Comet Group

Comet is the second largest electrical retailer in the UK and part of Kesa Electricals plc, a pan-European group operating in seven European countries. Its focus is on giving customers the best price, best choice and the best service.

With more than 250 stores throughout the UK, Comet offers a unique all-round shopping experience with a range of services including home delivery, full installation of products such as televisions and computers, take back facilities for large products, and comprehensive after sales service.

The Objective

Comet recognised an opportunity to boost its multi-channel retailer status in mid-2006, and built a business case around improving customer service. A multi-channel retailer has advantages over pure click-and-pay online operations as customers' buying behaviour becomes more web-enabled. As Michael Cleary, Programme Manager at Comet explains, “People research and buy products in different ways. Some research online and like to buy instore, some people like to see a product in-store and buy online.We are always looking at ways to extend the options customers have to buy from Comet.” With this in mind Comet set about developing a 'Click and Collect' facility, enabling customers to order via the web then visit their local store to pay for and collect the goods one hour after making the online reservation. The system was implemented in time for the peak trading period of Christmas 2006.

The Solution

The success of Click and Collect involves connecting a series of applications. The online reservation system sends a message to the central System i platform, this then sends an alert to the store-based system where a store colleague uses the application developed by Morpheus to print out the request, retrieve the goods and assemble the basket. As a result, the goods are available for collection just one hour after the reservation has been made online. The storecolleague prints out the sales information from the Morpheus application to drive the sale. The application utilises Comet's existing investment in IBM WebSphere Portal, in-store browsers and in-store printers, making use of links with JDA and the System i back-end systems to present required data following predefined business rules.

The Result

On the first day of operation, customers immediately embraced Click and Collect. As Michael Cleary says, "There was no need to 'launch' the system. It was like turning on a tap, reservations just started coming in." The system is in operation every day and performed consistently well over the critical Christmas period.

Post-implementation market research showed that the system introduced a significant number of new customers to Comet, people who would not otherwise have bought from them thus generating a new stream of revenue for the business.

“Comet has been working with Morpheus for six years now. We value their flexibility - they do whatever it takes to get the project done - and their expertise on the System i platform.”

Michael Cleary, Programme Manager, Comet