Featuring DREST, Cust2Mate, and Rohlik: RTIH presents the retail technology week in numbers
Do you like numbers? Do you like retail systems news? Then this is the article for you. Including Asda, Prime Day 2023, Bolt, Starship Technologies, Pricer, Domino’s Pizza, A.S. Watson Group, and Walmart.
5 million…Estonian ride hailing and food delivery startup Bolt has announced a partnership with robotics firm Starship Technologies, involving thousands of robots delivering food across multiple countries, starting in 2023.
In an online post, Bolt says: “Starship Technologies has become the first autonomous delivery company to complete five million commercial deliveries worldwide.”
“This was achieved in just seven months since celebrating four million deliveries in November 2022. At Bolt, we have over 100 million users in 45 countries and 500 cities globally, offering services like ride-hailing, micromobility, and food and grocery delivery.”
“By partnering with Starship Technologies, we can now provide a broader range of delivery options that accommodate different order sizes, preferences, and distances.”
39%…With inflation remaining high, price conscious UK shoppers now want the shelf-edge to become more dynamic when it comes to pricing and promotions to help them secure the best deals, according to research from Pricer.
The company’s survey of 1,000 UK shoppers showed that real-time visibility of prices delivered at the shelf-edge was the top driver of in-store customer experience (CX) for 39% of consumers.
33% said they now wanted real-time visibility of deals and promotions delivered at the shelf-edge, and a further 30% wanted digital labels to give them live alerts on price drops, to help them get the best deal and help their budgets go further.
30,000…A2Z Smart Technologies Corp.'s subsidiary, Cust2Mate, has announced a partnership with IR2S, pitched as the first major example of its strategy to team with local integrators.
The tie up is intended to deploy 30,000 smart carts between 2023 and 2025 across retail chains in France, including Monoprix and Casino Group.
IR2S will play a key role in managing the installation, support, and maintenance of the carts.
£15 million…London-based DREST, a luxury fashion, beauty, lifestyle and metaverse gaming firm, has raised £15 million of funding to continue the development of its new product proposition, DREST Game 2.0.
Launched in 2019 by Lucy Yeomans, the former Editor-in-Chief of Porter, Net-A-Porter.com and Harper’s Bazaar UK, DREST has raised £30 million in total to date, and works with over 260 brands including Breitling, Cartier, Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Gucci, Prada and Valentino.
345,000…Groceries from Asda’s Gillingham Pier, Old Kent Road and Sheffield Chaucer stores will now be fulfilled by electric vehicles, giving over 345,000 households in the store catchment areas access to a greener delivery choice.
The vehicles can run for up to 120 miles per charge, requiring seven hours recharge time.
Asda, which was named UK Retailer of the Year at the 2021 RTIH Innovation Awards, says that using these electric vehicles will save over 400,000 CO2 (kg) per year.
Customers in Cardiff Bay and Leith will also soon be able to have their groceries delivered by a fully electric fleet as the retailer has committed to turning a further two stores electric by the end of the year.
The move represents the first stage of Asda’s ambition to completely remove diesel vehicles from its grocery home delivery fleet by 2028.
These plans are part of its wider strategy to half its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as part of its Courtauld commitments.
30…Amazon has announced that it will host its annual Prime Day shopping event on 11th-12th July.
New deals will drop every 30 minutes during select periods throughout the two days.
The e-commerce giant says that this Prime Day, members in the US will also be able to shop more deals on small business products than ever before.
110…SES-imagotag reports that Unicoop Firenze (member of Coop Italia), which operates one of the largest supermarket chains in Italy, has selected the VUSION IoT Cloud platform for the digitisation of 110 stores.
This is driven by several significant external factors and internal requirements impacting its operations, such as inflation, supply chain efficiency, and satisfactory shelf-planning compliance.
The company identified the need to be able to address market dynamics and shifting demands quickly, to have the capacity for greater real-time pricing agility, and to be aligned with the growth of e-commerce.
Unicoop Firenze chose VUSION and its solutions as tools to monitor shelves centrally for product availability and ensure price synchronisation across all channels.
9…Brightpick has completed a nine-month pilot of its robotic solution in the Prague fulfilment centre of European e-grocer Rohlik Group.
Rohlik now plans to roll-out this out across multiple warehouses in 2023 and 2024, starting with Munich in July and continuing with Frankfurt, Vienna, Prague and other fulfilment centres.
The solution includes Brightpick Autopicker and Brightpick Dispatcher autonomous mobile robots and enables Rohlik to fully automate picking, consolidation and dispatch of orders.
4.03%…As event goers prepare for the start of the music festival season in the UK, new data from e-commerce specialist Pattern reveals Glastonbury won’t cost attendees much more than usual this year, despite record inflation during the first half of 2023.
Glastonbury is expected to see more than 200,000 people in attendance.
The average cost for the most popular Glastonbury products only rose by 4.03% from Q2 2022 to Q2 2023, which is 2% under the current inflation rate (6.2%).
These insights come from Pattern’s analysis of the pricing data for the most popular items purchased on Amazon UK, from 2022 to 2023 to see how inflation has impacted consumer costs for Glastonbury.
44 million…New research from Recurly paints a positive picture for UK consumers' appetites for subscription services with an estimated 44 million new subscriptions over the last 12 months.
300…Same day distribution company, CitySprint, is looking for 300 additional couriers across the UK, with the business focussing primarily on those with small and large vans as well as zero emission vehicles in larger areas.
This comes as the firm reports significant uplifts in key logistics sectors.
The new couriers will be added to the pool of over 2,500 vans, bikes and cars. They will provide support across all areas of the business, with a focus on supporting growth in retail sectors.
1…Domino’s Pizza is introducing Domino’s Pinpoint Delivery in the US, a new technology that allows customers to receive a delivery in such places as parks, baseball fields and beaches, just in time for the start of summer.
Customers with the Domino’s app can select the service, drop a pin on the map and get pizza delivered pretty much anywhere, the retailer says.
“We’re proud to be the first quick service restaurant brand in the US to deliver food to customers with the drop of a pin,” says Christopher Thomas-Moore, Domino’s Senior Vice President – Chief Digital Officer.
“We’re always striving to make customers’ experiences even better and more convenient, and Domino’s Pinpoint Delivery does exactly that.”
6,288…Renovotec, a UK-based provider of end-to-end AIDC technology solutions and services for organisations operating throughout the supply chain, has launched an innovation centre at its 6,288 sq. ft facility based at the firm’s head office in Newton-Le-Willows, near Warrington.
Open to all customers and visitors, this showcases Renovotec’s latest solutions and features dedicated industry zones for manufacturing, warehousing, transport and logistics, healthcare and retail.
Ryan Wilby, Engineering Manager at Asda, a Renovotec customer, comments: “The RIC offers us the opportunity to interactively review a range of products from the latest and the greatest manufacturers in the marketplace in one space.”
“This is truly unique and a huge value-add service from Renovotec. It saves us time, resources, and arms us with the most thorough and in-depth insight into the productivity and efficiency benefits of new mobile device technology, and alternative tools for our frontline.”
“It essentially enables us to quickly consolidate and upscale our technology for maximum ROI – so we can deliver on our promise to our customers to keep our prices as low as possible.”
2,600…GHL Systems Berhad (GHL), a payment service company in the ASEAN region, has enabled Alipay+ for over 2,600 local businesses in Thailand to accept cross-border payments from Asian mobile wallets.
This includes AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR), Kakao Pay (South Korea), Touch ‘n Go eWallet (Malaysia) and Alipay (Chinese mainland), which has been accepted by Thai merchants since 2015.
Those visiting Thailand can now pay with their home e-wallets at over 5,000 retail outlets powered by GHL, through a partnership with Alipay+, a suite of global cross-border digital payment and marketing solutions operated by Ant Group.
The local businesses to benefit from this initiative come from a range of tourism industries, from retail, F&B to hospitality and attractions nationwide.
3%…Only 3% of UK consumers are loyal to online retailers and 83% of decisions will be made on price, according to a report from Whistl.
The company surveyed 1,000 people. In a time of economic pressure on household spending,
its report found that online spending will drop by 3% in 2023, although households with an income over £70k are expected to increase e-commerce spending by 8%.
Cost of delivery is now the main priority of consumers (54%) rather than speed (24%) and £5.95 is the highest price point before it has a negative impact on the ability to convert a sale.
Opportunities for business growth include retail subscriptions with 43% of the population open to the idea.
Discounts naturally remain very important to entice new customers with 47% of respondents wanting them, followed by free delivery (39%).
1,400 and 700…Watsons, the flagship health and beauty brand of A.S. Watson Group, opened over 1,400 new stores across Asia amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and last week Watsons Malaysia went live with its 700th store in the market.
2.2 million…Walmart has opened a new 2.2 million square foot fulfilment centre 20 miles northeast of Indianapolis, located at 5259 W 500 N. in McCordsville.
This is the retailer’s largest fulfilment centre to date and the second of four facilities that aims to achieve faster shipping and delivery, while increasing Walmart.com order fulfilment capacity.
The space is designed to expand access to Walmart’s next- or two-day shipping. Combined with the rest of its fulfilment network, these centres will enable the retailer to reach 95% of the US population with the service.
Walmart Fulfilment Services, Walmart’s end-to-end third-party service, will also leverage the space to deal with Marketplace items.
107…Australian activewear brand Lorna Jane has implemented the NewStore Omnichannel Platform in its 107 stores across Australia and New Zealand.
"NewStore is a critical component of our digital transformation strategy and the most forward-thinking, innovative retail platform available today," says Peter Clarke, Chief Technology Officer, Lorna Jane.
"We were able to rip and replace our old system and roll out NewStore across two countries and more than one hundred locations with a cutover of just one day, which is a remarkable achievement that demonstrates the platform's robustness and scalability."
193,00…2022 was the second highest year for self-checkout shipments globally, according to a report from RBR.
More than 193,000 units were delivered, slightly below the record set the year before, largely owing to weak activity in China caused by ongoing Covid-19 restrictions; global shipments excluding China rose by 2%.
Major supermarket and hypermarket chains have long been self-checkout proponents, but increasingly the technology is being deployed by other types of retailers. In recent years, major home improvement chains and fashion brands such as Leroy Merlin and Zara are among the firms to roll-out the tech.
In addition to international chains, local retailers are also investing in this area. Examples include India’s Retail Reliance, which deployed self-checkout terminals at its Azorte fashion store in 2022, while in Malaysia the rapidly expanding chain Mr DIY has introduced the technology at its flagship store.
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