The retail technology week in numbers
Do you like numbers? Do you like retail technology? Then this is the article for you.
54% of Brits – rising to 59% of men – are interested in trying out new retail technology while on the high street. 50% of women are also keen to improve their shopping experience with the latest tech.
1…Amazon is bringing its first British checkout-free supermarket to Notting Hill, according to the Times.
1,000…In 2018, shipping giant DHL’s North American wing announced plans to invest $300 million in robotics and automation. And this week it has committed to deploying 1,000 Locus Robotics LocusBots across 12 sites.
1…Walmart Canada and PenguinPickUp have launched their first location in Montreal.
$14.1 million…Alma, a Klarna like payments startup, has announced a $14.1 million funding round.
100 million…Adult entertainment platform Pornhub has rolled out PumaPay recurring subscription crypto payments.
Pornhub VP Corey Price comments: “Our 100 million daily visitors want choice and security when it comes to payments. With an uptick in crypto adoption, adding PumaPay to the list of cryptocurrencies Pornhub accepts allows us to better cater to the millions of crypto holders around the world.”
3,800…Ikea has debuted a flagship store on Alibaba Group’s B2C online marketplace Tmall; the first time the retailer has sold its products on a third-party platform. Integrated with Ikea’s membership programme, this offers over 3,800 products and furnishing solutions.
$142 billion…Consumer retail spend over chatbots will hit $142 billion by 2024, up from $2.8 billion in 2019, thanks to advances in NLU (Natural Language Understanding) technologies, according to Juniper Research.
$5 million…Amazon is creating a $5 million Neighbourhood Small Business Relief Fund, providing cash grants to small businesses impacted by the coronavirus outbreak in its hometown of Seattle.
40 million…Ant Financial, part of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, will open its Alipay platform to 40 million service providers in China over the next three years and help them digitise their offerings.
0.1%…Storm Ciara, Dennis and Jorge took their toll on UK retail sales last month. According to research by the BRC and KPMG, on a total basis sales increased by 0.1% in February, against a rise of 3.2% in February 2019.
1 million…Sainsbury’s has opened a new store in Battersea Park Station, London, where Aerofoil Energy and Williams Advanced Engineering have fitted their one millionth Aerofoil in the UK.
0.5%…US off-price retailer Burlington Stores is to pull its e-commerce operations, which account for about 0.5% of total sales, and focus on growing its bricks and mortar business.
