2, October 2025
by: Arreoblue
Blog by Chloe Aboud
Last month, I had the chance to attend NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show Europe, in Paris. It is one of the most important gatherings for retail leaders, innovators and technology partners. With thousands of attendees, hundreds of sessions and brands from across the globe, the event brought together so many people who are shaping the future of retail.
And underpinning it all, the question of purpose. Across keynotes and case studies, the message was clear: technology alone isn’t enough. The retailers making real impact are those using data and innovation to deliver on a clear social or customer mission.
Some of the highlights for me were:
The session “Walk in VEJA’s Shoes: Mobility, Connectivity and the Customer Journey” showcased Veja as a brand that strives to always stand apart, with no debt, no investors and very limited advertising. Instead, they’ve built growth around sustainability, fair pricing and social-first values. What struck me at NRF Paris is how Veja is now applying technology to extend those values into the customer journey. By empowering store associates with digital tools and rethinking the role of physical stores, they’re bridging online and offline while keeping people, not technology, at the centre. It’s a refreshing reminder that digital transformation can still feel deeply human when guided by purpose.
Another powerful story came from “Monetise, Optimise, Personalise: Iceland’s Smart In-Store Retail Media Strategy.” Iceland has a fiercely loyal customer base and a clear social mission around food affordability. Their latest innovation? Using in-store media and sensor technology to create a personalised shopping experience, while also unlocking new revenue opportunities. What I found compelling is that they’re not chasing technology for its own sake, they’re using data to balance affordability with innovation, ensuring their core purpose isn’t lost.
If Veja and Iceland highlight purpose in different ways, Intermarché shows what’s possible when you get the data foundations right. With 2,000 independent retailers under one brand, their challenge has always been scale and complexity. Since moving to the cloud in 2019, they’ve invested heavily in building a “golden data layer” which is a unified, governed source of truth that enables both operational efficiency and customer insight. The session “From Customer Support to Store Operations: How Intermarché Streamlines the Value Chain with Tech and Data” showed how they’re now connecting customer support, store operations and supply chain to drive value across the entire business. It’s a story of patience and investment, building the foundation first, then layering on the use cases.
Underlying many of these discussions was the role of Databricks in providing the platform for composable, connected architectures. One line that stayed with me came from Rob Saker: “searching with intent.” It’s a deceptively simple idea but one that captures the power of data in retail. When you truly understand customer intent across touchpoints, conversion rates rise, supply chains become more efficient and personalisation becomes meaningful.
What unites Veja, Iceland, Intermarché and others is not just their technology choices, it is how they align data strategy with purpose. Whether the mission is sustainability, affordability or operational excellence, data is what makes it a reality. As someone working in data consultancy, this was a powerful reminder that the real impact comes when we start with why, then design the data and tech strategy to deliver it.
NRF Paris left me convinced: the future of retail isn’t just smarter, it’s more human, purposeful and connected.
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