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 Aldi Nord, Trigo, Co-op Starship Technologies, Amazon, Carrefour, Procter & Gamble, and Morrisons.
Aldi Nord has opened an Aldi Shop & Go store in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
This is a 370㎡ (3,982 square feet) AI powered location where shoppers can walk in, select their items, and walk out without having to queue at the checkout lane or scan any items.
In its largest store format to date, Trigo applies its algorithms to shelf sensors and ceiling mounted cameras which analyse anonymised shoppers' movements and product choices.
Payments and receipts are settled digitally.
Parcel delivery firm DPD has partnered with Quadient to access a new UK wide network of smart parcel lockers.
Quadient will initially install 500 contactless locker stations this year, with a plan for 5,000 in the coming years.
200 of the initial installations will be 24/7 outdoor facilities, and locations could include shopping precincts, housing estates, serviced car parks and higher education sites.
UK food retailer Co-operative Group (aka the Co-op) has implemented Algolia technology to help handle Covid-19 pandemic driven online demand.
Morrisons is adopting Worldline’s Lane/3000 PIN Pad as a core part of its in-store payment system.
Co-op and Starship Technologies have expanded their UK partnership with robot deliveries rolling out to neighbourhoods in Bedford.
In partnership with Bedford Borough Council, the collaboration will see up to 45,000 residents across 20,000 households in Bedford receive quick autonomous deliveries of groceries selected fresh from three local Co-op stores in the area (Goldington; Queens Drive and Kempston).
Co-op and Starship already operate this service in communities across Milton Keynes, Northampton and Cambridgeshire.
Amazon is set to begin drone deliveries in Texas later this year.
Customers in College Station, Texas, will join those in Lockeford, California, to be among the first to receive Prime Air drone deliveries in the US.
Customers across the US will now begin to see custom electric delivery vehicles from Rivian delivering their Amazon packages, with the EVs hitting the road in the likes of Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, and St. Louis.
The aim is to have thousands of these vehicles in more than 100 cities by the end of this year, and 100,000 across the US by 2030.
This is the product of Amazon’s partnership with Rivian, which the companies announced in 2019 when the former co-founded, and became the first signatory of The Climate Pledge.
Lifetime Brands Europe has selected Origin from Retail247 to provide the platform for all new product development.
Scottish grocery app Yuu has announced a partnership with last mile, on-demand delivery company Gophr.
The pair are working together to deliver everyday essentials from over 70 convenience stores across Glasgow with plans to roll the service out across Scotland by the end of 2022.
Nissan Stadium in the US has announced that five Zippin powered checkout-free stores will launch in time for the Tennessee Titans pre-season this summer.
These will be operated by Levy and Legends on both the concourse and club levels.
Blendid and Jamba have announced plans to expand their Jamba by Blendid autonomous robotic kiosk locations to Love’s Travel Stops, building on initial deployments in retail locations and college campuses.
The first kiosk piloted at a Love’s Travel Stop will open this summer in Williams, CA, just outside of Sacramento, marking an expansion into rest area locations.
Carrefour has partnered with Procter & Gamble for what is pitched as “the first joint retail/FMCG brand experience in the metaverse”.
This involves the latter’s Mr. Clean brand.
In a LinkedIn post, Elodie Perthuisot, Chief E Commerce, Digital Transformation and Data Officer & EXCOM member at Carrefour, said: “Thanks to their Lab, we are both offering Carrefour customers a marketing activation of a new style, between gamification, immersion, Web3, all with a Mr. Clean as you have never seen it before.”
She added: “This is a test to renew the classic advertisements and activations, create a link between the metaverse and e-commerce, and especially receive feedback from our customers to evolve this experience.”
Jisp and Payzone have partnered to allow UK retailers to offer integrated home delivery, Click and Collect, Scan and Save and store specific loyalty services, in addition to accessing brand rewards and content.
Payzone retailers will be able to use Jisp’s Scan & Save solution, via the Payzone Plus device.
Jisp will promote leading promotions in-app and online to drive shoppers to their local Scan & Save store.
Klevu, a provider of artificial intelligence powered search and discovery technology for e-commerce sites, has added Philip Kingsley to its roster of beauty and skincare brand clients.
Since integrating Klevu’s Discovery Suite in December, Philip Kingsley’s US e-commerce site conversion has increase by 41%.
It has also realised a 84% increase in search led transactions, with revenue generated from search-based queries up 106%. Moreover, visits using site search have seen a 95% decrease in bounce rates.
Britvic has launched The Robinsons Big Fruit Hunt, an augmented reality activation designed to get parents and kids outdoors and hunting for virtual fruit hidden across Great Britain.
This is a geo-location-based digital treasure hunt that works through a smartphone browser (no need to download an app) and offers thousands of prizes to the best virtual fruit hunters.
Tortoise is partnering with Sodexo to bring a mobile smart store - aka a vending machine with wheels - to Comic-Con this year.
One of Tortoise’s robots, carrying Sodexo’s carne asada burritos and 20 ounce bottles of Gatorade, will be present in the main Pavilion at the San Diego Convention Center to service Comic-Con’s estimated crowd of 135,000 attendees from 21st-24th July.
Following the introduction of same-day delivery for Pets at Home customers at the end of last year, the offer is being expanded to more stores including several in Scotland, across Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as York, Coventry and Bath, taking the total number to 128.
Stuart is handling the delivery side of things, typically within two hours.
The service enables Pets at Home customers to place their orders directly through the website, as they would usually do.
Once the product is selected, OneStock’s order management system displays Stuart’s same-day service as one of Pets at Home’s delivery options, if the postcode is within the coverage of the store.
