Including CADS, FreedomPay, and NewStore: RTIH presents last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, launches, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Including Henderson Group, Amazon, Walmart, adidas, The Very Group, Athletic Propulsion Labs, Absolute Pets, and Whole Foods Market.
Henderson Group
Retail space planning specialist CADS has helped Northern Ireland’s largest Spar retailer and wholesaler, Henderson Group, improve its space management process with StoreSpace.
Henderson Group reached out to CADS following a recommendation from Nielsen, which provides Spaceman planogram technology that partners with StoreSpace.
“Our StoreSpace software makes it easier for retailers to optimise their retail space. Henderson Group has been able to make better informed planning decisions which help boost sales,” says Richard Burford, CADS’ Customer Success Specialist.
FreedomPay and Amazon
Amazon’s Amazon One service is now integrated with FinTech firm FreedomPay’s commerce technology platform.
Amazon One is a payment system based on biometrics that works by reading users' palm print. It is used by the likes of Whole Foods Market and Amazon Go, as well as third-party retailers who have purchased the technology from Amazon
“Our technology empowers businesses around the world to provide a robust, frictionless and personalised purchasing experience across online and in-store channels,” says Chris Kronenthal, President at FreedomPay.
“That’s why we’re excited to announce that Amazon One, the fast, convenient, and contactless identity service that uses your palm to enter, identify, and pay, is now integrated with our commerce technology platform.”
“Together, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and FreedomPay’s technologies enable merchants to offer a seamless checkout process and a faster way to pay. Shoppers will be able to use their palm to pay with FreedomPay using Amazon One.”
Jackson Hole Airport
UST’s Vision Checkout solution has been rolled out at Jackson Hole Airport (JCO) in Wyoming, US.
This is located at the Bistro and Grab & Go areas of Jedediah’s, the sole food vendor at an airport that welcomes over 500,000 passengers annually.
UST Vision Checkout is a self-checkout terminal powered by computer vision. It has the standard SCO capability of barcode scanning and look up products mode, with the aim of simplifying grab and go purchases.
With Jedediah’s seeing major demand spikes that accompany flight departure schedules, it allows employees to devote themselves to meeting other customer needs during peak service times.
Furthermore, its automated nature makes it possible for the restaurant to keep its doors open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Amazon
Pepsi signed Miami Dolphins' Hall of Fame Quarterback Dan Marino to a one-day contract, marking his official return to gameday at the Dolphins' home opener against the Broncos on Sunday.
Marino served as "QB1" of the Wynwood Walkthrough presented by Pepsi, a new concession storefront at Hard Rock Stadium that allows fans to grab and go without stopping for checkout.
This is stocked with PepsiCo beverages and Frito-Lay snacks, with Amazon's Just Walk Out technology in place to get fans at the stadium back to their seats quickly.
The Wynwood Walkthrough presented by Pepsi at Hard Rock Stadium marks the first time a major South Florida stadium will utilise Amazon's Just Walk Out technology and Amazon One.
Ocado Group
Geek+ and adidas
Geek+ and adidas have announced the opening of an automated warehousing and distribution centre in Suzhou, China.
Covering an area of 139,000 square metres, this can process more than one million pieces per day, with the capacity to hold ten million pieces of apparel and footwear in its facilities.
Geek+'s robot solution addressed various challenges faced in adidas' logistics and warehousing operations.
This included customisations for item location detection, enhancing operational safety and aligning with human-machine collaboration needs.
It also optimised robot handling efficiency through intelligent scheduling logic, elevating overall efficiency and improving the work experience for logistics centre employees, thereby increasing worker retention.
Kingfisher
Kingfisher is using TCS OmniStore, an AI powered unified commerce platform from Tata Consultancy Services.
The company operates a chain of over 1,900 stores in eight countries across Europe under its retail banners including B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt, Screwfix, TradePoint and Koçtaş.
It was looking to upgrade to a multilingual commerce platform that delivers a unified brand experience. In addition, it wanted to address legal, fiscal, and operational differences across all its European banners.
City Beach
Australian fashion brand, City Beach, is leveraging NewStore technology to design and launch an app, which will debut on iOS and Android in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States in the coming months.
“After a comprehensive evaluation, it became evident that the NewStore platform was the perfect match from a feature-functionality standpoint,” says Chris Lockwood, Head of E-commerce, City Beach.
“This journey marks a turning point for us, and we are confident that the end product will benefit our business and further our commitment to offering a superior customer experience.”
With NewStore, City Beach will have access to the likes of real-time omnichannel inventory visibility, custom push notifications, and interactive product lookbooks.
Amazon and Avery Dennison
Amazon has announced a new capability to its Just Walk Out technology that will enable relevant stores to start selling clothes.
This leverages RFID, supplied by Avery Dennison, and enables customers to grab clothes, hats, shoes etc, and walk out of the store through an exit gate (even while wearing their purchases) by tapping their credit or debit card, or hovering their palm over an Amazon One palm recognition device.
It is currently available at Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks.
“Delivering a great fan experience is central to everything we do here at Lumen Field, and our customers love the convenience of Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology,” says Zach Hensley, Seahawks Vice President of Operations and General Manager at Lumen Field.
“Eight of our concessions locations are already using Just Walk Out technology and seeing great results.”
“Now, we are excited to be the first NFL stadium with an RFID enabled Just Walk Out technology store so fans can grab their favourite hats, jerseys, and more, and simply walk out. We are seeing great traction for this new store, and our fans are enjoying the experience.”
Ikea
Ikea USA has introduced its first ever buy now, pay later (BNPL) programme in partnership with Afterpay.
The latter’s Pay in 4 service is now available nationwide in-store and online.
“We value our customers and strive to ensure accessibility and affordability. We aim to provide the best shopping experience with great quality products, for the many,” says Christine Briganti, Financial Services Deployment Project Leader at Ikea US.
“By partnering with Afterpay, we will lower the barriers for our customers to design their dream spaces.”
Whole Foods Market
London-based Forest has launched a partnership with Whole Foods Market UK, allowing the retailer to highlight its store-based promotions within the shared eBike app.
Forest created the AdTech map function, a ‘Point of Interest’, to allow partner companies to showcase their products, services and discounts within its home page map.
Whole Foods Market’s Point of Interest will become a permanent feature of the map during the period of the partnership, reinforcing the brand every time a rider uses the dockless eBikes.
The launch of the partnership is the inaugural Point of Interest tie-up for the micromobility company which has developed the AdTech feature itself.
Walmart
Earlier this year, Walmart teamed up with game developer FUN-GI on House Flip, a mobile game available on iOS and Android that allows players to renovate and sell virtual homes.
It initially started with the ability for players to virtually test certain Glidden paint colours sold at Walmart, generating more than 12 million impressions for that brand over the first six months.
This month, the retailer will introduce the ability to purchase physical items contextually and natively in the game - either the same ones people use to decorate their virtual house or ones they discover while playing the game - using their Walmart account without leaving the virtual world.
It is also adding new décor items from Mainstays and Better Homes and Gardens in the Walmart in-game landmark that players can browse and purchase.
Walmart has also entered the virtual fashion segment with its clothing brand Scoop, taking over the fashion space, Runway Z, within the mobile virtual world Zepeto.
Athletic Propulsion Labs
Luxury performance trainer brand, Athletic Propulsion Labs (APL), has worked with True Fit to achieve a boost in e-commerce revenue while reducing fit related returns from those customers leveraging the latter’s recommendations.
APL first began its partnership with True Fit as it scaled its direct to consumer (DTC) business, with the goal of offering its shoppers fit guidance.
It now leverages True Fit’s Fashion Genome platform to provide fit recommendations powered by the demographics, fit preferences and buying behaviours of millions of global shoppers, and then enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI).
This data delivers high fidelity size and fit guidance to 100% of traffic, from zero click product size guidance for all traffic to personalised fit recommendations to shoppers who register and create a True Fit profile.
The partnership increased conversions resulting in a 2% uptick in site-wide revenue. APL also reports a 5% reduction in returns from shoppers leveraging True Fit.
Stop & Shop
Badger Technologies is working with Stop & Shop, an Ahold Delhaize USA company, to expand its use of Marty the Robot at more than 300 stores throughout the US Northeast.
The robot now conducts product checks to help ensure greater on-shelf availability for customers by alerting store associates when items need re-stocking. Marty also detects misplaced items while continuing the usual task of spotting potential floor hazards and spills.
Badger Technologies’ autonomous robots were rolled out at Stop & Shop stores starting in January 2019.
The Very Group
The Very Group has been working with Kyndryl to migrate applications to the public cloud. And the online retailer is now extending the agreement and moving over more applications.
Kyndryl will combine The Very Group’s core service management toolset with cloud native tooling and the implementation of Kyndryl Bridge and AIOps, enabling greater links between global teams.
It says that this process will “build an optimised, integrated service that is simple, flexible, automated, and delivered with velocity with improved service observability”.
IKI
Pixevia has partnered with IKI, a member of REWE Group, to launch a fifth autonomous store in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The IKI GO store is located next to the Green Bridge public transport stop. It is the seventh location overall powered by Pixevia technology.
Contained in a small format pavilion, it operates without staff for approximately 95% of its opening hours, only requiring occasional restocking.
Shoppers can choose from over 200 items – from hot coffee beverages and chilled ready-to-eat meals to ice creams, snacks, drinks, and essential non-food items.
The store features Pixevia’s proprietary real-time checkout technology, which allows customers to enter by tapping a payment card.
People take what items they want from the shelves while cameras and shelf sensors compile a virtual shopping basket. They then tap the same payment card to exit the store, and receive a real-time receipt which can be printed upon leaving.
Absolute Pets
South African retailer Absolute Pets has selected Quant Retail unified space planning technology.
“Our main reason for selecting Quant is the level of intelligent automation that it applies to building store specific planograms, that allows us to scale the active management of store specific assortments,” says Kevin Tuffin, Commercial Director at Absolute Pets.
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