Last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Featuring Ted Baker, O2, Walmart, Carrefour, Ikea, adidas, Asda and Macy’s.
European beauty platform Douglas kicked off a pilot project last week with rapid delivery startup Gorillas.
Starship Technologies and Co-op have boosted their partnership in Northampton, with an additional 31,000 households in the town now able to access grocery delivery via a fleet of the former’s robots.
Retail Assist has announced an extension in service provision to include data exchange support for Ted Baker.
The retailer will use the Ra-X service, with Retail Assist also providing key first and second line help desk support.
Ra-X helps retailers to share key product data in the required formats between stores, concessions, franchises, e-commerce sites and head offices.
Paradies Lagardère, a retailer and restaurateur in North America, has expanded its deployment of MishiPay’s Scan, Pay & Go mobile self-checkout technology to 20 additional airports across the US and Canada.
During a pilot in the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Paradies Lagardère says that, by enabling shoppers to scan and pay for their desired products using their own devices, store associates were able to repurpose a portion of their shift from manning a cash register to other tasks such as restocking, sanitising high traffic sections, and assisting customers.
Additionally, the Scan, Pay & Go programme provides another payment option for customers, complementing existing choices such as self-checkout stations and Fast Pay apps, and has also generated a higher items-per-transaction ratio when compared to transactions performed through standard registers.
Ikea is launching its new Mobile Checkout solution in Australia.
This aims to give customers a faster and more convenient checkout experience in-store, with Ikea claiming that the roll-out is a first for home furnishing retailers down under.
Going live ahead of the Christmas shopping period, customers shopping at Ikea Logan and North Lakes in Queensland will be the first to experience the feature, which can be activated via the retailer’s app, or by scanning a QR code in-store.
Carrefour opened a Flash 10/10 concept store in Paris on 24th November.
The convenience store – developed in collaboration with US startup AiFi – is pitched as the first of its kind in France, and is located at 11 avenue Parmentier, in the capital’s eleventh arrondissement.
Flash 10/10 ("10 seconds to shop and 10 seconds to pay”) features a shopping journey that does not involve having to scan any products and quick payment.
Customers don't need to take items out of their bags. They can enter and exit the store without having to pass through a gateway. There is no need to download an app or register beforehand. And they can view their total spend in real-time.
Earlier this month, RTIH reported that Amazon was working away on an Amazon Fresh store at Holborn Chancery Lane in London.
Said store opened its doors to the public last week.
This is the e-commerce giant’s eighth such UK convenience store to feature Just Walk Out Shopping tech, which was pioneered at the Amazon Go offering in the States.
The other seven are in Camden, Ealing, Wembley Park, White City, Canary Wharf, Dalston and East Sheen.
BrightSign players are powering an interactive perfume display at House of Rituals, the new flagship store for Rituals on Kalverstraat, Amsterdam.
Hullabalook's technology is now live on B&Q’s website.
“We're powering B&Q paint product discovery experience online. 2,000+ shades, available online, mixed to order and ready for you to buy,” Abena Osei, Global Account Manager at Hullabalook, said in a LinkedIn post.
“This is the first time B&Q’s huge range of Valspar mixed to order paints have been available to purchase online.”
Osei added: “Our Colour Technology has mapped all 2.000+ shades onto an interactive grid. Choose any colour and we will automatically render it onto a lifestyle image - so you can visualise how it’ll look at home. Shade selected? Click through to the product page and purchase instantly.”
“There's a new, revolutionary way to buy paint and Hullabalook is paving the way. We're are so excited about this partnership!”
Reebok has partnered with Bitcoin rewards startup Lolli.
“That means you can now earn up to 6% back on premium clothing and footwear for your active lifestyle, whether you’re hitting the gym or the streets,” Lolli says in a blog post.
“To start earning with Reebok, download Lolli for your browser extension or app store for iOS. Activate Reebok on our site and start shopping to earn free Bitcoin on your order.”
London-based, social and live shopping platform AGORA has launched a beauty marketplace, powered by SaaS platform Mirakl.
The AGORA app allows beauty fans to monetise their talent by creating and sharing live and recorded video content that links directly to products from their favourite brands.
In November, the venture will host around 200 shows, with plans to continue growing its offering so as to have a constant stream of hosts going live.
Compagnie Financière Richemont, owner of Cartier, Montblanc, IWC Schaffhausen, and Van Cleef & Arpels, is moving its entire enterprise IT infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Richemont will close its European datacentres and migrate additional ones in Hong Kong and the US to AWS by the end of 2022.
As part of its digital transformation strategy, the company will move more than 5,000 virtual machines and 120 SAP instances to AWS as it looks to “modernise its infrastructure, raise its security posture, and drive automation across its global operations”.
O2 has opened an ‘AR Store of the Future’ on Snapchat as part of its Black Friday activity.
In what is pitched as a UK telco first, from Black Friday until 8th December, Snapchatters will be able to visit the store and shop products by clicking on them to explore in more detail.
They can also buy through a Shop Now button present throughout the lens experience.
Walmart has kicked off Cyber Week with a shoppable livestream event featuring Jason Derulo.
This beta tested Twitter’s shoppable livestream function, allowing customers to shop products straight from the platform.
“This will be the first time a brand in the US has leveraged this capability on Twitter and I’m excited to bring customers incredible deals on a platform they already love during the most joyful shopping season of the year,” says William White, Chief Marketing Officer, Walmart U.S.
“Twitter is a platform where we consistently see high return across top-and middle-of-funnel content, so it’s a natural next step for us to explore this new functionality.”
adidas has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider for SAP workloads.
This will see it migrate its SAP environment to AWS and implement a SAP S/4HANA platform.
adidas says that the move will enable it to “digitise core business processes across its value chain to provide better consumer experiences, become a more data driven business, and support new business models such as direct-to-consumer”.
Tappit, a cashless specialist focusing on sports, events, stadiums and venues, has announced a partnership with the Rose Bowl Stadium in the US.
This involves the implementation of Tappit’s white label web wallet, a solution enabling organisations to implement cashless payment solutions without having a mobile app.
Eagle Eye is working with Asda to develop a trial of the grocery retailer's new loyalty programme, Asda Rewards.
Following a pilot with Asda employees in September, this has been extended to 16 Asda stores across West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade celebrates its 95th anniversary this year with a drop of 9,500 free NFT artwork, featuring balloons from past events in support of Make-A-Wish.
