2021 RTIH Innovation Awards: winners announced
Metapack, Asda, Carrefour UAE, Situ Live, Starbucks, Oracle, Go Instore and Halla were among the companies who emerged victorious at RTIH’s 2021 retail technology awards.
The awards, sponsored by PMC, StoreSpace, Critizr, Marxent, QVALON and Selazar, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
We received a record number of submissions this year across 14 categories (you can find a full rundown of the 2021 shortlists here).
Our winners and highly commended companies were announced during an exclusive event that took place in central London last night and was attended by retailers, members of our judging panel, and sponsors.
So, without further ado, here are the latest entrants into the RTIH Innovation Awards hall of fame.
Category 1
Bricks and mortar innovation - Sponsored by StoreSpace
WINNER: Lifvs/Pricer
Lifvs is Europe’s largest unmanned 24-hour grocery store chain. Launched in 2019, its staffless store estate now spans 27 outlets.
LIFVS has deployed ESLs from Pricer’s Plaza platform, a cloud-based SaaS solution, to power sophisticated in-store digital capabilities.
Category 2
Supply chain innovation
WINNER: Metapack
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, retailers have started to reimagine their supply chains and the purpose of their stores and are looking to implement technologies such as Metapack’s Ship-from-Store that provide them with the flexibility to fulfil online orders from physical locations.
Category 3
Payments innovation
WINNER: Checkout.com
Checkout.com’s approach to online payments makes it a trusted provider behind leading online retailers and platforms including H&M and Klarna.
Category 4
Most innovative UK retailer - Sponsored by QVALON
Winner: Asda
Asda has launched musicMagpie’s SMARTDrop kiosks in-store.
These self-service kiosks enable customers to recycle their old and/or unwanted mobile phones safely in a convenient and straightforward way.
Category 5
Most innovative retailer (rest of world) - Sponsored by QVALON
WINNER: Carrefour UAE
In September, Majid Al Futtaim, which owns and operates shopping malls, retail, and leisure establishments in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, announced the launch of checkout free store, Carrefour City+.
It 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.
Majid Al Futtaim also joined IBM Food Trust, a blockchain-enabled initiative run on IBM Cloud.
As a result, Carrefour UAE become “the first retailer in the region to offer new levels of insight and transparency to its customers about the provenance of their food via end-to-end visibility on products throughout its supply chain”.
Category 6
Most innovative pureplay - Sponsored by Selazar
WINNER: Farfetch
Farfetch marked the launch of pre-order collections on its e-commerce platform by partnering with fashion startup DRESSX to digitally dress its global community of influencers and produce virtual editorial shoots, for the first time ever.
It also announced a donation programme for customers in the US.
thredUP’s Resale-as-a-Service will power the experience, allowing customers to extend the life of their clothes while earning shopping credit and raising money for charity.
Snap, meanwhile, lifted the lid on a virtual try-on partnership with Farfetch.
Category 7
Technology vendor of the year (UK)
WINNER: Personify XP
Personify XP uses single-session data to understand and segment every person who visits a company website, and dynamically updates these segments throughout the customer shopping journey.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Jisp
Jisp is a startup offering mobile marketing, shopping and payment solutions for convenience retailers.
Category 8
Technology vendor of the year (Rest of World)
WINNER: Standard AI
Standard AI has developed a computer vision-based autonomous solution that allows retailers to quickly and efficiently transform their existing stores into a checkout-free experience for their customers without disruption to their day-to-day operations.
Category 9
Startup of the year
WINNER: Halla
Halla’s human preference engine is pitched as the world's only such solution designed specifically for grocery.
It generates personalised search results, recommendations, and product substitutions that map 1:1 to grocery shoppers' unique human preferences in real-time,resulting in bigger baskets, better rewards, and the best grocery experience possible.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Treet
Treet helps e-commerce brands be more sustainable and own their secondhand sales by launching resale experiences where their customers buy and sell from each other.
It manages the entire experience from support through logistics while brands unlock a new revenue channel and access new customers from each sale.
Category 10
Best coronavirus innovation - Sponsored by Critizr
WINNER: Red Ant
Developed as an extension of its clienteling app during the pandemic, Red Ant’s shoppable virtual consultations solution was the first of its kind to launch to market.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Burger King Russia/Qvalon
Qvalon worked with Burger King Russia to put into a mobile application all the business processes that regulate and monitor the quality of cleaning and janitorial services, and deployed special digital checklists to ensure compliance to all Covid related hygiene and safety standards and protocols.
Category 11
Technology implementation of the year (UK)
WINNER: Sofology/Hullabalook
Hullabalook worked with Sofology to build ‘Create Your Look’, a 2D room builder which lets customers explore the retailer’s full product range in one place, and create exciting product combinations in room settings to help really visualise what products will look best in their homes.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: B&Q/Marxent
B&Q has gone from offering a siloed in-store kitchen planning service, to an all-new omnichannel approach to creating customers’ dream homes.
It has deployed a cloud-based 3D Kitchen Planner that enables retail staff to work in-person or virtually with shoppers looking to remodel or design a kitchen.
Category 12
Technology implementation of the year (rest of world)
WINNER: Starbucks/Oracle
Gerri Martin-Flikinger, Executive VP and CTO at Starbucks, has headed up a transformation and modernisation journey that enabled the company to quickly pivot at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Working with Oracle, Starbucks was able to quickly spin up services to meet new customer requirements, including mobile order and pay, voice order, nationwide delivery, curbside pickup, and new drive-thru and pick-up locations.
Category 13
Best Retailer/Technology Supplier Relationship (UK)
WINNER: Ribble/Go Instore
Ribble, the built to order bike retailer, saw the opportunity during the Covid-19 outbreak to take advantage of its limited physical presence to provide an improved journey for its online customers, and decided to partner with Go Instore.
Ribble wanted to offer personalised consultations to those customers who weren’t close to its showrooms.
Seizing the chance before lockdowns in 2020, it integrated Go Instore into its long-term digital strategy, dedicating an entire team to answering video calls and giving online shoppers the same exclusive experience in-store customers receive.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Reiss/Retail247
Reiss was one of Retail247’s first customers, making the relationship over half a decade long.
The engagement began with consultancy and now covers projects, infrastructure and key solutions.
Category 14
Best Retailer/Technology Supplier Relationship (Rest of World)
WINNER: 1822 Denim/3DLOOK
1822 Denim has tapped 3DLOOK's YourFit, an e-commerce solution that virtualises the shopping experience and adds a dressing room to the online customer journey.
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Decathlon/PAL Robotics
Decathlon and PAL Robotics have launched a global partnership after the latter’s StockBot inventory tracking and data collection solution was selected for roll-out across the former’s stores in multiple countries, assisting teams and elevating in-store experience.
Category 15
Overall Winner - Sponsored by QVALON
WINNER: Carrefour UAE
See Most Innovative Retailer (Rest of World) category.
Category 16 - Sponsored by Marxent
RTIH Editor’s Choice Award
WINNER: Situ LIve
Situ Live, a new immersive consumer experience which reimagines the traditional commercial retail model, opened its doors this autumn, at Westfield London.
Congratulations!
Scott Thompson, Editor and Founder of RTIH, says:: “Innovation and technology play a critical role in the success of the retail sector, so it was great to recognise standout examples through our awards.”
“Competition was tougher than ever, so to emerge victorious was no mean feat.”
“Congratulations to our winners and highly commended companies. And thank you to our 2021 judging panel; their assistance in producing the winners list is hugely appreciated.”
