Primark, Waitrose, URBN and Uber Eats head up April’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from April, including Click & Collect expansions, self-service checkouts using automatic age recognition, automated production facilities, store planning software, and smart parcel lockers.
Primark
Primark is to expand its Click & Collect service to all its 184 stores in Great Britain by the end of 2025, following an 18-month trial.
It will also add new categories and products available to buy via Click & Collect. The changes will be phased, with new products including home and lifestyle going live now, with men’s to follow.
The first new stores to offer Click & Collect will launch towards the end of the year, with more details on the locations to be announced nearer the time
After launching in November 2022 in 25 stores in the North West of England, North Wales and Yorkshire, the service expanded to more stores in and around London in autumn 2023. It is currently offered in 57 Primark stores in Great Britain, primarily offering a selection of women and kids clothing and accessories.
Paul Marchant, Chief Executive at Primark, says: “We will always be committed to offering the very best value and that’s made possible because of our simple and cost-efficient business model centred around our stores.”
“Our trial of Click & Collect over the last 18 months has been about understanding how we can offer our customers greater convenience to shop with us wherever they are, but in a way that complements our business and our stores.”
“We’re now confident that we’ve found a model that can do both and support us with our plans to grow the business.”
“The feedback from our customers has been positive as they really value the convenience our service offers and we’re also seeing it’s reaching new customers too. I am excited to see this expand and give more people more reasons to choose Primark and discover the great value and ranges we have in-store.”
Wow Bao
Wow Bao has unveiled a new mobile app with a fresh interface and all-in-one navigation that allows guests to order delivery anywhere, anytime from its over 700 virtual kitchens.
Platforming with Lunchbox, an enterprise restaurant technology solution provider, users can now purchase Wow Bao from over 6,000 retailers across the US all from the palm of their hand, via a fully branded custom UI.
Wow Bao was one of the first in the industry to unveil a mobile ordering app in 2010. After several advances to its Hot Buns Club rewards programme, the brand required an app that consolidated ordering, earning, and tracking points and rewards.
The app also incorporates Wow Bao’s CPG vertical and through Smart Commerce, enables users to link to their local grocer to purchase the product from their personal device.
Additionally, users can enter Wow Bao’s exclusive Dim Sum Palace Roblox experience through the app. Once in the experience, they can uncover clues and claim a free box of Wow Bao and enter to win bao for a year.
EDEKA Jaeger
EDEKA Jaeger, part of the EDEKA Group, is now offering customers in the 24/7 store at Stuttgart Airport the opportunity to authorise the purchase of age restricted goods like alcoholic beverages at self-service checkouts using automatic age recognition.
The AI-based solution Vynamic Smart Vision I Age Verification from Diebold Nixdorf complements the previously required approval by store attendants.
This speeds up transactions at the self-service checkouts and gives employees more time for customer service and other responsibilities.
On average, age verification checks are needed in approximately 22% of all transactions in retail stores.
This has a significantly negative impact on throughput times and consumer flow in the self-service area, leading to longer waiting times. Vynamic Smart Vision | Age Verification enables customers to prove their age in less than ten seconds without any staff interventions.
B&Q
Rithum has been appointed by UK home improvement retailer, B&Q, to support its online marketplace expansion by reducing the time it takes for brands to be onboarded to its website.
Philip Hall, Managing Director for EMEA at Rithum, says: “Consumers are more often than not shopping around for the best price, and even traditionally bricks and mortar sectors are becoming more present online.”
“Home improvement became a big focus during lockdown and being able to bring new products online quickly and efficiently will be essential to success as trends evolve.”
“Our collaboration will mean B&Q can easily expand its inventory catalogue and strengthen customer and supplier relations.”
“Tools like automated SKU conversion, product discovery, and supplier and product performance insights give them the flexibility to launch and manage any partnership model. All essential factors in helping to support growth.”
Gas N Wash
Gas N Wash, a family owned chain providing fuel, convenience, and carwash needs in Chicago’s suburbs, has unveiled an enhanced mobile app and rewards programme.
Following a soft launch in 2023 and a migration to a new loyalty provider earlier this year, the app now ranks amongst the top 5% on Rovertown’s platform, based on average monthly active users per store.
“With over 30 locations, launching an app and updated rewards programme wasn’t about checking boxes. We understood the importance of doing this right,” says Laura Krawisz, VP of Marketing at Gas N Wash.
“Our team is working diligently to build an app centric and loyalty focused culture, and we’re proud of what we’ve achieved.”
Snappy Shopper and Gander
Retail tech firm Gander has reported the results of a trial undertaken with Snappy Shopper, a specialist in the Q-commerce convenience grocery sector.
This integrated Gander into the Snappy Shopper home delivery app.
Snappy Shopper customers were able to purchase reduced to clear items from Gander for delivery as part of their normal shop.
This meant stores on the trial were reducing food waste as well as offering customers the opportunity to buy a selection of fresh food at reduced prices. The offers from Gander were updated in real-time every day.
The trial, conducted since April last year, saw Gander and Snappy Shopper launch a move in five SPAR Scotland stores.
Waitrose & Partners
Reapp has added Waitrose & Partners to the list of major UK retailers available on its AI driven platform, Reapp Insights.
This helps brands and retailers understand what products are selling, where and when.
Through the use of artificial intelligence, it utilises factors such as temperature and trends to help inform decisions at shelf-edge.
The news means brands in Waitrose stores can clearly understand performance across the estate at store and SKU level, as well as garnering the ability to react to underperformance of promotional activity live within the cycle of a promotion.
Brands can ensure shelves are stocked at all times through peak periods, as well as being able to track NPD sales, with the ability to identify non-selling stores.
Other major UK retailers available through Reapp Insights include Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Co-op, Poundland, and Marks & Spencer.
PLUS Retail
PLUS Retail, the third largest supermarket organisation in the Netherlands, has gone live with a new e-commerce platform.
In a LinkedIn post, Arvid Nieuwsma, Head of Product at PLUS Retail, said that this was inspired by the MACH Alliance.
“We created a headless and composable architecture, as this empowers us to differentiate locally on store level, and keeping up with the day-to-day innovation/best-of-breed choices,” he commented.
Key features: E2E event driven composable architecture, new e-commerce backbone courtesy of commercetools, new CMS (Contentful), new CIAM application (Thales Digital Identity and Security), and new headless front-end (OutSystems).
Nieuwsma said: “One of our ambitions was a faster time to market with features, in order to offer direct value and impact to our end customer. Thanks to feature toggle development and low code velocity we achieved this.”
“Second ambition was to be more flexible to make future choices in the underlying application landscape that better meet the needs, without having to overhaul the entire architecture.”
“Can you imagine the possibilities in differentiation on a local store level in terms of assortment, promotions and loyalty programmes?”
He concluded: “We are over the moon that the time has come to accelerate on feature development, on value for the customer, our entrepreneurs and stores with this tech stack.”
Uber Eats and Forage
Forage, a San Francisco-based PayTech firm, has announced a partnership with Uber Eats to enable payment processing of SNAP EBT, when the delivery platform launches the product in late 2024.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Programme, is a federal government initiative that provides food purchasing assistance for low- and no-income people to help them maintain adequate nutrition and health.
Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) is an electronic system that allows a participant to pay for food using SNAP benefits.
“We believe healthy foods should be accessible to all,” says Karl Hebert, Vice President of Payments, Risk, and Identity at Uber.
“We are excited to partner with Forage to provide our customers the same seamless payments experience they've become accustomed to on Uber when using their SNAP benefits.”
Grupo Merza
Retail space planning specialist CADS says that it has transformed Mexican grocery retailer and wholesaler Grupo Merza’s store planning process with its StoreSpace software.
Before implementing StoreSpace, Grupo Merza used Excel spreadsheets and email chains for store planning.
Experiencing inefficiencies in its process, the business sought to improve its knowledge of merchandisable space and how to manage it, in order to boost customer experience and store profitability.
Grupo Merza selected UK-based CADS due to its retail space planning expertise – and intuitive store planning software StoreSpace - to achieve its objectives.
HelloFresh
UK-based recipe box company and food solutions group, HelloFresh, has opened a flagship automated production facility in Derby. The site, named The Windmill, was opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony by UK CEO Adam Park and Pauline Latham, MP for Mid Derbyshire.
It has created around 300 jobs for the local community to date with more expected in the coming months as it ramps up production.
The Windmill has been developed in partnership with SmartParc SEGRO Derby, a low-carbon food manufacturing campus in Spondon, Derby, to be one of the most sustainable production facilities in the country.
Features include a rainwater harvesting system, a 22 MVA rooftop solar panel array, and a shared heating and cooling system which recycles heat from refrigeration plants and reuses it to heat water and offices across the estate.
The site achieved an ‘Excellent’ BREEAM rating for its energy efficiency and will derive 100% of its energy from renewable sources.
It will also have EV charging spaces, local bus services that are aligned with production times and provide secure bike storage (alongside a cycle-to-work scheme).
URBN
Stripe has announced a partnership with URBN to power online and in-person retail payments for Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie Group, Free People, and FP Movement.
With Stripe as its primary payments infrastructure, URBN says it will introduce a more consistent checkout experience for its customers with the goal of increasing authorisation rates and enabling future innovation.
“Payments are a critical link between our brands and millions of URBN customers who expect checkouts to be as easy as trying on an outfit or adding items to a cart,” says Dave Hayne, Chief Technology Officer at URBN.
“Stripe lets us stay focused on building the best unified commerce experience possible by removing the complexity of payments across our brands.”
Homebase
Quadient has announced a new partnership with Homebase, a UK home improvement retailer.
This allows Homebase to host parcel lockers as part of Quadient’s Open Locker Network, with the aim of offering convenient, secure delivery and pickup solutions for carriers and consumers at its stores across the United Kingdom.
Neil Robinson, Head of Property at Homebase, says: “The introduction of smart lockers makes it even easier for customers to pick up or return their online deliveries in-store, as well as acting as an extension of our own click and collect service.”
The partnership is a step on Quadient’s journey to roll out 5,000 open locker locations across the UK.
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