UK department store chain goes live with new in-house fulfilment system for integrated home delivery services   House of Fraser recently went live with a new in-house fulfilment system, which integrates with MetaPack to manage its home delivery.  

UK department store chain goes live with new in-house fulfilment system for integrated home delivery services

House of Fraser recently went live with a new in-house fulfilment system, which integrates with MetaPack to manage its home delivery.

Prior to the MetaPack integration, House of Fraser outsourced their stock and despatch management to an e-fulfilment company, which caused a few areas of concern. First, there was limited visibility: the third-party service gave House of Fraser minimal despatch information. So, faced with the inability to track goods effectively, it was unable to proactively assist customers if ever a delay occurred which, in turn, led to a greater level of inbound calls.

Second, to ensure it was receiving the best possible service from their multi-carrier solution, House of Fraser required the ability to monitor service by carrier. The legacy report suite was only available on an ad-hoc basis and was very complex, and didn’t consistently provide the information required.

Third, in the unfortunate event where goods have to be returned, House of Fraser encourages goods to be returned in store or to a Freepost address. For the remainder that need to be returned via a courier, arranging returns was a very manual and laborious process.

Minimising complexities and costs of carrier integration

Using MetaPack meant the retailer was able to address each of these issues simply and at minimal cost. The fulfilment package provided it with full delivery visibility per sales channel, enabling House of Fraser to effectively manage costs and service.

Tracking emails are now also sent at chosen stages of the delivery. These can be either sent to the customer care teams, their customers or both. This allows House of Fraser to respond proactively to the unexpected. And, with the reporting functionality available within MetaPack, House of Fraser is given a complete overview of all delivery activity and can now monitor carrier performance as well as its own deliveries and costs.

For the percentage of returns that are still completed by the carrier, MetaPack manages them in the most convenient way for the retailer/shopper. MetaPack selects the appropriate carrier and service, communicates the collections requirement to the carrier, prints labels (wherever they are needed) and communicates status updates to all parties along every step of the process as required. Initiating this process has reduced the level of time and manual intervention involved previously.

Realising the benefits of using multiple carriers and the ease with which they could integrate via MetaPack, House of Fraser tendered out to determine the best mix. The final decision was only made only two weeks before implementation proving how fast new carriers can be added, with the whole system deployment taking only six weeks. The flexibility provided by MetaPack allows House of Fraser to always offer the best quality service and the best price at all times.

As Mark Russell, House of Fraser head of operations commented: “Online retail is seen as a key engine for growth, and MetaPack have has given us a complete level of visibility that allows us to consistently offer our customers a proactive response. We’re now in a position to offer more delivery options, as we believe it is an opportunity to distinguish ourselves from our competitors. The flexibility MetaPack offers us to execute change is important. MetaPack tests the concepts of delivery performance with re-writing the data.”