Last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Featuring Walmart, Alimentation Couche-Tard, H&M Group, Chipotle, Boxer, and Prada.
Alimentation Couche-Tard is set to deploy more than 10,000 Mashgin AI powered touchless checkout systems, branded as Smart Checkout, to over 7,000 of its Circle K and Couche-Tard stores during the next three years.
The agreement launches the global deployment of the solution, and is claimed to be one of the largest scale expansions of computer vision powered checkout technology to date.
It builds upon the deployment of Mashgin across nearly 500 Circle K locations in the US and Sweden since 2020, as well as at Couche-Tard's retail innovation lab store on the campus of McGill University in Montreal.
Walmart has announced plans to build four new fulfilment centres. These will implement automation technology that provides customers and Walmart+ members with access to next or two day shipping on millions of items.
Locatons include McCordsville, Indiana, and Greencastle, Pennsylvania.
“Our new next generation fulfilment centre is a first of its kind for Walmart that will transform the way we ship online orders to customers,” says David Guggina, Senior Vice President, Automation, and Innovation at Walmart.
“Through our automated storage system and patent pending five step process, we’ll not only provide increased comfort for associates but also double the storage capacity and double the number of customer orders we’re able to fulfil in a day.”
Chick-fil-A has enlisted Refraction AI to deploy a fleet of the startup’s self-driving vehicles to two of its restaurants in downtown Austin, Texas.
The commercial pilot will begin in late June.
"Autonomous delivery using Refraction's robots creates an exciting new opportunity to extend the Chick-fil-A experience to a growing number of delivery guests," says Luke Steigmeyer of Chick-fil-A.
"The platform will allow us to provide fast, high quality, and cost-effective meal delivery within a mile radius of our restaurant all while helping to keep the community we serve environmentally clean and safe."
Mexican fast food chain Chipotle is now accepting cryptocurrency payments through Flexa at its 2,950+ USA-based restaurants.
Chipotle will offer all the 98 cryptocurrencies Flexa currently supports, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and seven US dollar pegged stablecoins.
H&M Group is rolling out a pilot in COS stores, US, where “tech enabled in-store shopping solutions provide visitors with seamless payment options, personalised styling recommendations, faster checkout, and upgraded delivery/return options”.
The first pilot store in Beverly Hills, California includes fitting rooms equipped with smart mirrors that recognise products brought into the room (e.g. item, size, and colour) with the possibility to offer personalised product and styling recommendations.
On the store floor, other types of smart mirrors can be used for virtual try-on and styling.
Brain Corp is adopting Google Cloud as the core technical infrastructure for the management of its fleet of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).
QVALON has added Nana | نعناع to its client list.
The Saudi Arabia-based online grocery shopping and delivery service has chosen QVALON to manage operations across its locations in 13 cities in the Kingdom.
It will use the tech to streamline communications between retail and HQ teams, transfer all daily operational checklists into a digital format and help frontline teams be more efficient by centralising dark store tasks in one place.
Sustainable consumer tableware brand, Fable Home, has announced a partnership with e-commerce startup Conjura.
The tie up will see Fable leverage Conjura’s AI driven data analytics platforms to gain greater insights into its performance.
The aim is to gain vital information on business risks and opportunities and unlock a greater understanding of its marketing scalability and customer acquisition costs (CAC) across various channels to ensure that resources are used as effectively as possible.
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 initiative 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.
Boxer, a Southern African discounter, has selected RELEX Solutions to implement forecasting and replenishment for its stores and distribution centres.
It will leverage the RELEX Living Retail solution in 300+ stores and five distribution centres, with the aim of improving availability and driving sales across all its activities.
Outdoor and country goods retailer, Bradshaw Taylor, is using the Microsoft Cloud as it looks to give a real-time view of the business and quickly respond to customer demand.
It has built a new centralised and integrated system, which sits on Microsoft Dynamics 365, replacing individual systems from its seven brands.
As a result, orders now take seconds rather than hours to raise, even with larger customers who place more than 500 order lines a day. In turn, this has led to a reduction of customer service queries.
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.
Siam Makro, an operator of wholesale grocery in Thailand, is partnering with RELEX Solutions for a project involving omnichannel demand forecasting across its enterprise.
The RELEX tech will service Siam Makro’s 150+ stores as well as its distribution network throughout Thailand, with the aim of driving improvements in forecast visibility, granularity, and accuracy across all stores and sales channels.
Home Brew Online has deployed Brightpearl’s retail operating system.
The homemade beer and ale specialist will benefit from such features as Automation Engine, Demand Planner and plug and play integrations.
The company sells direct-to-consumer and wholesale via its BigCommerce website and through channels such as Amazon and eBay.
