Part of Louis Delhaize Group, cora is present in Romania since 2003 and currently operates 11 hypermarkets in Bucharest and large cities across the country.
With a focus on its customer experience and retail innovations, cora Romania recorded along the years some important firsts:
Consistent with its vision to offer customers everything they need for their family and home, when and where needed, cora Romania has a solid strategy to increase its online presence and enhance the customer journey and purchasing experience. Several key topics are taken into consideration for improvement, such as educating the customers on the responsibility and care put by the company’s employees during the picking and packing processes for online delivery, fresh products included - meat, dairy, fruits or vegetables; reducing the time for order picking and packing; and fast delivery wherever the customer desires.
In order improve its delivery for online orders, cora decided to partner with Postis. Three main objectives are critical in a period when pandemics still significantly affect the customers’ behaviors and purchase patterns:
In order to deliver on these objectives, the Postis Platform provides transportation solutions diversification in a range suitable to deliver any type of good, in the safest conditions, shortest time and for the best price: couriers, transporters, specialized delivery networks. Due to Postis Platform, cora has instant access to more than 80 delivery solutions already integrated, while new, specialized solutions can be added in a matter of days. This way, the transportation infrastructure can be scaled-up seamlessly to support any addition to the online product catalogue.
The fleet of vans and trucks operated by cora itself for large parcel deliveries are also integrated with the Platform for optimal allocation, full visibility and centralized control.
Product availability is increased at a national level and delivery time is reduced by integrating all cora hypermarkets as logistics centers for order processing, picking, packing and preparation for delivery. Couriers collect the parcels directly from the store and provide a customized delivery model: store-to-door, without any transfer hub involved in the process.
The range for delivery options available to customers also increase. From existing instore pickup or home delivery options, the customers will also be able to choose as a delivery place one of the drop-boxes from the partnering networks.
"For 17 years, we keep delivering on our promise: offering to customers quality products and services.
In the past 7 years, our priority became the development of our smart shopping concept, with the cora.ro online platform integrating more than 40,000 products. We have a solid foundation with added value services like coraDrive instore pickup, cora.ro home delivery or free delivery for large crates or heavy products through our own fleet. Now, given the changing market context and customer behaviors, we aim to increase the number of people that will be able to buy our products, we grow our territorial reach and we accelerate our operations transformation. With partners like Postis, all these become possible and easier to achieve."
George Velicu, Head of Supply Chain (Retail & E-Commerce), cora
Optimal planning, best pricing, highest delivery quality are all enabled by machine learning algorithms and fueled by the most complex logistics dataset available in the market.
Regardless the delivery solution used, all transportation flows are easy to manage in a centralized manner, with full visibility, predictability and control due to the monitoring, alert and analytics features built within the platform.
Additionally, the platform enhances the financial control for all delivery processes, with improved tracking, predictability, and faster cash collection from couriers.
"Ever since the company entered in Romania back in 2003, cora was one of the transformational forces of the local retail market. The company was a pioneer of modern trade, created new customer experiences and brought innovations in buying experiences and customer service.
With an accelerating growth of e-commerce due to the shifting market context, the retail is facing now a new change of paradigm, where digital technologies and online will play a critical role for success. With the solid programs it developed in the past years, cora is in pole-position for this new transformation and we are glad that Postis and our technologies will be part of the story."
Andrei Moldoveanu, Product Owner, Postis
To discover the largest food and home product catalogue available online, please check cora.ro site here.
