DIGEST Tesco recently


launched a pilot of new slimline point-of-sale (PoS) terminals at three of its busiest central London stores. The bespoke tills from provider NCR are designed to speed checkout times for the 80% of peak-time customers the retailer said pay with credit or debit cards. The systems are also more economical in terms of sales space, fitting five units in the same space taken by three more traditional-sized tills.


M&S ENTRUSTS STORES TO DIGITAL HEAD M


arks & Spencer (M&S) recently appointed Laura Wade-Gery as the retailer’s first head of


UK retail in addition to her multichannel duties. The appointment was part of a management


reshuffle that will see M&S retail director Sacha Berendji report to Wade-Gery, who has overseen the retailer’s relaunch online earlier this year, after M&S took its e-commerce operations in-house from Amazon. Analyst firm Planet Retail at the time reported:


“The move is seen by many commentators as highlighting evolution in the retail industry.” On the technology front, the retailer has


been updating many of its core systems to meet multichannel consumer demand. And, it could be argued in light of its most recent quarterly


results, that the updates cannot come soon enough. Like-for-like clothing sales declined by 0.6% and increased by just 0.1% on an overall basis, while overall general merchandise sales were down 0.8%, or -1.5% on a like-for-like basis. Poor performance was in part attributed to the impact of revamping its e-commerce site, where sales were down 8.1% (Marks & Spencer blames poor performance on web, RetailTechnology.co.uk, 20 May 2014). Wade-Gery will be keen to support the online


offer with same-day delivery with the forthcoming opening of a new £900,000 square-foot distribution centre. While customers ordering online for store collection will have items delivered from the warehouse, as it also updates its IT systems to deliver a more accurate picture of stock levels instore.


ORACLE BUYS MICROS FOR $5.3 BILLION T


he retail, leisure and hospitality industry is still digesting the impact of news late June that US


IT giant Oracle acquired Baltimore-based specialist software and hardware company Micros Systems for $5.3bn (£3.1bn). The deal was the largest acquisition by the Silicon


Valley database and software giant since it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010 for $7.3bn (£4.3bn) and is positioned as a major move into the leisure and hospitality sectors Micros serves. The acquired company counts Costa Coffee, Starbucks, Hilton, Ikea and Burberry among its customers. “Micros’ management and employees will form


After months


of speculation, Carphone Warehouse Group and Dixons Retail announced an agreement to merge in a deal worth £3.8 billion. The combined company is looking to achieve integrated mobile retailing and procurement synergies, together with cost savings, of at least £80 million (Carphone W


arehouse and


Dixons announce merger, RetailTechnology. co.uk, 16 May 2014).


06


SOARING RETURNS FRAUD REVEALED S


hrink is costing the retail industry a staggering £5.03 billion, while returns fraud is up a


staggering 125% compared to last year. The top line fraud rates revealed by the latest


annual UK Retail Fraud Survey sponsored by Kount may have grabbed the headlines, with shrink levels increasing by over 22.2% in 2014, rising from 0.9% of sales last year to 1.1% this year. But other figures showed that the major area


of online loss remains, overwhelmingly from the fraudulent use of credit cards (43%), followed again by third party payment fraud (15%) and returns, which cost retailers an average of 0.9% of sales this year compared with an average of 0.4% in 2013. The results of the survey found shrinkage rates


Spring/Summer 2014


a dedicated business within Oracle to maintain their focus on serving customers,” stated Bob Weiler, Oracle Global Business Units executive vice president. After recently reporting flat year-on-year growth in


its application software business and losing ground to competitors Salesforce and SAP in terms of cloud-based deployments, the move has been seen as one designed to boost its existing retail install base and cross and upsell other parts of the Oracle portfolio. Daniel Ives, FBR analyst, commented that Oracle


needed to “catalyse new revenue growth,” and that the acquisition would spur “more software M&A, specifically in e-commerce”.


varied by retail sector from department stores at 2.4% of sales to home shopping retailers at 0.6% of sales. But retailers from all sectors recognised the need to invest in online prevention, amounting to an increase from 0.3% of sales spent in 2012 and 0.4% in 2013, to 0.43% this year. Reflecting on recent online fraud events, 33% of retailers also identified fraud detection as their biggest concern. The biggest area of store loss was still shoplifting


at 39%, but which increased from last year’s figure by 9%. Theft or fraud by employees closely followed at 33%, and which also increased by 6% since last year. By comparison, shoplifting came in 15% lower than last year to become the fourth biggest area of loss in US stores at 11%.


www.retailtechnology.co.uk


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