Five retail tech things we learned last week
RTIH takes a tongue in cheek look back at an eventful week for the retail technology space.
1. Waitrose ain’t missing Ocado at all, since they’ve been gone away
John Lewis Partnership fired a parting shot at Ocado following the end of the latter’s relationship with Waitrose.
Reporting its unaudited results for the half year ended 25th July, the retailer noted that Waitrose has seen a strong pick up in demand since it parted ways with Ocado on 1st September.
“Waitrose.com orders were up 9% in the first week. Waitrose.com is now a £1 billion annualised business and we will further expand capacity by around 50% to 250,000 orders a week,” Chairman Sharon White said in a letter to Partners.
“We have also entered into a trial partnership with Deliveroo, which has seen very positive early results. Up to 500,000 customers in five areas can now get 30 minute deliveries, with plans to add 25 more localities,” she added.
So there! Check out more on this here.
2. Don’t mess with Iceland’s Richard Walker, because he will take you down on social media
Marks and Spencer were none too pleased with Iceland last week over its recent ad comparing the two retailers’ pizzas.
“70% prefer the taste of our new frozen stone baked triple pepperoni,” the ad stated. It also compared prices (£1.50 in Iceland vs £4.50 in M&S).
The latter wasn’t about to take this diss lying down, which lead Iceland Foods MD Richard Walker to tweet: “We’ve just had a formal complaint from @marksandspencer about this ad. Their pizza actually costs £4.75. Apologies.”
Ba dum tss!
3. We will be spending all the money at Prezzybox this Christmas
We don't mean to alarm you but we are less than 100 days away from Christmas.
Have no fear, though. Online retailer Prezzybox has put together a Christmas Gift Guide for 2020 to show you some of its best festive presents. And it’s pretty damn awesome, if we say so ourselves.
We particularly like the look of the David Bowie Tea Towel, the Frida Kahlo Cushion and the Cat Hamper.
4. Brits really miss Woolworths
Woolworths was trending on Twitter last week, but alas not because the iconic retailer was about to return to UK high streets.
All 807 Woolworths stores closed between 27th December 2008 and 6th January 2009, resulting in 27,000 job losses. Woolworths Group entered administration on 27th January 2009, and it was officially dissolved on 13th October 2015.
In February 2009, Shop Direct Group purchased the Woolworths trademark and internet address, which continued as a retail website until its closure in 2015, when customers’ accounts were transferred across to Very.co.uk.
After former director Tony Page expressed a wish to buy the Woolworths name from Shop Direct, there was talk of a high street comeback, but, well, you know the rest…
Despite being derided by many industry observers for being behind the times, the retailer is much missed by shoppers, if Twitter is anything to go by. Check out a few of our favourite tweets here.
5. The early years of Amazon would make for a cracking Netflix documentary
Dan Rose, former Director, Business Development at Amazon, took to Twitter to discuss the e-commerce giant’s early years.
Rose spent seven years at Amazon and was the first member of the Kindle e-book team, leading content acquisition and product management. Find out what he had to say here.
