Press Releases

  Senator Michaelia Cash recently said: “It is in our DNA as Liberal and Nationals to back small and family businesses.” Shadow Small Business Minister Chris Bowen claims to share the view that small business is a key election battleground as he spruiks Labor’s relevant policies. Now, as voters prepare to head to the polls, the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) has urged the Coalition and Labor to take heed of the vote influencing significance of giving small business a fairer go when it comes to competing with the major chains. “Small business is invariably trumpeted as the backbone of the economy every time an election comes round, as the major issues facing small business operators and their employees are predictably elevated in public conversation by politicians eager for votes,” says AACS CEO Jeff Rogut. “Now it’s time to walk the talk. This election promises to be close and…

Retailers are scrambling to reduce friction across customer access points, but specifically when it comes to the checkout process. Frictionless checkout aims to eliminate “friction” or pain points during the checkout process in a store by increasing speed and convenience and dismantling barriers that might make the process more complicated or time consuming. The term frictionless checkout popped into the mainstream vernacular and quickly reached ubiquity in 2016 when Amazon introduced its first Amazon Go location in San Francisco. It aims to open 3,000 such locations by 2021. Since then multiple retailers and technology companies are vying to define which method of frictionless checkout wins out in the future. Amazon Go has reversed the usual store experience. Instead of walking in, selecting items and then waiting in line to check out, now customers have more to do on the front end of their trip — such as download an app,…

AACS visited Luckin during our overseas study tour in 2018 – an amazing business.Known endearingly in China as the Little Blue Cup, Luckin Coffee is no small fry. The Beijing-based coffee upstart founded a year and a half ago has gone from operating nine stores at the end 2017 to 2,073 at the end of last year—a blistering rate of opening one store every four hours in 2018. Fueled by caffeine, that speed is about to get even faster. The company said in January that it plans to have 4,500 stores in China by the end of this year, which comes to a relentless rate of one store every three-and-a-half hours. That would put it neck-and-neck with Starbucks, which said in its latest earnings (April 25), that it has 3,789 stores in China, and plans to add 600 more by the end of September this year.It’s all part of Luckin’s…

‘All my mates ever got was a wooden cross’: Victoria Cross recipient’s heartfelt Anzac Day dawn service speech moves crowds to tears Corporal Mark Donaldson delivered a heartfelt and powerful Anzac Day speechQuoted words of Cyril Bassett, a New Zealand soldier awarded a Victorian CrossCorporal Donaldson reminded all of reality that comes with service and sacrifice Victoria Cross recipient Corporal Mark Donaldson has reminded Australians of the sobering reality that comes with service and sacrifice in a heartfelt Anzac Day speech. Speaking at the national dawn service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra on Thursday morning, he quoted the powerful words of Cyril Bassett, a New Zealand soldier awarded a Victorian Cross at Gallipoli during World War I. ‘I have a lot to be thankful for. I do not want to skite, in case my luck turns,’ Corporal Donaldson quoted.‘When I received my medal, I was disappointed to find…

Walgreens Tests Digital Cooler Doors With Cameras to Target You With AdsA startup called Cooler Screens puts a high-tech twist on in-store marketing Cooler Screens Chief Executive Arsen Avakian.PHOTO: COOLER SCREENS Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. is testing a technology that embeds cameras, sensors and digital screens in the cooler doors in its stores, a new network of “smart” displays that marketers can use to target ads for specific types of shoppers.The refrigerator and freezer doors act as a digital merchandising platform that depicts the food and drinks inside in their best light, but also as an in-store billboard that can serve ads to consumers who approach, based on variables such as the approximate age the technology believes they are, their gender and the weather.This new technology could provide brick-and-mortar stores with a marketplace similar to online advertising. Ice cream brands could duke it out to get the most prominent placement…

NACS writer Frank Beard shares three insights on the future of on-the-go, checkout-free retail. Checkout-free retail seems to be on everyone’s minds—and for good reason. Not only is it exciting (skip the checkout counter and just walk out), but this technology brings many benefits to consumers and retailers. I’ve written previously about Amazon Go, Zippin, and Standard Cognition, and I recently spoke to representatives of CloudMinds. As a provider of cloud-based artificial intelligence systems, CloudMinds has extensive experience in this space—including in the Chinese retail market, which Bloomberg recently described as “the world’s retail laboratory.” Here are three takeaways from our conversation: Retail Disruption and the Go-Box Founded in 2015 with headquarters in San Francisco and Beijing, CloudMinds develops cloud-based artificial intelligence solutions for many applications including retail. While it’s extraordinarily difficult to replicate human-like intelligence in a robot or small device, similar capacity can be developed and distributed through…