Top 10: last week’s most popular retail technology articles
These are the RTIH articles that caught your fancy last week, including Marks and Spencer, Victoria’s Secret, Kingfisher, Prada, and Carrefour UAE.
Liam Gallagher is mad for new Marks and Spencer Stevenage store
M&S recently opened a new concept store at the Roaring Meg retail park in Stevenage.
The 75,000 sq ft location features clothing, a marketplace style foodhall with ‘Fill Your Own’ stations, a beauty department, an opticians and a 174 seat cafe.
It also has a celebrity fan in former Oasis front man Liam Gallagher.
Gallagher was in Stevenage last week ahead of a concert to mark the 25th anniversary of Oasis' era defining gigs at Knebworth Park.
After a “little mooch around Knebworth”, Gallagher popped in to the aforementioned M&S store and was blown away, informing his 3.6 Twitter followers that it was “outrageously good”.
Marks and Spencer Macclesfield store team hit TikTok milestone
The M&S Macclesfield store teams’s TikTok has hit 13.8k followers, with their latest video engaging 2.6 million people and receiving 360,000 likes plus 13,000 comments.
Ella Barnard, Support Team Manager at Marks and Spencer, said in a LinkedIn post: “Social media has allowed stores to interact personally with their audience to create a following and also a fan base. The power it holds to reach so far amazes me #power!”
She added: “Also watching #teammandsmacclesfield enjoying themselves whilst upselling our amazing products is truly mesmerising.”
Victoria’s Secret VS&Co-Lab inclusive online marketplace goes live
Victoria’s Secret has launched an online marketplace, available via VictoriasSecret.com and dubbed VS&Co-Lab, which “will showcase brands that align with its values of innovation and inclusivity.”
This features 19 brands, 75% of them founded, owned or led by women.
Victoria’s Secret recently acquired minority stakes in two of the featured companies, For Love & Lemons and Frankies Bikinis.
Kingfisher Chief Information Officer Chris Blatchford gives early progress report
Kingfisher, which operates in eight countries across Europe under retail banners including B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt, Screwfix, TradePoint and Koçtaş, recently announced the appointment of Chris Blatchford as Group CIO.
Blatchford, who is new to the retail sector, has now taken to LinkedIn to give an early progress report.
Neurolabs raises $3.5 million ‘to democratise computer vision’
UK-based synthetic computer vision startup Neurolabs has announced a $3.5 million seed round led by LAUNCHub Ventures and with Lunar Ventures, Techstart and 7% Ventures as co-investors.
It plans to use the cash to scale operations and expand its offering into several consumer packaged goods use cases.
The company uses digital twins of retail products to train computer vision models to detect those products in the real world. This helps retailers and CPG brands automate organisation wide, visual-based processes such as shelf monitoring in their physical stores.
Tesco and WWF announce Innovation Connections accelerator programme winners
Tesco and WWF have announced the five startups that have won funding and the chance to test and scale their solutions in the former’s supply chain, with the aim of cutting the environmental impact of the average shopping basket and supporting a resilient and sustainable UK food system.
Ocado Beyond 2022 exhibition/conference showcases online grocery disruption
Ocado Beyond, Ocado Solutions’ flagship annual product event and conference exclusive to its C-level and senior OSP partners, took place in London on 23rd - 26th May.
Carrefour UAE to replace plastic bags at checkout counters with starch alternatives
Carrefour UAE, which is owned and operated by Majid Al Futtaim, is to offer a sustainable alternative to plastic bags in response to new government policy banning the use of single-use plastic.
The retailer will provide plant-based bags made of starch at its checkout counters.
These will be available for 25 fils at Carrefour stores across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain from 1st June and in Dubai as of 1st July. They take less than six months to fully decompose.
Prada launches Timecapsule NFT collection and Web3 community
Prada has announced its first solo NFT drop. The brand is planning more drops, following its first foray into this space in collaboration with adidas Originals.
The solo drop is linked to the Prada Timecapsule, an online event in which a different exclusive item is made available in limited quantities, in selected markets, for only 24 hours each month.
Prada Crypted also launched last week, a new community server on Discord, which is open to everyone who wants to join.
Kiosko and Intouch.com a strategic partnership in Mexico
Intouch.com, a Dublin-based startup which has developed an AI powered platform targeting shoppers with personalised offerings in-store, has secured a multi-year contract with Mexican retailer Kiosko.
