Online shopping: From click to courier
What happens after you hit buy? That depends on where you’re shopping, but it’s all about accuracy, writes Harriet Pudney.
Wasting time filling a cart on some clothing site is a weekly occurrence for many of us, but what happens next is a bit more mysterious.
Whether your new jeans are coming from a massive Sydney warehouse or a small business in Hamilton, the focus is on accuracy and speed.
Courtney McKay, manager and buyer at Harper Inc, says online orders are a welcome boost to the business’ in-store sales. Their site launched in December, eight months after the store itself opened, and McKay says that while setting it up was a tedious process that no-one is in a hurry to repeat, it’s been worth it.
They now do about four or five sales a day through the site, which McKay is happy with, but she says it’s just as helpful for Hamilton customers who want to pre-browse.
‘‘I think it’s helpful for people to create a mental shortlist before they come in store, so they have a bit of a game plan.
‘‘It’s always important to keep an open mind, however,’’ McKay says, noting that of course, some garments look average on the rack and amazing on a real person.
At the complete other end of the scale is Australian retail giant The Iconic, which only ships to Australia and New Zealand. Since the company started in 2011, cofounder and managing director Adam Jacobs says it’s had to move warehouses four times to accommodate growth.
They’ve just moved again, and Jacobs won’t say how big the new facility is, but thinks it’s set to last them a good while. It’s got to be big. The company stocks more than 45,000 styles across 700 brands.
‘‘[The warehouse] is kind of like a huge supermarket where we know where absolutely everything is at all times,’’ he says.
‘‘We’ve worked really hard on developing the precision of our warehousing. Really that’s where the magic happens.’’
That precision means that when a Sydney customer makes an order with a three-hour delivery, their goodies are packed up and with the courier within 12 minutes.
While New Zealand deliveries aren’t quite that quick (there’s the Tasman sea in the way), the process is the same. In Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch they offer overnight delivery.
For Jacobs, it’s all about giving customers a premium experience, and reasons to shop with them rather than in person. Part of that is shooting nearly all site imagery in-house.
‘‘Imagery in fashion is a really big part of that, you want highfidelity imagery to really see the product, to understand colours and how it hangs,’’ Jacobs says.
The Iconic has seven photography and video studios in Sydney, with a staff of about 50.
With 200 new products going up on the site each day, they keep busy.
So do staff at Once It, a New Zealand-based sale site started in 2010 by Jay Goodey. The company now handles about 20,000 orders a month.
‘‘It was pretty humble beginnings,’’ Goodey says. ‘‘We have weeks now that are nearly bigger than our first year.’’
Once It differs from most online retailers in that it doesn’t hold most of its stock at its Auckland warehouse. Instead, it holds sales on behalf of brands, shooting campaigns, processing orders, and sending items out once they arrive.
‘‘We might have a thousand units of a particular brand come in and they’ve all already sold. So it doesn’t even really touch the bins – they’re all going back out,’’ Goodey explains.
That does delay shipping somewhat, but customers know they’re getting a good deal, Goodey says.
Although a good sale will move quickly on any day of the week, he says there are a couple of trends.
‘‘Homeware sells really well on Sunday. I don’t know why, maybe people are at home and wanting to freshen up,’’ Goodey says, adding that they notice the usual spikes in the middle of the week when people get paid.
For companies with a longer history, e-commerce was more of a change, but no less enthusiastically adopted.
Both Farmers and Wellingtonbased Banks Group shoe stores now sell online, with Farmers starting in April 2015 and Banks back in 2008.
Jeremy Bank, Banks Group general manager, says about 50 to 60 per cent of the group’s online orders are sent out from a separate warehouse that works as a standalone store for Shoe Connection and snkr. The rest are sourced from the group’s physical stores, but Bank says that warehouse setup means they can get orders out quicker and more accurately.
Farmers’ online store works the same way, e-commerce manager Jesse Baddely says.
‘‘By sending from a single source we control the quality and ensure the experience is consistent.’’
Getting the site live was a complex operation, she says, adding it was one of the most ‘‘exciting and rewarding projects Farmers has undertaken in its 100-year history’’.
‘We’ve worked really hard on developing the precision of our warehousing. Really that’s where the magic happens.’ Adam Jacobs The Iconic’s co-founder and managing director