Retail Technology Category Innovation Quadrant – Q4
Retail Technology Category Innovation Quadrant
Our Innovation Quadrant provides a snapshot of the average funding and average age for the different Retail Technology categories and how they compare with one another.
- Heavyweights: Categories with high average funding and high average age. These categories are comprised of companies that have reached maturity with significant financing.
- Established: Categories with low average funding and high average age. These categories are comprised of companies that have reached maturity with less financing.
- Disruptors: Categories with high average funding and low average age. These categories are comprised of companies that are less mature with significant financing.
- Pioneers: Categories with low average funding and low average age. These categories are comprised of companies that are less mature with earlier stages of financing.
The definitions of the Retail Technology categories represented in the above Innovation Quadrant are as follows:
Automated Personalization Platforms: Automated Personalization Platforms work with retailers to deliver custom ads, marketing messages, and dynamically optimize site pages for different users. Examples include platforms that allow A/B testing and platforms that tailor websites to each individual user’s specific tastes.
Coupons: Companies that focus on both traditional and digital merchant coupons.
Data and Analytics: These companies help with the acquisition, organization, and distribution of data that companies can then utilize to enhance their applications and service offerings. Includes inventory management software.
Infrastructure and Enablers: Products and tools designed to help developers increase functionality in their existing products (e.g. payment integration), create applications (e.g. mobile apps, websites), etc.
In-Store Experience: Companies that enable brick and mortar retailers to enhance the customer journey through digital engagement, mobile-first initiatives, gamification, and more.
In-Store Management: Applications that aim to improve the productivity of brick and mortar sales associates. Examples include productivity apps that track their effectiveness in-store as well as apps that provide them with insights to better do their jobs.
Last Mile Logistics: Companies that are innovating on the last phase of the supply chain, from the store/warehouse to the consumer.
Local Advertising Technology: Companies that alert the consumer of a retail product or service. The advertising models in the O2O market often center around targeted ads, real-time mobile ads, retargeting, dynamic ads based on proximity to clear inventory, ads targeted based on check-ins or social comments, and in-store up-sell ads.
Local Daily Deals: Companies that sell locally available, pre-paid vouchers for steeply discounted goods and services. This category also includes daily deal aggregators.
Local Incentives: These companies help stores increase loyalty, customer base, and revenue from both new and repeat customers through deals, local offers, discounts, frequency rewards, gamified badges, and other techniques.
Loyalty Programs: Products that provide or power a merchant’s reward / loyalty program. Examples include digital frequent shopper cards, tailored rewards based on spending, etc.
Made-to-Measure Customization: Made-to-Measure Customization companies use proprietary technologies and supply chain processes to enable shoppers to create custom goods.
Marketing Platforms and Customer Relationship Management: Products that enable merchants / brands to engage with their customers across social media channels, and execute and manage marketing campaigns. This category also includes customer relationship management tools used to improve customer communication, tracking, and overall relations.
Online to Offline Payments: Technologies and services that are changing the way we pay for goods. In addition to payment execution, this also includes companies that provide consumers with a mobile wallet (e.g. payment information, loyalty cards) or other digital storage functionality (e.g. receipts).
Physical Store Analytics and Indoor Mapping: Using sensors, cameras, and mobile devices to provide retailers more data about customer behavior in-store such as window conversion rate, customer dwell time, optimal shelf placement, and ideal store hours. These companies help retailers optimize the customer experience to increase revenue.
Point of Sale Payments: Payment companies centered around acquirers, providing physical payment solutions for brick-and-mortar businesses and organizations. Examples include mobile point-of-sales (POS) systems and POS innovations (e.g. QR code, palm scanners).
Price and Feature Comparison: Services that empower consumers to compare product prices at different outlets or compare features across similar products (e.g. scan and engage capabilities for QR codes, bar codes, or physical items to bring up product information and comparisons in real-time).
Product Recommendation: Product Recommendation companies use crowdsourced data, individual stylists, and/or automated algorithms to determine the best products for a given shopper based on their individual preferences.
Retail Augmented Reality: Companies that enable consumers to interact with products using augmented reality (e.g. virtual manipulation).
Retargeting: Retargeting companies use cookie data to follow online users and serve dynamic, relevant ads all over the web.
Search and Local Availability: The companies in this category provide the means by which consumers can search and/or compare local availability of products and prices. This includes innovations such as store-level inventory searches and local comparisons.
Social Discovery: Platforms that allow for discovery of products through social sharing and location check-ins. Examples include discovery social networks for as well as platforms with integrated ecommerce functions.
We are currently tracking 1454 Retail Technology companies in 22 categories across 57 countries, with a total of $32.7 Billion in funding. Click here to learn more about the full Retail Technology landscape report and database.