The retail technology year in review: June 2021
As we reached the halfway point of 2021, the booming quick commerce, mobile self-scanning and buy now pay later spaces were making lots of retail systems headlines.
GOAT Group, a US-based marketplace for authentic sneakers, apparel, and accessories, closed a Series F funding round of $195 million, and notched up a valuation of $3.7 billion.
Alibaba Group’s 6.18 mid-year shopping festival officially came to a close this month.
The event, which stretched from 24th May to 20th June, is pitched as an important bellwether for Alibaba’s 11.11 festival as brands pilot and fine tune their strategies ahead of November.
2021 highlights included a record 250,000 merchants and brands participating, bringing more than 13 million products in front of Chinese consumers.
Customers could use mobile self-scanning at 32,000 stores across the world, according to a new study by RBR. Hundreds of retailers were now offering the technology.
In addition, many were partnering with a range of checkout-free technology vendors, installing cameras and sensors around the store to record items selected by customers.
The quick commerce channel, which delivers food and groceries to consumers in less than one hour and often sub-30 minutes, was worth £1.4 billion, according to a new report from IGD.
This also revealed that the estimated size of the opportunity would grow to £3.3 billion in the UK alone.
On the third day of the 2021 Viva Technology show, which took place in Paris on 16th-19th June, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) named Bambuser as the winner of the 5th LVMH Innovation Award.
Delivery and fulfilment cloud platform provider, Bringg, closed a $100 million Series E round led by Insight Partners.
EBANX, a cross-border commerce platform in Latin America, announced an investment of $400 million from Advent International and an additional commitment of $30 million to its planned IPO in the US.
Ideal Shopping Direct (ISD), a UK multi-channel home shopping retailer and owner of the Create and Craft and Ideal World TV channels, notched up record sales in 2020 of £150.6 million.
This was an increase of 16.1% year on year, with pre-tax profits of £8 million, compared with £2.2 million during the previous year.
BrowserStack, a website testing platform for DevOps teams, secured $200 million in Series B funding at a $4 billion valuation.
Global spending via e-commerce buy now pay later services will reach $995 billion in 2026, from $266 billion in 2021, according to Juniper Research.
This will be fuelled by a greater appetite from users for credit to spread costs, particularly in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.
Buy now pay later big hitter Klarna raised $639 million at a post-money valuation of $45.6 billion.
This came just three months after the Swedish company’s last mega funding round and cemented its status as Europe’s most valuable private FinTech venture.
Getir, a Turkish rapid grocery delivery startup, concluded a Series D funding round, raising over $550 million and taking the company's valuation to over $7.5 billion.
Bad month for…
Prime Day 2021 took place this month, with Amazon CEO Dave Clark taking to Twitter to label it his “happy place” and a “great day for customers”.
This did not go down at all well with the Twitterverse.
Also this month…
The third edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards opened for entries this month.
The awards, sponsored by PMC, StoreSpace, Critizr, Marxent, QVALON and Selazar, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Tesco expanded its Whoosh one-hour delivery service to London and Bristol.
The grocery giant launched a pilot in May from a single store in Wolverhampton.
It then added a further 11 Express locations in the aforementioned cities. Chief Executive Ken Murphy said the trial had provided Tesco with “some very interesting data”.
Amazon’s cashierless Just Walk Out technology was now available in a full size grocery store for the first time.
A new 25,000 square foot Amazon Fresh store lined up alongside the 10,400 square foot Amazon Go Grocery that debuted last year, and the standard 1,200 and 2,300 square feet Go locations.
It was Amazon’s 14th Fresh location in the US and can be found in Bellevue, Washington.
Etsy signed a definitive agreement to acquire fashion resale marketplace Depop for $1.6 billion.
Asda announced a one hour Express Delivery service, offering its full online range of over 30,000 products.
This was launched at three Asda stores, with the retailer stating that there was potential to quickly roll-out the service to more locations if it proved popular with customers.
Kroger opened a customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in Groveland, Florida, powered by Ocado Group technology.
This marked Kroger's entry into the Florida market with an e-commerce delivery service that featured vertical integration, machine learning, and robotics.
UK-based omnichannel retail software solutions venture Itim Group announced its intention to float on London’s AIM market.
The company, which helps retailers improve financial and operational performance, was seeking to raise between £10 million and £12 million in an IPO.
Justin King, the former Sainsbury’s CEO, was set to join the Itim board as a Non-Executive Director. Former Sage exec Michael Jackson would take on the role of Chairman.
Albertsons Companies teamed with DoorDash to offer on-demand grocery delivery from nearly 2,000 Albertsons banner stores across the US, including Safeway, Vons and Jewel-Osco, via the DoorDash marketplace app.
Carrefour Group unveiled a new data and retail media strategy with the launch of its Carrefour Links platform. This taps technology developed by Criteo, Google and LiveRamp.
Danish furniture and home furnishings retailer Jysk said it was investing €200 million in a new distribution centre in Lelystad, Holland.
Construction will begin in spring 2022, creating more than 350 new jobs once the facility is fully operational.
This will be Jysk’s tenth European DC (it recently opened the ninth one in Escer, Hungary).
Sports Direct reopened its London Oxford Street flagship store, following a £10 million retail tech centric makeover.
The retailer said that the 50,000 sq. ft location would host the most LED, digital and interactive technology on Oxford Street.
Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang predicted the rise of a new generation of digitally native consumer brands, where designers tap data analytics to meet changing consumer trends.
