Featuring Bestseller, Carrefour, and Scribbler: RTIH’s biggest retail technology articles on LinkedIn right now
We’re big fans of LinkedIn and are busy building an amazing community of retail tech enthusiasts on the social media platform. These are the articles that are currently on their radars, including Leapwork, Goodays, Sook, Visualsoft, Fujifilm UK, Uncrowd, and Serve Robotics.
Bestseller picks Leapwork as global test automation vendor across Point of Sale and e-commerce
Leapwork has been selected by Bestseller to automate testing across its Point of Sale and e-commerce processes, with the aim of maintaining a seamless shopping experience for customers globally.
With Leapwork, Bestseller says it can further invest in quality customer experiences by removing QA bottlenecks and achieve continuous, end-to-end testing across a range of Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications, minimising the risk of any disruptions during regular software updates.
Its products are sold across 70 countries, including 17,000 multi-brand and department stores, and 3,000 Bestseller branded stores. Omnichannel selling means a complex technology stack, which is why being able to test across technologies and integrations is critical in end-to-end processes like order fulfilment.
Stateside success: Amazon Just Walk Out tech connects with college campuses and sporting venues
Although its Just Walk Out technology has yet to take off at grocery locations, Amazon is having some success with universities and sporting venues.
The University of Pittsburgh, for instance, will collaborate with Transact Campus and Chartwell’s Higher Education to bring the tech to a convenience store on the Pittsburgh campus.
“As one of the first universities in the United States to integrate Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology into its on-campus retail environment, Pitt is elevating the student experience by making shopping at The Market at Towers faster, easier and more convenient,” says Matthew Sterne, Vice Chancellor of Business Services at Pitt.
“This collaboration enhances our ongoing efforts to leverage innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of our campus community."
Tech savvy, on-the-go college students are a glaringly obvious target market for this frictionless shopping technology.
As are sports fans, who want to spend as much time as possible watching a baseball, soccer etc game, and as little time as possible buying food, drinks etc..
The Seattle Seahawks and Lumen Field are set to expand the venue’s use of Just Walk Out and Amazon One with deployments at both retail and concession locations, including at the new Seahawks Pro Shop Outlet for fan merchandise.
The latter will open starting with the Seahawks home preseason game on 10th August and is located in the northwest corner of the stadium’s main concourse near section 140.
Fans will find a variety of team gear offered at reduced prices including hats, shirts, jerseys, and souvenirs.
Going global: PropTech startup Sook launches first international retail space with Mall of Africa
Sook, which takes vacant retail spaces and gives them a modular, digital fit-out which can be rented by the hour, has announced a partnership with Mall of Africa (MoA).
This opens the doors for brands to lease UK-based Sook’s rentable space within the MoA’s complex in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The move represents the company's debut into international markets and its first design, commercial, technology assets and business model license agreement.
The lease is secured for a minimum of five years, during which Sook has committed to providing ongoing assistance in revenue generation and technical support.
Heart with Smart Group selects Vista Technology Support as its retail technology services provider
UK hospitality company, Heart with Smart Group, has selected Vista to provide technology support and project services for its estate of 150+ Pizza Hut restaurants across the UK, and its growing portfolio of itsu stores.
Heart with Smart operates both its Pizza Hut ‘dine-in’ restaurants and itsu quick service restaurants (QSRs), seven days a week.
With trading hours from lunch until late at night, its team were looking for an agile technology partner that could deliver excellent levels of service to maximise the uptime of its business critical in-restaurant technology, including EPoS/Point of Service systems at the front of house, kitchen management systems, and back office IT.
The multi-year contract award includes the provision of on-site field hardware maintenance for all of Heart with Smart’s restaurant locations, as well as Vista’s Repair Centre, for the refurbishment, repair and redeployment of IT systems.
Heart with Smart also intends to tap into Vista’s Restaurant IT Project Services and IMAC Services, which includes working with the firm to deliver its digital transformation roadmap managing the deployment of new technology, as well as provide an IT project office for managing new store openings and store refits.
Serve Robotics announces go public move as startup secures $30 million investment
Autonomous sidewalk delivery robot startup, Serve Robotics, which was spun out of Uber’s acquisition of Postmates, has gone public via a reverse merger with Patricia Acquisition Corp, and also raising $30 million in a round led by existing investors Uber, Nvidia, and Wavemaker Partners.
This brings the company’s total funds secured to over $56 million.
Uber Vice President of Delivery and Head of Americas, Sarfraz Maredia, has now joined the board.
The latest financing enables Serve to enter new markets across the United States and advance its AI powered mobility platform.
It will also begin scaling up its robotic fleet to meet what it describes as “massive and rapidly-increasing customer demand for last mile automation”, including fulfilling its commercial agreement to deploy up to 2,000 robots with Uber Eats.
Carrefour Belgium taps Goodays tech to ensure that customer feedback is on its radar daily
Carrefour Belgium reports a rise in customer satisfaction across its retail network thanks to its collaboration with Goodays.
As a result of deploying the company’s platform, the retailer says it can establish even closer contact with its customers and respond to their requests more quickly, as both parties take stock after two years of cooperation.
After a pilot in late 2020, said platform was deployed in Carrefour Belgium integrated stores in early 2021, and in franchise partner stores later that year.
Bram Vermesen, Director of Customer Excellence Stores at Carrefour Belgium, comments: “We attach great importance to customer service and customer focus. It is therefore important that we remain one of the leaders in this field.”
“The main reason for us to use a platform like Goodays is to ensure that customer feedback is on our radar daily and continues to evolve. We were also looking for a solution that could be easily used by all our shops and our franchise partners.”
Visualsoft is over the moon, Brian, as it announces Burnley FC e-commerce partnership
English football club, Burnley FC, has announced an online partnership with Visualsoft.
Its pre-existing e-commerce site failed to provide the desired level of engagement and interaction.
By teaming up with Visualsoft, the club aimed to revamp its online presence and maximise its growing potential retail sales.
PDI Technologies buys Skupos as deal extends its reach to 25,000 US independent c-stores
PDI Technologies, which operates in the convenience retail and petroleum wholesale ecosystem, has announced its acquisition of Skupos, a platform that connects independent c-stores and CPG brands.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Based in San Francisco, California, and Denver, Colorado, Skupos provides single store operators access to CPG brand programmes and discounts, while providing brands with the data and insights on how their products perform at independent convenience retailer sites.
Currys CIO Andy Gamble joins data and insights startup Uncrowd as investor and advisor
Andy Gamble has joined Uncrowd as investor and advisor as the UK-based customer data and insights startup looks to scale and expand into the US over the next few months.
Gamble is Chief Information Officer at Currys and a non-exec board advisor at Mulberry.
He has worked in technology for 25 years with some of the world’s largest businesses, including Sony and Dyson, and provided advice to Big Data pioneer Unifi Software until its exit to Dell Boomi in 2020.
High street greeting card retailer Scribbler works with Fujifilm UK on Scribbler Lite launch
Scribbler and Fujifilm UK have continued their partnership to create the Scribbler Lite, offering customers at stores instant access to over 2,000 greeting cards, in a wall mounted or countertop display option.
Designed for use through a touch screen display, people will be able to find the perfect card for any occasion, as well as write their personal message inside in any font, size, or colour, of their choice.
Once complete, the product is printed behind the till using the FUJIFILM CX3240 creative duplex printer and is ready for collection in 60 seconds.
The software gives retailers, as well as commercial premises, the chance to carry an extensive range of greeting cards without running the risk of waste due to overstock or requiring the footprint of a photo kiosk.
This is being pitched as a particular benefit during seasons such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day, where stock can become outdated and leftover stock goes to waste.
Bringing products to life: 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 Instacart, Walmart, Bestseller, Carrefour Belgium, Shiseido Americas, Coach, Lowe’s, and Miravia.
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