Artificial Intelligence

Seattle – Amazon.com is reportedly using robots from Kiva Systems at three distribution centers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the robots bring merchandise from shelves to warehouse workers and can potentially reduce the cost of filling an order by 20% to 40%, for an annual savings of more than $900 million.

Amazon purchased Kiva for $775 million in March 2012 and according to a recent financial disclosure now has 1,400 Kiva robots in service helping fulfill orders. The retailer declined to comment on the project.

Target has unveiled a section of its website that features products that are trending on hot social media site Pinterest.

The Target Awesome Shop is a shoppable catalog that features a curated crop of products from several lines, including beauty, each of which is among those most pinned on Pinterest in the last few days, but only if they have at least a four-star guest review.

Bangalore, India – Infosys and Procter & Gamble (P&G) have co-developed TradeEdge, a new cloud-based, insights-driven sales platform, which provides visibility to global brands across the demand chain, from distributors to consumers. The new platform delivers insights that help brands accurately sense and fulfill consumer demand in emerging markets.

St. Petersburg, Russia – Russian grocery chain Land is piloting Synqera Loyalty Generators, compact printing devices with interactive touch-screens at the entrance of each of the chosen piloting store locations, as well as Simplate devices at checkout, providing targeted content relevant to new and returning customers.

Dallas – Fifteen Dallas-area retailers are pilot testing Cartwheel Register, a free mobile checkout app that provides an intuitive and secure store system while creating a next-generation shopping experience for customers. Retailers in the pilot include gift shops, cafes, clothing boutiques, bakeries, caterers, food trucks and salons throughout the city and surrounding areas. Each business will use Cartwheel Register to perform credit, debit, cash and Skip Wallet transactions.

By Connor Marsden, U.S. Lead, Microsoft Dynamics CRM

San Jose, Calif. -- Retail Next announced today the acquisition of Nearbuy Systems, a provider of location-based Wi-Fi Analytics solutions for retailers. Based in San Mateo, Calif., Nearbuy is the largest provider of in-store opt-in analytics, enabling retailers to enhance one-to-one engagement and personalization strategies.

Seattle – Amazon.com hopes to someday deliver packages to its customers using unmanned drone aircraft.

According to numerous media reports, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said during an interview on the TV news program 60 Minutes aired Dec.1 that the company is currently testing the use of drones to pick up customer orders in buckets from fulfillment centers to enable delivery within 30 minutes of a customer executing an online transaction.