Co-op to open online market stall

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The Co-operative

The last of the UK’s big six supermarkets, Co-operative, is to open its online market stall.

With Iceland restarting their e-commerce project and Morrisons deal with Ocado, Co-operative is scheduling to enter the online grocery market.

While the average basket size of the supermarket is estimated at £6 each, the company’s head of retail Steve Murrells already said it makes is hard to justify the Co-operative’s massive outlay on the online operation plan.

The first of four trials will commence just before Christmas, where the Co-op will road-test a variety of delivery methods and services.

Based on the results of those trials, the company will focus on pinpointing the most profitable way to run its online operation.

Might the supermarket chain be a bit too late to enter the market in order to have a real impact on the online grocery market?
And will you do your grocery shopping online at the Co-operative?

Source: Telegraph.co.uk
Image source: BBC

Oops… Amazon offline for 30 minutes results in $5m lost revenue

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A hard-coded tech error made the Amazon website for Canada and the US unavailable and offline for 30 minutes at the beginning of the week.
Visitors encountered the dreadful ‘500 Service Unavailable Error’ with the accompanying message ‘Oops! We’re very sorry!’.

As it turns out, this thirty minute hiccup resulted in $5m in lost revenue for Amazon.

The cloud service on which the site operates, the Elastic Compute Cloud, experienced problems last year resulting in partner sites such as Instagram, Reddit and Netflix to go offline.

This issue sparked the debate again on the effectiveness and reliability of hosting your web shop on a cloud server.

Is it wise to host on a cloud server when you’re unable to have any control on potential issues? Or would you rather host it on a somewhat slower server, which allows you to fully control the back-end of your web shop?

Source: RetailGazette.co.uk

Shopper Discounts and Rewards Cashback

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Did you know that all new Shopper Discounts and Rewards members can claim an introductory €10 cashback?
All you have to do is email the proof of purchase or booking, and Shopper Discounts and Rewards will send out a €10 cheque!

SDR cashback reward

Shopper Discounts and Rewards €10 cashback reward

To find out how to claim this cashback and more, visit the Shopper Discounts and Rewards benefits page.

Job cuts, store closures and giants getting ready to battle

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Marks & Spencer

The headlines from this week are primarily focussed on the recent announcements in the grocery industry. Here’s Shopper Discounts and Rewards selection.

As the landscape of the grocery market has rapidly developed over the last couple of years, changes in this industry are unfortunately imminent.

Additionally, the consumer electronics giants are preparing for the next best thing.

M&S announces job cuts and store closures in Ireland

Retail chain Marks & Spencer announced on Wednesday it’s planning to close four stores around the country.

The closure means the loss of 180 jobs in Mullingar Co Westmeath, Naas in Co Kildare, Dun Loaghaire in Dublin and Tallaght, and the shops are due to close as early as next week.

According to the company, the four stores were considered as being unprofitable. After a strategic review, the company had to ‘protect the long term good of the company’ and decided on the store closures.

Despite the bad news, M&S Ireland announced that it plans to open a flagship store in Limerick in 2016. (source RTE.ie)

Superquinn to turn into SuperValu

Supermarket giant Musgrave announced that it will streamline its operations by rebranding the Superquinn outlets next February. All 24 Superquinn outlets will be rebranded under the new SuperValu brand.

This rebranding and streamlining does mean the loss of 102 jobs at the Superquinn’s back office.

Various experts expect a positive effect for shoppers as a result of the rebranding. It is expected that the lower costs and own-brand products will make shopping cheaper. (Source Retail-Week.com)

South Korean electronics giant seeks trademark for ‘smart watches’

Smart watches might be the hottest gadget in a couple of months’ time.
Despite the South Korean previous attempt in 2009 to release a watch phone (the Samsung S9110), the two giants are lining up for the next big battle in consumer electronics: wearable computing devices.

Where Apple applied for a trademark for ‘iWatch’ in Japan in June, Samsung is looking to get its ‘Samsung Galaxy Gear’ patented and trademarked in the US.

Will this result in another heroic and epic Samsung vs Apple battle? (Source Yahoo News)

(Image by SimonQ, usage under a Creative Commons license)