October 2000

A complex and wide-ranging network of fulfilment services has been put together for the major new Internet and broadband health and beauty home shopping business announced this month by Boots and Granada Media.

The entire package of services is to be run by new startup fulfilment specialist MetaPack, which will provide systems integration and some of its own software, and will manage the activities of a range of outside service-providers.

MetaPack will organise the reconfiguration of a Boots warehouse to handle online fulfilment, where it will use a warehouse management system from Manhattan Associates. Applications integration will be provided by Extricity, and MetaPack will use an order management system it has developed in-house.

Final delivery will be handled by four carriers under Metapack management. Business Express will provide a two-day service; Parcelforce Worldwide will provide a premium next-day service and will handle returns; Royal Mail will handle "letterbox-sized" items; and Securicor Omega Express will provide evening deliveries.

Under the MetaPack service, online shoppers will have a real-time view of inventory, in which non-available goods will be flagged up or withdrawn, and they will be able to track orders right up to delivery time. Returned goods will be collected direct from customers' homes.

The new business is a 60-40 joint venture between Boots and Granada (a co-owner of ONdigital, the first digital terrestrial TV platform). Granada already hosts a 30-minute health show sponsored by Boots in ITV's northern region. The new service, slated for a February launch, aims to offer information, services and products over interactive TV, the Internet and later WAP phones. It will absorb the existing Boots Online Web site (www.boots.co.uk).

The site will major on health and beauty products, which are considered to make up one of the world's fastest-growing markets. A range of 10,000 products will be offered from the outset. According to Boots chief executive Steve Russell, the operation represents Boots' primary initiative in consumer e-commerce. Investment by next March will be £18 million, but "within a few years" revenues are projected at 2 per cent of Boots the Chemists' current UK sales.

The new company is headed by joint managing directors Richard Holmes and Paula Carter, reflecting the product and production sides respectively. It will employ 60 at its operational base in Nottingham, and will also run a broadband content production centre in Leeds. MetaPack expects to have 100 staff by the year-end.