The five most important retail tech news stories of the week
It’s Friday, the week is nearly done, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail technology space. Here's your briefing on the most important and interesting stories from the past five days.
1. Ocado should buy AutoStore and banish its legal blues
Last week, we reported that Ocado was being sued by Norwegian robotics firm AutoStore.
The latter has filed lawsuits in the UK High Court and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, claiming Ocado’s grocery picking robots infringe on its automated designs.
So, what is the best option available to Ocado in this situation? Buy AutoStore and run it as a separate company, because an acquisition would eliminate the lawsuit, according to Brittain Ladd, a supply chain consultant and former Amazon exec.
2. Sainsbury's has Xmas in mind as it steps up SmartShop roll-out
Sainsbury’s is accelerating the roll-out of its SmartShop solution.
The technology will be deployed at all 770 of its convenience branches over the next three months, in time for Christmas. This is up from 250 Local branches currently, alongside all Sainsbury’s supermarkets.
3. Amazon Prime Day 2020 a record breaking event for third party sellers
Third party sellers, most of which were SMEs, surpassed $3.5 billion in sales on Amazon Prime Day 2020, a nearly 60% year-over-year increase.
The event took place on 13th and 14th October.
It was available for Prime members in the US, UK U.A.E, Spain, Singapore, Netherlands, Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Australia, and – participating for the first time this year – Turkey and Brazil.
4. AO announces first in-store experience at Tesco Middleton
Online electricals retailer AO is partnering with Tesco to launch its first ever physical retail experience.
It is working on five store-within-a-store concepts as part of a six-month pilot with the grocery giant. The first will open in Middleton on 22nd October.
5. UK retailers show remarkable resilience as consumer landscape changes entirely
September saw a big improvement in UK retail sales growth, although sales over the last six months are still down on the previous year, according to research by the BRC and KPMG.
