02 Feb Latest & key news in the world the retail world

Focus on innovations at the start of 2021 

After a year 2020 rich in surprises, 2021 already offers us some great news in the world of retail. Our consultants have selected for you 3 key news events for this first month of 2021:

Cdiscount creates a marketplace solution 

On 18 January, the French e-commerce retailer Cdiscount announced the launch of its marketplace offer coupled with logistics services. Moreover, it obtained the unprecedented status of a marketplace publisher, addressing all the players in the market. This comprehensive solution enables both physical and pure players to accelerate their e-commerce proposals. In addition to classic services such as access to products, resellers and the design of a marketplace, Cdiscount offers the possibility of benefiting from a logistics infrastructure.

A partnership has already been signed with BUT, where Cdiscount collection points can be found in several of the company’s 203 shops. This new service, named: “C Chez vous”, will take care to deliver the bulky products BUT and collect old furniture from customers. With more than 23 million unique monthly visitors to its site in the second quarter of 2020, the e-commerce giant is counting on this new strategy to expand internationally.  

 ©LSA 2021

The acquisition of Debenhams by the pure player Bohoo.com

Bohoo, a British pure player specialising in apparel, has taken over a historic player in the physical goods sector for £55 million. In financial difficulties for several years, Debenhams did not survive the Covid-19 crisis and the closures of its shops during the lockdown. These same shops will all be closed in a few months and 12,000 people will be made redundant.

Indeed, Bohoo has acquired the “intellectual property” of the brand, namely its customer data, to extend its target currently focused on young women.Moreover, this acquisition will allow the brand to extend its catalogue and to offer clothing but also to position itself on new segments including beauty, homewear and sportwear

©challenges.fr

Microsoft introduces its retail cloud at NRF

This new platform revealed during NRF, “Microsoft Cloud For Retail“, aims to offer unified content. The goal is to improve the retailer’s value chain starting from marketing to logistics. With this new service, Microsoft wants to make optimal use of data in order to achieve greater profits: “Data is 90 percent unstructured (…) oday we’re helping retailers unlock the power of that data”, Shelley Brantsen, Microsoft vice president.

One of their partners, ContentSquare, will support Microsoft in the implementation of this new platform by mutualising their expertise on the customer journey. In addition, B.D.C. is the first consultancy firm to be certified “Experience Partner” of Contentsquare in the Hauts de France. 

 ©Contentesquare, 2021

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Elodie Garicoitz
Retail & Digital Consultant
elodie@bdc-retail.com