Top 10: last week’s most read RTIH retail technology articles

These are the RTIH articles that caught your fancy last week, including Amazon Style, Evri, Hugo Boss, Tesco, Trigo, Klarna, Sainsbury’s, and Zippin.

Amazon opens second retail technology centric Amazon Style store

Amazon is continuing its excursion into physical fashion retail.

The company has opened a second Amazon Style store, with the aim of combining the personalisation of e-commerce with the immediacy of bricks and mortar shopping.

This is located at Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio.

Amazon debuted the concept earlier this year at The Americana at Brand, in Glendale, California.

Evri taps machine learning and AI for Parcel Vision solution

Evri has developed bespoke software designed to improve parcel delivery accuracy and customer communication, ahead of this year’s peak Christmas period.

This is currently being trialled regionally in the UK.

Parcel Vision has been designed to detect and flag any safe place photos that are taken by the courier as proof of delivery but which fail to show the parcel and where it has been left.

This is for when the parcel may not be clearly visible, be too close to the lens or the camera lens covered.  

The software has been developed using a machine learning model that was trained using thousands of SafePlace photos and will detect these issues, alert the courier explaining the problem and ask them retake the photo.

Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski and the curious case of tweeting tech CEOs

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Co-founder and CEO at buy now, pay later big hitter Klarna, has been at it again on Twitter.

Early last week, he set his sights on Martin Lewis, after the financial journalist, broadcaster and founder of the MoneySavingExpert website criticised Deliveroo for adding Klarna as a payment option.

Siemiatkowski tweeted: “Interesting @MartinSLewis! @Deliveroo should accept credit cards with up to 54% interest…But not Klarna that offers debit and interest free credit? Curious, does your money saving website make affiliate money from selling credit cards?”

He then doubled down, responding to an article in which Lewis explained how to use 0% credit cards to make money.

“Good safe advice? Don't use debit=money you have, and sometimes BNPL at 0% no late fees. Use credit cards, borrow against all spending+invest the money. Be lured into 54% revolving? Moneysaving expert @MartinSLewis, do you make money selling credit cards?”

He added: “Klarna is NOT BNPL. BNPL is just 1 of many features. Klarna is a payments network like VISA or MasterCard. 40% of our transactions are debit. Our ethical standards for credit are much higher than VISA/MC. No late fees. No revolving. No limit in your face. Interest caps much lower.”

Hugo Boss announces Adobe 3D innovation in fashion tie up

Hugo Boss has enlisted Adobe to power its strategy around 3D and immersive design.

“To support our vision of becoming the leading premium tech driven fashion platform worldwide, we were one of the early companies to explore the potential of 3D and immersive design in fashion,” says Sebastian Berg, Vice President, Business Operations Excellence at Hugo Boss.

“Now we have over 400 employees working with these innovative tools to produce more inspiring and sustainable products, and to lead our industry in digital.”

“With Adobe Substance 3D as part of our Adobe Creative Cloud stack, we have a powerful tool that provides hyper realistic renderings of our products. It gives us greater speed in responding to global consumer trends, while helping us experiment with new digital services to drive 3D innovation in fashion.”

Meal kit company HelloFresh lands in Ireland

Recipe box company, HelloFresh, has launched in Ireland, building upon its debut in Japan during April.

The firm says it will be operating a local supply chain along with sourcing ingredients from local suppliers and farmers.

A distribution centre will operate close to Dublin where recipe boxes will be shipped to customers all over the Republic of Ireland.

HelloFresh will also harness its technology to understand its customers and create the best meals possible based on their feedback and analysis through data.

THG Ingenuity boosts tech platform with Jitterbit tie up

Jitterbit has announced a partnership with THG Ingenuity, the end to end e-commerce business of THG, formerly known as The Hut Group.

This will see the latter use Jitterbit’s API integration technologies to connect to clients' existing business systems, such as warehouse and logistics platforms, ERP software and third-party delivery.

Sainsbury’s enlists Tata Consultancy Services for cloud first move

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is working with Sainsbury’s as the UK grocery giant looks to accelerate its cloud first strategy.

TCS has been a strategic partner to Sainsbury’s for over a decade.

As a part of a new multi-year deal, it will consolidate and modernise the retailer’s IT infrastructure landscape into a hybrid cloud stack using TCS Enterprise Cloud.

It will also  provide end-to-end managed services for workplace services, network connectivity, and security.

The aim here is to help Sainsbury’s speed up time to market, create new revenue streams, and enhance agility to respond in real-time to emerging business scenarios.

Sainsbury’s plans to reinvest the savings to offer value to customers through innovation and lower costs.

NBA venues go big on Zippin powered checkout-free stores

As basketball season gets underway, Zippin has announced six new stores powered by its tech in NBA arenas this autumn.

Toyota Center, home to the Houston Rockets, recently launched two checkout-free stores ahead of the season opener on 21st October, and Gainbridge Fieldhouse closes out the final phase of uts “Fieldhouse of the Future” renovations with two more frictionless shopping locations, giving Pacer fans four shops to choose from.

Capital One Arena added two Zippin Lanes in October as well, making Zippin the platform behind one out of four professional basketball arenas nationwide.

RTIH announces judging panel for 2022 retail technology awards

RTIH has finalised the judging panel for its 2002 Innovation Awards, featuring representatives from the likes of Selfridges, Marks & Spencer, Boots, Stanley Black & Decker, and Compass Group.

Tesco under fire for Trigo powered London checkout free store

Last year, Tesco launched its first high street checkout free store.

Named GetGo and powered by Trigo tech, this can be found in High Holborn, on the edge of the City of London.

Kevin Tindall, Managing Director at Tesco Convenience, said at the time of the launch: "We are constantly looking for ways to improve the shopping experience and our latest innovation offers a seamless checkout for customers on the go, helping them to save a bit more time.”

"This is currently just a one store trial, but we're looking forward to seeing how our customers respond."

Not everyone’s a fan, unfortunately.