Second Waitrose.com Fulfilment Centre to Open in London

October 4, 2013

Waitrose is opening a second fulfilment centre in London which will double the number of delivery slots available to customers living in the capital.

Currently orders are fulfilled in branches and via a fulfilment centre in Acton, west London. The new multi-million pound depot will be based in Coulsdon, south London and will open in autumn 2014, creating around 500 new jobs for the company.

The new fulfilment centre will process up to twice the amount of orders as the current centre at Acton and will also cover twice the space which enables the workload to be doubled.

The new facility will be laid out like the ‘dark store’ at Acton, where pickers select products from shelves and aisles designed like a customer-facing supermarket.

Redesigned vans will also be added to the current fleet to match the demand for more orders, with on-site facilities for repairs and refuelling increasing the numbers of orders that can be fulfilled in one day.

Waitrose retail director Rob Collins said customer demand had created the need for a new fulfilment centre, with the current centre in Acton due to reach capacity by next year. “The dotcom fulfilment centre in Coulsdon provides the perfect, purpose-built site for us to take what we have learnt from Acton and step our online operation up a gear.”

Currently Waitrose’s online shop delivers more than 1.5 million products to customers nationwide and sales within the M25 tripled in 2012 to represent 20 percent of Waitrose.com purchases.