The retail technology year at a glance: September 2020
RTIH takes a look back at the retail technology space during September.
Good month for…
Swedish buy now, pay later specialist Klarna raised $650 million in an equity funding round, at a post money valuation of $10.65 billion.
Morrisons created 1,000 new jobs to fulfil online orders for its Amazon partnership.
Online retailer The Hut Group’s e-commerce services division, THG Ingenuity, inked a 10-year, ‘multi-million pound’, digital transformation deal with Homebase.
E-commerce platform venture, Moteefe, completed a $11 million funding round.
The value of transactions processed by smart checkout technologies will hit $387 billion in 2025, up from $2 billion in 2020, according to Juniper Research.
This will be driven by retailers seeking sustainable business models in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reporting its unaudited results for the half year ended 25th July, John Lewis Partnership noted that Waitrose had 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.
European payment service provider, Mollie, closed a €90 million Series B funding round, taking the total amount raised by the company to €115 million.
A.S. Watson Group announced an exclusive franchise agreement with Al-Futtaim to launch its flagship health and beauty brand Watsons in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Iceland announced the creation of more than 3,000 new jobs as it looked to meet the demand for online shopping created by the coronavirus outbreak.
Mira Beauty raised $9 million in a round led by Unilever Ventures and 14W.
Amazon recruited 100,000 more workers, the fourth Stateside hiring spree it had announced in 2020 as online shopping demand increased during the coronavirus outbreak.
Paris-based e-commerce startup Mirakl closed a $300 million funding round led by Permira.
US-based PayTech venture SpotOn Transact wrapped a $60 million Series C funding round.
Whitebox, a US-based startup focused on e-commerce logistics and fulfilment, raised $18 million in Series B funding.
Aldi UK was planning to invest £1.3 billion in new stores and jobs after posting rising sales during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sainsbury’s said that it was on track to deliver 700,000 online grocery orders a week by the end of October.
Bad month for…
Supermarkets and their customers faced £3.1 billion a year of tariffs on food and drink unless a free trade deal was reached between the UK and the European Union, according to the British Retail Consortium.
Klarna (yep, them again) apologised after some customers experienced issues with the UK Xbox All Access pre-order launch.
Also in September…
Instacart entered the convenience store space with a 7-Eleven partnership.
Tesco said it would shortly go live with its first urban fulfilment centre (UFC) as it looked to capitalise on the coronavirus powered online shopping boom.
The Co-op partnered with startup Pinga to offer zero emission online grocery deliveries in East London.
Alibaba Group’s online marketplace AliExpress launched a money saving and social commerce initiative called Bonus Buddies.
Alibaba Group’s Alibaba Cloud division unveiled an autonomous logistics robot for last mile deliveries.
Amazon introduced Amazon One, which enables people to use their palm for the likes of paying at a store, presenting a loyalty card, entering stadiums, or badging into work.
Oh, and it also opened its second Amazon Go Grocery store this month.
It is also developing its Amazon Scout vehicles for use in the UK following the coronavirus powered boom in online shopping.
UK online sales growth remained strong but was slowing down as more Brits returned to physical stores during the coronavirus outbreak.
According to research by IMRG and Capgemini, online sales growth was up 43.5% YoY in August, although sales were down 4.1% MoM.
Tesco unveiled Tesco Red Door, in which the grocery giant invites those with new products, ideas or emerging technologies with the potential to cause disruption to contact its newly established Group Innovation team
Walmart rolled out its Amazon Prime competitor Walmart+ on 15th September.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) launched the Shopworkers’ Protection Pledge.
Sign up for our free retail technology newsletter here.
