Awards season is here: the six biggest retail technology news stories of the week
It’s Friday, the weekend is almost upon us, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail systems space. Here's your briefing on the most important stories from the past five days, including Alibaba Group, Sainsbury’s, Just Eat, Getir, and the 2022 RTIH Innovation Awards.
1. Alibaba Group taps innovative retail technology for latest 11.11 Global Shopping Festival
Alibaba Group concluded its 14th annual 11.11 Global Shopping Festival on Friday and delivered results in line with last year’s GMV performance as it deployed robots, virtual influencers, and doubled down on cloud computing clean energy.
Last year, Alibaba said it generated GMV of RMB540.3 billion ($84.54 billion at the time).
1.11 pre-sales kicked off on 24th October at 8:00pm China Standard Time, versus 20th October last year, and sales ran from 8:00pm on 31st October to 10th November 11:59pm, climaxing on Friday with 17 million products on offer to over one billion consumers in China.
2. Sainsbury’s brings in Checkout.com as payments innovation partner
Checkout.com has been appointed by Sainsbury’s to simplify and modernise payment infrastructure across the grocery giant’s business.
New till-free technology is the first stage in a long-term partnership, aimed at creating more digital payment solutions for Sainsbury’s and improving its customer offering.
The new Checkout.com enabled SmartShop functionality, will allow customers to pay for their shopping via an app on their smartphones.
Underpinning the new functionality will be Checkout.com’s payments platform, enabling transactions through digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
This is live across Sainsbury’s SmartShop stores and will be rolled out to Argos and Habitat stores in the coming months.
3. 2022 RTIH Innovation Awards: shortlists announced, winners revealed next month
Over the past week, we’ve been announcing the shortlists for the 2022 RTIH Innovation Awards. And now we’re pleased to bring them all together in one place.
Check them out here.
4. Just Eat and Getir agree European rapid grocery delivery tie up
Just Eat Takeaway.com is partnering with rapid delivery company Getir across Europe.
As part of this, the latter’s entire product portfolio will be integrated into Just Eat Takeaway.com's marketplace and will be delivered directly by Getir couriers.
The partnership will kick off in Germany next week, with approximately 2.000 items ready for customers to buy online from all Getir stores, through Lieferando’s app and website.
It will be rolled out to other European markets including the UK, Spain, Italy and France, in the coming weeks.
5. Giant Tiger rips out online retail technology stack, replaces with Shopify Plus
Canadian discount store chain, Giant Tiger, has launched a new website and an end to end tech stack replacement.
In a LinkedIn post, Simon Rodrigue, SVP & Chief Digital Officer at Giant Tiger, said: “Excited to be working with Shopify on the Shopify Plus platform building out an experience to help Canadians save with a smile.”
He added: “Thanks to all of the teams at Giant Tiger, our lead development partners at Diff and our technology partners at Algolia, Contentful, Segment, ShipHero, Akeneo, Sitation, 6 River Systems, Alumworks, Noibu, Yotpo, Klaviyo, Gorgias, Plobal Apps - it takes a powerful team, dedicated to a cause to make it happen.”
In a Twitter post, Aaron Rubin, Founder and CEO at ShipHero, described the project as “the biggest Shopify ecosystem news you haven’t heard”.
6. Uber and Gopuff expand partnership to UK following Stateside launch
Uber and Gopuff have announced a new UK partnership that will enable customers across the country who use the Uber Eats app to order from Gopuff’s range of everyday essentials, including branded products and fresh food items, direct from said app.
This builds on a US tie up, which launched in May 2021.
The roll-out of Gopuff stores onto the Uber Eats app will be completed by mid-November.Orders will be fulfilled by the former’s delivery partners.
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