News Briefs

Wholesale food retailer US Foods Chef’store is investing in supply chain efficiency, tapping into artificial intelligence and machine learning tech to bolster efforts and improve the customer experience. 

The company is partnering with RELEX Solutions to strengthen its forecasting, replenishment, space planning, promotion planning, and optimization efforts, which will impact the more than 85 Chef’stores locations across the U.S. 

[More Foods-Based Value Chain Investments: Sainsbury's, SpartanNash, and Casey’s Bolster Business Growth Efforts]

By tapping into this technology, the company can better forecast demand, optimize replenishment, automatically generate planograms to improve store layouts, and better plan out promotions to elevate the consumer experience. 

US Foods Chef’store said the investment will help drive additional operational efficiencies across merchandising planning as it focuses on “providing restauranters, smaller foodservice operators, and price-conscious community members the products they need, when they need it.”

Midwest grocer Hy-Vee is leveling up its micro fulfillment capabilities by powering its network of fulfillment centers with technology that is increasing productivity. 

The company has partnered with Takeoff Technologies in order to boost speed, accuracy, and reliability, allowing the retailer to fulfill an average of 25 items within five minutes of labor. Additionally, the tech company is reporting increased productivity of online fulfillment by up to 10 times. 

The technology is working alongside Hy-Vee’s aisles online grocery ordering system, increasing efficiency across ordering and fulfillment processes. Consumers should be able to access increased time slots and availability for order pickup as a result. 

Earlier this year, the company partnered with Uber to further support its fulfillment growth goals, introducing Uber delivery to over 260 Hy-Vee grocery and liquor stores. 

"Uber Eats has been growing in popularity among many of our customers, making this partnership a win-win for both parties," said Aaron Wiese, president, Hy-Vee, in an earlier statement. "As we expand our offerings, we want to be where our customers are comfortable placing an online order. This launch allows us another avenue to offer our products and best serve the needs of our shoppers."

The company is also on a pathway for digitizing efforts across the enterprise, recently even introducing its own omnichannel retail media network, RedMedia.

Lakeshore Learning, a retailer of educational materials for teachers and children, announced a new 1.22-million-square-foot distribution facility in Garland, UT.

This new facility will mark Lakeshore Learning's third distribution center in the United States and will feature state of the art automation and robotics. 

Lakeshore Learning officially broke ground on October 4 alongside company leadership, community partners, and local civic leaders including Linda Bourne (mayor of Garland), Stan Summers (Commissioner, Box Elder County), and Lyle Holmgren (mayor of Tremonton). The facility is expected to bring approximately 550 new jobs to the community.

"We are excited to announce the construction of Lakeshore Learning's latest distribution center in Garland, Utah," said Artin Ghazarian, chief supply chain officer at Lakeshore Learning. "This is a huge step forward for us and a testament to our commitment to scalability and growth both for our distribution center population as well as our customers."

The facility is expected to be fully operational in January 2025.

 

Ralph Lauren Corporation is expanding in Canada with the launch of dedicated digital commerce and the first Ralph Lauren store in the country.

The store, which recently opened in Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre, is the first in a planned expansion in Canada, building on the retailer’s existing wholesale and outlet presence in the region. Toronto represents one of the company’s top 30 cities targeted for a comprehensive omni-channel ecosystem expansion globally.

Currently, Ralph Lauren has 12 outlet stores in Canada as well as a wholesale presence at key retailers, including Hudson’s Bay, Sporting Life and Harry Rosen. The Company plans to open a number of Ralph Lauren stores across the country in the coming years.

“Ralph Lauren’s ethos of timelessness and authenticity has inspired and connected with our Canadian consumers for decades, and we’re excited to bring a more holistic expression of our brand to Canada,” said Bob Ranftl, regional CEO for North America at Ralph Lauren Corporation. “We look forward to serving our consumers throughout Canada with enhanced and elevated experiences that reflect our luxury lifestyle point of view.”

The new RalphLauren.ca site will house Ralph Lauren’s full portfolio of brands, including Purple Label, Ralph Lauren Collection, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL and Lauren, across its breadth of Men’s, Women’s and Childrenswear assortments in apparel, accessories and footwear, in addition to select Home items. The company is planning to launch the English version of its Canadian digital commerce site on October 11. It will explore a future launch in Quebec with a French-language version.

The Ralph Lauren store, on the ground floor of Yorkdale Shopping Centre, offers an array of dedicated client services, including private styling appointments, alterations & repairs and Made-to-Measure tailoring. The store’s design includes a double-height façade, comprising of cherry wood louvers and aged-bronze metal, which gives way to a contemporary interior with bright, white walls and a limestone floor.

Walmart-owned Sam's Club has launched the Media and Sales Performance Dashboard, an integrated dashboard that serves as a central source of truth for campaign performance for Sam's Club Member Access Platform (MAP). 

For the first time, the Media and Sales Performance Dashboard combines Sam's Club MAP campaign metrics with Sam’s Club sales performance in one place, so advertisers can track media impact on business outcomes. This new offering is a consolidated, self-service innovation for both Sponsored Product Ads and Display campaigns, together with sales performance, in a single interface.

The dashboard seamlessly integrates with the point-of-sale platform (also known as MADRID) that Sam’s Club advertisers and merchants already use to track sales — which is also the same platform used internally by Sam's Club MAP.  

“We understand the power that analytics can have on advertiser campaigns which is why we are delivering this new integrated dashboard,” said Lex Josephs, vice president and general manager of Sam's Club MAP. “It is the latest in an ongoing stream of continuous innovations we’re providing to deliver faster, more actionable insights. It gives advertisers access to performance metrics, enabling them to optimize campaigns while they are still in flight, driving stronger business outcomes.”

The dashboard provides advertisers with visibility into item sales, new buyers, in-club attribution from search, total ad attributed sales and more. Display and Sponsored Product Ads performance are now available in one place, providing new transparency into Display and allowing advertisers and MAP to make optimizations in-flight. This visibility enables continuous iteration and improvement on active campaigns to drive business outcomes.

According to the retailer, Sam's Club's membership model is what makes the industry-leading measurement offered by Sam’s Club MAP possible. Advertisers now have more immediate access to member insights, including household reach, purchase channel, and for the first time, new buyer metrics for Sponsored Product Ads. This launch also ensures that members see more relevant ads/messaging.

“Sam’s Club MAP – fueled by the Media and Sales Performance Dashboard data – allows us to build and track plans like never before,” said Lindsay Letterle, director of sales for The Clorox Company. “The deep member insights paired with media and business impact enable us to optimize our campaigns to ensure we’re reaching the right member with the right message at the right time to drive business results.”

Sam’s Club MAP has partnered with Circana again to bring the Media and Sales Performance Dashboard to advertisers. Sam's Club MAP differentiates itself by offering incrementality measurement such as iROAS and sales lift based on Circana’s methodology in post campaign reporting.  

For more information about Sam’s Club MAP’s new integrated dashboard, contact Sam’s Club MAP here.  

Fashion company boohoo is elevating its e-commerce and ads platform by implementing machine learning- and artificial intelligence-powered capabilities. The investment will allow the company to utilize first-party data to create personalized experiences for consumers via ad placements. 

The company expanded its partnership with Rokt in order to power its browser and app transactions for its several brands, including Nasty Gal, boohooMAN, and PrettyLittleThing. The new tools will focus specifically on boohoo’s confirmation page. Additionally, the company is looking to bolster its loyalty efforts through repeat purchases and app downloads. 

"Our partnership with Rokt helps us achieve many of our customer experience and revenue growth goals. Our teams across tech, UX, marketing, e-commerce and finance have been working as a unified team, helping the partnership progress seamlessly," said Edith Batchelor, senior digital marketing manager at boohoo. "The partnership has helped us with experimentations that have proved to improve our customer experience across all our platforms. We are looking forward to exploring new placements, such as the payments page, with Rokt in the future."