The retail technology year in review: October
RTIH takes a look back at October and rounds up the winners and losers.
Winners
Tesco made an undisclosed investment in Trigo Vision’s frictionless shopping platform.
Nine in ten UK retailers are planning to invest in Click and Collect services over the next five years with the market set to be worth almost £10 billion by 2023, according to research from Barclaycard.
The new look Nectar app made it to number one on the App Store.
DXP startup Contentstack closed a $31.5 million Series A funding round led by Insight Partners with participation from existing backers Illuminate Ventures and GingerBread Capital.
Customer feedback platform Critizr closed a €15 million funding round.
Namogoo, an Israeli startup that has developed a solution for online enterprises to prevent customer journey hijacking, raised $40 million in Series C funding.
A wave of digitally-savvy, internationally-minded upstarts are powering growth in the retail sector, according to Loqate’s latest International Retail Index.
This benchmarks the 30 top performers by brand recognition, global presence, online capabilities, and volume of sales. Four of the top six are pureplays (Amazon, Asos, Boohoo.com and Zalando).
Selfridges has not just survived in the internet age, it is thriving, according to Manu Tyagi, Associate Partner for Retail and Consumer Goods at Infosys Consulting.
The retailer increased sales by 6% to £1.85 billion for the year to February 2019. But profits slipped to £170 million, from £175 million the previous year, as it increased investment. This included the flagship Oxford Street branch becoming the first department store in the world with a cinema from November.
Self-driving electric shipping vehicles startup Einride closed a $25 million Series A round.
HMV was on track to return to profit in 2019 and open new stores in 2020, having previously stared into the abyss.
Following the closure of the Oxford Street, London store, the HMV Vault, situated in a former Ikea warehouse beneath a car park in Birmingham City centre, was described as the group’s new flagship. At 25,000 square feet, it contains a large live music space as well as more than 100,000 vinyl albums and CDs.
Forbes Media presented the Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award to Alibaba Group founder and partner Jack Ma.
Lemon Way, a Paris-based payment processor for marketplaces, e-commerce sites and crowdfunding platforms, raised €25 million from Toscafund Asset Management.
German e-commerce venture commercetools announced a €130 million investment from Insight Partners to support its plans for growth in the USA, Asia-Pacific and Europe.
Israeli micro-fulfilment startup Fabric, formerly known as CommonSense Robotics, raised $110 million in a Series B funding round.
Apple Pay overtook Starbucks as the most popular mobile payment app in the US, according to eMarketer. The former was available in 70% of US retailers by the end of 2019.
Losers
PayPal pulled out of the Libra Association that is looking to launch Facebook's digital currency Libra. And so did Visa, eBay, Stripe and Mastercard.
Profits at Asos plunged, driven by significant tech investment and warehousing issues in Germany and the US.
Despite an increase in sales of 13%, the pureplay, which has issued two profit warnings in the past 12 months, made a pre-tax profit of £33.1 million in the year to 31st August, down by 68% from £102 million in 2017-2018.
Also in October…
Kroger stock was downgraded from a buy to a hold by analysts at equity research firm Jefferies.
It cited Kroger’s partnership with Ocado as a concern and a "misstep when compared to micro-fulfilment," according to a note emailed to investors. Jefferies believes that each Ocado shed could take about four years to turn a profit and return limited market share gains.
Target partnered with the parent company of the Toys R Us brand, TRU Kids, on the relaunch of ToysRUs.com.
The under pressure John Lewis Partnership announced it was integrating the teams behind its two brands, John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners, and narrowing its senior management team.
