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 Gucci, The Very Group, Starbucks, Tesco, Uber Eats, Shopify, and Amazon.
$2.1 billion…Shopify is to acquire Deliverr, an e-commerce fulfilment startup, for $2.1 billion in cash and stock.
The deal is the largest acquisition in Shopify’s history, with Founder and CEO Tobi Lütke saying that it will enable the company to create an “end-to-end logistics” platform for millions of merchants.
5…Gucci will accept cryptocurrency payments in five US stores at the end of this month, with plans afoot to extend the pilot to all of its directly operated North America stores this summer.
Payments will be made with a link sent via email to the customer. The link contains a QR code that allows them to execute the payment from their crypto wallet.
The first Gucci stores onboard are Wooster Street in New York, Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, Miami Design District, Phipps Plaza in Atlanta and The Shops at Crystals in Las Vegas.
Gucci will accept payments in more than 10 currencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Wrapped Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and five stablecoins pegged to the US dollar.
50…There’s still time to enter the Lightning 50, a list of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in the UK.
Brightpearl, which provides retail operations solutions for the likes of Puma, Holland Cooper and Shopify, is launching the search to celebrate UK e-tailers which have grown the most during the past 12 months.
Companies are being invited to register to be in for a chance of inclusion in the final list. They can do so here, with entries closing on 12th August.
300…The Very Group, which operates online retailer Very.co.uk, is set to provide personalised size and fit guidance across its 300 fashion brands through a new partnership with True Fit.
The partnership is one in a series of technology and talent investments that Very will make in 2022 as it looks to “create an even better digital customer experience”.
It follows the announcement of a tie up with commercetools.
$1 billion…On the Starbucks FY2022 Q2 earnings call this week, CEO Howard Schultz announced the company will make additional investments in areas such as modernised training and collaboration, and store innovation, bringing total investments to nearly $1 billion in this fiscal year.
The decision, he said, enables Starbucks to meet record customer demand and partner needs in an operating environment deeply impacted by Covid-19.
1…Irish same-day grocery delivery provider, buymie, has launched its first national TV advertisement, titled ‘We shop like you do’.
This aired nationwide on RTE on Monday with out-of-home advertising in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway appearing on buses, bus stops and radio since 25th April.
€60 million…Czech firm DoDo Group, which specialises in last mile B2B logistics technology, has announced a €60 million Series B funding round led by EC Investments and J&T Capital.
$2 million…Cheq, a FinTech startup enabling cryptocurrency payments, has raised a $2 million pre-seed round led by Connect Ventures, alongside Semantic Ventures, firstminute Capital, and 30 angels including former leadership from Monzo, Revolut and Tide.
2,500…Amazon has announced plans to create more than 2,500 corporate and technology jobs over the coming years in multiple cities across California.
It will expand its Tech Hubs in San Diego and the Los Angeles area, including Irvine and Santa Monica, as it seeks to recruit local talent beyond its headquarter locations in Washington state’s Puget Sound region and Arlington, Virginia.
150…The John Lewis Partnership is recruiting for more than 150 roles as part of what it labels “a major investment in digital”.
It is looking to bring in engineers across a range of technologies, including software, cloud platform, native app, data engineers and delivery leads.
20…Tesco has teamed up with Uber Eats to help expand its Whoosh rapid grocery delivery service,
The supermarket giant launched Whoosh, which aims to deliver food and drinks in under 60 minutes, in May 2021 and it now covers 200 Express outlets across the UK.
The deal with Uber launches from 20 stores, including Edinburgh, Bradford, Portsmouth, Norwich, St Albans and Letchworth.
Tesco says that the partnership will help towards the target of offering the service from 600 locations by the end of 2022.
2…Ocado's within an hour grocery delivery service, Zoom by Ocado, has launched a second micro site, in Canning Town, East London.
In a LinkedIn post, Kieren Johnson, Head of IT at Ocado Retail, said that the facility was “built using the OSP platform (70 odd bots doing their stuff) and stocking 10k+ items for delivery within one hour. All electric delivery fleet.”
The first site was launched in 2019 in Acton, West London.
€1.7 million…Freshflow, a German startup whose AI powered platform helps grocery retailers tackle stockouts and food waste, has raised €1.7 million in a seed funding round led by Capnamic and World Fund.
