RETAIL CHAMPION OF THE YEAR 2026 | BEYOND THE RESULTS
The Technology Shoppers Actually Notice
What makes shoppers see a retailer as technologically advanced when yesterday's innovation becomes today's normal?
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
Finding a product in a large store can take time. ROSSMANN's Nawigacja 2.0 links a product in the app to a store map that guides the shopper towards its shelf position.
ROSSMANN won the Retail Champion 2026 award for Excellence in Technology, scoring 57% on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion.” ROSSMANN also won Outstanding Customer Experience and Recommended by Shoppers. The three awards measure different things. Taken together, they show that shoppers recognise ROSSMANN not only for technology, but also for the wider shopping experience and their willingness to recommend it.
The YouGov study analysed 3,092 shopper surveys across 21 retailers. Members of YouGov's Polish Shopper Panel were invited one to two days after a purchase, and fieldwork ran from July to September 2026. We then looked at what those retailers are actually doing in practice. Our reading is that shoppers are more likely to recognise technology when it makes a familiar shopping task easier, such as finding a product in the store, rather than asking them to learn a completely new way of shopping.
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
When modern becomes normal
For 15 of the 21 retailers, the percentage of shoppers agreeing with the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” was lower in 2026 than in 2025. The study does not tell us why these scores fell. One possible explanation is that some technologies are becoming so familiar that they no longer make a retailer feel especially modern.
Self-checkout is an obvious example. A few years ago, it could make a store feel advanced. Today, many shoppers simply expect it. Apps, digital payments and electronic receipts can follow the same path. They may remain very useful even after they stop feeling new.
Scan-as-you-shop shows the same development in Poland. Carrefour was already expanding Scan&Go in Polish stores in 2018. KAUFLAND has since rolled K-Scan out across its Polish stores, while LIDL is adding Scan&Go to new openings and adapting existing stores for it. The service can still make shopping easier, but having it is becoming less unusual.
That is why copying today's leader may close a functional gap without creating the same impression. By the time another retailer introduces the same feature, shoppers may already see it as normal, while the leader has moved on. Two retailers can therefore offer similar technology and still be seen very differently by shoppers.
Some of the most valuable technology is hardly visible at all. Better forecasting can help keep products available, while better tools can help store staff work faster. Those investments may create real value without changing how technologically advanced the retailer feels to shoppers.
That distinction matters for this award. Retail Champion measures whether shoppers themselves see a retailer as using modern technology. It does not measure the total value of all the technology inside the business. So, when we look for what may shape that perception, the most useful clues are likely to be found where shoppers meet the technology themselves: finding products, scanning, paying, or getting help when something goes wrong.
When self-service still needs people
Once technology reaches the shopper, the next question is whether the whole task still works. At Retail Summit 2026, one conclusion from the In-Store discussions was that store technology works as part of a connected operating environment, not as a collection of separate tools. In October, the Club of 369 In-Store Advisory Committee brought that down to a practical question: what mix of self-service and staffed checkout best serves different store visits?
For many purchases, self-service works perfectly well. A shopper scans, pays and leaves without needing assistance. On another visit, the same shopper may need help with a product that will not scan, an age check or a payment problem. Human support is therefore not necessarily a sign that self-service has failed. It can be part of what makes self-service work well.
The same design also changes the work of store staff. Self-service can release staff time for advice, replenishment or other work. Frequent interventions can pull that time back into checkout. So the amount of staff capacity actually released depends partly on how often the process still needs human help.
LIDL's Scan&Go makes this practical. Shoppers scan products as they move through the store, shifting one part of checkout earlier in the journey. Yet the rest of the purchase still has to work: weighed products, payment, security tags, age checks and occasional basket checks. LIDL said in September 2026 that new openings included Scan&Go, while existing stores required adaptation during modernisation.
For the shopper, these are not separate systems or departments. They are one purchase. Technology feels useful when that purchase can be completed easily, including when something unexpected happens.
A familiar technology can still change the experience
ALDI shows why familiar technology can still change shoppers' perception. It moved from 21st place in 2025 to 14th in 2026 and received the Technology Biggest Progress recognition. Its score on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” also rose from 16% to 23%. The seven-place rise and the seven-percentage-point increase are different measures, but in this case both moved in the same direction.
ALDI's self-checkout rollout in Poland is recent. In 2024, the retailer still relied on staffed checkout; pilots followed in 2025, and the service remained selective in 2026. The ALDI store at Warszawa Zachodnia, opened in February 2026, has six self-checkouts. By June, more than 65% of transactions at that particular store were reportedly going through them, while the reported share across ALDI stores equipped with self-checkout was around half.
That level of use is not unusual where self-checkout is already available. A 2026 international study across 39 retailers found that self-checkout accounted for an average of 54% of transactions in stores offering it. So ALDI shoppers were not being asked to learn a radically new way of paying. They were being given access to a checkout method that many already knew from elsewhere.
The YouGov study does not tell us that self-checkout caused ALDI's improvement. The useful point is narrower. A technology does not have to be new to the market to become meaningful in a particular retailer's customer experience. Making a familiar option available where shoppers did not have it before can still change what that shopping trip feels like.
ALDI also brings us back to the broader pattern. Technology can feel modern when it improves a familiar part of shopping. As more retailers adopt the same solution, what first felt innovative becomes normal and then expected.
The October Club of 369 Advisory Committee discussions added another layer. In e-commerce, the conversation moved beyond checkout and payment to what happens after the transaction: whether delivery, returns, refunds and customer service can still fulfil the original promise. In supply chain, automation raised questions about process readiness, data quality and flexibility. In the people discussion, attention shifted to the frontline colleagues who have to absorb new systems while continuing to serve customers. And in the sustainability discussion, a newer question appeared: as AI becomes more widely used, might consumers eventually judge technology not only by what it does for them, but also by what sits behind it?
Seen together, those discussions point to a broader test. Does technology remove effort for the shopper without simply moving that effort somewhere else? Can the people, processes and systems around it carry the change? And when today's innovation becomes tomorrow's expectation, where will shoppers expect the next improvement to come from?
These are among the questions we will continue exploring at the Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027, on 13–14 April 2027 in Warsaw.
Key takeaways
Shoppers notice technology most when it makes a familiar task easier.
Self-service works best when it is part of a connected experience with human support still available.
A familiar technology can still change perception if it improves a key part of the shopping experience.
RETAIL CHAMPION OF THE YEAR 2026 | BEYOND THE RESULTS
The Technology Shoppers Actually Notice
What makes shoppers see a retailer as technologically advanced when yesterday's innovation becomes today's normal?
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
Finding a product in a large store can take time. ROSSMANN's Nawigacja 2.0 links a product in the app to a store map that guides the shopper towards its shelf position.
ROSSMANN won the Retail Champion 2026 award for Excellence in Technology, scoring 57% on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion.” ROSSMANN also won Outstanding Customer Experience and Recommended by Shoppers. The three awards measure different things. Taken together, they show that shoppers recognise ROSSMANN not only for technology, but also for the wider shopping experience and their willingness to recommend it.
The YouGov study analysed 3,092 shopper surveys across 21 retailers. Members of YouGov's Polish Shopper Panel were invited one to two days after a purchase, and fieldwork ran from July to September 2026. We then looked at what those retailers are actually doing in practice. Our reading is that shoppers are more likely to recognise technology when it makes a familiar shopping task easier, such as finding a product in the store, rather than asking them to learn a completely new way of shopping.
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
When modern becomes normal
For 15 of the 21 retailers, the percentage of shoppers agreeing with the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” was lower in 2026 than in 2025. The study does not tell us why these scores fell. One possible explanation is that some technologies are becoming so familiar that they no longer make a retailer feel especially modern.
Self-checkout is an obvious example. A few years ago, it could make a store feel advanced. Today, many shoppers simply expect it. Apps, digital payments and electronic receipts can follow the same path. They may remain very useful even after they stop feeling new.
Scan-as-you-shop shows the same development in Poland. Carrefour was already expanding Scan&Go in Polish stores in 2018. KAUFLAND has since rolled K-Scan out across its Polish stores, while LIDL is adding Scan&Go to new openings and adapting existing stores for it. The service can still make shopping easier, but having it is becoming less unusual.
That is why copying today's leader may close a functional gap without creating the same impression. By the time another retailer introduces the same feature, shoppers may already see it as normal, while the leader has moved on. Two retailers can therefore offer similar technology and still be seen very differently by shoppers.
Some of the most valuable technology is hardly visible at all. Better forecasting can help keep products available, while better tools can help store staff work faster. Those investments may create real value without changing how technologically advanced the retailer feels to shoppers.
That distinction matters for this award. Retail Champion measures whether shoppers themselves see a retailer as using modern technology. It does not measure the total value of all the technology inside the business. So, when we look for what may shape that perception, the most useful clues are likely to be found where shoppers meet the technology themselves: finding products, scanning, paying, or getting help when something goes wrong.
When self-service still needs people
Once technology reaches the shopper, the next question is whether the whole task still works. At Retail Summit 2026, one conclusion from the In-Store discussions was that store technology works as part of a connected operating environment, not as a collection of separate tools. In October, the Club of 369 In-Store Advisory Committee brought that down to a practical question: what mix of self-service and staffed checkout best serves different store visits?
For many purchases, self-service works perfectly well. A shopper scans, pays and leaves without needing assistance. On another visit, the same shopper may need help with a product that will not scan, an age check or a payment problem. Human support is therefore not necessarily a sign that self-service has failed. It can be part of what makes self-service work well.
The same design also changes the work of store staff. Self-service can release staff time for advice, replenishment or other work. Frequent interventions can pull that time back into checkout. So the amount of staff capacity actually released depends partly on how often the process still needs human help.
LIDL's Scan&Go makes this practical. Shoppers scan products as they move through the store, shifting one part of checkout earlier in the journey. Yet the rest of the purchase still has to work: weighed products, payment, security tags, age checks and occasional basket checks. LIDL said in September 2026 that new openings included Scan&Go, while existing stores required adaptation during modernisation.
For the shopper, these are not separate systems or departments. They are one purchase. Technology feels useful when that purchase can be completed easily, including when something unexpected happens.
A familiar technology can still change the experience
ALDI shows why familiar technology can still change shoppers' perception. It moved from 21st place in 2025 to 14th in 2026 and received the Technology Biggest Progress recognition. Its score on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” also rose from 16% to 23%. The seven-place rise and the seven-percentage-point increase are different measures, but in this case both moved in the same direction.
ALDI's self-checkout rollout in Poland is recent. In 2024, the retailer still relied on staffed checkout; pilots followed in 2025, and the service remained selective in 2026. The ALDI store at Warszawa Zachodnia, opened in February 2026, has six self-checkouts. By June, more than 65% of transactions at that particular store were reportedly going through them, while the reported share across ALDI stores equipped with self-checkout was around half.
That level of use is not unusual where self-checkout is already available. A 2026 international study across 39 retailers found that self-checkout accounted for an average of 54% of transactions in stores offering it. So ALDI shoppers were not being asked to learn a radically new way of paying. They were being given access to a checkout method that many already knew from elsewhere.
The YouGov study does not tell us that self-checkout caused ALDI's improvement. The useful point is narrower. A technology does not have to be new to the market to become meaningful in a particular retailer's customer experience. Making a familiar option available where shoppers did not have it before can still change what that shopping trip feels like.
ALDI also brings us back to the broader pattern. Technology can feel modern when it improves a familiar part of shopping. As more retailers adopt the same solution, what first felt innovative becomes normal and then expected.
The October Club of 369 Advisory Committee discussions added another layer. In e-commerce, the conversation moved beyond checkout and payment to what happens after the transaction: whether delivery, returns, refunds and customer service can still fulfil the original promise. In supply chain, automation raised questions about process readiness, data quality and flexibility. In the people discussion, attention shifted to the frontline colleagues who have to absorb new systems while continuing to serve customers. And in the sustainability discussion, a newer question appeared: as AI becomes more widely used, might consumers eventually judge technology not only by what it does for them, but also by what sits behind it?
Seen together, those discussions point to a broader test. Does technology remove effort for the shopper without simply moving that effort somewhere else? Can the people, processes and systems around it carry the change? And when today's innovation becomes tomorrow's expectation, where will shoppers expect the next improvement to come from?
These are among the questions we will continue exploring at the Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027, on 13–14 April 2027 in Warsaw.
Key takeaways
Shoppers notice technology most when it makes a familiar task easier.
Self-service works best when it is part of a connected experience with human support still available.
A familiar technology can still change perception if it improves a key part of the shopping experience.
RETAIL CHAMPION OF THE YEAR 2026 | BEYOND THE RESULTS
The Technology Shoppers Actually Notice
What makes shoppers see a retailer as technologically advanced when yesterday's innovation becomes today's normal?
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
Finding a product in a large store can take time. ROSSMANN's Nawigacja 2.0 links a product in the app to a store map that guides the shopper towards its shelf position.
ROSSMANN won the Retail Champion 2026 award for Excellence in Technology, scoring 57% on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion.” ROSSMANN also won Outstanding Customer Experience and Recommended by Shoppers. The three awards measure different things. Taken together, they show that shoppers recognise ROSSMANN not only for technology, but also for the wider shopping experience and their willingness to recommend it.
The YouGov study analysed 3,092 shopper surveys across 21 retailers. Members of YouGov's Polish Shopper Panel were invited one to two days after a purchase, and fieldwork ran from July to September 2026. We then looked at what those retailers are actually doing in practice. Our reading is that shoppers are more likely to recognise technology when it makes a familiar shopping task easier, such as finding a product in the store, rather than asking them to learn a completely new way of shopping.
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
When modern becomes normal
For 15 of the 21 retailers, the percentage of shoppers agreeing with the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” was lower in 2026 than in 2025. The study does not tell us why these scores fell. One possible explanation is that some technologies are becoming so familiar that they no longer make a retailer feel especially modern.
Self-checkout is an obvious example. A few years ago, it could make a store feel advanced. Today, many shoppers simply expect it. Apps, digital payments and electronic receipts can follow the same path. They may remain very useful even after they stop feeling new.
Scan-as-you-shop shows the same development in Poland. Carrefour was already expanding Scan&Go in Polish stores in 2018. KAUFLAND has since rolled K-Scan out across its Polish stores, while LIDL is adding Scan&Go to new openings and adapting existing stores for it. The service can still make shopping easier, but having it is becoming less unusual.
That is why copying today's leader may close a functional gap without creating the same impression. By the time another retailer introduces the same feature, shoppers may already see it as normal, while the leader has moved on. Two retailers can therefore offer similar technology and still be seen very differently by shoppers.
Some of the most valuable technology is hardly visible at all. Better forecasting can help keep products available, while better tools can help store staff work faster. Those investments may create real value without changing how technologically advanced the retailer feels to shoppers.
That distinction matters for this award. Retail Champion measures whether shoppers themselves see a retailer as using modern technology. It does not measure the total value of all the technology inside the business. So, when we look for what may shape that perception, the most useful clues are likely to be found where shoppers meet the technology themselves: finding products, scanning, paying, or getting help when something goes wrong.
When self-service still needs people
Once technology reaches the shopper, the next question is whether the whole task still works. At Retail Summit 2026, one conclusion from the In-Store discussions was that store technology works as part of a connected operating environment, not as a collection of separate tools. In October, the Club of 369 In-Store Advisory Committee brought that down to a practical question: what mix of self-service and staffed checkout best serves different store visits?
For many purchases, self-service works perfectly well. A shopper scans, pays and leaves without needing assistance. On another visit, the same shopper may need help with a product that will not scan, an age check or a payment problem. Human support is therefore not necessarily a sign that self-service has failed. It can be part of what makes self-service work well.
The same design also changes the work of store staff. Self-service can release staff time for advice, replenishment or other work. Frequent interventions can pull that time back into checkout. So the amount of staff capacity actually released depends partly on how often the process still needs human help.
LIDL's Scan&Go makes this practical. Shoppers scan products as they move through the store, shifting one part of checkout earlier in the journey. Yet the rest of the purchase still has to work: weighed products, payment, security tags, age checks and occasional basket checks. LIDL said in September 2026 that new openings included Scan&Go, while existing stores required adaptation during modernisation.
For the shopper, these are not separate systems or departments. They are one purchase. Technology feels useful when that purchase can be completed easily, including when something unexpected happens.
A familiar technology can still change the experience
ALDI shows why familiar technology can still change shoppers' perception. It moved from 21st place in 2025 to 14th in 2026 and received the Technology Biggest Progress recognition. Its score on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” also rose from 16% to 23%. The seven-place rise and the seven-percentage-point increase are different measures, but in this case both moved in the same direction.
ALDI's self-checkout rollout in Poland is recent. In 2024, the retailer still relied on staffed checkout; pilots followed in 2025, and the service remained selective in 2026. The ALDI store at Warszawa Zachodnia, opened in February 2026, has six self-checkouts. By June, more than 65% of transactions at that particular store were reportedly going through them, while the reported share across ALDI stores equipped with self-checkout was around half.
That level of use is not unusual where self-checkout is already available. A 2026 international study across 39 retailers found that self-checkout accounted for an average of 54% of transactions in stores offering it. So ALDI shoppers were not being asked to learn a radically new way of paying. They were being given access to a checkout method that many already knew from elsewhere.
The YouGov study does not tell us that self-checkout caused ALDI's improvement. The useful point is narrower. A technology does not have to be new to the market to become meaningful in a particular retailer's customer experience. Making a familiar option available where shoppers did not have it before can still change what that shopping trip feels like.
ALDI also brings us back to the broader pattern. Technology can feel modern when it improves a familiar part of shopping. As more retailers adopt the same solution, what first felt innovative becomes normal and then expected.
The October Club of 369 Advisory Committee discussions added another layer. In e-commerce, the conversation moved beyond checkout and payment to what happens after the transaction: whether delivery, returns, refunds and customer service can still fulfil the original promise. In supply chain, automation raised questions about process readiness, data quality and flexibility. In the people discussion, attention shifted to the frontline colleagues who have to absorb new systems while continuing to serve customers. And in the sustainability discussion, a newer question appeared: as AI becomes more widely used, might consumers eventually judge technology not only by what it does for them, but also by what sits behind it?
Seen together, those discussions point to a broader test. Does technology remove effort for the shopper without simply moving that effort somewhere else? Can the people, processes and systems around it carry the change? And when today's innovation becomes tomorrow's expectation, where will shoppers expect the next improvement to come from?
These are among the questions we will continue exploring at the Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027, on 13–14 April 2027 in Warsaw.
Key takeaways
Shoppers notice technology most when it makes a familiar task easier.
Self-service works best when it is part of a connected experience with human support still available.
A familiar technology can still change perception if it improves a key part of the shopping experience.
RETAIL CHAMPION OF THE YEAR 2026 | BEYOND THE RESULTS
The Technology Shoppers Actually Notice
What makes shoppers see a retailer as technologically advanced when yesterday's innovation becomes today's normal?
Executive Intelligence Briefing
4–6 min read
Finding a product in a large store can take time. ROSSMANN's Nawigacja 2.0 links a product in the app to a store map that guides the shopper towards its shelf position.
ROSSMANN won the Retail Champion 2026 award for Excellence in Technology, scoring 57% on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion.” ROSSMANN also won Outstanding Customer Experience and Recommended by Shoppers. The three awards measure different things. Taken together, they show that shoppers recognise ROSSMANN not only for technology, but also for the wider shopping experience and their willingness to recommend it.
The YouGov study analysed 3,092 shopper surveys across 21 retailers. Members of YouGov's Polish Shopper Panel were invited one to two days after a purchase, and fieldwork ran from July to September 2026. We then looked at what those retailers are actually doing in practice. Our reading is that shoppers are more likely to recognise technology when it makes a familiar shopping task easier, such as finding a product in the store, rather than asking them to learn a completely new way of shopping.
3,092
shopper surveys
Analysed in the YouGov study
21
retailers
Included in the research
July – September 2026
Fieldwork period
Members invited 1–2 days after a purchase
When modern becomes normal
For 15 of the 21 retailers, the percentage of shoppers agreeing with the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” was lower in 2026 than in 2025. The study does not tell us why these scores fell. One possible explanation is that some technologies are becoming so familiar that they no longer make a retailer feel especially modern.
Self-checkout is an obvious example. A few years ago, it could make a store feel advanced. Today, many shoppers simply expect it. Apps, digital payments and electronic receipts can follow the same path. They may remain very useful even after they stop feeling new.
Scan-as-you-shop shows the same development in Poland. Carrefour was already expanding Scan&Go in Polish stores in 2018. KAUFLAND has since rolled K-Scan out across its Polish stores, while LIDL is adding Scan&Go to new openings and adapting existing stores for it. The service can still make shopping easier, but having it is becoming less unusual.
That is why copying today's leader may close a functional gap without creating the same impression. By the time another retailer introduces the same feature, shoppers may already see it as normal, while the leader has moved on. Two retailers can therefore offer similar technology and still be seen very differently by shoppers.
Some of the most valuable technology is hardly visible at all. Better forecasting can help keep products available, while better tools can help store staff work faster. Those investments may create real value without changing how technologically advanced the retailer feels to shoppers.
That distinction matters for this award. Retail Champion measures whether shoppers themselves see a retailer as using modern technology. It does not measure the total value of all the technology inside the business. So, when we look for what may shape that perception, the most useful clues are likely to be found where shoppers meet the technology themselves: finding products, scanning, paying, or getting help when something goes wrong.
When self-service still needs people
Once technology reaches the shopper, the next question is whether the whole task still works. At Retail Summit 2026, one conclusion from the In-Store discussions was that store technology works as part of a connected operating environment, not as a collection of separate tools. In October, the Club of 369 In-Store Advisory Committee brought that down to a practical question: what mix of self-service and staffed checkout best serves different store visits?
For many purchases, self-service works perfectly well. A shopper scans, pays and leaves without needing assistance. On another visit, the same shopper may need help with a product that will not scan, an age check or a payment problem. Human support is therefore not necessarily a sign that self-service has failed. It can be part of what makes self-service work well.
The same design also changes the work of store staff. Self-service can release staff time for advice, replenishment or other work. Frequent interventions can pull that time back into checkout. So the amount of staff capacity actually released depends partly on how often the process still needs human help.
LIDL's Scan&Go makes this practical. Shoppers scan products as they move through the store, shifting one part of checkout earlier in the journey. Yet the rest of the purchase still has to work: weighed products, payment, security tags, age checks and occasional basket checks. LIDL said in September 2026 that new openings included Scan&Go, while existing stores required adaptation during modernisation.
For the shopper, these are not separate systems or departments. They are one purchase. Technology feels useful when that purchase can be completed easily, including when something unexpected happens.
A familiar technology can still change the experience
ALDI shows why familiar technology can still change shoppers' perception. It moved from 21st place in 2025 to 14th in 2026 and received the Technology Biggest Progress recognition. Its score on the statement, “This store uses modern technologies in my opinion,” also rose from 16% to 23%. The seven-place rise and the seven-percentage-point increase are different measures, but in this case both moved in the same direction.
ALDI's self-checkout rollout in Poland is recent. In 2024, the retailer still relied on staffed checkout; pilots followed in 2025, and the service remained selective in 2026. The ALDI store at Warszawa Zachodnia, opened in February 2026, has six self-checkouts. By June, more than 65% of transactions at that particular store were reportedly going through them, while the reported share across ALDI stores equipped with self-checkout was around half.
That level of use is not unusual where self-checkout is already available. A 2026 international study across 39 retailers found that self-checkout accounted for an average of 54% of transactions in stores offering it. So ALDI shoppers were not being asked to learn a radically new way of paying. They were being given access to a checkout method that many already knew from elsewhere.
The YouGov study does not tell us that self-checkout caused ALDI's improvement. The useful point is narrower. A technology does not have to be new to the market to become meaningful in a particular retailer's customer experience. Making a familiar option available where shoppers did not have it before can still change what that shopping trip feels like.
ALDI also brings us back to the broader pattern. Technology can feel modern when it improves a familiar part of shopping. As more retailers adopt the same solution, what first felt innovative becomes normal and then expected.
The October Club of 369 Advisory Committee discussions added another layer. In e-commerce, the conversation moved beyond checkout and payment to what happens after the transaction: whether delivery, returns, refunds and customer service can still fulfil the original promise. In supply chain, automation raised questions about process readiness, data quality and flexibility. In the people discussion, attention shifted to the frontline colleagues who have to absorb new systems while continuing to serve customers. And in the sustainability discussion, a newer question appeared: as AI becomes more widely used, might consumers eventually judge technology not only by what it does for them, but also by what sits behind it?
Seen together, those discussions point to a broader test. Does technology remove effort for the shopper without simply moving that effort somewhere else? Can the people, processes and systems around it carry the change? And when today's innovation becomes tomorrow's expectation, where will shoppers expect the next improvement to come from?
These are among the questions we will continue exploring at the Poland & CEE Retail Summit 2027, on 13–14 April 2027 in Warsaw.
Key takeaways
Shoppers notice technology most when it makes a familiar task easier.
Self-service works best when it is part of a connected experience with human support still available.
A familiar technology can still change perception if it improves a key part of the shopping experience.
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Explore more insights from Retail Champion
Read the full 2026 report and discover how retail, consumer goods and FMCG professionals can become part of the Club of 369.
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Explore more insights from Retail Champion
Read the full 2026 report and discover how retail, consumer goods and FMCG professionals can become part of the Club of 369.
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Explore more insights from Retail Champion
Read the full 2026 report and discover how retail, consumer goods and FMCG professionals can become part of the Club of 369.