Stor.ai Aims to Take on Instacart with Holistic eCommerce Infrastructure
The strengthened partnership between Stor.ai and Toshiba aims to provide more retailers with tools covering the entire eCommerce journey, from placing an order to the customer receiving it. A spokesperson for Stor.ai said the two companies have worked together on product integrations in the past, and are now formalising their partnership to allow Stor.ai to […]
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The strengthened partnership between Stor.ai and Toshiba aims to provide more retailers with tools covering the entire eCommerce journey, from placing an order to the customer receiving it.
A spokesperson for Stor.ai said the two companies have worked together on product integrations in the past, and are now formalising their partnership to allow Stor.ai to roll out its platform across Toshiba’s client base. The partnership also “will greatly expedite Stor.ai’s ability to seamlessly integrate and acquire know-how in different markets around the world,” the spokesperson said.
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In the announcement, Stor.ai noted that Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions has more than 3.25 million point-of-sale and self-checkout units installed worldwide. Founded in 2014, Stor.ai is working to grow its global presence and using $21 million in new funding to accelerate growth in North America and enter new markets in Europe and Latin America.
In recent months, Stor.ai has linked up with retail computer vision and analytics provider Trax to offer an on-demand order picking workforce and with delivery and fulfilment platform Bringg to expand delivery fleet options for retailers. Its partners also include Unilever, Microsoft, omnichannel payment gateway Cardknox and Tortoise, the maker of electric delivery carts, according to its website.
Combining expertise is a way companies are trying to gain a competitive edge against Instacart and other large third-party services that many grocers relied on during the pandemic-induced e-commerce boom. For example, this year Dot Foods, the food industry redistributor in North America, bought ShopHero while technology company NCR acquired Freshop. Last fall, Rosie, an eCommerce provider for independent grocers, integrated ShoptoCook’s website and kiosk service along with AppCard’s personalised marketing and digital coupons into its platform.
