The latest from White Stuff, Tesco, and Tatcha: 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. Featuring The Fresh Market, Firework, Tesco, Trigo, Apotea, AutoStore, boohoo Group, what3words, New Look, and parcelLab.
Tesco
Tesco has opened its latest GetGo location, Aston University Express. Powered by Trigo technology, this is located in Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city.
The university location is the final instalment of Tesco’s announced three autonomous stores deployment throughout the UK, the other sites being Chiswell Street Express in central London, and Fulham Reach Express in Parrs Way, London.
It is the largest autonomous Tesco store to date at over 4,000 square metres.
The Fresh Market
Firework has proved an update on its longstanding partnership with specialty food retailer, The Fresh Market.
The latter is using the Firework video commerce platform to launch what is pitched as the USA’s first ever Shoppable Video-Live Commerce (SVLC) retail media network (RMN).
“Overall, the combined viewership of our first four Firework powered livestreams exceeded two million views and we saw conversion rates of the special occasion meals featured in the shoppable videos to be over 300% greater than our traditional digital advertising results," says Kevin Miller, Chief Marketing Officer at The Fresh Market.
“Having proven the power of Firework’s video commerce content in 2022, we’re excited to offer our partners an innovative and differentiated means of storytelling in an entertaining new way. We call it shoppertainment.”
White Stuff
White Stuff says it has improved product experiences across its owned and third party retail channels, partnering with Akeneo.
The company runs over 100 stores in the UK and Germany. Digitally, it operates its direct to consumer (DTC) offer through its own e-commerce site, as well as selling through third-party retailers, including John Lewis, M&S and Next.
Traditionally, White Stuff had no single source of truth for product data across its sales channels, with data sets stored on legacy systems or on excel sheets, which needed manual input at each stage of the product life cycle.
This was impacting data quality and consistency of the product information available to internal teams, third parties and customers. Additionally, the process to enrich product data was operationally inefficient.
It selected Akeneo because of the usability and accessible user-interface of the solution, as well as its open API infrastructure and MACH architecture.
This composable configuration will allow White Stuff to effectively scale at pace and integrate the PIM with the tech stack in the long-term as it evolves with the needs of the business.
Boots
AutoStore and THG Ingenuity
AutoStore reports that its fulfilment automation technology is now available as a pay per pick service.
It says that the new offering will enable a lower entry price point to help retailers meet the growing need for more efficient warehouse operations and faster customer delivery.
AutoStore has also signed a global distribution partnership agreement with THG Ingenuity, part of THG, the direct-to-consumer digital brands group.
THG Ingenuity will provide AutoStore technology on a pay per pick model embedded alongside its proprietary warehouse management, courier and optimisation software.
Tatcha
Tatcha is launching a new virtual store, powered by the Emperia platform.
The aim, according to a press release, is to “immerse guests in the tranquil scents and sounds of the Japanese hinoki forest while introducing them to the new Forest Awakening collection and educating visitors about the benefits of forest bathing”.
Forest bathing, also known as shinrin-yoku, the ritual of connecting to nature through the senses, has become a common medical treatment prescribed by Japanese physicians for its many immunity and mood boosting powers.
Starting with a calming walk through the Hinoki forest, visitors are immersed in the sounds and sights of the traditional Japanese outdoors, leading to an onsen, a Japanese wellness resort, consisting of several rooms, all engulfing the user in the Tatcha Hinoki experience, allowing the user to move freely, explore products, learn about them and shop.
The Ritual Space provides visitors with a step-by-step beauty regime.
The Best Seller Space presents Tatcha’s products and teaches visitors about their ingredients and origins; the Spa Space presents the new Forest Awakening collection around a traditional Japanese hot tub.
Visitors who choose to venture back into the outdoors can pass by the hot springs and reach a tea ceremony, taking place in a calming outdoor hut.
Apotea
Swedish online pharmacy, Apotea, automated its logistics centre in autumn 2022 to deliver approximately 50,000 orders a day to its customers.
Following cooperation between Element Logic, AutoStore, RightHand Robotics and Apotea, the centre fully integrated eOperator piece-picking robots with an AutoStore solution, pitched as a world first.
“During the pandemic, we looked at expanding the capacity to go from delivering 50,000 orders to 100,000 orders,” says Pär Svärdson, CEO at Apotea.
“That's when we started looking at Element Logic and AutoStore. When we thought of installing AutoStore, it was precisely the ability to be able to robotise the picking that was one of the driving forces.”
Lipton Ice Tea
Lipton Ice Tea has announced the launch of #PassTheSunshine, its biggest ever creator led campaign in Australia in partnership with influencer agency, Billion Dollar Boy.
The 14-day campaign features a range of 11 of Australia’s biggest creator talents in a combined digital out-of-home (DOOH), social media and experiential activation to raise brand awareness and to encourage acts of kindness.
It began on 15th February in Bourke Street, Melbourne - one of Australia’s largest and busiest shopping districts - and will be executed in three stages.
Matt Storer, known for his comedic paradies and musical skits on TikTok, kicks things off, appearing on the 28 metre tall Bourke Street Mall billboard - Australia’s biggest full motion, high resolution digital billboard.
Embracing the spirit of Melbourne’s eclectic busking community, Storer performs his one-minute long original, bespoke campaign song, Pass The Sunshine, with lyrics appearing as subtitles.
The advert encourages Melbourne to perform random acts of kindness, with Storer passing a Lipton Ice Tea to other creators guest appearing in the billboard - including: comedic social media personalities, Nathan Lust and Angelo Marasigan; best friends and mature creators, Ginger and Carman; differently abled comedic creator, Jimmy Jan; and prominent children’s entertainer, Tsehay Hawkins.
The song finishes with Storer offering a Lipton Ice Tea to passers by in a 3D effect.
Well Pharmacy
Independent pharmacy chain Well Pharmacy has partnered with Pennies, a micro-donation charity, and Trust Retail, part of the Trust Payments Group, to help encourage charitable donations when paying in cashless ways.
Southeastern Grocers
US-based Southeastern Grocers is expanding its online shopping service with the launch of curbside pickup in nearly 300 Winn-Dixie stores and Harveys Supermarket locations throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
boohoo Group
Online fashion retailer boohoo Group and location technology specialist what3words have announced a new partnership.
In the UK, deliveries can be challenging. Addresses aren’t always accurate, street names are often duplicated, postcodes cover broad areas, and specific building entrances can be hard to find.
To tackle this, what3words has divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and given each square a unique combination of three words.
The integration of its technology into boohoo Group’s services has been launched on boohoo, boohooMAN, Nasty Gal, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Warehouse, Coast, Misspap, Karen Millen and Oasis checkout pages.
New Look
New Look has partnered with parcelLab to improve post-purchase experiences for its online customers.
The tie up will enable the fashion retailer to provide messaging and personalised communications from purchase to delivery, and beyond.
New Look’s decision to invest in this area is part of a wider drive to boost its customer centric fashion credentials.
Leveraging parcelLab’s technology, it will be able to undertake direct communications with customers, including important information updates on the status of their orders.
It will also enable the brand to make personalised and relevant recommendations to shoppers on additional items they may be interested in based on previous purchase behaviour.
NewDay
Checkout.com has been appointed as the debit card payments provider for NewDay, the fifth largest card issuer in the UK processing £6 billion consumer credit products annually for retailers including Amazon, AO, John Lewis and Argos.
The partnership offers NewDay access to the complete suite of Checkout.com’s payment tools, accessed through a single technical integration.
Vyking
Virtual try-on specialist Vyking has unveiled a new in-store augmented reality solution, Magic Mirror.
It says that that this will enable consumers to visualise footwear through a smart mirror.
Activated by walking up to a full length digitally connected mirror, people can try virtually before they buy dozens of pairs of trainers and other footwear.
They choose the pair they’d like to try via an in-store display on a tablet, before the 3D model is “beamed” into the mirror for them to see how it looks on their own feet.
The solution also offers omnichannel marketing possibilities as the technology can be deployed in other physical locations such as billboards, bus stops or window displays.
Coen Markets
US-based convenience chain Coen Markets has launched two checkout-free stores, in partnership with Grabango, at its Amoco sites in Oakdale and Southpark, PA.
bp previously announced a partnership with Grabango.
Amoco, a bp brand, will be the first to go live with the firm’s technology at Coen owned sites.
Shoppers use the Grabango app to pay for items without needing to stand in line or scan their items. They grab what they need and are billed in the app. Payment is contactless and automatic.
Foodhub
Online food delivery and takeaway app, Foodhub, says that it has doubled conversion rates to 40% while improving new customer activation times, partnering with MoEngage.
Foodhub offers customers exclusive deals on online takeaways and food deliveries through its network of 30,000+ restaurant, takeaway and quick service retail (QSR) partners in the UK.
With predictive AI powered segmentation, which uses customer insight and behavioural data to enhance customer journeys, MoEngage allows the company to power personalisation that drives app use, revenues and loyalty across mobile, email and targeted push notifications.
Patchworks
Patchworks has launched a new BI (business intelligence) solution, Patchworks BI.
Patchworks BI is a fully hosted Reporting as a Service (RaaS) solution, that aggregates data already flowing between e-commerce systems such as Adobe Commerce, commercetools, BigCommerce, Shopify or WooCommerce and back office systems such as Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, and Peoplevox.
It is built upon the Microsoft Power BI platform with data hosted in a cloud-based data warehouse.
Wilko
Wilko has rolled out a Click and Collect service to its 400+ stores.
Online purchases can be collected from stores in as little as three hours, at no extra charge.
This is an extension of a service that the retailer began offering from approximately 70 locations last year.
Very
Online retailer, Very, which is operated by The Very Group, has announced a new product discovery experience partnership with Constructor.
The first phase will see Very implement new search, browse and autosuggest tools across its website and app.
Using artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, machine learning and data, these tools learn from anonymous individual interactions and collaborative behaviours, with the aim of optimising the product discovery experience and providing customers with faster, more personalised results.
Very will also roll-out other elements of Constructor’s product discovery solution, including its personalised ‘quiz’ functionality, in the longer term.
By answering a series of questions related to their preferences, interests and goals, customers will be able to use quizzes to discover the right items for them across all product categories.
KLiNGEL Group
Supply chain software as a service firm, TOPO Solutions, is powering a new digital platform for omnichannel retailer KLiNGEL Group, which, it says, is boosting efficiency and speed to market, as well as helping to improve product quality and product compliance.
Panda Retail
Saudi Arabian supermarket chain, Panda Retail, has expanded its partnership with RELEX Solutions to include promotion planning and space management optimisation.
The latter’s technology already serves Panda’s stores and distribution centres.
rag & bone
Fashion brand rag & bone has partnered with Astound Commerce to create an online experience designed to accelerate its global direct-to-consumer (DTC) operations, built on Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
REWE International
REWE International has chosen Körber’s K.Motion warehouse management system (WMS) to be deployed across 40 European locations.
Michael Brandl, EVP Operations Software EMEA at Körber Business Area Supply Chain, says: "Today's supply chains face a myriad of complexities. These include sudden delivery bottlenecks, rising customer expectations, ever-larger product ranges as well as hybrid fulfilment concepts and labour shortage.”
“This leads to significantly higher demands on efficiency and transparency in logistics operations, for which digitised strategies are becoming indispensable in order to also tap new potentials of data use and analysis."
Roll-out will take place in two stages. In the pilot phase until mid-2025, Körber will implement the WMS at five locations for dry and fresh assortments, and cross docking.
At the same time, the connection to REWE's existing ERP system will take place. The additional 35 locations will be converted with support from Körber through REWE International. Go live is anticipated by the year 2028.
Darwynn
Ontario, Canada-based Darwynn has debuted a new fulfilment facility.
Located in Scarborough, this spans over 45,000 sq ft. and features automatic storage retrieval systems (ASRS), automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and the latest in conveyance technology.
The facility is operated by a software platform that provides data and analytics for e-commerce businesses to gain insight into the entire fulfilment process. At full capacity, it will be able to fulfil approximately 10,000 orders per day.
As a multi-tenant space, numerous brands and businesses can leverage the automation, robotics and technical capabilities of the facility, designed to optimise inventory density to meet the needs of both businesses and consumers alike.
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