Department stores chain John Lewis has sold more than £1bn of merchandise via its website in the last 52 weeks, the first time it has broken through the £1bn-mark, following a 40 per cent increase in sales generated via the johnlewis.com website in 2012.
The sales were achieved on the back of new logistics systems implemented before Christmas that enable customers to order items up until 7pm for collection in-store after 2pm the next day.
Further reading
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The target was achieved a year ahead of schedule.
On top of that, the employee-owned company has recently completed the roll-out of a new £40m web platform to help bind in-store and online more closely together.
"It's an Oracle ATG platform and we have then built a web product introduction module that sits behind that. And, of course, the whole thing has to sit within the order management and fulfilment structure that we have built over the ten or 12 years that we have been running the online platform," John Lewis IT director Paul Coby told Computing.
He continued: "Early testing at every stage of the build, and inviting more than three million customers to use our beta site before full launch, has resulted in what we believe will be an outstanding experience and journey for customers."
The site also features a prominent feedback form, which generates around 300 pieces of feedback a day, which the retailer will use to prioritise issues and spot trends.
At the same time, Coby's team has been rolling out a new electronic point of sale (EPOS) system from Coventry-based PCMS across its retail estate. This will improve the company's handling of returns and, more intriguingly, is able to perform transactions in multiple currencies – a feature intended to make the most of John Lewis' flagship Oxford Street store's prime location.
"Coming down the line, we have got a new unified order management system and we are also in a selection process for a major restructuring of our supply chain management system," said Coby. To that end, John Lewis has been putting SAP and Oracle supply chain software head-to-head with a view to rolling out one of them in the near future.
"It's a progressive upgrade of our core infrastructure," said Coby. Indeed, much of John Lewis' core business systems date back to 1990 and the company is part way through a progressive upgrade of operational and back office systems to improve the company's agility.
"My vision is that we replace these foundational 'blocks'," he continued. "These are always big, hairy change programmes, but removing all the legacy systems enables you to do the customer-facing, partner support 'thing' much faster."
