Featuring Coach, Tesco, and Tommy Hilfiger: 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 rapid grocery delivery milestones, fashion and the rise of the metaverse, and checkout-free concessions experiences at baseball games.
Tesco
Tesco reports that its rapid delivery service, Whoosh, is now available from 1,000 Express stores across the UK.
This first launched in May 2021 and is now available from half of Tesco’s estate of Express convenience stores across the UK, serving 55% of UK households.
The Hammersmith Olympia Express in London became the 1,000th location to offer rapid grocery delivery to the door.
Whoosh offers customers the chance to order food or snacks from a curated list of 2,500 to 4,500 essential products in as little as 30 minutes, with delivery set at £2.99 for orders that cost £15 or more.
Tesco claims that the immediacy of the service and convenience of home delivery is popular with customers looking for things like a quick and easy meal deal or last minute purchases.
It has been looking at ways to improve the customer experience, with new features on the app such as 15 minute delivery window estimates and live tracking of the rider on a map.
Coach
This year’s Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) is running through to 31st March.
Organiser and host Decentraland recently revealed the full lineup for the second iteration of its online event.
The agenda features the likes of Coach, Dolce & Gabbana, and Tommy Hilfiger, and adidas.
Giovanni Zaccariello, SVP Global Visual Experience at Coach, says that his company’s space is “fully immersive and celebrates our most iconic bag Tabby”.
Inside the metaverse bag, people can explore the digital world of Coach, with the aim of “promoting community building, creativity and self-expression for attendees through digital wearables, artistry, and custom Coach emote-alls”.
CEVA Logistics and Geek+
CEVA Logistics and Geek+ are teaming up to supply consumers with footwear and apparel through the use of autonomous mobile robots (AMR) at the former’s Grobbendonk warehouse, located in Belgium’s Antwerp province.
The facility is now equipped with 27 Geek+ P-series picking robots and five workstations.
The robots feature a 1,000-kg payload and operate at a maximum speed of 2 m/sec. The goods-to-person solution devised by CEVA and Geek+ can handle daily volumes of more than 10,000 outbound items.
This builds on Geek+ robots being introduced in certain automated operations at a CEVA warehouse in Australia, one of the largest distribution centres in the southern hemisphere.
Tommy Hilfiger
Tommy Hilfiger has unveiled a new metaverse hub, powered by Emperia, launching simultaneously on Decentraland, Roblox, Spatial, DressX and Ready Player Me, as part of the brand’s Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week 2023 presence.
Featuring DressX powered digital fashion, Web3 artist collaboration with Vinnie Hagar, AR features, photo booth, gamification, emotes and a community focused competition to create AI fashion, the hub is set in a monolith structure made of the ‘TH’ monogram, which will appear across all platforms.
The aim is to create a unified digital brand story, while allowing for seamless movement between the retailer’s own website and the various metaverses.
American Eagle Outfitters
American Eagle Outfitters is set to launch RADAR’s AI powered inventory tracking technology in approximately 500 American Eagle stores across the US over the next year.
RADAR uses a combination of RFID and computer vision to track and locate in-store inventory in real-time, enabling employees to know what product is in-store, and where, so they can more easily and efficiently serve customers, replenish items on the sales floor, and fulfil in-store and curbside pickup orders.
Amazon
Avery Dennison
Avery Dennison has announced updates to its atma.io connected product cloud.
The platform now manages over 28 billion items for brands across the apparel, retail, food, and healthcare sectors.
Artificial intelligence (AI) updates include the integration of ChatGPT for automating alert response.
Max Winograd, Vice President, Digital Solutions at Avery Dennison, says: “The goal of using AI technologies, including ChatGPT, is to increase efficiency by reducing the time people need to spend on repetitive, manual tasks.”
“Today, sourcing and supply chain managers spend a significant amount of time chasing information via email, typing out repetitive inquiries and follow-ups. With our generative AI, we are helping to speed up this process significantly, while maintaining the trusted, human connections among partners in the supply chain.”
Tampa Bay Rays
American baseball team Tampa Bay Rays have brought a new checkout-free concessions experience to the Budweiser Porch located in Center Field.
The concept, called Short Stop, utilises technology from Zippin.
High resolution camera tech and shelf sensors eliminate the checkout process. Fans validate a payment type upon entry into the store, grab what they want, and exit the store.
Levi Strauss & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co. is gearing up to test customisable AI generated models through a partnership with Lalaland.ai.
It says that the tech would allow for products to be seen on a wider range of body types, skin tones, ages and sizes.
“While AI will likely never fully replace human models for us, we are excited for the potential capabilities this may afford us for the consumer experience,” says Dr. Amy Gershkoff Bolles, Global Head of Digital and Emerging Technology Strategy at Levi Strauss & Co.
“We see fashion and technology as both an art and a science, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Lalaland.ai, a company with such high quality technology that can help us continue on our journey for a more diverse and inclusive customer experience.”
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