The retail tech space in November: good month/bad month

RTIH takes a look at the retail technology space during November and rounds up the winners and losers.

Good month for…

Against a back drop of Brexit uncertainty and a late general election, UK Black Friday footfall increased by 6% compared to the 2018 event, according to ShopperTrak.

PayTech venture Klarna secured over 60,000 new merchants globally during 2019, an increase of 140% compared to the full year of 2018.

Shares in Alibaba surged in its Hong Kong trading debut.

FactGem, Surfly, Pez.AI and Hexa have emerged as the winners of AO.com’s Innovation Lab pitch day competition.

VR and AR will add £62.5 billion to the UK economy, a 2.4% boost to GDP, by 2030, according to a report by PwC.

Alibaba's annual Singles’ Day notched up $38.4 billion in sales.

JD.com has laid claim to a record breaking Singles’ Day. Total transaction volume weighed in at RMB 204.4 billion for the 11-day sales event (held from 1st-11th November).

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.

SupplyKick, the US startup behind a marketing and inventory management solution for brands selling on Amazon, has announced a seven-figure investment from Decathlon Capital Partners.

Loop, a US startup that helps brands handle returns from online purchases, has closed a $10 million Series A funding round led by FirstMark Capital and also featuring Lerer Hippeau and Ridge Ventures.

Australian buy now, pay later venture Afterpay Touch has landed $200 million from Coatue Management.

Product visualisation software platform venture, Threekit, has closed a $20 million Series A round led by Shasta Ventures.

73% of online consumers in the UK and US still prefer to shop for clothes in-store, according to research by GlobalWebIndex involving over 300,000 interviews globally.

Bad month for…

UK high street retailers were hit hard in October, with the wet and wintery weather putting off many consumers from venturing out to the shops, according to research from the BRC and Springboard.

The drop in overall footfall of -3.2% was the worst result for October in seven years. High street footfall, meanwhile, saw a far steeper rate of decline than September, at 4.9%. This was steeper than the three-month average of 2.8%.

For just under 60 years Mothercare has graced the UK high street, yet despite this longevity and brand awareness, it will soon become another forgotten name – like Woolworths or Coast.

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.

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.

Only two in five British consumers are looking forward to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in online customer service, according to research from Acquia.

Macy’s confirmed that some customer data on its website may have been hacked during a weeklong window in October.

The jury’s out on…

Blockchain systems are great in theory but there’s no guarantee that they will deliver for the likes of Walmart. That’s the view of PwC Agribusiness Leader Craig Heraghty.

Apple has criticised German lawmakers after they passed new legislation that would force it to open up its mobile payment system to rival providers.