RTIH reviews the retail technology space in January

RTIH takes a look back at an eventful month for the retail technology space, including Asos, Starship Technologies, Tesco, Primark, Marc Lore’s departure from Walmart and an under fire buy now, pay later space.

Good month for…

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.

Starship Technologies raised $17 million and completed one million autonomous deliveries.

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. 

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.

NearSt, a British retail technology venture that aims to drive more people onto the high street, pulled in £2 million in seed funding from international property company Grosvenor Group.

Sainsbury’s delivered 1.1 million online food orders in the ten days to Christmas, double the number of 2019.

The supermarket announced this as part of a strong Q3 and Christmas performance.

Beauty tech solutions provider, Perfect Corp., closed a $50 million Series C round led by Goldman Sachs.

Indian business-to-business e-commerce startup Udaan raised $280 million.

Resident, a platform of direct-to-consumer brands in the home goods space, announced a £97.5 million Series B funding round.

Jumbotail, an India-based online wholesale marketplace for grocery and food items, raised an additional $14.2 million.

Tesco’s Pay+ mobile payment app, which launched in 2017, surpassed £1 billion in payments shortly before Christmas. 

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.

London-based PayTech venture Curve announced a $95 million Series C round.

PayTech venture Rapyd was basking in the glow of a $300 million Series D financing round led by Coatue.

Nacelle, a US-based headless commerce platform for online retailers, raised $18 million in Series A funding.

Weezy raised $20 million in Series A funding to expand its grocery delivery service across London and the UK. 

Bloom & Wild, a London-based flower and gift delivery startup, secured £75 million in Series D funding.

Glovo announced a strategic partnership with Swiss real estate firm, Stoneweg, as the Barcelona-based on demand delivery platform expands its newly launched Q-Commerce division. 

Stoneweg will invest €100 million in building and refurbishing prime city real estate in some of Glovo’s key markets. 

Hermes UK said that it delivered 630 million parcels in 2020. This was an increase of 250 million from the 2019 figure. 

E-commerce technology venture Bold Commerce closed a $27 million Series B funding round. 

BGF invested $11 million in Genflow, a startup whose tech platform helps influencers develop their own digital and physical products, to support its global expansion plans.

The coronavirus outbreak has cemented contactless as the preferred way to make UK in-store payments, according to Barclaycard.

Total spend via digital wallets will exceed $10 trillion in 2025, up from $5.5 trillion in 2020, according to Juniper Research. 

This will be fuelled by the heightened adoption of digital payments during the coronavirus pandemic.

French buy now, pay later venture Alma closed a €49 million Series B financing round involving Idinvest, Cathay Innovation, the French Public Investment Bank (Bpifrance), Seaya Ventures and Picus Capital.

E-commerce specialist Bloomreach acquired customer data and experience platform Exponea. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

It also announced an investment of $150 million from Sixth Street Growth.

A new BearingPoint study ranked retail the top UK industry sector for digital maturity.

Retailers took nine of the top ten spots, with Ocado nabbing first place, Curry’s PC World (Dixons Carphone) second, Asos third, M&S fourth and Argos fifth.

Digital signage and experience platform provider, Raydiant, closed $13 million in Series A financing co-led by 8VC and Atomic. 

Italy headquartered buy now and pay later venture, Scalapay, raised a $48 million seed round led by Fasanara Capital and also including Baleen Capital, and Italian Family Office Ithaca Investments.

Bad month for…

Bllush, a Tel Aviv-based startup that matched e-commerce brands with user generated product images, went out of business.

Primark said it would lose an additional £220 million in sales under new restrictions to control the spread of Covid-19 in the UK.

Its owner, Associated British Foods, expects to lose £650 million in sales in the year to September, up from the £430 million it had flagged up on 4th December.

This followed the government announcing the likes of Manchester and Birmingham must join London and the south east of England in closing non-essential stores.

Total UK retail sales declined 0.3% in 2020 compared with 2019, according to research by the BRC and KPMG. 

This was 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.

The overall GB shop vacancy rate increased to 13.7%, from 13.2% in Q3, according to research by the British Retail Consortium and Local Data Company. 

It was 1.6 percentage points higher than the same point in 2019. This was the tenth consecutive quarter of increasing vacancy rates.

Also this month…

Labour MP Stella Creasy called on fashion retailers such as boohoo and Missguided to temporarily halt buy now pay later schemes, labelling them a “financial scandal waiting to happen”.

The UK contactless payment limit for a single transaction could be raised to £100.

Last year, it went up from £30 to £45 during the coronavirus outbreak. 

"Recognising changing behaviour in how people pay, as part of a wider consultation, we will shortly be seeking views on amending our rules to allow for a possible increase in the contactless limit to £100," the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said in an online post.

Marc Lore, President and CEO, Walmart E-commerce US, announced his departure from the big box retailer. He will stay on as a consultant through to September.

Amazon purchased 11 Boeing 767-300 aircraft as it looked to speed up delivery times for US customers.

The e-commerce giant is buying seven aircraft from Delta and four from WestJet, which will join its Amazon Air cargo network in 2021 and 2022. 

Digital Catapult announced the seven companies – including Sainsbury’s – which have partnered with its Made Smarter Technology Accelerator programme and have set 14 challenges for tech companies to respond to.

These include increasing shelf life and sell through of products while reducing waste.

Kingfisher Data Director Tom Betts set out his vision for the home improvement retailer.

Waitrose became the first national UK supermarket to integrate unpacked items into regular aisles at its store in Wallingford Oxfordshire.

Amazon said it would expand its Boston Tech Hub in the US and create more than 3,000 new corporate and technology jobs over the next several years. 

The roles will support teams across the company, including Alexa, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon Robotics, and Amazon Pharmacy. 

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