Tracking the retail technology sector during the coronavirus

Retail Technology Innovation Hub rounds up the key Covid-19 developments from last week.

Autonomous robotics startup Nuro is to test delivery of prescriptions and essentials in Houston, Texas through a partnership with CVS Pharmacy.

Lidl Ireland is introducing a new queue management system in its stores. This is designed to control the number of customers entering and exiting the store at any one time with traffic light signals.

US startup Lolli has announced that its users can now earn up to 2.5% Bitcoin back when shopping online at Bose.com.

Tesco Ireland has announced a nationwide roll-out of a customer number and queue management solution.

Following a trial at its Greystones store, the grocery giant will now introduce a monitor-based 3D imaging system which will count customer numbers entering and exiting stores, to ensure an accurate steady flow of people throughout the day.

“We’ve worked hard to maintain a safe shopping environment for colleagues and customers to date," says Geoff Byrne, Chief Operating Officer, Tesco Ireland. "This new technology is a simple, accurate way of reducing queue times and allows our colleagues spend more time helping customers.”

Jisp has become the official shopping app for the UK’s Federation of Independent Retailers (NFRN).

John Lewis will begin to reopen its stores for customers from 15th June, in line with government guidelines for non-essential retailers. It will kick things off with its Poole and Kingston department stores, followed by 11 others on 18th June.

InPost has announced a partnership with South Western Railway (SWR) to install its e-commerce parcel lockers at 40 train stations.

American comedian, political commentator and television host, Bill Maher, has taken a swing at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in the latest episode of his Real Time With Bill Maher show.

This was prompted by the news that Bezos is set to become the first ever member of the trillionaire club.

Sainsbury’s has deployed its 40,000th in-store safety screen as part of its bid to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.