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 Nike, Instacart, Co-op, Uber Eats, SPAR, and Amazon’s Just Walk Out and Amazon One technology.
In celebration of Nike’s 50th anniversary, BUCK has partnered with the company’s Global Brand Experience team to bring its past, present, and future to life through a WebAR experience.
Powered by Zappar’s ZapWorks platform, this provides a portal into the Department of Nike Archives for visitors to Nike stores.
US-based grocery technology company, Instacart, is launching Big & Bulky nationwide.
This is a new fulfilment capability that enables same-day and scheduled delivery for large items.
Big Lots, Container Store, Mastermind Toys, Office Depot, Spirit Halloween and Staples are some of the first retailers to use the new solution, unlocking same-day delivery of larger items like outdoor furniture, home office supplies and electronics via the Instacart app and select retailers’ Instacart Platform powered websites.
Buy now, pay later firm Afterpay has partnered with New York Fashion Week to release limited edition non-fungible tokens that come with exclusive merchandise and in-person experiences.
Afterpay has also released a separate free NFT that comes with a six-month free trial of Tidal music streaming, access to a NYFW close-friends group on Instagram and more.
The NFTs were developed in collaboration with five designers — Altu by Joseph Altuzarra, AnOnlyChild, Jonathan Simkhai, Kim Shui and The Blonds — inspired by each of their Spring/Summer ‘23 collections.
Each NFT comes with real-life goods such as a special edition leather tote, invites to after parties, and original runway sketches.
Co-op and Uber Eats have teamed-up as part of the convenience retailer’s plans to expand its on-demand online home delivery service.
Through the partnership, shoppers will be able to order via the Uber Eats app from around 1,000 Co-op food stores by the end of the year, with groceries delivered in as little as 30 minutes.
With the phased roll-out underway from this week, customers can use the Uber Eats app to choose from over 6,000 products stocked in local Co-op stores.
With products picked fresh in local stores, the service is available for a full grocery shop as well as on-demand top-up and forgotten items, meal ideas and treats for evenings in at home.
Boots has expanded its partnership with Deliveroo to 125 stores across the UK.
Customers will now have access, via the Deliveroo app, to an expanded range of 750 products delivered to their door in minutes, following a 14 store trial.
Boots is now available via Deliveroo for the first time to customers in cities including Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, Sheffield, Coventry, Plymouth, Exeter, Middlesbrough, York, Aberdeen and Inverness.
More stores are also offering the service in existing regions, including London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and Edinburgh.
Al Meera Consumer Goods Company has announced a partnership with checkout-free technology firm Zippin.
The Qatar-based company says that it will soon open fully autonomous stores, powered by Zippin’s AI tech, in strategic locations to provide visitors with snacks, beverages, grab-and-go meals and other essential items in “a seamless and cashier-less process”.
Rokt, an e-commerce technology firm using machine learning to make transactions more relevant to shoppers, has announced new partnerships with Uber Technologies and AMC Theatres.
Swedish beauty brand Xlash has partnered with Storyblok, an enterprise headless CMS, to help drive its global e-commerce presence.
Xlash - with the help of Stockholm-based e-commerce agency, Made People - implemented Storyblok’s technology in four months, resulting in streamlined content and e-commerce operations for the company.
The new website’s organic traffic has almost doubled, with 90% of site visitors coming through mobile - a stark difference from the old website which was not mobile friendly.
Dublin based startup VisionR has announced an agreement with SPAR to leverage in-store, shopper driven insights across its retail network in 48 countries.
With a plug-in solution, VisionR’s Scout technology uses computer vision and machine learning to turn real-world shopper experiences into reliable online data that retailers can access through VisionR’s app.
Scout breaks shoppers down anonymously into footfall, shopping groups, shopper profile, shop duration, product engagement, penetration, and spend.
Using this information, retailers can then make informed decisions about marketing, sales, and operations.
The Seattle Seahawks and Lumen Field have announced plans to modernise the stadium’s concessions experience with a new store powered by Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology for checkout-free shopping and Amazon One for entry and payment with palm recognition.
Lumen Field will become the first NFL stadium to implement both technologies in a single store, District Market.
In collaboration with Lumen Field’s hospitality partner, Levy, and DBK Studio, Levy’s innovation studio, this is scheduled to open in time for the 2022 Seahawks regular season.
HelloFresh is leveraging Informatica’s data management solutions to improve forecasting, scale to meet demand and manage data as a strategic asset.
Pick n Pay Group, a retail business operating in South African and other African countries, has migrated its entire on-premises IT infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Pick n Pay worked with Lemongrass Consulting, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner with Migration and SAP Consulting Competencies, to move its on-premises SAP environment to AWS and implement a SAP HANA platform.
It says that jumping to the cloud will enable the firm to streamline its operations and modernise the supply chain network for its stores, develop new digital customer experiences in omnichannel grocery, and expand into new areas of business.
Afresh Technologies has announced the roll-out of its Fresh Operating System across CUB stores in the USA.
After utilising Afresh's predictive ordering and merchandising solution in select stores, CUB, Minnesota's largest grocery firm, reported significant improvements to inventory turns and product freshness for consumers, material labour efficiencies for store personnel, and a profound reduction in food waste across its supply chain.
Nectar360, which manages the Sainsbury’s group retail media portfolio and owns the Nectar coalition loyalty programme, has launched a new self-service offering to support its digital trading platform (DTP) aspirations.
