What’s hot on social media? RTIH’s biggest retail technology articles on LinkedIn right now
We’re big fans of LinkedIn and are busy building an amazing community of retail tech enthusiasts on the social media platform. These are the articles that are currently on their radars, including Duffle, Dufry, Retail Technology Show 2024, Commerce Futures, Amazon Fresh, Sook, Liverpool ONE, Retail247, Crew Clothing, and 3D Cloud by Marxent.
Duffle adds Dufry as strategic partner to digitise airport experience alongside Gebr. Heinemann
Duffle, a startup that provides travellers with a digital platform to access duty free shops, brand boutiques and food & beverage (F&B) outlets in airports, has gained Dufry as a new strategic partner.
The latter invested in its recent financing round and joins Gebr. Heinemann who backed Duffle via its investment vehicle GHARAGE Ventures.
Whatever the traveller needs, be it a perfume or a croissant, will be delivered by Duffle “runners” to their gate or airport lounge within minutes.
Following trials at Copenhagen airport, the service will soon go live at Berlin airport with delivery and later on collect options for multi-merchant shopping.
The aim is to expand to airport services and, if successful, to additional airports. In addition, Duffle aims to digitise not only the sales experience, but also services and marketing.
Retail Technology Show and Commerce Futures agree partnership to boost e-commerce at RTS 2024
Retail Technology Show has announced a partnership with Commerce Futures, the aim of which is to enhance the e-commerce focused content and offerings at RTS 2024, scheduled to take place on 24th-25th April 2024, at Olympia, London.
Here's what to expect from the tie up:
Commerce Futures will host a dedicated e-commerce conference at RTS2024, featuring industry thought leaders and experts who will delve into the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in the online sector.
Commerce Futures says that it is “hand picking a superstar lineup of speakers who know e-commerce like the back of their shopping bags. They'll dish out the secrets to e-commerce greatness, share success stories, and offer visionary insights to set you on the path to retail success”.
A dedicated e-commerce pavilion curated by Commerce Futures, meanwhile, promises to feature “industry trailblazers, tech wizards, and service geniuses”.
Just Walk Out tech powered Amazon Fresh London stores get entry, exit and self-checkout updates
Amazon has in recent weeks been busy tinkering with its Amazon Fresh checkout free convenience stores in Kensington, White City, and Southwark, London.
The ultimate aim here is alleviating some of the friction associated with the e-commerce giant’s Just Walk Out technology.
In a LinkedIn post, Thomas Monaghan, EU Head of Construction & Design at Amazon, said: “Busy couple of weeks in the team with lots of launches. Adam Quig (Senior Project Manager at Amazon Fresh Stores) and
Steve Kirk (Senior Construction Manager - Amazon - Worldwide Grocery Real Estate) launched entry exit updates in Kensington and White City last week, with Southwark relaunching this week.”
He added: “Harriet Fitzgerald-Allsopp (Construction Coordinator at Amazon) helped to launch our first self-scans in Monument with some new signage to aide customers by Julia Wyatt (Senior Store Designer, Architect, Retail Designer) and Matthew Lyons (Senior Design Concept & Innovation Manager).”
“Thanks to everyone in the supply chain who helped deliver these challenging, quick turn around projects.”
Time is running out to enter the 2023 RTIH Innovation Awards: deadline for submissions Friday, 27th October
There are just over three weeks left to submit your entries for the 2023 RTIH Innovation Awards, which takes place on Wednesday, 29th November at the Barbican Arts Centre in central London.
The event, sponsored by PMC, CADS, 3D Cloud by Marxent, and Goodays, celebrates global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Spread over 19 different categories, submissions are judged on the extent of innovation and transformation demonstrated, as well as the sustainability of the results. Previous year’s winners have included B&Q, Pets at Home, Walmart, Sook, AiFi, Compass Group, Obsess, and Ribble Cycles.
Deadline for 2023 submissions is Friday, 27th October.
The awards culminate in a fantastic ceremony, complete with a drinks reception and Christmas themed three-course meal at the Barbican Arts Centre on Wednesday 29th November.
A key event highlight is an exclusive pre-awards roundtable discussion, enabling retailers, tech suppliers and advisors to come together and talk about current retail challenges and opportunities.
Key dates
Friday, 27th October: Award entry deadline
Tuesday, 31st October: 2023 shortlist revealed
6th-10th November: Judging days
Wednesday, 29th November: The 2023 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony
Categories, along with entry forms, can be found here.
Sook preps new digital pop-up space at Liverpool ONE shopping, residential, and leisure complex
Sook, which takes vacant retail spaces and gives them a modular, digital fit-out which can be rented by the hour, is launching a new space at the Liverpool ONE shopping, residential, and leisure complex.
The 1,250 sq ft space will offer leases ranging from three days to a months and comes fitted out with digital display boards, screens and fixtures.
Sook supplies brands with a range of data analytics and digital planning tools, giving tenants information on how best to use the space and operate with optimum efficiency.
The space will be used for a variety of uses including music, artists, workshops, fitness classes, experiential brand campaigns and traditional retailers.
Costa Coffee brings in Vista Technology Support as its new retail stores break-fix provider
Vista Technology Support has announced a partnership with Costa Coffee.
The tech support company will apply its Continuous Service Improvement (CSI) philosophy with the aim of reducing the occurrence of system faults and outages, and to maintain maximum operational time in over 1,500 Costa Coffee stores across the UK.
When unable to predict a likely outage or interruption through CSI, the Vista Field Services Team of more than 130 engineers around the UK will be mobilised to repair and resolve any issues.
La-Z-Boy works with 3D Cloud by Marxent as it taps web-based augmented technology
Furniture retailer La-Z-Boy reports that 3D product configuration and WebAR OnDemand technology is now available on its website. Powered by 3D Cloud by Marxent, the initiative is part of La-Z-Boy's Century Vision strategic plan.
The company is investing in a range of new shopping and brand experiences for both digital platforms and bricks and mortar environments.
It says that the upgraded product configurators and the addition of appless AR provide an immersive brand experience that bridges online product research with the in-store experience.
With over 29 million possible configurations available to consumers, WebAR OnDemand aims to bring a new level of convenience to shoppers who want to research, configure, and plan furniture purchases online before visiting a physical retail location.
The approach uses 3D Cloud WebAR OnDemand to automate 3D content creation and deploy WebAR at scale.
Fresh food retail tech firm Invafresh announces appointment of Will Hansmann as CTO
Invafresh, a US-based company which operates in the fresh food retail industry, has announced the addition of Will Hansmann to its executive team as Chief Technology Officer.
He joins from project44, a specialist in supply chain visibility.
As Chief Technology Officer at project44, he led engineering in partnership with product management and go to market teams to build the company’s supply chain visibility platform. During his five-year tenure, he scaled the engineering organisation across the US, Europe, China, and India.
Prior to that, Hansmann held CTO and other senior technology leadership roles at Citadel, Uptake Technologies, Channel IQ and Aurora Investment Management.
FoodTech startup BetterBrand launches Better Bagel product in the UK following Series A funding round
BetterBrand has announced its expansion to the UK after going live in the US with its product range.
It will debut three SKUs of its ‘hero’ product, the Better Bagel exclusively at Whole Foods Market store locations in the UK from 2nd October.
This comes off the heels of the company’s Series A, where its CEO and Founder, Aimee C. Yang set the record for the highest Series A valuation posted by a female founder in venture history of $170 million.
Retail247 Archean stock solution deployed in Crew Clothing stores as part of omnichannel push
Retail247 has announced the deployment of Archean, its stock solution, at Crew Clothing stores.
This consists of a central engine (Archean Core), and is supported by a series of transaction providing solutions.
As part of Crew Clothing’s three-year technology strategy to enable efficient omnichannel retailing, the brand needed a platform to become its single repository of stock information.
Having established a strong partnership with Retail247, it chose to build on this existing foundation and selected Archean as its stock engine in March 2022, including the module Archean Move.
This is designed to be deployed in stores, Archean Move can be the store’s single portal for stock activity.
Transactions in Archean Move can have multiple states and can also trigger activity to other solutions, meaning that Archean can seamlessly maintain the integrity of legacy solutions where required.
Product development specialist Trinetix bags $10m investment to drive expansion into Latam market
Trinetix has secured $10 million in funding from the investment fund Hypra.
With a foothold in Europe and the United States, the firm has attracted such customers as Coca-Cola, P&G, ExxonMobil, Credit Agricole, Dutchie, and McDonald’s.
The funding will enable Trinetix to open an office in Latin America, which will facilitate new strategic partnerships and potential acquisitions.
“With 12 years of market experience, we have built a diverse list of industry leading clients. We’ve achieved this by providing a quality service led by our team of more than 850 industry experts,” says Sasha Strozhemin, Co-Founder and CEO at Trinetix.
“We have committed to strengthening our partners’ bottom lines over growing our own balance sheets, with over 80% of our workforce made up of senior level talent.”
‘Simply unacceptable’: UK retailers tell government to put its words into action as retail crime soars
88 UK retailers, including Tesco, Boots, John Lewis Partnership, and Marks & Spencer, have signed a letter to the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, demanding action over rising rates of retail crime.
The 2023 BRC Crime Survey showed that incidents of violence and abuse towards retail colleagues had almost doubled on pre-pandemic levels to 867 incidents every day in 2021/22.
It also put the scale of retail theft at £953 million, despite over £700 million in crime prevention spending by retailers. This meant the total cost of retail crime stood at £1.76 billion for the 12-month period to April.
A separate BRC survey of members in 2023, meanwhile, found that levels of shoplifting in ten major cities had risen by an average of 27%. This is not to mention the cascade of recent press stories detailing the wave of theft and violence currently impacting shops across the UK.
McDonald's Egypt selects Roboost AI powered solution to automate fast food giant’s delivery operations
Roboost has announced a partnership with McDonald's Egypt.
With Roboost's AI powered solution, the fast food giant says it is poised to fully automate its last mile delivery cycle, optimising operations before delivery starts, and reducing manual actions.
"We are excited to partner with McDonald's Egypt and help them continue to deliver on their famed promise of the fastest delivery in Egypt," says Mohamed Gessraha, CEO at Roboost.
"With our AI powered solution, they can fully automate their home delivery operations, optimise their routes even without digital locations, and improve their delivery times, all while offering their customers a consistently superior delivery experience.”
“We are confident that our partnership will set new standards in the delivery market across the region."
PriceSmart replaces legacy system and picks RELEX Solutions for supply chain and retail planning strategies initiative
PriceSmart, an operator of membership warehouse clubs in Central America, the Caribbean, and Colombia, has chosen RELEX Solutions to enhance its supply chain and retail planning strategies.
PriceSmart has a complex product assortment, including ambient and fresh products, and a challenging supply chain spanning 12 countries, each with unique requirements.
The RELEX solution will be implemented across its 52 clubs throughout Central America, the Caribbean, and Colombia, aiming to reduce inefficiencies while improving their forecast accuracy, product availability, operational cost savings, and overall efficiency.
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