JD Sports’ commitment to investing in omnichannel experiences allowed them to thrive during the pandemic

Sports-retail giant JD Sports Fashion Plc. is passionate about customer experiences. Since they entered the game in 1981, they have been building a seamless omnichannel experience, across all their territories and brands.

They are now one of the largest omnichannel sports-retailers in the world with over 2,600 stores across 19 countries, and over £6.1B in revenue.

What makes them different to other retailers, who have been struggling, particularly over the last year? Their commitment to investing in innovation and customer experiences. Let’s look at some of their omnichannel projects in more detail.

Many countries, lots of brands — one Order Management System

JD Sports is an international, multi-brand business. Driven by a customer centric philosophy, they identified the need for an Order Management System (OMS) that could both handle this complexity and make it easy for the business to reuse fulfillment rules and processes across their brands, but still tailor those rules and processes to meet the needs of each individual brand. In early 2017, they chose the Fluent Order Management platform for the job.

The ability to share location and networks, as well as catalogs and inventory across all territories and brands has enabled JD Sports to do cross region fulfillment and cross brand merchandising. The impact on their ability to adapt, as well as on their customers’ convenience and shopping experiences was significant.

Customers are clearly loving JD Sports omnichannel offering, resulting in continuous sales growth. This was especially apparent in 2020, a year where most retailers struggled to survive, let alone grow.

We have a market leading multichannel proposition which continues to enhance its relevance to consumers and has the necessary agility to progress in an environment where the retailing of international brands may see permanent global structural change.

Peter Cowgill, Executive Chairman, JD Sports

Rapid expansion

Speed was a key factor in JD Sports’ expansion plans. With Fluent Order Management they could create reusable templates for business rules and processes and use them as the base for each new location or brand. The templates were then easily modified to suit each division.

And then, a curveball

Like many retailers, in 2020, COVID-19 threatened business like nothing had before. With only days’ notice, JD Sports stores across Europe were forced to shut. JD Sports had to adapt its fulfillment strategy, fast.

The close working partnership with Fluent Commerce enabled JD Sports to respond rapidly in the following ways.

Ship from Store

With Ship from Store, JD Sports was able to fulfill orders using stores as delivery depots. This let them move store stock despite closures by turning physical stores into dark stores that could ship goods directly to customers. Critically, Fluent Order Management gave JD Sports total visibility of their entire inventory.

It also provided the flexibility to add or remove stores from their distribution network as needed. As a result, stock was released from stores instead of sitting on shelves and growing stale. This led to more sales and more revenue for JD Sports.

Rapid Click & Collect adjustments

Circumstances around store closures varied greatly by region, country, and city. JD Sports was able to respond quickly. Using Fluent Order Management they were able to turn Click and Collect on or off for individual stores in minutes.

This flexibility allowed them to respond to both customer demands as well as a changing trading environment at an unprecedented speed.

Digitized in-store and online returns

While JD Sports saw a large increase in ecommerce sales, it also resulted in more returns of online orders. To make this process more efficient JD wanted to improve their return process.

Using Fluent Order Management, JD Sports was able to implement an automated seamless returns solution. This meant customers could initiate returns online without the need for a printer, and it offered them a better in-store returns experience.

Cross brand merchandising

With an increased demand for sporting equipment such as bicycles, JD Sports saw an opportunity. They could sell bikes stocked by one part of their business on the website of another. Because all their stock locations can be shared across all brands, they were able to update their fulfillment logic to support cross brand sales in a matter of weeks.

This enabled JD Sports to maximize sales and better meet their customers’ needs.

Ready for future growth: a global game changer

JD Sports have adapted their business at record speed and they’re ready for future growth. Using a template driven approach, they can now rollout new brands or regions on Fluent Order Management in just 5 weeks, and rollout Ship from Store in 2 weeks. What’s more, the flexibility of Fluent Order Management means they adapt and refine their fulfillment strategy over time, whatever the future holds.

By using rapidly scalable and cloud native technology from Fluent Commerce, we were able to maintain customer loyalty and secure customer value during a challenging time. We now have a scalable system which will support our growth, and the flexibility to play the curve ball, wherever it may come from next.

Dan Finley, Group Multi Channel Director, JD Sports