Forge Retail Pulse: A sneak peek into online checkout, retail hiring platforms, store optimization, and a postmortem on a post-Covid-19 world
Greetings, Pulse subscribers!
This week, we cover startups that can benefit retailers across the board, from online checkout to optimizing customer data to finding qualified job candidates. As many brick-and-mortar retailers open again, store optimization is currently top of mind for those looking to win returning customers, and with competition fiercer than ever, we decided to tackle what they’re doing to compete. We also have an essential read which does a postmortem on a post-Covid-19 world. Ready? Let’s get going!
Startup Deals
Online Checkout Tech | For retailers looking to capitalize on the e-commerce boom that accelerated to lightning speed during the pandemic and shows no sign of slowing down, streamlining the online checkout process is a must. By eliminating the guest checkout option and replacing it with a fast, safe, and easy one-click option, Bolt makes it easier to shop, and stores are seeing 60% higher conversions. Founded in 2014, the San Francisco-based startup offers a branded checkout experience for retailers across the Bolt network, allowing shoppers to checkout with a single click, even if they’ve never been to that store before. Boasting a partnership with Authentic Brands Group, which owns brands like Forever 21 and Brooks Brothers, Bolt is seeking to bring one-click purchase functionality to the entire Internet.
Customer Data Platform | For retailers, the Internet offers an unprecedented treasure trove of data to mine and create experiences that delight their customers. Unfortunately, this data is often siloed and goes unused. Amperity offers a solution that helps retailers get a handle on their data with its customer data platform (CDP). Holding multiple patents for various CDP technologies, Amperity identifies customers across a retailer's first-party data, creates a Customer 360, understands customers' interests, and develops analytics to predict their intent. With the impending retirement of third-party cookies, brands such as Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Dick's Sporting Goods, Cost Plus World Market, and Kendra Scott have already partnered with Amperity to manage their data and turn it into the kinds of hyper-personalized experiences that speak to their consumers. Amperity recently achieved a valuation of over $1 billion with a $100 million Series D funding round.
Hiring Platform | As the world slowly emerges from the pandemic, we’re seeing fewer masks and a lot more “now hiring” signs. With the number of job vacancies in the United States soaring to record highs, finding qualified applicants has become challenging. That’s where Frontier comes in. By focusing on connecting qualified workers with high-volume industries such as retail, grocery, restaurants, and hospitality, Frontier bills itself as a “new kind of vertically integrated jobs marketplace.” Sourcing candidates from all over the web, including social media channels such as Instagram and Tik Tok, Frontier pre-tests applicants to find the best candidates, then allows them to directly book interviews with employers, helping companies save time and money in the hiring process. Claiming to produce 10 times more qualified candidates, Frontier recently launched with $2.8 million in seed funding.
Theme Exploration: Store Optimization
Optimizing store operations can boost sales, ramp up productivity, and reduce costs across every facet of a retailer's business. Whether this means a new way to monitor shelves, improve customer service, or utilize data to improve the shopping experience, these startups offer exciting new possibilities for the future of retail.
In-store Drones | Monitoring shelves for stock-outs and correct product placement is a time-consuming, expensive, and necessary part of every retailer's day. By using artificial intelligence, computer vision, and autonomous drones to track and analyze retail inventory, Pensa helps brands and retailers minimize stock-outs, optimize product planning, and increase revenue. With a system that “learns” each product and where it should be on the shelf, Pensa quickly identifies the many errors missed by human visual inspection and gives real-time feedback, providing retailers unprecedented shelf visibility so that they can improve sales, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
Omnichannel Platform | Tulip is a cloud-based retail platform empowering store associates with an intuitive mobile app that enables assisted selling, clienteling, store communications, fulfillment, and checkout anywhere in the store. With the ability to manage customer information, preferences, follow-ups, and client communication in one simple to use app, store associates can deliver intimate, personalized experiences via one-to-one relationships. Already being used by leading retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Kate Spade, Coach, Tiffany, and Bonobos, Tulip claims a 2% to 10% increase in in-store sales and a 10% to 30% increase in customer satisfaction.
Computer Vision | For retailers, knowing what’s on the shelves is more than inventory; it’s knowledge that can improve the shopping experience and increase revenue. Trax gathers images via its mobile app, shelf cameras, dome cameras, or the digital eyes of roving robots to provide a powerful, accurate, and consistent way for retailers to collect, measure, and analyze what is happening on the physical shelf. Trax claims to increase in-store revenue by 8% to 16% by improving in-store execution and merchandising, contract compliance, category analysis, planning, and shopper engagement.
Essential Industry Reads
A year ago, during the height of the pandemic, 500 Startups developed a framework for evaluating the effect they believed Covid-19 would have on different sectors, whether positive, negative, short, or long term. Now, a year later, as we emerge into a post-Covid-19 world, they look back on their predictions and reevaluate them, taking all they’ve learned over the past year to see where various industries are headed in 2021. Click below to learn more about what the next year may hold.
Recently, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said the US economy would benefit from an increase in interest rates. After looking at the current landscape, including the effects of the recent stimulus packages, Tomasz Tunguz investigates the connection between historical interest rates and venture capital (VC) funding to see what a rate increase could mean for VC firms and startups in the years to come. Click below to see the figures that will move the VC market over the next 3-5 years.
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