Ten retail technology investments that should be on your radar

These companies are leading the way in providing retail systems powered experiences that are one step ahead of their customers’ expectations, including Sonae, Walmart and Levi’s.

1. River Island, Holland & Barrett and Dunelm

River Island, Holland & Barrett and Dunelm have become the first UK retailers to sign Flux’s #BeatTheReceipt pledge.

The campaign is being supported by the British Retail Consortium, British Independent Retailers Association and the Association of Convenience Stores.

Currently, most tills will automatically print a paper receipt, regardless of whether the customer wants or needs one. By signing the pledge, retailers commit to making paper receipts fully optional in their stores by 2023.

2. Sonae

Lisbon-based startup Sensei has announced its first autonomous store opening to the public, in partnership with Portuguese retailer Sonae.

Pioneering the European retail industry? Check!✔️
Today marks the opening of the very first autonomous store by a European retailer.@ContinenteLabs is an innovative format resulting from a close collaboration between @Sensei_tech and @SONAE. pic.twitter.com/wcwNbp6bEI
— Sensei (@Sensei_tech) May 26, 2021

3. Walmart

Walmart will this week host a livestream shopping event on Facebook.

Blogger, author, food writer, photographer and TV personality, Ree Drummond, and her daughter, Alex, will demo some of their favourite products from the Walmart exclusive Pioneer Woman Collection.

4. Farfetch

Snap has lifted the lid on a virtual try-on partnership with online luxury fashion platform Farfetch.

At the Snap Partner Summit, it brought this to life by featuring three jackets from Off-White, using voice and machine learning powered technology.

Shoppers are able to try on outfits and swap them, using just their voices.

5. Lifvs

European unmanned grocery stores venture, Lifvs, has selected Pricer’s electronic shelf label (ESL) solution to power staffless pricing.

Lifvs launched its first store in 2019 and its estate now spans 27 outlets.

Where small, unprofitable stores are shutting down, Swedish unmanned #grocery store chain Lifvs sees opportunities. Their modern platform, with electronic shelf labels (#ESL) and Pricer’s cloud solution #PricerPlaza, creates real value for shoppers.

👇https://t.co/F06hlF0jUa
— Pricer (@PricerAB) May 25, 2021

6. M·A·C Cosmetics

Perfect Corp. and Snap have launched a shoppable Lens experience with first brand partner, The Estée Lauder Companies.

M·A·C Cosmetics will be among the first brands in The Estée Lauder Companies’ portfolio to launch Dynamic Shopping Lenses on their Snapchat profile, utilising its existing try-on experiences created with Perfect Corp.

7. Domino’s Pizza

Immensus Holdings, a Domino’s Pizza franchisee in the Netherlands, is offering to pay its employees in Bitcoin.

This was announced on Bitcoin Pizza Day, which marks the first time Bitcoin was used as a form of payment when developer Laszlo Hanyecz stumped up 10,000 BTC for two pizzas on 22nd May 2010.

8. Pret

Food to go retailer, Pret A Manger, has selected Tech Mahindra as its technology and digital transformation partner.

The five-year contract will focus on streamlining and optimising Pret’s IT infrastructure through cloudification, systems re-engineering, consumerisation of IT systems and data engineering.

9. vidaXL

Google Cloud and Netherlands-based online retailer vidaXL have entered into a three-year partnership.

This will see vidaXL migrate part of its IT infrastructure for core SAP workloads (such as ERP Central Component and Extended Warehouse Management) to Google Cloud.

10. Levi’s

Levi’s is upgrading its relationship with MySize from pilot to partnership in Turkey, with the potential to expand further internationally after the initial deployment of the MySizeID solution reduced return rates by 47%.

This utilises Levi’s size charts, product tables, GTIN, descriptions, and other relevant details, alongside MySize's patented algorithms, to provide online shoppers with size recommendations.

The plug and play widget is integrated into Levi’s site.