+++++++++++++++++++++++++ Australia Post and Coles Online, Coles Myer's e-commerce grocery business, have signed a five year partnership agreement that will see Australia Post manage the entire customer order fulfilment process for the online grocer. The deal extends Australia Post's role with Coles Online which until now was limited to delivering customer orders.
In a deal that further expands Australia Post's logistics business, the Corporation will take over the running of two fulfilment centres in Clayton, Victoria, and Turella in New South Wales. Most of the three hundred staff currently employed in the two centres will also transfer to the Post Fulfilment Online operation.
The arrangement will come into being in late November. Part of Australia Post's fulfilment solution, which prevailed over competing offers from other logistic companies, involves an investment in new electronic systems and work practices that will improve the efficiency and capacity of the centres to fulfil grocery orders.
Both Coles Online and Australia Post are gearing up for an anticipated growth in grocery online shopping in the two States.
"This is a strategic expansion of our already strong relationship with Australia Post," e.colesmyer Managing Director Jon Wood said.
"Australia Post has provided delivery services for Coles Online from the very beginning of the business and this is a logical extension of that relationship.
"Coles Online will continue to own the stock, set the ranges, maintain the customer relationship and market the brand. This is still our business but we are now using an expert agency to complete the order processing."
According to Alec Ceselli, general manager of Australia Posts logistics division, the new agreement is in line with the latest grocery fulfilment practices around the world.
"The fulfilment operation will undergo a huge transformation. The existing model mirrors the way customers do their shopping in a supermarket. Installing new technology and work practices will radically shift the model to an electronically-enabled multiple-order fulfilment environment. It is a very different way of fulfilling orders, almost as different as the idea of Australia Post delivering groceries."
Coles Online offers next day delivery within a two hour time slot. Customer orders are delivered in a fleet of vehicles specially designed for Australia Post. The vehicles hold three temperature-controlled compartments to hold frozen, fresh and dry goods.
Under the new fulfilment system, Coles Online will still own the customer relationship. Orders taken on the Coles Online web site will be transferred electronically to the Australia Post fulfilment system for picking and packing and delivery.
Individual orders placed on the web site will be simultaneously linked to order picking staff via wireless-linked hand-held computers, the dispatch centre, and eventually back into Coles' supplier ordering system. The new fulfilment system is built around Australia Post's 'electronic spinal chord' that seamlessly integrates its logistics services with customers' e-commerce order taking systems.
MEDIA CONTACTS: Richard Castle for Australia Post, on 03 9602 3444 or 0439 393343 Scott Whiffen, Coles Myer, on 03 9829 5548 or 0407 850709
Website: www.auspost.com.au/mediacentre
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I wonder how long before Australia Post is privatised.
Fig Jam
I don't hold CML
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