Artificial intelligence, sustainability, and inclusivity: RTIH presents the retail technology week in numbers
Do you like numbers? Do you like retail systems news? Then this is the article for you. Including Co-op, Wendy’s, Retail Technology Show 2024, Royal Mail, Worldpay, Casio, Amazon, Gather AI, and the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards.
$17 million…Gather AI, a provider of computer vision and AI powered warehouse inventory monitoring solutions, has announced a $17 million Series A-1 round led by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from Tribeca Venture Partners, Dundee Venture Capital, Expa, and Bling Capital.
This provides a total of $34 million raised to date. The cash will be invested in scaling operations.
Gather AI was founded in 2017 by Sankalp Arora, Daniel Maturana and Geetesh Dubey, after launching from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.
It automates inventory visibility challenges through drones across third-party logistics, manufacturing, and retail facilities, laying claim to much richer data than warehouses can currently obtain with barcodes.
Customers include NFI, GEODIS, DSV, Barrett Distribution, and DPI Specialty Foods (KeHE).
300…Co-op reports that it is now offering the same member price benefits online for its member-owners as it does in-store.
Member prices are across more than 300 key lines and everyday essentials, with branded and own-branded items including: Co-op 800g loaf (£0.76p); whole cucumber (£0.80p) ; six salad tomatoes (£0.85p); six medium free-range eggs (£1.40); Co-op spaghetti/penne pasta (£0.80); Co-op tomato ketchup 550g (£1.10) and Co-op baked beans 400g (£0.49p)
6 and 3…The sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards is now open for entries.
The awards celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world, with winners being announced during a glittering ceremony at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London on Thursday, 21st November.
This year, we’re bringing you three new categories: AI Innovation, Sustainable Retail Innovation, and Inclusive Technology Innovation.
6,500…Wendy’s has selected PARTech’s loyalty and offer solution, PAR Punchh, to advance its customer engagement efforts.
Wendy’s will leverage PAR Punchh’s AI driven platform and Punchh Enterprise Support to boost its loyalty programme for customers who visit any of its nearly 6,500 locations across the United States and Canada.
It is looking to add gamified experiences, targeted offers designed to bring “great food for a great value” to its customers, and exclusive promotions tailored to individual customer preferences.
1…The SSE Arena, Belfast has announced a collaboration with Amazon to implement the US online giant’s Just Walk Out technology at the venue, making it the first indoor arena in Europe to offer checkout-free shopping.
This will be located on the first floor and named PAY & AWAY.
Guests will enter by using their chosen contactless payment method at the entry gate, with the technology then detecting what customers take from or return to the shelves and creating a virtual shopping session.
When they complete their shopping experience, they can leave without waiting in line, and their chosen payment method will be charged for the items taken.
40%…Consumer electronics brand, Casio, has increased conversion rates on its Casio and G-Shock UK sites by using Nosto’s Commerce Experience Platform to personalise the experience for customers buying its watches, calculators, and musical instruments.
With its products sold widely via major high street retailers, Casio wants to encourage browsers on its UK sites to continue buying direct.
It has therefore deployed a retention campaign whereby a smart pop-up containing a unique discount code and product USPs is triggered via Nosto if customers copy-paste product details from the product detail page (PDP) in order to potentially search online for the same product elsewhere.
This is seeing a 40% conversion rate, increasing sales and reducing bounce rates while protecting Casio’s premium brand values by avoiding offering site wide discounts and sales.
45% of UK consumers have been using savings accumulated during Covid-19 lockdowns to offset the cost-of-living crisis, according to new research from Retail Technology Show 2024, which will place on 24th and 25th April at London’s Olympia.
RTS 2024 research of over 1,000 UK adults revealed that on average British consumers built up a Covid saving pot of £4,805, with Millennials reporting the highest levels of lockdown savings, amassing an average of £5,862.50 while Boomers reported the smallest pots at £4,069.20.
Despite the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, insisting the economy was showing signs of recovering from a mild recession, 26% of respondents expect the cost-of-living crisis to last beyond 2026, with a fifth expecting it to end in 2025.
12%…Easter egg sales have fallen by 12% in the UK, as inflation and HFSS legislation melts confectionery performance across four major British supermarkets, according to research from retail data specialist Reapp.
This reveals that chocolate eggs have dropped by over 600,000 units sold in the buildup to Easter, equating to £11.3 million in sales value, a 2% decrease from 2023 (£11.5 million).
It comes as the average price of an egg in British supermarkets has leapt by 11% year on year going from £2.27 in 2023 to £2.52 today.
1,500 and 3,000…Royal Mail has launched a new partnership with Quadient, giving its customers access to parcel lockers for the first time.
The first lockers will launch in Coventry in April, with further locations opening in the following months.
Around 1,500 are expected by the end of the year, with further plans for 3,000 across the UK.
The lockers will initially allow customers to drop off returns and pre-paid parcels before being expanded so that customers can have items delivered to them for pick up.
The partnership with Quadient adds to the recent announcement that Royal Mail customers will be able to use up to 5,000 Collect+ stores to drop off and collect parcels.
Together, this will increase the number of locations where customers can drop off parcels to more than 21,000, including 3,000 lockers, 11,500 Post Office branches, 5,000 Collect+ stores, 1,200 Royal Mail Customer Service Points and 1,200 parcel postboxes.
The report, which provides analysis of the payments landscape across 40 countries, indicates that by 2027, digital wallets are expected to comprise half of all e-commerce spend in the UK, worth £203.5 billion.
Projections also estimate that usage will more than double at UK PoS, rising from 14% to 29% of transaction value over the next three years. By 2027, this will represent £493 billion total transaction value.
Digital wallets emerged in the late 1990s, but it was the Covid-19 pandemic that provided the tipping point for adoption globally.
Pete Wickes, General Manager, EMEA at Worldpay, says: “Consumers are not just embracing digital wallets, they are driving a revolution in the payments landscape.”
“The combined effect of the pandemic, alongside digital wallet technology reaching a level of maturity and implementation in recent years has driven a monumental rise in adoption both globally and locally in the UK.”
“It is hard to deny the ease of use and convenience digital wallets provide whether shopping in-store or online. From this basis, merchants now have a huge opportunity to diversify their payments choice to meet customer needs."
300…Riskified has unveiled Chargeback Challenges and What You Can Do About Them: Global Insights 2024, a survey conducted in partnership with Paladin Fraud of over 300 e-commerce chargeback managers worldwide.
This reveals significant and avoidable revenue losses for businesses at a time when the economic backdrop continues to be unstable and many are fighting for survival, prompting merchant respondents to highlight the need for AI and automation to improve some or all of the process.
Chargebacks serve as a mechanism for cardholders to dispute purchases with their payment issuers instead of a merchant, often leading to the rightful reversal of the transaction by merchants.
Although intended to protect consumers, there's a growing trend where this process is being exploited by unethical shoppers to reclaim funds through deceptive means.
The cost and complexity of managing disputes, combined with the sheer volume of claims - three in four Americans and Brits filed a chargeback last year (Justt), means that merchants are losing essential revenue.
4…A smarter grocery shopping solution and an app to help gig workers gain financial security by leveraging the data that companies like Uber, Just Eat and Amazon hold on them, were among the winners of the Smart Data Discovery Challenge last week.
Four companies emerged victorious at a pitching event on Thursday evening. UK Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business, Kevin Hollinrake MP, awarded the teams a share of £20,000 for their ideas on how to use smart data to make a difference for people and small businesses.
It paves the way for the launch of a new Smart Data Prize later this summer. Participants will have the opportunity to prototype their ideas in a digital sandbox, with the support of grant funding.
The strongest entrants will be eligible for a share of up to £750,000.
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