The retail technology space during the coronavirus pandemic
Retail Technology Innovation Hub rounds up the key Covid-19 developments from last week.
There will be an increase in self-service this year, according to David Nicholls, CTO for Retail and Hospitality at Fujitsu UK.
This is not new for retailers. But stores have spent the past year looking at ways to streamline it, and Covid-19 has accelerated this.
2021 will see the introduction of digital technologies that have a low capital investment and are easy to update, according to IGD.
Tesco delivered over seven million online grocery orders, containing more than 400 million individual items, over the Christmas period.
It made the announcement whilst reporting its 3Q and Christmas 2020/21 results.
Kingfisher Data Director Tom Betts has set out his vision for the home improvement retailer.
Audi UK has partnered with IBM to redesign its website.
The company’s digital transformation project unified its mobile and desktop shopping experiences, enabled by a cloud platform and supported by marketing insights data from Adobe Analytics.
Online fashion retailer Asos will begin automation of its US fulfilment centre this year.
It has also signed a lease for a fourth fulfilment centre, situated in Lichfield, UK.
Asos made the announcements as it reported a surge in sales during the four months ending in December.
Click and Collect services based within John Lewis department stores are to be temporarily suspended.
UK online sales growth came in at +37% year on year for December, driving the annual figure to a 13 year high, according to research from IMRG and Capgemini.
The coronavirus outbreak sparked high street closures and massive restrictions on the consumer way of life, explaining why the full year growth figure of +36% (YoY) significantly outperformed the start of year prediction of +7.8% (YoY).
Pureplay Very.co.uk increased retail sales by 25.2% year-on-year in the seven weeks up to and including 25th December to record its best ever Christmas trading period.
Total UK retail sales declined 0.3% in 2020 compared with 2019, according to research by the BRC and KPMG.
This is a record low (records began in 1995). Food growth was 5.4%, whilst non-food decline stood at 5% for the year as the coronavirus outbreak hit many retailers hard.
68% of Brits shopped online for their home at least once a month last year, according to research from Made.com.
The total number of QR code payment users will exceed 2.2 billion in 2025, up from 1.5 billion in 2020, according to Juniper Research.
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