30 October 2015
At SparkOptimus, we try to highlight the most important news and background stories in digital, e-commerce and retail. Here is our selection of last week’s news:
Last week, we learned that the reflection of the year 2015 as presented in the Back to the Future II movie was not so far off after all. Sadly, the flying cars, self-fitting clothes, and time travel have yet to become reality, but the movie did get wearable technology, video calls, and even hoverboards right. Around the exact date that movie character Marty McFly discovered a world full of buzzling technology (October 21st, 2015) Nike announced to release self-lacing sneakers, just like in the movie. As legendary Nike designer Tinker Hatfield states: “We’re now proud to turn that fiction into fact.”  The 2015 Nike Mag will only be sold via an auction next year, and all proceeds will go to the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Yes, that’s right, the actor from Back to the Future.
Although 2015 is coming to its end, Apple already declared this year as its best year ever. Before we even start looking back at the year, we have some trick-or-treating to do this weekend. This Halloween is expected to bring a boost to retailers, whereas it is now the third biggest retail event of the year for Sainsbury’s, after Christmas and Easter. The retailer is expecting to sell one million pumpkins, while Tesco thinks it will sell three million. Also Halloween will be a hit online, with 27% of adults preferring to shop online for the event and 20% doing so through an online-only retailer. When you’re still in doubt about your costume, there is Instacart, offering customers in Chicago, LA, and San Francisco same-day delivery from an online Halloween pop-up shop. And you can even use an app, developed by retailer Target, to take your kids (or yourself) on an exceptional candy quest. Happy Halloween!