Festive results and online issues: 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 The Very Group, Amazon, M&S, Oxbotica, The Fresh Market, and Metapack.

2.2%The Very Group, which operates online retailer Very, has announced its Christmas and Black Friday period trading results for the seven weeks to 23rd December 2022.

Very retail sales grew +2.2% compared with the corresponding period in 2021, when Omicron drove strong performance among UK online retailers.

Compared to the corresponding period in 2019 (pre-pandemic), Very retail sales grew +19.6%.

The pureplay increased its share of the total UK non-food online retail market to 7.8%, up from 7.6% in the same period last year.

Overall Group performance was, however, less than stellar. Including Littlewoods, Group retail sales declined -1.3% YoY, as the company battled economic headwinds and various industry challenges.

5Digital age estimation technology would make stores “a safer place to work and shop”, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

It is calling on the UK government to legislate to allow the use of the technology to verify customers’ age for sales of alcohol.

This comes after trials by the Home Office and Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), using the technology in stores at five retailers across the UK.

These found customers were happy to use the technology when purchasing alcohol, and there were no reported incidents of underage purchases of age-restricted items during the trials.

The hope is that this technology can increase the convenience and speed of alcohol purchases, as well as reducing the risk of violence or abuse associated with age verification.

25%Amazon reports that Buy with Prime, the e-commerce giant’s direct-to-consumer offering for merchants’ own online stores, has been shown to increase shopper conversion by an average of 25%.

Launched in April, on an invite only basis, this enables merchants to extend the benefits of Prime on their own online stores.

Amazon has also announced that Buy with Prime will be widely available to US-based merchants by 31st January.

The company is also launching Reviews from Amazon, so that merchants can display ratings and reviews from Amazon customers on their own online stores for no additional cost.

44...VoCoVo has expanded into the US market through the roll-out of its technology with food retailer The Fresh Market.

The Fresh Market has deployed VoCoVo’s wireless headsets in 44 stores, with the aim of improving both in-store and external communications.

It has also installed customisable keypad devices across six checkouts in every store to enable employees to call a manager or request a price check at the push of a button.

Out of five segments within the keypad’s button face, the food retailer has configured three of them to improve store security.

The staff can call their manager to the front of the store for assistance and discretely alert them of the arrival of an armoured vehicle to securely pick up and transport money to the bank.

The announcement follows a trial in the retailer’s Greensboro, North Carolina store in July 2022 before expanding to further 43 stores this year.

20%The number of cash automation devices installed at retailers increased by more than 20% between end of 2019 and 2022 to reach more than 900,000, according to RBR.

This was despite cash usage coming under even more pressure than before from the increased use of electronic payments across the world owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

While cash use remains strong in many countries across Asia, Africa and the Americas, even in markets where it is falling or stagnant, retailers continue to look for ways to make the processing of notes and coins more efficient.

34% of UK shoppers have now used buy now pay later (BNPL) services to spread the cost of purchases, and thousands chose to use BNPL for the first time over the 2022 festive season.

That’s according to research from Equifax, which reveals how the cost-of-living crisis and shifting shopping habits are influencing the use of high cost, short term credit.

Jayadeep Nair, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Equifax UK, says: “BNPL has become a pervasive part of the shopping experience. As with any form of credit, when shoppers use it responsibly it can be a great budgeting tool to help manage extra spending over the festive period.”

“As BNPL is a form of credit, it now appears within consumer credit reports, which can be viewed by lenders. This may impact lending decisions, therefore BNPL should be used with this in mind.”

“Shoppers do need to be wary of using BNPL to overstretch themselves especially if spending is being driven by wider social pressures.”

14E-commerce delivery technology firm, Metapack, will host retailers, brands, carriers and technology companies at The Delivery Conference (TDC) on 7th February.

For the first time since 2020, TDC will be live and in-person (at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London).

Now in its 14th year, it will bring together a roster of speakers and exhibitors from across the e-commerce ecosystem to reflect on an unexpected 2022 and discuss the most pressing issues and opportunities facing the industry in the year ahead.

$140 millionOxbotica, a specialist in autonomous vehicle software, has raised $140 million in Series C investment.

The round includes financial and strategic partners from North America, EMEA and APAC, including new investors such as Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co. and ENEOS Innovation Partners.

Current shareholders who are re-investing include bp ventures, BGF, Halma, Hostplus, Kiko Ventures (IP Group), Ocado Group, Tencent, Venture Science and ZF, amongst other global companies.

Oxbotica has raised approximately $225 million to date. 

The latest funding will drive its geographical expansion in North America, EMEA and APAC, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomy operating system in domains where there is both urgent need and potential to scale, such as agriculture, airports, energy, goods delivery, mining and shared passenger transportation. 

3 and 1,200Amazon is set to shut three UK warehouses, affecting 1,200 jobs.

Sites in Hemel Hempstead, Doncaster and Gourock, in the west of Scotland, have been proposed for closure.

All affected workers will be offered roles at other existing Amazon locations.

The e-commerce giant is also planning new sites - at Peddimore in the West Midlands and Stockton-on-Tees in the North East - resulting in the creation of 2,500 jobs over the next three years.

12%UK online sales growth fell to -12% YoY in December, its lowest since March when the rate was still affected by Covid-19 lockdown comparisons.

That’s according to the latest IMRG Online Retail Index, which tracks online sales for 200 retailers.

This caps what IMRG labels “arguably the toughest year ever for online retail”, with growth for 2022 coming in at -10.5% YoY, by far the lowest growth ever recorded for a year and the first time it has been negative (the previous low was +2.7% YoY in 2021).