“We’ve actually done Christmas numbers through March, April, May. It’s absolutely nuts!”

The impact of the pandemic for retailers around the world has been disastrous but for Franco Godinich, CEO of Toyworld NZ and his members, a swift response and implementing an accelerated rollout of Click and Collect (C&C) turned the situation into a growth strategy for the franchise. “We’ve actually done Christmas numbers through March, April, May. It’s absolutely nuts!”

Franco Godinich, CEO of Toyworld and the independent buying group, Associated Retailers Ltd, was confident that rolling out C&C earlier than initially planned would return dividends for his members, but even this highly experienced retailer was astounded by the response.

“e-Commerce has been growing faster than bricks and mortar but what COVID-19 has actually done is accelerate e-Commerce to another level. And I’d say that a lot of people that weren’t comfortable or weren’t in the habit of buying online have been forced to. The numbers are just astronomical,” he says. 

Toyworld NZ previously partnered with stockinstore to onboard their Find In Store solution in October 2019 and during lockdown reached out to the company to undertake the mammoth task of getting C&C services to their 25 independent, owner-operated New Zealand retailers. 

“From that first conversation to the end it was about ten days and we got it up and running. It was phenomenal,” says Godinich.

He continues, “The leadership provided by Andrew (Maven, CEO stockinstore) dictates that they’re all highly committed and very passionate about what they do. There’s no cutting corners and they’re very understanding and negotiable and sure – certain things have their limits but  - Andrew is always looking for solutions.”

The Toyworld CEO understood the complexity of the task ahead saying “we don’t have a centralised database system, a centralised POS system or ERP system across the group. It’s not like a corporate where everything is centralised, [and] managed in one place and you just plug it in and off you go.” 

Crucially, this type of intricacy and complexity is an area that stockinstore have spent considerable time developing and were already on the front foot when Godinich called. 

Working with growing sports retailer INTERSPORT Australia, stockinstore’s first C&C customer, helped ensure that the stockinstore solution was up to the range of challenges put forward by Toyworld.

“What’s interesting,” Godinich continues,“ is that we turned it on at about 6 o’clock on the Friday night and by 8 o’clock we had Click and Collect orders. People are just expecting it. They go to the Cart or the Product page and see (the Click and Collect delivery option) and they just go, “Click and Collect? My local store has got it? Okay. Awesome. Done!”

Toyworld NZ continues to exceed their customers’ expectations, recently moving to one-hour Click and Collect - with no issues. “I think we could almost go to 20 minutes. We could probably even go to 15 minutes if we really pushed ourselves!” Godinich sought a solution that was, as much as possible, easily transferable from Magento to Shopify. The NZ rollout will serve as a test for implementation in Australia, which will likely occur later this year. 

Toyworld didn’t have to advertise or promote Click & Collect. Toyworld NZ now reports 40% of all transacted sales are C&C orders and his members are “stoked”.

“What Covid-19 has done is changed how people shop. From getting in your car and going somewhere, getting into malls, standing in crowds, I think it’s going to change behaviours. We’ve seen it through our sales - online numbers have gone through the roof.”

Toyworld is the largest specialty toy retailer in Australasia. Check out their new integrated Click & Collect service at www.toyworld.co.nz

Find out more at www.stockinstore.com.au

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For more information please contact: Catherine McKay, marketing@stockinstore.com

Created in 2016, stockinstore is transforming how retailers use their stores. Developed for retailers, franchises, wholesalers and manufacturers; stockinstore creates an exceptional shopping experience for customers while providing highly valuable insights into customer demand for products across store networks. Since launching, the award winning technology has continued to bridge the gap between online and in-store through a myriad of ‘Find In Store‘, ‘Click and Collect / BOPIS‘ solutions, and most recently their innovative ‘Nearest Store eDM widget‘ solution. Join a growing list of businesses choosing stockinstore including: Scanlan Theodore, YETI, 2XU, T2, Adairs, Sheike, Triumph, Early Settler, PETstock, Kookai, Florsheim, MyHouse, Bevilles, Pillow Talk, 99 Bikes, Intersport, Nique, Billini, The Upside, Toyworld, Bags to Go and Tentworld