Our editorial team at International Supermarket News has had the pleasure of working with Sarah Cole for over three years. During this time, she has represented some of the most respected names in retail technology, including the highly reputable ESL provider, Pricer.
Sarah has always stood out for her professionalism and precision. When we receive a press release from her, we know it will be in the correct format, with content that is thoughtfully and delicately crafted. Our statistics team has consistently noted that editorials and press materials managed by Sarah perform exceptionally well—often ranking in Google Top Stories, being indexed promptly by Google News, and gaining visibility across multiple search engines.
In fact, content associated with Sarah has generated consistently high traffic to our website, driven by a very targeted and engaged readership within the retail sector. Retail professionals value the relevance and quality of the information, which aligns closely with their interests and operational needs.
Today, Sarah Cole speaks with ISN Editor Riad Beladi about the current trends in the retail technology market. She shares insights into what retailers and supermarkets are prioritising, and offers guidance on how retail technology suppliers should effectively communicate with their audiences in an increasingly competitive landscape.
1. Sarah, you’ve worked closely with several key players in retail technology, including ESL providers like Pricer. Why do you think Electronic Shelf Labels are gaining such momentum right now, and what specific needs are they addressing for retailers in 2025?
After years of being on the cusp of widespread adoption, ESLs finally appear to be having their watershed moment. But after what felt like a slow-burn ascent, why now?
Well, the backdrop is that while retail costs were already rapidly rising, UK retailers are now grappling with £7billion in additional costs following tax hikes in the last Autumn Budget. This makes every efficiency gain – no matter how incremental – table stakes as businesses look to protect margin. At the same time, stubborn inflation, shaky consumer confidence and shoppers’ rising price sensitivity are dampening demand.
In this perfect storm of pressure, ESLs are well positioned to help. Whether it’s driving store efficiencies, enhancing customer experience (CX), supporting sustainability goals by reducing food waste or even unlocking new revenue streams via retail media, ESLs are emerging as a strategic enabler.
What was once perceived to be just a digital replacement for paper labels, ESL capabilities have transcended dynamic pricing and promotional capabilities. Fast becoming the ‘glue’ for shelf edge tech, ESLs now power smart store ecosystems. A great example of this is being piloted at Carrefour, which is trialling a hyper-connected in-store solution with ESL technology front and centre, and integrates e-labels with smart rail systems, computer vision and AI.
The solution enhances merchandising compliance through automated visual shelf monitoring, while improving on-shelf availability with real-time tracking and automatic stock-out detection. ESLs automate pricing and promotions, while product geolocation via the labels offers smoother customer journeys and more efficient in-store ecommerce picking. The platform also helps store teams identify and prioritise high-impact tasks, driving improved efficiency and productivity on the shop floor.
Layered on top of this is the rapid rise of retail media networks (RMN), which is also helping maintain ESL momentum. Retailers, from Sainsbury’s to Iceland and Albertsons, are ramping up in-store RMN capabilities to unlock new revenue streams from third-party advertisers. This shift makes the shelf edge – and, by extension, ESLs – prime real estate for retail media activations.
As a digital touchpoint located precisely at the intersection of product and customer, ESLs represent a powerful, scalable vehicle for delivering dynamic, targeted content to conversion-ready shoppers, effectively turning every shelf – and every label – into a potential digital media asset.
2. From your perspective, what are the most significant retail technology trends you’re seeing in the market today? Are retailers leaning more toward operational efficiency, customer experience, or a combination of both?
Given the extreme margin pressures retailers are facing, retail tech needs to deliver against both. A good example of this is q-commerce, which – when executed well – can help drive efficiency while meeting rising customer demand for hyper-convenience and fast fulfilment.
While many thought the q-commerce bubble had burst, rapid delivery is having a renaissance. Convenience is now king – and, while grocery retailers and QSR brands initially led the way in q-commerce, now the model is expanding beyond the supermarket sector. Retailers, from Boots to Fortnum & Mason, are increasingly competing on ‘always-on’ fast fulfilment, indicating a wider shift across categories.
3. Retail technology seems to be evolving at an incredible pace. How do you see this rapid innovation affecting how retailers make decisions? Are they becoming more experimental, or do they still play it safe?
The concept of “failing fast” and the need to pilot innovation isn’t new; the difference is that now it is being applied with much more discipline and rigorous evaluation.
Rising cost pressures and razor-thin margins mean retailers – rightly – are more focused on ROI than ever. However, that laser-focus on return on tech investment hasn’t necessarily made retailers more risk averse. In many cases, it’s creating more of an openness to piloting new solutions, albeit with a clear ROI lens.
Retailers are willing to experiment – but only if they can see a clear path to commercial value. And that creates opportunities for tech vendors who can communicate and demonstrate tangible business benefits tied to growth, efficiency and customer impact.
4. With so many tech vendors competing for attention, what in your view makes a retail technology supplier stand out in their communication? What are some common mistakes you believe they should avoid?
One common mistake, which almost sounds counterintuitive, is making the technology the entire story. The heart of any retail tech PR narrative should centre on the retailer and their end customers, i.e. shoppers, showcasing how the innovation delivers meaningful outcomes for both audiences.
Of course, there’s a time and a place for product announcements, but when tech suppliers’ communications become too inward-looking or overly focused on purely technical features, it’s then that they tend to miss the mark.
Strong communications start with a clear understanding of the retailer’s or shopper’s pain points. To stand out, tech vendors need to move beyond communicating what their product does in isolation. Instead, they should focus on why a solution matters, its value and how it delivers competitive advantage, both now and in the longer-term.
The most compelling messages connect innovation directly to real-world retail challenges, evolving consumer behaviours and emerging trends. By doing so, technology providers can move beyond simply ‘talking product’, and craft the value-led narratives that resonate with retail prospects.
5. Lastly, given your experience liaising between tech providers and media, what advice would you offer to companies trying to increase their visibility and credibility in the retail sector today?
I’ve mentioned shifting communications to being value-led – and leveraging insight from data is one of the most effective ways to do this.
Many tech providers sit on a rich, but too often under-used, source of intelligence: the data their solutions capture or process. Retailers, meanwhile, are hungry for these insights that help them understand how their customers tick and allows them to get ahead of evolving shopper behaviours and emerging trends.
By turning data into insight, tech vendors can unlock powerful new avenues for thought leadership, storytelling and media engagement, while also delivering value back to the retailer.
Consistency is also key. Retailers’ attention spans are short, yet their sales cycles and the consideration phase in their tech-buying journeys is only getting longer. So, tech suppliers need to show up consistently and strategically – in the right media channels with the right messaging – to build trust, reinforce value and win ‘share of mind’ among retail decision-makers.
Finally – and because, of course, no tech-focused feature would be complete without discussing AI – just as AI is transforming how retailers operate, it’s also reshaping how PR impacts discoverability, particularly within search.
With more retail decision-makers using AI to find, validate and compare potential innovation partners, how you show up – and how easily you’re discovered – is crucial. PR is no longer just about competing for traditional SEO; it’s now also about earning AI citations and visibility within AI-generated search.
AI search and AI agents rank content differently from traditional search, placing greater emphasis on credibility through thought leadership, trusted sources and references of your brand in respected trade publications. That means your PR and comms strategy must be AI-fluent and optimised for both human and AI audiences. Because, if you’re not discoverable, can you risk becoming invisible to the very prospects you’re trying to reach and engage?
Sarah Cole is Founder of Flagship PR, a specialist B2B communications agency which delivers pioneering PR for retail technology.