The retail technology week in numbers

25…Tesco is set to open a number of micro-fulfilment sites in the UK.

The first one will be operational in March 2020, in West Bromwich. Three more will follow by summer 2020, and plans are in place for 25 over the next three years.

50%…Buy now, pay later schemes are all the rage right now, with the likes of Klarna, Clearpay and Openpay landing high profile deals.

But there’s a downside. Many people are being lured into living beyond their means, according to a survey by Hastee, the workplace financial wellbeing tech provider formerly known as Hastee Pay.

Half of respondents said such options encourage them to spend money they don’t have and this rises to 59% for Millennials. 27% have experienced difficulties after using buy now, pay later schemes.

71%…Brits are keen to use biometric verification in a wide range of circumstances, including online shopping and banking, according to research from Equifax.

The company surveyed 2,000 people. 71% would be happy to completely replace traditional security methods to access their mobile phones in favour of fingerprint ID, facial recognition or eye retina patterns.

£1.3 billion…Premier League match-going fans will shell out £1.3 billion this season to follow their teams, as increases in the price of home tickets, TV subscriptions and merchandise hit home.

3…Philip Green’s embattled fashion group Arcadia has announced three new hires: Group Chief Digital Officer (a new role) Rafaele Petruzzo, Chief Information Officer Karl De Bruijn and Simon Pakenham-Walsh, Director of Digital and Retail Technology.

One in eight Brits now does an online grocery shop at least once a week with 61% doing at least some food shopping in this way, according to the Waitrose & Partners Food and Drink Report 2019-20.

100…Over 100 consumer brands and businesses, including Amazon, Facebook, Ocado and TfL, have come together in a bid to change online image search results for the word ‘engineer’.

$1 billion…Payments and fraud prevention solutions provider, Riskified, has closed a Series E funding round of $165 million, led by General Atlantic, at a valuation of more than $1 billion.

1 million…NatWest’s one million business banking customers can now make Apple Pay purchases in stores, in apps and on websites.

40%…The frequency of people buying items on Amazon six times or more per month has dropped to 40% this year from 80% in 2017, according to research by First Insight.

74% of UK shoppers would be happy to wait longer for goods if the delivery method was more sustainable, according to research by I-AM involving 2,000 people.

3…Bitcoin is the third most preferred online payment method in Italy, behind PayPal and the reloadable prepaid card service PostePay.

140,000…Online fashion venture Zalando has ordered KNAPP tech for its new 140,000 m² distribution centre near Rotterdam, which will serve customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain and the UK.

1…Starbucks has opened its first ever Pickup store in New York City’s Penn Plaza.