NFTs, robots, and first mile automation: Last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Featuring Charlotte Tilbury, Obsess, Giant Tiger, Shopify, Sainsbury’s, adidas Originals, Fiserv Forum, and Amazon.
Charlotte Tilbury
Obsess has launched Branded Avatars, technology enabling brands to customise the look and feel and character style of shopper avatars to create branded metaverse experiences on their e-commerce sites.
This then lets shoppers personalise all aspects of their branded avatar, including skin tone, facial features, body shape, clothing and makeup.
Charlotte Tilbury is the first brand to partner with Obsess to offer the new functionality, introducing it as part of its Charlotte’s Beauty Realm holiday wonderland.
Giant Tiger
Canadian discount store chain, Giant Tiger, has launched a new website and an end to end tech stack replacement.
In a LinkedIn post, Simon Rodrigue, SVP & Chief Digital Officer at Giant Tiger, said: “Excited to be working with Shopify on the Shopify Plus platform building out an experience to help Canadians save with a smile.”
He added: “Thanks to all of the teams at Giant Tiger, our lead development partners at Diff and our technology partners at Algolia, Contentful, Segment, ShipHero, Akeneo, Sitation, 6 River Systems, Alumworks, Noibu, Yotpo, Klaviyo, Gorgias, Plobal Apps - it takes a powerful team, dedicated to a cause to make it happen.”
In a Twitter post, Aaron Rubin, Founder and CEO at ShipHero, described the project as “the biggest Shopify ecosystem news you haven’t heard”.
Fiserv Forum and Amazon
Fiserv Forum debuted Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology at a Bucks vs. Cavaliers game last week.
It’s the first time that the tech, along with the Amazon One palm recognition service, have been deployed in Wisconsin, USA.
Located outside of Section 119 on the main concourse of Fiserv Forum, a new store, The Market by Michelob ULTRA, enables fans to grab drinks and snacks without having to wait in line to checkout.
Tractor Supply Company
Tractor Supply Company, a rural lifestyle retailer in the United States, has announced a partnership with FinTech firm Klarna to offer customers its Pay in 4 offering.
Through this service, purchases can be split into four interest free payments, with the first one collected upon order confirmation.
Ottonomy and Posten Norge
Ottonomy has announced a collaboration with Posten Norge and Holo which will see trials involving first mile delivery automation.
Posten Norge will be leveraging Ottonomy’s Ottobots for first mile pick-ups, receiving and delivering goods for the digital marketplace AMOI from the Aker Brygge metropolitan area in Oslo.
adidas Originals
adidas Originals has unveiled a limited collection of blockchain-based virtual wearables, released as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) here.
Representing the brand’s first NFT collection of wearables, a new product category adidas calls “Virtual Gear”, the launch is part of a drive towards strengthening its “community-based, member first, open metaverse strategy”.
Revealed following a teaser campaign with the adidas Discord community, and available within the wallets of existing Phase 2 Capsule NFT holders, the 16 piece collection ties together past and future, virtual and physical, communities and creators, culture and identity.
Designed to be worn by virtual avatars, and accessible through a PFP dressing tool, every piece within the latest NFT offering is interoperable with other identity-based projects and worlds.
As part of the continued collaboration with the brand's earliest Web3 partners, the collection also includes three limited edition creator led wearables – each representing the creative flair of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Gmoney, and Punks Comics, respectively.
Co-op and Starship Technologies
Food delivery robots are taking to the streets of Cambridge as part of a new scheme by Cambridgeshire County Council, Starship Technologies, and Co-op.
Following a pilot in nearby Cambourne earlier this year, the decision was made by the Highways and Transport Committee to welcome the robots to Cambridge, with a grocery delivery service available to 12,200 residents within the Cherry Hinton and Queen Edith areas of Cambridge.
Orders are made through the Starship app, with groceries picked in local Co-op stores on Perne Road and Cherry Hinton Road.
Residents can order their delivery to arrive in under an hour and watch the robot travel in real-time via an interactive map. Once the robot arrives, residents receive an alert and can meet and unlock it through the app.
Clearpay
Buy now, pay later specialist Clearpay has announced online payment partnerships with BrandAlley, Boden and UCG.
Footasylum, meanwhile, is incorporating Clearpay’s omnichannel service to offer ‘pay in 4’ to customers both online and in-store.
Passenger
Adventure inspired clothing brand Passenger has partnered with Brightpearl.
Brightpearl’s scalable retail operating system – which includes a plug and play integration to every leading e-commerce provider, an Automation Engine feature and demand forecasting – was selected to help Passenger automate its time consuming manual workflows, end its use of stopgap spreadsheets and expand its B2B business.
Sainsbury’s
Checkout.com has been appointed by Sainsbury’s to simplify and modernise payment infrastructure across the grocery giant’s business.
New till-free technology is the first stage in a long-term partnership, aimed at creating more digital payment solutions for Sainsbury’s and improving its customer offering.
The new Checkout.com enabled SmartShop functionality, will allow customers to pay for their shopping via an app on their smartphones.
Underpinning the new functionality will be Checkout.com’s payments platform, enabling transactions through digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
This is live across Sainsbury’s SmartShop stores and will be rolled out to Argos and Habitat stores in the coming months.
SKKN By Kim
Yoti and THG Ingenuity
Digital identity company, Yoti, has announced a partnership with THG Ingenuity, THG’s proprietary technology platform which powers both its own brands – such as Myprotein and LOOKFANTASTIC – and third-party clients like Nestlé, Elemis and Homebase.
This will see Yoti provide age verification solutions on the platform.
Its offerings include facial age estimation technology, a digital identity app and ID document verification.
THG Ingenuity clients can choose which solution complements their business, and ensure they meet regulatory and local market requirements for selling age restricted goods and services.
Yoti’s solutions integrate into different touchpoints on a company’s e-commerce customer journey, for instance during the checkout process or during account creation.
Reza
Reza, a Parisian jewellery brand, has launched a website powered by Perfect Corp.’s AgileHand technology.
This offers an immersive AI and AR shopping journey, allowing consumers to experience Reza’s rings, earrings, and bracelets through interactive virtual try-on technology.
3D hand mapping technology uses physically based rendering to aid in precision 3D objects with true to life finishes, mimicking the light scattering effects of different materials to ensure Reza pieces are accurately recreated as digital renderings.
Klarna
Buy now pay later big hitter, Klarna, is launching a new tool that compares prices across thousands of retailers.
The FinTech quietly rolled out the service in the US a few weeks ago, and is now extending this into the UK, Sweden and Denmark.
Consumers can also filter their search by what’s important to them, including colour, size, features, customer ratings, store availability and shipping options.
Klarna says that the tool provides consumers with a credible alternative to Google or Amazon as a starting point for their online shopping journeys and unlocks a new revenue stream for the firm.
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