Apple, ranked in the Elite group of brands, uses images, video and information to improve the customer journey. The computing and smartphone brand is a leader in the Product, Operations and Capital Value Chains thanks to ambitious sustainability targets and convenient multichannel fulfilment services.

Apple was founded in 1976 in Cupertino, California by a team led by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. It has grown to become one of the world’s largest brands and sells across Europe through its multichannel model – it has more than 500 shops around the world, sells online and through mobile apps, and has its own marketplaces, such as the App Store, and provides entertainment services through Apple Music, Apple News and Apple TV+.

In the year to September 30 2023, the brand reported net sales of $383.3bn ( -2.8% on the previous year) and net income of $96.99bn ( -2.8%). At the time, Apple CEO Tim Cook said: “We now have our strongest lineup of products… including the iPhone 15 lineup and our first carbon neutral Apple Watch models, a major milestone in our efforts to make all Apple products carbon neutral by 2030.”

The brand is also working to extend the lifespan of its products, and in June 2024 expanded its Apple Diagnostics for Self Service Repair to 32 European countries. “While Apple is committed to providing safe and affordable repair options, designing and building long-lasting products remains the top priority,” Apple said in a press release. “The best type of repair for customers and the planet is one that is never needed.”

Apple enables shoppers to find its products easily on its website, through search suggestions, and category-led navigation. Advice and information is on hand, with shopping guides, model comparisons, product images, videos and information. It uses the features of its products to make shopping easier. On its mobile website, shoppers can use scroll through products on their smartphone before using its touchscreen to zoom in or rotate a product. Payment options include Apple Pay as well as standard bank card options.

On its UK website, once shoppers have decided on an item, they can pick up their online order in an Apple store, at a third-party pickup point, or opt for free standard delivery – next business day for items that are in stock. Returns can be made within 14 calendar days of delivery.

This company profile, authored by Chloe Rigby, appears in the the RetailX Top500 Brands D2C: Europe 2024. The new report charts the performance of direct-to-consumer brands selling to shoppers across Europe. In previous years we have called the report the Brand Index, however the rise of direct-to-consumer as a trend has driven us to update our report title.

Our analysis of the D2C Brand Index 2024 is illustrated with company profiles showcasing the five retailers standing out in the market. As well as Apple, we look at H&M, Ikea, Uniqlo and Zara.

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Europe Top1000 Elite retailer Argos and Leading retailer Sainsbury’s have worked closely together during the eight years that they have been part of the same group. Sainsbury’s bought Argos in April 2016, cementing an already developing relationship that had seen Argos shops open digital format stores inside the supermarket’s branches. 

At the time, Sainsbury’s said the deal would make customers’ lives easier, enabling them to pick up both groceries and a wide range of general merchandise products in one supermarket trip. 

Since then, hundreds of digital format Argos stores have opened within branches of Sainsbury’s, while standalone Argos store numbers have declined. As of 2 March 2024, Argos had 1,115 points of presence – 213 standalone stores, 446 in branches of Sainsbury’s and 456 other collection points. 

Sainsbury’s had 1,431 shops, ranging from large supermarkets to small convenience stores. By March 2025, there are expected to be about 190 standalone Argos stores and up to 460 within Sainsbury’s branches. Sainsbury’s is the second-largest UK supermarket chain, while Argos boasts having the UK’s third most visited retail website. Both brands promise value and convenience across online and offline channels.

Through its Nectar360 loyalty business, the group is bringing together Sainsbury’s and Argos in a retail media strategy that already works with more than 870 direct clients and through partnerships with agency groups. Sainsbury’s group says that Your Nectar personalised prices are used by more than a million customers each week, while Nectar360 is forecast to add £100mn to Sainsbury’s group profits over the three years to March 2027. 

Strategic thinking
Argos, founded in 1972 as a catalogue retailer, is almost a century younger than Sainsbury’s, which was founded in 1869 as a grocers in Holborn. In results for the year to 2 March 2024, parent group J Sainsbury plc reported pre-tax profits of £277mn (-15.3%) on group revenue of £32.7bn (+3.8%). Argos sales grew by 1.6% at the same time, excluding sales from its now closed Irish business. 

Sainsbury’s published its Next Level Sainsbury’s strategy in February 2024. In it, the retailer says that half of UK households shop at Argos every year, making it the UK’s third most visited online retail website. It says that more than 70% of its sales start online, that 70% are collected instore and nearly 70% of online click-and-collect orders are available for immediate collection.

However, customers visit the website an average of just three times a year. Sainsbury’s plans to boost this engagement by extending the Argos range, by fulfilling some new product categories directly by suppliers and by investing in the Argos website, app and customer relationship management. 

Sainsbury’s is also using technology to improve its own customer experience, introducing real-time grocery forecasting and using cloud technology to improve customer personalisation and rewards. In its contact centre, it is automating some processes. 

In the Next Level Sainsbury’s strategy document, Simon Roberts, chief executive of J Sainsbury plc, says: “Our Next Level Sainsbury’s strategy is about giving customers more of what they come to Sainsbury’s for – outstanding value, unbeatable quality food and great service. Thanks to our scale, our brand and our people, we are in a unique position to deliver for customers across Sainsbury’s, Argos and Nectar. 

“We’re going to build on what’s driven our success since 2020. We’re determined to be First Choice for Food, ensuring more customers in more of our stores can enjoy more brilliant Sainsbury’s food. That means more space for our food offer, while still delivering the general merchandise products customers want from us. That way, not only will we find more ways to delight new and existing customers, we will also continue growing volume market share. While I’m proud of the progress we’ve made to date, we’re only just at the beginning of rediscovering quite what this business is capable of.” 

The strategy of value and service is reflected in the websites of Argos and Sainsbury’s. On its landing page, Argos makes it easy for shoppers to find the products they are looking for, using automated search suggestions alongside a clear category-based navigation, using filters including age range, price, type, brand and customer rating. When shoppers add in their postcode, they see how quickly they could collect or have a product delivered. Argos flags up in its same-day delivery and collection in its top navigation. 

From the product page, customers can see a range of zoomable images and video, as well as recommendations of products that are ‘frequently bought together’ or ‘are in stock for you’. 

On the Sainsbury’s website, the value strategy is reflected in a focus on lower prices, meal deals and Nectar prices. Shoppers can save favourite items or store them in their shopping cart. They can name the time and date of their online grocery delivery, saving money when they sign up for regular deliveries through a Delivery Pass. 

Sainsbury’s archive of sustainability reports goes back to 2008. Its Next Level Sainsbury’s strategy includes commitments to a more resilient UK food system and transparent use of customer data through its Nectar360 loyalty programme.

Our first RetailX Europe Top1000 360° brings together two strands of RetailX research. The first is the Top1000, now in its ninth year of ranking ecommerce and multichannel retailers by performance.

The second is the more recent 360° reports, which explore markets in the round, from the economic context for retail to retailer performance and how shoppers buy, or would like to buy.

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In 1929, US Army Air Corp colonel John A Macready teamed up with medical equipment maker Bausch & Lomb in Rochester, New York, to create a pair of ‘aviator’ sunglasses that would reduce the distracting glare of the bright blue sky and white clouds when flying.

Goggles, Macready had learned from bitter experience fog up at high altitude, so he thought open-sided glasses would work better. The 1936 prototype, featuring a patented anti-glare coating with plastic frames – which feel less cold against the skin at high altitude – and green lenses were born. The name, Ray-Ban, was derived from the coating.

Now a fashion staple, with ‘Top Gun’ himself Tom Cruise sporting them in the iconic movies and with the Wayfarer style popularised by Peter Fonda in the 1969 classic Easy Rider, Ray-Ban has become a luxury fashion staple and one which has capitalised on its cool image in the rise of luxury designer ophthalmic eyewear as well as in its more traditional sunglasses market.

The company, which hit its fashion zenith in the 1980s, was sold to Italian sunglasses and eyewear company Luxottica in 2010, which itself was bought by French lens maker Essilor in 2017 for €22.8bn, creating one of Europe’s largest eyewear and sunglasses makers. In 2021, Luxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio agreed to share power with the board of Essilor and end years of spats between the two. The move also unlocked some €300m of annual cost savings and sets the company up to make more of the 20% of the global eyewear business that the group current owns.

For Ray-Ban, this has seen a shift in the business to start to look at how it can not only play in the lucrative luxury eyewear market, but also how it can leverage technology to create smart glasses. These new models – based on existing frame styles – feature dual 5MP cameras for handsfree photography, discreet speakers mounted in the arms, voice control via a microphone at the arm hinge, touch control to run the camera and audio playback, as well as a charging case. Working with Facebook owner Meta, the glasses use Meta AR tech to sync with Facebook and the user’s phone to display content as an overlay on the glasses.

The brand has also started to use more recycled materials in its frames and is working on collaborations with sustainable eyewear manufacturers or initiatives promoting responsible production within Europe that could further solidify their commitment.

Ray-Ban caters to consumers that are style conscious, but it also has an eye on offering an affordable entry point into luxury eyewear. This is reflected in the company’s consumer survey data, which finds that the glasses are popular across all age groups, with fashion-conscious GenZ-ers and Millennials leading the way.

Across the age groups around a third of GenZ, millennials and GenX are making single annual purchases – perhaps unsurprisingly, as eyewear, especially ophthalmic eyewear, is a less frequent purchase for many. That said, 10% of both GenZ and millennial shoppers are making multiple Ray-Ban purchases each year.

Similarly, the spread across income levels is also reasonably even for the brand. Again, around a third of lower, middle and higher income shoppers are making single annual purchases of Ray-Bans, testament to how popular this iconic brand of eyewear is.

Looking ahead, the company’s move to add technology to its glasses, as well as offering an increasing level of personalisation to its products is likely to see continued support for the brand from across the age groups.

This profile, authored by Paul Skeldon, is one of nine in the RetailX European Luxury Report 2024. Coach, Farfetch, Gucci, Guerlain, Longines, Louis Vuitton, Lyst, and Pandora also featured.

The full report analyses the growth of European luxury retail and ecommerce that has plateaued, this however isn’t necessarily a sign of the market stalling, but more an indication it is evolving. The report uses the results of our ConsumerX data to analyse attitudes to what, why, where and how Europeans’ buy luxury goods.

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The recently published RetailX Global Sports Goods 2024 report has found 22% of consumers plan to increase their online spending on sports goods and equipment in the year ahead, while a further 40% say that it will stay the same.

The increase is being driven by growing numbers of younger consumers coming to market across the next few months, most of ecommerce – they grew up with it – and who are mobile-first in their digital approach.

These customers are also more aligned than older generations with developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This bodes well for the sports goods sector, which is set to see continued growth and development across the coming years as these ‘healthy habit’ GenZ-ers become an increasingly large part of the worldwide consumer base.

In addition, these tech-savvy health kids will drive a range of other changes in how the sector operates.

Augment reality
AR, where digital content and information are overlaid on the real world, is already starting to play a role in shifting consumer habits in retail and the sports sector is no exception.

Data shows that 23.5% of sports goods shoppers expect their favourite brands to offer AR that can aide them with shopping in the future. This rate is comparable with those in high-tech sectors such as consumer electronics, as well as with forward thinking areas like fashion and cosmetics, where AR already has a strong presence.

AR brings much to sports goods retail, since it can offer enhanced visualisation of goods both online and instore, offering virtual rotation, zooming and colour customisation, leading to a much better shopper experience and, potentially, increased sales.

Adding in foot or body scanning with a mobile device can also deliver a much better fit. While this offers general online retail a boost, getting a bespoke or best fit for shoes, apparel and equipment for sports and outdoor pursuits is vital. Sports enthusiasts rely whom are on their equipment working perfectly, so getting this right – or using AR to effectively tailor items to fit – could offer the sector a huge boost.

For example, Nike’s Paris store uses AR to let customers design their own NikeID shoes through a phone app, while The North Face is exploring VR and AR product visualisation experiences.

AR has other benefits for the sports sector. Sportswear with embedded AR tags could unlock interactive tutorials or training programmes when viewed through a smartphone. This personalised approach can boost customer engagement and brand loyalty. Gamifaction is also an AR concept being toyed with by sports retailers to pull in customers. JD Sports, for example, has partnered with Snapchat to create an AR arcade game on its storefront, aimed at engaging a younger audience.

However, challenges remain. Widespread adoption of AR requires investment in app development and customer education. While the potential benefits for both retailers and consumers are significant, getting it right is essential for its long-term success. While consumers clearly want AR, they won’t tolerate a poor user experience.

This is an except from the RetailX Global Sports Goods 2024 report, authored by Paul Skeldon.

Download the full report for answers to the most important questions – how shoppers are buying differently; what we might expect in the future and how sports retailers and brands can plan for that.

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The THG owned beauty retailer has credited the ‘England effect’ for increased traffic to its Lookfantastic app. During the final against Spain last Sunday, the Lookfantastic app traffic peaked at almost 24k visits – treble the amount 12 months earlier.

“We recognise the increased mobility of our customers during key sporting events & when the Euros’ kicked off, we saw thousands of Lookfantastic customers hitting the app to shop their favourite beauty products,” explained Keely Gough, Lookfantastic’s managing director.

“We’re proud to have recently extended our deadline for guaranteed next-day delivery to 1am, so customers shopping after midnight also received their products the same day.”

App downloads across THG Beauty are up 45% year-on-year and accounted for 35% of THG’s online beauty revenue in the UK in the first quarter of 2024. THG has previously credited its beauty division for a return to revenue growth.

Furthermore, the recently published RetailX Global Beauty 2024 report has witnessed growing consumer demand for mobile applications when shopping for cosmetics.

Some 48% of cosmetics and beauty shoppers use a mobile phone for every purchase, with a further 35% using one “most of the time”.

Globally, 59% of everything spent online on beauty and personal care products is attributable to mobile devices, a figure that has increased by two or three percentage points per year since 2019.

Therefore, it is unsurprising that brands and retailers not only follow a mobile-first approach to designing digital experiences for their customers but they also innovate with the functionality that smartphones enable. Cameras, video, user-generated content and social media are all being embraced by retailers,
brands, and the customers looking to become more knowledgeable about cosmetics and beauty ingredients and the latest trends, as well as be entertained as part of their shopping experience.

The recently published RetailX Global Beauty 2024 report, authored by Emma Herrod, shows an industry driven by newness, and consumers passionate about their purchases and loyal to certain brands.

Download the full report here, for an in-depth look into the market. It uses RetailX analysis and interviews with major retailers to outline the state of the beauty and cosmetics industry.

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Argos has been part of the Sainsbury’s group since 2016 and it now sells from a range of more than 60,000 products through what Sainsbury’s says is the fourth-most visited retail website in the UK, seeing an average of 1bn visits every year. Indeed, half of UK households buy from it each year. 

70% of Argos sales start online, with items collected through its own standalone stores, at Argos digital format stores within branches of Sainsbury’s, at dedicated collection points or ordered for delivery through its Fast Track service, which promises home delivery in as little as four hours. 70% of online sales are collected instore, with 70% of click and collect orders available for immediate collection. 

By March 2025, the brand expects to have 190 standalone Argos stores, up to 460 shops within branches of Sainsbury’s and up to 500 collection points. This reflects the continuation of a strategy to cut operating costs at the brand and boost profitability. 

In its latest full-year figures, for the 52 weeks to 2 March 2024, J Sainsbury plc reports pre-tax profits of £277mn (-15.3%) on group revenue of £32.7bn (+3.8%). Argos sales were 1.6% up on the previous year. 

The strategy for Argos is now to improve customer awareness of its range, convenient customer experience and value in order to encourage shoppers to buy more products, more frequently. Sainsbury’s will focus on improving its digital capabilities through its website, app and customer relationship management in order to improve traffic, basket spend and conversion. 

According to Sainsbury’s full-year results statement, the aim is “to build customer engagement through improving our digital, loyalty and services experiences. We will continue to refine our operating model in stores and deliver better availability and service at a lower cost to serve.” 

Its strategy is reflected on its transactional website, where the Argos brand emphasises convenient fulfilment options including same- or next-day delivery and a range that extends from technology and furniture, to toys, clothing and health and beauty products. Its homepage also features a store finder showing the locations where shoppers can collect their orders.

The RetailX UK 360° report 2024 offers a briefing on the UK market as a whole, on how shoppers buy and want to buy, on the retailers, brands and marketplaces that are succeeding in this market, and the services that the most successful provide to their customers. 

This report gives an all-round view of this mature market to retail businesses, whether they already trade in this market or are considering a move into or expansion within this market.

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Customer attraction and retention was named as one of the top three challenges facing their businesses over the next 12 months by the 500 UK retailers surveyed, along with managing increased costs and mitigating the impact of cost-of-living pressures on consumer spending.

A third (33%) of retailers said they wanted to make the most of their social media channels to build a community among their customers and drive brand loyalty. 

As a result, investment in marketing and branding was pinpointed as the top area for investment; over a half (53%) of those surveyed who are planning to invest in this area said they would funnel funds into boosting social media activity.  

TikTok has built a reputation for showcasing new and popular product trends, however the study highlighted that smaller retailers are about three times less likely to have a presence on TikTok than their larger counterparts (43% large retailers vs 14% SME retailers). Almost one third (29%) of small merchants surveyed said they would like to launch their presence on TikTok this year. 

“Social media is a key channel for retailers of all sizes, enabling them to reach new customers and build a community around their brand” said Dan Edelman, general manager, UK Merchant Services at American Express.

Discover how organic social remains an important way for retailers and brands to reach consumers in the newly published DigitalX 2024 report.

Inside the report we discuss how marketers need to deal with the challenges here at the same time as grappling with advances in fields such as deep tech, AI, data science, social trends, platforms and behavioural analysis.

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N Brown Group’s full year results, for the 52 weeks to 02 March, reported a pre-tax profit of £5.3mn, up from a loss of £71.1mn the year before. However, group revenue decreased 9.8% which the group said reflected “the continued challenging market conditions”.

N Brown’s statement stressed that the group had made progress in its transformation plans, thanks to an the launch of Jacamo’s new mobile-first website and the introduction of Product Information Management (‘PIM’) system.

It has also worked on its third-party brands offering, with Simply Be also launching a lifestyle sports brand TALA and started offering select lines in Sainsbury’s stores. Additionally, JD Williams introduced its Anthology premium line.

Steve Johnson, chief executive of N Brown Group, said: “We have delivered against our strategic and financial objectives this year. We have kept to our transformation plans, despite the macro-economic backdrop, whilst building resilience through our strong balance sheet, and achieving adjusted EBITDA above market expectations.

“Our customers are now seeing tangible benefits from our transformation, with an enhanced experience being delivered by our new websites and our recently launched Product Information Management system ensuring customers have more detailed product descriptions to inform their purchases.

“Looking ahead, our strong liquidity position allows for continued investment in our strategy, positioning the business for sustainable growth whilst always improving the customer experience.”

Learn more about how retailers and brands are put digital at the heart of their operations in the brand new DigitalX 2024 report.

Launched during RetailX Event’s Spring Festival, the report looks at how retailers and brands build customer engagement and loyalty; what is AI good for; and includes case studies on Shein, Ugg, Deckers Brands, John Lewis, Sweaty Betty, Nike, HP, Sainsburys, L’Oreal, Pepsico and Kingfisher.

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As the website has approximately 3.5 million visits a month, and around 50% of all Royal Mail non-account parcel sales now take place online, the company undertook research and user testing to understand what they needed from the site’s homepage.

Over 80% of users said they wanted either to buy postage or track an item. As a result, the ‘Send’ and ‘Track’ sections are now featured most prominently on the homepage.

Therefore the new homepage features a revamped header with improved navigation to make the website simpler to use and more visually appealing. Key areas of the site have been highlighted to help consumers find what they are looking for more easily.

Rachel Levy, Royal Mail’s head of digital production, said: “With more and more customers using the Royal Mail website to pay for postage, we wanted to make sure the journey is as smooth as possible for them. This revamped version offers a sleek, user-friendly design that makes navigation a breeze. It provides an exceptional user experience across all devices and easy access to our most popular services.”

Customers who purchase parcel postage online can either arrange to have their item collected via Parcel Collect or take it to one of thousands of drop off points including Post Offices, parcel lockers, convenience stores offering Collect+ or parcel postboxes.

At the end of May, it was confirmed that International Distribution Services, the owner of Royal Mail, has accepted a £3.6bn takeover bid. IDS stressed the agreement included a series of “contractual commitments” to protect public service aspects of the Royal Mail.

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That’s not just because of GDPR considerations but also because digital technologies are now so ubiquitous that talking about consumers ‘surfing the web’ seems like a throwback to a past era. Almost without us realising it, we are entering a Web 3.0 world.

In less grand terms, as shoppers, we browse across different channels without giving it a second thought, as ConsumerX research into how we discover products reveals. Among other factors, influencers, coupons, social media posts, advertising, newsletters and mobile app notifications all play into purchase decisions.

Worldwide, for example, 38.4% of respondents tell ConsumerX that general coupons and discounts are a factor in choosing new products. Email newsletters influence 17.3% of shoppers, while 23.3% respond to mobile app notifications.

The multiple variables here are so complex as to resist human analysis, hence the emerging emphasis on data and machine learning. But even these are not enough in themselves.

To return to where we began for a moment, memorable customer experiences – including the instore experience – play a key role in securing sales. Apple customers may value stores in which they are encouraged to play, while John Lewis shoppers might value its reassuring shopfloor partners on hand
to share their expertise, yet both create customer loyalty and ensure returning custom in their own ways.

Crucially, returning customers not only tend to spend more, they also typically share more data with retailers and brands.
For such reasons, while there will always be a place for performance marketing where the relationship between outcome and cost is transparent, retailers and brands have now routinely begun to look at the entire customer journey. A new consensus around best practice within digital marketing is emerging.

The term that’s been coined here is ‘full-funnel marketing’ and the underlying philosophy is about speaking to consumers in ways that chime with what they’re doing and where they are in the decision- making process of awareness/consideration/ conversion.
As to how to build a strategy around this idea, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. However, any strategy will likely take in:

• Clear objectives and KPIs
• A clear understanding of different kinds
  of customer
• Content that goes beyond sales material
• Testing user experiences
• Automation, testing and iteration

Currently, different retailers and brands display different levels of sophistication here. As we see with the case studies in this report, larger businesses have richer data sets to draw on, which is certainly an advantage. On the other hand, smaller companies are often closer to their consumers, which makes them better at building one-to-one relationships.
Whatever the approach, the idea of using digital technologies to drive memorable customer experiences isn’t going to go away. Rather, it will become central to 21st-century retail.

This is just one feature from the recently published DigitalX 2024 report. Inside the report we discuss how marketers need to deal with the challenges here at the same time as grappling with advances in fields such as deep tech, AI, data science, social trends, platforms and behavioural analysis.

Case Studies: – Shein, Ugg, Deckers Brands, John Lewis, Sweatty Betty, Nike, HP, Sainsburys, L’Oreal, Pepsico and Kingfisher.

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