Top Things You Missed IN Retail

Krystal will open a new prototype Jan. 10 in Center Point, Alabama, that is 1,000 square feet smaller than its traditional restaurants and does not include a dining room.

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South African retailer Cape Union Mart says that it is optimising its financials, fulfilment, store assortments, and inventory with Oracle Cloud for Retail solutions.

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Costco members can now use Shutterfly's photo services and will get a 51% discount off every Shutterfly order plus free shipping on orders totaling more than $49.

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MySize Inc. today announced that Estudio de Moda S.A.S., a leading Colombia-based retail company with a portfolio of brands including Diesel, Celio, Superdry, Marithe François Girbaud, Replay, is set to implement the MySizeID sizing solution on its Diesel Colombia ecommerce site.

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Portillo’s is going cashless in its drive-thrus, starting Jan. 16. The Chicago-based chain said the new policy will be applied at all 71 locations across nine states. “We are going cashless only in our drive-thrus,” the company said in a statement. “This creates a faster, smoother service for our guests and is safer for our team members.”

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Walmart reports that it now operates, in partnership with its vendors, 36 drone delivery hubs across seven US states.

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Many innovative retailers have started looking toward technology to combat retail theft. For example, Lowe’s, an American home improvement retailer, has recently implemented a proof-of-concept called Project Unlock, which uses radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, Internet of Things sensors and blockchain technology. The solution is currently being tested in several Lowe’s stores in the United States.

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The nation’s second-largest chain of drug stores said Thursday (Jan. 5) it is moving forward with costly investments in technology. This, as Walgreens Boots Alliance told investors that the long-term benefits of its digital transformation strategy would offset near-term costs at a time when many retailers are bracing for a slowdown and continue to sink funds into its long-term omnichannel future.

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Couche-Tard is in the planning phase for assortment work in Europe and plans to test it in markets in the coming weeks. In addition to assortment optimization, the retailer has now deployed more than 1,000 of its smart checkout technology units. Customer acceptance "has been great,"

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Nextuple, a pioneer in transforming retail fulfillment, today announced that it has gone live with five national omnichannel retailers comprising $50B in annual revenue and 7000 store locations. The national chains will use Nextuple Fulfillment Studio, a composable suite of microservices that is disrupting the traditional OMNI channel software and services industry with a unique delivery model. The suite was launched in October 2022.

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A grocery store in Kansas City has become the first outside of Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods to implement Amazon’s frictionless payment technologies.

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IHG Hotels & Resorts realized it would need to provide travelers with an elevated app experience. So, IHG tapped Accenture Song to work side-by-side with its in-house team of technology experts to envision and deliver a new app.

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MarineMax, Inc. has completed the acquisition of Boatzon, the first 100 percent online boat and marine digital retail platform, through its recently formed technology entity, New Wave Innovations. Just as technology has changed the car-buying experience, the integrated Boatzon platform is giving consumers the ease and convenience of browsing for financing, purchasing, and insuring a boat, entirely online.

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PepsiCo is one CPG company that is currently bridging that data gap. PepsiCo is an early partner of a new SaaS solution called Ansa, provided by Meta Platforms, Inc. and powered by IRI. The technology allows companies to access brand- and product-level sales results for shopper marketing campaigns. 

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Zaxby's is upgrading its POS system by deploying PAR's Brink POS cloud solution along with PAR's loyalty software, Punchh, to streamline and enhance the guest experience.

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Mattel brand American Girl has unveiled its 2023 Girl of the Year, Kavi Sharma, and as part of the launch has partnered with Obsess to create a free virtual museum experience.

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By 2023, all concessions at O'Hare Airport will offer a self-serve touchscreen, Ryniewski said. "The COVID situation really jumped it to the front of the line," he said. "We pivoted." The department released an RFP in the summer of 2020 for vending, automated stores, automated ordering and gate delivery. Concessions were expanded to include five categories: food and beverage, news and gifts, duty-free, advertising and specialty retail.

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Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. is continuing to utilize social media and virtual platforms in its marketing campaigns.

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A new grocery retailer in Oklahoma combines the dark store and drive-thru models. JackBe stores will operate exclusively as a location where customers come to pick up their groceries ordered via the retailer’s custom, proprietary mobile app.

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The last stop on the customer journey has new respect at IKEA stores and its website. Global Payments Manager at Ingka Group (IKEA Retail) Anna Pulante pointed to a number of initiatives underway at the world’s largest furniture retailer to use digital payments — specifically mobile — to breathe new life into its model.

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Rite Aid Corp. is launching a new financial service for customers at its stores. The drugstore retailer is enabling consumers with access to the Kubra EZ-Pay Retail Cash Payments Network through their biller to pay their bills in cash at over 2,000 of its brick-and-mortar locations.

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Currys plc, an electrical retailer in the U.K., is deploying the Emplifi Live Advisor to provide customers live customer care on demand. Customers can connect to product experts for post-purchase care as well as live demos and consultations via the unified customer experience platform, according to a press release.

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Chili's CEO bought grills that can cook a medium steak in under 3 minutes — and says they could shave more than $5 million in losses from unhappy customers.

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The venerable CPG recently teamed up with The Kroger Co.'s 84.51° customer analytics arm to capture and leverage data at scale. After using the 84.51° Collaborative Cloud, PepsiCo shared some of its learnings and supplied advice for CPGs across the spectrum.

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M&S and Zyler have partnered to deliver an in-store virtual try-on experience. The former brought the latter’s technology to its Oxford Circus and Harrogate branches, where it was trialled with clothing brand Jaeger .

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New England pizzeria brand launches new website and mobile app to ease guest convenience, chief experience officer notes.

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A huge driving force behind Stoller and Schechter’s business is their technology. One of the hallmarks of Square Pie Guys’ program is their employee training app. They worked with the management software company, Trainual, to streamline their app, which provides the staff across all three Square Pie Guys locations with the knowledge they need, right from their phone.

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Wayfair, Lowe’s and Charlotte Tilbury are all poised for groundbreaking technology achievements this year. As we begin 2023, it’s worth identifying a few retailers whose technology-related activities during 2022 suggest continuing innovation will occur in 2023. Following is a brief look at why the industry should keep a close eye on Wayfair, Lowe’s, and Charlotte Tilbury in the next 12 months.

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Walmart’s panel session on Jan. 4 that truly laid out a vision for the future of the grocery retail industry. Walmart presented a three-pronged, omni approach to how it views the path forward for food retail. The approach is called Customer Centricity and is focused on retail media, augmented reality and social commerce.

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Albertsons Companies Inc. is testing out a new way of measuring the results of digital ads placed on Pinterest via its retail media network.

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BurgerFi is testing in-car ordering thanks to a partnership with MAVI.io's OnMyWay Mobile Retail Network, which brings shopping options to the dashboard of customer vehicles.

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A greater Washington, D.C., regional grocery chain is preparing to launch a five-week virtual series of free online nutrition and healthy living classes. Called "Healthier Together," the series of online classes is aimed at supporting the wellness goals of the communities where it operates.

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The result of a partnership with metaverse studio Dubit, this lets players experiment with materials and patterns creating the next virtual garment and wardrobe for their avatar. "People who shop and wear H&M garments and accessories are increasingly spending time in virtual spaces and digital worlds. The H&M Loooptopia Experience on Roblox is now allowing us to explore new ways to engage with our current and new customers in the places they love to be, both online and offline," says Linda Li, Head of Customer Activation & Marketing, H&M Americas.

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Halfords, a UK-based provider of motoring and cycling services and products, has appointed Wunderman Thompson Commerce as its strategic commerce partner.

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One of the most important ways e.l.f. uses its data is to nurture relationships with existing customers. This is enabled through the creation of sophisticated customer lifecycle journeys — including onboarding, post-purchase, retention and replenishment — all powered by, and tracked, in the ActionIQ platform.

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Hunkemöller, one of the largest global omnichannel lingerie brands, recently selected Bamboo Rose Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Sourcing, and Purchase Order Management applications to connect and streamline design, development, sourcing, and supply chain processes as the brand pursues aggressive domestic and international growth plans.

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With so much change in the grocery industry over the past few years it is importantto take a moment to evaluate the year that was and prepare yourself for asuccessful future

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