South African merchant improves in-store omnichannel fulfillment

Woolworths is taking steps to bolster its online shopping experience.



Woolworths South Africa, a division of Woolworths Proprietary Limited, is known for its vast assortment ranging from groceries, fresh produce and prepared food to clothing, beauty products, home goods and general merchandise. As the company entered into the world of omnichannel, it knew it had to deliver easy access to its merchandise, and provide a painless experience for online customers.



Its first step was to establish its stores as online fulfillment centers. However, a manual, paper-based system made it inefficient to serve an increasing number of online customers. Staging was also difficult due to the limited space in-store available to sort items into the proper containers.



Eager to improve picking accuracy and efficiency across its stores, Woolworths added the Retail Advantage in-store fulfillment solution from HighJump. The system is designed to create the best pick paths for store-based personal shoppers, and offers real-time performance reporting. Woolworths also invested in new trolleys, totes and crates, as well as wearable rugged device scanners to complement this software.



“HighJump Retail Advantage will help us standardize processes, increase productivity and improve pick accuracy,” said Zoey Rylands, Woolworths head of selling operations. “The increased efficiency will enable us to scale more rapidly across our stores as our e-commerce operations keep growing. The solution includes valuable reporting tools that will deliver the key metrics management needs to make informed decisions.”



The system initially will be implemented within 30 stores, according to Woolworths.