Infinity helps Liquorland get click-and-collect ready for lockdown in less than a week
Liquorland is an omnichannel and franchised liquor retailer with more than 120 stores around New Zealand and an eCommerce website. Each store prides itself on its friendly, welcoming in-store environment, fantastic promotions and knowledgeable team.
The challenge of operating during COVID-19
Up until 48 hours before New Zealand went into COVID-19 Level 4, there was uncertainty about whether Liquorland stores would be closed during lockdown. It wasn’t clear if liquor stores would be an ‘essential service’. As they were deemed not to be, the Liquorland team had two days to close stores and turn off click-and-collect.
Brett O’Hanlon, Liquorland’s Finance and IT Manager says, “The week leading up to Level 4 subjected stores to panic buying at or above Christmas trading levels.”
“Like a lot of sectors, our franchisees experienced compressed trading to the level where they were being emptied of stock. The situation really pushed the limits of what our infrastructure could process but Infinity saw us through.”
And of course, the company had to start thinking of the future immediately. Brett says, “One of the first things stores looked at was their cash flow. Thankfully, Liquorland had recently put in place a profit-sharing arrangement. We had a way of distributing a significant amount of cash back into the stores. Receiving the money during the second week of April really helped with expenses.”
Along with other advance payments and deferring charges, the impact to franchisees’ cash flow was softened to ride out Level 4.
Teamwork has been key to quick action
The Liquorland and Triquestra teams were in constant contact from the beginning of Level 4. “Two things drove our priority for change – what worked for our franchisees and guidance from the government. We met with a selection of franchisees to discuss if they wanted to offer click-and-collect again when we went to Level 3. While they said ‘yes’, we were also driven by MBIE (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) legislation.”
Video calls began between Brett, Angela, franchisees and Debbie, Chay, Anastasia and Mike from Triquestra. Brett says, “We stepped through what the MBIE requirements would mean. We needed to change messaging, purchase limits and operating processes.”
“We got an understanding of the effort required to make changes really quickly. We had new functionality built, tested and running within a week to make sure that everything would be as efficient and contactless as possible for Level 3 reopenings.”
Brett says, “Debbie’s been great from a management perspective. She’s been part of all our prioritisation meetings. Chay’s inherent knowledge has been invaluable as well. He thinks of himself as part of our business and he puts himself in our customers’ shoes.”
A tuned up click-and-collect process
Infinity’s flexibility and the collaborative effort has resulted in a new click-and-collect process that’s delighting franchisees and customers alike.
“As a unified commerce platform, Infinity connects our inventory, POS and fulfilment for one clear picture of the business. It’s handled the increase in online transactions fantastically and it’s given our customers an accurate picture of available stock through our website. If we didn’t have Triquestra’s responsiveness to adapt to operating under lockdown conditions, we would have had to take the website down.”
The sheer number of Liquorland transactions has been very remarkable. Brett says, “Before COVID-19, engagement with click-and-collect was low because liquor is often a convenience purchase. People stop in on their way home or to see friends and family. Now it’s gone from our smallest turnover ‘store’ to helping us run the turnover of around 129 stores through it. The volumes it’s handled is a significant number for any type of retail.”
“We transacted at an eCommerce level we’d never expected and Infinity held up really robustly. In terms of an acid test, it would be hard to ask for more than that.”
Brett adds that for processing thousands of transactions in a day, Infinity’s accurate, near real-time inventory management meant returns or substitutions due to out-of-stocks were only a fraction of a percent of transactions.
“We’ve had some really lovely messages from franchisees about the responsiveness in supporting them,” Brett says. “And it was Triquestra’s support that was the major contributing factor to us receiving this feedback.”
Looking forward to what’s next with Infinity
Brett believes there will be a reduction in orders once COVID-19 restrictions are no longer in place, but that click-and-collect will remain a convenient option for Liquorland shoppers.
He says, “It’s not my area of expertise, but we expect people will entertain at home because they’ll be comfortable doing so and it’s affordable. There are a lot of customers that have had a good experience with us and will continue to use click-and-collect. I do think there will be an increased service level expectation. While people are accepting of technical glitches and delays now, they won’t always be. With Infinity, we’ve got the right process to get orders ready quickly and accurately.”
Liquorland stores are also using Infinity to support better customer experiences across physical and digital channels. Brett is looking forward to using Infinity’s rules-based pricing and APIs as part of Liquorland’s eCommerce platform refresh. This new functionality and open architecture will help Liquorland streamline pricing across the group’s physical and digital channels, and offer customers even better promotions.
“Right now, our stores have 60 different ways to do promotions because franchisees can use different processes to do the same thing. It’s great flexibility for stores, but with Infinity rules-based pricing, we’re aiming to turn that 60 into 10 or 15. It’ll help us consolidate our processes, provide new combination offers, and reduce confusion in-store and online.”
Brett believes that Liquorland suppliers will like the flexibility as well. And he adds, “Our merchandise team is also looking forward to rules-based pricing and the compelling offers we’ll be able to share with customers.”
Brett concludes, “Infinity has opened the door for us to offer new omnichannel services. It’s testament to both the Triquestra team and the Infinity platform that we can offer these new services quickly and give customers what they want. It’s a great relationship.”
Contact us to discuss click-and-collect and the other contactless fulfilment options that you can get up-and-running with the Infinity unified commerce platform.
Want to see how Liquorland manage their ‘shop local’ eCommerce? Take a look here: liquorland.co.nz
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