John Lewis and Clipper Logistics have established a joint venture company together to provide next day delivery services into high street stores through click and collect services.
Under the terms of the agreement both partners will provide equal funding with profits also split equally between the two. The joint venture formalises a collaboration between the duo first announced in July 2015, since which time the two partners have been extending their knowledge of the specific needs of retailers and their customers’ demands around click and collect.
This includes timed delivery to store in a retailer-friendly format, integration with retailers’ customer service systems to provide customer and store updates, text messaging to retailers’ end customer and delivery into store in roll cages with clear parent and child relationships between the cage and parcel in order to enable parcels to be retrieved quickly.
John Lewis is, unsurprisingly, the first to use the service. An initial trial began this time last year with a service for click and collect deliveries into 120 Waitrose stores. This has since expanded to 300 Waitrose stores, giving nationwide coverage for the brand.
The service is operated by Clipper with John Lewis providing its expertise and insight into the retail market. Other customers are already using the service too.
Dino Rocos, operations director at John Lewis, said that the new, formalised partnership will continue to improve the efficiency of John Lewis’ fastest growing delivery channel. “This joint venture will provide a much more tailored service so that Click & Collect orders which reach Waitrose branches are handled in a more efficient way. It will enable us to continue to give an outstanding service to our customers, who love this easy and convenient delivery option,” he said.
Steve Parkin, executive chairman of Clipper, said the development “would revolutionise the provision of Click & Collect services to the High Street in Britain.
In September John Lewis and Clipper Logistics also announced a new 10 year contract to provide retail support services from a new distribution centre at Grange Park, Northampton. The new distribution centre was acquired specifically for John Lewis and provides more than 500,000 sq ft of capacity. It began operation in July and operates as the national returns centre for John Lewis – handling all e-fulfilment and store returns, as well as providing pre-retailing service and other ancilliary service activities.
Image credits: Clipper Logistics
