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Modernising order management and fulfilment for an Australian retail giant
Retail and ecommerce
Supporting optimised in-store operations and ending reliance on legacy technology for one of Australia’s largest retailers.
With rising customer expectations and increasing competition from global ecommerce marketplaces, it is vital that retailers can deliver modern omnichannel experiences. However, innovation at many established leaders is currently hampered by legacy technology.
For one of Australia’s largest retailers, an outdated monolithic system had become a critical bottleneck, with even minor updates slow and risky to roll out. Operational inefficiencies, poor user experience for staff, manual workflows and a lack of overall system visibility continued to create significant business challenges.
Equal Experts partnered with the retailer to decouple its order management and fulfilment process from the legacy platform. By implementing a modern, event-driven architecture and intelligent in-store tools, we helped the business transition from manual, opaque workflows to a scalable, automated system.
Ending the reliance on legacy technology also gave the business the ability to prioritise picking, improve packing accuracy, and gain total visibility over every order. The result is a faster, more reliable and efficient service that works for both the bottom line and the modern Australian customer.
Outcomes
Operational agility
Successfully decoupled from the monolith
Significant cost savings
Smart packing reduced carrier spend
Reduced errors
Every order is tracked from purchase to dispatch
About the client
Our client is one of Australia’s largest retailers, with a significant national footprint. Part of a major diversified retail group, it services millions of customers annually across homewares, clothing, beauty, electronics and more.
Industry
Retail and ecommerce
Organisation size
20,000+ employees
Location
Australia
Length of project
12 months
Challenge
Legacy limits, manual work and misplaced orders
At major retailers, the process between a customer clicking buy and the physical dispatch of the product is highly complex, especially within in-store fulfilment. For our client, reliant on an outdated monolithic system, changes in this process were a slow and expensive undertaking, often requiring its ecommerce website to be taken offline for hours at a time.
The existing system led to three significant business problems:
- Operational inefficiency: The legacy system lacked basic order prioritisation or the ability to sort by product or item type. Staff often picked the easiest orders first to meet volume targets, leaving customers waiting longer for large or bulky items.
- Lack of visibility: There were no digital checkpoints in the existing fulfilment process. If an order was left in the wrong pick-up zone or carrier cage, it became difficult to locate and rectify, creating a headache for customer service teams and extra expense for the retailer.
- Manual intervention: Retail environments require the ability to handle simultaneous events. For example, a customer might cancel an order at the exact moment a staff member is packing it. The legacy system could not reconcile these events automatically, with staff required to intervene manually to resolve conflicts, leading to inconsistent processes as well as errors in refunds and inventory levels.
The retailer needed to remove the dependency on this legacy system and create a smarter picking process, as well as uncover approaches that could be shared and adopted across the wider retail group. The first step was a strategic build vs buy decision. After evaluating off-the-shelf products against the retailer’s requirements, the team found that a custom build would be the most cost-effective way to get the exact functionality it needed.
Solution
Event-driven order management
We worked with the retailer to build a new Order Management System (OMS) with modern capabilities, ensuring it can manage even the most complex order journeys. We used event storming to map out every possible scenario, including simultaneous cancellations and dispatches. The system now handles these events automatically, triggering the correct customer notification or refund without time-consuming human intervention.
Intelligent in-store picking, packing and dispatch
The legacy staff application was replaced with a new tool filled with intelligent features to optimise store operations:
- Multi-mode picking: Staff can now switch between picking one full order or a single, high-demand product for multiple orders at once, vital to increase pick speed during major sales, promotions or product launches.
- 4D bin packing algorithm: This tool calculates the most efficient and safe way to fill a picking trolley, without overloading the staff member.
- Route optimisation: The app understands the layout of every individual store and creates the most efficient walking path for the picker, reducing the time spent moving between aisles.
- Efficient packing: After items are scanned and checked against the order, the system suggests the best packaging size and materials based on product type and dimensions, directly lowering carrier fees.
- Dispatch verification: A mandatory location scan at the end of the process ensures an order cannot be closed until it is placed in the correct carrier cage or zone. This creates a clear audit trail and provides the customer service teams with an accurate and updated package status.
Results
Data-driven efficiency and improved experiences
This project moved the retailer from a system based on guesswork to one based on data. By decoupling the order management and fulfilment process from the monolith, the business gained the ability to iterate and improve its software at its own pace.
The new application is also far more intuitive. Staff feedback shows that the new system is easier to navigate, especially during peak trading periods. With the customer service team now having a single source of truth for every order, they can provide accurate updates to customers, leading to fewer complaints and faster resolutions for refunds.
Financial and group impact
The implementation of intelligent packaging and optimised picking routes has delivered measurable savings. By reducing the number of misplaced orders, more orders are delivered in full and on time (DIFOT), resulting in improved customer experience alongside financial benefits. Lowering the volume of air being shipped also enabled the retailer to significantly cut its carrier spend.
By working closely with the wider retail group, other brands across the portfolio can also benefit from the learning and information gained during the project. This collaboration reduces duplication of effort and ensures that the entire group benefits from the same high standard of technology.
Conclusion
The retailer now has a scalable, durable system that supports its digital growth rather than hindering it. By replacing manual, error-prone workflows with an intelligent event-driven engine, the business has gained the visibility and agility required for modern Australian retail operations.