Technology start-ups pitch game-changing innovations at Retail Week Buzz

In its first Buzz event, Retail Week will be showcasing budding tech start-ups as they pitch their game-changing innovations to the wider retail community.

The Showcase Hub is a must-visit for the most innovative of retailers as the stage will come alive and attendees will have the opportunity to hear what the newest and brightest minds have been developing.

Take the opportunity to network, meet new contacts and exchange ideas. Across the two day event, Retail Week’s esteemed Advisory Board and editorial team will choose three of the most exciting start-ups to battle it out in a final round.

The audience will then pick the overall winner. For more about the selection of tech start-ups on display, see below.

Vibes – A mobile marketing leader

Vibes is a mobile marketing company that provides a variety of mobile marketing products and services, such as text message and mobile wallet marketing, push notifications, and mobile web experiences.

The company was founded in 1998 by Jack Philbin and Alex Campbell, and consists of more than 150 experts focused on unlocking new revenue potential for retailers and brands.

This is accomplished by combining best-in-class technology with top-notch mobile expertise. Rather than paper offers, coupons and plastic loyalty cards, mobile wallet content can be managed all in one place on their Catapult Wallet Manager module.

For more information: vibes.com

Aspectiva – Analysing consumer reviews

Founded in 2013 by Ezra Daya and Eyal Hurwitz, Aspectiva analyses and organises the overwhelming amount of consumer reviews online, and transforms them into actionable insights and recommendations.

This solution helps retailers boost sales and consumers to make choices as it personalises users’s search results by intent, rather than simple product specifications and descriptions.

It will reveal for example, storage cubes that act as perfect guinea pig homes.

The technology has been proven to increase product engagement and improve conversion rates as shoppers are clued into a product’s full range of capabilities.

For more information: aspectiva.com

Electio – Giving consumers delivery options

Electio was launched by delivery software pioneers MPD Group in September 2015, and is designed to meet the ever-increasing delivery expectations of the 21st century.

The technology gives simple rapid access to dozens of delivery services from the world’s leading carriers, helping retailers to oust their competition by giving consumers choices.

It also tackles the problems of basket abandonment and inefficient carrier allocation. New carrier services can be integrated into your checkout within weeks, and warehouse operations can manage carrier performance from one simple dashboard. 

For more information: electiodelivers.com

YOOBIC – Monitoring in-store operations

YOOBIC enables retailers to instantly monitor the deployment of their in-store operations, providing retailers with the opportunity to improve their execution and performance at the store level with instant time data and insights from the ground.

The technology was founded by Fabrice Haiat, Avi Haiat and Gilles Haiat in January 2014, aiming to help retailers identify anomalies and to take immediate corrective actions to improve shopper experience.

It is of particular importance when noted that 70 per cent of buying decisions are made in-store; in retail presentation is everything.

Yoobic takes care of the labour intensive work by ensuring data is easily available and actionable.

For more information: yoobic.com

Netwave – Engaging with your online customers

Four of the top 10 French ecommerce companies have chosen Netwave to engage with their online customers.

The platform acts like a virtual salesperson by using artificial intelligence based on the behavior of other customers to recommend products and services to shoppers and react to symptoms of basket abandonment.

This helps retailers to deal with the increasing pressure to control acquisition costs and increase revenues and visits to their site.

For more information: netwave.eu

HOLM – Matching clothes to customers

HOLM is first and foremost a styling business, matching clothes to customers by using garment styling and shopper body shape details to give them personalised recommendations.

Knowing what your customer wants before they do will give you the competitive edge in the retail war.

The technology was founded in October 2013 by Cristina Holm and Steve Johnson. The aim was to provide a platform that was both efficient and inexpensive, and which would significantly grow sales and profitability.

It has also proven to reduce online returns.

For more information: myHOLM.com

Big Data for Humans – Automating customer insight and marketing

This software platform empowers retail and travel companies to manage the value of their customers by automating the data science required to accurately understand them.

This allows retailers to directly measure the impact of their activities on customer groups, products and stores.

It is proven that one more order from their best customers would allow retailers to drive at least a 15 per cent boost to revenue; Big Data for Humans aims to move this metric in a cost efficient and simple way by allowing clients to rapidly launch disciplined and targeted customer-marketing programmes.

For more information: bigdataforhumans.com

Mention Me – Customer referral platform

Mention Me was founded in January 2013 by Tim Boughton and Andy Cockburn. The refer a friend platform aims to help businesses to get the referral channel to work for them, with the team working alongside you to determine how to unlock its potential for your business.

The integration is based on JavaScript tags and is therefore light, placing few demands on your technology team. The company back themselves to help your sales, and therefore charge on a cost per acquisition basis, rather than charging license fees. Rewarding those who recommend helps your customers to engage.

For more information: mention-me.com

Engage-Em – Bringing true loyalty back

New in 2016, Engage-Em allows retailers to focus on engagement with their customers, ensuring true loyalty is brought back.

According to the Pareto principle, roughly 80 per cent of sales come from the top 20 percent of customers. Financial incentives alone are not enough to continue to attract this top tier of shoppers.

Engage-Em therefore goes further, using curated look books to treat your customers like VIPs and a feature that allows shoppers to chat with their own personal shoppers.

For more information: engage-em.com

Mallzee – The multi-retailer shopping app

Mallzee is the UK’s top non-retailer shopping app, with over half a million users and over 150 top fashion brands on board.

The app allows customers to shop from over 150 top fashion brands quickly and easily in one place. As well as providing a one stop shop for customers, the app also provides retailers with real time insights from the millions of swipes generated each day to help them make better decisions with marketing, merchandising and buying.

Retailers using the app include Diesel, Adidas and Forever 21.

For more information: mallzee.com

Yocuda – Engaging with customers in real time

Yocuda gives retailers the power to identify and engage with 100 per cent of in-store customers in real time, by providing data capture in store and digital receipts for store and online transactions, and for loyalty and rewards programmes.

It is the first end-to-end data driven service of its kind and is geared to enable retailers to push sales and profit through improved customer insight, personalised marketing and tailored experiences.

Yocuda was launched in 2013 and processes over one million receipts every day, providing critical insight for modern multichannel retailing.

For more information: yocuda.com