Waitrose to open second dotcom fulfilment centre for London
Waitrose is to open a second dotcom fulfilment centre in south London which will enable the supermarket to more than double the number of delivery slots available to its customers in the capital. The site will create 500 new jobs when it opens in autumn 2014.
The supermarket currently fulfils London online orders through a network of London branches and a dotcom fulfilment centre in Acton in west London.
Waitrose said the new multi-million pound depot in Coulsdon will despatch up to twice as many orders per week as at Acton and feature an 80,000 sq ft picking space – twice the size of that at Acton – to allow up to 50% more items to be picked per hour and up to 50% more drops per van to be made per week.
The new facility will build upon the traditional ‘dark store’ model operated at Acton where staff pick products from aisles laid out like a customer-facing branch. The supermarket said navigation around the warehouse will be made more efficient and a self-contained chilled picking room will reduce refrigeration costs.
Never Miss a Retail Update!In addition, a redesigned fleet of vans, with on-site access to repair services and refuelling, will increase the number of deliveries made to customers on any one journey while maintaining frozen food temperatures for longer, and increasing route efficiencies to cut transport costs.
Shoppers in the capital whose orders are fulfilled by the Coulsdon DFC will be able to choose from one-hour delivery slots between 6am and midnight.
Waitrose retail director, Rob Collins, said: “Demand from Waitrose.com shoppers in the capital has soared over the last year. Our dotcom fulfilment centre in Acton will reach capacity in 2014, and we have been looking for the right location for a second for some time.
”The DFC in Coulsdon provides the perfect, purpose-built site for us to take what we have learnt from Acton and step our online operation up a gear.”
