Lazada's RedMart Now service goes live: last week’s biggest technology plays at a glance

RTIH rounds up the stand out retail tech deals, launches, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Including Morrisons, Ecrebo, Extra Shop, Vusion, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Uber Eats, Asos, Spotify, The Iconic, Instacart, Costco, Matalan, Jack’s Family Restaurants, Coty, and Moleskine.

Lazada

Lazada, an e-commerce platform operating in Southeast Asia, has launched a speedy grocery delivery service within its RedMart supermarket arm.

In a LinkedIn post, Craig Massingham, Product Design Leader at Lazada, said: “RedMart Now is live! Groceries in as fast as 30 minutes. Most grocery trips aren’t planned. They happen when you realise you’re missing snacks before guests arrive, or essentials right before dinner. Those moments are driven by urgency, not weekly planning. That’s why we launched RedMart Now.”

Going live in select postcodes in Singapore, this builds on RedMart’s Express, two-hour, and six-hour delivery options. “Together, these services allow us to support a wider range of shopping missions; from planned stock ups to truly last minute needs,” said Massingham. “From a product and design perspective, this wasn’t just about speed. It was about expanding what RedMart represents.”

Morrisons

Ecrebo and Morrisons have announced a new partnership that aims to enhance personalised customer engagement, strengthen loyalty and deliver greater value to the UK grocery retailer’s shoppers.

The tie up will see Morrisons adopt the Ecrebo platform to improve how it communicates with customers at the Point of Sale and beyond, delivering tailored, relevant offers and communications in real-time.

"We are thrilled to partner with Morrisons to bring real-time, personalised engagement to millions of shoppers. By combining Morrisons' focus on customer value with our proven platform, we can help deliver more meaningful experiences at the moment they matter most - at checkout and post-purchase,” says David Buckingham, CEO at Ecrebo.

"Delivering value for our customers is at the heart of everything we do. This partnership with Ecrebo will help us build deeper connections with shoppers by providing more relevant, timely offers that enhance their experience and reward their loyalty,” says Matt Mclellan, CCO, Group Customer and Data Officer & Marketing Director at Morrisons.

SIUE

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Dining Services and the Morris University Center/Student Success Center have opened Chimega Mart, a cashierless convenience store located on the second floor of the Student Success Center.

Powered by Amazon Just Walk Out technology, this allows students, employees and guests to grab food, drinks, and everyday essentials and skip checkout lines. Using a combination of sensors, cameras, and AI technology, the store automatically detects the items guests select and charges them digitally after they exit.

In response to students' requests for longer hours for food on campus, Chimega Mart is open seven days a week from 7:00 a.m. to midnight, matching the hours of the Student Success Center. People can enter the store by swiping in with the GET app, which is connected to their SIUE Cougar Card. They can also enter by using a credit card.

“Chimega Mart offers a fast, seamless shopping experience designed to support student success and campus life,” says Kelly Jo Hendricks, Director of the Morris University Center/Student Success Center. “This technology driven store provides flexibility and convenience for students, faculty, staff and visitors.”

Build-A-Bear Workshop

Build-A-Bear Workshop has launched a same-day Valentine’s Day delivery service from its UK stores with Uber Direct. 

Customers ordering through the retailer’s website can select the same-day option and receive their order in a scheduled slot, with no delivery fee added to the total cost. Deliveries will be handled by Uber Direct’s courier network, which also powers Uber Eats. 

Colleen Draper, Retail and Operations Director Europe at Build-A-Bear Workshop, which introduced a same-day delivery option across 33 of its UK stores during December, says: “As Valentine’s Day approaches, we know shoppers want gifts that feel meaningful - even when time is tight. A Build-A-Bear teddy or soft toy is a heartfelt, cuddly way to show someone you care, and our free same-day delivery option makes this personalised gift simple and stress free.” 

Extra Shop

Vusion has been selected by Extra Shop to deploy its solutions in 40 of the Belgian retailer’s locations in Belgium. The project will see more than 1,700 stores running Vusion’ technology in the country.

Extra Shop will deploy its platform and electronic shelf labels to highlight specific campaigns and product information, while displaying price and promotional information at the right place and time, adapting to customers’ expectations. Associates can also be guided during their restocking process thanks to geolocation and LEDs placed on each ESL.

“We are thrilled to partner with Vusion to bring advanced digital solutions to our stores. This collaboration will not only enhance our operational efficiency, but also keep our employees motivated and enthusiastic about improving the shopping experience for our customers,” says Laurent Vanden Brande, Head of Supply Chain and IT at Extra Shop.

“We selected Vusion for both their high impact digital solutions and their clear leadership in innovation, AI & Data at the service of retailers. We are eager to witness the positive impact of these innovations in our stores and are confident that our customers will benefit from an enhanced shopping experience.”

Wolt

Legion Technologies reports that Wolt, a Helsinki-based technology company and on demand delivery specialist, has selected it to modernise its workforce management across 20 countries in EMEA.

Wolt will implement Legion’s full AI powered WFM suite, including Labour Budgeting, Demand Forecasting, Labour Optimisation, Automated Scheduling, Time & Attendance, Frontline Communications, and Strategic Insights. The project is underway, and the solution will be fully deployed in 2026.

“Providing our global teams with a modern WFM solution is critical to enabling efficiency and supporting our people,” says Athanasios Bilalis, Global Head at Wolt Market. “Legion’s platform provides the intelligence and flexibility required to enhance our operations across countries, languages, and business units.”

Meta

Auger, a startup founded by former Amazon executive Dave Clark, reports that Meta Reality Labs has selected it to deploy its autonomous operating system across Meta’s supply chain.

Auger’s AI native platform senses deviations, evaluates trade-offs, and executes decisions. The system sits above existing infrastructure (ERPs, WMS, TMS), unifying operational data into a single source of truth.

“We spent decades proving that technology and operational innovation could redefine what’s possible at planetary scale. Now we’re building the operating system where autonomy is the foundation, not bolted on,” says Clark.

“That Meta chose Auger this early in our journey validates the power of what we’ve built and signals where the industry is headed. The companies first to incorporate autonomous operations will create advantages their competitors can’t replicate.”

Limited Space

Limited Space, a specialist in retail and lifestyle destination media, is continuing its digital upgrade programme as part of a wider investment in its out-of-home portfolio. Building on recent upgrades at flagship retail destinations including Bluewater and Bullring, the latest installation sees a new high resolution, large format LED display unveiled at Manchester Arndale.

This has been manufactured by Absen and delivered by partner EcoVista. The screen utilises COB (chip on board) LED technology - a newer, more robust LED format specifically designed for high traffic public spaces.

Nick Bedford, Co Managing Director at Limited Space, says: “We’re focused on continually raising the bar across our entire digital estate. From visual performance and durability to sustainability, these upgrades reflect our commitment to delivering media that is truly impactful, robust and responsible in equal measure. For our partners and clients, this means more reliable platforms, stronger creative impact, reduced operational risk and media investments that stand up both commercially and environmentally.”

Ditë e Natë

Ditë e Natë, an Albanian chain with 100 pharmacies, has chosen Quant as its space and demand planning, shelf label management and planogram compliance solution.

A Quant spokesperson said: “By implementing Quant as a complex solution, Ditë e Natë will establish an automated, scalable core to their operations, which will enable them to effectively manage their existing pharmacy network and support their future growth.”

They added: “Our data driven approach and sophisticated AI is capable of tailoring the floor plans, planograms and operations of each pharmacy (or store) to its specific customer base and their shopping habits even with this amount of locations, no matter the amount of locations in question.”

“Our advanced demand planning module will provide highly accurate demand forecasting based not only on existing customer behaviour data, but also on other relevant factors. These forecasts provide the foundation for deployment of automatic replenishments, a solution that is fully integrated with other Quant modules and complies with existing planograms without the necessity for additional integration.”

Belstaff

Patchworks has worked with British brand Belstaff on an end-to-end digital transformation project, helping it replace a complex legacy environment with a unified, cloud-based e-commerce stack.

The move has also enabled Belstaff to launch omnichannel fulfilment capabilities, Click and Collect, ship from store, ship to store and flexible warehouse fulfilment.

Led internally by IT Director Navid Jilow, the transformation replaced virtually every core system across the business and reshaped how teams operate day to day. At the centre of the new architecture is a headless Shopify stack across e-commerce and PoS, with NetSuite acting as the single system of record for inventory, transactions and financial data.

Patchworks provides the integration backbone that connects and coordinates these systems, ensuring accurate, real-time data flows while delivering the visibility, control and resilience required to operate unified commerce at scale.

Belstaff runs both its online channels and in-store transactions on Shopify, including Shopify PoS, creating a single commerce platform across the business. Patchworks sits behind this setup, integrating Shopify with core systems such as ERP and fulfillment to ensure stock, orders and customer data flow smoothly and consistently across all channels.

THG Studios

THG Studios has announced logistics and fulfilment specialists Evri, Geekplus, Zencargo and THG Fulfil as key sponsors for its AI powered immersive catwalk event. Taking place on 26th February, this will make every look on the catwalk instantly shoppable.

While it showcases the buy now moment, the sponsorship of Evri, Geekplus, Zencargo, and THG Fulfil puts a spotlight on the crucial ‘what happens next’, from warehouse logistics and freight forwarding to final mile delivery. 

Hannah Pym, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer, THG Ingenuity, says: “Having industry leaders like Evri, Geekplus, Zencargo and our own THG Fulfil join us is a significant endorsement of our vision for the future of commerce. This event is about more than a shoppable runway; it’s a forum for the future, and that future depends on a flawless end-to-end customer journey.” 

David Saenz, Chief Commercial Officer, Evri Group, comments: “We’re delighted to partner with THG Studios to support this futuristic moment. Innovation in e-commerce doesn’t stop on the catwalk, and a great customer journey doesn’t end at the checkout. The final mile delivery plays a crucial role in brand experience and Evri is a leader in innovations that make the final mile faster, smarter and more convenient for consumers.”

Jack’s Family Restaurants

Jack’s Family Restaurants is expanding its partnership with PAR Technology, adopting PAR POS, PAR Pay, and the PAR Hardware suite, including PAR Wave and Kitchen Display Systems, across roughly 300 locations.

Building on a loyalty partnership that began in 2019 with PAR Punchh, Jack’s has selected the company to unify PoS, payments, loyalty, and hardware on a single enterprise platform designed to support restaurant expansion and digital growth.

“As we plan for our next phase of growth, it was critical to partner with a technology provider that could scale with our ambitions while staying easy for our teams to use,” says Chris Incorvati, CTO at Jack’s Family Restaurants.

“PAR’s modern platform simplifies operations, improves payment experiences, and strengthens our loyalty strategy, positioning us to consistently deliver outstanding guest service as we expand.”

Asos

Asos says that it has upskilled more than 100 designers in generative AI. Fermat’s technology is now embedded across its design operations, enabling designers to turn sketches into photo realistic visuals in seconds.

The online retailer can instantly explore different colours, fabrics and variations, helping communicate ideas more clearly with suppliers and improving accuracy in first time samples while reducing waste.

These workflows also free up creative time, supported by an average 75 to 80% time saving across key design processes. According to Asos, designers can iterate more boldly, push ideas further and uncover concepts that may not have been developed before.

Nick Eley, Head of Digital Creation at Asos, says: “Generative AI is already elevating the way our designers explore trends and develop ideas. It helps us reach stronger concepts faster, so we can create the best possible product and deliver it to customers at the right moment.”

Spotify

Checkout.com is set to provide global acquiring services for Spotify with the aim of delivering a secure and reliable payments experience for its global audience of more than 700 million monthly active users and 280 million+ paying subscribers.

“Our aim is to deliver a seamless, simple, and safe payment experience so that our users can focus on enjoying the music, podcasts, and audiobooks they find on Spotify,” says Sandra Alzetta, Vice President, Global Head of Payments and Customer Service at Spotify.

“It's important for us to work with partners who can move quickly and collaborate closely. Partnering with Checkout.com enables us to leverage their global reach, local expertise, and the ability to optimise payment performance at scale.”

Spotify will use Intelligent Acceptance, Checkout.com’s proprietary AI solution that uses real-time data from its global network to intelligently route transactions, reduce failures, and improve performance. The integration also includes network tokens and authentication services.

Genstore

Genstore has announced the launch of a full stack e-commerce platform that uses autonomous AI to build and operate online stores for creators and small merchants.

The company says that it replaces fragmented tools and manual workflows with a virtual team that works behind the scenes. Founders describe their idea, and Genstore’s AI analyses product data, market signals, and design patterns to generate a complete, ready to sell storefront.

“Most e-commerce founders don’t fail because they lack ideas - they fail because they’re forced to operate alone,” says Junwei Huang, Co-founder and President at Genstore. “We automate the operational grind so founders can lead with vision. We’re delivering real autonomy today while building toward a fully self-running commerce future.”

The Iconic

Datadog, an AI powered observability and security platform for cloud applications, reports that it is working with The Iconic with a view to eliminating blind spots in performance monitoring and ensuring a faster, more reliable shopping experience for customers across Australia and New Zealand.

Founded in Sydney over 14 years ago, and now part of Global Fashion Group (GFG), The Iconic has over two million active customers and offers a curated assortment of over 200,000 products from 1,500 local and international brands.

Its engineering teams recognised the need to consolidate observability to deliver end-to-end visibility, faster issue identification and consistently strong performance, particularly during peak trading periods. 

“Before Datadog, visibility was split across multiple platforms, which made troubleshooting slower and more complex,” says Andrew Burton, Head of Platforms at The Iconic. “For any online retailer, performance during peak periods like upcoming Black Friday and Christmas seasons can make or break the customer experience. By consolidating observability, our engineers can detect issues faster, understand their impact, and keep the platform running smoothly when demand surges.”

Built on AWS with a microservices architecture, The Iconic now uses Datadog to monitor logs, traces, and metrics across its entire stack.

“Datadog’s AI capabilities help us surface regressions without developers babysitting dashboards, SLOs give us a longer-term view we can take back to the organisation, and clear team ownership means the right people get notified at the right time,” Burton says.

Coty

Coty has announced a collaboration with OpenAI to expand the use of artificial intelligence tools across selected areas of its global organisation.

Jerome Auvinet, Coty Chief Information, Digital Innovation & Business Services Officer, says: “This collaboration enables our teams to securely use OpenAI’s leading, enterprise grade AI capabilities in line with Coty’s expectations for privacy, quality, and performance. It helps our teams work more efficiently and focus on higher value contributions.”

Coty’s work with OpenAI builds on the company’s internal use of AI and a global upskilling programme designed to give employees across functions the confidence, creativity, and foundational skills to use AI in their day to day work.

Instacart and Costco

Instacart and Costco Wholesale have announced the expansion of their North American partnership into Europe, with the launch of Costco’s first ever same-day delivery websites in France and Spain, powered by Instacart’s Storefront Pro commerce platform and fulfillment solutions services.

Costco members in France and Spain can now shop online and receive delivery through its websites in each country. The initial roll-out includes delivery from all locations in France and Spain, including the Paris metropolitan area and Mulhouse in France, as well as Bilbao, Madrid, Seville, and Zaragoza in Spain.

Orders are fulfilled and delivered from the store to the member’s door. Instacart is teaming with European partner companies in each country at launch for the picking, packing and delivery of orders. Members will also be able to get same as-in-store pricing.

Matalan

Matalan has launched a pilot involving Toshiba’s VisualStore 6 (VS6) EPoS solution, with three pilot stores now live in the UK with the self-service offering.

In a LinkedIn post, Roger Bannister, Business Development Manager at Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, said: "Three down, 223 to go! Last night, our incredible team from Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions UK & Ireland and Matalan transformed the Coventry South store as part of our initial pilot phase."

"It's been so exciting to see the pilot stores come to life, and early feedback from store colleagues and customers has been really positive. Time now to pause (but not for too long!), reflect, and get ready for roll-out."

Moleskine

Moleskine, a brand known for its notebooks, writing tools and creative accessories, has selected XY Retail as its unified commerce technology partner to support the expansion of its direct to consumer retail strategy worldwide. 

Historically focused on wholesale distribution, Moleskine is ramping up its investment in physical retail, with plans to expand its store network across the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, the United States and Japan. XY Retail will serve as the core platform enabling this shift.

Moleskine’s compact store formats require high inventory accuracy and intelligent replenishment. As part of the roll-out, XY Retail will implement stock replenishment and real-time inventory visibility to optimise availability, reduce stockouts, and support efficient operations despite limited backroom space as the network scales toward hundreds of stores globally. 

Joanna Onland, Chief Commercial Officer, Moleskine, says: “This partnership is a key step in strengthening our direct relationship with customers around the world. As we expand our physical retail presence, we need a technology partner that understands global scale and precision in smaller store environments and still gives the customer an excellent customer journey. XY Retail gives us the foundation to grow our direct channel with confidence while preserving the quality and creativity our brand stands for.”