Stock up and discount hard, then move straight on to Christmas. That is the back-to-school playbook for most retailers, and it barely changes year to year.

Back-to-school is one of the biggest trading moments in the calendar. Yes, it’s a nice Q3 sales bump, but it’s also the best window all year to begin a customer relationship, one that lasts far longer than a single purchase.

Think about who is actually shopping. A parent buying supplies for one child this year will be back next year for the same child, and quite possibly for a second or third child after that. Handled well, that first purchase is the start of a relationship that can run for a decade across school shoes, PE kits, lunchboxes and everything after.

Discounting alone leaves you exposed

Back-to-school has become a price war, so discounting can feel like the only option. The C-suite gets its sugar high from the sales spike, but it fades fast. Blanket discounts move stock, then train shoppers to wait for the next markdown.

Retailers who break out of that cycle are taking more from the season than a spike in sales.

Value doesn’t have to mean money off

Gap has run app-only back-to-school offers that required parents to download the app to claim the discount. It’s the same saving they expected, but now it earns Gap the download and first-party data on how that family shops. That data lets Gap build personalised promotions in place of sitewide discounts, which is better for margins and more relevant for shoppers.

Others lean on what we call creative currencies, ways to give shoppers value beyond a price cut. Crayola did exactly this. Itsthank a teacher campaign invited students to nominate a favourite teacher for the chance to feature on a crayon box, with a cash prize for the winning classroom. That is an example of purpose currency, where the reward is doing genuine good, building warmth that a simple discount never could.

A few currencies suit this season especially well. Game currency adds a bit of jeopardy to a routine shop. For example, a spin-to-win when buying a uniform turns a chore kids dread into something with a bit of fun – bringing some much needed relief to a stressful shopping day. Whereas, the consistency currency rewards the return trip, so the half-term top-up feels earned. That kind of value is cheaper to give and harder for a rival to copy.

One season, three shoppers

Parents, students and teachers are shopping for completely different reasons in the same fortnight. A parent restocking Year 7 uniform wants speed and a full list ticked off. A sixth-former buying their own stationery for the first time is choosing on taste. Offer them all the same 20 percent code and you spend margin on people who’d have bought regardless, and say nothing relevant to any of them.

At Talon.One, we see this across the brands we work with. The ones I would back to still be speaking to a shopper at Christmas are those using this season to understand them, not just to shift stock. That understanding is what pays back, long after the discounts have gone.

The discount isn’t the enemy here. The blanket discount is. Use the season to learn who these shoppers are and give them a reason beyond price to come back. Then back-to-school stops being a fortnight of clearance and becomes the start of a relationship worth years of repeat custom.

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By Dirk Hoerig, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at commercetools

When the solar eclipse passed over the UK, it swung a spotlight on the operational readiness of retailers.

The eclipse wasn’t exactly a surprise. Retailers knew months in advance what was coming and could anticipate a predictable surge in demand for eclipse glasses and related merchandise. Yet even with that early warning, many struggled to get stock into customers’ hands when they needed it. Shelves cleared out, websites buckled under traffic spikes and last-minute shoppers left stores empty-handed.

If a demand spike we could see coming months in advance still caught retailers out, what does that tell us about the ones we can’t predict?

A viral TikTok trend, a celebrity moment or a sudden cultural flashpoint can send demand soaring in minutes. The next total solar eclipse won’t hit UK skies again until 2090, but retailers won’t have to wait that long for the next surge in customer demand.

The eclipse’s real lesson is about operating in real time. Retail has spent decades getting better at predicting demand. AI creates the opportunity to get better at responding to it.

The problem isn’t necessarily that retailers fail to see demand changing. It’s what happens next. A retailer might spot a product suddenly selling faster in one store, while stock remains sitting elsewhere in the network. By the time teams identify the pattern, decide how to respond and move inventory accordingly, the opportunity may already have passed.

This is what I’d call the reactivity gap: the distance between knowing that demand is shifting and being able to do something about it. Closing that gap means moving from demand forecasting to demand readiness.

Demand readiness means building systems that can sense a shift as it happens and instantly act on it within the parameters the business has already set, from adjusting pricing, reallocating inventory, triggering fulfilment and reshaping promotions. There’s no need to move through a manual process of waiting for a team to realise, diagnose and step in.

This is where autonomous commerce becomes practical rather than theoretical. Autonomous systems can interpret demand signals and act across pricing, inventory and fulfilment within defined guardrails. The team’s role shifts from responding manually to every change towards setting the strategy and boundaries within which the system operates.

None of these decisions happen in isolation. If demand for a product suddenly jumps, cutting a promotion, changing its price or shifting inventory each has consequences elsewhere in the business. Reacting at machine speed only works if those systems are acting on the same real-time information and towards the same business objectives.

That doesn’t make forecasting obsolete. Retailers still need to plan for seasonal peaks, promotions and known events. But forecasts are predictions, and the moment reality diverges from the plan, the ability to respond becomes just as important as the accuracy of the forecast itself.

The eclipse might have been a rare test case. But retailers face less predictable versions of the same challenge throughout the year, from Black Friday surges to viral moments.

The next retail surge could begin with a celebrity appearance or an event. The businesses best equipped for it won’t be the ones that predicted it. The winners will be the ones capable of responding while everyone else is still working out what happened.

Image courtesy of Unsplash. Photo credit: Jongsun Lee.

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By Al Williams, VP of Market Strategy at Commerce

Most e-commerce journeys are still built around the assumption that everyone shops in the same way. They don’t. Many customers report frustration when brands fail to deliver personalised experiences. High cart abandonment is driven in large part by unnecessary complexity that forces shoppers to process more information before making a decision.

Those numbers are bad for any shopper. For disabled customers, neurodivergent shoppers, people with lower confidence, or anyone who simply prefers a different style of interaction, the gap between the experience that exists and the one they need is far wider. Ecommerce has an inclusion problem. AI, specifically agentic tools, is one of the more credible paths to solving it.

There is no such thing as the average shopper

Widespread inaccessible checkout journeys and disabled customers regularly abandoning purchases because of an accessibility barrier are not edge cases. They represent a material share of purchasing intent that never converts.

Inclusion extends beyond accessibility in the clinical sense. Some shoppers want guidance and reassurance throughout a journey. Others want speed and independence. Introverted customers may actively avoid the social pressure of in-store interaction.

Ecommerce has largely asked them to conform to how retailers organise their products. That’s the wrong starting point.

The personal shopping assistant, reconsidered

Traditional AI tools answer questions. Agentic tools do something more useful: they understand goals, evaluate options, and take action on a shopper’s behalf.

A shopper dealing with arthritis doesn’t search “easy to put on trainers.” They explain their situation: what they struggle with, what comfort means to them, what they’ve already tried. An AI agent that can understand the underlying need, not just the keywords, and return relevant recommendations filtered by budget and availability, compresses a genuinely difficult shopping task into something manageable.

Over time, these agents learn. Previous interactions, preferences, and purchasing behaviour improve the relevance of what gets surfaced. Personalisation becomes something closer to real-time context. When a shopper feels understood, they convert. They return. They make fewer unnecessary returns.

Adapting to the shopper, not the other way around

“Traditional” direct to consumer ecommerce is built around how retailers organise products, mirroring a physical store or catalogue; organised by category. Agentic commerce inverts that. The experience adapts around the consumer, with the goal being an outcome, not the navigation of a storefront.

Shoppers are more willing to explain specific requirements, ask questions that might feel awkward in person, or seek reassurance at each stage of a decision. That psychological dynamic has real commercial implications. Lower pressure means higher confidence. Higher confidence means higher conversion.

What this requires from retailers

The opportunity is real. So are the conditions required to realise it. Trust and transparency aren’t optional components of an agentic commerce experience; they’re what makes the shopper willing to engage with it. That means being clear about how data is used, keeping the shopper in control of the final decision, and building experiences that genuinely adapt rather than ones that simulate adaptation.

The retailers who get this right won’t just serve a broader range of customers. They’ll build the kind of loyalty that comes from making someone feel, for the first time, that a shopping experience was actually designed with them in mind.

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By Ned Gammell, Head of UK & Ireland at Quinyx

For the majority of young people, roles in retail are a gateway into the world of work. The industry has long been a critical source of ‘first rung’ jobs/

Alan Milburn’s important report revealed that nearly one million young people aged 16 to 24 are NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training). Retail came under particular fire for reducing vacancies and pulling back on the flexible, entry-level roles that have traditionally introduced young people to work.

A sector under pressure

The reality is, retail and hospitality are facing enormous external cost pressures largely outside their control, from energy bill hikes and rising employment costs like National Insurance, to geopolitical uncertainties driving up import prices.

But despite this challenging environment, there are opportunities to relieve operational pressure and preserve retail’s place as a provider of critical early-career opportunities.

Smart scheduling, smarter savings

While by no means a silver bullet, smarter workforce management is an under-exploited route to improving efficiency, reducing costs and finding additional productivity gains, in turn easing the need to cut headcount.

In particular, AI-powered workforce management can take account of operational preferences when building schedules, and use historic footfall and sales data to predict more accurately the number of stuff needed on any given shift – for example during peak seasons like December, say, or when new promotional displays need to go out.

By properly forecasting demand day to day, businesses avoid being over- or under-staffed, improving productivity and lowering labour costs. These marginal gains can have a big impact, especially in tighter labour markets. When the right people, with the right skills, are scheduled in the right place and at the right times, there is less wastage. So the pressure to cut entry-level roles eases. In addition, team leads and managers will have greater capacity to support those new to the workplace.

The right scheduling tools can also bring flexibility and agility to rotas, letting workers swap shifts and input their own preferences, flagging the days and times that suit them and those they definitely can’t work. This is a real win for both sides: young people in education gain the flexibility to access work, while employers tap a pool of talent that often aligns with peak trading times like evenings and weekends.

Backing the next generation

Workforce management tools are not a cure-all for retail sector issues. But in a cost-focused environment, small changes make big differences. If retail is to remain a nurturing ground where future generations learn how to work, businesses need to be able to keep saying yes to young people. Smarter scheduling will help them find the space to continue doing so.

Image courtesy of Unsplash. Photo credit: Vitaly Gariev.

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By Jeremy Freedman, Managing Director at Guardpack

As of 31st July 2026, cosmetic brands placing new products on the EU market must comply with updated fragrance allergen labelling requirements. While the legislation improves transparency for consumers with fragrance allergies, it also highlights the importance of treating regulatory compliance as an ongoing process.

The updated rules expand the number of fragrance allergens requiring individual declaration from 24 to more than 80, following a review of emerging scientific evidence that identified additional ingredients capable of causing contact allergies. The changes also broaden the scope beyond traditional fragrance compounds to include certain oxidation products and naturally derived isolates, meaning compliance may extend beyond products that are obviously fragranced. The aim is to give consumers clearer information about the products they use while making it easier for those with fragrance allergies to identify ingredients they need to avoid.

Although the declaration thresholds remain unchanged, many brands will need to review formulations, ingredient listings and packaging to ensure products placed on the EU market comply with the new requirements.

Regulatory changes like this can have implications across product development, design approval, packaging production and supply chain planning. Even relatively minor amendments can require careful cross-coordination, so it’s important to be prepared.

Proactive compliance benefits everyone

The businesses that navigate regulatory change most effectively are often those that build compliance into their everyday processes rather than reacting when deadlines approach. We’ve observed this through our work with cosmetic manufacturers, where early conversations around packaging and compliance often make the implementation process considerably smoother.

Reviewing formulations early, planning packaging updates in advance and maintaining close collaboration between regulatory, manufacturing and packaging teams can help minimise disruption while ensuring products are ready for market.

Although these latest requirements apply to products placed on the EU market, they also reflect a wider industry shift towards greater ingredient transparency. Businesses also need to prepare for the July 2028 transition deadline, when non-compliant products already on the market must be updated or withdrawn.

As cosmetic regulations continue to evolve, taking a proactive approach allows businesses to adapt more efficiently to future changes, regardless of where their products are sold.

Preparing early offers benefits beyond meeting regulatory requirements. It provides time to review packaging, refine internal processes and ensure labelling accurately reflects product formulations before production begins. Rather than viewing regulation as an administrative burden, many businesses are recognising that early planning can improve operational efficiency while reinforcing consumer confidence.

An integral part of developing trusted products

Compliance often requires collaboration across multiple departments, so the earlier the conversations around it begin, the more time brands have to make considered decisions rather than reactive ones.

Looking ahead, cosmetic regulations will continue to evolve as scientific understanding develops and consumer expectations around transparency increase. Businesses that embed regulatory awareness into product development, rather than treating it as a one-off obligation before launch, will be better placed to adapt to future changes with confidence.

Ultimately, compliance supports product integrity, maintains consumer trust and ensures products reach the market with accurate, up-to-date information.

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By Inge Bujakiewicz-Baars, Head of Sustainability at ReBound Returns

This summer, sustainable fashion shared the spotlight with villa drama thanks to eBay’s partnership with Love Island, which put pre-loved clothing at the heart of one of the UK’s biggest television programmes. The partnership appeared to influence viewers too, with around a third of Love Island fans* saying the show made them more likely to buy pre-loved fashion. It’s not the only example of circular fashion taking centre stage on screen. Prime Video’s RE/style, a six-part design competition hosted by Emma Willis, challenges eight European designers to create runway looks using only second-hand clothing.

Together, these programmes suggest that circular fashion is becoming part of mainstream entertainment rather than a niche sustainability conversation. The question is whether this could be the summer that buying pre-loved becomes a more established consumer habit.

The rise of ‘sustainable girl summer’

Summer clothing is often among the most short-lived purchases in a wardrobe. Holiday outfits, festival looks and occasionwear are frequently bought for a single event before being forgotten, while social media continues to reinforce the idea that every occasion requires something new. By presenting pre-loved fashion as desirable rather than second best, Love Island has helped challenge those habits.

Turning interest into everyday behaviour

Creating interest is only the first step. The bigger challenge for retailers is converting growing consumer appetite for resale into services that are convenient enough for customers to use repeatedly.

A relationship with a customer does not need to end at the point of purchase. Branded resale, trade-in programmes, repair services, take-back schemes and rental all extend the life of products while helping retailers recover more value from existing inventory. They also provide greater visibility into how products perform throughout their lifecycle, offering valuable insight into durability, demand and customer behaviour.

The commercial case for these services is becoming stronger as regulation accelerates the shift towards circular retail. The EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) introduces new expectations around product durability, repairability, resource efficiency and the management of unsold goods. While implementation will develop over time, the direction of travel is clear: retailers will face increasing scrutiny over how products remain in use for longer and how value is recovered beyond the first sale.

Offering circular services, however, is only one part of the challenge. Consumers are unlikely to embrace resale, repair or take-back schemes if they are slower or more complicated than buying new. Retailers therefore need the operational infrastructure to support them, from reliable reverse logistics and consistent product grading to efficient repair networks and straightforward digital journeys that make participating in circular services simple.

Building on the trend

With TV shows increasing interest in pre-loved fashion, we are seeing how circular fashion can capture mainstream attention when it is presented in ways consumers genuinely want to engage with. For retailers, the opportunity now is to turn that cultural momentum into practical systems that make resale, repair and take-back part of everyday shopping. Those that make circular participation as easy as buying new will be better placed to keep products in use for longer while meeting changing consumer expectations and regulatory requirements.

Image courtesy of iStock. Supplied by ReBound Returns. 

*Data based on anecdotal feedback from Love Island superfans across Reddit forums and Facebook groups. One fan highlighted Jasmine’s outfit rewearing, while more than a third said they were more open to buying pre-loved clothing after seeing Islanders’ style.

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With Glasgow hosting the Commonwealth Games from 23rd July to 2nd August, around 500,000 ticket holders are expected to travel across the city during one of the busiest periods in its events calendar. For retail destinations, the Games offer a valuable chance to welcome new audiences and demonstrate how they can contribute to the wider visitor experience beyond the competition itself.

As visitors move between venues, transport hubs, neighbourhoods and other destinations throughout the day, activity will spread across Glasgow. Retail parks such as Glasgow Fort, on the city’s eastern approach, can play a wider role in supporting how people experience the city.

For operators and landlords, now is the time to be thinking about what happens once the crowds arrive. Event visitors might not initially be coming to shop, but they do need places to eat, meet and spend time before and after any Games events and that’s exactly where the wider shift in retail is already heading.

At Glasgow Fort, we have seen this shift first hand. Footfall is up eight percent over the past year, driven largely by demand in food and beverage, alongside fashion and health and beauty. The Commonwealth Games can build on that momentum, bringing more people into the city and creating additional opportunities for retailers that offer convenient places to eat, shop and spend time around events.

That’s why we see major events as an accelerant for a strategy that is already in motion, not a reason to bolt on short term activation. At Glasgow Fort, we’ve recently submitted plans for a 60,000 sq ft expansion that incorporates significant new leisure attractions including bowling, arcades, karaoke, laser quest and escape rooms. The proposals follow two rounds of public consultation and reflect sustained demand from visitors. It’s one of the first developments of its kind in the UK since 2020, and it’s designed to drive footfall and increase dwell time whether or not there’s a major event on the calendar.

That said, the Games do give us a live opportunity to bring that strategy to life for visitors right now.

During the Games period, Glasgow Fort will host a free Big Summer Sports Camp, tapping into the sporting mood and timed to coincide with the school holidays. It provides a way for us to connect with the wider event calendar and encourage families already in the area to spend more time at the destination, but it only works because the underlying offer, and the ongoing investment behind it, gives people a reason to stay once they’re there.

The Commonwealth Games will bring a welcome, city-wide spotlight to Glasgow this summer. The destinations that benefit most, not just during the Games but for years afterwards, will be the ones that are already building for changing visitor habits. Sustained investment in the right mix of retail, leisure and food and drink is what converts these big moments into repeat visits and longer-term loyalty.

Image courtesy of Pexels. Photo credit: Adrien Olichon.

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By Tim Deeker-Harris, Vice President at Proxima

Anyone for splitting the G? The Guinness shortages of 2024 showed how a viral social media trend can disrupt global supply chains almost overnight. More recently, trends such as the Greek yoghurt and Biscoff hack demonstrated how demand can spike within hours and continue for weeks.

The challenge for businesses is that social media moves much faster than supply chains. While trends can emerge overnight, sourcing, manufacturing and logistics decisions are often made months in advance. Many retailers, for example, lock in Christmas forecasting and supplier commitments up to nine months ahead.

This creates significant pressure for businesses trying to determine whether demand is a short-lived viral moment or a longer-term consumer shift. Get it wrong and businesses risk shortages, excess stock, margin erosion and reputational damage – particularly in low-margin sectors where forecasting errors are costly.

Businesses also face structural constraints. Most supply chains are designed around predictable demand patterns, with only limited flexibility built in. Companies can only move as fast as their suppliers, manufacturers and logistics networks allow.

One of the most common mistakes businesses make when reacting to viral demand is chasing volume too aggressively. This can lead to over-ordering, inflated procurement costs, rushed supplier switches and compromised product quality. In many cases, businesses also fail to communicate clearly with customers around availability and lead times.

Common mistakes businesses should avoid when responding to viral demand include:

• Over-ordering to chase the trend – leaving businesses exposed to excess stock once demand inevitably drops.
• Compromising on product quality or supplier standards – particularly damaging for brands positioning themselves as premium over the long term.
• Switching suppliers too quickly – which can create compliance, consistency and reputational risks.
• Ignoring margin discipline – with expedited logistics and short-term buying decisions quickly eroding profitability.
• Poor customer communication – failing to manage expectations around stock availability, delays or substitutions.

Instead, procurement teams should focus on protecting core supply, maintaining cost discipline and using phased supplier commitments where possible. Businesses that perform well during demand spikes typically rely on close collaboration between procurement, sales and marketing teams, allowing them to adapt forecasts quickly as trends emerge.

More advanced organisations are increasingly using social listening and consumer data to identify trends earlier and respond faster. However, resilience ultimately depends on supply chain flexibility. Dual sourcing strategies, contingency logistics options and maintaining appropriate safety stock can all help businesses respond more effectively to sudden shifts in demand.

Social media trends are now acting as a real-time stress test for supply chains. Businesses that can respond quickly without sacrificing cost control or quality will be best positioned to turn viral demand into long-term commercial opportunity.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock, published by BongkarnGraphic. Supplied by Proxima.

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By Bridget Perry, CMO at Amperity

The biggest threat to loyalty today isn’t competition or a lack of data; it’s irrelevance.

Customers increasingly expect brands to recognise them, understand their intent, and respond in ways that feel relevant in the moment. As a result, loyalty is evolving from a rewards programme into something much bigger: a brand’s ability to consistently deliver the right experience at the right time.

To do that, retailers need more than customer data. They need customer context.

Customer context is the ability to understand not only who a customer is, but also the signals they are sending through their behaviour, purchases, preferences, and interactions. When retailers can connect those signals across channels, they can make better decisions about how and when to engage.

Many organisations still struggle to do this. Amperity’s 2026 State of Personalisation report found that 58 percent of organisations say their customer profiles are incomplete, limiting their ability to act on customer behaviour during key moments in the customer journey.

The challenges are familiar:

• Customer data remains fragmented across marketing, analytics, commerce and service systems.
• Duplicate or inaccurate records create disconnected experiences.
• High-value customers are difficult to identify and engage consistently.

The result is a growing gap between what brands know about their customers and what they can actually do with that knowledge. Despite 83 percent of consumers saying personalised experiences are important, nearly 80 percent still describe brand interactions as irrelevant or invasive.

Closing that gap requires retailers to move beyond static customer records and toward trusted customer context that evolves as customer behaviour changes.

This transformation is reshaping loyalty in three key areas.

1. Enrolment: Retailers can use behavioural signals and engagement patterns to identify customers most likely to become loyal, long-term buyers and deliver more relevant experiences from the beginning of the relationship.
2. Activation: Real-time visibility into customer behaviour allows brands to recognise important moments, such as an abandoned basket, a store visit, or a service interaction, and respond immediately rather than waiting for the next campaign cycle.
3. Cultivation: Predictive models and continuous testing help retailers identify churn risk earlier, uncover new engagement opportunities, and strengthen customer relationships beyond discounts alone.

The future of loyalty belongs to retailers that can turn customer signals into action.

As AI raises customer expectations, the winners won’t be the brands with the most data. They’ll be the brands that can transform fragmented signals into trusted customer context and use that context to deliver relevant experiences in the moments that matter most.

When that happens, loyalty evolves from a marketing programme into a durable engine for growth, retention and long-term customer value.

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EuroShop has always been a useful snapshot of where retail is heading, but this year the shift felt particularly clear. The conversation is no longer about whether physical retail has a future – it’s about how stores are evolving into smarter, more adaptable and more experience-driven environments.

Walking the halls in Düsseldorf, five themes stood out.

1. The store is becoming an intelligent environment

Retail technology was everywhere, but the difference this year is how seamlessly it’s being integrated into the physical environment. Instead of isolated screens or gimmicky interactions, brands are embedding intelligence into fixtures, shelving and service points. From AI-assisted product discovery to smarter stock visibility and digital merchandising tools, the store is increasingly behaving like a connected system rather than a static space.

2. Flexibility is now a core design principle

Retailers are under constant pressure to evolve their offer, and the store environment needs to keep up. Across EuroShop there was a clear move toward modular display systems, reconfigurable fixtures and adaptable lighting solutions. The best concepts allow brands to refresh storytelling, seasonal campaigns or product launches quickly – without the cost and disruption of a full refit.

3. Experience is the new competitive advantage

Convenience is largely owned by ecommerce, which means the role of the store is shifting toward engagement and discovery. The most compelling environments on show were those designed to be explored: tactile materials, sculptural forms and layouts that invite customers to interact with the brand rather than simply browse shelves.

4. Sustainability is becoming a technical discipline

Sustainability has been a talking point for years, but what stood out this time was the growing focus on practical implementation. From recycled materials and lightweight fabrication techniques to more efficient lighting systems, sustainability is increasingly being engineered into store environments rather than simply communicated through messaging.

5. Stores are becoming content platforms

Perhaps the most interesting shift is how brands now think about stores as media spaces. Retail environments are increasingly designed with photography, video and social sharing in mind. Whether it’s a striking feature installation or a highly curated product moment, the store is becoming a place where brands create content as well as transactions.

If EuroShop 2026 made one thing clear, it’s that physical retail is far from standing still. The most successful stores will be those that combine intelligence, flexibility and experience – creating environments that can evolve as quickly as the brands they represent.

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