Those wonderful people at the Retail Technology Show look like they’ve only gone and done it again! A move from Olympia to ExCel to accommodate the burgeoning show suggests that the 2025 version is set to be the biggest ever.

Here at BOXTEC, we can’t wait for the Carnival to come to town so we’re busy choosing our outfit to make sure we’ll be looking our absolute best. After all, this is going to be the busiest UK retail event of the year and we cannot wait to greet everyone.

There’s so much to see and do, from the speaking sessions to the Expo floor to the Innovation Awards and of course, Retail’s Big Party! As a preview to the Show, we’ve scanned the agenda and picked our top six themes to look forward to. Read on to find out what caught our eye and how our hardware solutions align with these major industry trends.

Sustainability – this year there’s an entire track dedicated to sustainability, and rightly so. It applies across every retail business, from the supply chain to frontline operations. With reporting requirements becoming stricter and stricter and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation being introduced in October, sustainability will be forefront in the mind of every retailer.

At BOXTEC, we design our self-checkouts and POS systems with longevity and energy efficiency in mind. Our modular hardware solutions extend product lifecycles, ensuring retailers get maximum ROI while reducing their environmental impact.

Purpose – this is central to everything we do at BOXTEC. Having a purpose means doing the right thing for your customer, every time. It means being clear about why you are in business and the value you deliver to your customers. For that reason, we’re looking forward to the panel discussion on purpose-driven technology featuring Poundland. You can catch it on day one, at 13:55 on the Wondrous Stage. At BOXTEC, our purpose is to develop cutting-edge customer engagement hardware – such as our self-service solutions, that empower retailers to create seamless, high-value customer experiences.

Bricks are best – breaking news: we love shopping in-store! Whilst the UK may have the highest propensity to shop online across Europe and the US, shoppers in the UK also love to visit stores. And for us, that’s rather good news because here at BOXTEC we believe that it’s in-store where the magic happens, where shoppers come to discover and be inspired.

New opportunities through AI – no retail conference would be complete without AI and while the supply chain appears to be fertile ground, AI is rapidly becoming ubiquitous across entire retail businesses. However, will we still be discussing it as a separate entity in the years to come or will we expect everything we touch to contain AI? We rather think the latter. BOXTEC is already embedding AI into our hardware solutions. Our AI-powered self-checkouts enhance fraud detection, optimise transaction speeds, and provide predictive maintenance to keep retail operations running smoothly, helping retailers create smarter and more responsive shopping environments.

Customer experience – price, value, and convenience are all key ingredients, however, when mixed in the right way, they can create a memorable, magical experience. It’s an exciting time and we believe in bringing the “awe factor” to physical retail.

Driving efficiencies – we might have left it until last, however, as a result of the increased taxes and minimum wage limit announced in last autumn’s Budget, driving efficiencies is currently the number one priority for every retailer. BOXTEC’s new range of Edge self-checkouts are built for efficiency – reducing staff workload, speeding up transactions, and optimising store layouts to maximise throughput. By enabling retailers to do more with less, our solutions help businesses stay competitive in a challenging economic environment.

The Retail Carnival is coming to town, and BOXTEC is bringing the future of retail hardware with us! Stop by the BOXTEC stand #H78 to learn more, we can’t wait to welcome you!