Redefining how brands engage with Generation Z: 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 Dentsu, Differin, Dubit, bpost, Groupement Mousquetaires , Diebold Nixdorf, United Legwear & Apparel Co., TradeBeyond, Simbe, AO Arena, AiFi, Doji, and OnBuy.

EDEKA

German retailer EDEKA ZENTRALE Stiftung & Co. has chosen Catch to power its first AI enhanced retail media platform in Berlin.

In a LinkedIn post, Catch says that it "empowers retailers and advertisers with full control over in-store promotion and product suggestions, transforming the physical shopping space into a hub for personalised experiences and actionable insights."

It added: "AI takes your shopping list and transforms it into a smart assistant. You can discover products tailored to you at unbeatable prices, and seamlessly redeem savings as you shop. You also receive personalised recommendations made just for you."

Dentsu, Differin, and Dubit

Dubit is partnering with Galderma and dentsu on an initiative that is pitched as the first ever acne care brand on Roblox.

In a LinkedIn post, Andrew Douthwaite, Chief Commercial Officer at Dubit, said: "This is redefining how brands engage with Gen Z. By creating a space where self-care meets play, we’re helping Differin reach a highly engaged audience in a way that’s authentic, meaningful, and fun."

The Level Up Lobby is an interactive space featuring an acne care education mini-game packed with Differin’s acne fighting arsenal. Participants can engage in three mini-game experiences.

By participating in Differin’s Level Up Lobby Roblox experiences, players can receive daily power-ups throughout the campaign. On their fifth visit, they have a chance to receive exclusive UGC items for their forever wear collection.

Shoppers can upload a receipt from any product purchase from any retailer where Differin is sold to receive a power-up of their choice in participating Differin Level Up Lobby Roblox experiences.

The Differin Level Up Lobby will appear across five popular Roblox experiences with over four billion plays, including NewSmith, Teamwork Puzzles 2, Carry A Friend, Paradise RP and The Floor is Lava.

bpost

bpost, also known as the Belgian Post Group, is launching a pilot project that allows customers to send items without packaging or labels by dropping them off in a parcel locker. In an initial stage, this option will only be available through the My bpost app.

Starting this week, private customers and businesses sending items from the Antwerp region via bpost can opt for this method. The only condition is that the item is sent from and to a bpost parcel locker. The pilot project, which has been running since 6th January, involves more than 30 lockers in Antwerp and its surrounding areas. The aim is to expand this throughout Belgium in the course of 2025.

When a customer wants to send an item, they can create a digital shipping label with the recipient's address. Initially, this will only be available via the My bpost app, but later on it will also be accessible through the website.

A barcode is generated in this process. By scanning the barcode on their smartphone, customers can open the parcel locker and place the item (max. 48 x 32 x 20 cm) inside, without packaging or a paper label. The item will then be sent to the parcel locker closest to the recipient, or a locker of their choice. Once the parcel has arrived at its destination, the recipient will receive a notification through the My bpost app or by email and will be able to collect the parcel, again using their smartphone. They will be able to track its progress via Track & Trace.

Groupement Mousquetaires

Groupement Mousquetaires, a French retail group with brands like Intermarché, Netto and Bricomarché, plans to address fraud at its self-service checkouts with an AI powered solution from Diebold Nixdorf.

After piloting Vynamic Smart Vision I Shrink Reduction, designed to tackle the most common causes of loss in physical environments, Groupement Mousquetaires is preparing to implement the solution across the group’s store locations.

Maxime Canu, member of Inno Lab at Groupement Mousquetaires, says: “With this AI technology solution from our partner Diebold Nixdorf, we have designed an innovation that revolutionises self-service checkout management. It benefits everyone: customers, staff members and our retailers. The ability to reduce losses, make transactions more fluid and remove friction for consumers marks a real turning point for our sector.”

PittaRosso and Scarpe&Scarpe

Impact Analytics has partnered with Italian shoe retailers, PittaRosso and Scarpe&Scarpe, to implement generative AI solutions. The two brands operate approximately 300 retail locations under both nameplates along with two e-commerce sites.

Through the tie up, they will implement MondaySmart, a GenAI solution from Impact Analytics. This provides AI native business intelligence for retail executives.

“With a combined portfolio of nearly 300 stores, it is critical that we optimise our clusters to ensure that we meet our customers’ high expectations,” says Valentina Labate, Head of Merchandise Planning & Allocation at PittaRosso and Scarpe&Scarpe. “Partnering with Impact Analytics will help us harness the power of our data and their AI and GenAI to position us for future growth.”

Utilita Arena Sheffield

Boxbar Tech has announced a new self-service partnership with the Utilita Arena Sheffield, marking the beginning of a new chapter in the venue’s evolution under new operators, ASM Global.

With 18 serving taps in action, serving Madri lager and Aspall cider, it kicked off the tie up at the weekend with a Sheffield Steelers ice hockey game.

This is part of ASM Global’s wider plans to enhance and invest in the arena, starting with upgrades focussed on improving the concourse experience.

In a LinkedIn post, Boxbar Tech said: "We are proud to play a key role here. Whilst taking up minimal concourse space, Boxbar serves two pints in under 30 seconds, keeping queues to a minimum and making sure fans miss none of the important action on the ice."

"A big thank you to all the team at ASM Global - Europe for choosing Boxbar. We can’t wait to see the partnership grow over the year to come."

United Legwear & Apparel Co.

United Legwear & Apparel Co., a New York-based designer, global manufacturer, and distributor of legwear, apparel, and accessories, has partnered with TradeBeyond to enhance traceability across its global supplier network.

TradeBeyond’s AI powered traceability solutions will enable United Legwear to manage complex compliance requirements and ensure transparency from raw materials to finished products.

By providing real-time document verification and chain of custody tracking using AI capabilities, the platform simplifies compliance with the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) and other European and North American ESG laws. 

The adoption stemmed from a need for a fully integrated solution to support its sustainability goals and manage the mounting complexity of growing regulations. The platform automates the collection and verification of compliance documents, including orders, invoices, and shipment records, helping United Legwear eliminate risks while streamlining collaboration with its extensive network of suppliers across Asia and beyond. 

DoorDash and Ibotta

Ibotta, which lays claim to being the largest digital promotions network in North America, and rapid delivery giant DoorDash have announced a multi-year partnership to provide the latter's customers with access to the former's catalogue.

For CPG brands, this new partnership creates an opportunity to reach consumers across DoorDash’s footprint of over 115,000 non-restaurant stores on its Marketplace in North America.

“We are thrilled to enter into this partnership with DoorDash, expand the reach for our thousands of brand partners, and continue to advance our presence in the growing on-demand delivery space,” says Bryan Leach, Founder and CEO at Ibotta.

“DoorDash has long been an innovative leader in local commerce, and we are honored to be their provider of digital offers for grocery, beer, wine and spirits, and other general merchandise categories. This partnership is especially impactful as brands continue looking to the IPN to reach new audiences, expand their market share, and drive incremental units.”

Simbe

Simbe has announced what is pitched as the next step in its journey to power the single source of truth for store intelligence with the launch of Tally Spot.

It claims that this addition to its multimodal Store Intelligence platform, which is in beta in US stores, makes it the first and only retail technology company to combine computer vision, RFID, and now fixed sensors.

In a LinkedIn post, Brad Bogolea, Co-founder and CEO at Simbe, said: "Since launching the world’s first autonomous item scanning robot, Tally, we’ve continuously evolved to meet our retail partners’ needs. Tally Spot now complements Tally’s storewide coverage with higher frequency monitoring in select high turnover, high theft, and high value areas. It is in beta in stores nationwide."

He added: "This milestone underscores our retail partners’ drive for innovation and their trust in Simbe to design the capabilities for stores of 2035. Together, we’re improving shoppers’ and store teams’ experiences while helping retailers evolve their operating model in this modern age. To our incredible product, web, design, engineering, and commercial teams, thank you for your relentless focus and hard work in advancing our mission.

TalkShopLive

TalkShopLive has introduced TSL Shoppettes, a short-form shoppable video focused solution. This builds on its patented technology that offers retailers, brands, and creators the opportunity to host video shopping events across multiple destinations, including websites and social media feeds.

TSL Shoppettes enable users to schedule up to 90-second vertical videos featuring one to five products per reel.

These videos allow consumers to purchase products with a “SHOP” comment on Meta platforms, triggering direct links to buy via Instagram DMs or Facebook Messenger.

“Our mission at TalkShopLive has always been to redefine what’s possible in video commerce, and TSL Shoppettes represent a major leap forward,” says Bryan Moore, CEO and Co-Founder at TalkShopLive. 

“With shoppable distribution beyond our Meta capabilities launching shortly, we’re extending the impact of short-form video commerce. This evolution allows brands and creators to engage audiences across diverse digital landscapes while leveraging data driven insights to create content that converts sales.”

AO Arena

The AO Arena in Manchester has launched its first ever frictionless bar, powered by AiFi technology.

The venue, which opened in 1995 and is managed and operated by ASM Global, lays claim to: drastically reduced wait times; more time for customers to enjoy performances and less time queuing; a variety of food and drinks; completely self-service and contactless.

Doji

A new startup Doji is enabling online fashion fans to create their AI likeness, try on real products and shop their favourite looks.

In a LinkedIn post, CEO and Co-founder Dorian Dargan (formerly of Meta, Apple and YouNow), said: "Until now, it’s never been possible to try-on clothes when shopping online - making it hard to know what looks good on you. My co-founder Jim Winkens and I needed a creative tool to explore new looks and products - so we decided to build it for ourselves."

He added: "As fashion lovers with deep AI and consumer expertise, we’re uniquely equipped to build this. Jim is an ex-Google DeepMind researcher and AI engineer, and I designed frontier consumer products at Apple, Meta and YouNow. Doji feels like the perfect culmination of our interests and skills."

The venture is in private beta and accepting testers for its iOS app, with select spots available. You can join the waitlist here.

OnBuy

UK-based online marketplace OnBuy is now leveraging AI across product listings, risk, fraud, operations, service, catalogue, marketing and trading.

In a LinkedIn post, Cas Paton, Founder and CEO at OnBuy, said: "Until now, AI has been mostly behind the scenes. But that's about to change...We plan to continue this huge leap into 2025 with a huge focus on scale, efficiency and tools for our sellers."

"Reducing costs relative to scale, we plan to pass those savings into more growth, which means more sales for our sellers and happier customers. We are committed to overhauling our customer and seller experience, using AI to offer and enforce better delivery estimates, faster shipping options, better recommendations and a more inspirational shopping experience."

He concluded: "After achieving record level revenue in 2024, we plan to take OnBuy to new heights, leaping forward to deliver the best marketplace that we can be. It's a big year, and we can't wait to show you."