Carrefour is expanding its blockchain trial to include Filiere Qualite-branded Cauralina coer de boeuf tomatoes. According to the French retailer, the move is aimed at ensuring the transparency and traceability of its food supply chain. Carrefour has partnered with tomato supplier Les Paysans de Rougeline to support what it describes as “local, innovative and sustainable agriculture.” Blockchain technology allows the creation of a secure digital database, ensuring the integrity of information submitted or changed by users.[Image Credit: © Carrefour]

In India, the state of Kerala is planning to use a combination of blockchain technology and the Internet of Things to improve its food supply, including milk, vegetable, and fish. Being implemented through the state’s Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council, the program aims to use separate ID tags for each food shipment to keep track of food products across the supply chain. To ensure fast and reliable delivery and prevent food waste, each part of the supply chain will include radio frequency identification or RFID tags integrated with mobile apps. 

Results of a study in the UK revealed 85 percent of Amazon customers prefer the recommended Amazon product when voice shopping. Because customers view Amazon as a reliable source of product reviews and suggested products, consumers tend to accept recommended products as ideal for them. Already, marketers and brands are looking at the possibility of advertising on Amazon’s Alexa virtual-assistant platform although the online retailer has repeatedly denied it plans to allow advertising. Results of a test conducted by Bobsled Marketing on Alexa’s basis and logic order for recommending products showed products with the “Amazon’s Choice” badge are top priority. Products from the user’s order history and the first products in the search result for a search term come second and third.[Image Credit: © HeikoAL]

Multinational corporations, including Amazon and H&M, are reportedly urging the state of Maharashtra in India to relax its recently approved ban on single-use plastic. Coming after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign for an end to the use of single-use plastic in the country by 2022, the state’s move is expected to raise operating costs for companies. Retailers and beverage manufactures are among companies that use plastic packaging. Business groups, including the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, have called on the government to soften its anti-plastic policies.[Image Credit: © Hans Braxmeier]

Seeking to lure consumers away from its rival Walmart-Flipkart, online retailer Amazon plans to launch its 2018 Prime Day sales event in India in close partnership with its US headquarters. Also aimed at driving membership in the company’s Prime customer loyalty program, the sale will feature discounts expected to be bigger than before. Amazon India is also expected to introduce its virtual fitting-room technology Prime Wardrobe, which lets consumers try fashion products before buying them. [Image Credit: © Mediamodifier @ Pixabay.com]

Smartphones and their apps have grabbed shoppers’ attention from products on store shelves. To help regain the lost link with consumers, retailers are offering in-store experiences that completely combine with the sellers’ online operations and web stores. These enhanced retail spaces enable customers to create “virtual feeds and inspiration boards”, instead of merely encouraging them to follow their “conspicuous consumption” drive. [Image Credit: © rawpixel.com from Pexels.com]

Online retailer Amazon is reportedly wooing Brazil-based beauty and wellness brands Grupo Boticario and Natura Cosmeticos as part of its efforts to expand its online beauty business in the country. Brazil’s market for cosmetics, hair treatments, and other wellness products is worth about $30 billion as of 2018. Amazon has already been operating its online bookselling and video streaming business in the region. [Image Credit: © Simona Simonova from Pixabay.com]

Microsoft and its partner, AVA Retail, are developing a technology for grocery stores that will monitor the products that shoppers pick up, eliminating the need for checkout cashiers. Originally designed to gather data about in-store shoppers, the technology is being upgraded by the partners for physical stores. Amazon could sell to other retailers its cashier-less technology, Amazon Go, which lets shoppers swipe an app when they enter a store and keeps track of their purchases. However, retailers are likely to favor the technology from Microsoft, which they see less of a competitor than Amazon. [Image Credit: © Negative Space from Pexels.com]

Retailers and branded companies need to adopt Amazon’s strategies in order to compete in the online and physical-stores markets. In order to match Amazon Prime, branded companies need to create an “on-demand, always-on direct connection” with consumers using a “conversational interface.” This will enable offline retailers to come up with a “customer-focused, data-driven, real-time business.” Legacy retailers and brands should learn from Amazon’s use of machine learning and the online retailer’s focus on customer service. Also, Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa, is fast becoming a brand influencer, making the shopping experience easier and serving as another tool for data collection. [Image Credit: © Mediamodifier @ Pixabay.com]

Grocery retailers are partnering with technology companies to improve their online retail operations and capabilities. According to UBS analyst Daniel Ekstein, many traditional food retailers need tech help to manage in-store product replenishment, shopper subscription, artificial intelligence, and even digital assistants. Although retailers own data on shopping habits of customers, they cannot use it as well as big tech companies can to create personalized offers, for example. [Image Credit: © Mediamodifier @ Pixabay.com]

Offering convenience to consumers, online retailer Amazon has disrupted the retail industry, forcing legacy retailers to rethink their strategies. Leading physical-stores retailers had to launch their own online operations, shut down significant numbers of their locations, or totally close down their business. Wharton marketing professor and author of the book, “The Shopping Revolution,” Barbara Kahn said two basic principles can help retailers make sense of the changes caused by Amazon. First, the principle of customer value, which prompts customers to “buy something they value from someone they trust.” Second, the principle of differential advantage, which means “customers want to buy from retailers who do it better than anybody else.” [Image Credit: © MikesPhotos @ Pixabay.com]

International shopping-center operator Westfield introduced its Destination 2028 retail concept. According to the proposal, the company sees the future shopping mall as a “hyper-connected micro-city,” which is powered by artificial intelligence, and integrates health and wellness services and community involvement. Westfield said the concept was developed based on a growing consumer interest in health and wellness. [Image Credit: © tweetyspics from Pixabay.com]

Amazon.com Inc.’s June 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.5 billion has prompted rival food retailers to reorganize, reinvent, and recalibrate their business and sales strategies. Whole Foods has seen an increase in sales and delivery following its merger with the online retailer. This is prompting grocery chains to speed up investment plans for delivery and pickup services for their online retail operations. Also, dozens of supermarket companies have entered into agreements with online grocery-delivery service provider Instacart Inc. [Image Credit: © Marco Pomella @ Pixabay.com]

Walmart has acquired 77 percent of India’s online retailer Flipkart for $16 billion. According to the US retail giant, the deal great improves its ability to compete in the country’s online retail market, against its biggest rival Amazon in particular. Walmart International executive vice president, president, and CEO Judith McKenna said, her company is expected to benefit from Flipkart’s online platform or ecosystem. Mckenna said Walmart also plans to integrate lessons learned from Flipkart’s operations with the company’s international operations. [Image Credit: © Alexandra / Munchen from Pixabay.com]

Traditional retailers have varying degrees of readiness and capabilities to compete with online retail giant Amazon.com, according to a study by market research firm Edison Trends. According to the report, Macy’s posted the strongest growth in online business in 2018, expanding by 28 percent in monthly order volume since the start of the year. Meanwhile, Sears’s online order volume dropped 25 percent from January to May. [Image Credit: © Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.com]

Retail company Target said it is more than halfway through its planned launch of its same-day delivery service with Shipt, as well as the introduction of Drive Up, a curbside pickup service. Target said it plans to have majority of its stores offering the services before the holiday season. According to the company, the services will be launched first in Chicago, making the city the first in the US to have all of the retailer’s new delivery services. [Image Credit: © Alexandra / Munchen from Pixabay.com]

French supermarket chain Carrefour is aiming for own-brand packaging that is 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, and to stop using non-recyclable packaging for organic fruit and vegetables by the end of this year, as well as ending the sale of plastic straws. By 2022, it intends to use 50% recycled plastics in bottles for its juice, soda and water products. The announcement coincides with a European Commission announcement to ban single-use plastics like straws and drink stirrers in the European Union. Plans also cover plastic cutlery and cotton buds, and by 2025 EU states will be expected to collect 90% of single-use plastic beverage bottles.[Image Credit: © annca]

UK supermarket Iceland has installed a reverse vending machine in its Fulham store in London. The trial supports a government plan for return schemes to cut down on single-use plastics. The machine gives a 10 pence voucher, redeemable in-store, for each returned Iceland plastic bottle. The retailer has also pledged to eliminate plastic packaging from its own-label products. Earlier in May, the Co-op supermarket said it is going to trial a deposit scheme using machines at a number of music festivals over the summer.[Image Credit: © Iceland Foods Ltd]

U.S. supermarket chain Kroger is partnering with U.K. Internet supermarket Ocado to build around 20 automated warehouses or “sheds” to improve its home delivery service after Amazon's recent buyout of Whole Foods shook up the retail industry. Ocado’s robot tech to process and pack orders is expected to give Kroger an advantage over Amazon. The move is in response to Amazon’s expected transformation of existing Whole Foods stores into a grocery delivery network using gig workers. However, experts believe Amazon is still looking at other options since it still operates mostly human-staffed warehouses for its Fresh grocery delivery service.

Customer apathy has led Walmart to drop Its ‘Scan & Go’ smartphone app just as U.S. rivals Amazon and Kroger are expanding and rolling out their own versions of cashier-less checkouts. The move is indicative of its struggles to encourage its core clientele to shift to digital shopping. However, Walmart still offers online shopping and is extending a click and collect service to 2,000 stores, in which Walmart employees load the groceries in the shoppers’ cars. Walmart said it will use the ‘Scan & Go’ experience to enhance future services like ‘Check Out With Me’.

China has become the focus for companies looking to automate the physical shopping experience. Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com have all opened automated stores in the last few months, at the start of what they believe will be a large-scale rollout of personnel-free shops. The Chinese consumer's openness to high tech and willingness to try something new is expected to drive unprecedented growth of the retail industry in China as the country's 724 million mobile phone users increasingly accept mobile transactions. Improving internet connectivity and smartphone penetration are expected to boost sales even further, and retailers are also having to deal with labor pressures due to an aging population and the trend of millennials leaving retail to seek higher-paid work.

Retailers with an offline heritage are choosing to explore partnerships with the one retailer they fear, Amazon. Sears and Amazon have agreed that shoppers that buy tires on Amazon can be delivered to and fitted at Sears Auto Centers. Kohl’s is running a pilot in Chicago and Los Angeles to take Amazon returns and has made space to sell Amazon products. Other companies trying out deals with Amazon include Best Buy and Chicos. Although early signs are encouraging, previous tie-ups between Amazon and other retailers, including Toys R Us and Borders, proved unsuccessful. There are clear pros and cons: an alliance with the fast-growing internet retailer should help boost the retailers’ sales, for example, but some believe it might also make them even more vulnerable to Amazon.