November 2021: top ten coolest retail technology reveals
RTIH Editor, Scott Thompson, brings you his stand out ‘future of retail’ systems deployments from the past month, including shoppable livestream events, checkout free stores, quick commerce partnerships, and robot deliveries.
Walmart
Walmart 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,” said 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.”
Carrefour
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.
Casino Group
Casino Group and Gorillas have announced a quick commerce partnership focused on the French market.
The former has been boosting its online presence by tapping Ocado Group’s fulfilment platform, while its Monoprix supermarket arm works with Amazon.
This new partnership, which will see Casino buying a "symbolic" stake in Gorillas, will give Gorillas access to Casino’s national brands products, and also to Monoprix’s private label products.
These will be available through Gorillas’ app and delivered within 10 minutes to customers in Paris, Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon and Nice.
Sainsbury’s
Earlier this month, we reported that Sainsbury’s was set to open a cashierless store in London during late November, using Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology.
This, we noted at the time, would make it the first customer outside the US for the tech that powers Amazon Go and Fresh stores.
Said SmartShop Pick & Go store opened to the public this week, after being tested out by Sainsbury’s staff members.
Carrefour UAE/Yandex
Majid Al Futtaim, which specialises in shopping mall, communities, retail, and leisure across the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, is teaming with Russian tech giant Yandex to explore autonomous technology solutions that enhance Carrefour UAE’s last mile delivery capabilities.
This makes Carrefour the first omnichannel retailer to use self-driving robots for online order delivery in the region.
A pilot, involving customers in select neighbourhoods across the UAE, is set to launch in early 2022.
Currys
Currys has partnered with Uber on a London-based delivery trial that gets small tech products from stores to shoppers in as little as 30 minutes.
Launching the week of 15th November, this is Uber’s biggest UK retailer partnership to date and builds on Currys’ online and delivery proposition, which includes the ShopLive 24/7 video shopping service and its one-hour Order & Collect service.
02
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.
Co-op
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.
A year to the day since the launch of the service in Northampton, residents in Boothville, Great Billing, Hopping Hill and Spinney Hill will now be able to benefit from on demand delivery from a further three Co-op stores. The online orders are picked from the retailer’s stores.
Co-op was the first UK supermarket to use autonomous robot deliveries.
The latest development means that deliveries are now made from six of its stores in Northampton, with communities in Wootton, Upton, Duston, Abington and Weston Favell already able to use the service.
Macy’s
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade celebrated 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.
A charitable auction of 10 NFTs began on Friday, 19th November. Limited edition free Macy’s Parade NFTs launched on Thursday, 25th November.
These are designed by REOMETRY, a digital agency led by NFT artists REO and Seth Brown.
B&Q
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!”
