The five most important retail tech news stories of the week
It’s Friday, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail technology space. Here's your briefing on the most important and interesting stories from the past few days.
1. Ahold Delhaize USA selects AutoStore tech for micro fulfilment pilot
Ahold Delhaize, the third largest grocery retailer in the US, is to build an automated e-commerce fulfilment centre in Philadelphia.
This will be able to prepare 15,000 online delivery orders a week for customers of its Giant Direct business.
The facility will leverage AutoStore microfulfilment technology via a Swisslog solution, and will also tap manual picking capabilities courtesy of Ahold Delhaize’s Peapod Digital Labs initiative.
2. Coupang files for blockbuster US IPO
South Korean e-commerce big hitter, Coupang, is gearing up for what is set to be the largest initial public offering by a foreign company in the US since Alibaba’s debut in 2014.
Coupang is reportedly eyeing a market valuation of more than $50 billion following its listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
3. Iceland becomes first food retailer to join The Climate Pledge
Iceland Foods has joined The Climate Pledge, a public commitment to “go green” launched by Amazon and Jeff Bezos in 2019.
The British supermarket is the first food retailer to sign up. It was one of 20 new signatories announced this week. 53 companies in 12 countries have now joined.
4. Standard Cognition nabs unicorn status with big funding round
US-based autonomous checkout solution provider, Standard Cognition, has announced a $150 million Series C round led by SoftBank.
This puts the venture’s valuation at $1 billion+, making it tech/retail's newest unicorn.
5. Dominant China on track for online retail first
China is set to become the first country in which e-commerce surpasses 50% of retail sales, according to eMarketer.
It forecasts that 52.1% of the country’s retail will come from online in 2021, up from 44.8% last year.
For almost every other country in the world, this datapoint remains far out of reach.
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