From consumer confidence growing for the third consecutive month, to Tesco expanding its q-commerce capabilities beyond Whoosh, and global supply chain disruption hitting on-shelf availability, what’s been making waves in retail this week?

World Cup & ‘Boomer bump’ boosts consumer confidence

The halo effect of the FIFA World Cup, alongside a rise in shopper sentiment among Baby Boomers, helped boost overall consumer confidence in July, according to the latest BRC-Opinium data.

Consumer expectations for the next three months improved +6 index points this month, while shoppers’ outlooks for their personal financial situation also improved, rising +3 index points in July.

“Consumer confidence improved for the third month in a row, thanks in large part to a bump in sentiment among baby boomers,” said the BRC Chief Executive, Helen Dickinson, with the “feel good factor” of the World Cup also contributing to a more positive outlook.

However, she warned that retailers “should not mistake this for recovery,” adding that “only around one in ten expect the economy to improve in the future, and spending intentions remain modest.”

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Bodycare supports High Street return with Retail247 tie-up

Supporting its return to the High Street, Bodycare has teamed up with Retail247, deploying its cloud-based stock management and Product Information Management (PIM) platforms to optimise inventory visibility.

Selecting Retail247‘s PIM platform, Origin, and its inventory system, Archean, the move will give the retailer more visibility and control for faster-decision making to improve stock availability and operational visibility.

More widely, Bodycare is working with PMC to design and deploy its tech infrastructure, which will see the retailer run all store operations through a proprietary, custom-built AI-platform, supporting its bold vision to become an AI-first retailer.

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Tesco adds Uber Eats & Deliveroo to its q-commerce offer

Tesco has announced it will build on its existing Whoosh rapid delivery services, launching on Uber Eats and Deliveroo later this summer to bring its grocery q-commerce offering to millions more customers. 

Already offering rapid “store-to-door” grocery deliveries via Whoosh across 1,800 stores, Tesco has seen fast adoption of its q-commerce offer. With on-demand sales increasing by +51% last year, the grocer estimates that ~1.5million customers now use its Whoosh service nationwide.

“Whoosh has transformed the way millions of customers shop with Tesco, offering speed, convenience and great value through the power of Clubcard,” said Ashwin Prasad, UK CEO at Tesco. “Launching with Uber Eats and Deliveroo will enable us to bring those benefits to even more customers.”

Building on this growing demand for speed and convenience, Tesco will launch new partnerships with Uber Eats, rolling out in August 2026, and Deliveroo, which is due to go live later in the summer.

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Guest Post | Salsify’s Rob Gonzalez on the rise of the agentic retail shelf

Retail’s dual-shelf model of bricks and clicks just got significantly more complex, says Salsify’s Rob Gonzalez, as retailers enter the era of the agentic shelf, the third pillar of modern shopping journeys.

In our latest guest article, Rob explores how customers are already moving fluidly across all three “shelves” – and how retailers can meet them there. He discusses:

🛍️ Seamless cross-channel shopping behaviours redefining retail shelves
🤖 The rising role of agents in curating digital shelves for customers
📊 The structural trap of siloed product data and strategies for fixing it
💡 Strategies for winning the ‘third shelf’ opportunity at machine speed

Read the full post 👉 Guest Post | Salsify’s Rob Gonzalez on moving past bricks & clicks to retail’s three shelf reality.

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Global supply chain disruption sees out-of-stocks rise

Tensions in the Middle East, upended global supply chains and disruption to international shipping routes are prompting lower on-shelf availability, new research from invent.ai reveals.

Its research of over 1,000 UK shoppers found that, on average, two fifths (40%) of consumers’ planned grocery shopping spend was unavailable or out-of-stock.

Meanwhile, one in three (29%) customers are noticing shelf gaps across fashion purchases when shopping in-store, with a further 23% experiencing stockouts when shopping for apparel online.

“While shoppers understand – and in many cases are sympathetic to – the supply chain challenges retailers are facing at macro-level, their expectations remain unchanged: products need to be available at the right time, in the right place and through the channel they prefer,” said invent.ai’s Sales Director, Lukas Fischer.

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7 in 10 brands yet to fully integrate core systems

Fragmented systems are creating operational drag and commercial barriers for retailers, as many struggle to turn their unified commerce ambitions into execution, a new study from PMC shows. 

Original research of over 100 senior retailers in its ‘Race To Unified Commerce’ report, produced in collaboration with Retail Economics, showed that 70% of Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) brands have yet to fully integrate their core systems.

It warned this risks data flow fragmentation and siloed operations, which can slow down decision-making, reduce agility and create operational drag.

PMC’s CEO, Rich Lowe, explained that “where legacy approaches persist, they create unnecessary complexity and innovation drag.” He added that “by unifying data through clean and connected systems architecture, retailers can untangle complexity and unlock growth.”

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Waitrose hits 200-store ESL milestone with SOLUM

Waitrose & Partners hits digital shelf milestone, deploying SOLUM’s electronic shelf labels (ESLs) across 200 UK locations as part of its store modernisation programme.

The deployment will transform how the retailer manages pricing and product information at the shelf-edge, with centrally managed digital displays creating faster, accurate and more consistent prices while freeing up Partners’ time to spend with customers.

“Digital shelf technology is fast becoming part of the connected retail infrastructure that enables stores to respond more quickly, operate more efficiently and deliver better experiences,” said SOLUM’s UK&I Country Manager, Mark Duckworth.

The milestone with Waitrose follows SOLUM’s announcement last month that it will partner with WHSmith to support its Heathrow flagship stores in terminals 3, 4 and 5.

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