RTIH takes a look back at the retail technology space during October and highlights the winners, losers and major developments.

Good month for…

Amazon’s third quarter revenues rose to $96.1 billion from $70 billion in the same period a year earlier.

Clothing rental venture GlamCorner announced a $12 million Series B funding round involving Treis, Airtree Ventures, Giant Leap Fund, Marshall Investments and Partners For Growth.

FreshToHome, an Indian e-commerce startup that sells fresh fish and meat, raised $121 million in Series C funding. 

Third party sellers, most of which were SMEs, surpassed $3.5 billion in sales on Amazon Prime Day 2020, a nearly 60% year-over-year increase.

Instacart raised $200 million in a new funding round involving existing investors. D1 Capital and Valiant Peregrine Fund led the round.

US-based last mile delivery venture Onfleet raised $14 million in a Series A funding round led by Kennet Partners.

Cooler Screens announced a $80 million+ Series C funding round, involving the likes of Verizon Ventures, Microsoft’s M12 venture fund, GreatPoint Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank.

Newly minted unicorn Mirakl said it would invest at least £23.5 million in the UK market over the next two years, as the Paris-based e-commerce venture looked to accelerate growth across Northern Europe.

The Very Group reported a return to profit, with full year revenue topping £2 billion for the first time.

Chiper, an e-commerce platform pitched at the Latin American corner store market, announced a $12 million Series A round featuring WIND Ventures, Monashees and Kaszek Ventures. 

Geek Retreat was set to open 100 new stores on UK high streets over the next two years, creating around 600 jobs.

US-based autonomous store technology venture, AiFi, bagged additional funding from Qualcomm Ventures, existing investors Cervin Ventures and TransLink Capital, and newbie Plum Alley.

Bad month for…

Customers were migrating away from cash as affinity for digital payments grew, according to research by Capgemini. 

Ocado was being sued by Norwegian robotics firm AutoStore.

The latter filed lawsuits in the UK High Court and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, claiming Ocado’s grocery picking robots infringed on its automated designs. 

Waitrose also gave former partner Ocado a bloody nose as the pair started to duke it out for the hearts and minds of online shoppers

Ocado Retail, the joint venture between Ocado and Marks & Spencer, had an average of 328,000 weekly orders in the fortnight after its 1st September launch. This was down from 345,000 orders a week in the seven weeks running up to that date, according to a report by The Sunday Times. 

Waitrose, meanwhile, saw weekly orders on its website grow to 190,000, a near 20% capacity increase in the space of a month. 

The GMB trade union accused Amazon of being in denial about its safety record as a new report claimed that accidents increase in warehouses with robots.

A record number of shops shut their doors during the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus lockdown hit retailers hard, research from the Local Data Company and PwC showed.

Also this month…

AnaCap Financial Partners entered into exclusive negotiations for the purchase of a 60% stake in Market Pay from Carrefour.

Walmart was set to use four US stores as test centres in order to find solutions that help its physical locations operate as both shopping destinations and online fulfilment centres.

Marks and Spencer increased capacity at its online distribution centre at Castle Donington, as it prepared for high Christmas demand during the coronavirus outbreak.

PayPal customers would from early 2021 be able to use cryptocurrencies to shop at the 26 million merchants on its network.

Asda opened a new sustainability trial store in Middleton, a suburb of Leeds.

Costa Coffee’s Costa Express venture planned to roll-out a mobile contactless ordering system across 9,000+ machines nationwide during the autumn.

John Lewis Partnership Chair Sharon White set out her plans for the department store and Waitrose grocery business.

Online electricals retailer AO partnered with Tesco to launch its first ever physical retail experience.

It was working on five store-within-a-store concepts as part of a six-month pilot with the grocery giant. The first opened in Middleton on 22nd October. 

Iceland was prepping a same day grocery delivery service and had registered the Swift trademark with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

Amazon took the wraps off its first customised electric delivery van, designed and built in partnership with Rivian.

PayPal was taking on the likes of Klarna and Laybuy with the launch of Pay in 3, which allows UK shoppers to pay for purchases between £45 and £2,000 in three interest free instalments.

Retailers including Crew Clothing, French Connection, Robert Dyas and Ryman were integrating the solution.

Waitrose launched its first dedicated website overseas, Waitrose.ae.

Walmart announced a new store design and layout focusing on a digitally enabled shopping experience.

This was set to come to 200 of its 4,500 US stores over the next few months and another 800 in 2021.

The aim was to create “seamless omnichannel experiences that save our customers time and inspire them whether in-store, online or via mobile,” an online post noted.

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