The five most important retail tech news stories of the week

It’s Friday, the week is nearly done, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail technology space. Here's your briefing on the most important and interesting stories from the past five days.

1. Ant Group eyes blockbuster IPOs in Hong Kong and Shanghai

Ant Group, which operates the Alipay mobile payment platform for Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has kicked off preparations for a concurrent listing of its shares on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges.

2. UK retailers call for end to labour exploitation

A number of retailers, including Asos, George at Asda, M&S, Matalan, Missguided, Next, River Island and The Very Group, have called on the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to take urgent action to prevent the exploitation of garment factory workers in the UK.

3. Alibaba adds Starbucks Now across its apps ecosystem

Alibaba Group is introducing the Starbucks in-store pickup feature, Starbucks Now, across some of its most popular apps.

Chinese consumers can access the service – which was previously only available on Starbucks China’s mobile app – through the likes of e-wallet Alipay, Taobao Marketplace, digital-mapping and navigation platform Amap and local-services app Koubei.

4. Amazon Scout expands operations to two new locations

Amazon unveiled a six-wheel delivery robot, Scout, last year and has been slowly expanding its field tests.

After launching in a single neighbourhood in Snohomish County, Washington and then adding a larger site in Irvine, California last August, Scout is now undergoing trials in Atlanta, Georgia and Franklin, Tennessee, Amazon has announced.

5. Brits just wanna have lockdown fun as insperience space booms

Brits spent £40.6 billion on dispensable items during the coronavirus lockdown, in an effort to entertain themselves while at home, according to research from Barclaycard.

An increasing number of retailers launched ‘insperience’ products and services designed specifically to be used at home during the months of lockdown.