Chemist Warehouse has teamed up with Melbourne-based technology provider Cohesio Group to launch a same-day delivery service, in response to changing consumer demands and peak online orders, surpassing levels seen at Black Friday and Christmas, during COVID-19.
As a result, Chemist Warehouse has introduced Click and Deliver to offer customers flexible and convenient delivery options, and complement its existing Click and Collect offering.
“We wanted to ensure that we could offer our customers the safest possible option to shop during COVID-19 restrictions,” Chemist Warehouse Group managing partner and director, Mark Finocchiaro said.
“We knew that for many they felt it was a risk to leave their homes and shop in the traditional way, so we approached Cohesio Group to help us develop our existing Click and Collect solution to become a Click and Deliver solution.”
The solution was developed in four-weeks by Cohesio Group and the first stage has been rolled out across all of Chemist Warehouse’s stores in Australia, with New Zealand set to follow.
In 2017, Chemist Warehouse deployed Cohesio’s dedicated retail software, Ignito, to power its Click and Collect processes. Since then, the retailer has increased order fulfilment throughput rates by up to 30% and has since used the software to fulfil up to 150,000 online orders a month. To gain faster fulfilment times, Cohesio developed a solution whereby the picking and packing of online orders is done in store, instead of from a central distribution centre.
“Chemist Warehouse stores are unique in that they tend to be very large facilities and hold a huge amount of inventory. We recognised that this created the perfect opportunity to fulfil orders in store, rather than from a DC,” Cohesio Group head of transformation Rizan Mawzoon said.
“This kind of fulfilment is on the rise as e-commerce continues to take up a larger percentage of the retail spend. We knew this kind of approach would work very well for Chemist Warehouse and we’re absolutely thrilled with the results,” Cohesio Group CEO Nishan Wijemanne added.
When a customer selects an order on the Chemist Warehouse website or app, the Chemist Warehouse Order Management System (OMS) will check the stock levels in the stores closest to that customer to fulfil the order.
The app will also profile the consumer and recognise if they have previously visited or ordered from a particular local store. The system then sends a message to the store inventory team and communicates which orders are for Click and Deliver, and which are for Click and Collect.
Chemist Warehouse has become Australia’s largest pharmacy retailer operating more than 500 stores and servicing more than 1.5 million customers.
This article was first published on retailbiz.com.au.