The retail technology space in April: good month/bad month

RTIH takes a look at the retail tech space during April and rounds up the winners and losers.

Good month for…

The UK online grocery market will grow by 33% in 2020, reaching an estimated value of £16.8 billion, up from £12.7 billion in 2019, according to Mintel.

Starbucks unveiled plans to have 90% of its company-operated outlets in the US up and running by early June.

Tesco became the first retailer in the UK to fulfil one million online grocery orders in a week.

Ocado announced the launch of its first Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC) in North America.

A month on from the introduction of the £45/€50 limit in the UK and Ireland, Barclaycard had processed over seven million contactless payments above the previous limit of £30/€30, and up to the new one.

Artificial intelligence startup Peak announced a $12 million extended Series A funding round led by existing investors MMC Ventures and Praetura Ventures.

Luxury Promise, an online marketplace for the resale of luxury goods and accessories, raised £3 million from VC firm Beringea, the former backer of Monica Vinader and Watchfinder.

Paris-based luxury fashion resale website Vestiaire Collective announced a €59 million round of financing.

Tesco’s Tesco Pay+ mobile payment service crossed one million sign ups.

Next reopened its website, following two weeks of being offline due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Tel Aviv-based startup called Bringg, which helps companies build and run delivery operations, announced a $30 million Series D round.

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

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

Conversational commerce startup Blueprint bagged a £1 million seed investment led by Magnus Rausing’s MAHR Projects and including Founders Factory and Hambro Perks.

Bad month for…

With almost three million cases of coronavirus worldwide and numerous countries enforcing lockdowns, global retail spend is set to fall 3% in 2020, equating to $549.7 billion, according to GlobalData.

The closure of non-essential retail in the UK equates to 382 million square feet of physical space out of action. This space would have generated £14.5 billion of sales over the same period last year, according to GlobalData.

Amazon temporarily halted 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.

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.

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.

Earlier this month, Boots sent out the following promoted tweet: “Help us celebrate our colleagues and key workers everywhere by sharing your messages of support with #PrescribeKindness.”

Enter a bunch of people who weren’t interested in playing ball. Instead, they opted to blast the retailer for its treatment of staff during the coronavirus outbreak and also its tax affairs.

Also in April…

McDonald's UK carried out tests ahead of reopening stores that have been closed since last month due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Greggs was set to reopen 20 stores on 4th May.

John Lewis was drawing up a blueprint for reopening its stores that it will be ready to activate within weeks.

Farfetch announced the eight startups taking part in the fourth edition of its Dream Assembly fashion technology accelerator.

Cerebra, Ivapparel, Favour up, M-XR, Newlife, Supply Compass, StyleScript and Whoqip will be offered mentorship, networking opportunities and support.

Starbucks and McDonald’s were among the retailers rumoured to be testing China’s digital yuan currency.

Sainsbury’s introduced new coronavirus safety screens between manned checkouts in 150 of its busiest stores.

Amazon was planning to launch an Ultra Fast Fresh grocery delivery service in the UK.

Aldi UK launched an online food delivery service for the first time.

Pret a Manger reopened 10 stores situated near London hospitals.

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

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com reported an “explosive” increase in the number of large items delivered by its JD Logistics unit in Wuhan, Hubei province, since the coronavirus lockdown lifted.

eBay brought in a Walmart executive as its new Chief Executive. Jamie Iannone, Walmart’s Chief Operating Officer for US E-commerce, took up the top job on 27th April.

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

The Co-op launched Co-operate: get or offer support during coronavirus nine days after the UK government announced a lockdown.

The John Lewis Partnership installed a wellbeing area for medical staff and volunteers at the Nightingale NHS Hospital, London. It has also partnered with the British Medical Association (BMA) to distribute care packages for frontline NHS workers at the busiest hospitals across the UK.

The GMB union stepped up its word of wars with Asos, labelling bosses ‘fatcats’ and accusing them of “revelling in extravagant profits while workers risk their safety to keep the empire afloat”.

Morrisons upped the contactless card payments limit from £30 to £45 as part of its move to reduce the use of cash. And so did Iceland.

Tesco, meanwhile, said that it was working on a limit rise.

Asos overhauled its delivery options in line with increased coronavirus related safety measures in its fulfilment centres.

Sainsbury’s announced a trial involving its one-hour bicycle delivery service Chop Chop and a closed store in central London.