Are online orders blocking aisles and irritating customers in the store? Discover how to transform an unused basement or backroom into an efficient micro-fulfillment center (dark store) and automate the click&collect process. See a specific example of how one store tripled its efficiency, regaining control and peace.
Many store owners, upon hearing the term “dark store,” imagine large, automated warehouses on the outskirts of the city, inaccessible to customers. This is true, but only partially. In the context of an existing grocery store, we are talking about a much simpler and cheaper implementation: a micro-fulfillment center. This is a designated, customer-restricted area – a basement, a larger backroom, or even an adjacent garage – that is entirely dedicated and optimized for one purpose: fast and accurate online order picking.
Every store has a backroom. However, it mainly serves to receive deliveries and store surplus goods. There is often a controlled chaos dictated by the rhythm of deliveries rather than the needs of order picking. An employee searching for products for an online order has to maneuver between pallets, boxes, and goods waiting to be shelved. This is a waste of time and a source of errors.
A micro-fulfillment center is a completely different philosophy. It’s not a warehouse, but a production line for orders. The space is organized not according to delivery logic but ergonomics and speed of picking. The most frequently ordered products online are at hand, pathways are clear and logical, and everything is integrated with the POS system and e-commerce platform. The employee does not run around the main store, disturbing customers and themselves, but completes tasks in a dedicated, calm environment.
The decision to allocate such a space is not a cost but an investment that pays off on many levels. The most important benefits include:
Implementation stories best illustrate the potential of this concept. Take Mr. Marcin, the owner of a well-established Polish store in Manchester. His business was growing, as was the popularity of the click&collect option. Unfortunately, this success began to generate problems that threatened further development.
The situation in Mr. Marcin’s store was becoming critical. Two employees were almost full-time engaged in picking online orders. They ran around the store with carts and product lists, often blocking passages and irritating in-store customers. Despite their efforts, the average preparation time for one order was nearly 20 minutes, and mistakes occurred in one out of every five orders. During peak hours, lines at the checkout grew longer because the staff was busy looking for “that specific jar of pickles.” Mr. Marcin spent hours solving problems and putting out fires instead of planning for growth.
During consultations, we identified an unused, slightly damp basement as the ideal place for a micro-fulfillment center. The room was dried, repainted, and equipped with simple but sturdy metal shelves. A key element was the implementation of software that integrated the e-commerce platform with the POS system. A tablet was mounted on the wall, becoming the command center. It displayed a list of orders, and upon selecting one, it generated the optimal picking path, guiding the employee from shelf to shelf. In the central point stood a packing table with all necessary materials and a label printer. The best-selling online products (about 300 SKUs) were moved to the basement.
The transformation brought immediate, measurable results. After the first month of the micro-fulfillment center’s operation, the data was clear:
A similar success was achieved by a smaller store in Reading, which adapted an adjacent garage into a micro-fulfillment center. Thanks to a simple shelving system and integration with POS, the owner was able to increase the capacity of click&collect orders by 50% without hiring an additional person, which directly translated into increased profitability.
Implementing the micro-fulfillment model is a strategic step for any Polish store in the UK that is serious about scaling online sales. This is not a solution reserved for giants – it can be implemented in any space, even a small one.
The upcoming busy shopping season is the perfect time to critically review your processes. Instead of adding hands to work in a chaotic system, invest in organizing it. A well-organized click&collect model based on a micro-fulfillment center means a calmer mind, a satisfied team, and measurable financial benefits.
