Joachim Pinhammer

US grocer Kroger is expanding its home delivery test operation with self-driving vehicles in Houston, Texas. For this, it will use the latest generation of electric, driverless vehicles from specialist Nuro.

JD.com has opened its first physical retail outlets in Europe. At initially two automated pick-up stations in the Netherlands, members of the retailer’s new warehouse club, dubbed Ochama, can pick up their online purchases on the same day.

Netto Marken-Discount pilots its new Pick&Go concept with Trigo technology in Munich. This makes the Edeka subsidiary the first German discounter to test autonomous shopping in live operation.

Coop Danmark is integrating shelf planning and automated replenishment with the `Living Retail Platform' of Finnish supplier Relex. In the medium term, the company intends to plan assortments and product placements individually at store level, Lebensmittel Zeitung reports.

Penny is gradually rolling out Scan & Go with the technology from Shopreme to all its 2,150 discount stores in Germany. Customers can already conveniently use self-scanning and payment via smartphone at 160 locations.

Sainsbury's has become the first European retailer to rely on Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology. The British supermarket operator opened a cashierless convenience store in London using the competitor's solution.

In a store in Bremen, Back-Factory is piloting self-service terminals from manufacturer Pan Oston that can register goods using image recognition and AI instead of barcode scanning. Camera systems and software were developed by sister companies Smoothr and Walkout Technologies.

Belgian Colruyt Group has opened its first unattended convenience store. The Okay Compact store in the city centre of Ghent is testing technology from in-house development team Smart Technics.

Plus Severijn in Heeten, the Netherlands, integrates attended and self-service checkout options in a compact checkout zone with modular systems from shopfitting specialist Pan Oston.

Luxury goods group LVMH’s perfumery operator Sephora is implementing AI-based supply chain management solutions from Relex to improve the availability and turnaround speed of its merchandise.