News
Big name high street retailers have hit the headlines recently with cases of store closures, job losses and declining profits. There are many reasons for this but a large part can be attributed to the growth in ecommerce.
Consumers are more confident than ever in spending online, but they are also becoming more discerning with both their expectations of the on and offline shopping environment and how they prioritise their time.
In essence, the digital environment combined with growth in the proportion of digitally savvy consumers is making the creation of value much more complex, particularly as more and more consumers look for specific products, unique to their own needs, fragmenting the marketplace into more segments than previously thought possible.
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Seafolly, Australia's largest swimwear brand, has launched a new global eCommerce platform to compliment its growth aspirations of expanding globally and online. The company launched in 1975 in Australia and has since expanded to North America, Europe and Asia and has more than 2,700 stockists.
The new site has been developed in partnership with Tryzens, a leading systems integrator and services provider, and was created to budget and on schedule and is available across mobiles, tablets and laptops.
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New research has revealed that nearly half of UK adults would like part of their digital history to be permanently deleted. The research, conducted by Accenture, surveyed 2,000 UK adults on data privacy and discovered that 47% of them would like certain aspects of their online activity deleted.
The five most popular things that people would like to be deleted from their digital history are:
- Photos of themselves posted by others
- Embarrassing social media posts
- Search engine history
- Shopping habits
- Credit history
When GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) comes into effect on the 25th May it will provide people with more control over their digital information. It will give everyone in the UK the right to access data that companies hold about them and ask for it to be deleted.
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Quiqup, a London-based company that organises on-demand and same day courier delivery for businesses, has expanded into Manchester and Dubai.
The expansion follows Quiqup’s £20m Series B funding round, which they secured in May 2017.
Since it was founded in 2014, the company claims to have seen a 170% growth year-on-year and delivered over a million orders.
Quiqup will offer two services to its 100 new trial business partners in Dubai and Manchester: Quiqdash (a web app that allows small to medium sized business to instantly order or schedule a delivery) and its API integration service (that incorporates Quiqup’s delivery service into retailers’ existing e-commerce channels), allowing customers to still order directly from the retailer
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Outdoor Voices, an activewear company that launched as an online-only shop before expanding to bricks-and-mortar, has released an AR app called OV Trail Shop. The app is designed to get customers out onto the trail, where they can shop for its activewear items in the environment where they would wear them. The concept of AR being used outside contrasts with current retailers use of AR solely within their stores. It is this digital creativity that could help them stand out from competitors such as Lululemon.
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The UK’s second and third largest retailers Asda and Sainsbury’s, valued at £7.3b and £5.9b respectively, have announced plans for a merger.
Currently they each have around 16% of the market, whereas Tesco has nearly double at 28%. The CMA will have to consider whether to stop the merger, which would mean Tesco would continue its dominance as market leader, or to allow the merger whereby creating a near-duopoly and the top two retailers having 60% of the market between them.
If the deal goes ahead Mike Coupe, CEO of Sainsbury's, will take the helm and Asda’s owner Walmart will acquire a 42% stake in the combined business. It will also allow the two retailers to compete against competition from bigger and smaller companies, in particular by improving it's synergistic benefits - a potential £500m in cost savings.
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Fenwick, a department store which started in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1882 and expanded to 8 other stores, is considering centralising its operations and launching its first ever ecommerce platform.
Amongst the changes the retailer is thinking about moving its IT, finance and HR departments to its Newcastle flagship and has also appointed its first CEO outside the Fenwick family - former Argos commercial director Robbie Feather.
Last October the department store reported pre-tax profit drop of 31.2% to £30.4m for the year ending 27th January 2017. The majority of this drop has been attributed to investment towards launching an ecommerce platform, which would be the first in the company's history.
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In a unique move Barclays has revealed a new deal with Paypal. This partnership will allow customers to link their accounts with the two firms.
This move is in response to the challenge traditional banks are facing from new fintech companies, which are more agile and able to respond to changing customer requirements. It will also help Barclays to improve its digital offering, with the possibility for further digital collaboration at a later stage.
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Glownet, an event tech company, has succeeded in raising £2m Series A from London-based investors Downing Ventures.
This investment will help the company to grow, and bring its products to new markets and vertices, as well as increasing its commercial efforts and investing in its core technology.
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Technology within retail stores is experiencing some interesting developments as it tries to keep up with changing customer demands in terms of ease, personalization, gratification and experience.
One of the key technological advancements major brands are focusing on at the moment is scan-and-go, which allows customers to avoid the hassle of long queues via mobile checkout. Although this does raise security issues and some customers will still need store staff in order to remove security tags and check receipts.
Another level up from this is the walk-out option, where AI and facial recognition is the new form of paying, so customers don't even need their phones to pay. However a lot of cameras would be required and this could be difficult for companies to retrofit into their stores. Currently only Amazon Go and Standard Cognition are exploring this option.
Beyond these two options is the possibility of upgrading AI and facial recognition from just a form of paying to a way of further personalising a shoppers experience. For example store associates could be fed information on a customer such as their name and preferred purchases and can then approach the shopper by name and make similar suggestions in line with what they have previously bought.
With all these possibilities retailers will only be limited by their imagination and available funds for further technological improvement of the customer's experience.
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