RTIH rustles up 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 Simbe Robotics, Quorso, Starship Technologies, RELEX Solutions, Splitit, eBay UK, and Ant Group.
Wakefern expands Simbe Robotics tie up, bringing inventory solution to additional stores
Wakefern Food Corp. is expanding Simbe Robotics’ business intelligence solution to additional ShopRite stores after a pilot.
Over the past several months, Wakefern vetted Simbe’s platform in more than 20 stores.
It first began integrating the solution, powered by Tally, to drive inventory optimisation at the stores and help retail associates do more impactful, customer facing work.
Tally is a robot that autonomously scans shelves of products using AI to identify out-of-stock, misplaced, or mispriced products, as well as generate product location data for efficient inventory replenishment.
Simbe then delivers real-time actionable insights to drive improved store operations.
‘Embracing digital solutions crucial for growth’: retail veteran Martin Bailie joins Quorso advisory board
Quorso has announced that Martin Bailie will be joining its advisory board.
Bailie’s career in retail management spans various roles, including Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Lidl UK&IE, member of the sales and operations executive board at Primark and CEO at Tata and Tesco’s hypermarket enterprise in India.
In his new role, he will help shape the strategic direction of Quorso’s AI guided operations platform.
Gucci notches up a China first as it launches digital flagship store on JD.com platform
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.
Buy now pay later firm Splitit announces $50m investment from Motive Partners and delisting from ASX
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.
Starship Technologies launches robotic food delivery service at Wichita State University
Wichita State Dining has announced the roll-out of robotic food delivery on campus, thanks to a partnership with Starship Technologies.
The latter’s fleet of autonomous, on-demand robots are now available to deliver food from the following campus restaurants: RSC Starbucks; Panda Express; Freddy’s Frozen Custard; Tu Taco; Market at Groundhouse; Cargill Cafe; Black & Gold Grill: A Delivery Ghost Kitchen.
The service works in conjunction with the student meal plan and Shocker dollars, as well as via credit card.
Users can download the Starship Deliveries app on their mobile device and get food delivered for a $2.49 fee to any campus location. They then drop a pin where they want their delivery to be sent.
They can watch as the robot makes its journey to them, via an interactive map. Once the robot arrives, they receive an alert, and can then meet and unlock it through the app.
The delivery usually takes just a matter of minutes, depending on the menu items ordered and the distance the robot must travel. Each robot can carry the equivalent of about three shopping bags of goods.
Online giant eBay UK partners with London’s Notting Hill Carnival to spotlight sneaker culture
eBay has launched a bespoke sneaker hub in partnership with London’s Notting Hill Carnival.
The online marketplace has joined forces with carnival experts to curate what is pitched as “the ultimate sneakerhead shopping destination ahead of the big weekend (27th and 28th August)”.
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.
Reitan Convenience Sweden expands its RELEX Solutions promotion planning partnership
Reitan Convenience Sweden (RCS), a company operating within the convenience store industry in Sweden with over 400 stores, has announced the expansion of its partnership with unified supply chain and retail planning solution provider RELEX Solutions.
RCS is well known for its Pressbyrån and 7-Eleven brands, which currently use RELEX to evaluate and optimise promotional campaigns.
The company has decided to expand its use of the solution, establishing a single integrated tool to improve promotion forecasting, reduce manual tasks, and increase the profitability of promotions.
Previously, RCS relied on legacy systems and spreadsheets to manage its promotion planning. However, parts of the process were manual and time consuming.
After a vendor selection process, it chose RELEX because of the team’s professionalism, industry knowledge and insights, and reputation for promotion planning optimisation.
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.
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.
Netflix strikes a chord with Generation Alpha as UK brands struggle and Amazon takes a tumble
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.
Retailers prep artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision investments in coming year
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.
Testing and learning: Amazon looks to boost the customer reviews experience with generative AI
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.”
Central Retail Corporation teams with Ant Group to launch Alipay+ payments for Asian travellers in Thailand
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.
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