The retail technology week in numbers
£790.4 million…Asos reports that total retail sales rose 30% to £790.4 million in the four months to 31st December.
€5 billion…Carrefour has announced details of a five-year transformation initiative, dubbed Carrefour 2022, which will see it rationalise its HQ, increase its food e-commerce turnover to €5 billion and develop new partnerships in Europe and Asia.
13.9%...Click & Collect sales are set to account for 13.9% of total UK online spend in 2022, 1.9 percentage points higher than in 2017, according to GlobalData.
82…Some of the UK’s top e-tailers are losing millions of pounds due to online check errors, according to Stripe research. The online payment processor analysed 100 e-commerce sites and found that 82 had three or more errors in the checkout flow, with the average being 4.3.
8 million…Tesco says that hundreds of thousands of customers used its Tesco Pay+ mobile payments app throughout the Christmas period. In total over eight million transactions have thus far been processed across the grocery giant’s estate.
12.1%...UK online retail sales were up 12.1% on average YoY in 2017, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.
£223.3 million…Pets at Home has boosted revenue in its fiscal third quarter by 9.6% to £223.3 million, with merchandise revenue up 9% to £193.4 million, including omnichannel revenue 77% to £13 million. Services revenue, meanwhile, increased by 13.6% to £29.9 million.
62%...of UK consumers are unwilling to make expensive purchases online, according to research by PushON.
1,500…After bagging a deal with France’s Groupe Casino late last year, Ocado has announced another international partnership, linking up with Sobeys. The second largest food retailer in Canada, operating more than 1,500 stores across the country, it will team with Ocado Solutions to develop an online grocery business.
140%...ANZ data shows a significant rise in the volume of Australian mobile wallet transactions in December 2017, up 140% on the previous corresponding period.
255 million…Alibaba is on the hunt for two Chinese senior citizens to become Senior Experience Officers. The number of Chinese people over 60 years old is expected to exceed 255 million by 2020, up from 230 million in 2016, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Over 30 million Taobao users are 50-plus, with more than 75% falling in the 50-59 range, and nearly 20% aged 60-69.
14…Amazon Go, the e-commerce giant’s Seattle-based cashierless convenience store, has opened its doors to the public, following a nearly 14-month trial involving employees at its HQ.
30%...Starbucks is testing out a cash free store at a location in downtown Seattle. A spokeswoman told The Seattle Times that the store is the only one to go cashless. She did not add how long the experiment will last or whether it will be expanded to other locations. “The test will help us understand how cashless forms of payment may impact our customer experience,” she commented.
The retailer's Mobile Order and Pay service, which lets customers order with their smartphone via Starbucks’ app and avoid queues, has been a big success, even causing congestion at some Stateside locations. Last year, the company reported that payments made via mobile increased to 30% of transactions in US stores. Mobile Order and Pay accounted for 9% of transactions.
$12.99…Amazon is jacking up the price of monthly Prime memberships in the US by $2 to $12.99.
