The retail technology week in numbers
The past week at a glance…
£4.89 billion…Pureplay Asos has overtaken High Street giant Marks and Spencer’s market valuation.
62%...Whilst Black Friday is often seen as the start of the festive shopping season, the majority of Brits are in fact already up and running with their Christmas splurgefests. That’s according to research by Toluna and IMRG, involving 1,000 UK shoppers. 62% prefer to get going earlier than 24th November, when just 1% will kick into gear.
HK$22.4 billion…Alibaba is to splash out HK$22.4 billion ($2.88 billion) for a 36.16% stake in Sun Art Retail and provide technical guidance to the Chinese hypermarket operator as it digitises its operations.
£300…Brits are planning to spend, on average, £300 per person this Black Friday weekend, according to TSB research.
£7.42 billion…IMRG has announced its Black Friday 2017 forecast, covering the eight days from Monday, 20th to Monday, 27th November, when it expects sales and marketing activity to be at its highest pre-Christmas levels. It estimates that the total spend on UK online retail sites will reach £7.42 billion (15% up from £6.45 billion during the same period in 2016). £1.35 billion will be splashed out on Black Friday itself (9% up from £1.23 billion on Black Friday 2016).
54%...A new Visualsoft research study on 240 of the UK’s top e-retailers has shown that over half are risking huge revenue losses due to poor loading speeds on their websites. 54% of page speeds rated as ‘poor’, taking over nine seconds to load, and 32% only rated as fair (six to eight seconds).
£4.5 billion…A quarter of older people feel shut out of UK High Streets, according to research by charity, Anchor, which predicts up to £4.5 billion annual losses by 2030 as retailers fail to attract the grey pound.
12.6%...UK online retail sales were up +12.6% year-on-year in October, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. This was lower than both the average YoY growth rate of 14.3% for the last three months, and the five-year October average of 14%, something of a surprise given the High Street’s poor performance in October would typically have suggested a boost for e-commerce sales, indicating a pre-Black Friday lull.
25,000…Arcadia has selected the Infor CloudSuite Financials & Supply Management solution. As part of a programme to modernise its finance systems, the tech is anticipated to go live for 25,000 users in 2018.
30%...Sales of groceries through e-commerce platforms grew by 30% in the 12 months to March, according to a new report by Kantar Worldpanel.
27%...Only 27% of retailers in the UK and US say their IT infrastructure is fully able to support plans to improve the in-store customer experience, according to research by Zynstra.
£56.1 million…Quiz has reported a “very good” performance in the first half of the financial year with strong growth delivered across each of the brand’s distribution channels, most notably online and international. The fast fashion womenswear retailer, which made its stock market debut at the end of July with a £245 million valuation, achieved a 35.2% increase in group revenue to £56.1 million in the half year ending 30th September.
$2.7 trillion…The global grocery retail market will add $2.7 trillion in sales to 2022, with growth in the next five years dominated by Asia, according to IGD.
£100,000…Black Friday is turning into a nightmare for UK retailers, according to Andrew Jennings, whose CV includes stints at Harrods, House of Fraser and Saks Fifth Avenue. He commented: “Everyone needs to think very carefully about how they participate and whether they can come up with other ideas, such as a charity donation instead. For example, Fat Face are donating £100,000 in exchange for not participating in Black Friday. It’s already looking as if Black Friday has depressed sales in October and if we’re not careful we will find that all of November is being discounted.”
