Retail Technology Show 2026: Our Two Cents and Client Visits

The Retail Technology Show at ExCeL London 2026 was one for the books. As active participants in Europe's most forward-thinking retail tech gathering, we made the most of our time across the UK — visiting clients, hitting the show floor hard, and squeezing every last drop of value out of our days in London and beyond. Here is how it all unfolded.

Day of arrival: Client visit to UK Meds in Nottingham

A trip up north before the show

Before we even set foot in London, we made a detour that mattered. We headed north to Nottingham to visit our client, UK Meds, for a face-to-face strategic session ahead of the show.

The train up was well worth it. Sitting down with the team in person, walking through their roadmap, and talking through where their platform needs to go next — that is the kind of conversation that simply cannot happen over a video call.

There is a different quality to how problems get solved and ideas get shaped when everyone is in the same room. We left with a clearer picture, stronger alignment, and the right energy heading into two days at ExCeL.

Conference day 1: On the show floor and into the evening

Straight into the action at ExCeL London

The Retail Technology Show opened at full speed. ExCeL London is a serious venue for a serious event, and the energy on day 1 reflected that from the moment the doors opened.

Our team was set up and ready, and the conversations started immediately. Retailers, technology providers, platform vendors, and agency partners — everyone was there, and everyone had something interesting to say.

We connected with clients, caught up with familiar faces from across the European Magento and Adobe Commerce community, and had genuinely substantive conversations about where retail technology is heading.

Performance, headless architecture, Hyvä, AI-driven personalization, and the growing reality of Agentic Commerce all came up again and again. Overall, we had no shortage of substance on day 1.

Dinner with a personal homecare pharmacy in London

After the show floor closed for the evening, we headed into London for dinner with our clients at Personal Homecare Pharmacy. Away from the buzz of the conference, it was a chance to talk properly — about their business, their ambitions, and how we can keep building something great together.

Great food helped, of course, but the real value came from the atmosphere: relaxed, honest, and genuinely collaborative. Moments like these are where stronger partnerships are built. They may happen outside the conference halls, but they are often the most valuable part of the entire trip. 

Conference day 2: Talks, insight, and wrapping up strong

A day full of quality content

Day 2 at the Retail Technology Show delivered. The speaking programme covered everything from AI in retail operations and loyalty strategy to supply chain resilience and the future of omnichannel.

The quality of the audience — senior decision-makers from some of the UK and Europe's most recognisable retail brands — made every conversation in the margins of the agenda worth having.

Our team was on the floor throughout, continuing the discussions from day 1 and picking up new ones. By the end of the second day, we had a full notebook, a longer contact list, and a strong sense of where the market is moving.

Key themes from the show floor

A few things came up consistently across talks and conversations throughout both days:

• AI moving from hype to implementation: Retailers at the show were no longer asking whether to use AI — they were asking how to use it well. The focus had shifted to practical deployment: personalization engines, demand forecasting, and increasingly, agentic customer journeys.
• Composable commerce gaining serious ground: More retailers are breaking away from monolithic platform dependencies and embracing composable approaches. The flexibility this unlocks is significant, and the conversations reflected a growing confidence in making that shift.
• Loyalty and retention at the center of growth strategy: With customer acquisition costs continuing to rise, the smartest retailers in the room were doubling down on retention, using data, personalization, and smarter lifecycle tooling to keep customers coming back.
• Omnichannel as table stakes: The divide between online and offline retail is closing fast. The retailers winning right now are the ones who have stopped treating their channels as separate problems.

After the show: Making the most of London

Time well spent

With a couple of extra days in the city after the show wrapped up, we made the most of our time in London. We continued catching up with clients and industry contacts, reflected on everything we had seen and heard during the two days at ExCeL, and had the kind of informal conversations that often lead to the most valuable ideas.

London is a great city for this. There is always somewhere to sit down, think clearly, and talk honestly about what actually matters.

Thank you to the organizers

Events of this scale take serious planning and serious dedication to get right. A huge thank you to the entire team behind the Retail Technology Show for putting together such a well-curated, well-run event at ExCeL London.

The speaker quality, the calibre of attendees, and the atmosphere throughout all reflected the hard work that goes into making this one of the standout events on the European retail calendar. We will be back.

Key takeaways for merchants

• AI implementation is now a competitive necessity: The retailers pulling ahead are not waiting to see how AI matures — they are deploying it now in personalization, forecasting, and customer journey design.
• Composable architecture unlocks genuine agility: If your platform cannot keep pace with how fast your business needs to move, that is a structural problem worth solving sooner rather than later.
• Retention is the new acquisition: Building a tech stack that supports loyalty, reorder flows, and account-based personalisation will deliver better returns than pouring more budget into top-of-funnel.

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