Selfridges, Currys and Nobody’s Child among world’s top 50 retail innovators

16 UK retailers have been identified as ‘global innovators’ in a new index of 50 businesses identified for powering digital and tech transformation worldwide. 

London department store Selfridges, electricals giant Currys, and fashion disruptor Nobody’s Child are among the retailers representing the UK in The Innovation Report. 

The report, produced in association with Ancoris, IBM and Wipro, decided the top 50 based on picks from Retail Week’s expert team of journalists and analysts who have been following the advancements and savvy investments that leading retailers have been making over the last 12 months. 

Outside of the UK, retailers and brands featured include China’s Alibaba, Australia’s Coles, America’s Walmart, India’s Reliance Retail, Germany’s Rewe Group, and Japan’s 7-Eleven. 

So, what – according to the report, sets Selfridges, Currys and Nobody’s Child apart? Below is a summary of their profiles, showing how innovation can be successfully implemented be it to improve CX, stores, ecommerce, supply chain, employee engagement, or sustainability credentials. 

Currys 

• Innovating via AI and tech to power staff productivity and retail media 

Currys announced in May 2024 that it had selected consultancy firm Accenture and tech giant Microsoft to help deliver its core cloud technology infrastructure and leverage the newest AI technologies.  

Through the joint venture, the consumer electronics retailer will “modernise, secure and simplify” its technology estate – all part of efforts to accelerate Currys’ adoption of AI technologies.   

It is the latest stage of an ongoing digital transformation at the retailer, which in the past three years has centred on organising customer data to put Currys in a better position to serve shoppers in-store and online. A key cog of this work was rolling out Salesforce’s CRM software in 2022 to enable store staff to surface relevant customer information at the point of purchase. The strategy has also involved working with Microsoft Azure to migrate data centres from being on-premises at its offices to the cloud.  

Currys’ launch of Connected Media – its new retail media arm in December 2023, is a prime example of the potential benefits of a strong data strategy. This is a new revenue driver and formalises how brands can advertise to consumers through the Currys network, while putting more relevant products in front of shoppers in-store and on digital channels. 

Selfridges 

• Innovating via in-store tech, experiential retail, and third-party omnichannel fashion partnerships 

With a strategy to refresh the offering in its flagship London West End destination by continuously introducing emerging brands in pop-up form, Selfridges is laser focused on not going stale in a sector that has diminished in recent years.  

Selfridges often brings fashion and beauty brands that have already established themselves digitally into a physical shopping setting for the first time. The arrival of repair service SOJO in January, and athleisurewear brand Tala in May provide evidence of that strategy, while Gymshark chose Selfridges as the destination to launch its inaugural athleisurewear range in March with a permanent store space.  

The innovative thinking at Selfridges stretches into new-generation tech deployment, and in July it partnered with social media platform Snapchat to create an AR locker room in its Oxford Street store. Customers visiting in the summer could virtually try on sports kits and experiment with AR – all against a backdrop of the summer-of-sport theme.  

And Selfridges’ ongoing ‘Project Earth’ strategy involves pushing more circular concepts to its customers. This has included ramping up its fashion rental offering and bringing previously digital-only service providers in repair, resale and customisation.

Businesses include clothing alterations specialist SOJO, rental platform Hurr Rental, pre-loved business Vintage Threads and Vintage shop, and We Are Cow into a prime position in its London flagship with permanent spaces. 

Nobody’s Child 

• Innovating via digital product passports (DPPs) and merging clicks with bricks 

Growing fashion brand Nobody’s Child firmly established itself on the retail map this year, following a clicks-to-bricks strategy that will result in 48 pop-up shop-in-shops in Marks & Spencer stores by the end of 2024, taking the brand’s total M&S footprint to 60. M&S views Nobody’s Child as a key part of its third-party brands strategy – of which it has over 90, and took a 25% stake in the business in November 2021.

Improving sustainability credentials is a central priority for Nobody’s Child, which became one of the first companies to widely launch DPPs in March 2024, giving consumers a chance to scan a QR code to understand an item’s provenance. This improves the transparency of its supply chain and helps give the business a head start as DPP becomes a standard industry feature in the coming years.

It is supported by Fabacus, a technology and data solutions provider and a sister company of Nobody’s Child, which is also supporting Tesco F&F’s DPP roll-out.  

Fabacus and Nobody’s Child have purposefully been comprehensive with DPP features. More than 100 data points - such as where the item was manufactured and its raw material source, can be accessed through the GS1 standard-conforming DPP, as well as being able to download a unique non-fungible token (NFT) as a digital receipt.