Top Things You Missed IN Retail

Amazon is making history in the burgeoning automated ride-hailing space. The e-tail giant’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary Zoox, which it purchased for a reported $1.2 billion-plus in June 2020, recently conducted the first-ever pilot of a purpose-built self-driving robotaxi on open public roads with no manual controls or human safety driver.

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Buehler’s Fresh Foods and Mercatus today announced a partnership to bring Buehler’s valued customers a modern, fully integrated online ordering and fulfillment experience.

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Gruhub is expanding a partnership with autonomous delivery robot provider Starship Technologies to enable robotic deliveries at the campuses of George Mason University, Baylor University and East Carolina University. Starship's zero-emission robots can travel up to 4 mph, carry the equivalent of three bags of groceries and operate in various weather conditions, including rain and snow.

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Panda Retail, Saudi Arabia’s No. 1 supermarket chain, has expanded their partnership with RELEX Solutions, provider of unified supply chain and retail planning solutions, to include promotion planning and space management optimization.

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Roku users will soon be able to order a Frosty from their TV. The streaming service is partnering with DoorDash on “shoppable ads” that allow viewers to start an order from their TV screen. Wendy’s is the first restaurant to buy the ads, which go live Tuesday and run through March 12.

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One of the biggest challenges most emerging operators face these days is how to build their tech stack. A restaurant’s tech stack needs to be simple and efficient enough to operate easily but it also needs to have enough bells and whistles to be able to tackle digital conundrums and customer/employee needs.

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New Look has partnered with parcelLab to improve post-purchase experiences for its online customers.

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Boxed Inc., an e-commerce grocery platform that sells bulk consumables and licenses its e-commerce software to enterprise retailers, has disclosed an arrangement with Colavita USA to manage the Italian specialty food manufacturer’s third party direct-to-consumer logistics, including inventory management, warehousing and fulfillment.

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This particular Chick-fil-A location recently started using Sprockets, a software geared toward helping quick-service brands find and hire the right employees. Unlike some competitors, Sprockets is interested in the quality of candidates rather than quantity. It uses an AI-driven algorithm to identify ideal candidates based on candidates’ responses to a three-question survey.

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Syncron today announced that Kubota Tractor Corporation, a United States distributor of agricultural and construction machinery equipment, has selected Syncron Retail Inventory to support its retail inventory management.

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As initially announced in April 2022, Quality Mart is making it possible for customers to place digital orders ahead for pickup or delivery at five of its local stores in the Winston-Salem, N.C., area. Quality Mart is the first convenience store retailer to deploy the Swipeby direct ordering platform.

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Apple Inc. has expanded an internal test of its upcoming “buy now, pay later” service to the company’s thousands of retail employees, a sign the long-awaited feature is finally nearing a public release.

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Chipotle Mexican Grill will soon begin testing an automated makeline in partnership with tech company Hyphen, the company said Tuesday. The announcement is one of several moves designed to speed throughput and boost restaurant productivity after a tough fourth quarter of softer-than-expected results.

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SAP recently marked its two year anniversary of RISE with SAP, SAP’s comprehensive solution of products and services to help customers successfully move to the cloud. Delek US – a North American energy operator with midstream, downstream, and retail oil and gas assets in the Southwest United States – is one such customer as well as one of the earliest adopters of RISE with SAP.

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Learn how the Coach and Stuart Weitzman parent is leveraging consumer data through the full value chain, embedding data into day-to-day decision making, while Kate Spade is contributing to change by giving its products a second life.

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Online retailer, Very, which is operated by The Very Group, has announced a new product discovery experience partnership with Constructor.

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Ahold Delhaize USA sees a bright future for its retail media network. Chain Store Age recently spoke with Bobby Watts, head of AD Retail Media at Ahold Delhaize USA, about the grocery retail group’s latest efforts with its AD Retail Media network offering and general trends in the space.

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Space Adventure Exhibition gift store goes cashierless with MishiPay! Dimona, the leading provider of gift store merchandise and souvenirs, is proud to announce the launch of MishiPay scan & go and self-checkout technology at its Space Adventure Exhibition gift store in Boston. With this innovative technology, customers can now experience a completely cashless shopping experience with no checkout lines or cashiers.

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According to a recent study by logistics software provider Descartes of 1,000 supply chain and logistics executives in North America and Europe, the challenges of the past several years have caused close to six in 10 (57%) respondents to accelerate their supply chain innovation initiatives.

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Following a successful test in 2022, The Giant Co. has entered into an agreement with A3 Mediaco LLC to bring the latter’s Social Shelf solution to the grocer’s locations that carry adult beverages. The rollout is scheduled for this coming May. Social Shelf is a shelf tag technology-based advertising tool that provides product information to consumers right at the aisle.

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Managers at some 3,000 KFC and Taco Bell restaurants in the U.S. get a great deal of help in making their weekly food orders from a robot. Specifically, the restaurants have added what parent company Yum Brands calls “Recommended Ordering,” a machine learning program that predicts and recommends the quantity of product managers order every week.

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Invafresh, whose technologies are currently being used in more than 25,000 grocery stores in 15 countries, will have several areas of focus in 2023. One happy customer is Schenectady, N.Y.-based Price Chopper.

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Supply chain software as a service firm, TOPO Solutions, is powering a new digital platform for omnichannel retailer KLiNGEL Group, which, it says, is boosting efficiency and speed to market, as well as helping to improve product quality and product compliance.

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PIM Brands, parent company to Welch’s, is diving deeper into data following a successful pilot period that allowed the business to gain visibility into real-time consumer shopping behaviors.

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A subscription brand for wristwatches is making its customers an offer too good to refuse – with the help of a new third-party solution. Wrist Mafia has increased its subscriber base by over 60% and subscriber lifetime value (LTV) by 100% after migrating its subscription experience to the Ordergroove subscription management platform.

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Alo Yoga has partnered with Obsess to create an immersive digital shopping experience with virtual reality integration, digital styling capabilities, streaming beauty and wellness tutorials, workout classes and checkout. Moving the digital storefront into virtual reality is an exciting transition that could improve the way consumers shop.

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eBay is making a new effort to boost the confidence of shoppers on its automotive marketplace. eBay Motors, which was launched s a separate mobile app in December 2019, is introducing eBay Guaranteed Fit. This new program provides a green “Fits” compatibility checkmark on select parts and accessories listings to help customers determine whether the part will fit their specific vehicle.

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General Mills is exploring home IoT devices to better understand consumer behavior partners. The consumer goods company has partnered with Smarter, a start-up that manufactures the Wi-Fi- and voice-enabled FridgeCam.

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Among its features, the online portal allows guests to order food and download the Parker's Rewards app.

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REWE International has chosen Körber’s K.Motion warehouse management system (WMS) to be deployed across 40 European locations.

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World of Beer Bar & Kitchen, a purveyor of the craft beer experience, has selected Oracle NetSuite to help it scale to meet soaring customer demand for its hundreds of unique beers and rotating taps. With NetSuite, World of Beer Bar & Kitchen will be able to take advantage of an integrated business system to manage its financial operations and help quickly and easily adapt as it grows its global presence.

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Carrefour has enabled facial recognition as a means of verifying payments in the UAE. The retailer announced on Friday (Feb. 10) that it has teamed up with Network International and biometric technology firm PopID to launch the latter’s “Face Pay” verification platform in the country.

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US-based convenience chain Coen Markets has launched two checkout-free stores, in partnership with Grabango, at its Amoco sites in Oakdale and Southpark, PA.

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London-based live video shopping platform Confer With has been selected to participate in the L'Occitane Accelerator programme in Dubai, hosted by luxury retail innovation hub, Greenhouse by Chalhoub Group.

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As consumer behavior shape-shifts into new patterns — and inflation and supply chain disruption persists — consumer goods companies are increasingly seeking the ability to not only identify the right price at the right time, but also have this information shared across the enterprise to predict and lessen the impact of out-of-stocks.

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Kwik Stop is partnering with Watchfire, a LED signage firm, to replace letter boards with digital signage in 27 locations in Nebraska and Colorado, with 23 installations completed and the last four scheduled to be completed by the summer.

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L'Oréal made significant strides in digital innovation over the last year, such as leveraging inclusive, science-backed beauty and entering new selling and consumer engagement opportunities on TikTok and the metaverse, all while tapping artificial intelligence and data.

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Uber Technologies Inc. is entering strategic cloud partnerships with two major enterprise technology platforms. Uber is collaborating with both Google and Oracle on cloud technology deployments. Details of each initiative follow.

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Online fashion retailer boohoo Group and location technology specialist what3words have announced a new partnership.

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The mid-Atlantic grocery retailer is adding four electric vehicles to its delivery fleet serving the greater Philadelphia market. The electric vans will fulfill customer deliveries for its Giant Direct online delivery and pickup platform while reducing the company’s environmental footprint. According to Giant, it will save nearly 9,000 gallons of gas each year with the new vehicles.

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Fashion brand rag & bone has partnered with Astound Commerce to create an online experience designed to accelerate its global direct-to-consumer (DTC) operations, built on Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

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Wilko has rolled out a Click and Collect service to its 400+ stores.

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