The Retail Recap – 30 May 2025 – what’s been making waves in retail this week?

From ‘profound transformation’ boosting performance at Pets at Home, to Currys investing in staff safety by deploying headsets to all its stores and M&S accelerating its estate expansion with plans to open 12 M&S Food shops, what’s been making waves in retail this week?

Pets at Home grows group-wide revenue supported by digital transformation

Pets at Home reported a +2.7% year-on-year rise in group-wide revenues in its FY25 Preliminary Results, bolstered by record sales from its Vets business and supported by digital transformation investments.

With revenues across the Pets at Home group rising to £1.96billion, this marked a period of “profound” transformation, its CEO, Lyssa McGowan, said.

The pet retailer said the last 12months had been critical in the delivery of two major investment programmes, focused on its distribution network – centralising fulfilment of store, online and subscription orders from one DC – and its digital replatforming.

Sweatband.com taps Scurri to power delivery experiences

Specialist online sports and fitness retailer, Sweatband.com, has selected Scurri to power its delivery experience game.

It will use the delivery management platform and post-purchase experience provider’s solution to enhance fulfilment, from dispatch through to customer notifications.

It will use delivery management platform, Scurri Connect, to manage multiple carrier integrations across free standard and signed for deliveries. Sweatband.com has also deployed Scurri Track Plus, a post-purchase solution that allows it to control and enhance delivery experiences beyond the checkout.

Guest Post – SOTI’s Stefan Spendrup on four key consumer demands shaping ecommerce

Stefan Spendrup, VP Sales for Northern and Western Europe at SOTI, takes a look at the biggest trends shaping ecommerce in 2025, including:

No more risky retailers: off the back of cyber attacks, consumers demand trust and confidence when shopping online
The need for speed: 4 in 5 shoppers say speedy shopping journeys – from discovery to payment – is a key consideration
Full visibility, from checkout to doorstep: 82% of shoppers want to be able to track their order throughout the delivery process
More tailored offers: Hyper-personalisation is becoming an increasingly important competitive advantage

Read the guest post in full, here: Guest Post – SOTI’s Stefan Spendrup on four key consumer demands shaping ecommerce – Retail Rewired.

M&S accelerates estate expansion with 12 Food store openings

M&S will invest in twelve new stores, which will open on ex-Homebase sites.

The raft of new store openings will include it biggest ever standalone Food store, after its food & drink offer continued deliver strong results, outperforming targets by ~20% this year.

The new stores set to open this year, which will create over 550 new jobs, will comprise ten M&S Food stores and two full line stores. Next year, M&S plans to open a 22,000 sq ft food hall in Godalming, its largest standalone Food store to date.

KFC to invest almost £1.5bn in the UK, opening 500 new restaurants

Fried chicken fast-food chain, KFC, has announced plans to invest almost £1.5billion in its UK & Ireland (UK&I) operations, in a move that will see it open 500 new restaurant locations over the next decade.

It also said its expansion plans would create 7,000 new jobs across its business and its supply chain in the next five years.

“We’ve been serving customers in the UK for 60 years now, but we’ve never seen such strong demand for freshly prepared, fried chicken as we’re seeing today,” KFC UK&I’s General Manager, Rob Swain, said.

DFS launches new digital employee engagement platform, The Hub

Sofa retailer, DFS, has launched The Hub, a digital communications platform for its employees, in partnership with YOOBIC.

With three brands, DFS, Sofology and The Sofa Delivery Company, and over 5,000 colleagues across 212 locations, The Hub will act as the central platform hosting information designed to improve knowledge sharing and support staff to deliver better customer experiences.

Available to employees via web browser or mobile app, The Hub includes task management, a company newsfeed and knowledge centre.

Currys rolls out headsets to all stores to boost staff safety

Currys will partner with retail communications specialist, VoCoVo, rolling out its headsets to all its UK&I stores as part of its largest ever annual investment in store safety and security.

The headsets allow store staff to stay connected and feel safer on the shop floor following rising levels of retail crime and abuse aimed at retail workers.

“Incidents of shoplifting and aggression against retail workers are continuing to rise at a completely unacceptable level,” Currys’ Director of UK Stores, Matthew Speight, said. “VoCoVo’s headsets, alongside a range of other store safety measures, are allowing us to put our best foot forward in protecting colleagues and customers.”