Dive Brief:

• Applied Data Corporation (ADC), a company that makes inventory software for fresh items, announced Tuesday it has entered into an agreement to buy e-commerce software provider ShopperKit. 
• ADC said the “highly strategic” planned acquisition of ShopperKit’s in-store order fulfillment platform will give the company an edge in the growing e-commerce market.
• Executives for both companies noted in the announcement that the acquisition will allow for an expansion of demand forecasting capabilities, both in-store and online. The news follows NCR's acquisition last week of e-commerce provider Freshop.

Dive Insight:

The planned acquisition gives ShopperKit, which is based in Sandy Springs, Georgia, the opportunity to grow and have the backing of a larger company, while ADC will add ShopperKit’s in-store order fulfillment platform to its suite of retail software solutions, the companies said Tuesday.

ADC said in the announcement that it plans start work “immediately” on the integration — a nod to the urgency and demand for providing grocers and convenience stores with a range of e-commerce solutions. 

Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, ADC works with more than 20,000 grocery and convenience store locations to help them manage fresh inventory. The software company offers recipe management, label printing, inventory and waste management, food traceability, production planning and more on its FreshIQ platform. 

ADC’s announcement comes days after another legacy retail technology company, NCR, revealed it bought e-commerce provider Freshop. Like executives from NCR and Freshop, Shamus Hines, the CEO of ADC, positioned the planned acquisition as a win for grocers looking to take more ownership over operations that impact their e-commerce presence. 

“The addition of ShopperKit will give our customers a unified approach to their omnichannel strategy while providing them with visibility into store operations with user-friendly products that help grow sales, cut costs, and improve operational efficiencies,” Himes said. 

The two announcements underscore how technology companies are leaning toward mergers and acquisitions as well as partnerships in order to scale quickly to meet booming e-commerce demand. 

In 2020, several technology companies in the grocery space forged partnerships. ShopperKit partnered with Mercatus and Radius Networks to form a white-label e-commerce service, while ShoptoCook, AppCard and e-commerce platform Rosie joined forces for an omnichannel commerce platform.