Insights from Hackett London and Pepe Jeans on transforming logistics with Distributed Order Management.
Executive Summary
In a complex retail environment characterized by supply chain disruptions and shifting border regulations, static fulfillment models often fail to meet customer expectations. This was the specific reality facing AWWG, the global fashion group behind brands like Hackett London, Pepe Jeans, and Façonnable. To combat rising costs and delivery delays—particularly following Brexit—the group embarked on a digital transformation journey to unify their inventory and optimize their logistics.
During a recent industry webinar, Ramon Rios, Senior Retail Manager for Hackett, and Ricardo, an external consultant for AWWG, detailed how the implementation of the AWWG Order Management System allowed them to completely rethink their fulfillment strategy. By leveraging Distributed Order Management (DOM), the group moved away from a purely warehouse-centric model to a flexible, omnichannel approach.
The results of this transformation were immediate and measurable. By unlocking stock trapped in physical stores and orchestrating orders intelligently, the AWWG Order Management System significantly improved their delivery promise while protecting margins. This resource summarizes the key learnings from their implementation, offering a blueprint for enterprise retailers looking to achieve similar agility.
Key Takeaways
- Significant Revenue Growth: The implementation drove a 17% incremental revenue increase by making store stock available to online customers.
- Faster Delivery: UK delivery times dropped from an average of 8 days to just 2.5 days by fulfilling from local stores rather than the Barcelona warehouse.
- Cost Reduction: The brands achieved a 40% reduction in shipping costs for UK orders.
- High Store Adoption: 40% of UK orders are now fulfilled directly from UK stores.
- Reduced Cancellations: Online order cancellation rates dropped to just 2% due to better inventory visibility.
- Efficiency: One flagship store was able to ship 15% of all orders in a single month during peak trading.
The Challenge: Brexit, Borders, and Siloed Stock
Before implementing the AWWG Order Management System, the group faced significant operational hurdles. Their primary distribution center was located in Barcelona, Spain. While this served European customers well, it created friction for their substantial UK customer base, especially after Brexit.
Shipping individual orders from Spain to the UK incurred high logistics costs and extended lead times. Furthermore, the group suffered from stock fragmentation. They often had inventory available in their UK retail stores that online shoppers could not access. If the central warehouse was out of stock, a sale was lost, even if the item sat on a shelf in a Regent Street store.
This disconnect resulted in lost revenue, slow delivery speeds, and an inability to clear end-of-season stock efficiently without heavy discounting. The goal was clear: they needed a ship from store strategy that could treat every inventory point as a potential fulfillment center.
What Good Looks Like
For AWWG, success wasn’t just about installing software; it was about achieving specific business outcomes. When selecting a partner, they established clear criteria for what the new AWWG Order Management System needed to deliver to the business:
- Optimized Logistics: The ability to route orders based on the lowest cost and fastest delivery time.
- Operational Control: Tools to manage store capacity during peak trading to prevent overwhelming staff.
- Unified Visibility: A single view of stock across the ERP (SAP) and POS (Retail Pro) to ensure they never missed a sale.
- Scalability: A solution that could expand to new markets, such as Germany, without heavy custom development.
The Approach: Unifying Inventory
The technical foundation of the AWWG Order Management System lies in its ability to unify disparate systems. The solution acts as a middleware layer, pulling inventory data from the central ERP (SAP) and the store point-of-sale systems (Retail Pro).
This unification allows the e-commerce platform (Salesforce Commerce Cloud) to display accurate stock levels to the consumer, regardless of where the item physically resides. The customer simply sees that the item is available, while the DOM engine works in the background to decide the best fulfillment path.
A crucial component of this approach is intelligent orchestration. The system calculates the optimal sourcing location based on business rules. For example, if a customer in Manchester orders a jacket, the AWWG Order Management System first checks if a UK store has the item. If yes, it routes the order there to avoid cross-border tariffs and delays. If not, it falls back to the Barcelona warehouse. This logic happens instantly, ensuring the customer promise is kept while minimizing operational costs.
Deep Dive: Dynamic Rules and Logic
The power of the AWWG Order Management System is its flexibility. The team can adjust orchestration rules in real-time based on business needs or external factors. Ricardo highlighted how they utilize different strategies for different regions.
For the Pepe Jeans brand in Europe, the priority is to ship from the central warehouse in Barcelona to countries like Portugal. However, for Hackett in the UK, the logic is inverted to prioritize local store fulfillment to bypass customs issues.
The system also allows for granular control during peak periods. If a specific store is experiencing high foot traffic during a holiday sale, the operations team can temporarily “switch off” that store from the digital fulfillment network. This prevents store associates from being overwhelmed and ensures in-store customers receive proper attention. Conversely, stores with lower footfall can take on more digital orders, balancing the workload across the estate.
Deep Dive: Empowering the Store Associate
Technology is only effective if the people using it are engaged. AWWG placed a heavy emphasis on the store associate experience. They utilized a responsive web app that acts as a “Swiss Army Knife” for omnichannel tasks. This tool allows staff to claim orders, pick items, pack parcels, and print shipping labels all from a single interface on a tablet or mobile device.
To drive adoption of the AWWG Order Management System, the group introduced gamification. Stores compete to “claim” orders, fostering a sense of healthy competition. Crucially, they aligned incentives with behavior. AWWG allocates 20% of the value of every web order fulfilled by a store directly to that store’s P&L. This ensures that store managers view online orders not as a distraction, but as a vital revenue stream that helps them hit their commission targets.
Practical Implementation Plan
Implementing a robust AWWG Order Management System required a phased roadmap rather than a “big bang” launch. The group followed a structured deployment to mitigate risk and ensure staff readiness.
- Pilot Phase: The project began with a small pilot in December 2021, involving just three Hackett stores in the UK and nine Pepe Jeans stores in Iberia. This allowed the team to test the store fulfillment app and refine processes.
- Phase Two: Once the pilot proved successful, the rollout expanded to additional locations in mid-January, adding more stores to the network.
- Full Rollout: By the end of January, all full-price UK stores and Pepe Jeans stores were live.
- International Expansion: The final initial phase extended the capability to stores in Germany.
Beyond the software, AWWG had to rethink their physical spaces. High-volume stores required dedicated packing stations. In their flagship Regent Street store, they invested in optimizing the back-of-house layout to handle the volume of real-time inventory moving out the door. This included ensuring adequate space for packaging materials and designated areas for carrier pickups to avoid cluttering the sales floor.
Next Steps
The success of the AWWG Order Management System has set the stage for further innovation. The group is now looking to expand these capabilities to new markets and refine their endless aisle processes.
For retailers facing similar challenges—trapped stock, high shipping costs, or disjointed customer experiences—the AWWG journey proves that the right technology, combined with a clear change management strategy, can turn logistics from a cost center into a competitive advantage.
To learn more about the brands involved, visit the AWWG corporate website. For a broader understanding of the technology underpinning these changes, you can read this guide on Order Management Systems.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the AWWG Order Management System require RFID to work effectively?
No, AWWG does not currently use RFID. They achieved high stock accuracy and low cancellation rates by optimizing data sync speeds between their ERP, POS, and the order management platform, reducing the window for error to mere minutes.
How does the system handle split orders to avoid high shipping costs?
The system uses orchestration logic to minimize splits. It looks for a single location (warehouse or store) that has all items in an order. If a single source isn’t available, the AWWG Order Management System evaluates the cost implications before splitting the shipment.
What incentives were used to get store staff to use the new system?
To encourage adoption, AWWG attributes 20% of the online order’s value to the fulfilling store’s P&L. This helps the store meet its sales targets and directly impacts the staff’s commission potential.
Can the system handle exclusive items or bulky products?
Yes, the system allows for specific exclusion rules. While AWWG aims to sell everything everywhere, they can restrict certain items (like large bulky goods or hazardous materials like perfumes) to specific fulfillment centers if necessary.
How did the system impact delivery times for UK customers?
By fulfilling orders from UK stores instead of the Spanish warehouse, the AWWG Order Management System reduced average delivery lead times from 8 days to 2.5 days.
What happens if a store is too busy to fulfill online orders?
The operations team can temporarily disable specific stores from the fulfillment network during peak footfall hours. This ensures staff can focus on in-store customers without being penalized for missing online picking targets.
How does the “gamification” of order claiming work?
In the store app, orders appear for eligible stores to claim. Stores compete to claim these orders first, which incentivizes speed and engagement because fulfilling the order contributes to their store’s revenue figures.
Did the implementation require custom development for each new country?
The solution was designed to be scalable. After the initial template was established for the UK and Iberia, rolling out to new regions like Germany followed a standard configuration process rather than requiring new custom code for the AWWG Order Management System.
