Customer experience

Acceptance rates, customer relations, impact on sales teams... At Tech for Retail in Paris, Mind Retail delved into the details of the test carried out in four French branches of Vorwerk, the...

3 December 2024

At Marks & Spencer, self-checkout is taking root next to fitting rooms

In the U.K., Marks & Spencer (2023 sales: €15.3 billion, up 9.4% in a year) is installing automatic checkouts, next to the fitting rooms. 28 stores are already equipped, including the...

29 October 2024

Chatbot: between Castorama and ManoMano, the transformation capacity of GenAI can be doubled

Deployed over the past year on DIY websites and marketplaces, the integration of generative AI within chatbots has improved efficiency in pre-sales. Here's a look at the results from Kingfisher...

17 October 2024

[mind Retail Exclusive] How Custplace’s AI automates the collection of customer reviews for Darty, Optical Centre and KparK

On October 1, 2024, Custplace, the SaaS platform managing customer and employee reviews, announced the beta test launch of “Inbox IA”. This solution enables customer reviews to be...

1 October 2024

Pierre Chassigneux, b.connect: ‘Around 20% of e-commerce baskets are abandoned due to authentication issues’

Recruiting major e-retailers in France, defining the right business model, opening up to other banking partners... The b.connect authentication solution, supported by 5 French banks, is due to be...

18 September 2024

Toy specialist Hamleys opens more concept stores in Dubai and London

In Dubai, on August 23, Hamleys (2023 sales: US$59 million, down by 8.8%, after a rise of 68% in 2022), the oldest British toy chain, now a subsidiary of Reliance Retail (acquired in 2019 for...

26 August 2024

Old Navy and Rent the Runway adapt collections in response to a rush on anti-diabetic drugs

In the U.S.A., Rent the Runway, Amarra and Old Navy are all seeing an unprecedented shift towards smaller sizes. The cause is often new anti-obesity treatments, popularised on TikTok, which are...

24 June 2024

2 months after launch, La Maison Convertible’s chatbot converts 15% of users

At the mind Retail Day conference, La Maison Convertible presented an initial assessment of a new AI-based chatbot launched in April 2024. The furniture retailer has succeeded in boosting the...

21 June 2024

E-commerce: LVMH and Alibaba combine cloud and AI technologies

On May 22, at Viva Technology, in Paris, LVMH and Alibaba announced a five-year technology partnership to optimise customer experiences and logistics (inventory management, distribution) of the...

24 May 2024

[mind Retail Exclusive] After 3 months of a pilot, what are the results of Castorama’s chatbot powered with GenAI?

As part of the 1to1Monaco event, Romain Roulleau, Marketing, Digital and Customer Director at Castorama, spoke to mind Retail about the results of the Hello Casto chatbot. He also detailed...

14 March 2024

Castorama launches a chatbot boosted by generative AI

In France, Castorama launched a chatbot that integrates three LLM models, based on Athena, the technological foundation developed by the Kingfisher Group. While customer data remains outside the...

17 November 2023

Urban stores: Why Ikea is reintroducing mazes

Since 2018, Ikea’s urban expansion has been accompanied by a redesign of the customer journey. These stores, 4 times smaller than those in the suburbs, were initially designed without a...

4 October 2023

China: Harrods targets the ultra-rich with a private club in Shanghai

On 17 July, Harrods announced the evolution of “The Residence” concept (launched in 2020) with the creation of a private club for ultra-rich customers. The company’s first...

20 July 2023

[op-ed] How European retailers are getting prepared for the new-generation Chinese tourists ?

Selvane Mohandas du Ménil, Managing Director at International Association of Department Stores, explains the current retail strategies after the reopening of the Chinese borders in January 2023...

2 June 2023

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Marketplaces: Stockly enters Switzerland with MediaMarkt, Decathlon, Galaxus and Manor

After a loss-making but high-growth year in 2025, the stock-pooling start-up for marketplaces signed agreements with 4 Swiss players, mind Retail learned. By taking on one of Europe’s most...

30 January 2026

Save launches an e-commerce site to support a shift towards sales

Having just reached break-even, the French subsidiary of refurbished specialist Save intends to go beyond an historical model of repair to develop sales of accessories and refurbished products...

23 January 2026

Shoptimus AI scales up in grocery smart shopping lists and prepares for a new funding round

After securing a strategic partnership with Spanish grocer Bon Preu, retail tech firm Shoptimus AI—first spotted by Carrefour—is accelerating a rollout. By leveraging AI agents to automate grocery...

11 January 2026

Agentic AI: Hymalaia attracts retailers and announces imminent fundraising

According to our sources, the young start-up Hymalaia is continuing development in retail with 4 new retailers currently in POC and an imminent fundraising. We examine the details.

16 December 2025

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Shoptimus AI scales up in grocery smart shopping lists and prepares for a new funding round

11 January 2026

Global retail tech investment rose by 7.4% in 2025

In 2025, venture capital continued to flow into commerce technologies. With 27.5 billion dollars invested in retail tech, the average deal size increased while the number of transactions declined.

23 January 2026

With Walmart, Ulta Beauty, Zalando and Carrefour, Google launches an agentic commerce protocol

Following the launch of payments in Copilot, Google is preparing to join OpenAI and Microsoft, but with a more integrated version focused on its own payment method, Google Pay. These moves...

13 January 2026

2026 Trends – Retail media, between omnichannel reach, creativity and measurement

(Trends, 6/6) After an exceptional 2024 driven by the Olympic Games, retail media entered a phase of maturity and slowing business last year. It nonetheless remains extremely dynamic, fuelled by...

28 January 2026

2026 Trends – Chatbots, WhatsApp, social networks: don’t miss out on conversation

(Trends 2/6) After a cautious observation phase by retailers and some high-profile hallucination issues, 2025 was a turning point operationally for chatbots and conversational tools. Positioned...

13 January 2026

2026 Trends – How far should retailers open the door to AI Search engines ?

(Trends 1/6) With data visibility, recommendations, transactions on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, LLMs are establishing themselves as new entry points for e-commerce. As search, comparison and...

8 January 2026