Robots in Milton Keynes and retail media networks Down Under: 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 B&Q, DPD, DoorDash, John Lewis, City Chic, East of England Co-op, Walmart, Oak + Fort, Megasuper, Stinker Stores, The Range, Schnuck Markets, and Instacart.

B&Q

B&Q is trialling a robot delivery option in Milton Keynes with DPD.

Customers will be notified in advance about that their order (related to smaller parcels) being delivered. Once they confirm they will be home to accept the parcel, a robot will be dispatched.

The deliveries are trackable on a map and shoppers are notified when the robot reaches their property. They are then given a code to unlock a compartment and retrieve their parcel.

Chase and DoorDash

US credit card issuer, Chase, has announced an expansion of its partnership with quick commerce firm DoorDash.

Chase Sapphire and other eligible Chase cardmembers will now receive recurring benefits on orders from over 150,000 grocery, convenience, and non-restaurant stores on DoorDash.

The partnership also provides access to a complimentary DashPass membership for existing Chase cardmembers and consumers who sign up from now through to 31st December 2027.

DashPass is a membership programme that offers exclusive deals, members only benefits, and unlimited $0 delivery fees and reduced service fees on eligible orders from thousands of restaurants, grocery, convenience, and non-restaurant stores.

Family Dollar (Dollar Tree)

First Insight has announced a partnership with Family Dollar (Dollar Tree), a US discount retailer.

The initiative aims to refine Family Dollar’s merchandise assortment strategy by leveraging First Insight’s predictive analytics and actionable data, ensuring that the retailer’s products meet evolving consumer expectations and market shifts.

Greg Petro, CEO at First Insight, says: “Our partnership with Family Dollar is a prime example of how AI and customer insights can transform retail decision-making.”

“By integrating our cutting-edge predictive analytics, products on Family Dollar’s shelves are not just in demand but customer approved. Our analytics enable Family Dollar to anticipate demand more accurately, make smarter product choices, and ultimately, heighten customer satisfaction while driving sales.”

Stinker Stores

Stinker Stores, a convenience chain in Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado, has chosen the NCR Voyix Commerce Platform via Edge infrastructure to modernise its store IT.

Since deploying the solution, Stinker says that it has increased its bottom line, maximised the performance of its store infrastructure and elevated the customer experience through real-time promotions across its store estate.

“For the first time, Stinker has been delighted during an implementation and go-live deployment,” says Cory Mooney, Vice President of IT, Stinker Stores.

“We appreciate the NCR Voyix team’s deep technical knowledge and ability to stay one-to-two steps ahead of us. From here on out, NCR Voyix is our go-to strategic solution provider to run the store.”

Megasuper

Costa Rican retailer, Megasuper, has announced the installation of the Self Checkout System 7 by Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions in its stores.

“Megasuper needed a trusted solution partner for its technological advancement journey,”  says Eugene Shvartsman, SVP Americas Sales at Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions.

“Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions is proud to empower them with agile technology that meets the needs of today’s consumers and retail environments and can be adapted and customised to advance with the business changes of tomorrow.”

“Utilising the Self Checkout System 7 reaffirms Megasuper’s commitment to being a technology leader in the region.”

Vinted

Rokt, an e-commerce company using machine learning and AI to make the shopping experience more relevant to customers, has partnered with Vinted, a C2C second-hand fashion marketplace in Europe.

"Vinted is laser focused on providing an excellent experience throughout every touchpoint of the customer journey, including keeping fees for buyers low and maintaining their commitment to no seller fees," says Courtney Hopkins, VP of EMEA Partnerships at Rokt.

"By leveraging our technology, Vinted is able to unlock incremental revenue and money saving opportunities for its customers.”

“Our partnership launched last year and we have worked closely with the platform to test and learn along the way, ensuring Rokt adds significant value to the customer experience by facilitating post-checkout offers that are highly relevant to each individual shopper."

Rokt uses machine learning to present relevant offers in the final stages of a transaction, when shoppers are most likely to convert.

TerryWhite Chemmart

Australian community pharmacy brand, TerryWhite Chemmart, has announced the launch of a retail media network called ‘TWC Connect’, leveraging Zitcha technology.

The latter’s platform was selected following a competitive pitch and will enable new opportunities in onsite and offsite media channels including Facebook, YouTube and Google, for TerryWhite Chemmart (TWC), with the potential to expand the offering into other channels on the horizon.

TWC’s brand partners will soon be able to use Zitcha’s automated platform to deliver greater segmentation, targeting and personalisation at scale. Closed-loop attribution through the platform also enables greater visibility and performance on advertising spend.

TWC, which has 600 community pharmacies across Australia, has recently upgraded and integrated its Rewards Plus loyalty programme of more than two million members, into the myTWC app.

In addition, major TWC brand partners such as Bayer, L’Oreal and Unilever are already existing users of Zitcha’s platform.

John Lewis

John Lewis has announced a suite of new retail media capabilities, with the aim of helping brands connect with customers shopping on johnlewis.com.

The move will allow brands to create and manage their own campaigns, including via banner ads and sponsored product listings.

It also offers users a dashboard showing exactly how their campaigns are performing, how customers are engaging, and how many sales are coming through.

Brands can maintain always on campaigns, and quickly adapt to seasonal trends and sales peaks such as Back to School and Black Friday.

In addition, thanks to real-time data and performance metrics, they can measure the impact of their initiatives right down to the individual product level and search terms.

The options have been delivered in partnership with Epsilon, the advertising and marketing technology company which recently launched a similar offer for Waitrose.

They can also be helpful for customers looking to explore new brands that are relevant to their search and browse activity.

All ads are reviewed by John Lewis’ in-house team to make sure they are suitable, beneficial and relevant for customers.

City Chic

Sydney-based City Chic, an omnichannel, plus-sized fashion brand, has selected Cart.com as its US fulfilment partner.

It will leverage Cart.com’s third-party logistics (3PL) and technology solutions and Dallas warehouse facility to improve efficiency and customer experience for order fulfilment across the US.

“We’re proud to partner with City Chic, an omnichannel fashion brand that has cultivated a loyal customer base around the world,” says Joe Barth, Chief Logistics Officer at Cart.com.

“This latest partnership underscores Cart.com’s strength in serving leading global apparel brands through our modern logistics technology and warehouse facilities that can scale as they grow.”

Cart.com’s pitch is that it enables B2C, D2C and B2B companies to automate and simplify mission critical supply chain operations, reduce costs and achieve real-time order and inventory visibility through its technology driven 3PL offering.

It deploys its proprietary software, including its Constellation order and warehouse management systems (OMS and WMS), and a variety of automated systems to drive precision and productivity across its nationwide network of omnichannel facilities.

The Range

The Range reports that its new mobile app is live.

In a LinkedIn post, the retailer said: “Our customers can now shop for their homes, hobbies, pets or projects in one place. And with over 100,000 products at their fingertips, we’ve made online ordering even easier than before.”

“Customers can filter by department, find their local store, view the latest offers, check the status of their orders and much more.”

The app is available on iOS and Android.

East of England Co-op

Trust Retail reports that it is implementing its Inventory and Stock Management solution across the East of England Co-operative’s (East of England Co-op) food stores.

East of England Co-op is the largest independent retailer in the eastern England region spanning communities across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire.

It sought to upgrade its stock and inventory management system and so turned to Trust Retail for a project that included its newest store outside Chelmsford station.

This caters to over 12,300 commuters daily and was praised on TikTok as “the UK’s coolest Co-op.” The new Trust Retail system will streamline order management, provide real-time inventory visibility, and optimise operations.

The stock and inventory management technology will integrate with the existing Trust Retail EPoS used across store checkouts.

Key benefits will include reductions in manual processes, increased efficiencies in utilisation of store/headquarter resources, accurate real-time inventory tracking, streamlined order management, enhanced visibility, and improved integrations. 

It will also be critical to helping the retailer continue its commitment to less wastage and continued efforts to keep edible food in the food chain.

Last year, the regional co-operative reported it had saved the equivalent of more than 25,882 meals from going to waste, avoiding 69,881.4kg of CO2e emissions.

Schnuck Markets and Instacart

Grocery technology firm, Instacart, and Schnuck Markets, report that the former’s Carrot Tags offering is rolling out chainwide.

Carrot Tags is a software solution that integrates into a retailer’s electronic shelf labels (ESL) hardware to enable incremental functionality, including pick to light capabilities.

Schnucks will be using this across most of its stores allowing Instacart shoppers to activate items from their picking list within the firm’s shopper app for easier and more accurate order fulfilment.

Schnucks first began using Instacart’s Carrot Tags’ pick to light functionality in 2023, and says that it quickly saw success across its pilot stores.

“As our first retail partner to introduce Carrot Tags’ pick to light functionality chainwide, we’re incredibly excited by the telling results of our partnership. Because Schnucks is using pick to light, we’re seeing an increase in found rates, which in turn provides higher order quality and customer satisfaction,” says David McIntosh, VP and GM of Connected Stores at Instacart.

“Schnucks has long served as a leading-edge partner for Instacart, especially when it comes to adopting our Connected Stores technologies like Caper Carts and Eversight. We look forward to building the future of grocery alongside Schnucks for years to come.”

Denali and Walmart

Denali, a US-based recycler of organic materials, has announced a collaboration with Walmart to roll-out depackaging services that can help improve the food waste recycling process at more than 1,000 Walmart and Sam's Club locations nationwide.

The technology aims to help drive operational efficiencies for Walmart enterprise associates, and based on early testing, has increased the volume of potentially reusable organic content recovered from participating Walmart and Sam's Club locations by more than 60% and reduced their compactor trash by an estimated 12%.

The programme has launched in over 1,400 Walmart and Sam's Club locations in more than 16 markets across the country including Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Indianapolis, Phoenix and cities across New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut – with roll-out to continue nationwide into 2025.

Revision Skincare, PepsiCo, and Barefaced

Flaunt has launched what is pitched as the first ever service-as-software loyalty offering for Shopify merchants, making the formal announcement last weekend at Revision Skincare’s annual Elite Retreat event in Dallas.

This is currently serving brands like Revision Skincare, PepsiCo, and Barefaced (which attributes a 17% growth in net sales to its partnership with Flaunt).

Flaunt is positioning itself as the alternative to incumbent loyalty software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools that historically lack the flexibility and capability to design, power, and manage programmes that drive true incremental impact.

AI is also a major part of the equation, but in a world of new AI SaaS tools integrating with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Flaunt claims to be doing things differently.

For example, it leverages AI to enhance and expedite its loyalty management services, like analysing social and user-generated content, customer feedback, and generating personalised offers.

JOOR

JOOR, a wholesale management ecosystem for the fashion industry, has launched a digital trade show,  Passport to Paris, to support French-based brands during the 2024 Olympics.

Featuring over 120 brands including Celine, Chloé, American Vintage, Jacquemus, Y/Project and Armor Lux, the aim is to make it easy to navigate French fashion online and facilitate a productive buying season.

Amanda McCormick Bacal, SVP of Marketing, comments: “The Olympics in Paris is an exciting time for the French capital, but brings with it complexity for the traditional wholesale fashion schedule.”

“JOOR has launched the Passport to Paris digital event to support brands and retailers facing challenges to their typical selling season in Paris.”

“Hosted on the JOOR Passport platform, this show provides our vast network of global retailers the ability to explore and shop the latest collections from French-based brands 24/7 from anywhere in the world.”

Oak + Fort

Oak + Fort and its 40+ retail stores in the US and Canada are now powered by Shopify and Shopify PoS.

The retailer partnered with EY to build this out.

In a post on X, Harley Finkelstein, Shopify President, said: “This is a big deal. Oak + Fort wanted a unified solution so they could bring their entire business under one roof to work together seamlessly and help fuel their expansion.”

He added: “Shopify was the obvious choice and they partnered with EY to build it out. We are the best unified commerce solution on the planet. That’s why the biggest brands are coming to us.”