Featuring foodpanda, Volumental, and Currys: check out 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 sustainable last mile deliveries, AI powered foot scanners, e-waste initiatives, and the first human centric, multi-purpose robot made for logistics work.
foodpanda
Gogoro and Cycle & Carriage Singapore (C&C) have announced a partnership with food delivery platform foodpanda involving a battery swapping pilot that will support smart electric two-wheel vehicles for last mile deliveries in Singapore.
Gogoro and C&C have partnered to introduce a new approach to electric refuelling for two-wheel delivery fleets using the former’s six second Swap & Go battery swapping.
Insights from the foodpanda trial will be used to guide next steps to accelerate the adoption of sustainable mobility in Singapore.
Volumental
Volumental has hit a milestone in scanning 20 million consumers’ feet, yielding 40 million individual scans.
On 18th February, meanwhile, the company achieved its all time record of 47,502 shoppers scanned.
The data derived from all of this helps consumers find the shoes that feel the best while also enabling footwear manufacturers to improve fit, comfort, and performance.
Volumental’s AI powered foot scanners can be found in the likes of New Balance, Red Wing, Fleet Feet, The Athlete’s Foot, Hoka, Wintersteiger, and Intersport.
BaxterStorey
BaxterStorey has opened a new store leveraging Just Walk Out technology, making it the first hospitality business in the UK to adopt the Amazon checkout-free solution.
Located at the latter’s London headquarters in Shoreditch, Social Bee aims to offer a fast and frictionless shopping experience for employees by eliminating queues.
In a LinkedIn post, Craig Clarke, Principal, GTM - Just Walk Out Technology at Amazon, said: “Great to see this store launch and the collaboration from teams across Amazon and BaxterStorey.”
Panera
Panera is boosting its MyPanera programme with palm recognition service Amazon One’s newly launched loyalty linking capability.
Panera is the first restaurant chain to offer this.
Those who choose to enrol in Amazon One and link their MyPanera account hover their palm over the Amazon One device, and a Panera associate will be able to welcome them by name. Guests can choose to use the service for loyalty linking, payment, or both.
This is launching at two Panera bakery-cafes in the St. Louis area (Town and Country and Bridgeton locations), and will become available at additional locations in the coming months.
Sports Direct
Sports Direct has opened a five floor Manchester flagship store, featuring inurface media’s AV solutions.
Said installation features 104 individual displays - 29 LCD and 68 LED displays, including the largest fixed indoor screen within a retail store in Manchester.
The store also contains 181 sqm of LEDs, which is almost enough to fill an entire singles tennis court, as well as five interactive tablets, two projectors, and interactive jump booths.
A 22.5sqm COB LED archway welcomes consumers into the location, followed by LED rafts and tickers - the displays comprise 35,841,664 LED pixels.
The jump booths will play on users' sporting competitiveness and measure just how high they can jump using body recognition technology. This then creates a slow motion playback and allows individuals to cement their positions on a leader board and take the content away with them.
Hang tough, meanwhile, is a bespoke unit that captures how long customers can hang, with displays featuring a countdown timer, personal score and a leadership board for all to see.
Prada Group
Prada Group and Adobe have announced an enhanced partnership spanning the former’s range of brands, including Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s, Car Shoe, Pasticceria Marchesi, and Luna Rossa.
Prada Group will leverage the Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform and Adobe Journey Optimizer, part of Adobe Experience Cloud, to combine vast amounts of existing data, with the aim of creating unified customer profiles and delivering personalised experiences across any channel in real-time.
Customers who have opted in will enable sales assistants to know when they visit a store and their preferences.
For example, a person who has researched a bag online may be invited to see the bag’s latest seasonal colours in person, where a sales assistant will be ready to provide a tailor made experience. After leaving the store, the customer will receive recommendations based on their purchase, in-store experience, and online profile.
Sam’s Club
Sam's Club, a division of Walmart and a membership warehouse club, reports that advertisers can now attribute in-club purchases to their search ads.
This, it claims, means Sam’s Club is among the first and possibly the only retail media platform to connect search and sponsored product ads to offline sales.
Because of the real-time nature of consumer search, advertisers have had longstanding challenges attributing sales to specific campaigns. In-store attribution was especially difficult.
Sam’s Club Member Access Platform (MAP) has real-time, first-party omnichannel data on member transactions, including in-club, in-app and web.
"Sam's Club MAP is opening up a new era of transparency and efficiency in advertising," says Lex Josephs, Vice President and General Manager at Sam's Club Member Access Platform.
"Now, because of our unique knowledge of our members, we’re able to offer true closed-loop attribution for both online and offline sales. This gives advertisers unmatched visibility into the results of their search and sponsored product campaigns at a time when they need to make fewer resources go further."
Ulla Johnson
Womenswear brand, Ulla Johnson, has partnered with Archive to launch Ulla Johnson PreLoved.
This facilitates peer-to-peer sales, with Archive’s technology automatically adding company approved photographs and item descriptions.
Customers who sell their Ulla Johnson pieces through the platform can choose the price (a recommendation will be provided) and whether to receive 70% of that back in cash, or 100% in credit for the brand.
A Heart's Desire feature, meanwhile, lets people put in requests for the Ulla Johnson team to source past-season items. The aim is to provide resale shoppers with a personal stylist shopping or VIP service type experience.
Agility Robotics
Agility Robotics has unveiled the next generation of Digit, pitched as the first human centric, multi-purpose robot made for logistics work.
Digit is designed to go where people go and do useful work safely in spaces designed for humans, starting with bulk material handling within warehouses and distribution centres.
Currys
Currys has announced a new tech recycling service - Currys Collects.
This brings its Cash for Trash initiative, which has seen over 46,500 tonnes recycled in the last year, to people’s doors, taking away unwanted or broken technology.
A pilot in Bradford sees a Currys Collects electric van driving around the city collecting items from people.
The van will also park up at the local community centre, Community Works, for drop-in sessions where experts will answer any questions people may have, whilst collecting tech in exchange for £5 Cash for Trash vouchers.
Items that Currys will be picking up include anything that houses wiring or batteries, included but not limited to; batteries, chargers, cables, beauty appliances such as straighteners and hair dryers, and kitchen appliances like kettles and toasters.
DoorDash
Rapid delivery big hitter, DoorDash, has added Lush Cosmetics, Victoria’s Secret, and Party City as retail partners, and also announced new shopping features.
These include more options that will allow consumers to schedule ahead with delivery windows or have their essentials delivered faster with express delivery.
DoorDash has also improved the search and discovery experience for people to easily search within their favourite retail store to find the specific items they need. Now with more relevant in-stock options, they can quickly add to cart with on-demand delivery in under an hour, on average.
Consumers can also share their substitution preferences and communicate with a Dasher if a change or swap is needed.
Ikea
Two years ago, Ikea Retail Sweden opened its first secondhand store as a test at the Retuna Recycling mall in Eskilstuna.
During FY22, sales more than doubled at the location, by giving around 43 000 products a second life instead of going for waste. This made the business profitable.
“Based on the insights during those two years, we are now taking the next step by keeping the store until August 2025. At the same time, we are transferring the learnings into our 21 Ikea stores in Sweden,” says Reza Shomali Country Business Development & Transformation Manager in Ikea Retail Sweden.
Globe Life Field
Two convenience oriented foodservice outlets are now open at Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers – and they are the first in a Dallas area sports and entertainment venue equipped with Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology and Amazon One.
The outlets, which are branded Express Grill and operated by Delaware North, are located near sections 108 and 124.
Offerings include cheeseburgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, sausage and corn dogs, along with an assortment of packaged beer, spiked seltzers, soda, bottled water, chips, candies and sundries.
Those visiting the stores can insert their credit card or hover their palm at the entry gates to shop.
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