Dior looks to innovate in supply chain logistics space with Scandit and Hardis WMS tie up
Scandit and Hardis Supply Chain have partnered with Dior to boost its warehouse operations including optimisation of its workflows with the addition of real-time insights.
Scandit’s MatrixScan Count embedded into Hardis WMS (formerly Reflex WMS) warehouse management software (WMS) enables logistic chain reliability between warehouses and stores, which has reduced shipping control time by 85%.
With MatrixScan Count, warehouse teams now capture multiple barcodes simultaneously through Dior’s Order Preparation app. The data captured is verified in Hardis WMS and instant feedback appears on‑screen via augmented reality (AR), guiding warehouse operators with intuitive user interface gestures.
In addition, MatrixScan Find is deployed during the order preparation process in the warehouse and in-store price updates to easily locate the correct item via an AR overlay. Currently a manual process, this will increase workflow speed and accuracy for store associates.
With Scandit and Hardis WMS deployed on handheld computers, workers are able to automate a variety of other warehouse workflows including receiving on their existing devices. Damaged, poorly printed and even partially visible barcodes can be read which increases user productivity and streamlines day-to-day tasks thanks to Scandit’s AI powered advanced barcode scanning.
TikTok Shop breaks Black Friday records as M&S, Saumsung, Clarks and Sainsbury’s go live
TikTok Shop has notched up its biggest sales day in its UK history, with Black Friday 2025 surpassing last year’s performance by 50% across the full Black Friday/Cyber Monday period.
Last Friday, 27 items were selling every second.
Shoppers started shopping earlier than ever with “Fake Friday” – the week before Black Friday itself, reaching the same sales as the platform’s previous record sales day, Black Friday 2024. Searches on the platform for ‘TikTok Shop Black Friday’ increased 404% over the weekend and was the most popular search related to the event in 2025.
The number of people shopping on the platform increased by 28% compared with the same period as last year, as more Brits turned to TikTok Shop to discover Black Friday deals and new ways to buy online.
UK brands and sellers of all sizes drove this growth, with an 85% increase in total sellers generating sales during this period. Live Shopping also saw record breaking engagement, with a 68% increase in sales and thousands of brands and creators driving real-time shopping moments throughout the week.
Albertsons Companies gets personal as retailer launches agentic grocery shopping assistant
Albertsons Companies has launched an AI shopping assistant, a web browser experience designed to make grocery shopping faster, smarter and more personalised.
Building on the company’s Ask AI tool introduced earlier this year, the agentic shopping assistant is powered by various collaborative agents and is now available on all Albertsons Cos. banner websites as Albertsons AI, Safeway AI, Vons AI, Jewel-Osco AI etc.
“Our goal is to make our customers’ lives easier, and by implementing AI powered features across the customer journey from discovery to purchase, we are delivering an experience that’s faster, easier and more enjoyable,” says Jill Pavlovich, SVP, Digital Customer Experience at Albertsons Cos.
“We are laser focused on using AI as part of our strategy to meet customers when and how they choose to shop, ultimately driving customer growth and engagement through digital connection. The Albertsons AI shopping assistant is an exciting step in this journey, with much more innovation to come.”
Asda puts blame on epic Project Future retail technology separation initiative as sales drop
Asda has shared a Q3 2025 trading update, reporting total revenues (excluding fuel) of £5.1 billion and a 2.8% decline in like-for-like sales.
The UK grocery giant completed Project Future – one of Europe’s largest retail tech separations – which involved moving off more than 2,500 legacy Walmart systems and switching every part of Asda’s operations onto its own IT platforms.
The changeover was complex and severely disrupted depot and store operations and the online shopping experience for customers, it admitted in its update.
Allan Leighton, Executive Chairman, said: “We said it would take three to five years to turn Asda around. We made good progress in the first half of the year against our ‘Formula for Growth’ with the best availability in eight years, a notable price gap versus competitors and a return to like-for-like growth.”
“At Q2 results, we said that the cutover from Project Future, although completed, would likely have a negative impact on our performance. This change severely disrupted our systems and materially impacted our progress, as we saw a step back to inconsistent availability, operational issues at depot and in-store and a poor customer experience online and through the app that impacted our grocery home shopping business in particular.”
“Since then, we have made good progress stabilising our platforms and the worst of the disruption is now behind us. Availability is back to where it was in June, operational issues are reducing and performance in recent weeks is improving, but we do not expect to re-establish our Q2 2025 position until Q2 of 2026. Thank you to all our colleagues for their hard work and commitment and our customers for their patience.”
AI technology powered workforce Duvo raises $15 million in Index Ventures led seed funding round
Duvo, an automation platform that gives retail teams an AI workforce for their day-to-day operations, has raised $15 million in seed funding led by Index Ventures, backers of Figma, Revolut and Wiz.
Credo Ventures, Northzone and Puzzle Ventures also participated in the round, along with angels Roy Reznik (co-founder of Wiz), David Singleton (former CTO of Stripe) and Kieran Flanagan (former CMO Zapier).
Co-founded by retail industry veterans, including Tomas Čupr, founder of the European grocery unicorn Rohlik, Duvo can go live in weeks rather than years and works across the tools retailers already use. Business users describe what they want to achieve in natural language, and Duvo’s AI agents execute it end-to-end across systems such as SAP, portals, email, spreadsheets, and modern APIs, with no coding required.
“At Rohlik we saw teams spending hours every day copy-pasting between SAP, supplier portals, email and spreadsheets just to close the books or launch promotions,” says Čupr. “Across the industry, millions of hours of bottom-up, exception-heavy work remain untouched because traditional IT automation takes years and cannot handle the messy reality of retail systems.”
“Duvo is democratising automation: giving every retail team an AI workforce they can deploy in weeks, not years, to finally eliminate the operational bottlenecks holding them back. With this funding, we’re accelerating our product roadmap and bringing assistants to more enterprises worldwide – helping retailers eliminate errors, reclaim time and gain a decisive advantage over competitors still relying on manual processes.”
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