Special report: The tech strategies powering Boots, Ikea, Pets at Home and more

Across all retail sectors, technology continues to drive meaningful change. 

But amid a challenging economic and competitive environment, set to see retail face a 3.9% rise in costs for the industry across this financial year, tech investment is under intense scrutiny.  

So, what should retailers prioritise for optimum tech investment and what pitfalls must they avoid ensuring real returns?   

Retail Week’s latest digital report Tech Transformers: 10 of the top retailers leading the charge on digital change explores the strategies of 10 trailblazing UK retailers, and the defining features of exemplary digital change programmes. 

Access the full report for free to explore the full strategies of the top 10.  

Here we’ve highlighted just some of the tactics three of the profiled retailers are using to drive efficiencies, productivity and the bottom line through tech.  

Boots

Boots’ appointment of former Asda and KPMG UK executive Preyash Thakrar in March 2024 underpins its commitment to tech-enabled change.  

Upon his arrival to lead the retailer’s strategy, property and business tech transformation teams, he heralded “a significant period of change for the Boots business and the industry as a whole”. 

So, what has Boots been working on from a digital transformation perspective? 

AI is being employed across the business to remove manual work from teams allowing them to complete “more value-added tasks” according to chief digital officer Paula Bobbett. In forecasting, she says that up-to-date information about the weather feeds into predicted sales. The retailer is also trialling a ChatGPT-based chatbot that can answer customers’ conversational questions. 

In-store, partner platforms are integrated to facilitate quick commerce, boosting customer experiences and necessitating stronger inventory management. Just Eat was the most recent addition to the network in September 2024.  

Ikea

Retailers described as transformers tend to be early adopters of AI or companies working on ways for the latest AI advancements to support their organisation and people—and Ikea fits that bill. 

Ikea’s chief architect Garima Singh suggested that AI is “enhancing, not replacing” creativity in its retail operations—speaking in September 2024, helping the retailer to drive customer and colleague experiences across the business.  

For customers, AI-powered tools such as Ikea Kreativ allow them to visualise products in their own homes. 

For staff, AI-enabled tools such as the Hej Copilot, announced in April 2024, assist with tasks ranging from testing and image creation to generating ideas and crafting presentations. With aspirations to provide AI literacy training to approximately 30,000 workers and 500 leaders, the retailer certainly isn’t slowing down in its approach.  

Another area to look out for at Ikea as 2025 progresses is its growth in the resale space. In August, the retailer began trialling a dedicated resale website in Madrid and Oslo, intended to rival Gumtree and eBay, and support its circularity strategy, with plans to open in new markets in due course.   

Pets at Home

Pets at Home reported a 2.4% drop in retail revenue for the 12 weeks to January 2, 2025, and cited a “challenging consumer backdrop”, although its digital performance “improved”, after what until then had been a consistent period of growth for the retailer.  

This backdrop makes it all the more important for the retailer to double down on its tech strategy.  

Pets at Home is prioritising omnichannel; ensuring its stores become bigger contributors to its online fulfilment network, and that all its consumer channels are better interconnected.  

Ongoing investment into its inventory visibility, which began in 2020, has allowed the retailer to introduce services such as one-hour click-and-collect for customers.  

The launch of a new digital platform (app and website) in March 2024 modernised Pets at Home’s ecommerce offering and allowed it to more easily implement “whatever comes along for the future in terms of technology”. 

App revenue almost doubled, in part due to a newfound ability to contact consumers directly on the app, while the retailer says it is utilising store and ecommerce transaction data to serve relevant product recommendations to its customers. 

Chief executive Lyssa McGowan said the new digital platform allows the retailer to “unleash” AI and get it in front of customers.