Retail Automation and Automated Retail
- Paying With a QR Code – BNPL or Buy Now Pay Later May 6, 2021How To Pay With A QR Code (and pay later) Nice writeup on PaymentDive on Paypal Dive Brief: PayPal, an online payment provider, expects the popularity of QR codes and buy now-pay later ...
- Mobile App For Ghost Kitchen Orders – iOS & Android – Retail Automation May 4, 2021Ghost Kitchen Mobile Ordering App – Virtual Restaurant Editors Note: first occurrence of a dedicated “purpose-built” mobile ordering app that we have seen which connects to a Ghost Kitchen. Now we ...
- Vending Checkout – AI-Powered Self-Checkout and Vending Charlotte Airport Kiosks – Grab and Go April 29, 2021Grab and Go Smart Vending Airports HMS Introduces Smart Vending press release — HMSHost Smart Vending for Touchless Food and Beverage Experience. Dynamic Vision Recognition Captures Purchased Snack Items While Automated ...
- Outdoor Locker Solutions by Quadient – Parcel Lockers Enhanced April 28, 2021Outdoor Locker Solution Featuring superior durability, improved weather and UV-resistance and integrated temperature controls, Parcel Pending’s outdoor lockers keep packages protected from extreme weather IRVINE, Calif., April 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Parcel ...
- Pickup Towers in Walmart Are Going Away April 22, 2021Walmart Pickup Towers From the NYPost Apr2021 — The retailer is removing 300 of these towers and “hibernating” another 1,300 because customers grew accustomed to curbside pick-up during the pandemic — ...
- Biometric Payment Palm — Amazon Palm Payment Whole Foods April 21, 2021Amazon Palm Payment Posted on GroceryDive Apr2021 — Dive Brief: Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is expanding Amazon One, which lets users pay with their palm prints, to Whole Foods Market stores. The payment technology ...
- QR Code Payments: How Do QR Codes Work? April 17, 2021From the Ingenico Blog and Written by Ian Benn | Apr 14, 2021 It’s strange how technology use changes over time. Take the QR code: It has been around for more than a ...
- Hospitality Update – Hotel Lobbies and Marriott Contactless Arrival Kiosks April 16, 2021Contactless Arrival Kiosks From Hospitality Upgrade — Marriott Delivers on Consumer Desire for Enhanced Contactless Technology Marriott International, Inc. announced the debut of a pilot program for contactless arrival kiosks at several ...
- Customers dedicated delivery zones on campus April 9, 2021Where we saw it… H-E-B is partnering with Texas A&M University to provide grocery delivery to people who live on its main and West campuses in College Station, Texas, according to an article posted ...
- McDonald’s Moving Out of Walmart (which is going Ghost) April 9, 2021Where we saw it… Walmart is losing hundreds of in-store McDonald’s locations that have seen diminished foot traffic during the pandemic, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. By this summer, around 150 McDonald’s will ...
- Smart Locker System — Smart Pickup Smart Curbside Pickup Solutions April 7, 2021Automated Smart Locker System by GRUBBRR and Frank Mayer and Associates, Inc. BOCA RATON, Fla., April 6, 2021 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — BOCA RATON, Fla., April 6, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — GRUBBRR, ...
- Digital Pickup Window Coming To Pizza Hut – Drive Thru Restaurants Snowballing — Three Lanes Now with Burger Lockers March 31, 2021From NRN March 2021 — Pizza Hut is launching a digital pickup window at 1,500 restaurants — The Hut Lane is a dedicated pickup lane that will allow customers to ...
- Touchless Drive-Thru by ICSC – WalkUp Pickup Lockers March 25, 2021Marketing note on ICSC March 2021 Great title. Summary: Says drive-thru but it is actually a walkup with pickup lockers Lockers are all accessible by phone though that comes with accessibility concerns The customer ...
- Amazon AI Delivery Truck Cameras Become Last Straw March 22, 2021From BusinessInsider March 2021 The Thomson Reuters Foundation published a report Friday about an Amazon driver in Denver for whom the company’s constant artificial-intelligence-driven surveillance proved to be too much. Vic, who asked the ...
- Retail Vending Robots – Selling Candy Bars But What Next? ChocoBot March 22, 2021Posted on sixteen-nine.net March 2021 Roaming Robots With Screens That Try To Sell More Candy Bars? March 22, 2021 by Dave Haynes Robotics can be absolutely amazing in terms of applications – just consider the ...
- The Changing of Travel and Hospitality Post-COVID March 18, 2021Blog post by Ingenico March 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic has changed travel and hospitality forever. 2020 saw many hotels and flights go empty for long periods. But with additional precautionary measures, ...
- Touchless Technology In the Bathroom March 1, 2021Last week we reviewed a new antibacterial treatment designed for sinks and ATMs. This week it is touchless toilets. Excerpt: shizuoka-based murakami corporation, an automobile parts manufacturer specializing in rear-view mirrors, has ...
- Restaurant Pandemic News – A Wrap – Nation’s Restaurant News February 2021 February 22, 2021We like our subscription to Nation’s Restaurant News and their magazine. We recommend it. In this month a couple of things: Data Snapshot is very nice. And the three words trending in food ...
- AI At Work – Domino’s Pizza Example – Nvidia Meets User Images, Delivery and Order Ready Prediction February 19, 2021Interesting article from the Nvidia blog on AI. We hear the acronym “AI” constantly but breaking it down in practical terms and how it affects the bottomline is what most ...
- Checkout Free Stores For Circle-K and Compass Group Stores Among Others – Camera in the Ceiling February 17, 2021Checkout Free Cashierless From Retail TouchPoints Feb 2021 — Excerpt: Standard Cognition has a raised $150 million in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from existing investors CRV, EQT ...
- Smarter Drive-Thru Embracing AI and Other Tech February 14, 2021From Restaurant Business Feb 2021 — Fast-food chains are embracing AI and other technologies to supercharge their premier channel.By Joe Guszkowski on Feb. 11, 2021 Excerpts: Dunkin’ is among the brands working to answer ...
- Carside Pickup – Chipotle Expands to 170. Panera Geofencing February 8, 2021Carside Pickup Restaurant From Nations Restaurant News Feb 2021 — The fast-casual Mexican grill also plans to open 200 stores in 2021, and 70% of those openings will have Chipotlanes The Newport ...
- QR Codes And Restaurant Customers Repeat Visits + Pandemic Energizes QR Codes February 7, 2021QR Code Repeat Visits + Pandemic Energizes QR Codes February 2021 article from Pymmnts.com — Excerpt: QR codes have become more commonplace than ever as the pandemic continues, with one study last year finding that ...
- Walmart Checkout Experience Seeks to Eliminate the Wait at Register February 7, 2021From Walmart June 2020 but being recirculated. June 30, 2020 By Matt Smith, Walmart Corporate Affairs Retail checkouts have been evolving for years. Inside its stores, Walmart has introduced convenient check out options, ...
- Walmart Automated Fulfillment – Teaming Up With Alphabot Team On Grocery Pickup February 7, 2021From Engadget Feb 2021 — With an automated drive-through option coming in the near future. Excerpt: Back in 2019, Walmart started piloting its first local fulfillment center in Salem, which uses robots ...
- Minimum Wage Fast Food Impact McDonalds February 7, 2021From Marketwatch an article referencing new study on Minimum Wage impacts — nice article from Marketwatch looking at the results from 2021 Princeton study on the effects of raising minimum wage. The ...
- Five Payment Trends in 2021 According to Appetize Technologies February 3, 2021Payment Trends and Insights Writeup by Appetize on the five payment trends to look for in 2021 There’s a silver lining to the unpredictability we experienced last year: 2020 accelerated the growth ...
- Walmart Making Incursion Into Finance January 26, 2021Walmart Fintech Incursion From the Financial Brand Jan 2021 — The deal with Ribbit may reflect Walmart’s desire to get further into the actual guts of financial services, rather than being ...
- UV Disinfection Robot in Workplace Piloted by Ahold Delhaize (Food Lion, Giant Food, Hannaford, Stop&Shop & Peapod) January 11, 2021Automated Retail UV Disinfection Robots Full article on ProgressiveGrocer Jan 2021 — Retail Business Services (RBS), the services company of grocery Ahold Delhaize USA, has launched a pilot of UV disinfection ...
- Drive Thru Automation – Fast Food, Walmart, Gas Stations, ATMs – the list goes on January 9, 2021Drive Thru Kiosks Outdoor & Outdoor Menuboard “Drive” Thru History Worthwhile to take a look at the many iterations of “Drive Thru” over the years. They range from the McDonalds to ...
- Automated Pickup Kiosks Albertsons BOPIS Variant January 7, 2021Automated Pickup Kiosks Albertsons From GroceryDive Jan2021 Dive Brief: Albertsons has installed an automated kiosk at a Jewel-Osco store in Chicago, the grocer announced Thursday, and plans to install another kiosk at ...
- Predictions Fast Casual QSR — Food, Beverage and Design by NRN January 7, 2021Nations Restaurant News is pretty good at this sort thing. 2021 Predictions Excerpt: New prototypes, the emergence of consumer-packaged goods, the new food hall and more trends Nation’s Restaurant News’ editors ...
- Self-driving Mail Delivery Robot on the Streets of Tokyo January 6, 2021News link Jan2021 Excerpt: The prototype can carry packages weighing up to 30 kilograms, and travel at a speed of 6 kilometers per hour, slightly faster than walking pace. Built-in cameras and ...
- Drive-Thru Comes To Applebee’s – Off-Premise Dining Continues to Increase January 5, 2021NRN Weighs in on Applebee’s Testing New Drive-Thru Capability for Restaurants Excerpt: A Texas franchisee is evaluating how the addition of a drive-thru pickup window could impact off-premise service for the casual-dining ...
- UV Robot with Disinfecting UV Light Announced by LG to be unveiled at Digital CES 2021 December 30, 2020Hospitality Tech Reports UV Light Robot by LG – Dec2020 Excerpt: To be officially unveiled at Digital CES® 2021, LG’s new robot is expected to enable a new standard of hygiene by helping ...
- Touch Screen Monitor – Going Touchless – Intel Whitepaper Review – C+ December 28, 2020Intel Touchless 2020 Whitepaper – Opinion We saw this new whitepaper by Intel on touch screen monitors and going touchless and hoped that it would be an instructive article. Unfortunately it ...
- PCI Compliance Self-Service Kiosks Announcements December 20, 2020PCI Compliance for self service kiosks announcement on PRNewswire KIosk Manufacturer Logo WESTMINSTER, Colo., Dec. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The Kiosk Manufacturer Association (KMA), the leading unattended self-service kiosk association established in 1995, today announced ...
- Sweetgreen Drive Thru Goes Solar and Multi-Channel, and then there are Ghost Kitchens… December 17, 2020Sweetgreen Drive Thru Goes Solar From NRN – The fast-casual salad’s first drive-thru in Highlands Ranch, Colo., will have a concierge for in-car ordering and a digital pickup lane. Joanna Fantozzi | Dec ...
- So what next for Doordash? Self-Delivery, Ghost Kitchens December 11, 2020Nice writeup this month on Nation’s Restaurant News on Doordash and what’s next. COO Christopher Payne talks commission caps, virtual brands and the potential expansion of its ghost kitchen experiment, DoorDash ...
- COVID Restaurants – Cheesecake Factory SEC COVID-disclosure charges December 4, 2020Agency says settlement is the first for public company in reporting pandemic impact Excerpt: The Cheesecake Factory Inc. has agreed to pay $125,000 in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange ...
- Robot Kitchen Adds In-House Delivery November 10, 2020With Off-Prem in Mind, Spyce Relaunches Concept Hospitality Tech — By Anna Wolfe, Senior Editor – Restaurants – 11/10/2020 Excerpt: Spyce, a robotic kitchen that came on the scene in 2018, is reopening today ...
- Mobile Kiosk – Coca-Cola buys coffee kiosk startup November 9, 2020From MobileMarketer Nov2020 — Brief: Coca-Cola’s Costa Coffee unit this year acquired Briggo, a startup that lets mobile users order coffee from automated kiosks, and is now rebranding it as Costa Coffee ...
- Pizza Automation Option – Basil Street Pizza October 27, 2020See website — An autonomous pizza baking machine that cooks a thin crust brick-oven style 10″ pizza in 3 minutes for around $10 reducing exposure and risk with touchless baking ...
- QSR with Self Service Kiosks, Pickup Cubbies in Toronto October 8, 2020From HospitalityTech Oct2020 — Naan & Kabob, a premium QSR and catering group in Toronto, launched a restaurant with kiosks and self-serve pickup cubbies. Here in the US there have been a few concepts ...
- 2020 QSR Drive-Thru study: Here’s how 10 major quick-service restaurant brands ranked October 7, 20202020 QSR Drive-Thru study Chick-fil-A is a drive-thru leader in many categories, while Wendy’s and Taco Bell have slipped in their performance since last year, according to the study Market research agency ...
- Walmart Blog — Walmart Store Design to Help Customers Better Navigate the Omni-Shopping Experience September 30, 2020From the Walmart Blog Sep2020 — Sept. 30, 2020 By Janey Whiteside, EVP and Chief Customer Officer, Walmart Walmart has been on a transformational journey for several years now, reimagining ways to create ...
- Marriott CEO on Hygiene Theater – Temperature Scanning Kiosks September 28, 2020Reference article on Skift Sep 2020 — Arne Sorenson the CEO of Marriott talks about building consumer confidence. Business Levels in U.S. and International Business is down in the U.S. close to ...
- Pandemic Effect on Minimum Wage and Tip Credit for Restaurants September 21, 2020Article from Nation’s Restaurant News Sep2020 – Despite fewer workers and less hours, labor costs are rising Overview “I do think wages will be going up whether it’s federally mandated or not. ...
- QSR Market Update Opinion – QSR & Fast Casual Restaurants – Is the Restaurant Business Getting Better? September 18, 2020Editor Note: We do interviews with magazines (recently for NRN) and in those we express what we call “ad hoc” opinions based on what we have seen and heard. For sure, ...
- Contactless Curbside Pickup Update El Pollo Loco – September 9, 2020Self-Order with Geo-Fencing From National Restaurant News Sep2020 — The brand’s revamped app includes a new best in class rewards system; later this month, one-touch curbside pickup rolls out a year ...
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