Kate Hudson sings her life and sells some merch: 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 OSY Group, Sam’s Club, REWE Group, Trigo, TalkShopLive, Wayve, and M&S.
£750,000…OSY Group, whose flagship technology increases the shelf-life of food produce and reduces waste, has secured £750,000 from investors to support its roll-out across the UK and internationally.
The funding boost will accelerate its commercialisation of Xtend, an antimicrobial packaging coating which enables a range of food types, including fruit and vegetables, to stay fresh in their packaging for longer.
It will also enable OSY Group to expand its team, who are based at the Manchester International Office Centre near Manchester Airport.
1…Video commerce and retail media enablement platform TalkShopLive has partnered with Rolling Stone to simulcast a living room concert hosted by singer/songwriter and Oscar nominated actress Kate Hudson whose debut album, Glorious, arrives on 17th May.
The event marks TalkShopLive's first ever collaboration with the magazine.
At 8 p.m. Eastern on 17th May, viewers can watch the shoppable simulcast interview and concert via Hudson’s Instagram feed, Facebook page, Rollingstone.com, TalkShop.Live and across the TalkShopLive Content Distribution Network.
Hudson will offer autographed CDs and vinyl of Glorious along with album themed merchandise.
26…Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia has installed Mashgin's AI powered self-checkout kiosks.
With 26 new kiosks positioned around the stadium, Mashgin's second location in Australia, fans can now experience quicker service and spend more time enjoying the game.
Marvel Stadium, known for its retractable roof and modern facilities, opened in 2000.
Home to five Australian Football League (AFL) teams, including the Essendon Bombers and the St Kilda Saints, it also serves as the headquarters for the AFL.
With a seating capacity of over 56,000, it hosts a variety of other events, ranging from cricket matches to concerts.
40…Amazon has opened its first micromobility hub in Northern Ireland at its delivery station in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter.
This now houses a fleet of electric cargo bikes which will deliver thousands of packages per week to Amazon customers.
Belfast joins more than 40 cities in the UK and across Europe which have Amazon micromobility hubs facilitating electric cargo bike and on-foot deliveries, part of a £300 million investment to electrify and decarbonise Amazon’s UK transportation network.
Electric cargo bikes and walkers are now expected to make millions of deliveries to customers across the UK every year.
4…Christoph Eltze, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at German grocery giant, REWE Group, has taken to social media to discuss the retailer’s Pick&Go store format landing in Düsseldorf, Germany, and how this marks the start of a new test phase for its autonomous shopping experience.
In a LinkedIn post, he said: “This is because we are constantly working on responding more and more flexibly to the needs of our customers, including with our Pick&Go innovation. For the first time in Düsseldorf, we are relying on the principle of four wins.”
Customers in Düsseldorf can decide at the exit of the store which shopping route they want to take, choosing between four options:
Cashierless payment via the Pick&Go app; manual scanning of products at the self-checkout terminal; payment at the conventional tape cash register; or payment at self-checkout terminals with computer vision support, which eliminates the need for scanning.
$1.05 billion…Wayve has announced a $1.05 billion Series C investment round led by SoftBank Group with contributions from new investor NVIDIA and existing backer Microsoft.
Founded in 2017, the British company specialises in embodied AI for autonomous driving, having been the first to develop and test an end-to-end (e2e) deep learning autonomous driving system on public roads.
It is now building foundation models for autonomy, similar to a ‘GPT for driving,’ that can enable any vehicle to see, think, and drive through any environment.
120…Sam’s Club reports significant progress in its roll-out of technology that resolves a key member concern - waiting in line for receipt verification to exit the club.
The retailer’s application of artificial intelligence and computer vision technology has been deployed in more than 120 clubs since first unveiling it at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.
This is pitched as the largest scale implementation of member facing AI powered technology in the retail industry.
Sam’s Club says that other retailers have struggled to deploy similar technology at scale, with some abandoning efforts, just starting initial pilots or having no plans to enhance customer experiences through check-out and store exit technologies.
In clubs where the technology has been deployed, more than half of members are getting the friction free exit experience. This translates to all members leaving the club 23% faster. Sam’s Club plans to deploy the exit technology to all of its clubs by the end of 2024.
It builds on existing digital solutions such as Scan & Go.
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