Joachim Pinhammer

After last Friday's cyber-attack, Coop Sweden had to close almost all its stores. With the help of its Scan&Pay app and by updating POS systems, outlets can reopen step by step.

The grocery retail industry sees an massive increase in number of companies offering self-scanning with mobile devices. According to a study by Retail Banking Research (RBR), retailers already offer their customers in 32,000 sales outlets worldwide to scan items as they shop. In 80 percent of those stores, shoppers can scan with their own smartphones.

Since January 2020, retailers and restaurants in Germany have been legally obliged to issue receipts, a major annoyance for the industry. Digital receipts are a way to avoid the additional burden on the environment.

Edeka Nordbayern offers its members a customised self-checkout solution. The compact systems come from Pyramid and work with software from GK.

Walmart is equipping 740,000 store employees with Samsung smartphones. With the in-house-developed Me@Walmart app, these are designed to help employees perform their daily tasks more efficiently and serve customers better.

WMF personalised its customer approach in newsletters and online shop with AI solutions from Prudsys. This boosted the click-through rate and significantly increased sales from recommendations.

Swedish chain of unattended C-stores Lifvs has started to deploy Pricer electronic shelf labels (ESLs) for price communication. Using cloud-based control system Pricer Plaza, the retailer can dynamically adjust prices centrally.

Dutch supermarket chain DekaMarkt has implemented solutions from Centric to handle online orders. With growing demand, the retailer was looking for ways to reduce costs and optimise delivery processes.

Rewe is the first German full-range food retailer to test shopping without payment at the checkout. The technology, called Pick&Go, has been tested with employees in a Cologne supermarket since the beginning of May and is expected to become available to all shoppers in late summer. Rewe Digital developed the solution with the computer vision specialist Trigo Vision from Israel.

Australian supermarket chain Woolworth is planning its first online fulfilment centre in Auburn, in Western Sydney. The new logistics site will deploy automation technology from Austrian supplier Knapp and is scheduled to begin operations in 2024.