The retail technology year in review: January 2020
RTIH takes a look at the retail technology space during January and rounds up the winners, losers and major developments.
Good month for…
Amazon sales soared during its fourth quarter, rising 21% from the previous year to $87 billion.
Swedish buy now, pay later firm Klarna officially launched down under. It also bagged a further $200 million investment from Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA).
Farfetch raised $250 million from Tencent and Dragoneer to grow its luxury fashion platform.
Barclays made an undisclosed investment in Flux, which provides digital receipts and rewards to customers’ banking apps.
Adyen announced a payments partnership with Subway, covering North America.
Asos’s promising start to its FY2019/20 proved the fast fashion venture’s willingness to invest in innovative tech and adapt to consumer demands, according to GlobalData.
Bossa Nova Robotics was on track to bring its shelf-scanning inventory robot to 1,000 Walmart stores in the US. Later in the year, however, Walmart cut ties with the startup.
Dunelm’s strong start to FY2019/20 continued into its second quarter, with the retailer remaining resilient in a challenging homewares market.
Aldi said demand for its champagne and prosecco range helped UK sales over the festive period rise to more than £1 billion for the first time.
French startup SimpliField closed a $11 million Series A funding round, led by Five Elms Capital.
The Petersfield Bookshop was inundated with customers after revealing on Twitter that it had not welcomed one paying customer on Tuesday, 14th.
Fantasy and science fiction author Neil Gaiman retweeted the post to his millions of followers and, hey presto, £1,000+ worth of orders came flooding in.
Coniq closed a £6.4 million funding round, led by Guinness Asset Management and Maven Capital Partners.
Soft Robotics closed a Series B funding round, raising $23 million co-led by Calibrate Ventures and Material Impact and including existing backers Honeywell, Hyperplane, Scale, Tekfen Ventures and Yamaha.
AppsFlyer announced a $210 million Series D round led by General Atlantic.
New Zealand automated checkout startup IMAGR raised $9.5 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Toshiba Tec Corporation.
E-commerce delivery startup Bond closed a $15 million funding round involving Lightspeed Venture Partners, MizMaa Ventures and TLV Partners.
Bad month for…
Aldi came under fire for paying an influencer to participate in a challenge in which she fed her family of four for a week on a £25 shop.
GAME became the first major UK retailer to announce store closures in 2020, following a brutal 2019 that saw downsizing from the likes of Debenhams, M&S and Topshop.
The Information Commissioner's Office hit Dixons Carphone with a £500,000 fine over a hacking that targeted millions of customer accounts.
2019 was the worst year on record for UK retailers and the first one to show an overall decline in sales, according to research by the BRC and KPMG. Total sales for 2019 decreased by 0.1%, compared with 1.2% growth in 2018.
US restaurant chain Landry disclosed a PoS malware attack that lasted for months.
Morrisons reported a 1.7% fall in like-for-like non-fuel sales for the Christmas and New Year holiday period.
Gross sales at John Lewis & Partners fell 2.3% to £1.13 billion year-on-year and declined 2% like-for-like in the seven weeks to 4th January. At Waitrose gross sales, excluding fuel, were down 1.3% to just over £1 billion – a result of shop closures – but up 0.4% like-for-like.
A Ted Baker blunder saw inventory on its balance sheet overstated by £58 million.
McDonald’s announced Just Eat as its second delivery partner in the UK and Ireland.
It was a blow for Uber Eats, which lost the exclusive rights to make around 15 million McDonald's deliveries each year in the UK.
Also during January…
Mike Coupe announced he was retiring as CEO of Sainsbury’s after six years at the helm.
A Walmart supercenter in Salem, New Hampshire became fully operational with the retailer’s Alphabet solution.
Developed exclusively for Walmart by startup Alert Innovation, the system operates inside a 20,000-square-foot warehouse style space, using autonomous carts to retrieve ambient, refrigerated and frozen items ordered for online grocery.
After it retrieves them, Alphabot delivers the products to a workstation, where a Walmart associate checks, bags and delivers the final order.
Health experts urged Ocado to rethink its intention to create a micro-fulfilment centre next to Yerbury Primary School in north London.
They said that this would expose the school's 400 children and staff to fumes from Ocado vans, cars, HGVs and three fuel pumps just metres from the playground.
Burger King started Bitcoin payments in the first of 40 stores in Venezuela.
Sainsbury’s reported that like-for-like sales in the 15 weeks before 4th January fell 0.7% year-on-year.
The retailer also said it would spend £1 billion to reduce its netcarbon emissions to zero over the next 20 years.
Amazon was circling the idea of physical stores in Germany, its second biggest market after the United States.
Cotton Traders partnered with Poq to launch its first mobile apps for customers.
A conglomerate fronted by Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, launched a grocery delivery service that aimed to compete with Amazon and Walmart in India.
Co-op announced that, over the next 12 months, its same-day delivery services would be available across almost 100 towns and cities, served by 650 stores.
AiFi provided the technology for the first ever autonomous gas station convenience store, situated in Silicon Valley. It also powered a retrofitted, larger convenience store on a residential street in Shanghai.
Asda launched its first sustainability store.
Asda’s concept technology store in Stevenage tested out the likes of 3D holograms and electronic shelf labels.
The grocery giant also launched a Click & Collect service allowing shoppers to pick up their online orders in under an hour.
Amazon emerged as the global front runner in the research and development space.
RIFT Research and Development looked at the total spend by companies on R&D as well as what percentage of revenue this accounted for. Amazon clocked in at £17.38 billion in a single year.
UK parcel delivery company DPD was set to take delivery of 300 new electric Nissan e-NV200 vans by May.
UPS made a minority investment in electric vehicles startup Arrival.
It also announced a commitment to purchase 10,000 EVs from the company, with priority access to buy additional ones. These will be deployed in Europe and North America.
UK-based cash technology solutions venture Glory Group was set to become a major investor in French company Acrelec after plunking down $223 million.
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