Pureplay AO comes under fire: The retail technology news you might have missed last week
Failed to keep up with the breaking retail technology news last week? Then have no fear as RTIH has you covered. Here are the major stories that you need to know about. Includes N Brown Group, Starship Technologies, Zippin, Sook, bodo, and 3D Cloud by Marxent.
Taylor Swift fans get checkout free technology experience at Zippin powered Empower Field stores
Thanks, then, to checkout-free stores firm Zippin, who posted the following tweet on Friday, ahead of a sold out Swift concert (part of her The Eras Tour) at Empower Field in Denver.
Visa enlists H&M Group brand COS and United Repair Centre for Recommerce Behavioural Insights Lab
Visa has announced the first partners for its Recommerce Behavioural Insights Lab, which aims to understand and share how businesses can help consumers actively engage in the transition to a more circular economy.
The first two initiatives will be run in partnership with H&M Group brand COS and the United Repair Centre, and will take place in various places across Europe. Initial countries where early experiments are likely to take place include France, the Netherlands and Germany, as well as the UK.
COS will explore the motivations and compelling experiences that increase consumer participation in the resale market.
The initiative with the United Repair Centre will leverage its experience offering repair services to European apparel brands. It will explore the barriers that stop consumers from repairing their garments, and how to make clothing repair services more accessible and beneficial for all.
Both will test the different experiences and motivations with customers in a variety of environments, including online and in-store, to provide a better understanding of the precise triggers of changing consumer behaviours, experimenting with factors such as improving visibility, access, community, reward, ease, or affordability.
They will be open sourced, with key findings available through downloadable playbooks so that other businesses can use this knowledge to help develop their own circular models and be part of the wider Recommerce community.
Emily Maitlis slams electricals retailer AO after ‘depressing beyond belief’ online delivery experience
Online delivery can be a cruel mistress. Get it right and you’re the hero of the day, but mess up and you will pay the price in this social media obsessed age.
By way of example, last week Emily Maitlis, a British journalist, documentary filmmaker, and former newsreader for the BBC, took to Twitter to lambast online retailer AO for a poor customer experience.
“Please save yourself the heartache of ever dealing with @ao for electrical deliveries. No show. No delivery,” she said.
“For a fridge that they promised to install two weeks ago. - and confirmed with us four times over the phone on separate calls. Depressing beyond belief.”
Ouch.
N Brown Group continues digital transformation journey with launch of new Jacamo website
Fashion and homeware digital retailer, N Brown Group, has launched a new trading website for Jacamo, its menswear brand.
This follows the implementation of a new site for Simply Be in September, and is pitched as another important step in the Group’s digital transformation journey.
RADAR lands $30 million in Series A funding round led by Align Ventures and featuring RX Ventures
RADAR, a platform that combines RFID and computer vision technology to track and locate in-store inventory, has secured $30 million in Series A funding, bringing its total funding to date to $63 million.
The round was led by returning backer Align Ventures, with participation from RX Ventures, which is the corporate venture capital fund of South American retailer Lojas Renner, and several other retail investors.
RADAR plans to use the cash to expand its customer roster, accelerate its product development efforts, and hire engineering, product and sales talent.
JD Sports Canada deploys Jesta retail management technology to boost omnichannel customer experience
JD Sports has gone live in Canada with Jesta’s Retail Management Suite, which includes Omnichannel, Point of Sale, Merchandising ERP, Warehouse Management, Analytics and Loss Prevention cloud technology solutions.
“The Canadian marketplace has responded positively to JD and we want to give customers who shop in-store and online the best possible cross-channel experience by leveraging leading technology that optimises visibility, accuracy and speed,” says Gary Ochi, CEO, JD Sports Canada.
“We were impressed by Jesta’s ability to complete a significant ERP implementation within our tight timeline. We’re confident that we’ll see great returns by leveraging their technology.”
Starship Technologies claims touchless robot deliveries first with roll-out of wireless charging
Autonomous delivery specialist Starship Technologies says that it is the first company to wirelessly charge its robots.
In a tweet posted on Wednesday, it noted that this would increase utilisation and efficiency.
“Rapidly expanding our cost-efficient delivery service. Touchless, AI-based autonomous delivery is now possible and rolling out soon,” it added.
Jigsaw selects Voyado retail technology for personalisation, loyalty and sustainability push
Jigsaw has announced Voyado as its new solution for customer loyalty and marketing automation.
The tie up is Sweden-based Voyado’s first UK customer win.
"We've made great progress with increasingly personalised marketing that reflects the unique relationship we have with our customers. We're excited to bring Voyado's impressive technology onboard to take us to the next level by creating truly exceptional experiences online and in-store," says Nicole Mason, Marketing Director at Jigsaw.
Ocado Retail enlists Polytag and Bower for UK-based package recycling reward initiative
The retailer has teamed up with Polytag and Bower to deliver the initiative.
Customers can scan a QR code printed onto Ocado’s own brand two and four pint milk bottles, which have just reduced in price to £1.45 and £1.20 respectively.
The first 20,000 codes scanned will see consumers receive a 20p reward which will appear in their digital wallet in the Bower app – the same amount that will be redeemed as a deposit in the upcoming Deposit Return Scheme legislation once it is rolled out in 2025. This 20p can then be withdrawn to their bank account.
Although consumers will not redeem a deposit – as it will not be added at the point of purchase – the partnership aims to demonstrate the viability of a DDRS by enabling people to receive a cash incentive for recycling using their smartphones.
Zippin and Allegiant Stadium make checkout-free stores history with ten stores in one location
Zippin has announced the opening of six new checkout-free stores at Allegiant Stadium, the home of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Launched in collaboration with Levy, the hospitality partner at Allegiant Stadium, these represent an expansion to the existing four Zippin Lanes that were deployed last season.
The Allegiant Stadium has now become the first location in the world with ten checkout-free stores.
“Our partnership with Zippin quickly provided tremendous value for the Las Vegas Raiders," says Team President, Sandra Douglass Morgan.
"We had such success with our first four Zippin Lanes that we decided to expand our investment after just a few home games.”
“We're committed to being at the forefront of technology that delivers exceptional game day experiences and proud to be a pioneer with checkout-free technology as adoption continues to gain speed throughout the sports industry."
PropTech startup Sook announces appointment of Lysa Campbell as Chief Operating Officer
Sook has appointed Lysa Campbell to the position of Chief Operating Officer as it looks to increase its footprint in the UK and internationally.
The firm turns empty shops into adaptive, pop-up spaces, with nine locations in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Southampton and Edinburgh.
These are used for short-term retail, brand activations and pop-ups and living adverts deploying on its shopfront digital screens. Its client base includes Uber, Jägermeister, Vodafone and TikTok.
Campbell’s CV includes founding and selling an agency in the field marketing space, and leading Retail Marketing Group as CEO, pivoting the original proposition from a UK physical in-store focus to global digital capability.
Alongside this, she launched the sister agency, Retail Storey, to maximise this opportunity, having invested and designed an in-house social commerce tech capability.
She has since founded a new agency, She Makes a Difference, to support other SME founders and senior executives.
New Balance taps Volumental 3D foot scanner solution for concept store launch in Singapore
New Balance recently opened a concept store in Singapore, featuring a Volumental 3D foot scanner in the fitting area.
Since partnering with Volumental in 2017, the retailer says that it has scanned the feet of more than one million shoppers worldwide.
The scan, which takes less than five seconds, provides employees with detailed information about a customer’s feet, helping them find a shoe that’s sure to fit.
Volumental claims that the solution helps brands and retailers to: reduce return rates by 18%; increase footwear sales by 20%; achieve email capture rates of 71%.
Apple announces go live for Tap to Pay on iPhone contactless payments in the UK
Small businesses and people selling stuff at car boot sales or markets in the UK can now accept contactless payments in person directly on their iPhones, instead of needing to connect to a card reader.
Customers will be able to pay via a conventional contactless payment card, or via Apple Pay on their own iPhone or Apple Watch.
The launch of Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone scheme in the UK involves use of a payment processing iOS app, with users needing at least an iPhone XS handset that runs iOS 16.4 or newer.
Coalescent Mobile Robotics raises seed funding and looks to scale in European markets
Coalescent Mobile Robotics, a Denmark-based provider of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for the retail industry, has closed a €2 million seed funding round with Superangel and EIFO as lead investors.
The cash will be used to develop the next generation of AMRs and expand into European markets.
"We are very excited to be making our first deal in Denmark, given our focus on the Nordics and DeepTech,” says Superangel Venture Partner Kart Siilats.
“We were impressed by seeing the Coalescent Mobile Robotics in action in a Bilka store, how friendly and welcoming both the clients and Bilka employees were towards them and how intuitive and comprehensive the fleet management software is.”
“We think Coalescent Mobile Robotics has demonstrated a great partnership with Bilka and will go on to ease the heavy physical labour in many other stores across the globe, the same way we've seen robots in our other portfolio companies like Starship and Rocsys help their clients.”
The Whisky Shop taps Recite Me accessibility and language tools for retailer’s online store
The Whisky Shop has launched Recite Me accessibility and language tools on its e-commerce store.
Visitors can now utilise a range of solutions to read and understand content in a way that best suits their needs.
Features include screen reading functionality, multiple reading aids, customisable styling options, and an on-demand live translation feature that offers over 100 languages, 65 of which are text-to-speech.
Alan Monaghan, Digital Marketing Manager at the Whisky Shop, comments: “We’re very excited to announce that we have installed the Recite Me accessibility assistive toolbar – allowing visitors to customise content so that they can read and understand it in ways that work best for them.”
“For example, through dyslexic friendly fonts, translations into over 100 languages, and screen readers for those with visual impairments.”
Daniel Rafaeli departs Amazon for Head of Partnerships role at sustainable deliveries startup bodo
Daniel Rafaeli has taken on the role of Head of Partnerships at bodo, a logistics platform for e-commerce brands that provides sustainable, same day and instant deliveries across London.
In a LinkedIn post, bodo Co-founder Jack Green said: “Dan joins us to lead commercial partnerships in our growing community of over 60 brands. His involvement will allow me to focus my time on more important things such as LinkedIn and complaining.”
Rafaeli was previously at Amazon, where as Vendor Manager he was responsible for developing commercial partnerships with brands working with the e-commerce giant’s R-commerce division.
3D Cloud by Marxent preps immersive journey into world of 3D content creation and visualisation
3D Cloud by Marxent is inviting people to join it for a webinar providing a crash course on how 3D art is created with a focus on furniture and interiors.
In an online post, the US-based company says: “We'll discuss the life of a pixel and the creation of meshes, textures, materials, and shaders that feed into the different rendering engines available to create the final imagery.”
“We will explore the different types of rendering technology and concepts used in modern art pipelines and review some examples of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach relating to furniture production at scale. We'll end with best practices and things to keep in mind if considering your own 3D initiatives.”
Amazon Fresh Just Walk Out technology powered convenience store coming to Moorgate, London
Amazon Fresh is gearing up to open a checkout-free store at Moorgate in the City of London.
This will be situated next to a big Marks & Spencer store and not far from a Tesco GetGo autonomous location in Chiswell Street.
Amazon Fresh stores initially involved a customer scanning a code in the Amazon app at an entry barrier.
The barrier then opened, enabling people to enter, pick items and walk out, receiving a receipt shortly after leaving.
The ‘frictionless’ process has been rejigged, however, with the two most recent stores binning the entry gates, and instead requiring customers to scan the app or a payment card as they exit. The entry barrier has also been ditched at the Angel and Islington, London stores.
Amazon did not respond to our request for comment as to the Moorgate location’s set up.
‘Cleaning up the dirty industry of apparel’: Patagonia announces launch of online repair portal
Outdoor apparel brand Patagonia is launching an online portal that will allow customers to request a repair directly, 24 hours a day, and track its status.
Patagonia is also expanding its European network of fixers and bringing increased repair tools and services to stores, with the ambition of increasing repairs four-fold, to 100,000 per year, in the next five years.
SPAR International taps RELEX Solutions technology for ‘a more efficient and transparent supply chain’
RELEX Solutions has signed a preferred supplier agreement with SPAR International, whose network of independently owned and operated retailers and wholesalers work together in partnership under the SPAR brand. The network currently comprises 13,900 stores in 48 countries.
This covers forecasting and replenishment, pricing, promotion, space management (floor planning and planogramming), and workforce optimisation.
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