Annette Böhm

The Finiper retail group is rolling out more than 700 Datalogic Joya smart handheld scanners across five of its Iper La Grande i stores in northern Italy. With this move, the Italian retailer is scaling up a self-scanning solution that customers continue to use as a portable handheld device, but which, for the first time, can also monitor shopping trolleys…

The US retail company Albertsons has introduced an AI-based tool that helps its staff in distribution centres to assess the quality of fruit and vegetables more consistently when receiving goods.

Albert Heijn has taken a further step in the fight against food waste. This week, the Ahold Delhaize subsidiary began rolling out its in-house developed solution for dynamic price management in the bakery department and combining it with the in-house programmed application for demand planning in this product range.

Bauhaus has further expanded its e-commerce growth in the Nordics with a ship-from-store strategy, transforming its physical stores into omnichannel hubs. The DIY retailer, which has its roots in Germany and is headquartered in Switzerland, has rolled out nShift’s delivery management solution across its operations in Sweden, Finland and Estonia.

Douglas is continuing to drive forward the use of AI and plans to integrate a new chatbot into its digital offerings. In future, beauty specialist intends to use the AI chatbot to respond efficiently to customer service enquiries and provide personalised product recommendations with the help of GK Air.

Kaufland is rolling out self-checkouts from Itab throughout Germany. Outside of Germany, the retailer is also working with 4POS in addition to Itab as supplier of these devices. All German locations of Schwarz Group's full range discounter are to be equipped with self-service terminals by the beginning of 2029.

Lengermann & Trieschmann (L&T), a premium fashion and sports retailer in Germany, has brought smart hangtags and AI-based price optimisation into regular operation. Since September 2025, the Osnabrück-based company has been dynamically managing its sales prices with GK Air.

There was a jubilant atmosphere last night at Dr. Thompson's Seifenfabrik in Düsseldorf: top IT managers from leading retail companies such as Colruyt Group, Coop Sweden, Globus, Kaufland, Koçtaş, Lekkerland, Netto Marken-Discount, Rossmann, Sonae, and many more celebrated together with their technology partners.

Monolith Group's retail banner operation Mix Markt, which specialises in Eastern European products, has installed Mettler-Toledo's AI-supported FreshAI article recognition system. At a location in Karlsruhe, the vision recognition solution from the weighing technology specialist is helping staff at the attended checkouts to recognise fresh items without barcodes more quickly.

Kaufland’s International Auditing Department has developed an app with AI to make its freshness checks more efficient. The application helps the auditors of Schwarz Group’s subsidiary to check the internal processes of the stores in order to ensure customer satisfaction. The fact that specialist departments are developing solutions themselves using standard AI tools has the potential to shake up the…