These companies are leading the way in providing innovative retail systems powered customer experiences, including Carrefour, Tesco, X5 Group and Casino Group.

1. Carrefour

Carrefour has launched a Healthy Map on Fortnite, enabling players to heal themselves and gain more energy by eating fruit, vegetables and fish.

This places them in an eco-friendly Carrefour store of the future: a supermarket with an electric recharging station, trucks running on biomethane, a responsible fishing zone, fields of organic fruit and fresh vegetables, and a farm respecting animal welfare.

2. Fat Llama

Item rental marketplace Fat Llama is launching a new enterprise platform, allowing retail partners, including John Lewis and Sofology, to lend their products to customers.

During an eight week trial, Fat Llama Enterprise enabled John Lewis to sell out its entire rental inventory in the first 48 hours. The tie up allowed customers to rent the likes of bedside tables, beds, shelving units and cabinets.

The partnership with Sofology, meanwhile, for its Loop initiative, allows customers to rent the brand’s new Virtue range of sofas, armchairs and footstools.

3. Alcampo

Ocado Solutions has teamed with Auchan Retail owned Spanish grocer Alcampo to develop the latter’s online business using the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP).

The pair will initially build a customer fulfilment centre (CFC) to serve the Madrid region from 2024, with additional CFCs to be announced at future dates.

Alcampo will also leverage Ocado’s In-Store Fulfilment (ISF) software across its hypermarkets nationwide to enable more efficient picking from stores.

BIG NEWS 🇪🇸 Welcome @Alcampo to the Leaders Club of our global partners! We can’t wait to bring world-beating grocery online experiences to their customers and help @AuchanNews become a market leader online in Spain! 1st CFC serving Madrid in 2024! Vamos! https://t.co/vi53aqkD9N
— Luke Jensen (@LukeJensenOcado) July 6, 2021

4. Tesco

Tesco is gearing up to deploy its Trigo powered version of Amazon’s Just Walk Out offering in a second UK location: High Holborn, London.

Tapping AI and computer vision technology, the Easyout solution enables shoppers to walk into a store, check in via a QR code, select items for purchase and leave without having to bother with pesky checkouts.

5. X5 Group

Russian food retailer, X5 Group, has launched a media platform called Food.ru.

Consisting of a website, mobile app and social media accounts, this will focus on the likes of recipes, healthy eating, cooking classes, and offers from X5.

6. Casino Group

Casino Group has announced a digital strategy acceleration partnership with Accenture and Google Cloud.

The aim here is to enhance the retailer’s customer experience and operational capabilities through the development and implementation of data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning based solutions.

It is also looking to support the growth of its B2B activities, in particular RelevanC, the Group's retail media property, with technological and commercial back up from the partners.

🤝 @Groupe_Casino RelevanC @AccentureFrance et @GoogleCloud_FR conjuguent leurs expertises pour accélérer l’#innovation et les opportunités de croissance #AI #cloud #IT ensemble pour le future du #retail Plus d’infos ➡️ https://t.co/oZwBuP40Jp pic.twitter.com/mUVDvsKDHL
— Google Cloud France (@GoogleCloud_FR) July 6, 2021

7. ITV and Boots UK

ITV is set to unveil Shoppable TV, enabling viewers to search and shop for show products from their sofa.

This will launch during an episode of Love Island on ITV2.

Viewers can initiate the shopping interface by using their LG remote but must actively opt-in to receive the notifications and use the service.

Built around an AI solution developed by The Take, the service taps retail tech included within all 2021 LG TV sets (as well as 2019-2020 models via a software update) to identify and tag featured products as they appear, notifying the viewer as it does so.

If a viewer is interested, they can select to view more info with their remote and make a purchase via the vendor’s site or a link sent to their phone.

8. Yandex and Grubhub

Russian tech giant Yandex and online food delivery venture Grubhub have announced a multi-year partnership pitched at college campuses in the US.

Yandex autonomous delivery robots will join Grubhub’s platform, with the service set to be available at select college campuses this autumn. GrubHub partners with more than 250 college campuses across the US.

9. Axel Arigato

Swedish lifestyle and fashion brand, Axel Arigato, has partnered with HERO to bring virtual shopping to its e-commerce store.

The service connects online customers in the UK live with a product expert who can take them through the design and fit of their sneakers, menswear, womenswear and lifestyle accessories, just like in-store.

10. musicMagpie

Online retailer musicMagpie has partnered with delivery tech venture Sorted.

A trial of the latter’s REACT solution was implemented in April for the return journey on the customer trade-in side of its business.

By using REACT’s delivery tracking engine, musicMagpie says that it strengthened communication with customers across its digital channels, improved shipment tracking by providing automated updates and more accurate visibility of the parcel’s journey.