fulfillmenttools by REWE digital: Powering retailers with lean order fulfillment tools

About fulfillmenttools by REWE digital

REWE Group is a German diversified retail and tourism cooperative group based in Cologne, Germany, and is the second largest supermarket chain in Germany.

Industries: Technology
Location: Germany
Products: Google Cloud, Firebase

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About Deloitte Germany

A three-time Google Cloud Global Services Partner of the Year, Deloitte specializes in assisting organizations throughout their digital transformation initiatives.

REWE digital offers a new company—fulfillmenttools—that uses Google Cloud solutions and Deloitte consultancy services to support retailers in the DACH region and beyond.

Google Cloud results

  • Enables fast, efficient development of new fulfillment features through Google Cloud solutions
  • Maintains compliance with stringent DACH and EU regulations relating to consumer data
  • Supports fast, on-demand scaling for customers

Provides omnichannel retailers with ability to compete in the digital space

Rapid delivery of products ordered online is something that most consumers now view as standard. This changing expectation—sometimes for same-day delivery—creates new challenges as more and more products are sold online. The result is that ecommerce today is more complex than ever, at least from a retailer’s perspective, especially as they grapple with how to manage inventory and customer orders.

Founded in 1927, REWE is a large cooperative that serves roughly 20 million customers with a mission of providing the best groceries and freshest produce brick-and-mortar stores. As more grocery shopping shifted to digital platforms, REWE launched REWE Digital to offer its customers online and app-based experiences.

REWE digital chose Google Cloud to scale its services, ensure consistent availability, and give its teams the autonomy and power to innovate and release new experiences for customers. The next step in the company’s path toward digital transformation involved fulfillment management.

“As a grocer, we have to deal with a lot of variables, including temperature, massive warehouses with carefully managed inventories, partner stores, and razor-thin margins,” says Dr Robert Zores, Chief Technology Officer at REWE digital. “When we looked at options for fulfillment platforms a few years ago, we determined there wasn’t an option that covered our needs. So, we decided to build our own.”

REWE digital created a purpose-built fulfillment platform called fulfillmenttools that allowed REWE to further its position in the market, while making waves among other retailers across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (also known as the DACH region in Europe). Once the platform was established, the company quickly realized the value it could offer for retailers needing similarly flexible and dynamic capabilities.

“Even before COVID-19, about 10 percent of offline sales were transitioning to online platforms, which presents many challenges for omnichannel retailers,” says Lisa Paulus, Managing Director of Marketing, Sales, and Finance at fulfillmenttools. “One study from UPS found that 35 percent of customers will stop the checkout process if the delivery time is too long. fulfillmenttools steps in to make fast turnarounds possible even for retailers with a current focus on their offline business.”

Given the company’s positive experience with Google Cloud, it chose to double down with the services and partner with Google Cloud Partner Deloitte for implementation.

“Our software engineers and architects were always fascinated by Firebase because it gives you all the flexibility you need to build your own services and solutions. Because we have to deal with a lot of data from many domains, Firebase was the answer to preparing our own technology to scale.”

Björn Dröschel, co-founder and Managing Director of Product and Technology, fulfillmenttools

Creating a complex network of retail facilities as microhubs

Fulfillmenttools connects a retailer’s stores with its online shop and marketplace to improve customer experiences.

“Customers value their local businesses but do expect a great unified shopping experience,” says Lisa. “With fulfillment tools, we are making a contribution to maintain the diverse retailer ecosystem.”

At its most basic level, a customer can place an order through the retailer’s online shop or marketplace, and that order will be intelligently routed to the closest store for either same-day or next-day pickup or delivery.

While this sounds like a simple concept, complexities abound in its execution. For example, fulfillmenttools needs to route orders to the right locations, understand stock at every facility, enable picking of items within the store, and facilitate courier services.

To accomplish this, fulfillmenttools established a toolset for retailers to use that integrates smoothly with the consumer-facing ordering platform. This includes distributed order management systems to route orders to the optimal facility, the integration of couriers, and an in-store fulfillment app that guides retail employees through finding and picking items from their stores, putting them in the right package, printing a label, and alerting the customer to the status of the shipment.

“We focus on both in-store fulfillment, as well as making ecommerce retailers more flexible, profitable, and fast,” says Björn Dröschel, co-founder and Managing Director of Product and Technology at fulfillmenttools. “Essentially, we give retailers an opportunity to reimagine their identities for greater success by modernizing customer experiences.” Accomplishing this across a variety of retailers required highly agile technologies.

“We really believe in the capabilities that fulfillmenttools offers. We’re now bringing it to our own clients throughout the Deloitte network, and our clients have been amazed by the platform.”

Marlene Beyer, Google Cloud Business Development Manager, Deloitte Germany

Building on long-standing relationships

When the idea for fulfillmenttools arose, the starting crew decided to start all-in with the powerful backend-as-a-service solution Firebase since it facilitates customization, tenant awareness, and infrastructure needed for running a modern serverless architecture at low cost.

“Our software engineers and architects were always fascinated by Firebase because it gives you all the flexibility you need to build your own services and solutions. Because we have to deal with a lot of data from many domains, Firebase was the answer to preparing our own technology to scale,” said Bjorn.

Google Functions adds the serverless compute element that fulfillmenttools needs to manage its platform and write code without the need to maintain and support infrastructure. This enables the company to remain lean and efficient, which is critical, given the already tight margins it and its retail users face daily.

Deloitte, which had also worked with REWE digital before fulfillmenttools was developed, stepped in as an implementation partner. Combining extensive knowledge and high support capacity with a large customer base, Deloitte is the perfect partner to onboard customers on the platform and ensure a smooth implementation process.

As Deloitte works with fulfillmenttools to expand the platform into its network of retailers, the partner continues to help with customizations, education, and other components of a successful implementation. This allows fulfillmenttools to stay focused on managing and improving its platform.

“We really believe in the capabilities that fulfillmenttools offers,” says Marlene Beyer, Google Cloud Business Development Manager, Deloitte Germany. “We’re now bringing it to our own clients throughout the Deloitte network, and our clients have been amazed by the platform.”

“With the support of Google Cloud and Deloitte, fulfillmenttools offers a turnkey solution for customers that will translate to greater success throughout industries internationally.”

Lisa Paulus, Managing Director of Marketing, Sales and Finance, fulfillmenttools

Enabling more prolific ecommerce

Looking ahead, fulfillmenttools believes that more retailers will strive toward more professional, efficient, and digitally enabled customer experiences. With that in mind, it is working to further expand and strengthen its platform, while gaining visibility among retailers to extend its network.

“We’ve known ecommerce was here to stay for a long time, and now it’s a matter of really refining and modernizing the experience for customers and retailers alike,” says Lisa. “We have a convenient, lean solution that gives retailers exactly what they need and nothing more—including years of retail experience. It will set us apart from other platforms for a long time.”

As retailers adjust to dramatic market changes, having a modern, technology-based fulfillment platform that supports state-of-the-art omnichannel fulfillment strategies, as well as a partner like Deloitte to implement it, is invaluable.

As REWE strives to transform even more into a more technology-given company rather than a classic grocer, new creations such as fulfillmenttools powered by Google Cloud further the company’s digital footprint. At the end of the day, this translates to a better, more modern experience for its customers.

“With the support of Google Cloud and Deloitte, fulfillmenttools offers a turnkey solution for customers that will translate to greater success throughout industries internationally,” says Lisa.

Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.

Contact us

About fulfillmenttools by REWE digital

REWE Group is a German diversified retail and tourism cooperative group based in Cologne, Germany, and is the second largest supermarket chain in Germany.

Industries: Technology
Location: Germany

About Deloitte Germany

A three-time Google Cloud Global Services Partner of the Year, Deloitte specializes in assisting organizations throughout their digital transformation initiatives.