Including HyperFinity, PMC, and Vyking: RTIH runs through the week's coolest retail technology plays
RTIH Editor, Scott Thompson, brings you his top ‘future of retail’ systems launches and deployments from the past week, including composable commerce platforms, TikTok live shopping experiences, AI powered automated vehicle inspection (AVI) tech, and virtual try on services.
HyperFinity
Decision intelligence specialist, HyperFinity, has launched a new retail media product, designed to help retailers leverage their first-party data, and maximise the impact of advertising.
The UK-based company’s platform links together customer spend data, product attributes, and web browsing data to deliver precise insight into consumer behaviour and needs. These insights are used to target consumers with highly relevant products on retailers’ websites, apps and in-store.
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield
London-based GreenTech company Pavegen has announced a partnership with the new Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier urban quarter in Hamburg, Germany, to install its flooring technology.
The project will see the quarter’s visitors engage visitors with an immersive green education experience that harnesses their footsteps to generate power for a number of benches where they can recharge their devices.
Visitors will be able to see the direct impact of their involvement with an energy dashboard updating on the number of steps and energy generated - giving users a real-time picture of the influence they can have on the surroundings that they use on a daily basis.
This is part of parent group Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield's vision of “creating sustainable, high quality real estate assets in the most dynamic cities in Europe and the United States”.
The group operates 74 shopping centres in 12 countries and Westfield London was Pavegen’s first customer in 2012. These centres attract over 900 million visits annually with the Hamburg destination due to open in spring 2024.
First commercialised in 2015, Pavegen’s interactive floor tiles convert footsteps into small amounts of electrical energy, data points and engagement - with each step powering a LED light for up to 20 seconds or charging a mobile phone.
PMC
PMC, a UK-based technology services provider for retail and B2C, has announced the launch of its composable commerce platform Graphene.
Graphene is pitched as a flexible, rapid and robust platform environment designed for commerce.
The platform is built on the fundamentals of a microservices, API led approach, cloud architecture, and a headless structure.
PMC says that the offering “allows retailers to generate business value with composite technology at scale and low cost…from lightning fast checkouts and enhanced customer loyalty using personalised campaigns, to optimised inventory operations and improved product availability in-store”.
Retailers can now customise applications to meet business needs and deploy cutting-edge solutions, which then readily scale as required, the company adds.
Amazon
Amazon has implemented a new artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology that, it claims, can spot even the smallest anomalies in delivery vans, from tyre deformities and undercarriage wear to bent or warped body pieces, before they become on-road problems.
The Automated Vehicle Inspection (AVI) tech is launching in partnership with startup UVeye in the US, Canada, Germany, and the UK.
“The last thing I want is for something preventable to happen, like a tyre blowing out because we missed an imperceptible defect during our morning inspection,” says Bennett Hart, owner of logistics company Hart Road. “This technology improves the safety of our fleet.”
Superdrug
UK health and beauty retailer Superdrug launched its first TikTok live shopping experience last week.
In a LinkedIn post, Paul Stafford, Head Of Digital Marketing, at Superdrug: “The jury is still out on whether this will take off in the west, like it has in China, but it’s an exciting way to engage with customers, and we're committed to exploring this channel further.”
“And while the scale may not be huge yet, live shopping is a great way to build brand love and stay relevant with our target consumers. And, it's fun!”
“Thanks to Ana Fisher (Assistant Marketing Manager at Superdrug) and Samantha Bullock (Social Media Marketing Manager at Superdrug) and the COTY team for their hard work on getting this up and running.”
Ocado Retail
Since 14th July, Ocado Retail customers have been able to claim monetary rewards for recycling any of its own brand two and four-pint milk bottles using Polytag’s QR codes, redeemable via recycling app Bower.
The trial saw more than 20,000 Ocado Retail milk bottles scanned by over 3,000 consumers using their smartphones before being deposited into home kerbside recycling.
The QR code integrated onto the milk bottles’ labelling is scanned via the aforementioned app, the bottle disposed of in a person’s registered at home recycling bin, and the reward withdrawn into their bank account.
Up to £4,000 worth of rewards were obtained during the nine week long trial.
Walmart
Timberland
Timberland has launched over 250 products for virtual try-on powered by Vyking across its EMEA platforms.
This follows the American manufacturer and retailer of outdoor footwear and apparel, which is owned by VF Corporation, testing out the technology.
In a LinkedIn post, Thibault Marion de Procé, Co-Founder at Vyking, said: “It's always great to get new clients but what's even better is when they decide after successful tests to roll-out on a larger scale.
“This innovative approach has been helping Timberland to increase sales and engagement.”
Carrefour
A2Z Smart Technologies Corp. has been selected to supply Cust2Mate smart carts to Carrefour's Connected Cart project for its newly merged Hypermarket and Supermarket division in France.
Carrefour is the seventh largest global grocery retailer by revenue, operating 13,650 retail store locations worldwide under various banners including hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, cash and carry outlets and soft discount stores.
Its Hypermarket and Supermarket division in France has aggregate sales greater than €30 billion across approximately 1,300 stores that are equipped with approximately 600,000 carts.
Superdrug
Superdrug has launched its own retail media network in the UK.
In a LinkedIn post, Paul Stafford, Head Of Digital Marketing, Retail Media & Online Brand at Superdrug, said: “This week, I had the pleasure of announcing the arrival of Superdrug’s own retail media network, Optimo, at our annual supplier conference.”
He added: “This has been a huge piece of work covering A.S. Watson Group (the owner of Superdrug) BU’s across Hong Kong, Milan, Paris, Amsterdam and London. From a personal point of view, it’s been an incredible journey to work on a project that is at the coal face of major industry change.”
“I can’t wait now to start working with our suppliers to deliver on their briefs.”
“Obviously this has been a massive team effort and couldn't be done without the support of Dan Jarvis (Chief Digital Officer, Europe at A.S. Watson Group), Andrea Zoboli (eLab Technology Director (Europe) at A.S. Watson Group, Mariëlle Slenders, (Head of Media & Performance Benelux at A.S. Watson Group), Matt Walburn, (Customer and Marketing Director at Superdrug), Nicholas Queally, Marketing Manager - Promotions and Pricing at Superdrug), and many, many more.”
Shein
This past weekend in California, Chinese fast fashion giant Shein hosted its first pop-up within a Forever 21 store.
A section of the latter’s permanent storefront was transformed into a shop for apparel, beauty products and accessories sold by Shein, complete with its own employees and checkout counter.
Shoppers needed to scan a QR code to make an appointment to enter.
LeMieux
Equestrian brand, LeMieux, has launched a digital outfit builder.
The tool allows customers to try on an outfit for both horse and rider, using 3D renders of their AW23 product.
In a bid to make sure the outfit builder accurately reflects its customer base, LeMieux chose its own model Amy as its first character.
Since this is a pilot programme, Amy has been designed to reflect the average gender, age, size, and height of the typical LeMieux customer.
However, the aim is to represent all customers in the outfit builder and make it a truly inclusive tool.
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