Bambuser hits China and Currys wins in France: this week's coolest retail technology plays
RTIH Editor, Scott Thompson, brings you his top ‘future of retail’ systems launches and deployments from the past week, including Ocado Group, Bon Preu, AiFi, Microsoft, JD Sports, e.l.f. Cosmetics, THG Ingenuity, Asda, OnBuy, PlayDesign, Glovo, and Alipay.
Glovo
Spain-based quick commerce specialist and technology company Glovo has announced a new round of app updates focused on personalising the user experience and enhancing product discovery.
Daniel Alonso, Chief Product Officer at Glovo, says: “We are handing the keys of personalisation to our users. While we will showcase the most relevant content for them, we will also enable them to shape their homepage as they want.”
Glovo, which turns ten this year, is launching a new gifting journey inside the app, with a dedicated landing page and chatbot powered by AI that will help customers find the perfect gift. It’s designed to solve a common frustration: wanting to order or send a thoughtful gift, but not knowing where to start.
The new virtual assistant guides customers based on three simple inputs: occasion, recipient, and budget. Users can then swipe through suggestions, like or dismiss options, and add to cart, all in one journey.
Currys
Currys has emerged victorious at Cannes Lions, which is taking place in France this week.
The electrical and technology retailer picked up an award for its social media team turning to TikTok to reach a new audience.
Focusing on Gen Z and Millennial trends on the social media platform, including one where the products in-store were described in humorous, popular phrases among young people, it notched up its highest performing video of all time, involving pancakes being made in an air fryer. This reached ten million views on the app.
In a LinkedIn post, Dan Rubel, Brand & Marketing Director at Currys, said: “Our Gen Z moment on social content generated boat loads of engagement, myriads of copycats and more PR then we ever dared to dream about... and now is amongst the 3% of Cannes entrants that actually received some metal.”
He added: “Very proud of and grateful to Ryan Todd (Senior Social Media & PR Manager at Currys) and his fab social crew (part of Sarah Leat's wider marketing and promo group) for the award win and for the wider customer and commercial impact your work has had over the last 12-18 months.”
“The post that won the award is actually the tip of iceberg in terms of what their team have achieved - and so much more to come in the year ahead. As well as the in-house team, big love to Fabric Social and iSiteTV - our social content creation partners and extensions of the Currys family.”
Co-op
Co-op’s recently launched app, Peckish, is making its festival debut at the Sky Presents Isle of Wight Festival this weekend.
The retailer has been serving festival goers at Isle of Wight since 2019 and this year operates two stores at the event. A Grab and Go store is located in Electric Ladyland with everything needed to help revellers ‘survive and thrive’ at the event - from cold drinks, meal deals and ice, to sunscreen and wipes.
This year, it also has a Click and Collect site at the Mellow Yellow Campsite for orders placed via the Peckish app.
That feeling when you realise you’re one day away from #IOW2025 🥳 #SkyxlOW pic.twitter.com/jHGMtEqgGw
— Isle of Wight Festival (@IsleOfWightFest) June 18, 2025
HEM
Circus SE, a specialist in AI software and robotics for the food service industry, has bagged Deutsche Tamoil and its fuel station brand HEM as a new customer.
“We are absolutely delighted to bring the CA-1 robot into the heart of mobility - the dense network of gas and charging stations across Germany,” says Nikolas Bullwinkel, CEO at Circus SE. “This is a major opportunity to make high quality meals available everywhere and in the shortest time – precisely where people are on the move.”
Bambuser and Alibaba Cloud
Video commerce company, Bambuser, has partnered with Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group. The tie up sees Sweden-based Bambuser bringing its shoppable video solutions to the Chinese market.
Alibaba Cloud’s business customers will now be able to leverage its full suite of video commerce products, including Digital Clienteling, Live Video Shopping, Shoppable Videos, and Chat.
”As a leading cloud service provider, we aim to collaborate with Bambuser to foster retail business growth in China, the largest e-commerce landscape in the world. By leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s technological expertise and extensive local ecosystem, we are proactively innovating in video streaming and live shopping solutions to accelerate industry development,” says Esmie Wang, General Manager of EU Region, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.
“At present, we are seeing a major change in how Chinese consumers shop online, with brands focusing more on selling directly to customers through their own channels, such as dedicated apps and mini-programmes. Our goal is to provide a platform that helps brands have more control and autonomy, while also addressing the specific needs of the Chinese e-commerce market,” comments Maryam Ghahremani, CEO at Bambuser.
Boots
Boots has extended its on-demand delivery hours to midnight in select London stores, with the aim of making it easier for customers to get health and beauty essentials when they need them most.
Nearly 10,000 products are available in as little as 20 minutes via Uber Eats and Deliveroo.
Paula Bobbett, Chief Digital Officer at Boots, says: “We know our customers’ lives don’t stop at 6pm, and neither should their access to essentials – whether that’s medicine for a poorly child, a forgotten gift, or an evening skincare top-up. By extending our instant delivery hours through Uber Eats and Deliveroo, we’re giving customers more flexibility and convenience when they need it most.”
Boots first partnered with Deliveroo in 2021 and connected with Uber Eats in 2023.
Ocado Group and Bon Preu
Ocado Group and Bon Preu have announced an expansion of their partnership, with plans to construct a customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in Parets del Vallès, near Barcelona, to serve customers in the Catalonia region.
Bon Preu was Ocado's first international partner, signing a deal in 2017 to grow an online proposition in Catalonia, drawing on the latter’s experience as an online and logistics operator in the UK. It has deployed Ocado's technology across its e-commerce supply chain.
Gregor Ulitzka, Europe President at Ocado Solutions, says: "Today is an exciting moment as we enter a new phase with our longest standing international partner. Our partnership with Bon Preu is an amazing example of a retailer using the full strategic toolkit that we offer.”
“They have already developed a market leading online proposition in Catalonia with Ocado's In-Store Fulfilment technology and will now benefit from a highly automated CFC, offering an enhanced customer proposition and a significantly lower cost-to-serve. We look forward to continuing to work together to deliver unbeatable experiences online to customers in the Catalonia region."
We are proud to announce an expansion of our partnership with our first international partner @BonPreuEsclat , who will build a new CFC serving Catalonia! #OcadoGroup #BonPreu #Catalonia #Spain #onlinegrocery (1/3) pic.twitter.com/nsQJjiS4bB
— Ocado Group (@OcadoGroup) June 18, 2025
OnBuy
UK-based online marketplace, OnBuy, claims that an AI technology deployment has unlocked an estimated £4 million of GMV for sellers on its platform since it was launched at the end of April, saving the business decades of manual effort and millions in operational investment.
The auto categorisation solution leverages an AI model and vector database technology to correctly categorise sellers’ products across over 6,600 categories. The aim here is to reduce the chances of products being incorrectly categorised.
To date, OnBuy has auto categorised over 20 million products – a task that would have taken a team of five people over 20 years to carry out manually at an estimated cost of over £4 million, the company claims. It adds that categorisation accuracy is now over 93% on average.
50,000 products that were first listed before the start of 2025 have been made discoverable.
foodora and Starship
This saw Starship’s fleet of fully electric delivery robots delivering foodora orders, starting in Stockholm.
The robots pick up orders from foodora Market stores located on Högbergsgatan in Södermalm and Bangatan in Solna, with a range of up to 3km. Customers in these areas can order in the company’s app and have their items delivered within minutes.
And now the service in Stockholm has expanded. A further 13,000 households can now get robot delivery via foodora Market Solna, with more people in the area set to be added soon.
Alipay and Rokid
Rokid, a specialist in augmented reality, has launched Rokid Glasses, its latest AR device. In China, the product supports in-store payments facilitated by Alipay’s digital technology and multidimensional risk control solution for AR glasses.
This will begin rolling out to users starting in June, with over 250,000 units thus far ordered.
Users link their Alipay account via the Rokid app and enable voice verification. In stores, they say: “Rokid, pay 10 RMB.” The glasses scan the merchant’s Alipay QR code. Users then confirm by voice, with payment details shown on the display.
“Equipping Rokid Glasses with payment capabilities brings users a smoother and more intuitive experience, while also ushering the AI glasses industry into the era of payment. We believe this will set a new benchmark for the industry. Behind this innovation is close collaboration with Alipay on both payment and risk technologies. Looking ahead, we will continue to explore new experiences together,” says Zhu Mingming, Founder and CEO at Rokid.
AiFi and Microsoft
AiFi, a spatial intelligence platform enabling businesses to deploy autonomous solutions, has announced a collaboration with Microsoft that promises the delivery of real-world artificial intelligence.
Built on Microsoft Azure, this integration taps AiFi’s proprietary spatial intelligence engine, trained on over 90 petabytes of real-world data collected annually. Unlike conventional vision systems, AiFi creates a real-time, context aware digital twin that doesn’t just see what’s happening, it understands where it’s happening, who’s involved, when, and why it matters.
“Understanding the physical world with precision is the next frontier of AI,” says Steve Carlin, CEO at AiFi.
“That’s what this collaboration is about. By combining AiFi’s spatial intelligence with Microsoft’s cloud scale and enterprise reach, we’re enabling AI to help businesses understand everything that is happening in the spaces that matter to them. Working with Microsoft gives a startup like ours an opportunity to take advantage of cost structures associated with scale, and gives Microsoft the ability to access new capabilities for their agentic layer strategies for their cloud services and analytics.”
JD Sports
JD Sports unveiled its first US West Coast flagship store at Las Vegas Blvd this past weekend.
In a LinkedIn post, Mauro Victor Boeta, Retail Marketing Specialist at JD Finish Line, said: "After months and months of work, 1317 Las Vegas Blvd is finally open! The third JD flagship store in the books. Shout out to everyone who contributed to this insane project and a special shout out to the entire marketing team for putting in the hours people don’t see."
Martin Trevillion, Head of Store Development at JD Group, said: “Punctuating the desert of Nevada with its dazzling lights, Las Vegas demands attention globally like no other city. Responding to this unique and evocative context allowed us to express ourselves in the way that we know so well, with strength, boldness and unapologetically JD Sports Fashion.”
“A store front has been revealed that represents a statement like no other we’ve previously attempted. With the tallest and most architectuarally integrated digital screen ever delivered in a JD shopfront. To acheive this we have pushed and challenged ourselves, our consultants and supply chain partners with a result that not only stands up to the expectations of this entertertainment epicentre, but one that will stand out in this digitally dynamic destination.”
He continued: “Beyond the façade, which stands at over 16 metres, the journey of intent continues with the the latest iteration of store environment concept. It represents JD, our brand partners and the strength of our culture driven through our vision of being forever forward.”
“At this point it is only right that I recognise Gerald Cropsey (VP of New Development and Construction-Multi-Site at Jones Lang LaSalle), who through patience and tenacity was able to not only be the delivery force behind this project. He also succesfully managed and guided a group of driven, dedicated and dynamic individuals to achieve something amazing in an epic but challenging location. Kudos to this man and someone I will always consider a friend.”
JD LV BLVD is now open 📍
— JD Sports US (@jdsportsus) June 15, 2025
Come thru 🔥 pic.twitter.com/WyxCiLvz8w
e.l.f. Cosmetics
e.l.f. Cosmetics, a brand from e.l.f. Beauty, has introduced ‘colour e.l.f.nalysis’, an immersive digital experience for personalised beauty. With this tool, users can discover makeup shades that harmonise with their unique features and get matched with a curated Pinterest board featuring shoppable e.l.f. products tailored to them.
They can snap a selfie (or upload one from their camera roll), and the tool analyses their hue (warm or cool), value (light or deep contrast), and chroma (bright or muted) to reveal their colour season and custom board.
“colour e.l.f.nalysis is about breaking down beauty barriers and making personalised colour analysis accessible to every eye, lip, and face - for free,” says Patrick O’Keefe, Chief Integrated Marketing Communications Officer at e.l.f. Beauty.
“This tool, developed with Pinterest and in collaboration with real-life colour experts, complements - not replaces - the human touch. It’s a smart, seamless, and fun way for our community to discover what works for them, and find their perfect e.l.f. product matches in just a few taps.”
Harbor Links Golf Course
Brooke Management Group, Robot.com (formerly Kiwibot), and Harbor Links Golf Course have announced the launch of the first autonomous food and beverage delivery robots on a US golf course. These have been operational at Harbor Links Golf Course in Port Washington, USA since a debut on 24th April.
The service features self-driving robots delivering fresh food and drinks to golfers throughout the course and driving range without interruptions.
"This is truly one of the most interesting initiatives that I have ever been involved with," says Kelley Brooke, President at Brooke Management Group. "To be the first to bring robot delivery to a golf course is thrilling, and the fact that we're launching it at Harbor Links makes it even more special. Together, we've created something that's going to change the way food and beverage service is experienced on the course forever."
PlayDesign
Patryk Powierża, former Chief Growth & Innovation Officer at x-kom and Head of Growth at Zabka Polska, is launching PlayDesign, pitched as an ecosystem where brands showcase products in 3D, and customers design their spaces like they would in a game.
In a LinkedIn post, Powierża said: "An omnichannel platform that combines web, real-time 3D, AI models, photorealistic rendering, AR and VR technologies to transform how we present products, design interiors and make purchases. In the coming weeks, we'll show you some magic."
"Most importantly, we're building this with an incredible team - Piotr Wit Voelkel (CEO at Vox Capital Group), Marcin Barański (co-founder), Szymon Gatner (CTO), and our entire crew. From the labs to the streets!"
Asda
Asda is set to more than double its electric grocery home shopping fleet, taking it to 194 vehicles as the UK grocery giant invests in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across its business.
Rolling out this month, Asda will stump up £1.3 million for launching an additional 112 home delivery vans and charging points for its vans at stores across the UK.
By September, 21 stores across the UK will operate a fully electric home delivery van fleet. Across these 21 stores, the electric vehicles are expected to make over one million deliveries in the year to go.
With a range of up to 130 miles, they will help to save up to 1,700kg of CO2 emissions per year.
THG Ingenuity
THG Ingenuity’s THG Fulfil offshoot has announced a partnership with robotics provider, Libiao, which, it claims, is set to boost its capacity by 75%.
430 T-sorting robots will be operational at its Manchester warehouse facility in September, prividing THG Fulfil with the capacity to output c1 million units per day, a move that boosts its ability to manage peak demand ahead of the holiday season.
Tom Killeen, COO, THG Ingenuity, says: “We have always believed that fulfilment is a core driver of customer excellence and brand reputation. Our collaboration with Libiao further solidifies our commitment to providing brands and retailers with industry leading, scalable automation solutions that optimise everything from pick and pack to final mile delivery, ultimately enhancing customer experience and driving loyalty.”
“Our unique approach, which often sees 95% of all units sold moving through some form of automation, combined with our late NDD cut-off times of up to 1am, is truly what sets us apart. We are committed to investing in the future of logistics, while empowering our clients to meet and exceed evolving consumer expectations with unparalleled efficiency.”
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