Payments and in-store innovation ahoy! Last week’s most read retail technology articles

These are the RTIH articles that caught your fancy last week, including Just Eat, Getir, Patchworks, Asos, New Look, Sainsbury’s, Giant Tiger, and Gopuff.

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 this 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.

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.

Patchworks raids BigCommerce to bring in Jim Herbert as CEO

E-commerce integration provider, Patchworks, has appointed Jim Herbert, as Chief Executive Officer.

Herbert joins from his position as SVP and General Manager EMEA at BigCommerce.

Patchworks works with over 200 e-commerce brands in the UK, Europe, North America, and Australia including Huel, Gymshark, and Lounge Underwear.

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.

Sitecore - Black Friday back on calendar as key shopping event this year

British retailers can expect a busier Black Friday than last year, according to research from Sitecore.

The company polled 2,156 UK consumers in August.

It found that 48% are planning to take part this year. In comparison, 38% said they shopped on Black Friday last year.

82% are looking for early discounts and deals as a top priority when considering purchases from online brands this Christmas.

When looking for a bargain, 46% will sign up for a brand’s newsletter or text messages to only hit the unsubscribe button once they’ve used the discount. Thus, marketers must re-think their content strategies and develop content that is both personal and relevant to customers, Sitecore says.

Asos and New Look shine in customer experience research as Zara flops

Unified customer intelligence startup Chattermill has analysed feedback from over 152,000 responses to some of the most popular fashion retail brands, revealing Asos and New Look as the ones with the best customer experience.

It looked at publicly available Trustpilot reviews, registered from 1st January 2021 to 4th September 2022, from customers buying at Asos, H&M, New Look, Next and Zara.

Asos has received consistently high scores over the past 12 months, while New Look is on an upward climb after a relatively low period.

The data indicates a significant decline in customer loyalty across the retail industry as a whole. The decrease can be linked to a rise in customer returns (and the hassle tied to it), complaints about delivery, and inconsistent product sizing and fitting.

Klarna Kosma opens up FinTech platform to accelerate Open Banking use cases

Klarna Kosma, Klarna's technology platform for banks, FinTechs and retailers, has announced a new initiative to help firms develop Proofs of Concepts (POC) in the e-commerce, data analytics and FinTech space.

Klarna says it will enable a select number of startups and established companies to access all the products on its Open Banking platform and access 15,000 banks for three months, free of charge.

The initiative aims to accelerate the development of Open Banking use cases.

Launched in April 2022, Klarna Kosma provides financial institutions, FinTechs and merchants with access to 15,000 banks in 27 countries around the world through a single API.

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. 

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”.

Computer vision in stores: here’s what retailers need to know, and how to get started

Check out this insightful article by Skip Howard, Founder and CEO, Spacee.