Including itsu, Wendy’s, Casio, and Sportano: 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 Attensi, Jisp, Mercaux, RELEX Solutions, Oracle NetSuite, OneStock, Tryzens, Nosto, and ParTech.
Morrisons
UNTUCKit
UNTUCKit, an apparel brand known for creating “shirts designed to be worn untucked,” is using Oracle NetSuite to automate financial processes, helping to improve the speed and accuracy of reporting, and scale its operations.
Founded in 2011, UNTUCKit began as a direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand offering a single product – men’s button-downs. Today, it operates more than 80 storefronts in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom that offer a range of products from button-downs and Henleys, to swimwear and dresses.
To support its growth and expanding product portfolio and sales channels, UNTUCKit needed to replace its manual financial and inventory processes in QuickBooks in order to improve business visibility and operational efficiency.
Enter NetSuite as its new ERP system.
itsu
itsu, a healthy eating restaurant, is expanding across Europe with the help of Attensi AI, reducing the time it takes to make and translate training content.
By using Attensi AI, the International Training Manager at itsu has overcome several time-consuming barriers that previously added months in content creation time for staff training in multiple locations.
The company says that, as it expands at pace, its training team is now confident that their geographically dispersed colleagues are up-to-date with seasonal and changing training needs across the business.
AI features including automated voice-overs, auto-translations, creative prompts, and co-pilots enable a faster and more efficient roll-out of training across the whole itsu network, providing the same high standards of training in every region.
Midsona
Kingfisher
Kingfisher, the owner of B&Q and Screwfix, is renewing its retail technology partnership with Virtualstock, a dropshipping and curated marketplace SaaS platform whose other clients include Aldi, John Lewis, and Argos.
It has inked a three-year contract, with Virtualstock’s tech being used to support 1,100 B&Q stores across eight different countries in Europe.
Paul White, Commercial Director at B&Q, says: “Virtualstock technology wraps around our existing IT infrastructure enabling us to scale our online offer at pace, introducing new products, ranges, and markets.”
“Dropship is a route that enables us to build a broad portfolio of products giving our customers both choice and accessibility. We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with Virtualstock as we continue to expand our offer and grow our online business.”
East of England Co-operative Society
East of England Co-operative Society, one of the largest regional co-operatives in the UK, has signed an agreement with Pricer for an installation worth 50 MSEK in all 120+ of its food stores and involving the cloud-based platform Pricer Plaza and digital labels.
It has selected Pricer’s in-store automation and communication solution and the latest four colour electronic shelf labels.
The project will start in June and the plan is to have all installations finalised during spring 2025.
Pricer Plaza provides a cloud-based software solution that enables retailers to centrally manage and control pricing, product information, and promotions across all electronic shelf labels in all connected stores.
It eliminates the need for manual updates and reduces the risk of errors, helping with accuracy and efficiency in operations and overall store efficiency by enabling colleagues to focus on other more value-adding tasks.
Jisp
The launch of the wholesale specific loyalty platform, Confex Savings Club, powered by Jisp took place at the Confex annual trade show on 20th March.
According to a press release, this is seen by many Confex members as “essential in helping them compete with wholesale groups such as Booker”.
Over the course of the day, the number of wholesalers registering for the service exceeded expectations and saw Jisp beat its recruitment target for the launch event.
Savings Club enables wholesalers to offer savings and rewards that drive loyalty while earning them extra through a supplier revenue share.
Customers of participating Confex members save and earn money, by redeeming product vouchers at their Confex wholesaler, and brands can reach retailers through special promotions while receiving data and insights about who is shopping their products.
The London Coffee Festival
Dune London
Dune London has implemented OneStock’s order management system (OMS), after consultation with digital commerce agency Tryzens.
Dune London has embarked on a journey to revolutionise and redefine its retail operations across online and offline channels, with the aim of providing a fully omnichannel experience for its customers.
Andy Grainger, Digital Director at Dune London, comments: “In today’s fast-paced retail environment, staying ahead of customer expectations is key.”
“Our collaboration with OneStock and Tryzens enables us to create a seamless and personalised shopping journey for our customers. It’s more than an operational upgrade; it’s a step towards realising our vision of offering a truly omnichannel experience.”
Wendy’s
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.
Mercaux
Mercaux, an in-store clienteling and CX platform, has unveiled its latest addition to its fully composable offering: Intelligent Task Management.
Designed to streamline both customer related and store operations activities, this solution enables store associates to drive loyalty, increase sales, and boost profitability.
Intelligent Task Management is intertwined with Mercaux’s wider suite of CX solutions, including Clienteling, Outreach, Sales Assist and Store Operations, as well as linked into retailers’ existing systems, such as CDP and marketing automation.
According to a press release: “Traditional task management tools often lack integration with wider activities and operations, and therefore, this massively impacts efficiency.”
“Mercaux's intelligent solution addresses this gap by both automating and intelligently incorporating tasks into a wider composable suite of CX solutions, as well as retailers’ existing technologies and processes.”
Casio
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.
Sportano
Sportano, a Poland-based multi-brand sports retailer, and JD Logistics (aka JINGDONG Logistics), report a 200% increase in Sportano’s warehouse operational efficiency since their collaboration began in 2023.
Sportano has expanded its reach across Europe with its online platform, complemented by its inaugural bricks and mortal location in Warsaw, Poland, launched in 2022. This underscored its need for omnichannel logistics support across Europe.
The collaboration has addressed its logistical challenges, including managing a vast and varied inventory of over 100,000 product types, ranging from small items like fishhooks to larger items such as skis and tents.
The seasonal nature of sporting goods and the need for omnichannel fulfilment further complicated the logistics process.
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