Bodycare will partner with commerce technology specialist, PMC, to design, orchestrate and deliver the digital infrastructure that will power its new store network.

The move comes as the health & beauty retailer prepares for its return to the UK High Street, bringing its vision of a connected, immersive and AI-first store estate to life.   

The value wellness chain was bought out of administration by an experienced retail group in October 2025. It is now eyeing an ambitious innovation-driven store opening programme to bring its affordable health & beauty offering back to the High Street, aiming to open 25 UK stores in 2026, growing to 200 locations over the next five years.  

Looking to build a community-first bricks-and-mortar estate, which will blend commerce and experiences seamlessly in-store, Bodycare’s ambition is to become an AI-first retailer.  It aims to run all store operations through a proprietary, custom-built AI-platform, which will see AI-decisioning powering colleague actions, served via data harvested from the store, from task management, in-store network, CCTV and POS systems to digital shelf technologies.  

Bodycare also envisages making each new store a social content hub for local communities, generating hyper-localised content via staff, micro-influencers and customers.  Each location will host a dedicated content production studio, generating social content each week, with dynamic locally created content and UGC takeovers streaming live across each store’s digital screens.  

Requiring ground-up, greenfield transformation, the creation and delivery of the digital architecture required to bring its vision to life is mission critical as Bodycare’s comeback strategy gathers pace.  It will partner with PMC to design and execute its tech roadmap, which will include implementing a robust store network to meet the demands of its extensive in-store technology ecosystem. 

“Store experience, digital presence and community engagement – all underpinned by AI intelligence – will be central to Bodycare’s new vision, as we prepare to welcome customers back,” said David Stern, Managing Director at Bodycare.

“PMC is not just a transformation partner that we can trust with delivery – their trusted experience is helping us re-imagine, design and create the AI-led strategy to bring our vision for Bodycare 2.0 to life.”

PMC will support the end-to-end execution of Bodycare’s IT infrastructure, with a dedicated team of specialist digital architects from PMC designing and implementing the retailer’s full tech stream – from facilities management to security, core IT systems and digital in-store technology.  

In addition, PMC will power Bodycare’s point of sale (POS) systems, from checkout to mobile POS and kiosks (SCO), via its Graphene Engage platform, as well as deploying Connect, its proprietary data integration solution, to deliver a robust orchestration layer that provides data ontology to the store alongside edge data flows that serve the retailer’s central AI engine.

“We’re taking Bodycare’s bold vision of AI-led but community-driven stores and connecting it with the innovation that will set them up for the future,” said Elliott Winskill, Technology & Solutions Director at PMC, who is acting as Technical Lead for Bodycare to deliver the project.  

“It’s about creating the scalability and fluidity within the tech stack that gives Bodycare customers the opportunity to interact – whether socially, through community-created content or by making purchases – at each stage of the in-store experience.”

Bodycare’s will open six new stores, including locations in Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Derby, by July 2026, with the retailer targeting a total of 50 stores by the end of next year.