Including Save A Lot, Asda, and Hotel Chocolat: 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 Rituals, Instacart, Roku, El Puerto de Liverpool, OnBuy, Google Cloud, S Group, Pricer, Flying Tiger Copenhagen, Princess Polly, and Central Co-op.
Save A Lot
US discount grocery chain, Save A Lot, has debuted its first ever loyalty programme, Save A Lot Rewards, provided via mobile app.
Though independent retail partners will have flexibility to customise the app with local offers, the loyalty programme nationwide will earn shoppers dots, which they can redeem for free products. The app also features exclusive coupons and deals.
“Save A Lot Rewards marks our evolution in the digital space – even as an independent, bannered wholesaler, we recognise the importance of personalised and incentivised shopping,” says Trey Johnson, Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer at Save A Lot.
“There’s benefit in a loyalty programme for everyone - more value for our shoppers to get better deals and value for us in learning more about who is shopping at Save A Lot, so we can better serve them.”
“Because we’ve waited to launch this loyalty programme, we’ve had the advantage to observe the marketplace and take the best of what works, to maximise value for Save A Lot shoppers,” says Katie Kobus, Vice President of Marketing at Save A Lot.
“We’re providing this added technology to Save A Lot Retail Partners at no cost, offering a strong baseline programme with several options for local stores to do what they do best - localise for their customers.”
Asda
UK grocery giant, Asda, is working with Virtualstock as it extends its online product range, across multiple categories.
One of the first sellers to go live on george.com is Decathlon, which will be ranging a selection of sporting equipment, and more sellers are expected to be added in the coming weeks.
"Working with Virtualstock has enabled us to extend our range to customers by onboarding trusted brands such as Decathlon. This has given us the opportunity to appeal to a wider customer audience and grow our revenue," says Andrew Thompson, Senior Manager eCommerce Portfolio at Asda.
“We are delighted to have partnered with Asda. This is a continuation of an emerging trend to grow online sales through carefully selected partners to create a curated online extended range,” says Ed Bradley, CEO at Virtualstock.
Rituals
Rituals has enlisted RELEX Solutions to deliver end-to-end supply chain optimisation capabilities. It will leverage the company’s technology across its stores, e-commerce site, product distribution and production operations.
This will include sales and operations planning, forecasting, replenishment solutions and production planning tools to enhance demand forecasting accuracy, optimise availability and inventory levels as well as to streamline production processes.
Operating in 36 countries, Rituals manages 1,300 company owned and franchised stores, and its e-commerce site ships to over 30 countries around the world. It is is a Certified B Corporation.
With this implementation, it aims to use a single tool with integrated end-to-end planning and execution capabilities across its locations to ensure seamless coordination from planning to execution. With planned expansions in European and Asia-Pacific markets, Rituals sought a system to improve efficiency and effectiveness, whilst supporting their supply chain with sufficient capacity.
Emirates
International airline, Emirates, this week officially opened the doors to its newly designed ‘Emirates World’ Travel Store in London. The dedicated retail space is the first to open in Europe and latest in a planned roll-out of 40 stores globally.
Located on Cromwell Road in London’s South Kensington, it combines smart technology, expert personal travel advice, and immersive experiences.
Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer, says: “When customers book a flight or holiday, it’s not just a financial transaction, it’s an emotional one, and we’ll be doubling down to deliver a memorable visit for our customers through personalised experiences and immersive displays showcasing the best of our in-flight products.”
“Emirates’ London Travel Store is a testament to our enduring commitment to the UK, a market that has been pivotal to us since our first UK flight 37 years ago. We look forward to welcoming customers and delivering on our ‘Fly Better’ promise as we bring the Emirates brand to life.”
GAIL’s
Bakery business, GAIL’s, is working with talent acquisition technology scale-up inploi.
With 150 bakeries across the UK, it currently employs 2,500 people and has implemented inploi’s technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its talent attraction process.
It will be powering GAIL’s recruitment marketing, in addition to the deployment of a new inploi built careers hub with upgrades to careers pages, job search, and application processes. GAIL’s will also be utilising the firm’s data and analytics platform to monitor the effectiveness of its talent attraction activity.
It previously relied on traditional job boards to advertise vacancies; interested candidates had to apply via long, form-based applications, and the site was not compliant with web content accessibility guidelines. Over 70% of applicants were dropping off before completion.
All open vacancies are now easily navigated via an intuitive map-based search, with applicant data captured through inploi’s AI chatbot technology, typically improving applicant completion rates by an average of 50%.
Other value metrics impacted include improvements in time to hire, recruiter time savings, and substantial reductions in recruitment marketing spend.
Just Eat
Just Eat Takeaway.com has announced a global partnership with Rokt, an e-commerce company using machine learning and AI to make the shopping experience more relevant to customers.
Through the tie up, it will launch a retail media offering on the order confirmation page across all of its portfolio brands' sites for the first time, tapping Rokt's AI powered e-commerce technology and global advertising network.
Just Eat Takeaway.com operates Just Eat in the UK, Lieferando in Germany and Grubhub in the US along with restaurant and grocery delivery brands in 16 other countries, including the Netherlands, Spain, Canada and Australia, reaching a global audience of more than 82 million active customers.
As the company's first global retail media partner, Rokt will enable endemic and non-endemic advertisers to offer relevant messages to customers on all of Just Eat Takeaway.com's brand apps and websites.
Legal & General
Legal & General’s (L&G’s) real estate investment portfolio has appointed Carrot, a Norwegian software provider specialising in occupier level waste management solutions.
Carrot's software will be utilised across applicable properties within L&G’s UK investment real estate portfolio, which includes offices, industrial estates, retail parks, shopping centres, and large residential developments.
L&G’s work with the company will involve a phased roll-out of the technology across multi-let offices, industrial estates, shopping centres, and build-to-rent developments.
Carrot will also be integrated into Vizta, L&G’s digital platform for businesses which gives access to real-time property management and sustainability data. Vizta is aimed at the people or teams responsible for managing leased property within occupier organisations and covers over 4,000 leases and 700 properties within L&G’s investment portfolio.
Instacart and Roku
Instacart and Roku say that they are making TV moments shoppable for high intent customers.
In an expanded partnership, the grocery technology company and TV streaming platform claim that they are providing the massive scale and valuable insights that consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers need to connect with relevant audiences.
With interactive ad formats, enhanced targeting capabilities, and closed-loop measurement, these brands can now get more from their advertising efforts, and consumers are one step closer to effortless and personalised shopping experiences while watching TV in the comfort of their homes.
Instacart and Roku first partnered in 2023 to offer advertisers insights to measure the impact of TV ads on e-commerce purchases. Numerous brands including Josh Wines have leveraged the tie up.
Orelia
Retail247 reports the selection of Origin as the product platform for Orelia, a Brighton-based jewellery brand.
The company, which will launch its flagship store in its home town this week, has chosen to deploy Origin using Retail247’s Accelerate Programme.
This is an implementation template which aims to offer a quick start to emerging retailers, giving them the supportive technological framework they need in order to scale efficiently and effectively.
El Puerto de Liverpool
El Puerto de Liverpool, Mexico’s largest department store, has partnered with Topsort to launch an AI powered retail media platform.
As retail media in Latin America continues its rapid growth - projected to reach $2 billion by 2024, according to eMarketer, Liverpool sought a flexible, scalable solution to modernise its advertising ecosystem, bringing brands and consumers closer at the point of purchase.
Through Topsort’s API driven technology, it has built a fully customisable platform that integrates with multiple channels and touchpoints.
“As we ventured into the retail media landscape, Topsort has been an indispensable partner,” says Santiago Landaverde, Retail Media Deputy Director at Liverpool.
“Their platform has made it incredibly easy for us to launch and manage campaigns, streamlining the entire process - from setup to budget management. The seamless access to detailed data has been instrumental in helping us optimise sellers' ad spend and make real-time decisions.”
OnBuy
OnBuy, a UK-based online marketplace, has announced a new collaboration with Google Cloud.
This will enable OnBuy to leverage a range of Google Cloud products and services - including infrastructure, data storage, and managed services - with the aim of improving both seller and customer experiences, reducing costs and building new revenue streams.
Some key products and services of the collaboration include Google Cloud’s Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), which allows OnBuy to deploy a virtual network that spans all regions, helping to secure and segregate its infrastructure.
In addition, Cloud Storage provides it with fast, low cost, and highly durable storage for its data, while Cloud SQL manages its databases, enabling the business to run without disruption.
The migration to Google Cloud will also allow OnBuy to experiment with AI and generative AI tools for various applications across the business.
For example, the team is exploring how the AI platform, Vertex AI, can train a product auto-categorisation algorithm to look at new and unseen product titles to predict the category they should be in at scale.
Kingfisher
Fivetran has been selected to accelerate data operations for international home improvement company, Kingfisher.
Its automated platform enables Kingfisher to ingest Google Analytics data into its group data platform, creating a single source of truth to support its strategic growth.
Parent company to brands such as B&Q, Screwfix and TradePoint, Kingfisher operates across eight countries and employs over 78,000 people. It offers home improvement products and services to consumers and trade professionals across more than 2,000 stores and online.
With over a billion customer visits per annum across its e-commerce touchpoints, it wanted to achieve a 360-degree view of customer journeys across its brands, captured in Google Analytics (GA4) data.
Fivetran integrates GA4 data into Kingfisher’s group data platform that is built on top of Databricks.
Hotel Chocolat
InVision Software, the company behind injixo, a cloud workforce management (WFM) application, has bagged Hotel Chocolat as a new customer.
The retailer is looking to transform its staff scheduling process, which was cumbersome and inefficient.
With injixo, it can take advantage of scheduling capabilities that automatically tailor working hours, breaks, and lunches based on employee skills and customer demand. Automation aims to significantly streamline the process, yet allow for dynamic adjustments to accommodate on-the-day challenges such as sickness.
The solution will help Hotel Chocolat to manage fluctuations in seasonal demand, achieve optimal staffing efficiency, and potentially reduce operational costs, particularly during quieter periods.
Additionally, it will enable real-time schedule adherence monitoring, enable same-day task assignments, and provide 24/7 mobile access for agents to view their schedules and manage time off.
S Group
More than 100 stores will be equipped during the first half of 2025.
The focus will mainly be on S-market supermarket stores, and Prisma hypermarkets, that previously focused on implementing Pricer’s in-store solution in their grocery departments and will now see additional installations in non-grocery departments.
Princess Polly
Princess Polly reports a 66% increase in online sales from petite size fashion shoppers - and a 61% increase from tall size shoppers - when they click on a personalised home page category menu that targets people with an affinity for those clothing sizes.
This category menu displays personalised menu bubbles that allow shoppers to click through to dedicated category pages for the company’s tall or petite collections.
“The petite and tall category bubbles we deliver through Nosto are great for discoverability, since we’re always adding new sizes to our catalogue,” says Melanie Huang, UX E-commerce Manager at Princess Polly. “And they’re only displayed to visitors who have shown an interest in those clothing sizes.”
Central Co-op
Central Co-op has renewed its partnership with Retail Insight, a provider of in-store execution software, for an additional three years.
Central Co-op is an independent retail co-operative society, comprising 450 trading outlets across 21 counties and employing 7,500 colleagues. Its retail network spans 255 food stores and 18 petrol station outlets, as well as offering floristry and funeral services.
‘Creating a sustainable society for all’ is Central Co-op’s founding purpose, and food waste - along with carbon reduction and recycling - is one of its key sustainability focuses.
Since 2018, for example, it has worked with FareShare Midlands to create 6.5 million meals and also works with food redistributor, Olio, as part of its ambition of achieving zero food waste.
Central Co-op first partnered with Retail Insight in 2021, using Retail Insight’s WasteInsight platform for mark-downs on products nearing expiry to increase sell-through and reduce waste.
TikTok Shop
FinTech firm Storfund has announced a new partnership with TikTok Shop that, it says, will introduce the first fully embedded cash flow solution in a major US marketplace.
Called Daily Advance, the product will see Storfund, which was founded in London in 2018, advance money to sellers as soon as they ship their goods.
The company says that this addresses a significant disparity in the fast moving world of e-commerce where customers can buy online in minutes, but marketplaces can delay payouts to sellers for up to 60 days.
Money is legitimately held back by all marketplaces to ensure that sellers have funds available for refunds but this can disrupt their ability to restock and scale up.
The partnership sees TikTok Shop embed the proprietary solution end-to-end within its platform.
Flying Tiger Copenhagen
Flying Tiger Copenhagen has gone live with its loyalty app in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
In a LinkedIn post, Amalie Willems, Social Media Coordinator, Nordics at Flying Tiger Copenhagen, says:
“Since starting at Flying Tiger Copenhagen, I’ve had the privilege of working on some truly exciting projects with great people, and the past few weeks have been particularly special.”
“We’ve successfully launched the Flying Tiger Copenhagen Club app in Sweden, Norway, and most recently Finland. I’m so grateful to have worked alongside an incredible team who made this possible. This launch has also included some fantastic influencer collaborations, including a successful partnership with Charlotte Karlsen.”
She adds: “The app is already making waves, offering our customers exclusive discounts and a more engaging shopping experience. If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to download it and see what we’ve been working on.”
Nesto Group and Al Wafa Hypermarket KSA
Nesto Group in Oman and Al Wafa Hypermarket KSA in Saudi Arabia have deployed Hanshow’s electronic shelf labels, marking the first ever multi-colour ESL installation in the Middle East.
Hanshow said in a LinkedIn post: “The development and installation process went smoothly thanks to the incredible efforts of our in-house team and local partner, ESL Hub. A huge thank you to everyone involved!”
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