Looking back and ahead…RTIH presents the retail technology week in numbers
Do you like numbers? Do you like retail systems news? Then this is the article for you. Including Pinterest, eBay, Zapp, Morrisons, InPost, Adyen, Uber Eats, and Cartken.
4…For any retailer hoping for a year of calm after the upheaval of the pandemic, 2023 isn’t it.
Businesses are back on an emergency footing, if they ever left it, to deal with crippling operational issues and a grim economic outlook as they figure out how to best serve customers reeling from the current financial crisis.
Nicolas Hammer, Co-founder and CEO at customer interaction management specialists Critizr, reveals that technology in the year ahead won’t be focused on retail’s future; instead, it’s being deployed urgently in the here and now to help brands get back to basics with customers.
Here are his four predictions.
1…Pinterest reports that eBay has launched its very first Idea Ads with Paid Partnership campaign on the social media platform.
eBay’s first collaboration with creators on Pinterest aims to inspire Pinners to celebrate ‘Christmas Your Way’, showcasing Christmas traditions and realising their home's true potential through DIY and gifting for the festive season.
The content encourages Pinners to gift and decorate thoughtfully this Christmas, demonstrating minimalistic tablescapes, homemade flower baubles and creative wreaths for all the family to get involved with.
The project showcases the collaboration of eBay and three UK Pinterest creators Poppy Deyes, Making the Manor, and Tiffany Grant-Riley.
Nine Filco Supermarkets branded convenience stores in the UK have had new EDGEPoS systems installed under a partnership with Henderson Technology.
This involved installation of the EDGEPoS platform at each of Filco’s stores and EDGEPoS Head Office at Llantwjit Major to allow full control of all nine stores from one central location.
The 36-lane project, including head office and central warehousing, took seven weeks to complete between October and November.
£149.99…Zapp has launched what is pitched as London's first 24/7 emergency Christmas turkey delivery service.
The company is stocking whole turkeys (£149.99) from organic farm producer Daylesford, available to order up to, and including, 25th December.
Customers can also purchase the likes of gravy, pigs in blankets, brussel sprouts, parsnips, and Yorkshire puddings.
Zapp is also stocking Christmas food essentials to see people through the whole day, from smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels to chocolates.
The service builds on Zapp's last minute Christmas gift store, launched earlier this month.
390…Automated parcel machine service provider, InPost, has announced the expansion of its partnership with Morrisons.
Morrisons is InPost’s longest standing supermarket partner, hosting over 290 lockers across the UK since 2014.
Now that figure is set to rise to approximately 390 by the end of January, ensuring that nearly 80% of all its stores in the UK host a locker as an additional service.
Prominent new locations include Croydon, Bradford, Glastonbury, Dumfries and Newport.
In addition, several of InPost’s existing lockers will be extended so that they can cater to high customer demand.
£1.41 billion…New research from Storyblok reveals the huge cost of poor website design to British e-commerce businesses.
6,000 consumers across the US and Europe were asked about online shopping behaviour and their view on website functionality.
48% of UK consumers say they abandon purchases due to bad design and user experience.
On average, these consumers estimate that these sales would have been worth a total of £50 - with 12% reporting they abandoned purchases worth more than £100.
With 58.8 million people in the UK shopping online spending £80.6 billion, Storyblok estimates that the loss in purchases due to poor website functionality equates to £1.41 billion annually.
21% and 19%…New Centra research, involving over 2,000 Brits, shows that, while just 9% across all age demographics have bought fashion in the metaverse, Millennials and Gen Z are leading the way in this brave new world.
21% of Millennials and a further 19% of Gen Z consumers said they had already bought an NFT or digital fashion asset, with men twice as likely than women to have done so.
38% of those who had bought a fashion NFT had done so because they believed it would be an investment, rising to 46% of Gen Z shoppers.
1…Uber Eats and Cartken have announced a partnership for food deliveries via the latter’s self-driving robots in Miami, Florida.
The pair have begun operating with select merchants in the Dadeland area of Miami-Dade County with plans to expand in Miami-Dade and to additional cities in 2023.
Uber Eats is Cartken’s first formal partnership with a global on-demand delivery app beyond college campuses.
£10,500…PayTech big hitter Adyen has raised £10,500 for the charity, Change Please.
A peloton of 17 cyclists rode 55 km in aid of the social enterprise seeking to end homelessness, arranged as part of Adyen’s sponsorship of the Tour of Britain.
The team was made up of pro, experienced and novice riders that included Adyen employees and partners from the retail industry including Tory Burch and Brompton.
15%, 7% and 18.5%…Sensormatic Solutions has released shopper traffic data for UK bricks and mortar retail stores and shopping centres from Super Saturday (17th December).
Footfall data from the Sensormatic IQ platform, which captures 40 billion shopper visits globally each year, shows that, despite the early timing of Super Saturday this year, taking place eight days ahead of Christmas Day, retailers enjoyed a strong in-person turnout.
Shoppers were looking to complete their Christmas gift shopping and avoid disruption to the mail and rail services caused by ongoing strike action.
Shopper traffic on Super Saturday was up +15% compared to 2021, while compared to the previous Saturday (10th December), shopper visits increased by 7% week-on-week. High streets led the way in performance, up 18.5% year-on-year.
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