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It is still e-commerce but not as we know it because the increasing use of AI and the rise of social commerce on platforms such as TikTok are having a growing impact and redrawing the landscape of online retail.
These were underlying themes that came from the recent The Retail Bulletin Ecom North 2025 conference in Manchester where Amanda Uduku, partnership manager at TikTok Shop UK, put a packed room of delegates straight about TikTok: “If you regard it as a dancing app then you are very wrong. It is a content-first platform of videos whereby you can click on a shopping basket and in five clicks you’ve bought something.”
Discovery-led retail
Unlike other e-commerce activity on traditional retail sites TikTok is about discovery and brands are regarded as creators and there is a great opportunity for retailers on the platform, according to Uduku: “It’s not just Gen Z and it’s not the dancing app. It’s about tapping into new audiences for brands. We have people on the site in their 50s and 60s.”
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The community aspect of TikTok offers a big opportunity for retailers and brand owners as they can amplify their messaging and communication. “In a retail store the employee can only talk to one or two people but on TikTok Shop they can talk to lots of people at once. We’re a leader in social commerce and I can’t see it changing.”
This ability to reach a wide audience with limited resources has made TikTok Shop a very powerful platform for small retailers and boosted their presence as many have gained massive community followings from running TikTok ‘Live’ shopping events.
Care needed with AI
Although TikTok Shop uses AI for helping creators/retailers with things like optimising their product descriptions and titles Uduku suggests they take care with using such technology as it is the human aspect that appeals most to audiences on TikTok.
Georgie Collins, head of IP & head of US desk at Irwin Mitchell, also recommends care when using AI for content because there are risks involved. Whereas she says the “old world content was user generated this is not the case with AI and GenAI that pulls in data from multiple sources and amalgamates it”. The creation of derivative images can be dangerous as it brings in the prospects of copyright and trademark infringements as well as the distortion of brands.
Emily Long, CEO of Genie Goals, suggests a simple ethos for retailers as they potentially envelop themselves in AI and are overwhelmed with possible use-cases: “Be AI-led, not AI-controlled.”
There was, however, universal positivity at the conference to the potential opportunities AI presents to the retail industry. André Sousa, co-founder of Inovretail, is particularly gung-ho and suggests it differs to other technologies in that many tech solutions in the past were a rebrand of the previous year’s version. And you also had to change whole eco-systems to bring in these new technologies.
Creativity is the differentiator
“With AI it can be done fast. Business people were scared about technology but with AI creativity is the limit [on possibilities]. AI can work with unstructured data and things don’t have to be tidy. I love the human elements of AI and it’s their creativity that will be the differentiator. This revolution will be different to previous [technology] revolutions,” he says.
This thinking chimes with that of Olaf Akkerman, general manager of retail and consumer goods industry at Microsoft UK, who says: “Technology was the prohibitor but today it is human ingenuity that is holding things back. Technology does not determine this, it simply provides the powerful tools to help companies get there.”
He says it can “take skilled people away from mundane tasks,” adding that there is so much talk about robots taking over the world with AI but that with any such solutions it is the human capital component that is the biggest asset.
Not about replacing humans
Simon Ellis, head of AI transformation & enterprise architecture at Pets at Home, is countering this perception by repositioning AI as Assistance Intelligence within his business. “It’s not about replacing humans, they are always in the loop. The autonomous agents always go back to their human overlords,” he says.
Pets at Home was an early adopter of Microsoft’s Co-pilot autonomous agents and Ellis is using it to power fraud detection. It is able to take the heavy workload off his colleagues by collating data from various sources and analysing – including image analysis – on suspected fraudulent transactions in order to make quick decisions.
“It’s integrated with the personnel in the fraud department and has allowed decisions to be made in seconds that would have taken 30 minutes. We can identify fraud 10-times faster and the department can process 20-times more cases. It’s a fraud-fighters dream,” he says.
Automating scheduling
AI is also being successfully leveraged for automating the scheduling of hourly workers, according to Michael Spataro, chief customer officer at Legion, who says: “It is critical for employers to manage labour efficiency and also provide the best experience for employees. This has to be done simultaneously and requires intelligent automation [using AI].”
The technology takes in multiple data feeds including information that can provide accurate sales forecasts along with weather predictions and details about local events and the preferences and capabilities of employees. These all contribute to determining employee requirements on each day and a schedule that suits these demands.
Spataro says as much as 80% of preferences of employees are met by the scheduling, which can contribute greatly to their experiences and help reduce staff turnover. According to a survey from Legion – ‘State of Hourly Workforce UK’ – 72% of employees want schedule flexibility and empowerment. It is clearly a key determinant to retention.
Paul Hornby, former digital customer experience (DCX) director at The Very Group, suggests finding such solutions that balance the needs of the customers and the organisation is a real problem facing retailers today. Too often he says managements take the option of cost-cutting rather than investing in new solutions as it represents guaranteed returns.
Beware of cost-cutting
“There is a culture of business cases not stacking up. Making large capex investments are never guaranteed to deliver while cost reductions are money in the till. Retailers need a tech strategy that supports the overall strategy. What’s the North Star of the business? There needs to be a balance between improving efficiency and improving customer experience and stickiness. You’ll not have engaged customers if you are just cutting budgets and costs,” he explains.
Where he is seeing AI impact retailers positively is with improving online product search. “The accuracy of search has not been what customers want. Now that AI-powered search is taking off you can see the conversions and click-through rates are higher. You can see how this would sell more gear,” says Hornby.
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