— What was happening
A global membership retailer was looking to introduce online ordering and same-day delivery to its China business.
The company already operated physical warehouses in the market, but products were not available for purchase online. Establishing a traditional ecommerce model would require dedicated depots to hold and distribute ecommerce inventory, an undertaking that could take years to put in place.
Instead, the retailer saw an opportunity to use inventory already available in its warehouses. By offering a selected assortment of groceries and sundries online, each participating location could also serve as a local ecommerce fulfillment point, creating a much faster path to market while the broader ecommerce model continued to evolve.
— Where growth opportunities existed
Same-day delivery represented an opportunity to create a new revenue stream without waiting for dedicated ecommerce distribution infrastructure to be established.
By using existing warehouse inventory, the retailer could bring a digital offering to market much sooner while establishing a model that could expand across additional locations, assortment, and delivery areas.
Getting there required more than introducing online ordering. The local ecommerce team, warehouse operations, and logistics provider needed to work together to establish how orders would be received, picked, packed, and delivered. Staffing, equipment, and fulfillment processes all needed to be considered alongside the technology.
The program also had to account for the realities of operating in China, including local regulatory requirements and a different technology environment, while teams worked across language, cultural, and time-zone differences.
Opportunities existed to:
- Give members an online shopping and same-day delivery option
- Prepare warehouse teams and equipment to fulfill online orders
- Coordinate fulfillment workflows with the logistics provider
- Validate the end-to-end service through a controlled initial rollout
- Create a foundation for expanding assortment, warehouse coverage, and delivery reach
— What BASE1 did
BASE1 worked closely with the local team as a technical owner and delivery partner, helping connect the digital experience with the operational requirements of fulfilling same-day orders.
Recurring in-person workshops in Shanghai helped align teams, work through requirements, and support decisions across both the technology and warehouse operations. From there, BASE1 supported the program across several areas of delivery:
- Helped design picking and packing workflows, assess staffing needs, and plan for scanners, printers, and packing stations
- Coordinated the fulfillment workstream with the logistics provider
- Translated local business and user-experience requirements into a solution integrated with SAP Commerce
- Adapted the solution to the WeChat Mini Program and Tencent environment while navigating local licensing, data-residency, and regulatory requirements
- Guided decisions around performance, reliability, and scalability within the existing commerce backend
- Introduced a limited beta and single-warehouse launch, with restricted order volumes to validate ordering, delivery scheduling, and fulfillment
- Established rollback procedures and controls that allowed the service to be quickly paused if issues emerged
— What changed
In approximately eight months, the retailer established a new ecommerce capability using inventory already available within its physical warehouses rather than waiting years for dedicated ecommerce depots to be established.
The launch created a new revenue stream and gave customers a digital shopping option alongside the retailer's existing warehouse experience. Each participating location could now serve as its own ecommerce fulfillment point for the selected same-day assortment.
Following a controlled and generally smooth go-live, the program continued to grow through expanded product assortment, greater delivery reach, and additional warehouse coverage.
Building a new ecommerce capability does not always require waiting for entirely new infrastructure. By designing the digital experience and fulfillment model around assets already in place, existing warehouse operations can become part of the path to market. In this case, connecting online ordering with in-store inventory allowed the retailer to establish a same-day ecommerce capability in months rather than waiting years for dedicated distribution infrastructure. Sometimes the fastest path to a new digital capability starts with rethinking how to use what already exists.