Amid the short-staffed retail industry’s growing discussion of what robots can lend, one company is evaluating what they could vend.

Robot company Tortoise today introduced Mobile Smart Stores, which are essentially what they sound like: vending-machine containers with tap-to-pay checkout carried by its bots.

• The company, founded in 2019, was previously focused on last-mile delivery, but is now pivoting to use its robots to sell products themselves.

The tech will debut with 18 retail partners, like Colorado grocer Choice Market and Los Angeles-based chocolatier Lady Chocolatt, all going live within the next quarter, Tortoise president and co-founder Dmitry Shevelenko told Retail Brew.

On the move

The vending machines address retailers’ “existential need for growth”—which has been difficult to fulfill lately due to labor shortages—by offering new sales channels, Shevelenko said.

The mobile stores aren’t selling staples like SunChips and Diet Coke, but rather retailers’ premium SKUs like a $35 pastry box, or even a $300 pair of headphones, Shevelenko said. And from any which place: parked in front of stores, down the block, or at the local park.

• Tortoise manages the machines through a “remote store clerk” that monitors any “unpredictable” behavior.
• There’s a Bluetooth locking mechanism, plus branded wrapping to display the products inside and customizable audio to guide shoppers through checkout.

Adding up: Tortoise started testing the tech at the end of last year (which only took one modification to its delivery setup—adding an NFC reader to enable contactless payment) after noticing consumers often assumed they could buy something from its robots fulfilling deliveries, Shevelenko said.

• The mobile stores garnered 25x a typical vending machine’s hourly earnings, per Tortoise, with Asian-American bakery Bake Sum generating $100/hour in sales by placing it outside the shop for three hours after closing and bringing it to local parks.

The company doesn’t charge for the software or hardware, but keeps 10% of gross sales, Shevelenko noted, so it can be beneficial particularly for small businesses.

“[Small merchants] need incremental sales,” he said. “This is a marketing engine; it attracts that foot traffic and monetizes it better for them. So we certainly see this as being something that enables local businesses to thrive and hire more employees.”—EC

Sometimes, the bricks don’t click. This week, Amazon said it would close 68 brick-and-mortar stores across the US and UK, including all of its 4-Star shops and Amazon Books locations.

John Mercer, head of global research at Coresight, thinks the move makes sense. In fact, he told Retail Brew he believes these concepts were on the back foot from the start. “Those categories are really categories that Amazon had led on when it was online-only,” he said. “Those categories are…[ones] with very high e-commerce penetration rates.”

Suzy Davidkhanian, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, too didn’t expect 4-Star to be very successful—given its random nature, she said—but was more surprised Amazon Books didn’t pan out.

• “They must have done their math and they’re like, ‘Okay, we tried it. We learned a ton. And now we’re gonna use that information to help with our next in-store concept,’” she told us.

But just because Amazon is closing these stores doesn’t mean they were a miss, noted Holden Bale, group VP and head of commerce at Huge. “It means they did not work as well as the other formats…Focusing on running so many different initiatives is eventually death by 1,000 cuts,” he said.

Looking ahead…No wonder that Amazon is instead focusing its IRL presence on grocery (like Amazon Fresh) and fashion (Amazon Style is on the way). “If they could claim grocery and even a couple more percent of apparel sales, it’s tens of billions of dollars,” Bale said.

• “I’m not surprised they’re doubling down on categories like grocery where there’s still so much happening physically in a store,” Davidkhanian added.—KM

Today’s top retail reads.

Prime suspect: Have we reached “peak subscription”? (The Atlantic)

Unscrambled: Explaining inflation, using eggs. (Vox)

All falls down: A reviewer eviscerates Kanye West’s $200 device, the Stem Player. “Both practically and conceptually, the Stem Player is like a parody of what’s hailed as smart in the visionary-disruptor circles that West admires—the musical version of the Juicero or Elon Musk’s subway for cars.” (Slate)

Essential info: There are too many recommendations out there on the internet, and too few that you can actually trust. That’s why we created Sidekick, our spunky newsletter sliding into your inbox with the internet’s best recs for career development and smarter living. Check it out.

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Three of the stories below are real...and one is, uh, not. Can you spot the fake?

1. Wingstop filed a trademark to enter the metaverse and sell virtual chicken wings.
2. Bev brand Rowdy Energy introduced an energy drink it says burns up to 135 calories per can.
3. TV personality Nick Lachey said that “no partnership I’ve ever done in my career feels more authentic” than his latest collab with Eggo Waffles.
4. Impossible Foods rolled out Wild Nuggies, a line of plant-based nuggets shaped, appropriately, like plants.

Keep reading for the answer.