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 Cainz Corporation, AiFi, Pinterest, Waitrose, Frasers Group, Gopuff, and JD.com.
Japan’s Cainz Corporation, a home improvement chain with 230 stores, has announced a new autonomous location, called Cainz Mobile Store, on the first floor of its HQ in Honjo City, Saitama.
The computer vision technology implemented into the store, powered by US-based AiFi, will allow customers to shop for Cainz brand household products and snack items without having to go through a cash register or self-checkout.
This will open in the near future and may expand to other locations in the future.
PFS has been selected by The All England Lawn Tennis Club to operate its global order fulfilment operations for the online Wimbledon Shop.
It is doing so via a distribution centre in Southampton, United Kingdom.
Columbian retailer Olímpica has selected Blue Yonder’s category management, space and floor planning, which includes Planogram Generator, and assortment management solutions to improve its display strategy.
The project is currently being implemented by Softtek, a Blue Yonder partner and consulting IT company.
APP Group, owner of the Mackage and SOIA & KYO brands, has announced a partnership with NewStore to implement its omnichannel tech solutions.
By replacing its legacy PoS with a mobile, the company says that it has transformed the in-store experience for associates and shoppers.
Additionally, the APP Group brands now use the NewStore OMS, which will enable omnichannel capabilities such as endless aisle, store fulfilment, and inventory management.
3D Cloud by Marxent, a specialist in 3D e-commerce for furniture and home improvement, has announced a partnership with design company MillerKnoll.
The pair are launching a new, code free system for building and maintaining consumer facing, web-based 3D product configurators for furniture e-commerce, powered by 3D Cloud.
Earlier this year, 3D product configurators built with the app were launched in select Herman Miller retail stores.
These are now available via the Herman Miller contract website in the US and are expected to roll-out to the firm’s websites serving consumers and international markets in mid-2023.
Interior designers and trade professionals now have the ability to customise designs such as the Aeron chair in real-time and then buy their final configuration online.
The apps allow shoppers to visualise every possible combination, get accurate pricing as they design, download images at any stage in the process, and share them with friends and family.
Pinterest has launched Waitrose’s latest campaign on its platform, showcasing its “colourful variety in food choices for this year’s summer dishes”.
Raising awareness of its “high quality products and everyday food range”, the retailer is looking to inspire Pinners to prepare tasty meals, utilising Pinterest’s immersive ad format, the Pin Extension, for the first time.
Waitrose’s campaign features an interactive look book allowing Pinners to select from one of four different summer food options including dishes from around the world ‘World Eating’, dishes ‘Made for Sharing’, ‘Perfect Picnics’ and ‘Brilliant BBQs’.
They will then be shown a selection of dishes and recipes, including tips and tricks on how to perfect each one, with a shopping list specifically for that recipe that the user can have to hand ahead of their next grocery shop.
Adyen has launched its first in-house designed payments terminals, running on the company’s single technology platform.
Said platform acts as a payment gateway, payment service provider and offers risk management and local acquiring.
“Our commitment is to help businesses realise their ambitions faster, and creating our own terminals is the latest way we’re delivering on this promise,” says Kamran Zaki, COO at Adyen.
“We always innovate based on customer feedback to deliver superior experiences with speed and flexibility. With our in-person payments offering, businesses have a full suite of terminals to choose from, enabling them to pick the best one to meet their specific needs.”
The University of Hull’s Aura Innovation Centre has joined forces with Hull-based company iParcelBox to develop a carbon footprint tool for people shopping online.
The initiative started when iParcelBox wanted to understand exactly how green its product was.
The company provides a drop box, which the customer monitors and controls from their smartphone to securely receive parcels when they’re not home or can’t get to the door.
Paul Needler, iParcelBox’s CEO, felt that the Aura Innovation Centre (AIC) could help support small businesses to accelerate their low carbon innovations into commercialisation, so got in touch to see whether his firm’s idea was eligible for support and funding.
The AIC matched iParcelBox up with the University of Hull Business School’s logistics and supply chain expert Dr Sushma Kumari, who leads a masters course in the subject.
Frasers Group, the British retailer that owns Sports Direct, Jack Wills and Game, has chosen the Tanium platform to gain better visibility and control of its IT environments, including those of newly acquired companies.
Rapha Racing, a cycling apparel brand, is leveraging 7bridges’ AI technology to create more resilient supply chains.
Over the past two years, the company says it has faced a huge increase in demand, presenting new challenges.
7bridges’s AI technology will be used to help manage the wide range of different carriers and service providers that Rapha currently works with, streamlining the invoicing process, ensuring that service levels are always met, and automating the dispute and recovery process for any erroneous charges.
Willies has rolled out Brightpearl’s retail operating system.
The UK-based retailer, which specialises in ice hockey, inline hockey and figure skating equipment, now has access to such features as Automation Engine, plug and play integrations, Inventory Planner Premium and advanced reporting functionality.
Smart Robotics, a specialist in picking automation as a service for warehouses and logistics processes, has officially launched its latest cobot - the Smart Fashion Picker.
It says that the reliability of the cobot, and its ability to run continuously, ensures quicker return on investment, whilst answering the labour crisis in logistics and bettering the physical and mental health of warehouse employees.
It can pick a large variety of fashion items, which are placed in protective wrapping, straight from a cart or bin. Vision sensors, motion and task planning algorithms help the cobot to calculate what to pick next, as well as how to pick and place the item accurately into the next bin, and it can easily detect when the bin is empty or filled.
Rapid delivery firm Gopuff has announced the expansion of its retail media network for full shopper journey campaigns.
Gopuff Ads is the first retail media network to roll-out the off-site capabilities of CitrusAd, powered by Epsilon.
This builds on Gopuff Ads’ initial integration with CitrusAd, enabling brands to reach not only Gopuff site visitors, but also the entirety of its shopper audience across the open web.
Daniel Folkman, SVP of Business at Gopuff, says: "As the first instant ad platform, we are bringing advertisers closer to their desired audience by collapsing the marketing funnel from impression to consumption in 30 minutes.”
“Now, Gopuff Ads’ expansion into off-site media with CitrusAd - powered by Epsilon’s first-party purchase and future intent data - delivers amplified, relevant reach for our brand partners.”
“We look forward to introducing this enhanced and streamlined capability to our partners.”
