The Retail Advent Calendar
- Juanita Neville-Te Rito
- 15 hours ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 11 minutes ago
12 Doors. 12 Days. 12 Moments That Shaped Our Year.
To wrap the year with a little fun (and a lot of insight), we’ve built the RX Retail Advent Calendar - a kind of retail in review.
We have put together 12 moments for you, each one revealing a defining moment of the year or a key lesson that shaped retail in 2025.
From award wins to global expansions, quiet market entries to bold industry conversations, each door holds a curated piece of the year we’ve shared with you - and a glimpse into what’s next.
Day 1: The Big WOW: IKEA's Masterclass in NZ Retail Strategy
This week, we’re in awe of IKEA’s grand opening in New Zealand. IKEA’s arrival to Aotearoa has meant more than opening a new store, it’s been a masterclass in market entry. From day one, they engaged the entire nation, turning a launch into a shared, heartfelt journey.
A true lesson in building community before the doors open with a bold, cohesive, and unmistakably Kiwi approach.
Want the full strategic breakdown?
👉 Read more in this week’s X-Files Unedited by Juanita Neville-Te Rito
Day 2: RX on Fire: Award-Winning Momentum
This year came with a special spark. A perfect 2 from 2. Not a bad strike rate.
We took home a RED Award for our work in collaboration with the brilliant team at THL, making it two entries and two wins for RX Group. The recognition matters, but the real win is the work itself: bold thinking, a brave client, and a project that genuinely pushed the future of retail forward
Day 3: Three New Stores and a Whole Lot of Momentum
Petdirect opened three new stores this year, all built from the award winning retail concept we brought to life together in 2024. From the very first idea on paper to the shelves stocked and doors open, this partnership has been pure retail joy.
A huge congratulations to the whole Petdirect crew (Petsters and beyond) for scaling a concept that customers genuinely love.
💥 Explore the case study
Day 4: The Retail Queens Speaks: 2+2 = 22
Our Founder and Managing Director, Juanita Neville-Te Rito, has taken the mic 22 times this year across the world (and that doesn’t include podcasts, radio or TV).
From one-on-one conversations with Executive Teams navigating the future of retail to thousand-plus audiences hungry for inspiration, every stage brought a new energy.
The furthest was Brazil, the closest was right here in Auckland. She braved croc-invested waters, climbed to the heights of Marina Bay Sands, froze in New York snow and lit up stages in Melbourne.
Big rooms, small rooms, boardrooms, ballrooms – this year absolutely rocked.
💥 Juanita Speaks: https://www.rxgroup.co.nz/professional-speaking
Day 5: Five Countries. Endless Inspiration
This year, our journey spanned Australia, Singapore, the USA, Thailand, and Canada.
From Melbourne to NYC (twice), Chicago, Denver, Bangkok, and Toronto, we traveled, listened, and learned—bringing home insights that shaped projects, informed strategies, and sparked new thinking.
And now, we're sharing the journey with you. Introducing STORiES.
We've captured our global retail discoveries so the whole community can explore, learn, and ride along. Because the best insights are those we grow together.
👉 Want to find out what we explored? Sign-up here and we will send you our last recording of Bangkok.
Day 6: The Longest Walk
Lost count of the stores walked. But the longest day was 8am – 2am in NYC.
No cabs, no Ubers, no subway, just pure foot power.
Blisters, backaches and some of the best retail learnings of 2025. But we also caught Influenza A as a prize. Will promise we keep count in 2026 (the record was 38 concepts in a day – we drank a lot that night).
Day 7: The NZ Retail Resilience Story
This year tested retailers across Aotearoa in every direction. Costs rose, confidence wobbled and customers tightened their belts… but Kiwi retailers showed grit, creativity and a surprising amount of heart.
From independents to national chains, we watched teams innovate, reset, rebuild and find new ways to serve their communities. WGMAT covered the highs, the headaches and the quiet hero moments all year long.
If resilience had a postcode, it would be right here in Aotearoa.
Day 8: A Global Retail Voice
This year Juanita was named one of the Global Retail Voices by NRF, selected from a pool of more than 400 international experts.
From boardrooms to ballrooms, study tours to strategy rooms, this honour reflects the global respect for the work we do and the future we’re helping shape.
A recognition that celebrates not just thought leadership, but decades of deep retail experience, curiosity, candour and a fierce commitment to elevating the industry across Aotearoa, Australia and beyond.
Day 9: Forty-Five Spaces Transformed
This year we rolled up our sleeves and brought fresh energy, new thinking and bold experience design to 45 spaces across Aotearoa and Australia.
35 refurbishments across categories as wide as bedding, agri-retail, automotive, home, lifestyle, art and telco.
10 major new retail experience concepts including multiple stores of the future with each one crafted to lift the customer journey, create WOW moments and power future-fit retail
We are so delighted to work alongside our incredible clients with every project had its own heartbeat and its own story. A year of reinvention, refresh and real retail impact.
Day 10: The Global Retail plot twist
If 2025 proved anything, it’s that retail never sits still. AI moved from buzzword to backbone. Marketplaces rewrote customer expectations. Store formats evolved faster than some brands could renovate. And consumer behaviour delivered more surprises than a Black Friday inbox.
The RX team tracked the plot twists as they unfolded - the bold moves, the new models, the challenger brands and the clever pivots.
The world changed fast this year. Retail kept pace.
Day 11: The posts that stopped the scroll
This year your voices, comments and curiosity pushed three of our 'What Got My Attention Today' (WGMAT) LinkedIn posts to the top of the charts. Together they racked up tens of thousands of impressions and showed us exactly what the retail community is hungry for.
Top 3 posts of the year:🥇 IKEA’s logistics play in New Zealand
55,067 impressions
Retail strategy, scale and bold moves always get attention.
🥈 Farewell to a Retail Renegade 50,679 impressions. A heartfelt tribute that reminded us retail is built by people with grit, smarts and heart.
🥉 The Appliance Outlet NZ campaign 21,546 impressions. Proof that clever, Kiwi-as retail creativity still captures the imagination.
A community of 153,541 retail humans reached. Conversations that shaped thinking far beyond the posts themselves.
Retail loves great stories, bold ideas and a dash of humanity… and this year delivered all three.
Day 12: The Year AI Moved From Hype to How
This year, we partnered with retailers and solution providers to navigate the most significant shift in commerce in a generation: the rise of practical, customer-first AI.
Our role has been to close the gap between the art and science of retail—turning technological potential into real-world impact.
From the boardroom to the workshop, here are the tools and frameworks we used to drive rapid value:
• Consumer Insights & Innovation – Decoding new behaviors and uncovering emerging demand
• eCommerce & Omnichannel Audits – Strategic assessments to sharpen performance and identify gaps
• Market Analysis & Sizing – Giving leaders clarity on where to compete and how to win
• Competitive Intelligence & White Space Mapping – Revealing opportunities others haven’t yet seen
• Technology GTM Strategy – Tailored go-to-market planning for the retail ecosystem
AI isn’t the future—it’s the now .And in the coming year, we’ll help even more businesses bring it to life in ways that deliver immediate impact, smarter decisions, and better experiences for their customers.
Day 12: Farewell to Some Familiar Faces
This year we said goodbye to several well-known New Zealand retail names — brands that held memories, shaped habits and served communities for decades.
Among them:
Kitchen Things
Smiths City
Baby City
GrabOne
The Body Shop NZ
Plus many small shops, cafés and independents who quietly closed their doors along the way.
Each closure represents people, passion, community and a chapter in our retail story coming to an end. We honour them today - their teams, their customers and the legacies they leave behind.
In the new year we’ll share our deeper reflections on what these shifts mean for retail, resilience and reinvention across Aotearoa.
Bonus: The Line of the Year
“Don’t be a dick.”
A simple reminder that leadership, culture and customer experience start with being a decent human.
Have a wonderful festive break and we hope those tills keep ringing. 💸
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