Walmart celebrates drone deliveries milestone: 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 Netflix, YouTube, McDonald’s, Nike, Oreo, Walmart, Amazon, and Ikea.
$50 million…Splitit Payments has signed a definitive agreement for an investment of up to $50 million from funds advised by Motive Partners to accelerate its growth and support the execution of its strategic plan.
The proposed investment is comprised of two $25 million tranches in exchange for the issuance of new preference shares.
The first tranche will be invested immediately upon shareholder approval of the company voluntarily delisting from ASX and a redomicile from Israel to the Cayman Islands by means of a share exchange accomplished through a merger.
The second tranche will be invested upon Splitit achieving certain 2023 full year financial performance milestones and the satisfaction of certain customary closing conditions.
2,000…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benefit during seasons such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day, where stock can become outdated and leftover stock goes to waste.
1 and 6…Ikea has opened the doors of a new city store in Copenhagen, its first such location in Denmark and sixth overall.
“Today we have come as close to the people in Copenhagen as we have ever been,” says Tolga Öncü, Head of Retail (Ingka Group).
“The home furnishing expertise, the design, and the sustainable elements incorporated in this city store reflect our passion for creating a better everyday life for the many. As we keep investing in similar locations around the world, we look very much forward to welcoming our customers to this exceptional store”
1…Netflix has taken the number one spot in a 100 Coolest Brands for Kids & Teens study, involving feedback from 60,000 7-14 year olds, unveiled today by Beano Brain.
This second edition of its annual report saw the streaming service overtake YouTube.
McDonald’s, Nike and new entry Oreo make up the rest of the top five.
There are no UK brands in the top ten. The highest rated are: Harry Potter (32 down from 11), Greggs (new entry at 34), Sports Direct (40 up from 45) and JD Sports (47 down from 46).
Amazon (15 down from 4), Minecraft (28 down from 6) and Apple (11 down from 8) all dropped out of the top ten
After a year of headlines, shortages, queues and endless publicity, one of the most hyped brands of the year, the energy drink PRIME by KSI and Logan Paul, only managed to rank at 82.
Nearly six in ten retailers plan to adopt artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision technologies over the next year to enhance the shopping experience offered within stores and online, according to research by Honeywell.
This also indicates that retailers see this new technology as complementing and enhancing their workforce and not eliminating jobs.
Honeywell’s research involved some 1,000 retail directors across the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa in leadership roles – including IT, operations, and customer experience.
£2.3 million…UK-based biotech business Clean Food Group, which delivers sustainable oils and fats solutions to food and cosmetics manufacturers, has secured £2.3 million in funding.
This has come from Doehler Group and Alianza Team. Agronomics and SEED Innovations also participated in the round.
The cash will enable Clean Food Group to accelerate the scale-up of its technology platform while advancing critical regulatory and commercial pathways.
It expects to complete a Series A funding in 2024, by which time it says it will have validated the technology at a commercial scale and have a clear line of sight to near-term revenue generation.
It will raise funds at Series A to support the build out of a commercial scale manufacturing facility.
1.5 billion…Amazon is leveraging generative AI to help people better understand what customers are saying about a product, without having to read through lots of individual reviews.
In an online post, Vaughn Schermerhorn, Director, Community Shopping at Amazon, says: “Last year alone, 125 million customers contributed nearly 1.5 billion reviews and ratings to Amazon stores - that’s 45 reviews every second, making reviews at Amazon an incredible resource for customers.”
“We want to make it even easier for customers to understand the common themes across reviews, and with the recent advancements in generative AI, we believe we have the technical means to address this long standing customer need.”
“Want to quickly determine what other customers are saying about a product before reading through the reviews?”
“Our new AI powered feature provides a short paragraph right on the product detail page that highlights the product features and customer sentiment frequently mentioned across written reviews to help customers determine at a glance whether a product is right for them.”
10,000…Walmart reports that it has surpassed 10,000 safe drone deliveries and is revealing the most popular item delivered in this way – the Oreo Family Size Pack.
In celebration of the milestone, the US retail giant has teamed up with Oreo to create a two foot version of the well known cookie and film what is pitched as “one of the most epic Oreo dunks ever witnessed”.
We’ll let you make you own mind about that.
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5,000 M&S customers in the UK and ROI will this Saturday get their shopping for free as the retailer launches a first ever Sparks Super Saturday event.
This is pitched as a supersized version of M&S’ Sparks giveaway where every week a Sparks customer gets their shopping on the house.
Since M&S relaunched its customer reward scheme in 2020, it has given away £3.5 million in free shopping including one trip worth nearly £3.5k.
To be in with a chance of winning, customers must scan their Sparks card when shopping at M&S in-store or log into their Sparks account when shopping online.
Those in-store will find out straight away and those online will be notified via email.
3,000…Thailand’s Central Retail Corporation (CRC) has partnered with Ant Group to launch Alipay+ at its stores.
Users can make payments via their local digital wallet, including Alipay (Chinese mainland), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR), Touch ‘n Go eWallet (Malaysia) and Kakao Pay (South Korea).
Payments can be made across over 3,000 stores nationwide under the CRC banner, including Central and Robinson Deportment Stores, Supersports, Tops, Power Buy, B2S, OfficeMate, Matsukiyo, Tops Vita and Muji.
1…Gucci has launched an official digital flagship store on Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com’s platform.
This marks the Italian luxury brand’s first crack at bringing its offering to the JD.com community.
Upon searching for Gucci within the latter’s app, users will be able to browse the likes of handbags, shoes, jewellery, watches, and accessories for men and women.
They will also have access to Gucci's online client advisor service before ordering products.
Customers who scan a unique QR code on the beer pump will be entered into a prize draw, with the winner being announced on 31st August.
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