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 Starbucks, Tesco Whoosh, Kingfisher, and Amazon.
1. Tesco Whoosh announces Uber Eats rapid grocery delivery tie up
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. Amazon set to create 2,500+ corporate and tech jobs in California
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.
3. Zoom by Ocado delivery service opens site in Canning Town London
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.
The aforementioned range of 10,000 products compares to over 50,000 from the main Ocado Retail business.
The retailer is looking for additional sites within London's M25 orbital motorway.
4. Shopify announces landmark Deliverr acquisition
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.
“Our goal is to not only level the playing field for independent businesses, but tilt it in their favour - turning their size and agility into their superpower,” Lütke comments.
“Together with Deliverr, SFN will give millions of growing businesses access to a simple, powerful logistics platform that will allow them to make their customers happy over and over again.”
5. Starbucks set to enter Web3 space with NFT collections
Starbucks will launch its own NFT collections later this year.
During its fiscal Q2 2022 earnings call this week, the coffee giant said that NFTs can help Starbucks extend its concept of the “third place”, that is, a place between home and work where people can feel a sense of belonging over coffee.
The company as brought in Adam Brotman, the architect of its Mobile Order & Pay system and the Starbucks app, to help serve as a special advisor on the project.
6. Kingfisher appoints Chris Blatchford as Chief Information Officer
Kingfisher, which operates in eight countries across Europe under retail banners including B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt, Screwfix, TradePoint and Koçtaş, has announced the appointment of Chris Blatchford as CIO.
He joins from RELX Elsevier where he most recently served as Chief Technology Officer.
Before that he held a variety of technology roles at Thomson Reuters, including Head of Enterprise Technology, and served as Head of Professional Services, Europe, at CPA Global.
