A total of 53 Dick Smith stores are now capable of fulfilling orders made online and the company plans to expand the service to all its 373 stores across Australia and New Zealand.
Including David Jones Electronics powered by Dick Smith stores, between April 2014 and today the number of Dick Smith outlets with online store fulfilment jumped from 18 to 56.
Broken down by state, there are 17 in NSW and ACT, 13 in Queensland, 10 in Victoria, six in WA, one in the NT, two in Tasmania and seven in New Zealand, that offer the ‘Click & Collect’ service.
The numbers were published in a presentation delivered by George Papacosta, Dick Smith online director at the Morgan Stanley Online Retail Forum.
Driving the fulfilment strategy is Temando, an eCommerce shipping management platform. Dick Smith said Temando’s platform is streamlined and easy to use and therefore requires minimal staff training. It automates shipping documents and courier bookings and allows the business to scale its fulfilment network quickly during peak periods.
Another advantage the company pointed to was that Temando is aware of inventory at each site and will allocate and/or split orders to the most appropriate site based on stock availability and the customer’s location.
In Q3 FY14 online sales up 47 per cent for the period, the company said. Currently around 5 per cent of sales are online and this is predicted to grow to 10 per cent over the next three years.