Joachim Pinhammer

Pepco has opened its first German store in Berlin. Customers can pay there at four Diebold Nixdorf self-checkouts. The textile and household goods discounter will open more locations in the east of the country this year.

A Eurospar supermarket in the Irish city of Dublin has become the first store in the world to use four-colour digital shelf labels from SES Imagotag. The eye-catching e-ink displays are designed to effectively draw attention to promotions and are part of a digital in-store communication concept.

Coles Liquor, the spirits division of Australia's Coles Group is automating supplychain planning and replenishment with the Relex Living Retail platform. The move follows introduction of the system for fresh food one year ago.

Spar International is planning a new loyalty system on the platform of technology provider Spaaza Technologies. It is aimed to help Spar's independent country organisations develop modern, personalised marketing channels.

Rewe Group’s Lithuanian subsidiary Iki has opened its first cashierless store in the city of Vilnius. The Iki Express convenience store uses technology from start-up Pixevia.

Bünting is upgrading its Nortmoor central distribution centre with warehouse automation technology from Dematic. A shuttle storage system and autonomous conveyor technology are to increase capacity and productivity of the operation.

German retailers see the greatest need for action in the use of mobile devices with checkout functions as well as self-checkouts and self-scanning systems. This is the result of EHI’s study POS Systems 2022. Overall, the number of cash registers used in retail is continuously decreasing. At the same time, systems are faced with growing tasks.

Russian grocery chain Vkusvill is testing unattended shopping at a convenience store in Moscow. Items are tracked using computer vision and AI from Moscow-based start-up Neurus.

7-Eleven is piloting virtual touch screens for self-checkouts at six locations in Tokyo. The first retail application of the novel technology from specialist Asukanet has been implemented by Toshiba Tec.

In its E-Center Gundelfingen, the Edeka regional co-operative Südwest is piloting intelligent shopping trolleys from Kaufungen-based start-up KBST. The retailer is currently testing customer acceptance with 20 of the systems called Smart Shopper.