There’s a tendency in retail to declare each new wave of transformation as the one that finally ‘changes everything’. Multichannel did it. Then omnichannel. Then unified commerce. Now AI. In their own way, each new development does indeed augment the sector, but not with the explosive power industry discussion seems to indicate.
Like all things, retail adapts. Whereas some adopt early and feel out the leading path, others hang back (sometimes a little too long) and wait to see what makes real impact, and what turns out to be more of a buzzword than a benefit.
Chris Holyland’s career has taken him through every phase and every buzzword. As digital & omnichannel director at Currys, he’s moved from the shop floor to ecommerce leadership, to enterprise-wide omnichannel strategy. The terminology’s evolved rapidly, but the underlying principles, he argues, have not.
“A lot of the fundamentals of retail directly translate into the fundamentals of online retail and great customer experience,” he says. “Warm welcome. Qualify what the customer wants. Focus on their needs. Help them match their needs to a product. Make it easy for them to check out and buy. Make it easy for them to actually get the product. Offer great post-purchase experiences. It’s all the fundamentals of good retail.”
When he pivoted into online, he didn’t see it as a departure from traditional retailing at all. In fact, what he discovered were vital parrallels between the two worlds. “I had worked on becoming a great store manager, and I became a great online manager by applying those same principles.” That grounding still shapes how he views digital transformation today.
Holyland’s career has mirrored the industry’s structural shift from siloed ecommerce to multichannel coordination, to omnichannel integration, and now to what he describes as “seamless shopping and digital experiences”.
“I’ve been lucky enough to go through that pivot from being based in-store, to seeing online grow into a flourishing channel, to joining the dots between stores and online, to really seamless digital touchpoints,” he says. “I’ve been there and seen it all the way through.”
But his history on the coalface of these developments has proven that capability alone doesn’t equal cohesion.
For Holyland, omnichannel only truly works if the retailer recognises the customer across every stage of the journey, particularly for high-consideration purchases.
“It can take three to four weeks for someone to research a TV before they commit to buying it,” he explains. “This is a process.”
That process may begin with generative AI, comparison tools or online research. It may move into store for physical demos. It may return online for price comparisons or credit checks.
“Seamless customer journeys demand that the brand is there with them. Right from that first touchpoint, we need to be there, helping, guiding, nurturing.” Crucially, he believes retailers must be present before the buying moment. “The brand needs to warm you up and bring you along that journey. How can you as a retailer add value to the process? You can’t just wait for the customer to turn up ready to buy.”
“Our job is to make sure we can recognise the customer through all those different steps and not make them start again at each touchpoint. True continuity means exactly that, we’re there at any and all stages to assist, not in an obtrusive way, but as the discovery develops.”
He is particularly animated when describing what happens if that continuity breaks.
“The worst experience is when, as a customer, you go back into the store and you’re asked the same questions that you were asked four weeks ago. You think, ‘Oh blimey, I don’t want to have to go through this all over again!’”
At Currys, new features are being developed to reduce that friction constantly. Now, customers who browse or save items online can generate a QR or barcode that store colleagues scan, instantly surfacing their browsing history and favourites. Allowing them to pick right up where the cusomer is on their journey.
“If you’ve browsed online, show that barcode to a colleague in store and they’ll pick up where you left off. If you’ve put stuff in favourites, the colleague can scan your QR code and it’ll bring up the history.”
In practical terms, that enables a very different conversation. “I can say, ‘Right, I can see that you’re interested in the Samsung Frame TV. Let’s pick up where you left off.’” This is the difference between flashy innovation and buzzwords, he insists, and solid, grounded continuity.
Despite significant industry progress, Holyland is candid about the current state of play. With a very clear idea of what’s possible, he can see clearly where the gaps are in most strategies. “If I’m really honest, there’s very few retailers really maximising the opportunities available to them,” he says.
“You’re not seeing anybody leveraging the power of their different channels to do different things at different points in the buying decision,” he adds. That orchestration, recognising when to deploy digital guidance, when to lean into human advice, when to simplify finance options, is where competitive advantage now lies.
The rise of generative AI and large language models adds another layer of potential benefit, but also of complexity. This is especially true when it comes to agentic retail.
Holyland sees the potential of AI as both opportunity and accountability.
“We’re really excited about all the GEO work that we’re doing,” he says. “Because we understand you’re not just convincing a human, you’re convincing an objective agent that takes into account customer ratings, the strength of your content and, of course, pricing.”
When customers increasingly begin their research with conversational AI, brand visibility isn’t purely a function of paid media or keyword dominance. Authority, clarity and service quality begin to shape discoverability itself. “You can’t buy a good rating for not being good,” he states. “To get customers’ trust and build that relationship, you have to be truly exemplary.”
That philosophy extends internally. Currys’ recent performance improvements, he suggests, are rooted in recognising that trust is operational, not cosmetic. “We’ve massively improved over the last few years because we understand that to get the customer’s trust and build that relationship, you have to be consistent and dependable.”
As a judge at this year’s RG Awards, Holyland applies the same practical lens to evaluating excellence. “It’s not innovation for innovation’s sake,” he says. “I’ll be interested in whether our candidates make a true material difference to the customer journey. And then I’ll be interested in the customer results or the commercial results.”
He plans on evaluating entries through three interconnected filters. Those are customer centricity, commercial benefit and operational advantage. “I’m a bit of a sucker for operational benefits,” he laughs. “If you can make things simpler and easier, generally it costs less, it makes it easier for the operation.”
The strongest initiatives, in his view, sit at the intersection.
“The best projects I’ve ever done have always been customer-led, commercially focused and leveraged operational benefits.” That triad reflects his own leadership style. Grounded in frontline realities, but aligned to commercial performance.
After more than a decade of industry transformation, Holyland returns to a simple benchmark; the power of continuity. “Recognise me. Don’t make me start again,” he says.
Retail may continue to repackage its ambitions under new terminology. AI orchestration. Unified commerce. Composable ecosystems. But for Holyland, the real competitive edge lies in something far less fashionable and far more difficult.
Be there at the start of the journey. Guide intelligently. Join the dots, and never ask the same question twice. Because in modern retail, as he puts it, “you can’t fudge it”.
