Top 10: last week’s most essential retail technology articles

These are the RTIH articles that caught your fancy last week, including Amazon, Magnum, Co-op, Currys, Abercrombie & Fitch Co., and Yves Saint Laurent Beauté.

Magnum Ice Cream launches a museum in the metaverse

Magnum Ice Cream and Deliveroo have unveiled a metaverse located Magnum Pleasure Museum at the MET AMS festival in Amsterdam.

Between 14th and 17th June, attendees of the festival could wear a VR headset that transported them to the museum in Decentraland.

This housed gallery exhibitions showcasing original artworks from previous Magnum collaborations with illustrators, painters and sculptors, including Thomas Danthony and Brendan Monroe.

Visitors were able to order one of Magnum’s latest ice creams as they made their way through the virtual museum, which was then delivered to them at the end of the experience in real life.

Gen Z centric CommerceTech startup Knit raises seed funding

Gen Z and Millennial consumer insights startup, Knit, has announced an oversubscribed seed funding round of $3.55 million.

The round was led by Silicon Road Ventures with participation from Bread and Butter Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Bootstrappers.mn, Operate Studio, and TiE Global Angels.

Amazon Fresh store opens in Hoxton, London, powered by Just Walk Out tech

Amazon has opened an Amazon Fresh checkout-free store in Hoxton, London, its 18th such location in the UK.

Amazon customers (no Prime membership needed) use the e-commerce giant’s app to enter, put their phone away and shop for what they need. At the end of their trip, they can just walk out. 

The product offering includes the private food brand ‘by Amazon’ which covers hot food throughout the day, and on-the-go meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Customers can also pick up items purchased on Amazon UK at the Amazon Hub in-store, and return items without needing to package the product or print a shipping label. 

Co-op expands age estimation technology trial with Diebold Nixdorf and Yoti

Co-op has extended its trial of age estimation technology into five of its stores in partnership with Diebold Nixdorf and Yoti.

The pilot – which is not facial recognition and does not retain or store images – now sees Co-op testing out Vynamic Smart Vision I Age Verification, a new Diebold Nixdorf solution that uses Yoti’s age estimation technology, in five of its Manchester stores, including one located within its Customer Support Centre where it first tested the tech last November.

The trial runs until the end of June and forms part of the UK Home Office Digital ID Sandbox, which provides an opportunity for industry and retail to test innovative approaches to age estimation.

Currys taps Salesforce technology for omnichannel transformation push

UK technology and electrical retailer, Currys, is leveraging Salesforce solutions to support its omnichannel transformation plans.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. expands UK same-day delivery service

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. has expanded its same-day delivery service to the majority of its UK store fleet, including in over 30 Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids and Hollister locations.

The retailer has partnered with Stuart, Gophr and Delivery Solutions for this.

This follows the launch of a same-day delivery option in the US during October 2021. 

Amazon Just Walk Out tech powered Hudson Nonstop store opens at Nashville International Airport

Hudson, which has more than 1,000 stores in airports, commuter hubs, landmarks and tourist destinations across North America, says that its first Southeast location for Hudson Nonstop, powered by Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, is officially open at Nashville International Airport (BNA).

At just over 1,000 square feet of concession space, this is different from any other Hudson Nonstop store as it exclusively offers food and beverage products.

Checkout-free shopping booms as physical retail undergoes unprecedented change

Checkout-free stores are now live in 20 countries across the world, according to research from RBR.

The number of stores across the world using checkout-free technology increased threefold during 2021 to over 250.

Oxbotica taps AI in the metaverse for autonomous vehicles initiative

Oxbotica, an autonomous vehicle (AV) software specialist, is using artificial intelligence in the metaverse to accelerate the safe and efficient deployment of AV technology, reducing carbon emissions generated by vehicles driving actual miles. 

Oxbotica MetaDriver is a suite of tools that includes virtual world simulation, automated discovery of challenging scenarios, and real-time data expansion.

It is designed to help answer three core AV questions: ‘Do I see it right?’, ‘Am I doing it right?’, and ‘Can I trust myself right now?’. 

Yves Saint Laurent Beauté starts to explore Web3 and metaverse spaces

L’Oréal Group brand, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, has announced an NFT wallet, several drops of NFTs and partnerships with Web3 players in collaboration with Wunderman Thompson and powered by Arianee solutions.