Walmart

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.

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.

Walmart is equipping dozens of its stores with so-called local fulfilment centres (LFC). With semi-automation, the US retail giant aims to process customer orders faster and more efficiently. At different locations, Walmart is working with diverse technology providers, such as Alert Innovation, Dematic and Fabric.

Retailers prefer to use GK Software for new POS software installations globally. If restaurants, hotels and petrol stations are also taken into account, NCR is at the top of the list of new software installations globally. In the field of POS hardware, HP has worked its way to the top of worldwide installations, according to new study from RBR. The…

Walmart has terminated its contract with start-up Bossa Nova Robotics and will no longer use robots for stock-taking in its stores. German retail CIOs are also sceptical about robots on the sales floor.

In Portugal, Auchan has started a project with Trax using robots to report out-of-stocks, incorrect price labels or placement of items. Will the use of such robots, which is already widespread in the USA, also be successful across Europe?

Walmart reacts to the pressure from Amazon: Also in Canada, the world’s largest retailer starts a multi-billion investment, predominately into technology. Two new distribution centres will be automated: One by Witron and one by Vanderlande. In its stores, Walmart aims for innovative inventory management, additional product information and innovative checkout processes -- partly based on computer vision.

Traditional manned checkout lanes are gone at Walmart’s Supercenter in Fayetteville, Arkansas. But not the staff. Shoppers who prefer to get their shopping scanned and bagged, get the service. But at NCR’s self-checkout tills.