Top Things You Missed IN Retail

J.Crew has announced the launch of an immersive virtual store powered by experiential e-commerce platform Obsess.

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Mercato, an e-commerce platform for independent grocers, is now enabling customers to pay for groceries using their SNAP benefits. The company, which has been testing the payment option through partnerships with stores in New York City and Pittsburgh, is currently rolling out the program nationwide.

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Parkopedia has partnered with Plugsurfing to integrate the latter’s solution, Drive API, into the former’s in-car Payment Platform.

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Salesfloor, a customer engagement platform that combines immersive virtual shopping, clienteling and conversational AI, has announced a partnership with Puma India.

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Parisian fashion house Balmain has implemented the Fluent Order Management solution across its online boutiques in Europe, the APAC region and both North and South America.

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Bubbakoo's Burritos is celebrating its 15th anniversary with an updated app and loyalty program via Thanx, which will feature three levels of loyalty membership.

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Donatos included the first public viewing of new technology being developed for the brand by Agápe Automation, which is located in the Edge Innovation Hub on the Donatos campus. These included the SM^RT Saucer, the SM^RT Ring, the SM^RT Pepp and the SM^RT Cutter.

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Dorothy Lane Market (DLM) is ramping up its technology stack with the addition of electronic shelf labels from SES-imagotag. Progressive Grocer visited DLM’s Washington Square location in Dayton to learn more about how the technology is helping to streamline operations and free up time for the independent retailer’s associates.

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The athletic-inspired apparel retailer utilizes cloud-based Radial Payment Solutions technology to manage online transactions and prevent e-commerce fraud.

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The Texas-based home storage and home goods retailer is extending and expanding a financial services agreement it first launched with Synchrony in October 2015. The multi-year agreement will include integration of a digital private-label credit card and mobile wallet into The Container Store's mobile app checkout capabilities.

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To figure out how best to market to consumers to increase upselling and cross selling, Bark turned to Simon Data, a software tool that allowed the retailer to run comparison tests and see how marketing campaigns perform.

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About Fresh has leveraged the Filtered Spend platform from global financial services technology provider FIS to expand the Fresh Connect food prescription program across a national network of more than 10,000 grocery retail locations, including Albertsons, Kroger and Walmart. Fresh Connect integrates seamlessly with health care IT infrastructure and workflow and streamlines program administration and measurement.

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Giant Eagle Inc. is the latest grocer to connect advertisers directly to its customers. The regional food, fuel and pharmacy retailer is rolling out Leap Media Group, an internally-developed retail media network that taps into the retailer’s myPerks loyalty platform, which includes more than four million households and over 14 million consumers.

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Rockler Woodworking will streamline its e-commerce infrastructure and overhaul its legacy ERP infrastructure and point-of-sale system. Partnering with Visionet, these upgrades will help to update their commerce operations and customer experience, ensuring a heightened shopping experience that enhances customer loyalty and satisfaction.

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Swiss Chalet tests takeout ordering kiosks and a Chalet Valet Prepaid Pickup Lane at select locations.

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Wayfair is testing a new method of tracking ad performance on Pinterest. The omnichannel home furnishings retailer is partnering with Pinterest and data management platform LiveRamp to participate in a pilot of “clean room” software that keeps data private and provides aggregated insight into ad performance.

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Adobe has announced the latest iteration of its partnership with Asprey to strengthen its digital storefront and luxury e-commerce offering.

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The Ahold Delhaize USA banner's checkouts are now outfitted with MessageWrap—printed conveyor belt covers to help increase awareness of the grocer's sustainability efforts.

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Highpointe Hotel Corp. has reaffirmed its commitment to Aptech through the recent adoption of its PVNG enterprise accounting software and NEW Execuvue Business Intelligence platform.

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Retail innovations including clothes with RFID tags, digital mannequins and seamless checkouts are removing the friction in the shopping experience — and exceeding Gen Z’s expectations. Brands including Uniqlo, Zara and H&M are introducing in-store retail solutions that use these new technologies to facilitate product discovery, customer try-on and a seamless checkout experience.

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Toast, the digital technology platform built for restaurants, announced an agreement with Marriott International Inc. to make its Toast for Hotel Restaurants technology available to food and beverage outlets within Marriott’s Select service hotels in the United States and Canada.

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Walmart Connect, the retailer’s U.S. advertising division, is beta testing new in-store advertising formats as consumers resume brick-and-mortar shopping “en masse,” according to details shared with Marketing Dive.

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The discount giant is rolling out the Walmart GenAI Playground, an early-stage internal generative AI tool where employees can explore and learn about the new technology. Generative AI, which is based on machine learning (ML), can create new content and ideas, including conversations, stories, images, videos and music.

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While AI platforms like ChatGPT, Siri and Alexa are among the most well-known, major Australian retailers like Woolworths and Bunnings are also using AI, in the form of software called Auror. Auror chief executive Phil Thomson says the software is used to catch shoplifters.

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The company is teaming with Aera Technology on automation efforts surrounding complex decision-making for the expanding Hill’s Pet Nutrition division. The technology, which marries data and advanced analytics to improve a businesses’ decision-making effectiveness, considers customer prioritization, safety stock, and forecasted demand to provide optimal product allocation.

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Decathlon decided to harness the power of technology-agnostic GS1 Standards and adopt Electronic Product Code (EPC®)-enabled Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to identify every product in its global lineup uniquely. This ambitious decision would prove to be a game-changer for the company.

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The e-tail giant is enabling eligible U.S. retailers that offer Amazon Pay to seamlessly add the Affirm Adaptive Checkout solution as a payment option at checkout. Amazon began partnering with Affirm to enable qualified customers on the Amazon website and mobile app to pay for their purchases over time in August 2021.

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Kicks, a Nordic beauty retailer, has partnered with Visual Art, a digital signage firm, to install more than 1,300 screens across 230 Kicks stores located in Sweden, Norway and Finland, according to a press release.

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Recently, card and gifting retailer Card Factory launched its new click-and-collect service, kicking off its “vital” omnichannel proposition.

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Kona Ice is deploying SOCi Inc.'s comarketing cloud to manage its extensive online local listings. The technology will ensure Kona Ice remains visible to customers across multiple platforms including Yelp, Google and Facebook.

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With products tagged with RFID, PacSun store employees can quickly count inventory several times a week, a large increase from a few times a year.

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Today, one of Berkshire Hathaway’s premier jewelry retail brands, Ben Bridge, is using a Netflix type subscription model to solve this paradox, and guarantee they have the optimum diamond inventory on their shelves, in each store, every day of the year.

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Grubhub is now brining off-premises dining options to customers staying at a major hotel chain. The on-demand delivery provider is collaborating with the Homewood Suites by Hilton extended-stay hotel brand to provide deliveries from third-party food service retailers via the Grubhub app at nearly 500 Homewood Suites locations across the country.

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Ikea is training up its call centre workers to become interior design advisers as the Swedish furniture giant looks to offer more home improvement services and hand run-of-the-mill customer queries to an artificial intelligence bot called Billie.

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The megaretailer’s new price labeling system has some consumers crying foul, but many more customers seem unfazed. Walmart has recently been making waves on social media over its incremental introduction of an in-store digital price tag system, replacing the traditional printed versions.

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A Chicago Walgreens now requires customers to order "non-essential" items from kiosks and pick them up at a counter, according to a WBBM Newsradio report.

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Automated parcel machine (APM) service provider, InPost, reports that, after a trial, its lockers will be rolled out at approximately 300 bp service stations across the UK.

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Earl Enterprises is expanding its use of Data Central, ParTech Inc.’s back-office solution. The company, which was already using Data Central at its TooJay’s restaurants for 14 years, decided to expand its use of Data Central across the enterprise, allowing its existing restaurants to seamlessly integrate with existing point-of-sale programs, accounting, payroll systems and more.

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Revolve Group Inc., a fashion retailer that operates the Revolve and FWRD merchandise brands that connect consumers, brands and influencers, is deploying Bolt's omnichannel checkout to power its first-ever FWRD pop-up shop.

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Apparel brand Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., better known as PacSun, was planning to launch ship-from-store in May 2020. Then COVID-19 hit the U.S. in March 2020 and the retailer knew it needed to accelerate its plan.

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Aldo Group has leveraged SAP as a key partner of its transformation journey, with Houle noting that its suite of enterprise solutions serves as a “backbone” for many key operational systems. Most importantly, they are supporting the business as it aims to evolve to a “more unified and data-driven approach to retail."

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Walmart has been laying off thousands of workers, closing stores, and jettisoning assets to cut costs and preserve profits. Like many retailers, the company faces an uncertain economy marked by inflation and wary consumers. But Walmart is still finding the time and resources to invest for the future. The company recently announced that it is creating an accelerator program for startups developing emerging technologies like the metaverse, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.

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In an industry saturated with AI-infused solutions, Salesforce emerged as a company staking its future on AI, while reiterating the significance of trust as a core value. The company acknowledged that trust in AI is where the utilization of this technology truly begins and should be the guiding principle in every implementation.

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This is part of a project to modernise its information system, with the aim of introducing OMS (order management system) functionalities, i.e. automated tracking and management of sales, orders, inventory and order fulfilment, all with a view to creating a truly omnichannel customer experience.

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Hooters of America is launching a new virtual food court with multi-concept ordering functionality. The virtual food hall is now live for customers in 196 markets nationwide.

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Unilever has developed a new cleaning product with the help of AI. Unilever and Arzeda have partnered to develop new stain-fighting enzymes for cleaning and laundry products that are designed to reduce the number of ingredients needed to strengthen cleaning performance by nearly 50%.

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Detroit-style pizza chain Jet's Pizza used an AI-powered chatbot to create a new pizza. For a limited time, the Ranch Veggie Pizza will be available to customers, according to a press release.

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