Online slumps and funding round bumps: 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 Getir, Covariant, Starship Technologies, Pricer, Marvel Stadium, and Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology.
$75 million and $222 million…Covariant has raised an additional $75 million in Series C funds, bringing its total funding to $222 million.
Returning investors Radical Ventures and Index Ventures co-led the round, which also saw additional funding from previous backers Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Amplify Partners.
There was also participation from newbies Gates Frontier Holdings, AIX Ventures, and Northgate Capital.
1,600…Denny’s has partnered with Sparkfly and Olo to launch a new customer engagement ecosystem.
This is now live across all 1,600+ Denny’s locations.
Leveraging the former’s Offer & Reward Management Platform and adding the latter’s Marketing and Guest Data Platform (GDP) modules, it says it will create and implement bespoke initiatives to incentivise and retain loyal customers.
£8.2 billion…UK shoppers spent £8.2 billion online in March 2023, a 2.9% monthly decrease and a fall of 10.5% compared with March 2022, according to Adobe’s UK Digital Economy Index.
Consumer spending power faced increased pressure in March as the online price of essential items rose sharply, with groceries costing 9.1% more than they did last year, and pet products costing 13.7% more.
In contrast, non-essential items such as sporting goods and home and garden products decreased in price compared with March 2022, with the biggest price drops coming in toys (14.4% cheaper) and electronics (11.9% cheaper).
£1.2 billion worth of orders were processed with buy now pay later services. BNPL was used in 14% of all online orders – representing no change month-on-month. Average order values of BNPL purchases rose by 1% compared with February 2023.
1 million…Rapid grocery delivery firm, Getir, has reached a milestone of over one million donated meals (to 334 charities) from its gstores to local good causes.
This initiative began in April 2022 and is facilitated by the Neighbourly platform, which serves some of the UK’s biggest companies and supports thousands of local good causes.
In total, 422 tonnes of food have been donated by Getir to local charities, 1,520 tonnes of Co2 have been saved and there has been an overall financial impact of over £1.8 million.
10 million…Starship Technologies reports that its delivery robots have passed the 10 million km mark (over six million miles) in terms of distance travelled around the world.
It claims that this is further than any other company in the industry, and more than six times that of the one million mile mark recently announced by self-driving car developers, Waymo and Cruise.
To hit this milestone, Starship’s 2,000+ strong fleet of robots have made more than four million autonomous deliveries globally, also an industry leading figure, and completed 140,000 road crossings around the world every day.
While they have been operating at the L4 level of autonomous driving since 2018, the company also reports that one of its robots recently completed a company record 24 deliveries in 16 hours 100% autonomously without any human intervention or oversight.
20 million…Ahold Delhaize owned retailer Albert has announced, in partnership with Brain Corp and Tennant Co., that its fleet of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) deployed across its Czech Republic hypermarkets and two distribution centres have officially cleaned over 20 million square metres (215 million square feet), completing over 92,000 cleaning routes.
During 2023, it will almost double the number of stores with robot deployments.
“Last year we put a number of autonomous scrubbers into operation and this year we plan to continue to scale up their use. Altogether, almost double the number of robots will be operating in our stores by the end of March,” says Pavel Klemera, Operations Support Manager at Albert.
“Robots clean precisely, don´t skip any space and help our employees to save their effort so, they can use the time to elevate our customers’ experience.“
€1.5 million…Bringly has completed a €1.5 million funding round involving new backers Eyos Capital, the Polish SpeedUp Energy Innovation and existing investors Shamrock Ventures, Ponooc and various angels.
The Dutch startup, which lays claim to two previous (undisclosed) rounds, will use the cash to expand its sustainable online shipping platform and network of carriers in Europe, add to its team and develop its software and algorithms.
Its technology makes it possible for e-commerce players to split the entire delivery process from different stock locations on the basis of different carriers.
The firm’s algorithm monitors the available capacities and performance of connected carriers and couriers in real-time. It then provides insights into the associated CO2 reduction in both the check-out of the web store and weekly reports.
92% and 94%…The continued cost-of-living squeeze is prompting consumers to switch their grocery spend to discounter supermarkets, such as Aldi and Lidl, as well as making people less loyal to the brands they buy from, according to research from Pricer.
Its survey of 1,000 UK shoppers revealed 92% are now price conscious, rising by +33 percentage points since 2021 before the cost-of-living crisis began, and increasing to 94% of Millennials and 96% of Gen Z.
1...The AFL (Australian Football League) has announced that Marvel Stadium will become the first venue in the Southern Hemisphere to introduce Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology for checkout-free purchases.
This will be available at two outlets known as ‘The Runner’ - one food and beverage and one bar - in time for the early rounds of the 2023 Toyota AFL Premiership Season.
Fans will use their credit or debit card, or mobile wallet payment option at entry, collect their items, and leave the store without having to wait in line to checkout.
Just Walk Out technology is made possible by artificial intelligence like computer vision and deep learning techniques, including generative AI, to accurately determine who took what in a store.
Amazon says that it built synthetic datasets to mimic millions of realistic shopping scenarios, including variations in store format, lighting conditions, and even crowds of shoppers, to ensure accuracy in any environment.
The technology is currently in use at sports venues across the US, including TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics (NBA) and Boston Bruins (NHL), and Climate Pledge Arena, home of the Seattle Kraken (NHL).
Fans purchasing alcohol will be required to show their ID to a store attendant for age verification.
£1.7 million…Luxury women’s workwear brand, The Fold, has raised £1.7 million in a crowdfunding initiative, following a campaign to encourage more women to invest.
Two thirds of backers who participated were female, nearly three times higher than investment platform Crowdcube’s average, and nearly half of them were first time investors.
The Fold’s crowdfund was led by Active Partners, who have invested in brands such as Leon, Soho House, Finisterre, Rapha and Secret Cinema.
Continue reading…