Retail 100 2025: The Experience Innovators

Tom Athron, CEO, Fortnum & Mason

While premium retailers have been far from immune to the cost-of-living crisis, Fortnum & Mason chief executive Tom Athron has weathered the storm. The luxury department store reported a 14% year-on-year rise in sales at its UK store in its full-year results to July 2024, as international spenders made up for “a more cautious domestic customer and a challenging UK economic backdrop”. Pre-tax profits rose 24% to £9.3m, with a 10% growth in like-for-like sales over the Christmas period.

Athron oversaw a year of innovations by the iconic shop, designed to maximise customer experience. These included his announcement of the installation of a double helix staircase aimed at drawing customers to the Piccadilly store. In March 2025, Fortnum & Mason announced it would begin delivering to London customers “within minutes” via a partnership with rapid delivery company Zapp, an initiative the retailer said was a first of its kind for a high-end retailer. The retailer also celebrated its 10-year relationship with Heathrow with the opening of a Christmas pop-up at the airport, which will remain open until September this year. Under Athron’s guidance, Fortnum & Mason’s exemplary customer performance continues to hit the mark, winning the Best Retailer Under £250m Award at the Retail Week Awards 2025.

Graham Bell, CEO, B&Q

Graham Bell is a man with a vision to make the experience of buying big-ticket items more convenient and streamlined for consumers. In February 2025, he told Retail Week he would like everyone to have a ‘passport’ to their house. This is a portal that includes important information like serial numbers and warranties for appliances, costs for big projects, and mood boards for home design.

“In my mind, it would be a total tool that helps you live your life and look after your home as well,” he said. The DIY giant’s offering has grown to encompass some of that vision, with Bell overseeing a digital transformation.

Bell’s laser focus on customer experience also includes a trial of super-fast delivery on almost 10,000 items with Deliveroo, expanded tool hire and even robot deliveries. Meanwhile, more customers are set to benefit from the B&Q experience, with the introduction of more shops, including premises snapped up from the collapse of rival Homebase. B&Q spent £5.7m on eight ex-Homebase stores in the UK and Ireland in 2024.

Sarah Boyd, UK MD, Sephora

“We are thrilled to bring a second beauty playground to our customers in this vibrant and culturally rich city,” said Sarah Boyd in February 2025, on the opening of a 10th Sephora UK store, at Manchester’s Arndale Centre. The quote sums up two of the beauty brand’s key traits – a playful focus on customer experience, and a determination to expand. Its arrival in Manchester last year drew a crowd of 2,000 people by 8am.

Product, experience, community and team are at the heart of Sephora’s business in the UK, where the brand was relaunched just two years ago. Over the past 12 months, Boyd has leaned into the brand’s loyalty scheme, which offers reward points, bespoke experiences and an exclusive birthday gift to signed-up customers.

Sephora won Retail Week’s Speciality Retailer of the Year Award in 2025. The judges were particularly impressed by the beauty retailer’s “ability to capture attention,” mastery of viral marketing and delivery of a “flagship experience in every store”.

Mark Constantine, CEO, Lush

Despite headwinds under Mark Constantine’s continued leadership, Lush has focused on customer experience. There was the opening of a new store and spa in Covent Garden in August 2024, while its playful Glasgow branch won it a Silver award for Best New Store at Retail Week’s 2025 awards.

In July, it opened an experience-focused Perfume Library on Beak Street in London’s Soho. It even recently revealed plans to open a UK hotel.

Constantine is one of the industry’s long-standing champions of sustainability in business. But the proposition of a more ethical and less profit-hungry mindset, which is always a hard sell when the bottom line is at stake, gets tougher when market conditions worsen.

Lush’s losses grew to £42.6m in the full year to June 2024, up from the £28.1m loss it made in 2023. An uncertain environment around international trade has certainly dampened sales at some brands, and Constantine has hit out at some of the forces at work, including the possible implications of President Trump’s imposed tariffs, such as passing on costs to US consumers.

Roisin Currie, CEO, Greggs

The Greggs experience, curated by chief executive Roisin Currie, is reaching more people than ever before. In March 2025, the food retailer said it had achieved £2bn in sales for the previous financial year, up 11.3% year on year.

It also opened its 2,600th shop in November 2024 and, over the reporting period, opened an average of four shops every week. “The brand is in better shape than ever, with a material opportunity to continue growing and developing the Greggs estate and plenty of scope to continue to grow in newer dayparts and channels,” Currie said. She was referring to two pillars of the strategy she is implementing alongside store growth – opening later, to capture the business of evening commuters and late-night travellers, and expanding Greggs’ digital offering.

While keeping bestsellers such as the iconic sausage roll, Currie has also extended its range to offer healthier options like salads and flatbreads, while hot food like pizza and chicken goujons are selling well to that later-in-the-day segment.

James Daunt, CEO, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble

The last 12 months must have been satisfying for James Daunt as far as his UK interests go. The Waterstones boss has several times teased the idea that the book retailer might go public, with that likelihood increased by recent bumper financials.

His advocacy for physical bookshops and his firm stance that bookselling demands tangible experiences in inspiring stores with engaged employees continues to drive success.

Profits leapt to £32.8m in the most recently reported financial year, from £12m, while annual sales increased 17%. Waterstones said its physical stores were getting busier again as the world continued to bounce back from the pandemic, with more workers back in city centres and tourism rebounding.

Also recognising the benefits of positive consumer perception online, Daunt credited social media trends with some of the increased popularity of shops and books as BookTokkers and Instagram influencers continue to delight in profiling attractive bookshops and posting about physical books.

As chief executive of American chain Barnes & Noble, Daunt also has a huge US interest that might be feeling less buoyant. Although he told Publisher’s Weekly in January that the retailer had a “fantastic” year in product categories such as gifts, he admitted book sales were “average”, especially compared to the 2023 explosion of sales brought about by Prince Harry’s book Spare.  

In April 2025, Waterstones paused exporting to the US in the wake of tariffs.

Ben Francis, CEO, Gymshark

Gymshark’s year featured a string of high-profile hires, social media wins and big leaps forward in the activewear maker’s expansion plans.

Ben Francis, the entrepreneur who founded the brand and is serving as its chief executive, has brought on board top team talent from companies such as Adidas and Farfetch, while the business’ stellar social media strategy has leaned into TikTok and launching grabby campaigns like the Sweat Gala – a photo series of red-carpet dresses made from athleisure wear to coincide with the iconic Met Gala.

However, over the last couple of years, profits have slowed. For the full year to July 31, 2024, profit before tax fell from £13.1m to £11.9m, a result of ongoing “strategic investment” into omnichannel expansion. It was a year of record sales for the brand, with revenue surpassing £600m for the first time.

There are signs of more headwinds. In April 2025, the company said around 296 roles were at risk of redundancy due to “macroeconomic volatility.” Francis will hope grand bricks-and-mortar plans prove profitable in the long term, including a new store opening in Dubai and the announcement of Gymshark’s first US store in New York.

Moving forward, strategy will still focus on community and product, with the idea of connection – with other fitness enthusiasts and sports teams, for example – central to its marketing approach.

Julia Goddard, CEO, Harvey Nichols

Julia Goddard joins the Retail 100 for the first time this year, after less than 12 months in the job.

Goddard took on the role of chief executive at the company that runs the historic London store after being poached from her longstanding job at fashion house Alexander McQueen. She brought with her a “strong focus on retail excellence,” according to her new employer, and a track record of opening stores in London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Dubai, Kuwait and Qatar.

Company results published in April for the previous year didn’t paint an encouraging picture of Harvey Nichols at the time that Goddard joined. Revenue fell to £204.87m from £216.64m, and gross profit slipped to £90.4m from £98.4m. That left an operating loss of £27.4m, much bigger than the £15.4m loss the previous year.

Goddard will be watched closely to see if she can turn Harvey Nichols’ fortunes around. She’s recruited a new creative director and chief merchant, and the team will be focused on how to make a high-end experience attractive to customers during a time when some feel financially stretched.

In 2025, Goddard has put a renewed impetus on brand identity and customer engagement, as well as financial stability. Experience will be in focus both at stores – with revamped layouts and a more immersive experience created through design changes to shopping areas and restaurants – and online, via a partnership with OSF Digital to build a centralised customer engagement platform for a more omnichannel offering.

Phil Halliday, MD, HMV

When HMV announced it was reopening its historic Oxford Street store, six years after it was bought out of administration, iconic singer-songwriter Kate Bush reached out to congratulate the company.

“I couldn’t believe it!” HMV managing director Phil Halliday told Retail Week last year. “I mean, f***ing hell, that’s crazy.” Halliday joins HMV owner Doug Putman in the Retail 100 this year in recognition of his part in the company’s impressive turnaround.

HMV’s Oxford Street store is buzzy and edgy, selling vinyl and music merchandise as well as some CDs and DVDs to cater to a variety of demographics. The space is also used for launch events, and Halliday wants to branch out into gigs. The idea makes sense, coming as it does from a former promotions manager for musicians.

In November 2024, further store openings were put on hold and HMV was among the first retailers to publicly point to the UK Budget as dampening physical expansion plans. But sales have more than doubled in the last three years, it reported in March, with turnover of £189.5m for the 12 months to May 30, 2024, up from £177.9m the previous year.

Anthony Houghton, CEO, Holland & Barrett UK & Ireland

“January is our Christmas,” Anthony Houghton told Retail Week after he became chief executive of health retailer Holland & Barrett for UK and Ireland in mid-2024. It makes sense because the retailer’s customers are typically looking to focus on healthy eating, supplements and exercise, rather than indulgence.

Houghton joins the Retail 100 for the first time this year, firmly in the category of the Experience Innovators.

Entering a Holland & Barrett store should mean customers have a chance to interact in person with expert staff – a typical such interaction lasts 11 minutes, according to the company’s data. Houghton says that his biggest investment is probably in training, with the ‘qualified to advise’ scheme equivalent to an A-level, and the use of the Cerebro app on the shop floor to help advise on specific needs and search for suitable products.

March brought the launch of the retailer’s ‘experience store’ in Cardiff, offering yoga and pilates classes, as well as products and other services. This followed on from two high-profile openings on London’s Oxford Street and tie-ups with Ocado and Next.

Houghton’s customer-centric focus has continued to see the business thrive. Sales grew 10% year on year to reach £884.5m in the financial year to 20 September 2024, while gross profit grew to £524m, compared with £476m the year before, and customer numbers reached an all-time high, up 9%.

Peter Jelkeby, country regional manager, Ikea UK

Ikea’s offering has increasingly been about experience this year, with the retailer snapping up several former Homebase locations to create “refreshingly compact” stores.

Peter Jelkeby told Retail Week that customers in the new shops “will experience a condensed showroom” and “get inspiration in a more simplistic way”. Some of the new stores will be in retail parks, which Ikea is curious about, having mostly dedicated its activity to big-box stores.

This year also brought the opening of the long-awaited Oxford Street branch in May. Jelkeby explained: “It’s a bit of a global store… we have curated the shop and we’re showing how Londoners live and presenting that as a thread across the store.” Ikea continues to invest in tech, piloting a furniture resale site, which also ties into its, and Jelkeby’s, sustainability efforts.

In results reported in November 2024, Ikea said group net profits rose to €2.2bn (£1.85bn) last year, up from €1.6bn (£1.34bn) in 2023, mostly due to lower interest rate expenses. Revenues were down for the period after Ikea cut prices, an attempt to return to affordability after costs and prices rose over the previous two years because of industry-wide supply chain disruption and more expensive raw materials.

Andy Lightfoot, MD, Space NK

Expect to see a lot more of Andy Lightfoot’s Space NK this year. The premium beauty brand is using its excellent results as a springboard to open several new locations, focusing on real-life customer experience.

Announcing that the retailer would open 10 new shops in the coming year, and 10 each year in the medium term, Lightfoot said he is a “real believer” in physical retail. In March, Space NK heralded the opening of an Oxford Street flagship. “The mission with our flagship is to push boundaries once again on what can be achieved with an in-store shopping experience, which will add another page in the story of Space NK, as well as celebrate 30 years as a leading British beauty retailer,” Lightfoot said.

Space NK’s turnover rose 34% to £196.5m in the year to March 2024, and pre-tax profit climbed from £1.5m to £7.5m in the same period. Between April and September 2024, Lightfoot said sales were up 38% year on year, driven by growth in the customer base. That growth is in large part due to innovation, including wins at the brand’s loyalty programme Ndulge.

While Lightfoot continues to be a leader in customer experience, it’s his strategic muscles that may need flexing moving forward, as Space NK’s owner Manzanita Capital has recently hoisted a ‘for sale’ sign over the beauty brand.

Peter Macnab, CEO, AS Watson UK

Superdrug, Savers and The Perfume Shop are focusing increasingly on customer experience, ramping up their own brand offerings and improving online sales, under the oversight of group chief Peter Macnab.

Commenting after the group’s Christmas 2024 results came in, Macnab said: “2025 will be an exciting year for us as we continue to enhance our in-store experience and invest in our Only at Superdrug product innovations and exclusives, to give customers reasons to keep returning to Superdrug.”

Superdrug is the biggest brand in the AS Watson stable, and its Christmas results were eye-catching. Online sales grew by 21% year on year for the period, and like-for-like sales were up 5.1% in the four weeks to January 4, compared to the previous year. Much of that growth was attributed to own-brand gift sets and hair care products, the company said.

The retailer intends to open 25 new shops in 2025, with sites “specifically designed to immerse, inform and engage customers,” while Macnab is still committed to keeping costs down to support families.

Continuing to bolster the customer experience, in April 2025, Superdrug launched new digital screens in store, helping digitalise its estate and enable Superdrug suppliers to target “the right customer, with the right advert, at the right time”.

It is also transforming its high street healthcare proposition and investing £1m in a new healthcare ambassador programme to help increase public access to health and wellbeing expertise.

André Maeder, CEO, Selfridges

The world of department stores was shocked when, in July 2024, Andrew Keith announced he was leaving as chief executive of high-end retailer Selfridges after three years in the role. André Maeder stepped into the breach, having only joined the company that May from German department store KaDeWe.

He’ll be focusing on experience at the luxury London retailer, ensuring the offering remains attractive and draws people in.

Selfridges unveiled a new benefit as part of its loyalty scheme, rewarding customers for the time they spend in store as well as how much money they spend – the first membership programme to do so. The “Selfridges Unlocked” scheme has over 1.3 million active members, with those who collect 200 digital keys becoming a VSP or “very Selfridges person” and thereby receive more perks.

According to some, Maeder has his work cut out for him. Faced with pandemic recovery, the move to online shopping and cost-conscious consumers making more considered choices about where to spend, most big department stores are seeking new ways to attract customers.

But Maeder looks to be tackling the issues head-on. “In retail, you have to keep evolving and innovating, as our founder, Harry Gordon Selfridge, knew over 100 years ago,” he has said. “Selfridges has been unafraid to challenge the status quo and do things differently. We strive to be a social destination that people visit not only to shop but to spend the day.”

Adil Mehboob-Khan, CEO, Liberty

2025 marks 150 years of iconic luxury department store Liberty, which, under chief executive Adil Mehboob-Khan’s leadership, continues to innovate both online and across the six floors of its heritage-listed London store on Great Marlborough Street.

Where other department store groups have been busy creating experiences to drive footfall and ensure survival, the Liberty store itself is an experience. Yet, it continues to evolve its offer, including its new Fragrance Lounge, launched in March 2024, labelled a “first-of-its-kind fragrance destination”, which features a bespoke ‘Noseum’, which is a 3D interactive wall of noses by sculptor Tasha Marks where select noses emit molecules from a rotation of world-renowned perfumers.

In May 2024, it introduced an immersive pop-up experience in partnership with the hit Netflix and Shondaland TV series Bridgerton, housing “decadent room sets” inspired by some of Bridgerton’s most famous scenes and locations, while also offering a collection of newly designed fabrics as part of the collaboration.

Mehboob-Khan spoke to The Telegraph in late 2024, about concerns that the government’s retail-impacting Budget policies will make British businesses less competitive. However, he was also keen to flag the strength of the department store’s performance before the Budgetary changes coming into effect.

John Mewett, CEO, Screwfix

Screwfix started 2025 with a bang, announcing that it would be opening up to 35 new stores in the year, creating more than 400 jobs. The rollout is being led by its new convenience-focused Screwfix City locations.

John Mewett’s tone was upbeat. “Despite the challenges facing the retail industry, investing in our store network remains central,” he said.

Screwfix won the EV Cargo Digital Excellence Award at the Retail Week Awards 2025, in part down to its fast, nimble evolution. In 2022, it relied on catalogues, but now 74% of sales are conducted through its digital platforms. At the awards, Screwfix was praised for consistency across channels, offering 60,000 products through its app, and launching the Screwfix Sprint delivery service, which gets products to tradespeople in under an hour. Mewett is also eyeing expansion in France.

Taku Morikawa, CEO, Uniqlo Europe

When it comes to the shopping experience, Uniqlo’s recently opened three-storey store in London’s Coal Drops Yard exemplifies what the brand is trying to achieve.

The store is designed to be much more than a place to try on and buy clothes. On the second floor, customers can engage with RE:Uniqlo, a studio that helps people mend, reuse and recycle garments. They can also augment clothing with ‘eki’ stamps – the collectable rubber stamps often found at Japanese train stations, and a service that’s unique to this store. On the terrace, customers can buy Japanese-inspired snacks through a partnership with a local pan-Asian market.

Fast Retailing, the parent company of Uniqlo, is channeling part of its impressive global resource into UK expansion that’s big in scale and detailed in terms of offering, and which Taku Morikawa is overseeing.

Fast Retailing’s sales exceeded £15bn for the first time in October 2024, a 12.2% increase on the previous year. In March 2025, Uniqlo confirmed three new UK store openings in Liverpool, Glasgow and Birmingham this year, which will feature the increasingly familiar offerings of repair, personalisation and fashion that’s designed to last.

Demetra Pinsent, CEO, Charlotte Tilbury

Demetra Pinsent is back on the Retail 100 list for the second year running, cementing her place as an experience specialist in the beauty field.

The premium makeup brand has continued to focus on its dual strategy of opening destination stores and curating a personal experience online. In January, it opened the doors of its most impressive store to date, a 4,300 sq ft flagship in Covent Garden complete with makeup experts on hand to give advice, and spaces dedicated to influencer and celebrity marketing events.

Brand founder Charlotte Tilbury labelled it a “store of the future” with “education, futuristic tech, Instagrammable moments, themed worlds and bookable areas”.

Pinsent is integral to all those areas and, in the brand’s 12th year, the strategy is certainly paying off. Sales rose by almost £140m in 2023 to £448.5m, according to results reported in September 2024, and pre-tax profit increased from £10.5m to £14.4m over the same period. International growth was behind some of that increase – the brand now sells in Ireland, the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany. But the UK, overseen by Pinsent, is still its heartland, and its personalised experience is still one of the keys to how successful it’s been at capturing and keeping customers.

Gill Smith, MD, The Perfume Shop

Gill Smith has earned her place in the Retail 100 largely due to the perfume specialist’s focus on customer experience.

The retailer has also achieved physical expansion and revenue growth, as well as innovating in personalisation and availability.

Christmas and Valentine’s Day were both particularly buoyant times for perfume in the last 12 months. Christmas was “a record-breaking year,” Smith said, with 2 million bottles sold in the run-up to Christmas and a 54% jump in sales in the final week of shopping. Personalisation services also generated a rise of 8% compared with 2023, with 300,000 ribbons and 8,000 engraved perfumes sold.

The year has included an expanded partnership between The Perfume Shop and Deliveroo, offering over 1,000 perfumes for quick delivery around the busiest times of the year. At least 27 stores were refitted over the year, and the retailer announced plans to use parent company AS Watson’s OptimO retail media ecosystem to deliver “innovative solutions” that help brands create “more effective and personalised” advertising experiences.

Smith will be hoping that The Perfume Shop’s full-year results, due later in the year, show a resurgence from its last report in July 2024. Profits at the retailer fell to £18.6m in 2023 from £21m in 2022 on “subdued” customer sentiment.

Peter Wood, CEO, AllSaints

AllSaints had cause to celebrate in 2024, which marked the fashion retailer’s 30th anniversary.

Peter Wood, the company’s CEO and a big advocate of “feel good” shopping experiences, will likely have been celebrating for other reasons too. After a big international expansion, AllSaints reported its fourth record financial year in five years.

A strong performance in wholesale, franchise and licensing was the jewel in AllSaints’ crown as operating profit surged by 40% to £39.9m in the 12 months to February 3, 2023, the brand reported in September 2024.

Over the last year, AllSaints has continued to innovate, launching new categories including premium childrenswear and adding rental and repair services to its portfolio. Another reason for the brand to pop the champagne corks – it won Fashion Retailer of the Year at the Retail Week Awards 2025.