Starring Zara, Asda, and Domino’s: RTIH runs you through 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 smart carts, green deliveries, resale programmes, open source composable commerce accelerators, and shoppable livestreams.
TikTok
TikTok is working on a new in-app Trendy Beat shopping section, offering products that are shipped and sold by a subsidiary of its parent company, ByteDance.
This is currently being tested in the UK and features popular items that have appeared in trending videos.
The move can be viewed as TikTok looking to take on the likes of Amazon and SHEIN, indicating, as it does, a shift from a current e-commerce strategy dominated by the TikTok Shop marketplace.
True and BRC
True, a retail and consumer specialist investment and innovation firm, has announced a partnership with trade association British Retail Consortium (BRC).
The aim is to give BRC members access to cutting-edge technology and to foster innovation through True's expertise and network.
True has developed a new offering, Amplify, to help retailers find technology that works for them.
This is powered by its experience from investing in and growing technology startup businesses, its sector research, and technology successes with its corporate partners in the retail industry.
The partnership kicks off with a series of roundtable events for BRC members on accessing better technologies.
Bolt and Starship Technologies
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.”
Zara
MultiPay Global Solutions has been selected by Inditex fashion retailer Zara as the payment provider for its new Near Field Communication (NFC) gift keychain collection.
Available now from Zara stores across the UK, the keychains have been developed to be more convenient, innovative, fashionable, and sustainable than conventional single use gift cards.
Recently unveiled at Zara’s flagship store in London’s Battersea Power Station, they allow customers to pay for items by scanning the keychain’s unique identifier at any in-store NFC-enabled contactless payment reader. They can be reloaded with credit for repeated use.
Monoprix and Casino Group
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.
Asda
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.
Faherty
Faherty, a clothing and lifestyle brand, and Archive have partnered to launch Second Wave.
The new resale programme allows customers to buy and sell preloved Faherty clothing through a peer-to-peer marketplace site and will also list repaired and renewed brand owned inventory.
“We have always been committed to greater circularity and we are thrilled to partner with Archive to launch Second Wave,” says Kerry Docherty, Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer, Faherty.
“The programme will give our customers multiple ways to shop for, enjoy and extend the lives of preloved Faherty items. Because long lasting quality is at the core of what we do, we believe our product only gets better with age.”
“Resale is a natural next step in our growth as a brand that has always taken its responsibility to our customers and the planet seriously.”
Shopify
Shopify is making its Shop Pay checkout offering available to enterprise retailers not on its platform.
The roll-out is made possible through Commerce Components by Shopify (CCS), which launched in 2023.
Shopify and Adyen will partner to pursue enterprise clients based in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and enhance the latter’s existing integration to accelerate enterprise connectivity and features.
Shop Pay lets customers save their email address, credit card, and shipping and billing information.
This can save customers time when they check-out, especially if they've already opted in to Shop Pay on any Shopify store. If a store offers a local pickup or delivery option, then people can also choose that option.
Orium
Orium, a composable commerce specialist based in North America, has launched Composable UI, its open source composable commerce accelerator.
Built on the foundations of other accelerators from Orium, this project is designed to help brands learn how to build a modern composable e-commerce storefronts with best-in-class technologies and best practices.
Composable UI was built to help brands move towards a modular architecture based on MACH technology principles.
It provides a full end-to-end e-commerce experience, with the aim of accelerating the learning journey for architects, developers, and designers through open source code, documentation, and a collaborative community of experts.
Sainsbury’s
Sainsbury’s is launching a DINspiration pop-up on 26th and 27th June in London Kings Cross, giving workers dinner inspiration by offering grab-and-go meal kits.
For 50p, commuters will get a complete meal kit inspired by Sainsbury’s Inspired to Cook range, with all the proceeds being donated to Comic Relief.
Rohlik Group
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.
Rohlik has more than 1.5 million e-grocery customers and 12 million orders per year.
Once fully deployed in the Munich warehouse, Brightpick will be able to dispatch over 1,000 order totes (bins) per hour and 5,000 completed orders per day (an order may contain multiple totes).
Domino’s Pizza
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.”
Sobeys
Renovotec
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.”
Alibaba Group
GHL and Alipay+
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.
Walmart
Live commerce platform TalkShopLive has launched Shoppable Simulcast in the US.
This allows sellers to simulcast their shoppable livestreams to their Facebook business page as a Facebook Live, while keeping the shopping element intact.
Walmart, which has worked with TalkShopLive on over 150 live shopping experiences, will be the first to activate the Shoppable Simulcast product with a live show on 20th June featuring The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.
Drummond, who has held several shopping events with TalkShopLive, will be launching her new furniture line.
The livestream will appear on TalkShopLive, Walmart’s Facebook page, Walmart.com/live and The Pioneer Woman’s Facebook page.
M&S
Marks and Spencer’s Online Suit Fit service is now live at its Hedge End store in Hampshire.
This is powered by Emplifi technology.
In a LinkedIn post, Amy Traves, In-Store Experiences Manager at M&S, said: “I have spent the last week with the fantastic suit fitting team at our Hedge End store to extend our online services to include Suit Fit.”
“We are excited to now connect our online customers via two-way video with the same expert advice and help from our colleagues as you would find in our stores.”
Customers can connect via the retailer’s suit and formalwear product pages or here.
This lines up alongside an online bra fit service and online furniture consultations offering.
Nike
L’Oréal
L’Oréal announced last week at Viva Technology 2023 its launch of the Big Bang Beauty Tech & Innovation Challenge in North Asia, focused on driving co-creation and co-development of innovative beauty products and experiences across China, Korea and Japan.
The aim is to discover, support and nurture promising startups and companies with beauty tech and innovative sciences that can be scaled regionally and globally.
L’Oréal Groupe has signed an MOU with the Korea Ministry of SMEs and Startups on a partnership for the Big Bang Programme in Korea.
In Japan, J-Startup, a government project supporting entrepreneurs operated by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and JETRO, will support the initiative.
This builds on a three-year pilot in China.
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