RTIH runs through this week's coolest retail technology plays
RTIH Editor, Scott Thompson, brings you his top ‘future of retail systems’ deployments from the past week, including ‘smart’ laundry detergent refill stations, in-store crypto payments, and rapid grocery delivery services.
Gucci
Gucci will accept cryptocurrency payments in some US stores at the end of this month, with plans afoot to extend the pilot to all of its directly operated North America stores this summer.
Payments will be made with a link sent via email to the customer.
The link contains a QR code that allows them to execute the payment from their crypto wallet.
The first Gucci stores onboard are Wooster Street in New York, Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, Miami Design District, Phipps Plaza in Atlanta and The Shops at Crystals in Las Vegas.
Gucci will accept payments in more than 10 currencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Wrapped Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and five stablecoins pegged to the US dollar.
Lidl
Lidl UK has launched a ‘smart’ laundry detergent refill station for a six-month trial in the West Midlands.
The pilot, taking place at its Kingswinford branch, is in partnership with startup Algramo.
Chris Baker, Country Manager at Algramo UK, says: “We are very happy to help Lidl customers make simple everyday actions more sustainable.”
“During 2021, just in Chile, we managed to reuse more than 250,000 plastic bottles, that are still being used by consumers, keeping more than 30 tons of plastic in the economy and out of the environment.”
Starbucks
Starbucks will launch its own NFT collections later this year.
During its fiscal Q2 2022 earnings call this week, the coffee giant said that NFTs can help Starbucks extend its concept of the “third place”, that is, a place between home and work where people can feel a sense of belonging over coffee.
The company as brought in Adam Brotman, the architect of its Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app, to help serve as a special advisor on the project.
The Very Group
The Very Group, which operates online retailer Very.co.uk, is set to provide personalised size and fit guidance across its 300 fashion brands through a new partnership with True Fit.
True Fit has 89 million active users and represents 17,000 brands globally, including Quiz, which is popular with Very customers.
The partnership is one in a series of technology and talent investments that Very will make in 2022 as it looks to “create an even better digital customer experience”.
It follows the announcement of a tie up with commercetools.
AO
Online electricals retailer AO has committed to a 12-month contract with Taggstar to deliver social proof messaging.
Taggstar tested 11 message types across the pureplay’s full-funnel to help provide its customers with better information and service.
The pair will now work together to test review and machine learning algorithm messaging to help push conversion further. AO is also considering adding social proof on other channels, where appropriate.
Tesco Whoosh
Tesco has teamed up with Uber Eats to help expand its Whoosh rapid grocery delivery service.
The supermarket giant launched Whoosh, which aims to deliver food and drinks in under 60 minutes, in May 2021 and it now covers 200 Express outlets across the UK.
The deal with Uber launches from 20 stores, including Edinburgh, Bradford, Portsmouth, Norwich, St Albans and Letchworth.
Tesco says that the partnership will help towards the target of offering the service from 600 locations by the end of 2022.
Zoom By Ocado
Ocado's within an hour grocery delivery service, Zoom by Ocado, has launched a second micro site, in Canning Town, East London.
In a LinkedIn post, Kieren Johnson, Head of IT at Ocado Retail, said that the facility was “built using the OSP platform (70 odd bots doing their stuff) and stocking 10k+ items for delivery within one hour. All electric delivery fleet.”
The first site was launched in 2019 in Acton, West London.
The aforementioned range of 10,000 products compares to over 50,000 from the main Ocado Retail business.
The retailer is looking for additional sites within London's M25 orbital motorway.
TAFT
Direct-to-consumer men’s footwear brand, TAFT, will launch a limited edition NFT collection of winged animals and correlating sneaker illustrations in June.
“We’re doing something absolutely unheard of. We’re making a wearable NFT in the form of a sneaker,” says Kory Stevens, Founder and Designer at TAFT.
“Much like how an NFT is minted, the purchaser will get a limited, exclusive edition of the TAFT NFT Sneaker. Each pair will be assigned attributes randomly that match the exact NFT artwork.”
