Here’s what happened in the retail technology space during September
RTIH takes a look back at an eventful month for the retail systems sector, including Starbucks, Walmart, Amazon, Swiftly, Klarna, Serve Robotics, and Walgreens Boots Alliance.
Good month for…
The second edition of RTIH magazine launched during September, with a heavy focus on the online retail space.
Check it out here.
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French FoodTech startup Not So Dark raised $80 million in Series B funding, led by Kharis Capital and Verlinvest, in partnership with Conviviality Ventures.
The round brings the firm’s total funding to date to $105 million.
Not So Dark launched in 2020 with delivery only menus sold on Uber Eats and Deliveroo. It has since been deployed across France with tech centric operations running out of its own dark kitchens.
Founders Clément Benoit (former Founder and CEO of Stuart) and Alexandre Haggai now aim to pivot the business around traditional restaurants instead of dedicated dark kitchens.
Swiftly announced a $100 million Series C funding round led by BRV Capital Management, bringing the company's total valuation to more than $1 billion.
This marks Swiftly’s second $100 million financing round in less than six months.
The startup provides bricks and mortar grocers with branded phone apps designed to help retailers gather highly customer data and earn advertising dollars, while shoppers can find what they’re looking for in the aisles, recall past purchases and skip lines by scanning products and paying with their phones.
Bad month for…
A Serve Robotics delivery robot failed to reroute around a police barrier due to human error.
Video of the robot crossing yellow caution tape and rolling through a crime scene in Los Angeles went viral last month.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Serve Robotics said: “While robots are capable of operating autonomously in most circumstances, they're assigned to human supervisors to ensure their safe operation, for instance when navigating a blockage.”
“We respect the important work of law enforcement and are taking steps to ensure our operating procedures are followed in the future.”
American supermarket chain, Wegmans, pulled its in-store scan and go app on Sunday, 16th September.
The company told customers about the move in an email.
“SCAN users have told us they love the app and the convenience it offers. We love it too and have tried many adjustments to keep it,” said CEO Colleen Wegman.
“Unfortunately, the losses we are experiencing from this programme prevent us from continuing to make it available in its current state.”
“We’ve learned a lot and we will continue to introduce new digital solutions to streamline your shopping experience for the future.”
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Co-founder and CEO at buy now pay later big hitter, Klarna, took to Twitter to lambast the media for its coverage of his company.
In a post, he said: “Fascinating learning in my life is the full disconnect between media's"truth" about Klarna vs actual state of Klarna.”
“Perception vs reality, sometimes benefit or not. Established incorrect "truths" impossible to correct. And tweeting some reason into it=screaming into a storm.”
Siemiatkowski didn’t reveal who exactly upset him and what they said, but, dare we suggest, it’s possibly to do with Klarna posting and operating loss of 6.17billion Swedish crowns (£497 million) for the first half of 2022, compared to 1.76billion crowns in the same period last year.
The FinTech blamed this on rapid international expansion, higher credit losses in new markets, and rising staff costs.
Customer engagement platform firm, Twilio, said it was laying off 11% of its workforce - between 800 and 900 people across its staff of 7,800+, as it faced up to the dangers of rapid growth.
In a message to staff, CEO Jeff Lawson said: “Over the years, we’ve made lots of changes to the way Twilio operates and is organised, but none harder than what I’m sharing today.”
“I’m not going to sugarcoat things. A layoff is the last thing we want to do, but I believe it's wise and necessary. Twilio has grown at an astonishing rate over the past couple years.”
“It was too fast, and without enough focus on our most important company priorities. I take responsibility for those decisions, as well as the difficult decision to do this layoff.”
Also this month…
Amazon Fresh launched a Price Cut promotion in the UK.
Its 19 Just Walk Out technology powered stores have dropped the prices of over 200 products.
Amazon said that this was to “help customers save on their home essentials whilst the cost of living crisis puts further pressure on household costs”.
In August, Amazon put the brakes on the expansion of its UK checkout-free convenience stores, due to sales falling short of expectations and fit out costs being multiple times higher than with a standard location.
According to a report by The Sunday Times, the US giant is understood to have walked away from talks on dozens of sites for Amazon Fresh stores, and has stopped its search for more locations.
There will still be a handful of openings this year at sites where Amazon had already committed to a lease.
Walmart is launching two new immersive experiences on the Roblox metaverse platform: Walmart Land and Walmart’s Universe of Play.
The former will bring fashion, style, beauty and entertainment items to the Roblox community of over 52 million daily users.
The latter, meanwhile, is pitched as “the ultimate virtual toy destination in Roblox, just in time for those oh-so-real holiday wish lists”.
Developed alongside Journey, who supported development, and Publicis Groupe’s Power of One Agency, Walmart’s lead creative and media agency, the experiences offer Roblox users the chance to “engage and interact with all the top items everybody wants from Walmart - in a virtual way”.
Amazon announced Prime Early Access Sale, a new two-day global shopping event exclusive to Prime members.
This begins on 11th October at 12 a.m. PDT and runs through to 12th October in 15 countries: Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, and the US.
Currys went live with a more connected service across all of its channels that, the technology retailer says, will “provide personalised journeys and customer insights on a massive scale”.
Over the last 16 months, Currys has embarked on a mission to transform into a “best in class, digital first omnichannel retailer”.
This has seen it re-platform and upgrade its website, enhance its ShopLive service (a video commerce channel), as well as deliver a new Colleague Hub in all of its UK stores.
The latter enables its frontline staff to gain visibility of the customer from the moment they step into a store.
This includes the online customer history, a log of all their interactions, and any items they’ve put in their online shopping cart, all displayed in real-time.
It also acts as a one stop shop for store colleagues with fast access to knowledge articles, and tasks so they can support each customer.
Walgreens Boots Alliance appointed Hsiao Wang as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer.
The company’s board of directors says that it has also formed a finance and technology committee to give “even greater focus to this critical function”.
“We are making tremendous progress on our strategic priorities, including transforming and aligning our core business and building our next growth engine with consumer centric healthcare solutions. With this announcement, we are entering our next phase of execution and elevating our capabilities even further,” says Roz Brewer, CEO, WBA.
“We want to welcome Hsiao to our executive leadership team. He is an incredibly talented leader and technologist.”
“Together with our board’s new finance and technology committee, he will be instrumental to achieving our goals and truly differentiating Walgreens Boots Alliance in how we deliver the healthcare of the future.”
Starbucks officially announced Starbucks Odyssey. Launching later this year, this is the coffee chain’s first shot at building with Web3 technology.
It combines the Starbucks Rewards loyalty programme with an NFT platform, allowing its customers to both earn and purchase digital assets that unlock exclusive experiences and rewards.
The company had previously teased the initiative to investors.
Starbucks brought in Adam Brotman, the architect of its Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app, to serve as a special advisor.
Now the co-founder of Forum3, a Web3 loyalty startup, Brotman’s team worked on Starbucks Odyssey alongside the retailer’s own marketing, loyalty, and technology teams.
