Last week’s biggest retail technology plays
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Featuring Co-op, AiFi, Instacart and Kroger.
Next has agreed a physical and online retail deal with Gap covering the UK and Ireland, months after the US company said it was shutting all its high street stores in those countries.
Beginning in 2022, a joint venture will see Next operate Gap’s online shopping business via its Total platform, host branded Gap concessions in selected physical locations, and offer Click and Collect options.
Luxury watchmaker Breitling has implemented an order management system (OMS) from Fluent Commerce.
Co-op has announced a new partnership with Amazon and a Starship Technologies powered acceleration of robot deliveries.
The moves are part of the UK retailer’s plan to more than double online sales from £70 million to £200 million by the end of the year.
Cornish fashion brand Seasalt has launched a supplier hub designed to support communication and align its suppliers with its ethical business and sustainability practices.
The retailer, which is headquartered in Falmouth, and sells online to 157 countries as well as having 70 stores across the UK and Ireland, developed the hub in collaboration with Fuse.
AiFi is enabling autonomous retail at US music festivals including BottleRock (3rd-5th September, Napa Valley), Sea.Hear.Now (18th-19th September, Asbury Park) and Governor’s Ball (24th-25th September, New York).
At BottleRock, event attendees were able to purchase an assortment of snacks, beverages, and merchandise from an Express Shop powered by AiFi and Verizon 5G + MEC.
People entered by tapping a credit card at the entrance. Once inside the store, AiFi’s computer vision powered cameras tracked what items were taken and customers could exit with receipts delivered to their email in minutes.
The Express Shop also included event t-shirts and a variety of merchandise.
Walmart has worked with Argo AI and Ford to launch an autonomous vehicle delivery service in Austin, Miami and Washington D.C.
This will use Ford self-driving test vehicles equipped with the Argo AI Self-Driving System to deliver Walmart orders to customers.
The service will be available within defined service areas of the three markets and will expand over time, with initial integration testing slated to begin later this year.
Amazon’s biometric scanner for retail, the Amazon One palm reader, is for the first time expanding beyond the e-commerce giant’s own stores.
“As we approach the first anniversary of the launch of Amazon One later this month, I’m excited to share that it’s now available as an option to enter Denver, Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre,” says Dilip Kumar, Vice President, Physical Retail and Technology.
“Amazon One will be offered by Amazon at the venue, where AXS, a leading digital ticketing company, will deploy standalone ticketing pedestals including Amazon One.”
“This means, upon enrolling their AXS Mobile ID with Amazon One, fans now have the option to simply scan their palm to enter concerts and events much faster and easier than before.”
Instacart has partnered with Kroger to launch a Q-commerce offering called Kroger Delivery Now.
By using Kroger’s network of more than 2,700 stores, this focuses on delivery (within 30 minutes) of food and household staples via the likes of Kroger, Ralphs, Fred Meyer, King Soopers, Fry’s, Mariano’s, and Smith’s.
Australian fashion chain Politix, a subsidiary of South African retail giant Woolworths Holdings, is fulfilling customer orders across its network of stores with Tecsys’ Omni OMS system.
With Salesforce Commerce Cloud as its front end CX technology, Politix says it needed “execution functionality to orchestrate the micro-fulfilment and consolidation processes and close the fulfilment loop for the brand’s customers at scale”.
German omnichannel furniture retailer, porta group, is partnering with RELEX Solutions, to automate and integrate its supply chain planning.
RELEX will establish an end-to-end forecasting and replenishment planning process across porta’s supply chain, servicing five distribution centres, 28 porta stores in Germany, and 140 stores under the SB-Möbel BOSS brand in Germany and ASKO brand in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as the brands’ corresponding online stores.
Five more US grocers have chosen FoodStorm's SaaS offering to manage their prepared food and catering operations.
They are Straub's Fine Grocers in Missouri, Midtowne Market in Missouri, Sunset Foods in Illinois, Joseph's Classic Market in Florida, and Town & Country Markets in California.
Fashion brand Oh Polly has signed up to InPost’s QR code-based Instant Returns service. This was launched earlier in the year.
There is no need for online shoppers to print a label at home when returning items, or at the drop off point. Instead, they scan their QR code at an InPost locker and hand the parcel over.
Missguided, New Look and schuh have also added Instant Returns to their online offerings.
Greggs has reappointed Redu Retail to lead its corporate gift card provision.
The latter’s technology fulfils and distributes branded payments across multiple channels.
