Starring PacSun, Iceland, and Co-op: the biggest retail technology news stories of the week
It’s Friday, the weekend is almost upon us, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail systems space. Here's your briefing on the most important stories from the past five days, including Nedap, VoCoVo, Walmart, Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, Impact Analytics, and ACI Worldwide.
1. PacSun kicks off deployment of Nedap iD Cloud Store RFID solution across its stores
Nedap has partnered with PacSun to implement RFID across the company’s fleet of stores.
Deployment of iD Cloud Store to all of PacSun’s stores is estimated to be completed in Q1 2024.
It says that it is tapping the solution to increase inventory accuracy, inform replenishment decisions, and improve both omnichannel and in-store experiences.
Shirley Gao, Chief Digital and Information Officer at PacSun, says: “Meeting our Gen Z customers in how they want to shop is crucial. PacSun shoppers are social media savvy and shop our exclusive merch drops with urgency.”
“We pay attention to our customers' desired preferences and listen to them every second of every day - including their expectations of a seamless shopping experience. To achieve this, PacSun is a digital disruptor and we actively invest in technologies that will help take our brand experience to the next level.”
“Partnering with Nedap is helping us unlock competitive advantages as we tap into data-rich fulfilment and operational cheat-codes to get the right product to the right stores for the right customers.”
2. Iceland to roll-out VoCoVo’s Series 5 voice headsets for staff across its 1,004 UK stores
UK supermarket Iceland is to roll-out Series 5 voice headsets from VoCoVo to improve the ability of staff to help customers at its 1,004 stores in a quick and easy manner. Internal efficiency, safety procedures and so on will also benefit from the upgrade.
Iceland opted for the Series 5 Pro headsets after a trial and before that a vetting process. VoCoVo’s voice product best met all of its requirements for a durable, lightweight and innovative solution that could help transform the consumer and colleague working experience.
The roll-out covers all areas of Iceland’s retail stores, including the shop floor, back areas and home delivery services.
3. Retail veteran Clare Empson takes on Director of Supply Chain role at N Brown Group
Fashion and homeware digital retailer, N Brown Group, has announced the appointment of Clare Empson as Director of Supply Chain. She takes over from Phil Barnes, who confirmed last year that he will retire in the spring.
Empson will join the N Brown Executive Board, holding responsibility for Operations, Distribution, Workplace, Engineering and Facilities, Health and Safety, Supply Chain MI, Solutions and Logistics Transformation.
Her appointment is part of a Group wide transformation that aims to create a customer first experience with technology at its core. She will be responsible for ensuring shoppers are provided an outstanding customer service proposition through its supply chain operations.
Empson has a range of experience across the retail sector over the past 25 years, and in leading global retail operations.
She was most recently Director of Operations at Ted Baker, where she also held senior roles within its Retail and Transformation areas during her time there.
4. Sageview Capital and Vistara Growth head up $40 million funding round for 'juggernaut' Impact Analytics
Impact Analytics, a supplier of a retail, grocery, CPG and supply chain focused planning and merchandising software suite, has closed $40 million in growth financing.
The funding round was led by Sageview Capital with additional support from long-time partner Vistara Growth.
As part of this transaction, Jeff Klemens, Partner at Sageview Capital, and Prashanth Palakurthi, Senior Advisor at Sageview Capital and founder and former CEO at Reflexis Systems, will join the company’s board of directors.
Impact Analytics says it will use the cash to: “expand its sales, marketing, and customer service organisations in the US and abroad; ensure its technology platform and AI capabilities continue to lead the industry; deepen its strategic partnerships; and strengthen its balance sheet in anticipation of future growth opportunities”.
5. Walmart hits CES 2024 to lay claim to largest drone delivery expansion by any US retailer
Walmart is now offering drone delivery for up to 75% of the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) population, giving it the largest such footprint of any US retailer.
It made the announcement at CES 2024, which is currently taking place in Las Vegas.
“This expansion will bring the ultimate convenience of drone delivery to communities across the DFW area.
Customers will have access to a broad assortment of items from Walmart available for delivery to their home in just minutes,” says Prathibha Rajashekhar, Senior Vice President, Innovation & Automation, Walmart U.S.
“Drone delivery is not just a concept of the future, it’s happening now and will soon be a reality for millions of additional Texans.”
The expansion includes stores across more than 30 towns and municipalities in the DFW metroplex, marking the first time a US retailer has offered drone delivery to this many households in a single market.
The deliveries will be powered by Wing and Zipline. Both are approved by the FAA to fly their drones without a dedicated observer being able to see the drone at all times, known as Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).
Customers can receive orders within 30 minutes or less and some deliveries can happen as fast as 10 minutes.
6. ACI Worldwide inks deal to power payments for UK retailer Co-op in the cloud
UK retailer Co-op has moved its full stack of payments and fraud prevention technology software into ACI Worldwide’s multi-tenant cloud platform hosted in Microsoft Azure.
As a strategic technology partner of ACI Worldwide, Co-op uses the full range of solutions offered by ACI’s Payments Orchestration Platform, including in-store, online and mobile payment processing and end-to-end payments and fraud management.
The retailer says that moving its payments software into the cloud will enable it to operate more efficiently, providing scalability, security and enhanced data protection.
The migration, which has been completed, follows ACI’s announcement of an expanded multi-year strategic alliance with Microsoft to deliver payment solutions in the cloud.
This also supports ACI’s anti-fraud processing model, featuring patented, proprietary incremental learning technology.
7. Amazon Just Walk Out tech hits hospitals, with badge pay for doctors, nurses, health care staff
Amazon has announced a new addition to its Just Walk Out offering, the tech service that enables a checkout-free shopping experience for customers.
The new capability, called “badge pay,” will bring JWO to health care settings, so doctors, nurses, and other health care staff can grab food and beverages at all hours by scanning their employee badge.
St. Joseph’s/Candler at its Candler Hospital Campus in Savannah, Georgia, is the first US hospital with a Just Walk Out technology store and the first location to offer the badge pay capability.
“For the last several years, we have been offering Just Walk Out technology as a service to third-party retailers, and today, you can find enabled stores at more than 120 third-party locations,” says Jon Jenkins, Vice President, Just Walk Out technology, AWS Applications.
“These third-party locations include airports, stadiums, university campuses, grocery and convenience stores, theme parks, cafes, and more in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. Just Walk Out technology is also available in dozens of Amazon owned stores.”
He adds: “As businesses embrace the benefits of this technology, our team continues to innovate to enable retailers to offer an expanded array of products, bring checkout-free stores to new locations and new shoppers, and increase throughput and sales.”
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