Intergamma is the company behind Gamma (the well-known blue DIY store) and Karwei (whose motto is ‘make it beautiful’). With the ambition of becoming the go-to destination in the home and garden market, Intergamma is constantly looking for ways to serve its customers better through its own stores, those of its franchise partners, and its webshops. To support this, the company is working on a series of strategic projects. We spoke with Intergamma’s Director of Strategy, Leonie Vervelde, and Supply Chain Director, Joep Arts, about one of these initiatives: ship-from-store. What does this involve, and how did Emixa help develop and implement it successfully?
From screws to garden benches and curtains to plasterboard — the product range at Gamma and Karwei is diverse and complex. The company could already deliver much of its range to customers’ homes from its central distribution centre (DC) and via dropshipping. However, it had not yet managed to offer home delivery for its entire assortment, even though there was clear customer demand for complete project deliveries to their homes.
Leonie explains: “Take plasterboards, for example. They’re large and fragile. Until now, it just wasn’t possible to deliver them using our existing delivery options - not at a reasonable cost, anyway. I saw that as a challenge: how can we get that plasterboard delivered to the customer’s home? How do we strike the right balance between customer need, possible delivery options and logistical costs? That’s how the ship-from-store concept was born: using stock from our physical stores to fulfil online orders.”
Joep adds: “The tricky items, like plasterboards, only need to travel a short distance when they’re delivered from a local store. About 95% of the Dutch population lives within a 10–15 minute drive of a Gamma or Karwei. What would otherwise be an expensive, fragile and lengthy trip from our central DC, becomes a practical home delivery opportunity through our strong store network.”
What’s more, the extensive store network offers a great opportunity to tap into local stock. If a popular lamp is out of stock at the DC but still available in a store, we can now ship it from that store directly to the customer’s home.
From a supply chain perspective, too, ship-from-store is good news. Joep explains: “In recent years, our supply chains have faced plenty of disruption (from Covid to the Suez Canal blockage) and there will always be large and small disruptions to contend with. With the stores effectively acting as local hubs, we’ve become much more flexible.”
The concept is a strong example of how stores and head office can work together to serve customers seamlessly through any channel — omnichannel. Joep: “Customers don’t distinguish between physical stores and online channels. We have to meet their expectations, and those expectations are only rising.”
Leonie adds: “This isn’t just a nice extra, it’s a key part of being a one-stop shop for our customers. They need to be able to come to us for the whole job: from inspiration and DIY advice to a complete product range and a solid delivery proposition.”
In short, a promising concept — but how would it work in practice? How could Intergamma persuade its own stores and franchisees to take this on, and more importantly, make it work operationally? A lot needed to happen to make this possible.
Intergamma opted for a phased implementation, starting with a pilot. Leonie: “We were adding something new for the DIY stores, and even though we’d prepared and thought everything through carefully, it’s always a matter of seeing how a new concept works out in reality.” Fifteen DIY stores in two Dutch regions were selected for the pilot. Staff were trained in this new way of working, initially with 80 products. Step by step, this was expanded to include more stores, different product ranges, and various logistics providers.
While Intergamma initially thought the stores might see this extra responsibility as a burden, it turned out much better than expected. Joep: “We had to be mindful that this would add extra work for the DIY stores. Understandably, some store managers weren’t immediately enthusiastic, as it affects how their store operations are organised. But in the end, everyone in our organisation wants to help the customer well, and this was a great opportunity to do so. With clear instructions for staff, it was possible to integrate this extra task smoothly.”
The stores were also pleased to have an extra ‘outlet’ for stock sitting in their storerooms. Joep: “What helped is that all branches already had a PostNL service point and were already handling click-and-collect (web orders for in-store pickup). That same point could now be used to send out orders. A genuine win-win.”
But when is ship-from-store a success? Leonie: “Plasterboards became the symbol of this project — if we could manage to deliver those, it would mean a huge step forward in offering customers complete home delivery for their projects. It was a proud moment when the first plasterboard order came in.”
Today, 200 stores work with the ship-from-store concept, and nationwide coverage has been achieved.
Of course, there was a whole process leading up to this. From the start, Emixa was involved in helping Intergamma shape its delivery proposition strategy. This resulted in a roadmap of strategic projects, one of which was ship-from-store. Emixa played a key role through project management and interim management, helping accelerate the process and successfully implement the concept.
Joep says : “Because Emixa was involved right from the beginning, we were fully aligned and able to move quickly.” Leonie adds: “It was also valuable to learn from Emixa’s experience with other retailers. Sometimes they’d hold up a mirror to us: ‘Why do you do it like that?’ or ‘Have you tried this?’ That kept us sharp.”
Now that the concept is established, the challenge is to continue refining it. Joep: “One plasterboard is best delivered from a store, but when we got an order for 100 plasterboards, that turned out to be unfeasible. We learned from that and set it up differently. Every day, we take steps to improve our ability to deliver complete projects to customers’ homes and to serve them even better.”
An added benefit of the ship-from-store concept is that products travel fewer kilometres, particularly for the well-known ‘last mile’ in e-commerce. Joep: “If you work more efficiently and reduce the distance a product travels, it’s also more sustainable. Our ambition is to halve our CO2 emissions by 2030. Ship-from-store makes a positive contribution to that, too.”
In short: positive outcomes for customers, stores and Intergamma’s long-term goals.
Bart van Boven, omnichannel retail expert and involved in the project from Emixa: “We’ve been on a fantastic journey together — from strategy to implementation. It’s been special to help this great company from start to finish. Our colleague Jason Bos even temporarily worked on an interim basis, coordinating the e-supply chains in this new delivery proposition. After all, we all want this to be a success for Intergamma.”
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