Coronavirus outbreak: how the retail technology sector is reacting
Retail Technology Innovation Hub rounds up the key Covid-19 developments from last week.
25% of shoppers have been let down by an online order during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to research by Brightpearl.
The company surveyed 2,000 people and also found that 34% say unreliable delivery has lessened their trust in e-commerce since the start of the outbreak. 38% state that online deliveries are taking longer to arrive since social distancing restrictions were introduced in March.
Barcelona-based startup, Glovo, has launched a new business unit, Q-Commerce, which will focus on delivering the likes of groceries, toys, books, flowers and beauty products within cities in 30 minutes or less.
Missguided has announced a partnership with InPost which will see 180 of the latter’s UK parcel lockers branded with the pureplay’s visuals in the run up to Christmas and beyond.
The aim is to raise awareness of this contact-free delivery and returns option.
Retailers are feeling cautiously optimistic about the festive shopping season, despite uncertainty around physical store openings and holiday sales patterns during the coronavirus outbreak.
That’s according to research from Capgemini, involving 851 retail managers across UK, US, Germany, France, Netherlands and Scandinavia, in companies with at least 250 employees.
Currys PC World is adding more colleagues to its online offering ShopLive and Order & Collect service to cope with demand in the lead up to Black Friday and Christmas.
Having launched with 20 staff members in June, ShopLIve now has 800 experts to help guide customers through their tech purchases during the coronavirus outbreak, with a view to ramping this up to 2,100 by Black Friday.
Brits are happy to wait 65 minutes in an online queue in order to save £200 this Black Friday, according to Uswitch research.
Ocucon has updated its occupancy management system, Occupi.
An add on allows retailers to display real-time store capacity data via websites and apps following England’s second coronavirus lockdown.
M&S has announced the roll-out of its checkout-free shopping technology Mobile Pay Go to all 573 of its UK stores.
Overall UK online retail sales growth in October came in at 35.7% YoY, compared to September’s 42%, according to IMRG and Capgemini research which tracks over 200 retailers.
Waitrose has launched a four day virtual food and drink festival.
Running from 12th-15th November, this replaces the retailer’s annual drinks festival, which can’t be held in person this year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Private hire taxi and courier company Addison Lee has launched a Click and Collect feature called AL REQUEST.
Providing London customers access to the likes of groceries and flowers, this will be available across Addison Lee’s app and web channels.
The e-commerce and digital payment industries in the Middle East & North Africa, Pakistan (MENAP) region are set for major growth in 2021, according to research by Checkout.com.
Aldi UK is rolling out Click and Collect to 200+ stores by Christmas.
Go Instore is launching a free service to advise UK retailers on how they can make up for their lack of physical footfall during the second coronavirus lockdown.
October saw another month of strong UK retail sales growth, with food, gifts and loungewear high on peoples’ shopping lists.
According to research by the BRC and KPMG, on a total basis, sales increased by 4.9% in October, against a decline of 0.3% in October 2019.
UK online retail sales are set for growth of 35-45% during the Black Friday peak, according to IMRG.
With the coronavirus outbreak causing non-essential physical stores to be closed for long stretches of 2020, growth for the year so far (January-October) is up 34.9%, whereas for 2019 as a whole it was 6.7%.
Dixons Carphone is getting into the music business, with the launch of tunes that help you sleep better.
The retailer teamed up with music producers, Obelisk, and a sleep expert, Hope Bastine, to create the Sound Asleep single.
Sign up for our free retail technology newsletter here.
Continue reading…