The retail technology week in numbers

Do you like numbers? Do you like retail technology? Then this is the article for you.

€1 million…Amazon is temporarily halting its operations in France after a court ruled the US e-commerce giant had failed to adequately protect warehouse workers during the coronavirus outbreak.

The civil court outside Paris said that it must restrict deliveries to only food, hygiene and medical products until it addressed the issue. The company was given a deadline of Wednesday evening to carry out the order or face a fine of one million euros per day. Amazon said it would appeal.

£23 million…London-based retail data company Edited has raised just over £23 million in a funding round headed up by Beringea and Wavecrest Growth Partners. Hermes GPE also took part.

4.3%…Measures to fight the spread of coronavirus led to the worst decline in UK retail sales on record last month. Research by the BRC and KPMG shows that on a total basis, sales decreased by 4.3% in March, against a decrease of 1.8% in March 2019.

10…Pret a Manger is looking to support healthcare workers by reopening 10 stores situated near London hospitals.

2…Amazon has fired two employees who blasted the company over its warehouse conditions during the coronavirus outbreak.

23.1%…UK online clothing sales were down 23.1% year-on-year during March as the government’s coronavirus lockdown rules came into force, according to the IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index.

$9.7 trillion…Global spending on digital commerce will fall by 14% in 2020 as coronavirus lockdowns and reductions in consumer spend hit hard, according to Juniper Research. Spending will decline from $11.2 trillion in 2019 to $9.7 trillion.

20…Goodwill Central Coast, a regional chapter of the US-based Goodwill non-profit retail organisation, has implemented Scale Computing’s HC3 Edge platform for the in-store IT infrastructure across its 20 locations.

900%…Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com reports an “explosive” increase in the number of large items delivered by its JD Logistics unit in Wuhan, Hubei province, since the coronavirus lockdown lifted. There was a rise of over 900% in the first week of April, compared with the same period in March.

15…This past week marked buy now, pay later Klarna’s 15th birthday and it brought some mixed emotions for CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski amid the coronavirus outbreak.

£600,000…London-based startup vendi has closed its first funding round, pulling in £600,000.