Retail tech legend remembered

Ron Bose, the founder of APT, a software company that helped fashion retailers thrive in the 80s and 90s, has passed away. Ron was a character who had a unique talent to identify people who would succeed in the unstructured world of IT, and the majority of the 20 staff who were at his funeral …

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Why don’t supermarkets discount food its customers buy for food banks?

This is not to say that UK supermarkets don’t already do a lot to get food to people who need it; they all have a food bank box and they all redirect food that would otherwise go to waste to food charities. However, given the generosity of the British public in donating to food banks …

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What’s your Achilles heel?

No one needs a history lesson to know that Achilles was a demigod and therefore immortal save for one vulnerability which was his heel, the one part of his body that was not dipped into the river Styx by his mother Thetis. And it was into this heel that Paris fired the fatal arrow to …

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Tech companies need to change the way they sell and market to boards

With more women on the board, any tech vendor selling to enterprises will need to adapt what they are selling and how they are marketing it. The number of women on boards in blue-chip FTSE 100 companies and mid-sized FTSE 250 companies has risen to 40%, up by 3% in 2022, according to the FTSE women leaders …

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Retailers speak truth to power, only to see power fail to act and tell more lies

Lying to the public has become the national pastime in the UK to the point where the bar is now set so low that it lies on the ground, broken into pieces. So when someone tells the truth, we sigh with relief until we realise that nothing will happen as a result. Take former Sainsbury’s …

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Personalisation comes at a cost, as yet uncounted

There is always another side to the breezy optimism with which the media and tech companies talk about the bright future where every single customer will have their journey personalised from communication and device, through channel mix, all the way to delivery and returns. And that’s without adding customisation of the actual product which we …

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Are Dunelm results the tip of the iceberg for homewares’ prospects?

When Dunelm profits fall, it’s time to worry. The homewares retailer, which has ridden the storms of the last three years, announced that profits had fallen from £140.8m to £117.4m, or 17%. Sales in the second half of 2022 did rise fortunately to £835m but the company is now managing expectations down as inflation cuts …

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Retail Economics lays out the year for retailers at the Delivery Conference

Whether the UK goes into recession or not is kind of a red herring given that the challenges facing retailers this year are real, significant and won’t go away by themselves – retail has its work cut out. Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics opened this year’s Delivery Conference and laid out the true picture …

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Are brands and own label really at war?

Recent figures from Kantar show that own-label sales rose 9.3% in 2022 proof that earlier research is correct – many people tried own label products during Covid because their favourite brands were often missing. And some were just looking to experiment, behaviour brought on by having more time on their hands at home. And now …

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The case for AI is unstoppable

Just in case no one is quite clear on the many areas of retail that will be affected by artificial intelligence, it’s worth, in this article, listing those main areas. One of the problems is that there is a debate on the future impact of AI on employment, possibly leading to another generation of mass …

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