How micro-fulfillment helped Loblaws handle e-commerce surge
As an essential retailer, Canadian supermarket giant Loblaw was in a good position to weather the COVID-19 outbreak. However, when e-Commerce sales spike 4X in a matter of days, even strong retailers can feel the strain. Previously, Loblaw’s e-Commerce sales were a fraction of its brick-and-mortar business — but that was changing in a hurry.
Loblaw offered same-day pickup even before the pandemic hit, but rising demand required the retailer to rethink how it handled its online business. To this end, Loblaw partnered with Google Cloud to help scale up its operations — including the formation of a dedicated war room where Loblaw and Google engineers worked side by side to quickly come up with a plan.
As it turned out, the solution already was in motion: Loblaw had partnered with Takeoff Technologies and was in the process of rolling out a robotic Micro Fulfillment Center (MFC) when COVID-19 reached Canada. An MFC is a small-scale automation and fulfillment solution, placed within an existing storefront, that can rapidly store, pack and fulfill orders on a hyperlocal basis to keep last mile costs low.
Loblaw, Google and Takeoff collaborated to launch the technology ahead of schedule, helping the grocer keep up with massive demand. In this interview with Retail TouchPoints, Hesham Fahmy, VP and GM of Marketplace at Loblaw, discusses how the companies worked together to keep operations at full speed as shopping habits quickly shifted with the pandemic.
