Featuring JYSK, M&S, and River Island: 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 Marks and Spencer, AiFi, Mercaux, and Spreetail.
1. Russell Johnson departs Meta to take on Chief Data Scientist role at Marks and Spencer
M&S has appointed Russell Johnson as Chief Data Scientist.
He joins the retailer from Facebook (Meta) and will build out its data science capabilities as part of a digital transformation of the business.
In a LinkedIn post, Jeremy Pee, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at M&S, said: “Excited to have you onboard Russell Johnson. Big things ahead!”
2. Spreetail raises $208 million in funding and looks to invest in retail technology stack
Spreetail, a specialist in e-commerce logistics and channel management, has closed a funding round bringing in $208 million.
The round was supported by McCarthy Capital, internal management, and other investors. The cash will be used to help the company enhance technology efficiencies and support brand partner growth.
Founded in 2006, Spreetail operates seven fulfilment centres across the US and expanded internationally in 2018.
It serves over 500 brands, enabling them to accelerate their e-commerce sales across marketplaces such as Amazon, Target.com, Wayfair, Walmart.com, and eBay.
3. AiFi: Żabka Polska 100 stores milestone means that autonomous retail is here to stay
Autonomous retail firm, AiFi, has hit an active stores milestone.
In a LinkedIn post, the company said: “The launch of our store with Żabka Polska in Poland marks our 100th active store worldwide, a testament that autonomous retail isn’t just a trend; it’s here to stay”
“In cooperation with AiFi, we have created an innovative concept of Żabka Nano, which on a global scale, makes a revolutionary change in the perception of consumer experience,” says Tomasz Blicharski, Managing Director at Żabka Future.
“The idea of an autonomous store makes shopping the most convenient experience ever, since it only requires taking a product from the shelf and paying for it at the checkout without scanning.”
4. British fashion retailer River Island teams with Mercaux for self-checkout via RFID in-store
Mercaux is delivering RFID self-checkout into stores of River Island, the British high street retailer, alongside key strategic partners.
Shoppers will be encouraged to use self-service devices to speed up the last step in their path to purchase.
After dropping the items into the “RFID Bucket”, said items appear instantly in a digital basket on Mercaux’s self-service kiosk where the customer completes the transaction.
This is made possible, in part, with Mercaux’s composable platform, allowing retailers to surface the checkout process on any device in-store (store associate or customer), eliminating the need for customers to join a line to be served by a store associate at the traditional cash register.
Mercaux’s technology was deployed and integrated with River Island’s existing omnichannel commerce platform with the support of system integrator, Cabiri.
Paul Cooper, Director of Technology Operations - River Island, comments: “Although still early days, the results from the project have been astounding and could quickly become a game changing development for River Island when the decision is made to roll-out to the wider estate.”
“Whilst we set a target of 50% of all in-store transactions being processed through self-checkout, we are already seeing this figure closer to 70%.”
Cooper adds: “I can’t thank the whole team at Mercaux enough for their speed of delivery, a smooth onboarding process and diligence with monitoring the business critical KPIs to ensure this project’s success.”
5. Home furnishing retailer JYSK extends VUSION IoT roll-out to Netherlands and Belgium
JYSK has chosen SES-imagotag to roll-out its VUSION solution in two additional countries, Netherlands and Belgium, for a total of 152 new stores.
With more than 1,500 stores in Europe equipped with the technology, the Scandinavian retailer will now have the opportunity to further digitise its locations by the adoption of the VUSION IoT Cloud platform.
It says that it will be able to save time spent by store employees on error prone and tedious tasks, enabling them to focus on higher value added assignments and customer service.
6. Marks and Spencer rolls out Bring Your Own Bag Click and Collect initiative to 251 stores
M&S says that it is the first major retailer to green light a reduced packaging initiative for Click & Collect orders following a customer trial.
It is rolling out a new BYOB – Bring Your Own Bag – offering to 251 of its stores.
This takes away the need for the traditional plastic carrier across online orders that are picked and packed at the collection store by asking customers to, yep, you’ve guessed it, bring their own bag.
M&S says the move will save 10 million units of plastic annually.
During the aforementioned trial, which took place at 16 M&S stores, customers were reminded at point of checkout to bring their own bag when coming into store to collect an order placed online.
They were then reminded again when notified that their order was ready to collect. Over the course of seven months, 39,347 orders were fulfilled this way, removing over 109 thousand units of plastic.
