Do you like numbers? Do you like retail technology? Then this is the article for you.

4,000…Amazon is expanding its Key by Amazon’s In-Garage Delivery service to more than 4,000 cities across the United States. 

2,100…Currys PC World is adding more colleagues to its online offering ShopLive and Order & Collect service to cope with demand in the lead up to Black Friday and Christmas.

Having launched with 20 staff members in June, ShopLIve now has 800 experts to help guide customers through their tech purchases during the coronavirus outbreak, with a view to ramping this up to 2,100 by Black Friday. 

30…Barcelona-based startup, Glovo, has launched a new business unit, Q-Commerce, which will focus on delivering the likes of groceries, toys, books, flowers and beauty products within cities in 30 minutes or less. 

180…Missguided has announced a partnership with InPost which will see 180 of the latter’s UK parcel lockers branded with the pureplay’s visuals in the run up to Christmas and beyond.

The aim is to raise awareness of this contact-free delivery and returns option.

851…Retailers are feeling cautiously optimistic about the festive shopping season, despite uncertainty around physical store openings and holiday sales patterns during the coronavirus outbreak.

That’s according to research from Capgemini, involving 851 retail managers across UK, US, Germany, France, Netherlands and Scandinavia, in companies with at least 250 employees. 

£200…Brits are happy to wait 65 minutes in an online queue in order to save £200 this Black Friday, according to Uswitch research.

$74.1 billion…Alibaba Group reports that orders on its e-commerce platforms during the Singles’ Day shopping extravaganza hit a record 498.2 billion yuan ($74.1 billion).

573…M&S has announced the roll-out of its checkout-free shopping technology Mobile Pay Go to all 573 of its UK stores.

35.7%…Overall UK online retail sales growth in October came in at 35.7% YoY, compared to September’s 42%, according to IMRG and Capgemini research which tracks over 200 retailers.

4…Waitrose has launched a four day virtual food and drink festival.

Running from 12th-15th November, this replaces the retailer’s annual drinks festival, which can’t be held in person this year due to the coronavirus outbreak.

1.5%…Bitcoin rewards startup Lolli has announced a partnership with Kroger. Its users can now earn up to 1.5% Bitcoin back on grocery orders for pickup or delivery.

63 UK retailers, including Co-op, Iceland Foods, John Lewis Partnership, M&S and Sainsbury’s, are committing resources to support the BRC Climate Action Roadmap.

This aims to bring the retail industry and its supply chains to Net Zero by 2040.

47%…The e-commerce and digital payment industries in the Middle East & North Africa, Pakistan (MENAP) region are set for major growth in 2021, according to research by Checkout.com.

The region has historically been dominated by cash payments. However, across eight countries, 47% of people expect to shop online more frequently over the next year. 

200…Aldi UK is rolling out Click and Collect to 200+ stores by Christmas.

$500 million…Autonomous delivery startup Nuro has raised $500 million, giving it a post-money valuation of $5 billion.

£100,000…Bookshop UK says that, since launching a week ago, it has generated over £100k in profit for bookshops, and pulled in 25,000 customers.

4.9%…October saw another month of strong UK retail sales growth, with food, gifts and loungewear high on peoples’ shopping lists. 

According to research by the BRC and KPMG, on a total basis, sales increased by 4.9% in October, against a decline of 0.3% in October 2019.

£1.437 million…Brits were set to notch up a new spending record of £1.437 million this Singles’ Day, according to research commissioned by VoucherCodes.co.uk and carried out by the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).

$164 billion…The total transaction value of smart home payments will exceed $164 billion in 2025, from $22 billion in 2020, according to Juniper Research. 

35-45%…UK online retail sales are set for growth of 35-45% during the Black Friday peak, according to IMRG.

With the coronavirus outbreak causing non-essential physical stores to be closed for long stretches of 2020, growth for the year so far (January-October) is up 34.9%, whereas for 2019 as a whole it was 6.7%.

2…The European Commission has filed antitrust charges against Amazon, accusing it of using business data to gain an unfair advantage over independent sellers operating on its platform.

The charges follow a two-year investigation into Amazon's dual role as a marketplace as well as a vendor.

The Commission has also opened a second formal antitrust investigation into the possible preferential treatment of Amazon's own retail offers and those of marketplace sellers that use the e-commerce giant’s logistics and delivery services.

1 million…Co-op reports that more than one million shoppers have downloaded its new membership app following a recent refresh of its loyalty programme.  

$1,460 billion…Generation P is set to drive the international grocery sector up by an incremental $116 billion over the next couple of years, creating a $1,460 billion opportunity by 2022, according to IGD.

$1.1 billion…Alibaba Group has confirmed media reports about a tie up with online luxury fashion platform Farfetch. 

Both it and Swiss group Richemont will invest $600 million ($300 million each) in Farfetch and $250 million each for a 25% stake in a newly formed Farfetch China joint venture. 

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