Everlane, Asda, and PacSun head up January’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance

RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from January, including RFID, electronic shelf labels, retail media, drone delivery, payments, and PIM solutions.

Piglet in Bed

Retail247 reports the selection and deployment of Origin as the product information management (PIM) solution for Piglet in Bed, a bedding and homeware brand.

Recognising the critical role of comprehensive product data management when it comes to saving employee time, as well as enhancing customer experiences, Piglet in Bed chose Origin to streamline and optimise its product data journey.

The first phase of deployment includes product creation with product code and EAN generation, customised logic for mapping commodity codes and setting of the initial price for all price zones.

Future phases will see Origin extending its capabilities to full price change management and digital asset management, as well as integration into Piglet in Bed’s ERP and web platforms.

Colruyt Group

RELEX Solutions has announced a long-term partnership with Belgium-based retailer Colruyt Group.

This is aimed at enhancing Colruyt Group’s inventory management capabilities in order to manage product flow, in line with end customer demand.

The project includes all distribution sites of Colruyt Group that deliver products to the company’s retail banners.

Dollar General

Dollar General is teaming with Shelf Engine for a US roll-out of its automated AI ordering technology for produce.

By the end of fiscal year 2023, this collaboration will see Shelf Engine's AI tech implemented in approximately 3,000 stores.

This follows a two phased pilot that began in December 2022 of Shelf Engine’s offering in more than 400 Dollar General stores.

Its platform is designed to generate orders, with a goal of optimising in-stock levels that directly contribute to providing Dollar General customers with the freshest food possible.

GRIDSERVE and Simply Fresh

GRIDSERVE and Simply Fresh have brought Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology to the London Gatwick Electric Forecourt, which is pitched as the first of its kind to open at any of Europe’s international airports.

The location features 30 EV charging bays and a Simply Fresh Little Fresh convenience store with Just Walk Out technology, where guests can shop while recharging their vehicles.

Just Walk Out is made possible by artificial intelligence like computer vision and deep learning techniques, including generative AI, to accurately determine who took what in any retail environment.

Amazon says that it built synthetic datasets to mimic millions of realistic shopping scenarios, including variations in store format, lighting conditions, and even crowds of shoppers, to ensure accuracy in any environment.

Everlane

Shopify’s ShopPay solution has made an appearance on a non-Shopify website, with some industry observers predicting the end of one-click checkout businesses.

Everlane’s website now has an express checkout that features the offering alongside Apple Pay and PayPal.

Asda

SMG has landed a deal to manage the retail media planning and retail media operations functions of UK grocery retailer Asda.

Previously managed by GIG Retail for the past eight years, SMG’s appointment comes at a time as Asda plans to expand its retail media network via more stores, new digital channels, and propositions.

With 19.7 million households in Britain shopping at the supermarket chain last year, with 80% of customers shopping both online and in-store and with a rewards programme, SMG will use Asda’s customer data to create omnichannel campaigns helping brands reach the right audience through the right touchpoints whether that be social, digital, TV, or in-store.

SMG’s proprietary software product Plan-Apps will be embedded into Asda’s technology stack.

Sainsbury’s

StrongPoint has been selected by Sainsbury’s to supply order picking technology for online grocery orders fulfilled manually in-store. 

Sainsbury’s is the UK’s second largest grocery retailer with over 1,400 supermarkets and convenience stores across the country, employing more than 152,000 people.  

“StrongPoint is focused on serving the unique needs of grocery retailers and providing the very best e-commerce technologies. Our grocery e-commerce order picking solution is truly world class,” says Jacob Tveraabak, CEO at StrongPoint. 

“The fact that we now serve the UK’s second largest grocery retailer is a perfect testament to the quality of our solution.”

Armani Group

XY Retail has been chosen as the unified commerce platform for the Armani Group in a deal covering operations for the brands Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Armani Exchange, and Armani Casa across over 20 countries and more than 700 stores.

This encompasses a suite of solutions, including Point of Sale (PoS), and Order Management System (OMS).

The aim here is to smoothly integrate the front office and back office, creating a unified commerce experience for both customers and retailer teams across the online and offline business channels.

Moss Bros

Moss (aka Moss Bros) has selected OneStock’s Order Management System to continue its digital transformation push as it looks to create a world class shopping experience for its customers.

Romulus Grigoras, Co-founder and CEO at OneStock, says: “Great achievement and a big thank you to the teams at Moss Bros, Xiatech and OneStock working hand in hand to deliver a great project and above all, amazing business results.”

Co-op

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.

PacSun

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.”

O&CC

Outdoor and Cycle Concepts (O&CC), the largest outdoor, running and snowsports retailer in the UK, comprising of high street brands Cotswold Outdoor, Runners Need and Snow+Rock, is expanding the £1.5 million roll-out of electronic shelf labels from Sweden’s Pricer to all its 78 stores by May.

Iceland

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.

Walmart

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.

“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.