Page 35 - HW May 2021

global eyes
Retail robots –
ready for round two...
Bunnings looks to buy into growth category
Bunnings is set to buy Adelaide-based hard surface retailer Beaumont Tiles and its corporate and franchise stores, subject to regulatory approval.
The deal to buy the 60-year-old Adelaide-based operation includes
its 115 showrooms, around one third
of which are company-owned and managed, while the majority are locally owned by franchisees.
Bunnings Managing Director, Mike Schneider, says the acquisition “represents an opportunity to build
on the success of the Beaumont Tiles business and invest in its future growth.
“Beaumont Tiles services both
trade and consumer customers and has a specialised product and service capability that is not able to be offered through the Bunnings Warehouse format.”
Mike Schneider calls the market it’s looking to get into “a large, competitive category that has the opportunity for strong growth”, and Beaumont Tiles “a well-run business with a proud family history”.
If the acquisition goes through, Beaumont Tiles will continue to operate apart from Bunnings, as has been
the case with Bunnings’ purchase of Adelaide Tools which was signed off
by the ACCC in March 2020 after an exhaustive process.
Retiring Beaumont Tiles Executive Chairman, Bob Beaumont, says of the deal: “What made the decision easier, was knowing the brand and business
we worked so hard to build from scratch would be placed in the best possible position for ongoing success and growth and I’m really thrilled at the outcome for Beaumonts.
“Our family signed a contract to
sell the business to Bunnings, as they understand our brand and culture, and will look after our extended Beaumont family including our franchisees and our teams.”
It’s reported that current Chief Executive, Danny Casey, will continue to lead Beaumont Tiles and that its National Support Office will remain in Adelaide.
www.beaumont-tiles.com.au
IT MAY BE early days for retail robotics and, although some major retailers
have been reconsidering their stance on automated assistants, it is the way of the future, say the pundits.
Take a survey from RetailWire and AI company Brain Corp (www.braincorp. com), which says that US retail’s speed
of adoption of robotics has sped up, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting emphasis on distancing and hygiene, and that “widespread adoption” is now expected “in just a few years”
as retailers look to automate a variety of tasks, from floor cleaning to shelf scanning, both in-store and in DCs.
The report says that 64% of retailers surveyed (including 77% of large retailers) “believe it is important to have a clear, executable, and budgeted robotics automation strategy in place” this year.
Nearly half of the respondents said they would be running an in-store robotics project within the next 18 months and that these intended projects would encompass applications for scanning shelves for stockouts (59%), order picking (47%), moving goods from warehouse to shelf (35%), and pricing accuracy checks (35%).
Such is the interest in the potential of robotics that some major retailers have already been through the exploratory
phase and their first wave of applications and are now considering where to next.
Take Walmart, still the world’s biggest retailer, which has been widely reported as ending its Robot Towers program at 1,500 stores, having also now ended its testing of robots scanning shelves to track inventory levels.
Why is it reversing these initiatives? Turns out that customers were reluctant to venture in-store during the pandemic, which is where the substantial towers designed to enhance Walmart’s click & collect or more accurately BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup In-Store) program have been sited.
Instead, US punters have flocked to the more socially distanced curbside click
& collect option and contactless home delivery.
In terms of the robotic shelf checking program that had been running at 1,000 stores, it’s reported Walmart found that the robots did no better than humans at this task and that its customers were a little freaked out by the robots’ presence around the aisles.
Still, Walmart is said to be continuing its assessment of the benefits of in-store robots, albeit at a vastly reduced number of stores, confirming that it’s both early days yet for retail robotics and that interest remains high.
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MAY 2021 | NZHJ 33