RTIH brings you the retail technology week in numbers
Do you like numbers? Do you like retail systems news? Then this is the article for you. Including Aldi Nord, Trigo, Co-op, Starship Technologies, Primark, Waitrose, Deliveroo, and Pets at Home.
370 and 3,982…Aldi Nord has opened an Aldi Shop & Go store in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
This is a 370㎡ (3,982 square feet) AI powered location where shoppers can walk in, select their items, and walk out without having to queue at the checkout lane or scan any items.
In its largest store format to date, Trigo applies its algorithms to shelf sensors and ceiling mounted cameras which analyse anonymised shoppers' movements and product choices.
Payments and receipts are settled digitally.
500, 5,000 and 200…Parcel delivery firm DPD has partnered with Quadient to access a new UK wide network of smart parcel lockers.
Quadient will initially install 500 contactless locker stations this year, with a plan for 5,000 in the coming years.
200 of the initial installations will be 24/7 outdoor facilities, and locations could include shopping precincts, housing estates, serviced car parks and higher education sites.
100,000…Starting this week, customers across the US will begin to see custom electric delivery vehicles from Rivian delivering their Amazon packages, with the EVs hitting the road in the likes of Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, and St. Louis.
The aim is to have thousands of these vehicles in more than 100 cities by the end of this year, and 100,000 across the US by 2030.
This is the product of Amazon’s partnership with Rivian, which the companies announced in 2019 when the former co-founded, and became the first signatory of The Climate Pledge.
$5.2 million…Blustream, an after sale product experience platform, has secured $5.2 million in a Series A round of financing.
It has also added Scott Weller, SVP Product, Merchant Loyalty, Mastercard, to its board of directors, and appointed Emily Lagasse as Vice President of Marketing.
Two in five…New research from Tribe Payments reveals that two in five e-commerce businesses in Europe plan to open a physical store in the next three years.
The company surveyed 400 merchants across Germany, Lithuania, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK.
This bricks and mortar move is being driven by a number of consumer and payment trends that companies will need to adapt to in the next five years.
5…Nissan Stadium in the US has announced that five Zippin powered checkout-free stores will launch in time for the Tennessee Titans pre-season this summer.
These will be operated by Levy and Legends on both the concourse and club levels.
$14.7 billion and $24 billion…Instacart investor Capital Group has cut its valuation to $14.7 billion, far below the online grocery delivery firm’s own calculation of $24 billion.
Covid-19 pandemic darlings like Instacart have stumbled in recent times, amid slowing growth, surging inflation and higher interest rates.
The company, which was valued at $39 billion through a March 2021 funding round, slashed its internal calculation by about 40% a year later.
45,000 and 20,000…Co-op and Starship Technologies have expanded their UK partnership with robot deliveries rolling out to neighbourhoods in Bedford.
In partnership with Bedford Borough Council, the collaboration will see up to 45,000 residents across 20,000 households in Bedford receive quick autonomous deliveries of groceries selected fresh from three local Co-op stores in the area (Goldington; Queens Drive and Kempston).
Co-op and Starship already operate this service in communities across Milton Keynes, Northampton and Cambridgeshire.
135,000…Tortoise is partnering with Sodexo to bring a mobile smart store - aka a vending machine with wheels - to Comic-Con this year.
One of Tortoise’s robots, carrying Sodexo’s carne asada burritos and 20 ounce bottles of Gatorade, will be present in the main Pavilion at the San Diego Convention Center to service Comic-Con’s estimated crowd of 135,000 attendees from 21st-24th July.
85% of consumers will not shop with a retailer again after having had a poor online delivery experience, according to research from FarEye.
70…Scottish grocery app Yuu has announced a partnership with last mile, on-demand delivery company Gophr.
The pair are working together to deliver everyday essentials from over 70 convenience stores across Glasgow with plans to roll the service out across Scotland by the end of 2022.
10 million…Etsy reports that ten million buyer donations have been enabled by Adyen Giving – raising money for the Uplift Fund, which supports creators who face barriers to building their businesses.
13…Stephen Vanoli has departed Primark where, over a 13-year period, he held a number of roles, including most recently Technology Product Director – Commercials.
2,000…Waitrose has more than doubled its range on Deliveroo with over 2,000 lines now available.
1…3D Cloud by Marxent has become the first and only 3D enterprise platform available on Google Cloud Marketplace.
Google Cloud customers can now subscribe to the entire 3D Cloud portfolio of apps through the marketplace in order to simplify procurement and consolidate billing through their existing Google Cloud account.
44% of retail leaders say they don’t have enough staff to support the upcoming peak season, and need to get people in.
That’s according to research by Sorted, which found 52% of retail customer service and operations managers fear, due to understaffing issues for the next e-commerce rush, that service levels will drop.
5…Carrefour – owned and operated by Majid Al Futtaim in the UAE – has partnered with Visa, the official payment services partner of FIFA, to give five football fans the opportunity to win a free trip to the World Cup Qatar 2022.
Customers who spend AED 500 or more at Carrefour in-store and online through their Visa cards will be entered into the competition, ending on 11th August.
$30 million…Hivery, a startup that has developed an optimisation platform for retailers, has bagged $30 million in a Series B round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Blackbird Ventures, AS1 Growth Partners and OneVentures.
5…Marks & Spencer has extended a software and services agreement with Flooid for up to another five years.
Flooid (formerly PCMS Group), agreed with the retailer in 2007 to supply software to run PoS and self-checkouts across the M&S store estate, and will now extend this to include access to its unified commerce basket services platform, which enables retailers to build omnichannel experiences in house or with other partners.
1…Deliveroo has launched its first Deliveroo Hop store in the UAE, following roll-outs in the UK, Italy and France.
This is in partnership with grocery retailer Choithrams and will serve customers in Motor City, Sports City, Barsha South, JVC, JVT and Arabian Ranches.
The company said in a LinkedIn post: “We’re on a mission to be the definitive food company. Today, we just got a little closer to that goal.”
128…Following the introduction of same-day delivery for Pets at Home customers at the end of last year, the offer is being expanded to more stores including several in Scotland, across Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as York, Coventry and Bath, taking the total number to 128.
Stuart is handling the delivery side of things, typically within two hours.
The service enables Pets at Home customers to place their orders directly through the website, as they would usually do.
Once the product is selected, OneStock’s order management system displays Stuart’s same-day service as one of Pets at Home’s delivery options, if the postcode is within the coverage of the store.
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