Top Things You Missed IN Retail

The Home Depot applies innovative technology in every area of its enterprise to support holiday shoppers. Chain Store Age recently interviewed Angie Brown, senior VP of technology, The Home Depot Inc., to learn more about the home improvement giant’s new associate mobile devices and other holiday technology rollouts.

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Krispy Kreme has been in the middle of transforming its business for a while now. The company has pivoted from the costly and limited bakery-first operations model, where every store made doughnuts in-house and sold them fresh, to a hub and spoke model where Krispy Kreme fans can find their favs inside a growing group of grocery stores, convenience stores, and even McDonald’s locations.

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Kum & Go LC is partnering with retail technology company Upside to provide more value to consumers across 200-plus participating convenience stores. Upside identifies nearby users, drives them to participating locations through its mobile app and encourages them to transact using personalized cash-back offers.

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Amid the rapid growth of the pharmaceutical industry in Vietnam, Pharmacity, the country’s leading retail pharmacy chain, recognized the need to improve old inventory management programs with advanced supply chain management solutions. Partnering with RELEX, Pharmacity has improved overall inventory management, ensuring customer satisfaction across all stores and online channels nationwide.

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Amazon is debuting Inspire, an in-app shopping experience that offers customers a new way to discover ideas, explore products and shop from content from brands and influencers they follow on social media. The shopping feed is personalized, featuring shoppable photos and videos, according to a press release.

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The fast food pizza chain, a subsidiary of BurgerFi International Inc., is deploying the ConverseNow voice AI technology platform for restaurants in all of its 60 Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza locations across the East Coast. Anthony’s is moving to full rollout following a successful pilot program of ConverseNow’s virtual assistant solution.

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KFC is testing several technologies around the world to create more consumer access and ease operations.

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MMI Hotel Group has selected Infor Hospitality to provide hospitality management and pricing solutions for its expanding independent property base.

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Leaders from bartaco, Checkers & Rally’s and Taco Bell took to the stage at MURTEC Executive Summit on Friday, November 4, to talk about their technology transformations and lessons learned.

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For the first time, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) GB’s Christmas can multipacks will include NaviLens codes on the cardboard casing to help shoppers that are partially sighted and have difficulty using traditional signage the opportunity to navigate their way around a shop to find their chosen purchases. 

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Couger, an AI startup based in Tokyo, is to provide the virtual human agent Rachel to FamilyMart, with deployment slated for approximately 5,000 stores by the end of fiscal 2023.

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In a bid to help shoppers eat more healthfully in the new year, Food City has joined forces with Chicago-based food and nutrition digital technology company Sifter SP Inc. to enhance the Dietitian’s Pick program offered by the Southeast regional grocer.

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Mathis Home today announced the launch of Mathis Marketplace. Powered by Mirakl, the industry's first and most advanced enterprise marketplace SaaS platform, Mathis Marketplace is a one-stop shop destination for the best in home furnishings.

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Weis Markets adopts the ELERATM commerce platform from Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, which will help deliver a dynamic, agile environment featuring unified commerce, loyalty, promotions, and a frictionless produce recognition experience for its shoppers.

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Casey’s General Stores has personalized the shopper journey for its more than 5.5 million rewards loyalty members via more than 1 billion marketing messages in 2022. The convenience retailer and pizza chain’s partnership with Salesforce helped it consolidate fragmented technologies and automate its personalization strategy, allowing Casey’s to send 200 million personalized communications every month with messaging tailored to each customer’s purchasing history.

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iRely, LLC, an innovative partner providing enterprise software for petroleum distributors and convenience stores, announces Corrigan Oil has selected iRely as their partner of choice for its comprehensive ERP and operational software solution.

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Nine Filco Supermarkets branded convenience stores in the UK have had new EDGEPoS systems installed under a partnership with Henderson Technology.

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Lands’ End is partnering with Movable Ink to drive enhanced personalization in its email marketing campaigns with the help of AI. Through the deployment of Movable Ink’s Da Vinci solution, Lands’ End will leverage human-centric AI to better engage existing customers and build a better customer for the future. The ultimate goal is to reshape the retailer’s email marketing program to focus on deepening loyalty and driving long-term customer value.

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The Midwestern regional discount chain is collaborating with the Uber Eats online delivery subsidiary of Uber Technologies Inc. to offer on-demand and scheduled grocery delivery. Through the 2022-2023 winter, nearly 250 Meijer locations across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin will be available to shop through Uber and Uber Eats.

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Walmart’s drone delivery service is now available for select customers in the Arizona, Texas and Florida markets.

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A2Z Smart Technologies Corp. has received an increased purchased order of 30% (300 smart carts) from Israeli grocery chain Yochananof.

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Lowe’s Cos. Inc. is leveraging cutting-edge technology in a new initiative to curb store shrink called “Project Unlock.” Project Unlock combines low-cost RFID chips and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to activate power tools at the point of purchase while also creating a secure, publicly accessible, and anonymized record of legitimate purchases. by blockchain.   

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When the preschool toy company grew out of its small homebrew ERP, it skipped the midmarket offerings and went straight for an enterprise-scale system in the cloud.

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The No. 17 publicly owned consumer goods company has teamed with HCL Technologies as part of a multi-year contract. To support its hybrid workplace model, Mondelēz leveraged HCLTech’s BigFix platform to automate the discovery and remediation of potential vulnerabilities. This is designed to ensure all endpoints are continuously secured and compliant.

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Sunshine Gasoline Distributors Inc. upgraded its Max Car Wash mobile app, which now enables mobile payment at the pump. Using Liquid Barcodes Inc.'s proprietary C-StorePay program, mobile users can now drive in, swipe, choose the fuel pump number, link their bank account to activate the pump, then fuel up and go.

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As we approach the holidays, Walmart has made strides in transforming its shopping experiences, diversifying the ways consumers can purchase their favorite products. It doesn’t seem possible to add yet another avenue for purchasing in this “everywhere commerce” world, but Walmart just announced it will now also be offering Text to Shop — a capability that has been in the works for quite some time. 

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tegut…, a German grocery retailer from Fulda, Hesse, focusing on sustainability, will partner with RELEX Solutions, provider of unified supply chain and retail planning solutions, to integrate their retail planning. The RELEX solution will optimize forecasting and replenishment for all tegut… stores and distribution centers in Germany, as well as demand forecasts for wholesalers.

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The fastest growing and most profitable retailers are adding Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics at rates 3x faster than their competitors, according to new research from analyst firm IHL Group. The research study titled “The Retail Analytics Advantage” reviews the level of maturity among retailers. “Retailers have always been data rich and knowledge poor due to systems that collect a lot of data but often in disparate systems,” said Greg Buzek, President of IHL Group

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Automated parcel machine service provider, InPost, has announced the expansion of its partnership with Morrisons. Morrisons is InPost’s longest standing supermarket partner, hosting over 290 lockers across the UK since 2014. Now that figure is set to rise to approximately 390 by the end of January, ensuring that nearly 80% of all its stores in the UK host a locker as an additional service.

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DemandTec by Acoustic has announced a multi-year agreement with Northeast Grocery, parent company to nearly 300 Price Chopper/Market 32 and Tops Friendly Markets across six US Northeastern states.

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Puuilo, a Finnish retail store chain, will partner with unified supply chain and retail planning solutions provider RELEX Solutions to improve forecasting and replenishment capabilities in their stores and distribution centers. The RELEX solution will automate the forecasting and replenishment processes for Puuilo’s 36 stores and 3 distribution centers throughout Finland.

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The grocery conglomerate is expanding upon a long-time partnership with DemandTec by Acoustic to deploy the DemandTec Unified Lifecycle Pricing solution to nearly 300 Price Chopper/Market 32 and Tops Friendly Markets across six Northeastern states.

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Trigo and Rewe expand cashierless grocery shopping with Germany’s first fully autonomous store. The computer vision startup and the major German grocery chain announced Wednesday (Dec. 14) the launch of the location in Munich, part of the two companies’ “Pick&Go” partnership, at which consumers check in by scanning their phones upon entry, pick the items they would like, and walk out, their accounts automatically charged.

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Just Eat has teamed up with Co-op to launch an on-demand online delivery partnership across the UK. Initially rolling-out to 50 stores early next year, the service is expected to expand to over 1,000 Co-op stores by spring 2023.

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In order to reduce waste and ensure products are packaged in properly-sized boxes or mailers, Amazon has been leveraging machine learning. The tech communicates which products are suitable for flexible packaging (i.e., mailers and bags), as they are 75% lighter than similar-sized boxes and more sustainable. 

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Casey's General Stores Inc. increased customer engagement and automation, activating more marketing with less spend by consolidating fragmented technologies and moving to Salesforce. Since partnering with Salesforce, Casey's has built a new e-commerce website, launched a loyalty program and mobile apps, and partnered with third-party delivery companies as the capability to market directly to all customers engaging through these experiences.

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Hormel Foods has partnered with open-data retail platform Crisp to expand its data capabilities. Hormel plans to use the platform to share and leverage historical and real-time data insights from retailers in Google Cloud in order to help the brand improve business performance for its retail customers.

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The grocery retailer/distributor is piloting the Afresh AI and inventory management platform at 10 of its owned Family Fare grocery stores in the Grand Rapids, Mich. area. Utilizing Afresh, SpartanNash fresh department managers have access to ordering tools with real-time insights to support fresh ordering decisions.

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The retail industry has been completely transformed over the past 20 years. Amazon has been at the forefront of this transformation. Things that consumers used to tally up on a list and plan a trip to multiple stores to purchase are now conveniently dropped off on doorsteps. Restaurant operators looking to grow their enterprise’s profits and/or location count can learn from Amazon’s entrepreneurial ingenuity and apply the lessons to running a restaurant.

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Bob’s Discount Furniture leverages strategy and technology to keep its supply chain flowing smoothly regardless of external pressures. How the specialty furniture chain manages its supply chain trends and ensures diversity among its supply chain associates.

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Top fast casual brand leaders offer valuable insight on how AI is driving a more robust digital drive-thru experience.

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Very, a pureplay operated by The Very Group, has tapped augmented reality technology to allow customers to discover and choose makeup products that best match their needs. 

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After several months of cost pressures and disruption, Dollar General is rounding out 2022 with a focus on expanding digital capabilities, adding to their store count, and differentiating their customer experience. 

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Food lockers are shaping up to be the next major trend in the world of quick-service restaurants. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the mainstreaming of mobile ordering and third-party delivery services, quick-service operators have been searching for more efficient ways to handle pickups. Many brands—including Del Taco—began testing food lockers in select locations.

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JYSK, a global home furnishing retailer, established in Denmark and the third-largest retailer in Europe will collaborate with RELEX Solutions, provider of unified supply chain and retail planning solutions, to strengthen demand forecasting for their global distribution centers. JYSK operates more than 3,200 stores in 48 countries and supplies goods from 10 distribution centers across Europe. The ambition for JYSK is to grow to at least 5,000 stores.

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KFC franchisee KBP Brands is testing the effectiveness of targeted mobile messaging in driving store traffic and sales. KBP Brands is partnering with seamless mobile promotions provider Vibes to test an SMS and mobile wallet program at 162 participating KBP-owned Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Texas, New York (Buffalo), New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

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The global payments provider and shopping platform is leveraging the Clarity AI sustainability solution to display AI-based sustainability data on electronics items. After consumers make a purchase using Klarna in the electronics category, new Clarity AI-powered information on the brand’s environmental efforts will be displayed in the form of brand badges.

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Mapco is utilizing machine learning and computer vision technology to let shoppers avoid waiting in line. In a retail technology deployment exclusively reported first in Chain Store Age, the regional convenience store chain is partnering with Silicon Valley technology startup Grabango to open a checkout-free store in Brentwood, Tenn.

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Meijer is the first retailer to run all-electric semitrucks in a cold weather environment. The company, which operates one of the largest fleets in Michigan with 250 semitrucks, is deploying two of the first all-electric semitrucks outside of California. It is also the first retailer nationwide to track the performance of the semitrucks (Freightliner eCascadia) in a cold weather environment as part of a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Digital payments firm, Primer, has announced a partnership with New Look. It says that the tie up will provide the fashion retailer with “an expansive, no-code payment infrastructure that will invigorate its online shopping experience and ensure it keeps pace with the sector’s demand”.

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T-Mobile Center, a Kansas City sports and live entertainment venue, has launched an Amazon Just Walk Out technology shopping experience.

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Uber Eats has partnered with robotics company Cartken to offer automated food delivery in Florida using self-driving robots. The offering will launch with select retailers in the Dadeland area of Miami-Dade County, with plans to expand to additional cities in 2023.

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