Connecting the dots between in-store and digital sales: RTIH’s most read retail technology articles from last week
Check out the articles on this here website that caught your fancy last week, including Oak + Fort, EY, Ikea, Adyen, Rep AI, Amazon, Primark, Tata Consultancy Services, and the 2014 RTIH Innovation Awards.
Canadian lifestyle brand Oak + Fort enlists EY to build out Shopify unified commerce solution across its stores
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.”
Ikea and Adyen shake hands on global online and in-store payments and loyalty partnership
Adyen has announced a global partnership with Ikea that, it says, will allow the retailer to connect the dots between in-store and digital sales channels and offer better payment and loyalty experiences for customers.
Ikea will tap Adyen’s single financial technology platform to gather customer payment data from both physical and digital channels.
Adyen’s solution also provides a closed-loop payment system offering worldwide processing, acquiring, local payment methods and like-for-like settlement capabilities for Ikea franchisees.
This reduces the amount of contracts and integrations for global IT operations, enabling simplified financial reporting and management of customer data. Adyen’s consolidation of the tech stack behind commercial operations also helps to minimise the risk of operational disturbances and the ability to troubleshoot.
Amazon teams with Grubhub and Aramark Collegiate Hospitality on latest JWT store in college space
Amazon has announced the launch of its 34th Just Walk Out technology powered store in the collegiate space.
In a LinkedIn post, Madison (Kelly) DeFranco, Senior Technical Business Development, Just Walk Out Technology at Amazon Web Services (AWS), said: “Thrilled to launch University of Virginia Gaston's Market powered by Amazon Just Walk Out technology in the beautiful new Gaston Hall - just in time to welcome back students.”
She added: “In partnership with our friends at Grubhub and Aramark Aramark Collegiate Hospitality, this marks our 34th store in the collegiate space. It takes a village, and I am so grateful for the the hard work of our AWS team and partners to get this store open.”
Primark extends Tata Consultancy Services retail technology deal to support retailer's plans for global growth
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has expanded its eight-year partnership with Primark, announcing a new five-year deal involving the retailer’s IT systems and new store openings.
TCS has been working with Primark since 2016.
As well as driving business critical integration programmes and stabilising core platforms for the retailer, it has also improved cybersecurity capabilities, boosting stability and reliability of processes and systems.
As part of the expanded partnership, TCS will look to transform Primark’s technology operating environment to make it more resilient, reliable, and efficient.
It will also work with Primark to adopt a more agile and product-based operating model by enabling automation through intelligent automation and DevOps technologies.
Andrew Brothers, Chief Information Officer, Primark, says: “To help support our ambitious growth plans we’re expanding our partnership with TCS to build a robust, resilient, and reliable IT operating environment to become a more efficient, technology led global organisation with the agility to quickly adapt to changing demands and requirements in a fast-paced industry.”
“Working with TCS will provide us with the ongoing operational stability and accountability needed to support our business to scale. This will allow us to respond to market trends and customer preferences in a timely manner, ensuring that we continue to deliver quality products at the best value for our customers.”
Rep AI bags $8.2 million in funding for development of company’s AI powered online retail sales tool
Rep AI Technologies has raised $8.2 million in funding. Led by Osage Venture Partners (OVP), the investment will fuel further development of the company’s e-commerce sales tool.
Built leveraging a proprietary combination of behaviorial AI and large language models (LLMs), the tool enables merchants to provide personalised sales assistance at scale. It can be integrated with existing tech stacks.
OVP says that it selected Rep AI for its strong market traction and compelling value proposition.
Over 500 merchants worldwide are using its solution. Joining OVP in this round are Flashpoint Ventures and Oryzn Capital.
Comment: Chris Riegel, CEO and Founder of STRATACACHE, talks the new hot digital media opportunity
This year, over $140 billion will be spent on digital retail advertising globally.
Amazon likely captures more profit from its advertising services than through the fulfilment of products. Retail media is being hailed by many as a gold rush, and with these numbers, it is obvious why.
Many retailers are opening up their businesses to drive more opportunities to reach key audiences (and even more importantly key new revenue pools) through retail media advertising.
Seeing this gold rush, one could argue that a frontier that has yet to be fully explored and mined is the store itself. Since the end of the pandemic, online growth has plateaued, and still 93% of all retail dollars are spent in a physical store.
With their in-store offering, retailers can give advertisers something both illusive and extremely lucrative: accurate, attributable, and immediately actionable data on what drives a shopper conversion and how effective their advertising spend is.
Tom Adams departs Cash App to take on Chief Technology Officer role at Dutch payment company Adyen
Tom Adams is set to join Adyen as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He will be succeeding Alexander Matthey, who after a decade of building the FinTech firm will end his tenure later this year.
“As we look at the opportunity ahead, we find ourselves in a key position to solve for the continued complexity that we see in the payments landscape,” says Pieter van der Does, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Adyen.
“With Tom’s experience in building and leading a global engineering organisation, as well as driving product innovation at scale, we look forward to his contributions as we advance the benefits of our single platform.”
Adams will join from Cash App, a consumer business vertical of Block, where he served as Head of Engineering for four years.
As CTO, he will oversee the strategic and technological vision of Adyen’s single platform which encompasses payments, data and financial products.
The sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards is now open for entries
The awards, sponsored by CADS, 3D Cloud, Retail Technology Show 2025, and Business France celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
This year, we’re bringing you three new categories: AI Innovation, Sustainable Retail Innovation, and Inclusive Technology Innovation.
Key 2024 dates
Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline
Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed
30th October-6th November: Judging days
Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ.
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