Last week’s retail technology deals at a glance — Retail Technology Innovation Hub

RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments, initiatives and pilots from the past seven days, including Decathlon, Metro, Pandora and Specsavers.

Verizon has partnered with UK digital technology innovation centre, Digital Catapult, to launch a 5G immersive retail accelerator initiative.

The aim is to help brands, including Burberry, Diageo and L’Oréal UK & Ireland, explore how 5G enabled solutions can solve real world challenges.

Such concepts include experimentation of the in-store experience, out of store experience, digital product visualisation and virtual events such as fashion shows and product showcases.

Go Instore and Appointedd have teamed with Marks and Spencer to launch M&S Video Expert, a live video offering designed to recreate in-store beauty and furniture services for online customers.

This is operated by colleagues at M&S White City in London.

The service taps Go Instore’s live video tech and Appointedd’s online booking and scheduling platform.

A key feature is M&S staff being able to deliver interactive StoreStream live sessions on the retailer’s website, which allows an unlimited number of customers to join a live stream broadcast to learn more about products as they are browsing.

Afterpay’s buy now, pay later service is now available at Amazon, CVS, Dell, Kroger, Macy’s, Nike, Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack, Sephora, Target, Victoria’s Secret, Walgreens and Yeti for US shoppers using its payment app.

It says that these merchants represent almost half of all US e-commerce volume.

Homebase has announced Checkout.com as its new online payments provider.

SYNC Performance, which specialises in ski apparel and gear for mountain athletes, has gone live with Fit Analytics’ Fit Finder online sizing solution.

UK-based DTC furniture brand Loaf has selected Adyen as its payments partner.

Sustainable fashion brand PANGAIA is leveraging Board International tech for sales reporting and analytics.

Board’s BI analytics solution helps Pangaia deliver greater insight and visibility over the brand’s sales, stocks and returns at a glance https://t.co/IA4utuzWhb #DigitalTransformation #SPM
— Board International (@BoardSoftware) June 22, 2021

Decathlon has deployed Datadobi’s DobiMigrate software to help enable the move of its IT operations into the cloud.

Fashion brand Vivienne Westwood has selected Mapp Cloud as its customer data platform.

XPO Logistics has been awarded a multi-year contract by Electrolux Logistics SAS to manage its logistics operations in France.

Fix Price, a Russia-based chain of discount variety stores with more than 4,000 outlets, has deployed a mobile solution from QVALON.

Pricer’s partner JRTech Solutions has inked a new framework agreement with Canadian food retailer Metro to continue supplying the former’s electronic shelf labels.

The pair have also reached an agreement to deploy Pricer Plaza’s Cloud Automated Product Positioning solution. This leverages ESLs to automatically position a product in a store.

@JRTechSolutions est fier d'annoncer la signature d'un nouvel accord-cadre avec Metro Inc. pour continuer à fournir des #étiquettesélectroniques @PricerAB dans leurs magasins.

Pour plus d'infos👇https://t.co/ylRqh2aWa6 #ESL #digitalisation #épicerie #newnormal
— JRTech Solutions (@JRTechSolutions) June 22, 2021

Turner Price is laying claim to the UK's first wholesale foodservice marketplace, powered by Mirakl technology.

Health food and wellness business Evolution Organics has deployed Brightpearl’s retail digital operations platform.

The firm had initially opted for Microsoft Dynamics 365, but costly, time consuming issues with integrating the ERP system with its BigCommerce store meant that a change was needed.

Pandora has deployed the IBM Sterling Order Management solution.

Pandora’s entry into e-commerce over the last six years most recently led it to consolidate legacy technologies while deploying the aforementioned solution across its key markets.

It is using IBM Sterling Order Management as its backend for omnichannel fulfilment and Salesforce Commerce Cloud for e-commerce.

Specsavers is working with Accenture as it looks to improve its technology capabilities.

This builds on an existing relationship between the pair and calls for Accenture, working with Microsoft, to modernise Specsavers’ legacy IT architecture with cloud, intelligent automation and security solutions.