Digital transformation journeys and parcel locker pushes: 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 USC, Selfridges, Tesco Media and Insight Platform, River Island, Troc Vélo, Fastic, Yatco, Wesco, Holzweiler, and Laithwaites.

USC

USC has become the first brand within Frasers Group to transition to its overhauled digital platform in the UK, built using MACH principles on a commercetools-based architecture.

In a LinkedIn post, Frasers Group, which is best known for its Sports Direct brand, said: “The new site focuses on delivering a consumer centric experience for shoppers, featuring hyper-personalisation and best-in-class product discoverability.”

“We are building one of the most modern and advanced e-commerce ecosystems in retail that not only future-proofs the business but delivers an unmatched shopping experience for consumers.”

In a LinkedIn post, David Clark, Chief Customer Officer at Frasers Group, added: “It’s an important milestone in our digital transformation journey as the first UK fascia to be built not only on the new tech, but in a truly customer centric, product driven way.”

“This allows us to build great experiences for our customers, and also gives our digital teams the best tools to do their jobs due to our strategic partnerships with Algolia, Amplience, Optimizely, Emarsys, XCM, commercetools. Well done to all involved. There’s more to come very soon. We’re building the future of retail.”

Selfridges

Criteo has announced a new partnership with department store, Selfridges, to help brands better connect with its customer base and enhance the product discovery experience.

Under the two-year partnership, Criteo is enabling sponsored products across Selfridges’ online properties for the very first time. It is also powering the onsite display for Selfridges.

Sponsored products are complementary to the retailer’s onsite display capabilities, which is now also powered by Criteo to provide a broader online funnel offering to Selfridges’ customers.

Through first-party customer data, brand partners can ensure their products reach the right customers when and where they are actively looking to purchase through premium placements across awareness, consideration and conversion formats.

Together with Criteo’s measurement capabilities, brand partners can achieve their specific goals, supported by reporting and insights in near real-time.

Tesco Media and Insight Platform

Tesco Media and Insight Platform, powered by dunnhumby, has extended its partnership with The Trade Desk to give advertisers direct access to anonymised audience segments on the platform.

This means brands can plan and execute their campaigns without solely relying on third-party cookies for the first time.

Tash Whitmey, Group Managing Director at Tesco Media and Insight Platform, comments: “This is a very exciting next step in our partnership with The Trade Desk and a major milestone in an ever increasing privacy centric world.”

“Although third-party cookies will now not be deprecated on Google’s Chrome browser, more stringent privacy controls will be put in place. Therefore, we believe the way forward is still cookieless and with The Trade Desk we are truly staying ahead of the curve in protecting customer’s data, while still delighting them with relevant advertising when they are browsing online.”

Yatco

Yatco, which operates in the New England fuel and convenience market, has launched a new mobile app.

“Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone for Yatco,” says Hussein Yatim, Vice President at Yatco Energy.

“As we expand rapidly in one of the nation’s most competitive markets, enhancing our digital engagement is crucial for increasing brand recognition. This new mobile app enables us to compete effectively with larger regional players and offers the personalised, meaningful interactions that our customers expect.” 

After nearly three years operating a previous white labelled app, Yatco recognised the need for greater flexibility and customisation.

Choosing Rovertown as a partner, the new app not only enhances the existing Yatco Rewards loyalty programme, powered by Paytronix, but also expands opportunities for CPG funded offers, personalised engagement, and discounts on age restricted products.  

Wesco

Wesco, a family owned and operated chain of convenience stores in Michigan, USA, has selected RELEX Solutions to unify its space, operations and supply chain planning.

The aim here is to enhance operational efficiency and customer satisfaction by increasing product availability, optimising inventory management, minimising product spoilage, and implementing automation to empower both central and store level employees.

The collaboration includes a partnership with Logic for the implementation phase.

Previously, Wesco managed its supply chain and space planning with multiple disconnected ERP systems.

The shift to RELEX is driven by the need for a more sophisticated and robust tool that supports unified supply chain and space planning.

Kriya and Stripe

B2B payments solution firm, Kriya, is now available on Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses.

Starting this month, Stripe users can offer flexible payment terms to their business buyers through Kriya.

The integration brings these capabilities to B2B merchants using Stripe in the UK for the first time.

By selecting Kriya at checkout, buyers can defer payment by 30 days. The solution makes this possible by onboarding buyers in real-time, providing them with an instant spending limit, and protecting the seller from credit and fraud risk.

Holzweiler

Norwegian fashion brand, Holzweiler, has selected Voyado as a partner.

Following its expansion into multiple European countries and China, it is teaming up with the company with a focus on elevating the customer experience and building stronger loyalty.

With Voyado, Holzweiler gains a 360-degree view of its customers and can use smart segmentation and automated marketing to create relevant and personalised customer experiences.

Marius Valaker, Head of Digital at Holzweiler, says: “Our aim is to provide our customers with a seamless experience, whether they are visiting our stores or shopping online.”

“By integrating our systems and tools with Voyado, we can gain a deep understanding of the customer journey, from their initial online click to their in-store experience. This allows us to provide personalised recommendations and relevant communication based on the customer’s behaviour across various channels.”

“Good products inevitably drive both growth and loyalty. For us, by partnering with Voyado, Holzweiler can ensure each product reaches the right audience, even in emerging markets.” 

Laithwaites

Laithwaites, a direct-to-consumer wine retailer, has chosen nShift as its UK multi-carrier delivery and experience management partner. 

Gary Carlile, EVP Customer Growth at nShift, says: "We are thrilled to partner with Laithwaites and support their mission to provide exceptional customer experiences.”

“Our platform combines core and comprehensive components of delivery management with cutting-edge consumer facing experience applications. We look forward to working closely with Laithwaites to support their growth, build the experience for customers and enhance their delivery operations."

River Island

River Island has announced a partnership with parcel locker specialist InPost UK.

In a LinkedIn post, the latter said: “By offering InPost at checkout, River Island customers can now enjoy the convenience of collecting their parcels from a nearby locker at a time that suits them. It’s a win-win for shoppers – no more missed deliveries or waiting around – just a smooth, reliable delivery solution.”

“We're really excited to team up with River Island to bring their customers a delivery game-changer.”

Troc Vélo

Troc Vélo, a French second-hand bicycle marketplace, has selected Mangopay to manage payments between its individual users.  

Nina Dei Tos, Head of Product at Troc Vélo, says: “Our priority is to ensure that transactions taking place between individuals are both secure and seamless.”

“Thanks to Mangopay, we were able to set up a robust payment infrastructure in just three months, guaranteeing our customers’ protection and peace of mind during transactions.”

“This collaboration marks the start of a new era for Troc Vélo, enabling both buyers and sellers to benefit from an even more reliable and efficient experience with us. It also paves the way for future developments to strengthen the purchasing power of those on the lookout for good deals and the re-use of cycling and outdoor products.”

Pret A Manger

Pret A Manger is partnering with digital workplace specialist YOOBIC.

By deploying the company’s suite of tools across 525 shops in 15 international markets, Pret says it is enabling its team to deliver consistently excellent brand experiences while prioritising customer and employee safety at every step of the way.

Fastic

Fastic, a fasting app and health and weight loss community, has leveraged personalisation to drive customer engagement and revenue growth, partnering with MoEngage.

Fastic launched in 2019, growing registered users of its free intermittent fasting app to an audience of 12.3 million.  It has also grown out its offer, moving beyond only offering intermittent fasting and now includes weight loss, fasting and nutrition tracking within its app.

It wanted to leverage customer insights and engagement to grow app revenues by increasing the number of paid subscription sign-ups among its users. It also wanted to leverage customer insights to find opportunities to re-engage lapsed users and encourage them to sign-up for paid subscriptions. 

Additionally, it sought to use personalisation to create meaningful, bespoke and timely interactions with customers, supporting their weight-loss or fitness journeys and helping them reach their goals to drive loyalty and long-term app use. 

While Fastic already had a customer engagement platform (CEP) in place, the legacy solution didn’t have in-built analytics in its platform, meaning Fastic lacked a 360-degree view of its users, limiting its engagement and personalisation capabilities, and leaving conversion and revenue opportunities on the table.  

Having conducted a review of the market, it partnered with MoEngage, leveraging its AI powered analytics and customer insight engine to power personalisation within customer journeys. 

Northern

Quadient has announced an agreement with Northern to roll-out Parcel Pending by Quadient open network lockers at up to 50 railway stations across the North of England.  

These have already been installed in stations across West Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire, with another 12 stations expected to go live by the end of the month.

Additionally, a further 30 stations across the Northern network are currently being identified for locker installation by spring 2025.