Social firsts, 3D plays, and food waste milestones: 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 BoConcept, HomeByMe, Habitat, Pinterest, EDEKA Beckesepp, Diebold Nixdorf, Amazon, Roblox, Revelyst, Pattern, DoorDash, Heron Foods, and Lincolnshire Co-op.

Heron Foods

x-hoppers, an AI powered retail communications platform from Wildix, has announced the roll-out of its fully embedded agentic AI suite, now live across all of its deployments.

This is designed to streamline operations, reduce theft and improve customer experience.

British retailer Heron Foods is among the first to adopt the system, now live in 25 stores and rolling out across all new and refurbished locations. Staff use x-hoppers to troubleshoot checkout issues, log tickets automatically, detect theft through AI enabled computer vision and manage daily tasks, without escalating to managers or leaving the floor.

“x-hoppers has been a game-changer from the previous technology used in stores at Heron Foods,” says Jon Newson, Head of Information Technology, Heron Foods. “After a successful proof of concept, around 25 stores now use the technology, with every new and refurbished store adopting it. The headsets extend functionality beyond our previous solution, improve team collaboration on the floor, enhance customer experience with prompt service and increase colleagues’ sense of safety on the shop floor.”

DoorDash and Flytrex

DoorDash and Flytrex have announced the launch of a drone delivery service in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, expanding upon a pilot programme.

Customers in parts of Little Elm and Frisco can now order food from dozens of local and national restaurants, including from Papa Johns King Road location and The Brass Tap, between 8:00am and 9:30pm, with delivery via Flytrex’s autonomous drone fleet.

BoConcept

Dassault Systèmes has announced a five-year partnership with BoConcept, which operates in the affordable premium furniture space, to bring new 3D technology to its customers in 65 countries.

BoConcept will integrate Dassault Systèmes’ HomeByMe 3D space planner and product configurator into its customer buying journey.

HomeByMe solutions include a tool that vendors can use to design an interior in 3D, and a web-based product configurator that both vendors and customers can tap to select and modify furniture colours, materials and sizes, and view them in a high definition virtual twin.

Customers can visualise their future interior and collaborate with vendors in BoConcept’s 300 stores to finalise the design and purchase of their made to order furniture.

Habitat and Pinterest

Habitat and Pinterest are teaming up to invite the nation to see homeware differently with ‘The Home of Attention’, a storytelling series that shows how to transform everyday spaces with just a few well chosen pieces.

For the first time ever on Pinterest, the tie up will centre around a series of short films launched exclusively on the platform. These focus on different moments in the home and how things in it can reflect our moods and reshape our interior needs.

Each film will be brought to life by a series of interactive and immersive Pinterest experiences. These include a 360-degree, shoppable set and film inspired creator content, as well as curated collages - an ad format giving users a new way to interact with Habitat products.

Revelyst

BigCommerce, an e-commerce platform for B2C and B2B businesses, and Feedonomics, a data feed management solution, report that their customers now have access to AI powered search engine Perplexity.

“AI powered search is redefining how consumers discover and engage with products online,” says Sharon Gee, Senior Vice President of Product for AI at BigCommerce and Feedonomics.

“For consumer brands, this represents a pivotal moment to lead with innovation. By delivering high quality product data directly to LLMs, brands ensure their products surface more accurately and contextually. Ensuring quality data feeds are optimally structured and accessible to AI search channels is a strategic imperative for driving relevance, loyalty and growth in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.”

“With Feedonomics powering our product data, we have confidence that our catalogue is being presented accurately and optimally to drive results with AI search platforms,” says Owen Spencer, Director of Enterprise Applications at adventure brand Revelyst, the parent company of Bell, Bushnell, CamelBak, Fox Racing, and Giro.

“Improved visibility and stronger brand consistency are critical for traffic and conversion. Having structured and channel optimised data in place allows us to take more control of how our products appear in AI driven experiences, and that is a game-changer for our e-commerce performance in the AI era.”

Amazon

Amazon has announced plans to expand Prime same-day and next-day delivery to tens of millions of US customers in more than 4,000 smaller cities, towns, and rural communities by the end of the year.

“Everybody loves fast delivery. So, whether you live in Monmouth, Iowa or in downtown Los Angeles, now you're going to have the same fantastic Amazon customer experience: the ability to get the wide variety of items you need to keep your household running every day, delivered the same or next day,” says Doug Herrington, CEO at Worldwide Amazon Stores.

A key feature of this expansion is the option for customers to shop Amazon’s everyday essentials, which encompasses a selection of groceries and household goods. According to the company, the response from customers in the more than 1,000 smaller cities, towns, and rural communities where it has already begun offering free same-day and next-day delivery has been very positive.

As a result of the faster delivery speeds, customers in these areas are shopping Amazon’s store more frequently and purchasing household essentials at meaningfully higher rates. Of the top 50 repurchased items for same-day delivery in these areas, over 90% are Amazon everyday essentials items.

The firm is investing over $4 billion to triple the size of its delivery network by the end of 2026. It is turning existing rural delivery stations into hybrid hubs that serve multiple functions. This includes storing inventory on site to enable delivery within hours and preparing packages for final delivery to customers.

And it is also using machine learning algorithms to predict which items will resonate with local Prime members based on their unique needs. This includes stocking a mix of the most popular and frequently purchased items like wireless headphones, coffee pods, crackers, paper towels, and diapers, and products curated to fit local preferences like wild bird food in Dubuque, Iowa, travel backpacks in Findlay, Ohio, and after sun body butter in Sharptown, Maryland.

EDEKA Beckesepp

Diebold Nixdorf has equipped a new EDEKA Beckesepp store in Waltershofen, Germany with self-service checkouts featuring its Smart Vision technology-based solutions for automated fruit and vegetable recognition and age verification.

With Vynamic Smart Vision | Fresh Produce Recognition, customers can capture products without barcodes, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, directly at the self-service checkout. A camera placed on top of the scale, combined with algorithms, identifies items and their quantities, which is then shown on the display. This eliminates the manual selection of fresh produce for customers or weighing and affixing a price label in the fresh produce section.

The Vynamic Smart Vision I Age Verification solution allows customers to automatically check their age.

When an age restricted item is scanned, customers are given the option to opt for automatic age recognition. Once consent is given, a camera installed in the system analyses the customer's facial characteristics using AI algorithms to determine their age.

The transaction can be continued if the customer’s age is above a predefined threshold. The attendants in the store during daytime operations can check customers who fall below this age limit or opt out of automatic age recognition. This system is GDPR compliant as the process does not involve facial recognition, nor does it store images or other customer information.

If customers wish to purchase age restricted items outside of the daytime opening hours, access to the store happens via an ID card, which then authorises them to make the purchase.

Greyparrot

Greyparrot, a specialist in waste analytics, has launched Deepnest, pitched as a world first AI platform that gives brands direct access to their recyclable waste data.

This tracks packaging performance by brand, material, product type, and region. It reveals exactly how packaging moves through the waste system: what’s sorted, recycled, or lost.

Powered by Greyparrot Analyser AI camera systems in material recovery facilities, Deepnest relies on what is claimed to be the world’s most comprehensive household packaging waste database - these systems process over 40 billion waste objects annually across more than 20 countries.

Greyparrot currently detects $1 billion worth of recyclable materials in the waste streams it monitors, and estimates that, if rolled out globally, its systems could uncover up to $100 billion in recyclable value every year by 2040. Using this data, Deepnest then provides brands with actionable insights, generating tailored recommendations to improve packaging, from shape and colour to material composition.  

Pattern

E-commerce specialist, Pattern, has launched Content Brief by Pattern PXM to the European market - an AI powered tool that helps e-commerce brands optimise product descriptions.

This leverages Pattern’s 44 trillion data points to analyse product listings and deliver actionable insights, based on market share, shopper behaviour, and content performance.

David Wright, Founder and CEO at Pattern, says: “The ability to use AI to shrink the time it takes to conduct extensive competitive research from weeks to minutes is an astonishing leap forward for brand leaders, especially when that analysis is exponentially richer than what a team of humans could compile on their own.”

Roblox

Todd Lichten, Head of Entertainment Partnerships at Roblox, has taken to social media to flag how his company is shaping the future of movie marketing.

A How to Train Your Dragon game on Roblox had, as of 17th June, more than 28 million visits. During its opening weekend in North America, the film pulled in $83.7 million in ticket sales.

In a LinkedIn post, Lichten said: "The How to Train Your Dragon campaign invited audiences into the world of Berk and its soaring dragons, offering a powerful example of how Roblox extends storytelling beyond the screen. Unlike traditional platforms, Roblox empowers fans to shape their own narratives - turning cinematic moments into immersive, deeply personal, and endlessly replayable adventures."

Lincolnshire Co-op

By using Retail Insights’ WasteInsight solution, Lincolnshire Co-op says that it has avoided nearly 1.8 million tonnes of food waste, a rise of +6.8% compared to 2023.

In 2024, Lincolnshire Co-op implemented an enhanced version of Waste Trim.

This analyses historical data, sales patterns and expiration dates to highlight and identify products or ranges that are regularly wasted. These insights enable Lincolnshire Co-op to optimise stock assortment, minimise overstocking on frequently wasted items, meaning less produce is entering the reduced to clear (RTC) process in the first place.