How Woolworths launched a new on-demand grocery delivery offering in just four months

In recent years, the on-demand grocery delivery market has expanded into a $100 billion USD per year sector. After all, consumers want the convenience of fresh food delivered fast. 

Woolworths wanted to leverage its extensive range, supply chain and market reach in the on-demand grocery market by launching a new app called MILKRUN for on-demand groceries that are delivered fast. 

This initiative required a fast and scalable technology stack to enable Woolworths to get its products to market quickly despite needing to support complex business rules and integrations with existing Woolworths store supply and fulfillment chains.

Woolworths successfully boosted its eCommerce tech stack by strategically leveraging the capabilities of commercetools Composable Commerce (found via the Google Cloud Marketplace). Alongside Google Cloud, Algolia, Bloomreach, and Cybersource, the grocery giant enabled the swift integration of iOS and Android shopping channels within the remarkable timeframe of just four months.

Google Cloud's value in the grocery shopping space became particularly evident through its provision of a scalable and robust cloud-native infrastructure. This capability empowered Woolworths to efficiently manage the heightened demand generated by mobile shopping channels, a critical aspect of grocery shopping, where scalability is paramount.

By combining the strengths of these best-of-breed vendors and embracing the composable commerce approach, Woolworths not only expedited its entry into the mobile commerce arena but also fortified its position as an innovative force in the fast-moving eCommerce landscape.

Woolworths not only created a viable new revenue stream that forms part of its platform renewal strategy, but its new composable commerce architecture enables the company to incorporate best-of-breed product partners. The flexibility of commercetools also empowers the company to navigate complex integrations and fulfillment chains without risk, which allows them to introduce new digital touchpoints more quickly.

In addition, Woolworths has recognized faster speeds and time-savings. After successfully completing full migration to Standalone prices, which included deleting about 12 million embedded prices from production, the company reported significantly reduced latency across the board.

Woolworths' in-house IT teams now have both the time and freedom to focus on initiatives that differentiate its offering, rather than building and maintaining commoditized capabilities.