Technology news

Couche-Tard, which operates the Circle K brand globally, has launched a live retail lab store in Montreal featuring an autonomous shopping experience, in partnership with McGill University. Autonomous store experience The lab store has been launched to enable the testing of innovative and frictionless technologies in a live environment. Located on McGill University’s downtown campus in the ...

Walmart is partnering with HomeValet to pilot online grocery deliveries directly into smart boxes located outside customers’ homes. Temperature controlled, IoT enabled Starting this spring, customers in Bentonville, Arkansas, will be able to receive deliveries from their local Walmart directly into a temperature-controlled smart box. This features an IoT (Internet of Things) enabled platfor...

Walmart is partnering with Ribbit Capital to create a new fintech startup organisation with a focus on developing innovative and affordable financial solutions. Optimising Walmart’s scale This new partnership brings together Walmart’s retail knowledge and scale with Ribbit’s fintech expertise to deliver tech-driven financial experiences. The global investment firm is focused on investing in...

Mexican business FEMSA, which owns the OXXO convenience store chain, are trialling autonomous convenience stores in Mexico. The small-sized units are designed to serve customers in hospitals, apartment complexes and offices. FEMSA has launched two stores in the format, which it has named OXXO Smart. Source: FEMSA Key characteristics of OXXO Smart The stores are fully autonomous (r...

With the new wave of COVID-19 in Thailand, Central Food Retail is raising safety and hygiene standards by using UV-C disinfection robots in more stores. How does it work? The robots emit UV-C light to disinfect areas in 360 degrees to destroy more than 99.99% of all pathogens within seconds. In addition, the UV-C light is completely safe with no harmful side effects on the food products bei...

Having announced the partnership last March, Hospitality group, OTG, has opened its first CIBO Express Gourmet Market convenience stores featuring Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ technology. Two stores launched at Newark airport The CIBO Express stores at Newark Airport, New York, are the first two stores to be developed as part of the partnership between OTG and Amazon . Located at Terminal ...

Having risen to prominence at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2018, we look at Robomart’s latest beta test, as companies tap into the demand for contactless grocery ecommerce solutions.  Autonomous grocery store concept Robomart is an autonomous grocery store which consumers can summon to their home in less than ten minutes using a dedicated app. Described by the company as a ‘store-hail...

A year like no other Back in March, Ocado’s website was down, its app had been pulled, and commentators were hammering the business for its failure to respond to demand, and the inflexibility of its dark stores. But as we’ve seen many times before, Ocado has a habit of proving the doubters wrong. By the end of the year, Ocado Retail delivered a 35% year-on-year (YoY) increase in sal...

As Albert Heijn extends the reach of its online delivery solution in Belgium and that of its new AH Compact service in the Netherlands and launches new technology-led solutions in store, we round up news from the retailer. Albert Heijn pilots AR powered in-store assistant… In conjunction with the Antea Group Nederland, Albert Heijn is trialling an augmented reality, in-store assistant. The ...

COVID-19 has shifted shoppers to online, and many retailers have rapidly increased their online order capacities using in-store picking. Online profitability, or its unprofitability, is an uncomfortable topic and rarely discussed, but with online penetration at record levels, and most new online shoppers saying they will stay in the channel, I think we’ve got to understand the issue and change...