Smart carts and social shopping: RTIH presents last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, launches, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Including Carrefour France, Robert Dyas, Amazon, Fanatics, Oracle Retail, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, and Superdrug.
Robert Dyas
Home and garden retailer, Robert Dyas, has partnered with PropTech firm Facilio and NJRobinson to streamline its energy management practices.
The company reported a 20% reduction in energy costs, equivalent to 600,000 pounds worth of savings in just three months of deploying Facilio’s Connected buildings platform across its 93 stores and distribution centre. It was also able to save 285 tonnes of CO2 through its energy savings programme.
Robert Dyas’ CFO Charlotte Walker says: “It took a combination of using the right technology and a cultural shift to get here. The change centred around instilling a cost conscious culture and encouraging responsible spending.”
“When we decided to tackle energy cost reduction as a strategic priority proactively, we found the perfect partner in Facilio - their platform meaningfully connects people, processes, and systems to achieve remarkable results.”
Argentine Football Association and Fanatics
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) and Fanatics have announced a long-term agreement that will see the latter build and operate the former’s official e-commerce store.
This will offer Argentine fans a significantly expanded range of merchandise, with people able to purchase official Argentina adidas clothing, official AFA merchandise and a range of products developed and designed by Fanatics.
In addition, fans will be able to participate in promotions for access to unique items and experiences such as autographed t-shirts or tickets for major tournaments.
The new online store, which will launch in 2024, will utilise Fanatics’ Cloud Commerce Platform.
Slerp and Uber Direct
Hospitality technology solutions provider, Slerp, has partnered with Uber Direct, to provide the UK’s hospitality sector with an on demand delivery service.
This integration will give businesses of all sizes that offer direct ordering and delivery, from premium hotels and quick service restaurant chains to independent bakeries, coffee shops and delis, access to the same courier network as Uber Eats across the UK.
Slerp works with more than 200 UK brands across the UK food industry, including The Dorchester, The Connaught, The Savoy, Eataly, Pasta Evangelists and Ottolenghi.
Their customers can make a purchase through the business’s own website or app and the Slerp dispatch platform will request a courier via Uber Direct. Customers can choose between ASAP or scheduled delivery times.
They can also use Uber’s real-time tracking technology and, if needed, access to 24/7 customer support services.
BMW Group UK
BMW Group UK, a supplier of BMW and MINI original parts, has launched on the BigCommerce SaaS e-commerce platform.
BigCommerce technology partner Autofixa Solutions, a provider of marketplace solutions for the automotive industry, was approached by BMW Group UK to launch new stores for both the BMW and MINI brands, featuring ERP integrations that sync inventory supplies and pricing data directly with the stores.
They primarily serve consumers, but business customers also use them as an alternative for locating and purchasing specific parts.
PTC Retail
PTC Retail has announced the availability of Flex Insights - a low code platform designed to help brands and retailers unlock the power of their data to drive faster and better decision-making during planning and product development.
Leveraging PTC’s ThingWorx IoT technology, Flex Insights extends the capabilities and functionality of PTC’s retail product lifecycle management platform, FlexPLM, and is available through apps, including critical path management, compliance tracking, visual line planning and sustainability analytics.
Personalisation features improve the user experience and put real-time data, imagery, and actionable insights at user’s fingertips.
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.
REMA 1000
REMA 1000 has migrated SymphonyAI store mobility, store operations, demand forecasting, and space planning and automation to SymphonyAI’s hosted cloud-based platform.
As a SymphonyAI customer since 2015, the discount grocer uses its solutions to streamline store operations, automate space planning and planogram processes, and improve demand forecasting accuracy to better engage shoppers while increasing efficiency and driving measurable business impact.
“As a result of the productive collaborative effort between SymphonyAI and REMA 1000, we seamlessly completed a successful transition from our previous hosting provider to SymphonyAI’s one stop shop cloud hosting with end-to-end support,” says Fredrik Almstrøm, Head of Cloud at REMA 1000.
Six Flags Entertainment Corporation
Rokt has partnered with Six Flags Entertainment Corporation with the aim of offering more relevant experiences to the company's customers.
Six Flags is utilising Rokt's machine learning technology to present relevant offers from brands including Hulu, Hellofresh, and Homechef to each customer in the final stages of an e-commerce transaction.
Rally House
Sweden-based Sitoo has rolled out out its first major US customer, sports merchandise retailer Rally House.
Rally House has deployed the Sitoo Point of Sale solution and the underlying Unified Commerce Platform in around 200 stores across 18 states.
Associated Grocers
Associated Grocers, a grocery wholesale company based in Western Canada, (a division of the Pattison Food Group), and serving a network of over 650 independent retail locations, has selected Pricer's partner JRTech Solutions to supply members with the former’s in-store automation and communication solution and the latest generation of fully graphic Pricer electronic shelf labels (ESLs).
The first complete grocery store installation of the newest range of Pricer ESLs, SmartTAG Colour, with Black, Red, White, and Yellow colour display capabilities, took place at Liberty Foods in Fruitvale, British Columbia.
This represents the first grocery store in Canada to employ four-colour ESLs.
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.
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.”
Scandic Hotels
Scandic Hotels Group is implementing the cloud-based IT solution Oracle Hospitality OPERA Cloud platform.
Preparations began in autumn 2022 and the solution will now connect all hotels and central functions, with the aim of enabling better guest experiences and increasing operational efficiency.
Work kicked off in January 2023, and the goal is for all hotels and most central functions to be connected to the new platform by the first half of 2024.
“Our partnership with Oracle is in line with our strategy to constantly improve the guest experience and create an even more cost-effective operating model,” says Jens Mathiesen, President and CEO at Scandic Hotels Group.
“Investing in our digital development is an investment in the future where we see excellent opportunities to exploit more economies of scale and increase our growth and profitability.”
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.”
Carrefour France
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.
The first phase of the aforementioned project is the delivery of 2,000 smart carts, expected in the first half of 2024 at two Carrefour hypermarket retail locations in France.
Bridge Furniture & Props
Bridge Furniture & Props has entered in to a partnership with Lily AI to enable its film and television industry clients to find the perfect set décor on its website.
Bridge Props is a trade resource for trending furniture, accessories, and decorative items for entertainment industry, commercial, photography, and events professionals.
“We have always prioritised user experience on our website and are excited to introduce a new set of functionality that will help our clients to find and curate exceptional pieces that fit both classic and trending styles,” says Dave Wilson, Bridge’s Chief Executive Officer and Partner.
“Our partnership with Lily AI is so exciting because we can now collaborate on trends we’re seeing from our own client base that echo trends happening in the broader consumer market.”
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.
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.”
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.”
Continue reading…