From Halloween resurrecting footfall performance, to M&S deploying an ESL-led Connected Stores platform across its new stores and Subway underpinning its EMEA expansion with an extended Asda partnership, what’s been making waves in retail this week?
Halloween resurrected retail footfall, up +29% YOY
A Saturday Halloween prompted a surge in store traffic, as shoppers’ adoption of ‘Spooky Season’ continued to grow, Sensormatic’s data revealed.
Data from its ShopperTrak Analytics platform showed that footfall on Halloween (31 Oct 2026) rose +29% year-on-year, while week-on-week it delivered a +13% boost to High Street shopper traffic.
“The timing of Halloween, which fell on a Saturday this year, would have helped retailers capitalise on the event, which continues to grow in popularity with consumers,” said Andy Sumpter, Head of Consulting & Analytics at Sensormatic Solutions.
Subway announces new ASDA partnership
Subway has announced that it will expand its partnership with ASDA, bringing up to 70 new restaurants to ASDA stores over the next four years.
The move, which will see the footprint of in-store Subway restaurants in ASDA grow by more than 50%, is part of the QSR brand’s wider EMEA expansion plans. Through strategic partnerships, franchise growth, new formats and increased demand for digital sales, Subway is looking to double its EMEA footprint to 10,000 restaurants by 2031.
“By expanding in the right locations and improving the experience for our guests and franchisees, we can continue bringing Subway to more guests in EMEA,” said Tracy Gehlan, President of Subway EMEA.
M&S to deploy Vusion’s Connected Store platform in new locations
M&S will deploy Vusion’s Connected Store platform across a number of new stores, as the retailer continues its investment in modernising bricks-and-mortar operations and improving in-store experiences for customers and colleagues.
The initial deployment will focus on practical operational improvements, including managing product information more effectively.
“We are pleased to be working with M&S as it continues to invest in its store estate and colleague experience,” said Roy Horgan, CEO UK&I at Vusion. “Our Connected Store platform help[s] retailers improve operational execution while providing the infrastructure to support future innovation.”
The news comes as Vusion completes its acquisition of In-Store Media (ISM), marking a major move by the technology provider into retail media networks.
Partnership & innovation celebrated in 2027 VIP Award nominations
The nominations for the 2027 Vendors In Partnership (VIP) Awards have been revealed, with retail-tech provider partnerships, best-of-breed solutions, sector bridge-makers and the voices of retail all celebrated.
The Partnership Excellence categories celebrate solutions providers who don’t just deliver technological excellence but put retailer relationships front and centre of their service delivery models. This year the Best Kept Secret nominees include Sitoo, invent.ai and SAI Group, while CI&T, Forter, invent.ai, Quantum Metric and Quorso will fight it out to become Retailers’ Favourite.
The Retail Impact categories highlight best-of-breed solutions, with Commercetools, KIBO and Scayle all nominated in the Best Commerce Platform category, and Nextuple, PMC and The Parker Avery Group vying for the Best Retail Transformation Partner title.
As well as innovation, the VIP Awards also recognise individuals and platforms helping to share knowledge, insight and discussion within the sector in its Voice of Retail category. Retail Rewired joins Melissa Moore’s Retail Tea Break and Ricardo Belmar’s Retail Razor podcast within this category.
Public voting for the 2027 VIP Awards is open until 20 Nov 2026 and you can vote for your favourite nominees here: https://usvendorawards.awardsplatform.com/entry/vote/pGkVXLZq
Morrisons turns to Duvo.ai to hone operations with automation
Morrisons has partnered with Duvo.ai, an enterprise execution operating system (OS), to identify opportunities to make greater use of AI, which will help the grocer execute complex, repetitive work across its existing systems.
“Our business processes have evolved over decades and Duvo gives us a way to understand them in detail, and quickly,” said Gordon MacPherson, Group Productivity Director at Morrisons.
The project will start by capturing how processes actually work across Morrisons’ people, teams and systems. Duvo will then help the business identify opportunities to simplify and redesign those processes, focusing on where AI can create the most value, and highlighting a pathway for their swift adoption into everyday operations.
“The future of AI in retail will be measured by operational outcomes,” Tomáš Čupr, Co-Founder and CEO of Duvo, added. “Getting there starts with understanding how the work actually happens today.”
Discount dependency drives decline in full-price shopping
Full-price shopping could become less common as price-conscious and promotion-dependent consumers become more reliant on discounting, says new research from invent.ai.
Original research among over 1,000 shoppers showed that six in ten (60%) believe that full-price shopping will become less common in the future, with almost half (48%) admitting they now rarely purchase goods at full price.
“On top of embedded discount expectations, AI’s ability to make deal hunting fast and accurate is only adding further pressure on retailers,” said invent.ai’s Sales Director, Lukas Fischer. “Retailers may not be able to reverse discount dependency, but they can forecast their way out of the margin pressures it creates.”
Fashion retailers fail to turn returns into revenue by ignoring exchanges
UK fashion brands are heavily investing in digital return portals but operating them “with the handbrake on”, a new report by parcelLab warns.
Original research of 147 leading UK fashion retailers showed that 78% of fashion returns portals offer zero exchange functionality, forcing shoppers who simply need a different size or colour to request a complete refund and place a new order manually.
While 91% have digitised reverse logistics, less than a quarter (21%) offer customers automated size or colour swaps on purchases.
Angus Knights, Director of Product Vision & Strategy at parcelLab, said that “shoppers are essentially being told to take a refund and start all over again… that means the sale you’ve already won is at risk of being lost altogether.”
The Retail Recap is brought to you in partnership with Flagship PR, a specialist comms agency that delivers pioneering PR for retail tech.
Leave a Reply