Here’s what happened in the retail technology space during July
RTIH takes a look back at an eventful month for the retail systems sector, including checkout-free stores, buy now pay later firms, electric delivery vehicles, and retailers charging customers for online returns.
Good month for…
Polish convenience giant Żabka Group opened its 50th Żabka Nano checkout-free store.
These leverage AI powered computer vision technology created via cooperation with AiFi.
In a LinkedIn post, Patryk Powierża, Żabka Nano Growth, said: “BOOM! Store number 50 has been opened.”
“After about a year from opening the first autonomous outlet, we have reached the milestone of 50 stores.”
“That number strengthens our position as the biggest chain of autonomous stores in Europe. Easily you can estimate one week – now new store. It’s HUGE!”
Frolick, a US-based meal delivery company offering hot, chef prepared meals starting at under $10 with no fees or order minimums, has raised a pre-seed round of $1.8 million.
It will use the cash to help fund hiring, marketing and geographic expansion.
Participants in the round included gategroup as strategic investors and several angels including current and former executives for Delivery Hero and Gopuff.
Frolick also announced that it has has doubled its service area, expanding its delivery from Reston across the river to Washington, DC.
Retail technology services provider, PMC, was recognised in the latest ISG Provider Lens Quadrant Report as a Market Contender in Retail CX Transformation Services.
Circular fashion company Circ 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.
Bad month for…
On 1st July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Swedish buy now, pay later big hitter was raising $650 million at a $6.5 billion valuation.
Sounds great until you take in to account that, in June 2021, the company was valued at $45.6 billion after closing on a $639 million round of funding, making it the highest valued private FinTech in Europe at that time. Ouch!
Retail tech unicorn, Fabric, a specialist in robotic micro-fulfilment technology, laid off over 120 employees, more than a third of its workforce, as it shifted its business strategy.
Last year, Fabric, formerly known as CommonSense Robotics, raised $200 million in a Series C funding round at a valuation of over $1 billion.
Also this month…
Amazon said it was hiking the price of its Prime service for UK customers.
From September, monthly subscriptions will go up £1 to £8.99 and annual membership will increase from £79 to £95.
The price rise, Amazon’s first in the UK since 2014, is partly due to inflation, which is at a 40-year high.
Retail analyst Natalie Berg said in a LinkedIn post: “it's an incredibly bold move to increase fees smack in the middle of the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. But to many shoppers, Prime is indispensable.”
Instacart Co-founder Apoorva Mehta will step down as Executive Chairman and transition off the board of directors once the grocery delivery unicorn goes public.
“Since I transitioned from CEO to Executive Chairman a year ago, I realised that I want to pursue a new mission and I want to do it with the same singular focus that I had while building Instacart,” Mehta said on Twitter.
“Stepping off the board will allow me to do just that.”
He added: “Instacart has an enormous opportunity ahead and I have confidence in the team’s ability to achieve its full potential. Onwards!”
Target will add three new sortation centres in the next year - two in greater Chicago and one in the Denver metro - as it looks to “power even speedier delivery for our guests, while helping our teams work more efficiently and reducing our shipping costs”.
The new additions will line up alongside Target’s six existing sortation centres across the US.
Tesco is working on a second checkout-free GetGo store.
Self-service terminals will sit alongside an autonomous retail option when the location opens in central London in the near future.
The store in Chiswell Street (near to the Barbican) is fitted out with Trigo’s cashierless technology, which is a combination of check-in gates, ceiling cameras and shelf scales, as spotted by Toby Pickard, IGD Head of Innovations and Futures.
A Tesco spokesperson confirmed the launch to RTIH, but did not share an opening date.
Tesco’s first checkout-free store opened in High Holborn last year, following a trial at the grocery giant’s colleague store in Welwyn Garden City.
This one is also powered by Trigo tech. (NB: Tesco announced an equity investment in the Israeli startup in 2019).
During a preliminary results media call in April, Ken Murphy, Tesco Group CEO, said: “What we're learning is that the technology works really, really well.”
“Our partnership with Trigo's been really successful. […] We're now working on a hybrid model that allows customers to do either grab and go and completely frictionless or check-out on exit. We'll see how that works as well.”
Phil Jordan announced plans to step down as Sainsbury's Group CIO and retire in March 2023.
In a LinkedIn post, he said: “Proud of my 35+ years in tech and grateful to have worked with brilliant people and for great businesses! #sainsburys #telefonica #vodafone #axa #boc #clarks.”
“Delighted that I will continue to contribute as a NED and Board Chair alongside enjoying all those things I have wanted to do but haven't had time.”
Jordan joined Sainsbury’s in 2017 from Telefonica where he was Global CIO and previously European CIO.
Prior to that, he spent a number of years in senior roles at Vodafone, including as CIO UK & Ireland.
Nike opened its latest store concept, Nike Style, in Seoul, South Korea.
The company describes it as a “remixed expression of sports retail culture that blurs the line between physical and digital.”
Nike Style stores feature “gender agnostic lifestyle product zones” for certain clothing, including fleece, tops, footwear and accessories.
A second location will open in Shanghai during the autumn. The concept will then expand into other countries.
Boots UK launched a new INNOVATE workspace in partnership with TCS at its site in Nottingham.
The aim is to encourage and nurture a startup culture. INNOVATE has been designed to be an agile incubator combining creative space with top talent and evolving technology.
Walmart inked a deal to buy 4,500 all-electric delivery vehicles, beginning with the Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle (LDV), from Canoo.
The retailer also has an option to purchase up to 10,000 units as part of its goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
While the LDV is expected to begin hitting the road in 2023, the companies plan to kick off deliveries to refine and finalise vehicle configuration in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex in the coming weeks.
Are online returns a problem to solve or an opportunity to embrace?
That was the question posed this month 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.
A lawsuit that was filed against one-click checkout startup Bolt by one of its biggest customers will be dismissed following the two parties thrashing out a settlement.
And in an added twist to the story, the same customer — Authentic Brands Group (ABG) — is now a shareholder of the company.
According to a press release, “both companies plan to continue the partnership offering seamless, one-click checkout to ABG's brands Forever 21 and Lucky Brand, while evaluating the possibility of expanding Bolt's technology to more portfolio brands in the coming months.”
It’s a far cry from earlier this year when ABG alleged that Bolt failed to deliver technology as promised and that it missed out on over $150 million in online sales during an integration with Forever 21.
ABG also claimed that Bolt had raised funding “at increasingly high valuations” by “consistently overstating” the nature of its integrations with the company’s brands so that it looked like it had more customers than it actually did.
Bolt hit back by stating that the claims were without merit, and “a transparent attempt” to renegotiate the terms of the companies’ agreements.
Blockbuster returned to action this month. Well, sort of…
For millions, weekend nights in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s meant popping to their local Blockbuster and renting a film or three.
Then streaming happened and, yada yada yada, the company filed for bankruptcy in the US in 2010. Today, there is just one store left on the planet, in Oregon.
In July, its Twitter account tweeted for the first time in two years.
“We’re back from the grave …” it said, alongside a GIF of a zombie rising from the grave.
So, what could it all mean? Click here to find out more.
Health and beauty retailer, A.S. Watson, said it was investing an additional $115 million in technology this year to accelerate digital transformation and delivery of its O+O (online and offline) platform strategy.
Key focus areas include its in-house eLab and TECHLab initiatives, and further building machine learning, artificial intelligence, Big Data and retail technology capabilities.
