parcelLab among world’s top start-ups helping retailers rebuild from Covid

Most retailers know they need to work with tech start-ups to give them a competitive edge – it is understanding which firms are going to truly add value that is the challenge. Judged by a panel of retail and start-up experts*, the Discovery report tells retailers all they need to know.

Virtual try-on assistants, vertical farming, ‘save now, buy later’ payments, in-store marketing robots and bookable shop space are just a handful of fresh-thinking players featured.

And it is this fresh thinking that is required if retailers and brands are to remain competitive and balance bottom lines with customer expectations as disruption from the pandemic persists.

Featuring solutions from supply chain and store innovations to personalisation, AI, data and marketing, the report looks at how retailers have benefited from adapting their businesses – and their thinking – to lean into a whole new set of disruptions, trends and challenges.

The start-ups operate across all parts of the world, from Europe and the US to Singapore and Israel, and have worked with more than 30 retailers and brands including Tesco, M&S, Nespresso, Asos, Carrefour, Samsung, Depop,  AO.com and John Lewis Partners.

Ian Shepherd has been one of the Discovery judges for the past two years. Shepherd is non-executive director at Bensons for Beds, former CEO at retailer Game, author of The Average is Always Wrong and runs the consultancy Moving Tribes where he advises retailers, digital start-ups and consumer businesses.

Shepherd commented: “This year’s Discovery cohort – just like last year’s – are going to be critical to the future of our sector.”

“A different retail sector is possible, a million miles from the old world of ‘how many stores are you going to open?’ and ‘what was your like-for-like last quarter?’ – a retail sector that marries the instinctive customer understanding any good retailer has with the innovation and laser-like focus that new technology allows.”

About parcelLab

parcelLab is the leading Operations Experience Management platform globally.

We bring people and brands closer together by closing the experience gap post-sales and beyond, transforming operational complexity into opportunities to outperform for 500+ brands worldwide, including IKEA, Bose, Puma, Farfetch and Nespresso.

With offices in Munich, London, Paris and New York, we have been highlighted by the Financial Times as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in 2021.

It’s all in a day’s work for us:

• Monitoring over three million shipments per day
• Actively managing operations experiences in 153 countries across the globe
• Sending around seven million pro-active, personalized, event-driven emails
• Tracking shipping data from more than 150+ carriers worldwide, including DHL, FedEx & DPD
• Creating over 30 million reasons for people to fall in love with brands each day

For brands, that means more chances to create relationships that last. And for the people that buy from them, it means turning mundane operational moments into moments of joy.

You can read the Discovery 50 report here.