It’s Taylor Swift’s world, we’re just living in it: RTIH pulls together this week's coolest retail technology plays
RTIH Editor, Scott Thompson, brings you his top ‘future of retail’ systems launches and deployments from the past week, including Jisp, Shopify, EE, Happy Returns, Shein, Forever 21, Wow Bao, Tesco, Eagle Eye, Rimi Baltic Group, S Group, and Starship Technologies.
Jisp
Jisp has announced the launch of a new in-app competition campaign that rewards loyal shoppers with up to £50 every week to boost their shopping budgets.
This introduces Jisp’s Scan & Win technology into its loyalty app, giving Scan & Save shoppers the chance to win from £1 up to £50 every week through a competition mechanic which runs every Friday.
Jisp works with its brand partners to secure discounts for its shoppers. Each competition runs alongside one of its brand partner’s promoted products and all shoppers need to do for the chance to win is to scan that promoted product in a Jisp retailer’s store.
The competition campaign doesn’t require a purchase. Only a scan of the promoted products barcode using the Scan & Win scanner is needed.
Wow Bao
Wow Bao has unveiled a new mobile app with a fresh interface and all-in-one navigation that allows guests to order delivery anywhere, anytime from its over 700 virtual kitchens.
Platforming with Lunchbox, an enterprise restaurant technology solution provider, users can now purchase Wow Bao from over 6,000 retailers across the US all from the palm of their hand, via a fully branded custom UI.
Wow Bao was one of the first in the industry to unveil a mobile ordering app in 2010. After several advances to its Hot Buns Club rewards programme, the brand required an app that consolidated ordering, earning, and tracking points and rewards.
The app also incorporates Wow Bao’s CPG vertical and through Smart Commerce, enables users to link to their local grocer to purchase the product from their personal device.
Additionally, users can enter Wow Bao’s exclusive Dim Sum Palace Roblox experience through the app. Once in the experience, they can uncover clues and claim a free box of Wow Bao and enter to win bao for a year.
Taylor Swift and Shopify
The Taylor Swift Effect isn’t just a pop culture headline, it’s also big business, and online retailers are well positioned to take advantage, says Shopify President Harley Finkelstein.
In a LinkedIn post, he flagged up the example of creator and entrepreneur Cassey Ho, founder of Blogilates.
With the release of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, she released a viral video in her For a Fortnight challenge. The video shows a three-second clip of her wearing a Blogilates skirt.
Since the feature, Blogilates instantly sold out of their Pirouette skirt in 13 colour ways and, for the first time ever, had to open pre-sales to meet the overwhelming demand for their product.
They saw a 600-700% increase in sales and had the second best day of all time, only beaten by their 2023 Black Friday sales.
EE
EE this week unveiled its first Experience store in the South West of England in Bristol’s Cabot Circus, with ex-England rugby player, pundit and presenter, Ugo Monye making an exclusive appearance.
The store is designed to introduce shoppers to the latest in connected technology, providing them with face-to-face advice and guidance on a range of different connectivity and technology solutions for their everyday life.
The aim is to help customers visualise their connected lives across four key areas – work, home, learn and game – through designated Experience Zones and a Tech Home area. The store design invites shoppers in Bristol to get hands-on with the latest connected technology in an engaging and immersive space.
Happy Returns, Shein, and Forever 21
UPS’ Happy Returns is powering Shein returns at Forever 21 stores in the US.
The company has introduced what is pitched as a first of its kind BORIS solution that enables enterprise retailers to accept box free, label free returns and exchanges across their full store network.
The system includes several software and reverse logistics components.
It can work with any returns portal, be it from Happy Returns or the retailer itself, to generate QR codes for shopper returns. Happy Returns also provides software that allows a store to receive and verify cross-brand returns.
Once a return is dropped off, Happy Returns can provide reverse logistics options to move inventory to its desired location.
EDEKA Jaeger
EDEKA Jaeger, part of the EDEKA Group, is now offering customers in the 24/7 store at Stuttgart Airport the opportunity to authorise the purchase of age restricted goods like alcoholic beverages at self-service checkouts using automatic age recognition.
The AI-based solution Vynamic Smart Vision I Age Verification from Diebold Nixdorf complements the previously required approval by store attendants.
This speeds up transactions at the self-service checkouts and gives employees more time for customer service and other responsibilities.
On average, age verification checks are needed in approximately 22% of all transactions in retail stores.
This has a significantly negative impact on throughput times and consumer flow in the self-service area, leading to longer waiting times. Vynamic Smart Vision | Age Verification enables customers to prove their age in less than ten seconds without any staff interventions.
S Group
Now the service is expanding, as S-market Karkkila, S-market Somero, S-market Tupuri and Sale Hermanni in the Salo region, and Sale Perttilä and S-market Tynninharju in Lohja get their own delivery robots from this week.
“We are delighted to be able to expand our range of robotic delivery services. After all, it’s an environmentally friendly and innovative new service. Many people already recognise robots from social media, for example, and they are quite sympathetic and fun to see on the streets,” says Heikki Vottonen, Division Director.
“It’s always exciting each time we launch service in a new town, introducing even more customers to our little robots and the convenience of on-demand autonomous delivery,” says Sandra Beaumont, Business Development Manager at Starship Technologies.
Tesco
Eagle Eye has secured a one-year contract, with the option to renew for a further year, with Tesco for its AI powered Personalised Challenges solution.
This is a digital platform which allows retailers to personalise promotions, providing customised challenges designed to reward incremental behaviour.
In-built AI and deep machine learning facilitate hyper personalisation through its analytics capability, providing consumers with promotions more suited to them.
Following a trial, Tesco will roll-out Personalised Challenges to more Clubcard members in the coming months, under the name Clubcard Challenges. The solution will power personalised and gamified offers and promotions to each individual Clubcard member.
AI technology will give each customer a personalised challenge, which when completed, rewards people with extra Clubcard points. Customers can complete up to ten challenges, with a total of £50 worth of Clubcard points up for grabs during a six-week campaign, starting on 20th May.
Walmart
Walmart is now able to sell physical goods directly to users inside Roblox.
From this week, Walmart Discovered users will be able to have real-life items shipped directly to their doorsteps.
They will be greeted with a new storefront showcasing virtual twins of select items sold at physical Walmart stores. The feature will be gated specifically to users aged 13 or older in the United States only.
“There is a traditional sort of checkout flow where you put your name, your address and your credit card information, and that’s all powered by a Walmart API that handles all of the information super securely - it’s very safe,” Walmart Director of Brand Experiences and Strategic Partnerships Justin Breton, told Digiday.
“And once you hit checkout, you’ll get your confirmation email from Walmart. All of that is handled by us on the back end, the user will then get their item in the mail, but the virtual twin is granted immediately back on Roblox.”
A pilot will run through the month of May, during which time Roblox will not receive a cut of item sales, with all revenues going directly to Walmart. The short-term aim here is to gauge users’ willingness to purchase physical goods on the platform.
“We are excited to start testing real-world commerce as a key step towards enabling it in the future for our community of creators and brands,” said Roblox VP of Economy Enrico D’Angelo.
“Shopping for virtual items is already an important element of how people engage and express themselves on Roblox daily, so our goal is to gather feedback, test the technology and learn what resonates with Gen Z customers the most when it comes to shopping for physical items.”
Rimi Baltic Group
Rimi has opened its first unmanned, self-service store in the Baltic.
This is situated in Tallinn (the capital of Estonia) in the Noblessner district located by the seaside.
The pilot project lays the foundation for a possible round the clock shopping experience. The Rimi Express store is a 32 square metre, environmentally friendly wooden building.
Kristel Mets, CMD at Rimi Estonia, calls it a “completely new approach in terms of both technical solutions and customer experience.”
She says: “We chose the Noblessner area, which, with its modern and innovative atmosphere, is the perfect place to test a new store. Here we get a good experience on how to offer a shopping opportunity to both locals and tourists and a large number of people simultaneously during major summer events.”
“We thank everyone who has contributed to implementing this pilot project, and we look forward to the customers' first impressions and feedback."
The Estée Lauder Companies and Microsoft
The Estée Lauder Companies and Microsoft Corp. have announced the creation of an AI Innovation Lab as an expansion of their global strategic relationship.
Leveraging generative AI capabilities in Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, the companies will work together to develop solutions for ELC’s more than 20 prestige beauty brands with the aim of creating closer consumer connections and increasing speed to market with local relevancy.
The pair have created an internal facing generative AI chatbot to enhance marketing effectiveness globally.
The tool utilises advanced conversational AI technology to navigate and further leverage ELC’s proprietary and database of product and claim data, allowing brands to launch locally relevant campaigns more rapidly.
ELC and Microsoft are applying generative AI tools in research and development for quicker product development, allowing scientists and product development specialists to respond to emerging product and ingredient trends more rapidly.
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