Robots, startups, and flagships: RTIH’s biggest retail technology news stories of the week
It’s Friday, the weekend is almost upon us, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail systems space. Here's your briefing on the most important stories from the past five days, including Agility Robotics, Sam’s Club, Prada Group, Adobe, Panera, and Amazon One.
1. ‘The future of work’: Agility Robotics launches next generation of Digit logistics robot
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.
“Three years ago, we introduced the first commercially available bi-pedal robot with a human form factor made for work,” says Damion Shelton, Co-founder and CEO at Agility Robotics.
“Since then, we have seen enormous interest in Digit from multinational logistics companies, and have worked closely with them to understand how they want to use Digit to improve warehouse and supply chain operations. We designed the next generation with those customer use cases in mind.”
“Supply chains are still feeling the aftereffects of the pandemic, and the demand for warehouse labour far exceeds available talent. Companies are turning to automation now more than ever to help mitigate future disruptions. With logistics labour issues such as high turnover, burnout, and injury continuing to rise, we believe Digit to be the future of work,” Shelton adds.
“We look forward to Digit augmenting workforces, taking on the ‘dull, dirty, and dangerous’ tasks, and allowing people to focus on more creative and complex work. We like to think of Digit as enabling humans to be more human.”
2. Sam's Club Member Access Platform (MAP) now offers ‘true closed-loop attribution for both online and offline sales’
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."
3. Prada Group teams with Adobe as it looks to reimagine store and digital experiences in real-time
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.
4. Vue Storefront secures $20 million in funding round led by Felix Capital
Poland-based Vue Storefront has raised $20 million of equity with Felix Capital, backer of the likes of Mirakl, Travelperk, Moonbug and Farfetch, leading the round and additional funds coming from Philippe Corrot, Founder and CEO at Mirakl, and Nagi Letaifa, Head of Engineering at Mirakl.
In the last 12 months, the company has added customers like Berlin Brand Group, Zenith Watches and Zadig & Voltaire with more than 50% of its pipeline coming from the US enterprise market.
Julien Codorniou, who joined Felix Capital last year from Facebook, will be added to Vue Storefront’s board of directors.
Existing investors Creandum, Earlybird and SquareOne, also participated in the round.
5. Panera becomes first national restaurant in US to use Amazon One for payments and loyalty
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.
6. Sports Direct opens new flagship store in Manchester, powered by inurface media technology
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.
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