Winning Group, the company behind the e-commerce sites, Appliances Online and Home Clearance, and bricks-and-mortar chain, Winning Appliances, has announced plans to open a new distribution centre in Altona North, Victoria.
Set to open in February 2021, the 45,000sqm purpose-built DC will be the largest in the group’s 113-year history, with 51 loading docks and over 6000 rack locations.
The new DC will be more than four times the size of the company’s current facility and is expected to significantly improve location accuracy and the company’s ability to service free, next-day delivery in Victoria.
The company’s flagship online site, Appliances Online, currently boasts one of the leading delivery propositions in the sector, which is particularly impressive in the bulky goods space.
The site currently offers next-day delivery for 95 per cent of the Australian population and midnight cut-off for next-day delivery on in stock items. It also offers free removal and recycling of old products and a locally based customer support team available every day of the year.
John Winning, Winning Group CEO, told Inside Retail the company builds its own infrastructure and systems to keep logistics costs down while providing an exceptional customer experience.
“Our company’s mission is to provide the best shopping experience in the world and the last mile is key to achieving our mission and gaining loyal customers,” he said.
“Our logistics business, Winning Services, which includes our distribution centres and our own fleet of trucks and drivers, go above and beyond for customers.”
Winning pointed to the group’s Net Promoter Score of 80.5 for the month of October, which is well above the US average NPS of 39 for online shopping.
Appliances Online has been operating in Victoria since its inception in 2005, and at that stage, its DC was just 800sqm.
“I actually lived in Melbourne for a year, to ensure we had a solid foundation for our logistics business,” Winning said.
Today, operations are significantly bigger. Winning Group brought in $650 million in sales in the last financial year, and the business has been growing in the double digits in Victoria, according to Winning.
The group acquired local appliance retailer Michael’s of Brighton in 2018 and launched a flagship Winning Appliances showroom in Richmond in October. The company is also launching a new showroom in Chadstone in 2020, its first Winning Appliances in a shopping centre.
“Our new Altona North DC will allow our business to continue to expand rapidly in Victoria,” Winning said.
This story originally appeared on sister site Internet Retailing.
