Faster, more efficient last mile delivery: 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 Walmart, Trigo, Carlsberg Group, Coco de Mer, Evri, Tesco, SeeChange Technologies, EY, and Mintel.
40…Walmart is adding parcel stations to its stores to make the last mile delivery process faster and more efficient.
These are “like a mini post office that receives and delivers packages,” Jennifer McKeehan, SVP of Transportation and Delivery for Walmart U.S., said in an online post.
Walmart plans to have more than 40 parcel stations in its stores by the end of the year, and some are already in operation.
Packages in its fulfilment centres are transported to store parcel stations using the company’s private fleet. They are then delivered to a customer’s home through independent contractors on Walmart’s Spark Driver platform or third-party carriers.
100…Etisalat’s first 100% autonomous store has opened its doors, powered by Trigo and Amdocs.
This can be found in the Dubai headquarters of Etisalat by e&, a United Arab Emirates telecom provider, and allows shoppers to browse and purchase premium electronic goods.
The Emirati multinational telecommunications services Etisalat is operating in 16 countries across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. One of the largest mobile network operators and internet hubs in the world, it also operates hundreds of stores and other points of sale.
40 and 160…Carlsberg Group has chosen Expereo to manage its internet connectivity in 40 countries at 160 sites in support of the company’s global digital transformation journey.
Carlsberg Group brews such beers as Tuborg, Kronenbourg 1664, Poretti, Experimental and of course Carlsberg (hic). With over 40,000 employees and 140 brands in its portfolio, its is one of the largest employers in Denmark.
Expereo was selected to implement and manage a new internet underlay network to ensure seamless performance wherever employees, partners and customers are located.
$3 million…Birdsye, a startup that specialises in the retail and e-commerce artificial intelligence sector, has announced a seed investment of $3 million from Drive Capital.
This follows its previous investment, leading a $500,000 pre-seed round earlier this year. Masha Khusid, a partner from Drive Capital, will be joining Birdseye's board of directors.
Birdseye’s technology completes millions of marketing actions to match shoppers with the products they are most likely to be interested in purchasing at any given time and price. This is powered by an AI algorithm trained on vast amounts of retail transaction data.
£8 million…SeeChange Technologies, a specialist in retail focused visual AI, has announced the closing of its Series A funding of £8 million led by TriplePoint, with participation from new investors including Runa Capital and True Capital, and original backer Crane Venture Partners.
SeeChange’s visual AI platform, SeeWare, aims to enhance self-checkout, preempt stockouts, improve safety and reduce loss. SeeWare processes video from retailers’ existing hardware and this is deployed and scaled across the retail enterprise.
SeeWare has been piloted and commercially trialed by retail customers and partners including Diebold Nixdorf.
74% and 66%…According to a new survey from Criteo, 74% of UK consumers anticipate spending the same or more than they did last year online in the run-up to the holiday season, while 66% expect to match or exceed in-store spend.
48…Each year IMRG tracks online retailers’ Black Friday campaigns, looking at campaign start dates, daily revenue performance, and other unique performance indicators.
This year, the online retail association has already noted a trend for early campaigning, with as many as 48 out of the 295 retailers surveyed going live three weeks out from Black Friday week itself.
This number had steadily grown to 114+ live Black Friday campaigns just one week out, revealing participation and competition is high.
Yet, if early campaigning was an attempt to boost performance, this hasn’t proved successful for many retailers.
The results from IMRG’s Online Retail Index, which tracks the online sales performance of over 200 retailers across the UK, supported by anecdotal evidence from the IMRG retail community has shown that the industry is in YoY decline.
Nearly 50% of 80 retailers polled on 16th November said their results that week so far were ‘below expectation.’
50%…Helena Christensen has helped to drive 50% sales growth at luxury lingerie brand Coco de Mer.
The supermodel posed for lingerie campaigns during Covid lockdowns and has now gone behind the camera for a new collaboration.
Coco de Mer CEO and owner Lucy Litwack said high profile collaborations with celebrities such as Christensen and Pamela Anderson and institutions as diverse as the Victoria & Albert Museum, Playboy and even Sotheby’s auction house have powered Coco’s growth in recent years.
She spoke about this on the Retales podcast from Brightpearl by Sage.
85%…New research from Storyblok reveals a stark disconnect between what brands believe consumers want and what they really need from their online shopping experience this holiday season.
Despite global fanfare surrounding ChatGPT, a global survey of 1,000 consumers reveals that 85% aren’t interested in using AI to help them decide on purchases.
Additionally, if offered an AI recommendation, 60% said it wouldn’t make them more likely to buy something, while 17% said it would, in fact, make them less likely to make a purchase.
In contrast, a separate global study of 500 senior marketers reveals that 64% report they have turned to AI to help create digital content regularly - only 11% say they have never used it.
The thirteenth edition of its survey of 1,000 shoppers found that younger consumers are cutting back on spending much more significantly than older shoppers, with 40% of Millennials (26–41-year-olds) planning on spending less this year, compared with 27% of those over the age of 58.
Ongoing concerns about cost-of-living are continuing to shape attitudes, with 87% of respondents worried about energy, water and heating costs.
1…Evri has announced a partnership with Tesco that will enable people to collect Clubcard points for every parcel they send with it.
This is the first time that the UK’s largest retailer has agreed this type of Clubcard partnership with a parcel delivery firm.
Consumers will be able to collect one Clubcard point for every £1 spent at evri.com.
They will then be able to turn them into vouchers to get money off their Tesco shop. Alternatively, consumers can choose to donate to charity – or double the value of their points with more than 100 Clubcard reward partners.
The tie up comes after Evri recently announced a £46 million investment to boost its customer service and operations in preparation for its busiest period of the year from Black Friday to Christmas Day.
It also follows a partnership with Tesco, which launched in 2021, when Evri’s ParcelShop services were made available in Express stores across the UK enabling customers to send, receive and return parcels as they shopped.
74% of Brits believe that money can’t buy a happy Christmas, according to research from Mintel.
This is just as well, as 51% of the 2,000 consumers surveyed said that financial concerns have resulted in their household keeping to a stricter budget this Christmas.
With the cost of living a constant theme this year, 56% of people observed that news stories about 'shrinkflation' meant they would be looking more closely at prices this Christmas. Overall, three in ten expect to pay for more spending on credit this year, up from 22% in 2022.
Meanwhile, with Black Friday fast approaching, the research reveals that a quarter of Brits expect to wait for promotions/discounts (eg Black Friday) before buying festive gifts.
Mintel forecasts retail sales by value in November and December (both for in-store and online food and non-food) to hit £94.5 billion.
This represents an increase of 3.6% compared to last November and December when sales reached £91.2 billion, but this year’s growth is solely driven by inflation. In addition, total sales by volume are forecast to decline by 2.9% as the market is hit by reduced discretionary spending.
