Will Target be in Amazon’s shopping cart this year?
This week, there has been a lot of discussion about the prediction that Amazon will acquire Target. It was revealed that an analyst and co-founder of Loup Venture, a research and venture capital firm focused on tech, has predicted that Amazon will acquire Target this year. Gene Munster, the man behind the prediction, previously correctly forecasted the Amazon-Wholefoods acquisition. This predicted deal between the e-commerce giant and the discount brick and mortar store could create opportunities. For example, they have a common interest in certain demographics and it could provide both companies with more power over Walmart, which currently has a market position behind Amazon but ahead of Target.
Furthermore, Amazon can benefit from Target’s physical store presence of approximately 1,830 brick and mortar stores, which would add to their recently obtained Whole Foods stores. This all could be a possibility with the future of retail heading towards a combination of mostly an online presence coupled with a bit of offline. However, other retail industry members think a partnership or merger would be a more realistic prediction or even an acquisition of Kohl’s, a company that Amazon already has connections with.
To find out more about this possible acquisition, click here.
National Returns Day for package delivery services
As the holiday season is over, package delivery companies including UPS and FedEx expected a record-setting amount of returns this week. As a result of the enlargement of e-commerce, consumers are no longer returning unwanted items directly to the stores themselves. Therefore, UPS will process around 6 million returns over the course of this week and on Wednesday, otherwise labelled as National Returns Day; the company has predicted it will have received 1.4 million parcels.
With ever more purchases online, returns are increasing year on year. More and more retailers are also offering free shipping and returns to compete with the likes of Amazon and Walmart. As a result of this, the returns process is costly, time consuming and managed inadequately. Returns are transported to a warehouse, where each transaction is processed and a decision is made on what to do next with the items. This ranges from reselling, placing in an outlet store or disposing of items.
Click here to find out more.
JD.com enters the physical supermarket game
On Thursday, the Chinese e-commerce company JD.com revealed it opened its first high tech grocery store and is launching more of these supermarket stores called 7Fresh to offer a premium offline food shopping experience. This project is the latest attempt to integrate online and offline shopping in China and a part of the current development where traditional retail stores are powered using e-commerce technology. The 7Fresh stores incorporate advanced technology to provide a shopping experience that is more personal and informative for the consumer.
This new premium food shopping experience is equipped with magic mirrors and automatic shopping carts that will follow customers around the different aisles. The magic mirrors detect when a consumer picks up a product and displays information about its nutritional value and source of origin. Other elements of 7Fresh stores include traditional and self-checkout services, a restaurant area offering freshly cooked food and delivery options that can deliver goods to consumers’ homes in the local area within 30 minutes.
To read more about the launch of these stores, click here.
Have a great weekend!
