Top 10: last week’s most essential RTIH retail technology articles
These are the RTIH articles that caught your fancy last week, including Swapi, Zippin, Tesco, Starship Technologies, boohoo, Circ, Vinted, and Boots UK.
Five retail technology questions for Swapi’s Pete Howroyd
RTIH asks major players in the retail technology space for their thoughts on the sector, and throws in a random question to keep them on their toes. This time around, our five questions go to Pete Howroyd, Founder and CEO at Swapi.
Last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Featuring DPD, Cartken, ASICS, A.S. Watson Group, Żabka Group, AiFi, Netto, Imagr, and Morrisons.
Circ raises $30m+ with backing from apparel and tech industry giants
Circular fashion company Circ has secured over $30 million in Series B funding.
This was led by the Bill Gates founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures with additional investment from new partners, including Inditex, Milliken & Company, and Lansdowne Partners.
Previous investors also participating included 8090 Partners, Alante Capital, Card Sound Capital, and Marubeni
Circ has developed a technology system that returns clothes to the raw materials from which they were made. It has raised north of $45 in total to date.
Morrisons makes key technology, digital, innovation appointment
Thomas Scott has taken on the role of Technology Specialist/Digital & Innovation at Morrisons.
He previously held the position of Digital & Innovation Analyst at the grocery retailer.
Prior to that, Scott spent over four years at Asda, serving as (in the following order) Technology Apprentice, Innovation Coordinator, and Project Leader.
Patchworks raises a further £1.5m to power European expansion
Retail integration platform Patchworks has received £1.5 million in funding from Gresham House Ventures.
This follows an initial investment of £3.3 million in August last year. Patchworks plans to utilise the new funds to continue its expansion into Europe.
The firm connects key e-commerce systems, including storefronts such as Shopify and BigCommerce, ERPs, CRMs, and fulfilment solutions, allowing retailers to simplify the integration of their technology stack.
Founded in 2014, it now has more than 200 customers.
boohoo online returns move is lazy and irresponsible. Here’s why
Are online returns a problem to solve or an opportunity to embrace?
That was the question posed last week by Julian Burnett, Founder at Quercus Advisors and former Chief Information Officer & Executive Director, Supply Chain & Business Transformation at House of Fraser and Chief Technology Officer - Head of IT Strategy, Architecture & Business Process, John Lewis.
Burnett broached the topic as pureplay boohoo announced it had become the latest retailer to charge shoppers who return items. Customers must now pay £1.99 to send back products, with the cost deducted from their refund.
boohoo blamed the move on the rising cost of shipping. The likes of Uniqlo, Next and Zara also now charge for online returns.
Tesco Labs talks Starship Technologies robot delivery trial
Matthew Bennett, Software Development Engineer II - Tesco Labs at Tesco, has been discussing an autonomous delivery trial with Starship Technologies.
In a LinkedIn post, he said: “Was great to speak about the trial with Starship Technologies to all of Tesco Technology at Ignite 2022 (the grocery giant’s annual technology conference). Super proud of the work we did to enable an exciting trial in autonomous robot delivery.”
Starship’s six-wheeled robots launched in the UK in 2018, delivering groceries within a two-mile radius of a Milton Keynes Co-op branch.
The quick commerce service has since expanded to more areas of Milton Keynes, and in 2020 rolled out in Northampton in partnership with Co-op.
There are around 500 Starship autonomous vehicles currently in operation in the UK, delivering for Co-op as well as from several Tesco and Budgens stores.
Zippin boss Krishna Motukuri slams self-checkout technology
Krishna Motukuri, CEO and Co-founder at autonomous stores firm Zippin, has taken to Twitter to have his say on self-checkout technology.
Referring to a CNN Business article, entitled Nobody likes self-checkout. Here's why it's everywhere, Motukuri said: “Nobody likes self-checkout and contrary to what people think, it's not even benefiting retailers. Checkout-free, however, is a different story.”
“Self-checkout simply passes the work of the cashier on to the customer, increasing friction for the customer, which inevitably leads to frustration and errors and MORE work for retailers, in the end.”
“Checkout-free works by removing friction and making retail operations substantially more efficient.”
New Vinted Go platform enables PUDO focused delivery across Europe
Vinted Go, the shipping brand of Vinted, an online consumer-to-consumer marketplace dedicated to second hand fashion, has unveiled a new B2B centric platform.
This brings together third party carrier infrastructure for Vinted’s marketplace and for future business customers.
The offering is a combination of Vinted Go’s technology, IT and operations infrastructure, which enables businesses to ‘plug in’ to Vinted’s multi-carrier network through a single integration process.
Boots UK Apian drone delivery partnership takes off
Boots UK is working on drone deliveries, featuring temperature controlled storage, with Apian.
The latter is a startup working with the NHS on delivery capability in harder to reach areas.
The Boots UK tie up kicked off last week, with flights between Southampton and the Isle of Wight to ensure critical time sensitive patient needs are being met on the island.
