Annette Böhm

In the converted ServiceStore DB of Swiss retailer Valora at Düsseldorf's central station, customers can now shop around the clock, seven days a week. During normal business hours, staff from the retail company are present during the day, while the store runs completely autonomously at night. During times without staff presence, shoppers gain access to the hybrid store via the…

In the Upper Franconian village of Pettstadt, Rewe Markt GmbH is piloting Josefs Nahkauf Box, a retail format with around 700 items for daily needs. On an area of 39 square metres, customers can independently scan goods at a self-checkout from 4POS and pay by debit or credit card seven days a week, around the clock.

In High Road of London’s borough of Greenwich, Aldi UK's just-walk-out pilot store has opened for the public this week. Previously, only staff have been able to test the discounter's high-tech store, as reported by Retail Optimiser. In this store, shoppers do not have to scan their purchases or go through a checkout.

Cosmetics specialist Cosnova Beauty optimises the provision of individual product content to retail groups with the Product Content eXchange platform SyncManager. Connecting cosnova’s active SAP and Stibo source systems to SyncManager.

Aldi Nord plans to open a cashierless store in the Netherlands in early 2022. With the Israeli specialist Trigo, the discounter wants to test under real conditions how the checkout process can be automated using artificial intelligence (AI), cameras and shelf sensors.

French retail group E.Leclerc won one of the Reta Awards 2021 for its project to digitally connect its suppliers with the Alkemics platform. The winners of the awards were announced this week. A nine-member independent jury, on behalf of the EHI Retail Institute, honored outstanding technology solutions in retail.

A nine-member independent jury has selected this year's winners of the Reta Awards on behalf of the EHI Retail Institute. Winners in five categories include retail companies such as E.Leclerc, Edeka, Fressnapf, Ikea, Rewe, Salling Group and Tegut.

In the first fully automated 24/7 store of Edeka Südwest at the railway station in Renningen, a robotics system from the Stuttgart start-up Smark picks the goods from the back area.

Consumers want more transparency. Product scanner apps for shoppers' smartphones are booming. However, the evaluation of a product can only be as good as the quality of the data set available in the app. It is worth taking a look at the cooperation between the French pioneers Alkemics and Yuka.

Nutri-Score based on the French model comes to Germany. The commitment of major German retailers to use the nutritional label on their private-label products increases the pressure on brand manufacturers. In France, retail primus E.Leclerc is a pioneer.