The retail technology week in numbers

$2.2 billion…PayPal is moving forward with its biggest ever transaction, the acquisition of iZettle, the Swedish payments provider often referred to as the “Square of Europe”, for $2.2 billion in an all-cash deal. 

$122.7 billion…Walmart reports that online sales in the US rose 33% in the three months to the end of April. Total revenues climbed to $122.7 billion, exceeding Wall Street forecasts for $120.5 billion, and up from $117.5 billion a year earlier.

5%...Ocado has inked an exclusive deal with Kroger to use its Smart Platform technology for grocery deliveries. The US retailer will take a 5% stake in Ocado as part of the agreement.

8…Gareth Jones has left his role as CEO Online at Missguided, just eight months after joining the fashion venture.

125…Lord & Taylor is teaming up with Walmart to launch a flagship store on Walmart.com that will offer more than 125 brands, including Tommy Bahama, Vince Camuto, Miss Selfridge, La La Anthony, Lucky Brand, H Halston and Effy.

10%...Amazon and Whole Foods Market have stepped up the already brutal grocery price war.

The latter has debuted a loyalty initiative that offers Prime members an additional 10% off sale items, plus weekly discounts on select best-selling items. This is currently available across Florida and will expand to all 365 stores Stateside starting this summer. 

72% of retailers haven’t introduced any new payment technology to their websites over the last two years, according to Barclaycard research.

3…Greenwich Village, New York restaurant, Pokee, is now accepting three cryptocurrencies, Ethereum, OmiseGo and IOSToken, alongside cash, cheques and cards.

$150,000…Decentralised fresh food marketplace eHarvestHub has announced a ‘bounty’ campaign. Ahead of its pre-ICO later this month, it aims to attract a range of participants, from programmers to bloggers, to partake in the programme, with 1% of all tokens being issued in the sale and a value of up to $150,000 being allocated to those involved.

51% of Brits under 45 years old would be interested in banking products or services from Apple, Amazon or Google. That’s according to Equifax research involving 2,002 people.  

10,000…Sportswear retailer, ANTA, which has over 10,000 outlets across the People’s Republic of China, has deployed new EPoS software from Eurostop at its concept store in Shenyang.  

3…Earlier this year, Amazon launched the first Amazon Go cashierless convenience store in its hometown of Seattle. And it is now set to bring the concept to San Francisco and Chicago in the latter part of 2018. 

2,000…Many retailers’ delivery offers still fail to meet the demands of customers, according to a new report by Sorted based on research of 2,000 UK shoppers overlaid with a survey of 50 retail leaders.

£9.95…Asos has announced that its same day delivery option, Asos Instant, is now available in Birmingham. This follows on from launches in London, Leeds and Manchester over the past six months.

It is available on orders placed before 12pm, Monday – Friday and costs £9.95. Parcels are delivered by CitySprint’s On the dot service, between 6 - 10pm.

4…Walmart might take Flipkart public in as early as four years, it disclosed in a US SEC filing.

73 and 245…Sainsbury’s and Asda could be forced to sell at least 73 stores and shut as many as 245 across the UK if their mega-merger goes ahead, according to Maximise UK.  

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