The project involved the collaborative effort of various MM departments, including Digital, Creative and Performance.
In recent years the world of e-commerce has experienced a transformative shift to ‘Click and Collect’ services, with research showing that almost three quarters (72%) of Australians have purchased via Click & Collect (Power Retail, 2022).
The MM Digital Development (dev) Team took on GPP’s unique build using Adobe’s Magento 2.0 and a range of other software and applications. An internal development server and staging server were also built to share continuous and incremental updates necessary to relevant stakeholders and the GPP team.
Evaluating Inventory & Building Click & Collect Integration
Stock levels for each Good Price Pharmacy store is maintained via GPP’s inventory management system (IMS). During the build, in collaboration with the inventory management system (IMS), the MM dev team were able to set up seamless integration with Magento 2.0 (Click & Collect).
Thanks to MM custom-developed cron jobs, GPP’s stock levels were scheduled to be checked every 5 minutes. This stock sync between the inventory management system and Magento 2.0 ensured sufficient inventory without overselling and potentially running out of stock.
A Break Down of GPP’s Click & Collect
The complete online buying journey, from product selection to order finalisation is based on the GPP store selected and stock levels maintained at that store. During the online purchase process, the inventory management system communicates with Magento 2.0 via an API, with all order processes carried out by the IMS until the customer’s product is ready to be collected.
SMS and email ‘order ready’ notifications are sent via Magento 2.0 based on the order’s status change in the IMS.
Pharmaceutical Barriers
From inception of the Good Price Pharmacy Click & Collect project, there were complexities given the nature of the pharmaceutical industry. The overarching hurdle included the various types of pharmacy products and their levels of buying logic.
Selected products such as those considered ‘pharmacy medicine’ can only be purchased in store. Some items can be purchased online with approval by an on-site pharmacist before collection. A third category of pharmacy products can be purchased online and collected from the store with no questions asked.
Various buying logics had to be created to meet the needs of the different products. Depending on the product type, customers would experience different types of check out processes. For example, ‘pharmacy medicine’ items would ask customers to supply additional information such as any allergies or if the customer is taking medication of any kind.
UX Testing
Like any other digital project, the testing phase forms a vital part of quality assurance. Towards the end of the project, the MM Digital team created a User Acceptance Test (UAT) server which was a mirror production to analyse the GPP Click & Collect deployment.
Having the UAT server meant that MM devs were able to forsee and troubleshoot any complications or bugs before they became a hindrance to deployment. Critical insights derived from a test deployment to UAT included:
- Monitoring the time required to sync stock for large numbers of products
- Time taken to sync the daily product detail updates in Magento 2.0
- Expected downtime of the site during actual ‘go live’ process
- Expected list of admin configurations required to make the site fully functional
Click & Collect Live and Amplification
Good Price Pharmacy’s Click & Collect function is now live on-site, with the service available at selected stores, with more due to go live.
Upon launch of GPP’s Click & Collect, the MM Performance team have already put into place SEO and SEM campaigns, with products also listed via the Google Merchant Centre. Both Performance and Media teams are working behind the scenes to drive organic and paid traffic to the GPP website. Digital assets promoting the Click & Collect function, produced by the MM Studio team are now live on the Good Price Pharmacy website.
Click here to view Good Price Pharmacy’s Click & Collect.
