The five biggest retail technology news stories of the week
It’s Friday, the first week of 2022 is almost done, so let’s kick back and reflect on an eventful start to the year for the retail systems space. Here's your briefing on the most important stories from the past five days, including Delivery Hero, Glovo, Amazon, Stellantis, and Walmart.
1. Delivery Hero inks deal to become Glovo majority shareholder
German food delivery venture Delivery Hero is set to acquire a 39.4% stake in Spanish quick commerce startup Glovo.
It currently holds around 43.8% in Glovo shares on a non-diluted basis.
The transaction will value Glovo at Euro 2.3 billion on a fully diluted and debt free basis before certain adjustments. Delivery Hero will also provide a back-stop financing of up to approximately Euro 250 million to Glovo in several tranches.
Glovo will continue to operate under its existing brand and platform and current management team.
2. Amazon to boost delivery fleet with Stellantis all electric Ram ProMaster vans
Amazon will add Stellantis’ all electric Ram ProMaster van to its delivery fleet when the vehicle launches in 2023.
The e-commerce giant will be the first commercial customer of the van as part of a broader partnership focused on software development and in-vehicle technology, which was announced at the 2022 CES trade show in Las Vegas.
This includes Stellantis selecting Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider for vehicle platforms.
3. Walmart set to expand InHome Delivery service to 30m US homes
Walmart is expanding a service that delivers customers’ groceries directly to their refrigerators.
First launched in 2019, the InHome Delivery offering allows customers to place grocery orders online, then receive their deliveries by having a Walmart associate enter their home by way of a smart lock.
This is currently available to six million households across the US. Walmart now has the goal of reaching 30 million US homes by the end of the year.
To support the expansion, it plans to hire more than 3,000 associate delivery drivers this year as well as build out a fleet of 100% all electric delivery vans.
4. Which? calls for action on buy now pay later debt risks
Which? has called for stronger safeguards to stop online shoppers from choosing buy now pay later (BNPL) services to pay for products without knowing the risks.
BNPL has soared in popularity in recent years, with the biggest provider Klarna now boasting 13 million customers in the UK.
But, according to Which? research, involving interviews with “30 typical BNPL users”, shoppers do not fully understand the risks of choosing a pay later option at the checkout.
5. H&M becomes first ever metaverse clothing retailer
H&M has opened a virtual store in Ceek City and became the first clothing location in the metaverse.
Ethereum-based project Ceek announced on Twitter: “Shopping in the metaverse with $CEEK Concept VR store presented to H&M by CEEK creates mainstream use cases for $CEEK + scaling virtual reality beyond games.”
Customers can walk through the store, choose the products they want and buy them in the Ceek City universe.
They will also have the opportunity to later order the products at physical H&M stores with Ceek currency.
