EE has launched its first Experience Store in Scotland, opening this week at Glasgow’s Braehead Shopping Centre, marking a significant milestone in the company’s £3 million investment to expand its bricks-and-mortar retail footprint this year. This new store is the fourth Experience Store introduced in 2025, following earlier openings in Merry Hill, Sheffield, and Nottingham. The Glasgow launch features a special guest, former Scotland rugby captain John Barclay, who will officiate the ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome customers. Designed to offer hands-on engagement, the store includes themed Experience Zones centred around gaming, work, learning, and home environments, alongside a Tech Home area that showcases innovations in connected living. EE aims to blend digital technology with physical retail by providing in-store assistance to customers eager to explore the latest smart devices and receive personalised support.

Meanwhile, in the broader retail technology landscape, several notable developments are shaping the sector. Fashion retailer Nobody’s Child has surpassed one million orders since migrating to the Shopify platform earlier this year—a strategic move that took two years of deliberation. The company’s founder, Andrew Xeni, highlighted how shifting to a more robust e-commerce system was essential to overcoming operational bottlenecks that previously constrained growth and efficiency, demonstrating the critical role of technology platforms in supporting scaling retail operations.

On the international lifestyle front, MINISO continues its rapid retail expansion with the announcement of a new 341-square-metre store at The Glades Shopping Centre in Bromley, set to open in early October. This latest location will offer a diverse product range from plush toys to beauty and lifestyle accessories, including exclusive licensed collections from globally recognised brands like Sanrio, Disney, and One Piece. MINISO’s growth, which also includes recent store inaugurations across various UK cities, reflects the ongoing consumer appetite for accessible and themed retail experiences.

In the realm of technology-led retail innovation, AI-powered solutions are gaining traction. Returnalyze, a platform specialising in returns prevention, recently secured $6 million in Series A1 funding to enhance its AI capabilities and support retailers such as J.Crew and Abercrombie & Fitch in transforming returns from costly logistics into strategic business insights. By delivering predictive insights and automated recommendations, Returnalyze aims to boost operational efficiency and customer retention, signalling a growing trend towards utilising AI for post-purchase customer engagement and inventory management.

On the delivery front, DoorDash has pioneeringly debuted ‘Dot,’ the first autonomous delivery robot designed to navigate bike lanes, roads, and sidewalks, tailored for local commerce. Dot is compact—about one-tenth the size of a car—and can travel at speeds up to 20 mph, aiming to reduce delivery congestion and emissions in neighbourhood areas. Currently being piloted in Tempe and Mesa, Arizona, this commercial autonomous delivery service reflects the accelerating integration of robotics into the last-mile logistics space, with plans for expanding to multiple new markets.

Additionally, Yocuda, a specialist in digital receipt technology, has expanded its customer engagement platform into over 50 countries, including recent launches in Romania, Thailand, and Vietnam. The company collaborates with prominent retail brands like M&S and Sephora, supporting efforts to phase out paper receipts, a move led by countries such as Italy and France. Yocuda’s technology helps retailers deliver personalised, paperless shopping experiences while reducing environmental waste and optimising in-store customer data utilisation.

Finally, startup Gain has emerged from stealth mode with a $12 million seed funding round. Gain focuses on providing AI-driven workforce solutions to automate end-to-end procurement and operational workflows, integrating with enterprise technologies such as ERP and collaboration platforms. Founded by Michael Gabay, Gain aims to disrupt traditional SaaS models through a pay-per-outcome system, leveraging proprietary datasets and extensive customer insights to deliver scalable AI workforce layers that support both customer and vendor interactions. This development underlines the increasing sophistication of AI applications in automating complex retail business processes.

Together, these advances illustrate a dynamic retail technology landscape where physical stores like EE’s Experience outlets coexist with cutting-edge digital and AI-powered innovations, shaping the future of shopping, logistics, and customer engagement.

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Source: Noah Wire Services