Coronavirus outbreak: how the retail technology sector is reacting
Retail Technology Innovation Hub rounds up the key Covid-19 developments from last week.
John Lewis Partnership Chair Sharon White has set out her plans for the department store and Waitrose grocery business.
This includes the company, which has been shuttering stores in recent times, reaching profits of £200 million in the next two years and £400 million by 2025, and expansion of digital, virtual and delivery services.
New research from Brightpearl reveals UK online ventures’ top ten planned tech investments for 2021.
Buy now, pay later venture Openpay has announced that Managing Director, Andy Harding, will be joining retailTRUST as an ambassador.
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.
PayPal is taking on the likes of Klarna and Laybuy with the launch of Pay in 3, which allows UK shoppers to pay for purchases between £45 and £2,000 in three interest free instalments.
Retailers including Crew Clothing, French Connection, Robert Dyas and Ryman are integrating the solution, which will be available from late October.
One in five online merchants don’t think their e-commerce offering will cope with this year’s festive sales rush, rising to 22% for smaller retailers, according to research by Checkout.com.
FinTech venture GoodBox has partnered with Pret A Manger to enable The Pret Foundation donations via in-store contactless devices across Manchester and London.
A trial was launched two weeks ago, with the retailer reporting that it has increased total donations in participating stores by 122%.
Blockchain technology has the potential to boost the global economy by $1.7 trillion over the next decade, according to PwC.
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.
They increased by 6.1% in September on a like-for-like basis from September 2019, when they had decreased 1.3% from the preceding year.
Covid-19 has brought immediate and lasting change, causing retailers to re-think virtually every aspect of their business from hygiene through to the customer experience, the role of physical stores, as well as the integration of channels.
In this article, James Hay of Barrows London breaks down Covid’s impact on new store openings over three phases: the initial reaction, the adjustment period (which we believe we are in now) and the longer-term changes.
Apex Hotels has begun the roll-out of Infor technology across its ten UK property portfolio, including a 100% remote implementation at its flagship London site.
The platform, which comprises Infor’s Hospitality Management Solution and Sales & Catering, delivers a cloud-based architecture that replaces a legacy system.
The market for consumer subscriptions for physical goods will grow from an expected $64 billion in 2020 to more than $263 billion in 2025, according to Juniper Research.
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