Charity Partner for the Retail Technology Show 2024. This significant partnership underscores a longstanding collaboration dating back to 2017 and highlights the pivotal role that the Retail Technology Show (RTS) has played in amplifying Pennies’ impact and the micro-donation movement.

Since their collaboration began, Pennies and the Retail Technology Show have formed a strong partnership, aiding the growth of the micro-donation movement and encouraging digital innovation in retail and technology through micro-donations at point of sale. Retail Technology Show serves as an influential platform where Pennies can connect with industry leaders, establish important partnerships, and promote the transformative power of micro-donations. Join Pennies this year at Stand 6K04 to discover more.

“We are delighted to renew our partnership with Retail Technology Show as their Gold Charity Partner. Retail Technology Show has been instrumental in advancing Pennies’ mission, offering us a fantastic platform to share our message, build valuable connections, and inspire others to join the micro-donation movement.”

Alison Hutchinson CBE, CEO at Pennies

Retail Technology Show acts as a catalyst, propelling Pennies’ mission forward and empowering it to make a meaningful difference in the lives of individuals and communities. Since first attending Retail Technology Show in 2017, Pennies has raised an impressive £40+ million through over 165 million micro-donations – showcasing how powerful partnerships like the one with Retail Technology Show can be.

“As we return to the Retail Technology Show for another year, we want to thank the Retail Technology Show team for their continued support and commitment to Pennies, and micro-donations. Together, we will continue to innovate, drive positive change, and shape the future of digital giving,” Hutchinson added.

Taking place on April 24-25, 2024, at Olympia, London, Retail Technology Show remains Europe’s premier gathering for forward-thinking retailers and tech innovators. It offers an unparalleled platform for industry leaders to exchange insights, explore cutting-edge solutions, and shape the future of retail.

To showcase the significance of Pennies micro-donations, consider this: if all the donations made with Pennies within those two days were made up of real pennies, and were laid end- to-end, they would span a distance equivalent to walking around Olympia over 110 times.

Matt Bradley, Event Director at RTS, commented:

“Since 2017, we’ve been proud to partner with Pennies and support them in championing the micro-donation movement. As an event that puts the retail community at the heart of what we do, we share Pennies’ vision that collectively small actions really can make a material difference. We’re delighted the Retail Technology Show can act as a platform to showcase Pennies as well as for show visitors to donate to its worthy causes, and we look forward to welcoming them again this year as a Gold Charity Partner.”

To discover more about Pennies and the micro-donation movement, visit Stand 6K04 at the Retail Technology Show 2024, taking place on April 24-25, 2024, at Olympia, London. Alternatively, contact Pennies directly to explore partnership opportunities and join the mission to drive positive change through digital giving, one penny at a time: https://pennies.org.uk/contact-us/

Nearly half (45%) of UK consumers have been using savings accumulated during Covid-19 lockdowns to offset the cost-of-living crisis, according to new research from the Retail Technology Show (RTS), the industry’s leading event taking place on 24 & 25 April 2024 at London’s Olympia.

Original research of over 1,000 UK adults by RTS revealed that on average British consumers built up a Covid saving pot of £4,805, with Millennials reporting the highest levels of lockdown savings, amassing an average of £5,862.50 while Boomers reported the smallest pots at £4,069.20.

Despite the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, insisting the economy was already showing signs of recovering from a mild recession, more than a quarter (26%) of respondents expect the cost-of-living crisis to last beyond 2026, with a fifth (21%) expecting it to end in 2025.

While the British Retail Consortium’s shop price index revealed food inflation had slowed to its lowest rate for nearly two years, 45% of consumers report using Covid savings to supplement their lifestyle, top up household budgets or cover rising energy bills, with a third (34%) reporting their lockdown savings have now or will shortly be spent.  Accordingly, nearly half (48%) of consumers identified themselves as being increasingly price sensitive, with 38% becoming more considered about each purchase they make and 35% spending more time searching for deals or the best price before purchasing.

Conversely, more than a third (36%) say they haven’t yet spent their Covid-19 savings post – increasing to 50% of Baby Boomers and 42% of Gen X.  However, credit rating agency, Fitch Ratings, predicts that while these households have untapped savings, high interest rates will continue to inhibit spending propensity, meaning their excess savings will go unspent.

Matt Bradley, Event Director for the Retail Technology Show, commented:

“The British consumer has shown extraordinary resilience in the face of ongoing pressure on household budgets and unsurprisingly shoppers are prioritising price and value when it comes to retail spending.  In such a price sensitive environment retailers and brands are rightly focused on technology and strategies that can deliver cost savings and efficiencies while maximising customer experience to retain loyal shoppers and protect revenue.”

Set to speak on the Headline Stage at RTS 2024, Richard Lim, CEO at Retail Economics, will share insights into the economic outlook for the UK retail industry for 2024 before being joined by speakers from Holland & Barrett and Co-op Food in a session focused on how retailers are responding in such a highly challenging and unpredictable economic environment.

Bringing together the brightest minds in retail with the most transformative technologies, the 2024 Retail Technology Show is a one-stop-shop for innovation, with 400+ innovators – from tech’s biggest players to fast-growth disruptors showcasing their transformative solutions.

To register to attend the Retail Technology Show for free, visit: Retail Technology Show 2024.

As retailers continue to grow their Retail Media Network (RMN) capabilities, UK shoppers are now more than twice as likely to be influenced by ads served to them on the websites of retailers they already shop with compared with marketplaces, the latest research from Intellias, the software engineering and digital consultancy company.

Original research of over 1,000 UK shoppers by Intellias showed that over a quarter (26%) are now influenced to buy products advertised to them on retailers’ websites, and a further 17% are persuaded to buy items after being served ads on retailers’ apps.  This compares to just 11% who are swayed to purchase products after being advertised to on 3^rd party marketplaces and 14% who are influenced to convert after seeing branded ads on social media.

This shift, Intellias suggests, points to the growing opportunity for retailers to use ‘owned’ advertising experiences delivered via their direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels to drive customer engagement and open up new retail media revenue streams.  And with the impact of traditional advertising diminishing – a separate poll of over 1,000 UK shoppers by ADvendio showed UK shoppers ignore over half (56%) of traditional digital advertising and 54% disregard traditional search ads – consumers are now demanding a more ‘curated’ advertising experiences from ‘trusted’ brands.

Two-fifths (40%) of the consumers polled by Intellias said they would be more likely to buy items advertised to them by a trusted retailer, while a further 43% would be more likely to try out a new brand they hadn’t purchased before if a retailer they regularly shop with recommended it to them.

With retailers including Currys, which launched its Currys Connected Media advertising offer for 3rd party brands in December, and supermarkets stepping up their RMN capabilities, including Tesco, which will accelerate digital media in-store via a network of 1,000+ digital screens, RMNs are fast becoming a sizable new revenue generator for retailers.  Insider Intelligence suggests revenues from retail media will surpass TV advertising by 2028, while WARC estimates retail media ad revenues will tip $124billion this year.

Alexander Goncharuk, Vice President of Global Retail at Intellias, commented: “There’s no denying the sizable opportunity RMNS present, both in enhancing closer connections and greater engagement with customers, as well as opening up new revenue streams by connecting 3^rd party brands and advertisers with conversion-ready audiences.”

“We see this working particularly well where retailers can connect data from across their digital and in-store channels and overlay this with loyalty programme insights to offer hyper-segmentation for advertisers and brands.  By tapping these predisposed-to-purchase customers, retailers can deliver greater engagement and campaign performance that significantly increases return on ad spend (ROAS).”

British online menswear brand, Dobell, has taken ownership of its post-purchase experience reducing ‘where is my order’ (WISMO) queries, driving business profitability and generating a 57% click through rate (CTR) on post-purchase emails, in partnership with Scurri – the next generation delivery management and post purchase software provider.

Dobell is a leading menswear brand based in Eastbourne, Southeast England, that brings a fresh, fun, and feel-good approach to tailoring, priding itself on delivering an exceptional customer experience.  Strong demand both domestically and internationally, including America and Europe, for Dobell’s clothing has led to consistent growth with a current turnover of £6million and following a reset during the pandemic and a subsequent rebrand, Dobell have a renewed focus on lean growth.

Critical to maintaining this growth was reducing customer support contacts while reinforcing the brand by taking control of the post-purchase experience.  Dobell chose to implement Scurri Track Plus to enable it to own the post-purchase experience by sending branded tracking emails and providing a branded tracking timeline to customers – thereby reducing WISMO queries and driving profitability.

Support queries have reduced by more than a third (37%) since implementing Scurri Track Plus, the number of contacts per query have also decreased.David Butcher, Operations, CS & Global Logistics Manager at Dobell, commented: “Because Scurri Track Plus integrates with our existing systems so easily, a customer can simply reply to the email rather than a customer having to click into carrier tracking emails and then click elsewhere to contact us about returns, meaning the communication is seamless.  This enhances the customer experience while also providing our customer services operators with all the order information, helping them solve shopper queries faster and more efficiently.”

Scurri Track Plus also enables Dobell to tailor communications for its North American customers. Dobell has advanced shipping strategies in place to overcome international shipping challenges which Track Plus supports by helping Dobell appear as local as possible.  Furthermore, Dobell has tweaked the messaging to highlight business objectives of its choice at different stages of the customer journey.  For example, selected emails link to their Trustpilot page while they’ve tweaked their “delivered” email to include instructions on returns.

Central to Dobell’s vision of its 2023 rebrand has been to celebrate their Eastbourne heritage, showcasing its collections with photoshoots in the Eastbourne area.  Track Plus has enabled the brand to extend these campaigns to the post-purchase phase by sending branded tracking emails with campaign imagery and branding at a time of peak engagement.

“Improving the customer experience is about having the right information and giving it to the customer at the right point of their journey – and that’s what Scurri Track Plus does.  Thanks to the operational efficiencies achieved in the customer contact centre and, more importantly, the brand building that’s in-built into seamless and accurate up front customer journeys, Scurri Track Plus is worth every penny,” commented Butcher.

Rory O’Connor, CEO and Founder of Scurri, commented: “We’re delighted to partner with Dobell to help it take control of its post-purchase experience to help drive important business efficiencies, boost loyalty through enhanced customer experience and deliver all-important revenue growth.”

The Retail Technology Show (RTS), the leading industry event that connects retail’s changemakers and leading tech innovators, has announced that Nick Wheeler OBE, Founder, Chairman & Owner of Charles Tyrwhitt, will be one of its 2024 headline speakers as part of its conference programme.

Retail’s flagship event, which takes place at London Olympia on the 24 and 25 April 2024, brings the industries brightest minds to the stages of its conference programme.  Nick Wheeler will deliver a keynote session on the Headline Stage on Day 2, which will explore how to lead a workforce from one person to a thousand.

Wheeler will draw from his experience establishing his shirt and menswear brand, Charles Tyrwhitt, which he started in 1990 as a fledgling mail order business ranging just 8 shirts and ties, and successfully scaled into the full-scale international multi-channel retailer and leading British menswear brand with £330million of sales forecast in 2024.

Matt Bradley, Event Director at the Retail Technology Show, commented: “Retail has always been about the business of buying from people and making personal connections.  And retail’s frontline workforce are at the fore of creating the retail magic and shopping experiences that foster long-term relationships with customers that keep them coming back time and again.  Setting up retail teams with the right talent, skills and culture to succeed is foundational for long-term business performance, which is why we’re thrilled to have Nick join us to deliver our keynote session on building and leading a successful retail workforce on the Headline Stage.”

Leadership, Economy & Workforce will be one of six key tracks in the RTS 2024 conference programme, and will feature further seminal sessions from retail leaders on the Headline stage on Day 2 of the show, which will be chaired by Customer Whisperer, Kate Hardcastle MBE.

Clarks’ MD of UK & ROI, Bob Neville, will join CEO of the British Retail Consortium, Helen Dickinson OBE, for a fireside chat which will explore what great retail leadership looks like in 2024 and beyond, while Lucas London, Co-Founder & CEO of fast-growth paint brand Lick, discusses the role of leadership and building internal culture for start-ups.

With over 400+ cutting-edge technology innovators exhibiting at RTS 2024, solutions that support retailers’ workforces will also feature prominently on the show floor, from frontline experience platform YOOBIC, to workforce management solutions, including StoreForce and UKG, and e-learning and training solutions, including Axonify .  Meanwhile on the TECH Talks stage, a dedicated conference stream for exhibitors to showcase their solutions in bite-sized sessions, frontline workforce app, Workjam, will be outline a practical guide for enterprise retailers on achieving operational excellence that boosts staff efficiency on Day 1.

Register for free to attend the industry’s flagship event which brings the magic of retail to life, here.

 

Google Cloud and Akeneo, a global leader in product information management and product experience, announced today a technology partnership that will boost Akeneo’s innovation and ease the integration of all product information thanks to Google Cloud AI solutions. Leveraging the openness and ease of use of Vertex AI and Google’s large language models like Gemini, Akeneo will continuously enhance the customer journey, enabling a more relevant and efficient product experience.

Creating a richer shopping experience with Vertex AI

With the partnership, Akeneo plans to sharpen its competitive advantage through greater innovation and cost optimisation. The company will leverage Google’s AI tools to automatically develop multilingual product descriptions, and will integrate streams of images and videos into product information, whether it already exists, needs to be created, or needs to be adapted to local cultural specificities.

Vertex AI’s ease of managing, adding, and complementing data in real-time will help Akeneo offer an enhanced shopping journey to consumers, making them better informed, with more relevant information, regardless of the channel they choose to complete their purchases.

A new centre of excellence in AI dedicated to product experience

Leaning on the technology developed by Akeneo’s recent acquisition of Unifai, which is now integrated into Akeneo’s Product Cloud—and also on the AI expertise and solutions provided by Google Cloud—a new Akeneo AI centre of excellence will support the development of best practices, address common AI challenges, and foster the development of new product innovations. The centre will provide training sessions and webinars—and will develop white papers and dedicated case studies to help manufacturers, brand managers, and retailers draw the benefits of AI in their product experience strategy.

“With the experts at Unifai and the innovative strength of Google Cloud in data management and AI, we intend to boost the product experience and customer purchasing journey, and reinvent the product information management industry,” said Kristin Naragon, Chief Strategy Officer at Akeneo.

“Our customers and Akeneo’s customers will benefit from the openness and innovation our AI technology offers. With Vertex AI, Akeneo is not only accelerating its innovation and transformation capabilities, but also remodelling the product experience industry to better serve consumers in their purchasing journey,” said Isabelle Fraine, Managing Director France at Google Cloud.

Akeneo, the Product Experience (PX) company and leading provider of Product Information Management (PIM) solutions, announced at the PX World Conference, Akeneo Unlock 2024, innovative capabilities in its latest release.  Powered by its 2022 fundraising and 2023 growth, these capabilities reinforce Akeneo’s commitment to creating a world where every product interaction is an experience that guides consumers and professionals to the best purchase, anytime, anywhere.

Ubiquitous AI in Akeneo Product Cloud

Akeneo’s App Marketplace offers clients the most extensive options on the market for leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for PX.  Now, thanks to its acquisition of Unifai last year, Akeneo has rapidly incorporated some of the most impactful AI use cases natively into Akeneo PIM and Akeneo Supplier Data Manager, with specially tuned AI that is expert at data onboarding, enrichment, mapping, cleansing and categorisation, while continually learning and refining its capabilities with each step it takes.

Customers will now be able to leverage:

• PIM with customisable generative AI to create bulk product descriptions and romance copy across the entire product catalogue in minutes
• PIM with generative AI to translate those descriptions into more than 50 languages
• Supplier Data Manager now with native AI for onboarding suppliers faster and more efficiently by automating mapping, normalisation, categorisation and enrichment of supplier data

Akeneo App for Salesforce

Akeneo has launched the Akeneo App for Salesforce on Salesforce AppExchange, a leading enterprise marketplace for partner app and experts. The Akeneo App for Salesforce empowers customers to leverage complete, compelling and consistent product information to unlock the full potential of Salesforce. This customisable app brings high-quality product information and assets into Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Experience Cloud, driving greater efficiency, higher sales volumes, and better customer service by giving customer-facing teams instant access to product information that drives more meaningful engagement with the people who are buying and using their products and powering digital commerce.

Deployed together, the Akeneo PIM, part of Akeneo Product Cloud, connects people to products in the Salesforce system where they work, every day. Resulting in:

• Higher sales on B2B and D2C Commerce sites with accurate, up-to-date, and localized product information.
• Sales rep that sell more products, more efficiently, by accessing product descriptions and assets while building quotes and working on Salesforce CRM.
• Customer service reps that deliver better support by leveraging accurate, complete, and up-to-date product information when resolving cases in Salesforce Service Cloud.

 “As we unveil our Spring 2024 release, we’re celebrating the fruits of Akeneo’s strategic evolution,” said Fred de Gombert, CEO of Akeneo.  “Our journey since the 2022 fundraising has been one of bold steps and breakthroughs, leveling Akeneo up the competitive rungs of product experience management solutions.  This year we’re thrilled to celebrate recent success and propel ourselves to new levels of growth.”

“Every product has a story to tell,” added de Gombert.  “Companies have a difficult task to make those stories both informative and compelling throughout the customer journey.  Akeneo is on a mission to empower business leaders with software, education and an engaged community all focused on the practice of product experience management.”

Additional PIM and Activation capabilities featured in this Spring 2024 release include:

• On top of the 250+ existing marketplaces and retailers, Akeneo adds activation destinations including Grainger and Wayfair for easier syndication of product information
• Configurable Enrichment Workflows that guide users through the enrichment process and ensure content passes quality checks before publication
• Product Family Templates that speed up catalogue modeling
• Simultaneous Work capabilities that enhance collaboration and prevent conflicts with real-time visibility into product content changes
• New business analytics that track sales performance of products across different channels and markets

 Recent additions to the Akeneo App Marketplace include:

• A new image creation AI-powered solution called Grand Shooting – Catalogue Sync App, which facilitates image quality control by retouching non-compliant images in real-time
• Generative AI apps like the Copysmith AI App help customers generate product descriptions, and the Smartling App supports seamless automation and management of multilingual product content
• Industry-specific apps like the Automotive Fitment App by Sitation solve the complicated handling of fitment data
• Content Management Systems (CMS) and Digital Asset Manager (DAM) apps like the Hygraph App, Contentstack Connector, and the Aprimo DAM Integration.

True Fit, the leading AI platform that decodes size and fit for consumers and fashion retailers, has partnered with Princess Polly to build AI-powered size and fit recommendations into shopper journeys to increase conversions and drive down returns.

Launched from a beachside apartment on Australia’s Gold Coast in 2010, Princess Polly delivers on-trend, quality apparel at affordable prices to global shoppers in the UK, USA and its home country of Australia.  The brand’s mission is to make on-trend, sustainable fashion accessible to everyone as it rebuilds its entire supply chain over the coming years to source all their products sustainably.

Eying further business growth and rebuilding its sustainable future, Princess Polly sought to provide its customers with an experience that would help them confidently convert in their size to not only decrease returns and exchanges but also to produce less emissions via the transportation of those returns.

It selected True Fit, the size and fit solution built for every shopper and every sized product category to increase conversion, reduce returns and build loyalty.  Princess Polly is leveraging True Fit’s best-in-class Artificial Intelligence (AI), connecting cross-market data from over 82 million shoppers (active users) and 20,000+ brands, to guide Princess Polly customers to the right size based on their unique preferences.

Princess Polly chose True Fit because it pioneered AI size recommendations more than a decade ago and trusted that True Fit was best positioned to support fit recommendations across its extended sizing ranges, consisting of Curve, Tall and Petite, ensuring inclusivity and a perfect fit across its entire collection.

Melanie Huang, UX Ecommerce Manager at Princess Polly, commented:

“We’re committed to meeting customers where they are – and that is evidenced in how we listen and respond to customer feedback, acting on the insights and data we have to continuously improve shoppers’ experiences.  By actively seeking solutions to the size-related pain points voiced by our customers, we can further enhance brand trust and loyalty in a customer-centric way.  In working with True Fit, we’re excited to leverage their data to learn more about our shoppers’ fit preferences, allowing us to drive a virtuous circle of value for our customers.”

Jessica Arredondo Murphy, Co-Founder & COO at True Fit, commented “Princess Polly has long been a champion of inclusivity and bringing on-trend style in a sustainable way to all body types and sizes.  Adding AI fit guidance across its sizing ranges is just another way it is making its collections accessible to all of its customers, helping them get the perfect fit for their unique and personal style every time.”

The Retail Technology Show (RTS), the leading industry event that connects retail’s changemakers and leading tech innovators, has announced that Dr Nick Beighton, CEO of MATCHESFASHION and Chairman of Secret Sales, will join its headline speakers as part of its 2024 conference programme.

Taking place at London Olympia on the 24 and 25 April 2024, RTS brings the industries brightest minds to the stage and Beighton joins fellow headliners, including founder of Not On The High Street, Holly Tucker MBE, and Google DeepMind’s Dex Hunter-Torricke, who will deliver seminal sessions at the 2024 event.

Having joined MATCHESFASHION in 2022, as CEO Beighton focuses on the relationships between fashion and e-commerce using technology, product, logistics and culture to disrupt existing consumer patterns and galvanise change.  Prior to joining MATCHESFASHION, Beighton lead ASOS as its CEO between 2015 and 2021, and during his tenure he helped grow the pureplay retailers from a £178million turnover business to a £3.9billion revenue retailer with 15,000 employees.

Part of the Leadership, Economy & Workforce conference track on Day 2, Beighton will join retail influencer, Andrew Busby, on the Headline stage for a 30-minute fireside chat.

Beighton will join other fashion thought-leaders from brands including Primark, Sweaty Betty, Paul Smith, River Island and Crew Clothing across the two day conference programme.

RTS will also welcome eco-conscious affordable fashion brand Nobody’s Child’s Founder and Chairman, Andrew Xeni, who will outline how it is servicing fashion shoppers demands for greater sustainability and transparency via Digital Product Passports, while All Saint’s Chief Innovation Officer, James Reid, will outline key strategies for mobile-first apps and their role in omnichannel customer experiences.

Register for free to attend the industry’s flagship event which brings the magic of retail to life, here.

Sitoo, a leading could-native Point of Sale (POS) and Unified Commerce Platform, has been recognised in the 2024 Gartner® Market Guide for Unified Commerce Platforms Anchored by POS for Tier 2 Retailers.

Sitoo helps global fashion and lifestyle retailers create positive shopping experiences every time and everywhere.  Driven by the belief that shopping should be simple and seamless, Sitoo enables retailers to unify all physical stores and online sales channels in real-time and empowers store associates to deliver seamless cross-channel experiences.

This ability to unify sales channels and provide seamless shopping experiences is swiftly becoming a top priority for retailers across the globe.  According to 2024 Gartner Market Guide for Unified Commerce Platforms Anchored by POS for Tier 2 Retailers^[1]: “Tier 2 Retail CIOs should consider POS unified commerce platforms to enable retailers to provide uninterrupted experiences, allowing customers to browse, transact, acquire and consume anywhere and everywhere.”

“As a result, the requirement for open architecture has rapidly emerged as a high priority for Tier 2 retailers planning new POS deployments, and has further accelerated over the past 12 months.”

“Moreover, this approach addressed the primary need for agility required in response to the ongoing disruptions in the market and rapidly changing customer expectations, and retailers’ emerging strategies for modular and composable business applications.”

As well as being recognised in the 2024 Gartner® Market Guide for Unified Commerce Platforms Anchored by POS for Tier 2 Retailer, Sitoo has continued its rapid growth.  Already Sitoo works with leading European retailers including Scandinavia’s largest fashion retailer, Varner, across 1,200 stores, and UK brands including TFG London, ALDO Shoes, Nudie Jeans and Mint Velvet.  Sitoo also launched in the U.S. with fast-growth sporting goods retailer, Rally House, the first native North American brand to implement and roll-out Sitoo POS and Unified Commerce Platform across its 200 stores, and which is one of the businesses already benefiting from the approach identified in the Gartner report.

Commenting on its decision to implement Sitoo, Kristen Liebert, Vice President of Business Transformation and Treasurer at Rally House, said: “The technology we were using wasn’t growing with us and was really holding us back.  We needed a POS that was cloud-native, could scale with us, and handle the high volume we were starting to see.  We wanted technology that was omnichannel and would take us into the future – and a partner that was solution-focused.”

“With our legacy systems – because they were slow and unstable – our associates didn’t even try to get customer capture because it was one more thing that would slow down the transaction but now, with Sitoo, we’re seeing a 90% customer capture rate in many of our stores because the technology – and the way it integrates – is so seamless.”

A further recommendation within the Gartner report is that CIOs aiming for unified retail commerce should seek modular and flexible POS solutions that can deliver agile implementation.  This ensures resilience in rapidly changing environments while enabling store associates to easily access data, information and insights from various applications, including POS, through an easily navigable front-end User Interface (UI).  The report also advises that CIOs should verify the vendor’s capability to deliver cloud-native POS solutions that guarantee adequate resilience, data security and privacy through a thorough assessment of its disaster recovery features as per the report.

As a cloud-native rather than cloud-based solution, Sitoo guarantees resilience, data security, and privacy.  Recognised for its commitment to composable and open architecture, Sitoo is a certified member of the MACH Alliance, a group of independent tech companies which champion future-proof, open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems for retailers, advocating for an approach driven by Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless solutions.

Jens Levin, Sitoo co-founder and CEO, said: “Being recognised by Gartner is a valued testament to the approach we take on our mission to create positive shopping experiences every time, and everywhere.  We know flexibility is the future of retail, and it’s simply not feasible for any one vendor alone to keep pace with all the changes needed to drive long-term performance – this is only possible when powered by best-of-breed partnerships.  With the approach we take and support we offer, retailers can build their own ecosystems with these best-of-breed solutions that can effectively adapt to change.”

“We strive to give retailers the freedom they need today and the assurance they need to meet needs in the future that they don’t know about yet,” Levin added.

Access the 2024 Gartner® Market Guide for Unified Commerce Platforms Anchored by POS for Tier 2 Retailers here for more insight and information

^[1] Gartner, Inc – “Market Guide for Unified Commerce Platforms Anchored by POS for Tier 2 Retailers” by Max Hammond. January 29, 2024.